The Martlet

Some campus community members feel the university hasn’t exhausted all the options for controlling UVic’s rabbit population, but their voices aren’t being heard.

The university began culling its rabbit population, which is estimated between 1,500 and 1,600 rabbits, on May 8. So far, more than 100 rabbits have been culled.

Susan Vickery of Common Ground, which led a pilot project to sterilize rabbits around the athletic field last year, said the university administration pulled the plug on the project before it was complete.

“We got a lot of [community] support,” she said. “I was actually in shock when they pulled it.”

Vickery said the pilot project was really a feasibility study. The plan was to trap, spay or neuter, and then rehouse rabbits, as well as track the population. The pilot project was expected to target approximately 150 rabbits, although the number was closer to 200 after the spring population increase.

“We were gathering a lot of info that we didn’t previously have.”

The pilot project was cut short, about 50 rabbits in, when an issue arose with the Ministry of Environment. The rabbits were to be taken to sanctuaries, but in order to do so, special permits were required.

“There was no place to take the rabbits,” said Tom Smith, UVic’s executive director of Facilities Management. “The sanctuaries that were hoping to take them were unwilling to go through the licensing process.”

He added that 40 of the spayed and neutered rabbits were returned to campus.

However, Vickery said Common Ground was still working with the sanctuaries and negotiating with the ministry when the pilot project was ended.

“I knew we were going to be able to see the other side of [the permitting issue]. UVic could have got allowances,” she said. “We ran into a minor obstacle with the ministry, but a major obstacle with the university administration, who didn’t want it to go through.”

Smith said the university began the cull because there are simply too many rabbits, and the university has a responsibility to control the population. Currently, they are focusing on the area around the athletic fields out of concern for the safety of athletes.

“Sometimes you see this tiny little hole, but the hole actually goes underground three or four feet and it goes parallel to the surface so when you walk along you step on the grass and it collapses under your feet,” said Smith. “So if you’re an athlete running and you do that, you could break your ankle or get seriously injured.”

Smith said the university also has a responsibility to keep the fields safe for members of the community who are using the fields on evenings and weekends. The university hopes to establish the athletic field area, as well as all other university property outside of Ring Road, as a rabbit-free zone. Inside Ring Road they plan to establish rabbit controlled zones.

However, many campus community members feel that culling the rabbit population outside of Ring Road isn’t the best option.

Vickery feels betrayed that the university didn’t see the pilot project through to the end.

“I don’t think they’ve even begun to look at the non-lethal approaches to managing that population problem,” she said. “I don’t think they’ve seriously engaged the community and all that support. I don’t think they’ve come halfway at all.”

Vickery isn’t alone. Facebook groups have sprung up opposing the cull, such as “Support Saving The UVic Bunnies,” which has 387 members, and “UVic Buns Management,” — a group dedicated to finding a non-lethal solution to rabbit overpopulation — which has 354 members. People opposed to the cull have also held marches and encouraged people to write to the university to try and get the attention of administrators.

Some rabbit activists have established chains of communication, and have come out to try and prevent rabbits from entering traps. One woman even offered to take a captured baby rabbit home with her.

The university is aware of the resistance to the cull.

“We respect that this is a sensitive issue for many people; many people care for the rabbits and we understand that,” said Smith. “This isn’t something that we want to do; this is something that we have to do.”

Smith said that while the university wants to be as respectful as possible of people’s opinions, it will be establishing its right to trap rabbits.

“These rabbits are considered wildlife under the Wildlife Act in B.C.,” he said. “The Wildlife Act states that its unlawful to interfere with legally set traps and there are fines that can be levied against people that interfere with legally set traps.”

Joey Fearon, a UVic Law student and representative of the UVic Vegan Association, says people need to take a step back and think about why the cull is happening.

“I think that generally speaking, when it comes to animals, most people are very confused, especially when it comes to how we should or shouldn’t treat animals.”

Fearon said that people often act in a contradictory fashion when it comes to animals — on one hand, treating them like family members and taking their welfare very seriously, and on the other, causing them extreme amounts of harm on a daily basis, such as through the meat industry or animal testing.

“I think from this framework where we claim to take animal interests seriously, but it’s very easy for us to be extremely violent to animals, I think that’s also at play in the situation with the UVic rabbits,” he said.

Fearon says that most people, when they see the rabbits, don’t want to harm them.

“[However], when they become an inconvenience, it becomes very easy to harm them,” he added. “If we claim to hold that we shouldn’t unnecessarily cause suffering and we shouldn’t unnecessarily kill animals, how does that play out with the UVic rabbits?”

Fearon said there are still many things the university could do, such as better fencing around the fields, to co-habit on campus with the rabbits.

“It doesn’t mean that the rabbits are never going to cause an inconvenience,” he said, “but that’s what it means to share the land with others. Humans cause us great inconvenience all the time.”