How old is this video? From what I heard they were all (or almost all) rounded up last spring?

Its from Jun 8, 2009

That was a horrible situation. Makes me angry that people in University, who are supposed to be smart, could be so stupid and just dumped their pet bunnies to fend for themselves.

they DID go to some rescues outside of Canada. Trust me. I drove some of them south to California

And it wasn’t a hasty decision. it took them a long time to get to the point they did.

I have a couple friends at UVic, one of them went to one of the meetings about this last year. The info she got was that over 600 of the 900+ rabbits went to a sanctuaries on Vancouver Island. Also numerous vets & staff donated their time to altering the rabbits. I think UVic is a great university and that this is a cautionary tale of what can happen when students are being irresponsible. And sure we don’t want any newly dumped rabbits euthanized, but there has to be a limit because sadly people are going to keep doing it. Almost a thousand rabbits is an insane load on rescues, even with them being spread thought North America.

they should have just brought out one of those mobile spay & neuter clinics out to the college campus.
and one for the bunnies as well…

hahahah mike!

when you see a bunny taking a leak on your lawn, you just say “oh look at his cute little tail going way up in the air, he’s going wee-wee”

big difference when its a college kid  (response examples witheld in order to maintain forum integrity)

I was at the University of Victoria a few years ago (2004-2007). There were definitely a lot of bunnies around.

I think this is a difficult issue, because although some of the bunnies are pets that were abandoned (obviously a very bad thing), the majority were born in the wild, and have never lived in captivity. They were just munching on grass and making lots of rabbit babies, which is what rabbits do in the wild.

So there are 2 big problems here: (1) people should absolutely not abandon their pet rabbits anywhere and (2) people should not feed wild rabbits by hand (I bet that about 90% of the food they’re being hand-fed are carrots). However, I’m not sure if relocating these mostly-wild rabbits to indoor “homes” is the best solution. If anyone knows how this relocation project is going, I’d be very interested to find out.

I think I would have preferred the University/city to start fining people who were caught feeding rabbits or dropping off pets on campus. There are enough campus security officers to enforce this, and it may bring about some extra cash. UVic students really care about their campus, and there could have been some sort of “rabbit watch” campaign set up. Also, it is pretty easy to tell the difference between the wild rabbits and the pet rabbits – I think it was a good idea to round up the pet rabbits for adoption elsewhere. However, I think I would have liked to see the wild population continue living their lives in their homes. Possibly spaying/neutering would be necessary, however there are also natural predators (birds of prey) that could help keep the wild population in check.

Finally, I get the distinct impression from the University and local media that the rabbits were considered a “problem”, not because people were concerned for the rabbits’ welfare, but more out of the perception that the rabbits were “pests”. Aside for some possible issues relating to landscaping, I’m not sure what the negative impact of the rabbits were to the University. I kind of wish we would have just learned to live and let live.

Anyway, this is just my opinion on a complicated issue. I completely understand if others disagree. And I welcome criticism of my points above, since I never really understood the problem with having a wild rabbit population on campus. (Incidentally, has anyone been on a university campus without wild rabbits?)

By the way, I don’t want to blame the students for the “rabbit problem”. I mainly saw families with young children feeding the bunnies, and I’m willing to bet that a lot of pet rabbits were dropped off by families as well, when the kids lost interest. The students are rather attached to the rabbits, and I think they could have been harnessed to help educate the public. However, perhaps my perception is wrong and this was the only solution available. I obviously don’t know the whole story…

I’ll probably get slapped for this, but I think with the more feral and REALLY untamable ones (like the ones born in the wild) they should have been taken in, fixed, then brought back (like they do with feral cats), just because it seems unfair to take them in to rescues were they will see scary people and animals. They all seemed healthy, even though wild buns live a short life. Idk, they should do fines and watch the population instead of taking them in to kill them. :/

And honestly for “feral” buns, a lot of them did seem pretty tamable.

they should have just brought out one of those mobile spay & neuter clinics out to the college campus.
and one for the bunnies as well…

Lol, I totally agree with that! I honestly think some people should be banned from reproducing. The world needs less idiots.

The thing that bugs me is for years they were all òh look cute bunnies all over our great campus`….like duh this is going to get out of hand…and then it did. It was terrible all around, but rescues vets and people pulled together to fix it. Further, this got press, but there are TONS of feral rabbit populations-I know of five in Canada…thats five too many. People need to stop dumping animals it`s sick. And sad. And a terrible reflection on people.