Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

Getting an earful

Kevin Libin, National Post
Published: Saturday, March 17, 2007

CANMORE, Alta. - Snuggled in the Bow Valley, in the shadow of Alberta's Rockies, Canmorites learn to live alongside wildlife. It's not unheard of to meet an elk browsing shop windows on Railway Avenue. Occasionally, a bear trundles into town to stir up excitement. And everyone knows that cats not home by sundown are fair game for peckish coyotes.

But no species has adapted to life here better than the bunny. Thousands of them have overwhelmed Canmore. In some areas, they roam unfettered, chewing up shrubs and flowers, burrowing under garages and dropping pellets in such quantity that some lawns, from a distance, appear carpeted in a dark, loamy berber rug. Still, their most infuriatingly adaptive quality is being so crushingly adorable that few humans can steel themselves to harm a hair on their fluffy little heads. Until now.

Many Canmorites, lovers of nature by definition, have had enough of the varmint plague. "Terminate them," says Peter Withington, coldly, just out of earshot of a fuzzy bunny, sniffing his way around a nearby lawn. Cuddly or not, Mr. Withington says, the situation is out of hand.

Whether his neighbours are willing to go that far is what the town hopes to find out. "People call and complain and say, 'They're eating my plants, they're ruining my yard, somebody's got to do something,' and so it comes up at a council meeting. Then, the next week, a group of Grade 5s show up at the Mayor's office with a petition saying, 'Please don't hurt the rabbits,' " says Sally Caudill, Canmore's communications and environmental care co-ordinator. "It's a very political issue."

Last week, Canmore began issuing residents a survey. In addition to asking them to rate their level of alarm, and list any anti-rabbit measures they take at home, it asked whether they "support euthanasia as a means of rabbit control."

Canmorites have until month's end to register their opinions, but one town employee estimates the results currently running 50-50 -- "with maybe a bit more in favour of saving them."

Talk to folks in south Canmore, the heart of the beasts' lair, where fortresses of chicken wire encircle every garden and where opinion seems in favour of toppling the rabbits' reign.

For as long as 30 years, the invaders have made themselves at home here, the result of pet owners having released their unwanted pet charges into the wild.

So prolific are they that the valley's foxes, coyotes, cougars and raptors have failed to suppress their numbers. There is no official count, but some estimate that as many as 3,000 roam the town. If nothing is done, residents know next year will bring more.

"They don't belong here," says Tom Martin, owner of Hogs and Quiches Bed and Breakfast, who has lost a fortune in landscaping to the ravenous lagomorphs. "I feel sorry for the little critters. And if they were an indigenous species, it would be, like, 'So what? We're living in their territory.' But they're only domestic bunnies that have gone feral."

If this were an infestation of creatures less lovable, such as mice, many agree they would already be dead.

But exactly what can be done is a mystery. Australia, which has battled non-indigenous rabbits since they were introduced in the 19th century, has tried everything from engineering fatal bunny viruses to stretching fences from coast to coast. Nothing has worked.

Poison is out of the question with kids and pets nearby, Ms. Caudill says. Hunting is just as dangerous, and residents were traumatized last year when an anonymous "Rabbit Renegade" prowled the night, shooting bunnies and leaving bloodied corpses for horrified children to find on their way to school. And the town lacks the equipment or manpower for a massive trapping operation.

Ever since word of the scourge began spreading, Mayor Ron Casey has fielded ideas from around the world. From New Hampshire, one bird enthusiast suggested he host a falconing convention, promising a tourist boom and a quick end to the rabbits. From Africa, a chef e-mailed Mr. Casey asking, if Canmore was going to kill the rabbits, could they be shipped to Tanzania for stew? "In Africa, meat doesn't go to waste," the cook wrote.

But a rabbit massacre has risks: Area carnivores, wondering what happened to their bunny buffet, might bring their appetites into town.

The quintessential civic booster, Mr. Casey is more thrilled about the international attention than worried about rabbits -- though he lives in the worst affected area.

"It's a great advertising tool," he laughs. "There's pictures of Canmore now being transmitted around the world." He admits, though, that the coverage risks souring should the town resort to violence--one reason he hopes for a less drastic resolution. "We have learned to live with grizzly bears and cougars and elk and deer," he says. "We can live with rabbits."

It would be terrible, he adds, if Canmore's reputation for neighbourliness with nature were ruined, like so many gardens and lawns, by an unstoppable horde of rabbits.

Rabbits popping up in new neighbourhoods

Pam Doyle
Canmore Leader staff
Wednesday April 25, 2007

Domesticated rabbits that were released into the wild in south Canmore nearly 15 years ago have pretty much stayed in that neighbourhood -- until now.

Recently, the same wild, but obviously not from a wild breed, of rabbit has been perking up its ears in neighbourhoods and areas like Silver Tip, Cougar Creek and the Nordic Centre.

The cute black and white patched rabbits, reddish brown and gray mixes are numerous in south Canmore and there has been much discussion about how to decrease their numbers.

The Town of Canmore released a survey to residents in March of this year, asking their opinion on how to dispose of or how to remove the rabbits, or if people thought that they should just be left alone. Among the questions on the survey was “do you support euthanasia as a means of rabbit control?”

The topic generated a flurry of letters to the editor and even drew the attention of the international media.

Some ideas were brought forth in jest, including moving the rabbits to other parts of town. Now they are there but nobody seems to know how they got there.

“We just kind of got used to seeing them everywhere,” Chris Hielema, owner of Inline Landscaping said. “We have seen them in Cougar Creek and at Silver Tip. They have been up there since last fall. I don’t know how they’re getting there.”

Feral rabbits that were originally from a domestic breed have learned to live in south Canmore by hiding under decks and around buildings and eating grasses and even raiding some gardens

The cute south Canmore bunnies aren’t as rugged as their jackrabbit cousins. They aren’t used to living in the forest and would have less hiding places there, according to wildlife tracker Pat Kamenka. “There are less places in the woods to hide,” Kamenka said. “Just trees and ditches.”

The predators that hunt at the Nordic Centre, like cougars and coyotes would find the south Canmore bunnies easy pickings and the displaced bunnies probably wouldn’t be as successful at increasing their numbers as their brethren to the south, he said.

Kamenka said the rabbits have also been seen in Exshaw and at Old Camp, a picnic pullout by the side of Highway 1A between Canmore and Exshaw. But since the rabbits have been noticed in neighbourhoods on the north side of Canmore, some people are scratching their heads as to how they got there.

“I live in Cougar Creek and suddenly rabbits have been appearing there in the last 10 days,” Canmore resident Glenn Naylor said last week. “It’s suspicious and it’s as if someone is transporting them there. To get to Silver Tip and the Nordic Centre, for example, they would have to travel through wild areas.”

The reason the rabbits haven’t left south Canmore is because they have been restricted by borders that affect them. The small lagamorphs cannot swim across the Bow River, they will not walk across the Bow River bridge and it would be suicide for them to try and cross the Trans Canada Highway. That leaves nothing left to the imagination, but assistance by human hands. And no one has been caught yet.

“We haven’t received any complaints,” Greg Burt, manager of Bylaw Services said.

If someone is caught transporting rabbits, they could be in for a nasty fine.

“We have a hunting and trapping bylaw within the town limits,” Burt said. “The fine is not less than $500 and not more than $2,500.”

For now, nobody knows if the rabbits are being trapped and moved to save them or to spread the annoyance felt by south Canmore residents, but it isn’t expected that the animals will thrive in their new digs. 

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Bunnies get reprieve in Canmore 

Calgary Sun

June 28, 2007
 
Abundant critters spared euthanasia

By Nadia Moharib, Sun Media

Canmore residents are pretty much split down the middle on what to do with an annoying abundance of bunnies in town.

And fortunately, for the rabbits, it looks like no drastic action will be taken to deal with the hare-raising experience plaguing the mountain community.

Sally Caudill, the town's communications and environmental care coordinator, said there is no formal council direction on the issue.

"At this point, aside from making sure our own facilities are rabbit proof we won't do anything else," she said today. "That's good news for the rabbits. "Some residents feel we should let the rabbits be and they'll be very happy."

The live-and-let-live attitude comes after council received results of a town-wide survey done earlier this year on how to deal with the exploding rabbit population. Out of the respondents, 121 backed euthanasia while 126 did not.

At a Tuesday meeting of the council's committee of the whole it was agreed to try to give residents the latest greatest tips on how to best and most humanly deal with the nasty bunnies.

Caudill said while there is "no rabbit expert on staff," town officials have researched the issue and can offer information to help residents try to keep the critters out of their gardens and lawns.

The town will also set an example by bunny-proofing its properties. "The town should at least get its house in order," she said. "What I think will happen in the 2008 budget is we will try to make sure our facilities are rabbit-proof." "If residents feel like they need information we will try to work with them."

While town officials have never done a so-called rabbit count some estimate there are about 1,000 in the town.

The plague began about 15 years ago when a few domestic pets were set free and left to breed with the locals.

The subsequent explosion in their population led some to put barriers like chicken wire around gardens while scarecrow sprinklers - which work on motion detectors and spray water to scare off approaching rabbits - are being tested in parts of town.

Besides taking a toll on the foliage the rabbits attract predators like coyotes and foxes in to the town, located 90 km west of Calgary.