By Christie Lagally, Richmond Animal Protection Society (RAPS)
In November, the Richmond City Council will consider an amendment to the business operation bylaw requiring that rabbits in pet stores be spayed or neutered prior to sale to the public. The spirit of this amendment is to address the extraordinary number of domestic rabbits that are loose in Richmond’s recreational areas, farms and business parks.
The domestic rabbit over-population and the resulting damage to farms, parks and gardens has been an issue in Richmond for a long time, but there has never been any definitive action taken to address this problem until volunteers at the Richmond Animal Protection Society (RAPS) decided to petition the city to ban the sale of animals in pet stores. Given the persistence of the rabbit problem in Richmond and the high costs of damage, I am genuinely confused as to why outrage and frustration over this issue has never influenced Richmond law until now. However, since volunteers began working to stop the sale of rabbits and other animals from retail outlets, I’ve received feedback as to why this issue has been so intractable.
Based on my research on the loose domestic bunny population in Richmond, there have been various solutions proposed in and out of City Council. In 2006, the rabbit population made news when farmers in East Richmond were advocating to shoot the rabbits. At that time, Richmond Coun. Harold Steves confirmed that he believed that rabbits were descendants of pets abandoned to the Richmond parks (CBC report, June 16, 2006). Between 2004 and 2006, farmers, landscapers and school caretakers were reporting between thousands and tens of thousands of dollars in damage because of these animals. At that time, school board officials and city councilors were trying to opt for a humane solution of trapping, along with the outstanding question of what to do with the rabbits. Apparently, that question was never answered.
By July of 2006, CBC reported that Coun. Steves was advocating for farmers who wished to shoot the rabbits (i.e. culling), and many at that time believed it was the only way to influence the population. However, what proprietors of culling don’t understand are the basics of the population-resource relationship. Some of you may recall from college calculus that animal populations will vary considerably from year to year as resources (food and shelter) go up and down. When the population is suddenly decreased (by culling), the result is a population boom a short time later because of the newly available resources. Culling rabbits means a temporary decrease in the population, while providing increased food and space for the population to expand further. Hence, killing a rabbit is the best thing you can do to promote the rabbit population over the long run.
In the four or five years of intense talks about what to do about the rabbit population in Richmond, few people have considered the source of these animals -- irresponsible pet owners abandoning their pets and pet stores indiscriminately selling between 4 and 5 fertile rabbits to the public every week. That means those tens of thousands of dollars that are wasted every year on lost landscaping and crops are the result of unrestricted access to a breeding population of domestic rabbits brought into Richmond by pet stores and released by constituents of those stores. So, I still wonder, why would banning the sale of rabbits be a contentious issue?
Some residents of Richmond have approached me and said they did not support the ban on the sale of rabbits because they have fond childhood memories of cute little rabbits running around Richmond parks. The fact that these animals were abandoned to these parks is apparently not evident to these long-time residents. In addition, I can’t even count how many frantic calls I’ve received at the Richmond Animal Shelter from residents who are reporting their neighbors shooting rabbits in their yard, capturing and starving rabbits in traps and torturing rabbits out of anger over property damage. Many shot rabbits are simply wounded and left to suffer as occurred in Minoru Park in February 2008 (see Richmond News “Bunnies shot, maimed, left for dead”). I doubt that ‘fond memories’ of rabbits in parks includes the suffering that these animals endure out of the public eye. When we weigh ‘fond memories’ against rabbit cruelty and crop damage, we simply can’t delay action on this issue any longer. And, as a tax payer in Richmond, I’m tired of paying the ongoing costs of animal abandonment. It’s time to take the simple step of not selling rabbits in pet stores. There are over 60 rabbits for adoption at the Richmond Animal Shelter. Most are quite young and most came from pet stores originally.
So how does a business bylaw requiring sterilization of rabbits prior to sale make a difference to the loose bunny population in Richmond? Well, at least any rabbits that are abandoned after purchase from a pet store will not be able to reproduce. If that is the case, we’ll only have to wait 9-12 years before these animals stop eating our gardens and pass on to bunny heaven. Alternatively, we could advocate banning the sale of animals in pet stores, specifically rabbits, and bypass the initial source of rabbits altogether. As for dealing with the rest of the fertile, loose domestic rabbits, I recommended supporting RAPS’ ‘Carrot Fund for Rabbits’ which raises money to care for and sterilize shelter rabbits (see www.rapsociety.com) or the work of the Urban Rabbit Refuge at (www.urbanrabbit.org). But most of all, please let the City Council know your position on this matter. Both our local farmers and our rabbits can’t wait another year for this issue to gain momentum.
Christie Lagally is the Education Coordinator at RAPS.
