The anger and hysteria around the killing of abandoned pet rabbits is deserved, but as is the case so often with outrage, it misses the point - it misses the root cause and directs its anger at symptoms. That means that the cause of the problem will persist in spite to the sincere but misguided efforts of animal-lovers.

First, what isn't a root cause.

According to the SPCA press release one root cause is the ever-handy "irresponsible owner":

August 12, 2008. For immediate release. The BC Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is urging the City of Kelowna to pass a bylaw banning the sale or adoption of unsterilized rabbits. The call comes in light of the city's recent decision to cull the growing population of feral rabbits on Kelowna streets.

"It is very upsetting that the city is having to deal with these animals through a cull, and we have to look at ways to prevent this from happening again," said Sara Dubois, manager of wildlife services for the BC SPCA. She said one of the root causes of feral rabbit populations is people who purchase rabbits as pets and abandon them in city parks or streets when they tire of the responsibility of caring for their animal. "They think rabbits can fend for themselves, but in reality many of them succumb to terrible deaths through starvation, disease, predators or by running into traffic. Those who do survive multiply rapidly, causing the type of rampant rabbit overpopulation that we've witnessed in Kelowna."

A root cause isn't the abandonment of rabbits by irresponsible people who buy rabbits and then dump them.

That is a secondary cause, as the call by the SPCA for a ban on the selling of unsterilized rabbits makes clear. Irresponsible pet owners exist and to some degree their behaviour can be changed by education, but not enough to really end the abandonment. For decades the SPCA blamed "irresponsible owners" for the killing it did of so many abandoned pet dogs, cats, rabbits, and other pets. There is a sound argument to be made that by accepting and killing pets in the hundreds of thousands the SPCA enabled the irresponsibility, and entrenched the habit of dumping pets. In fact, the Vancouver Sun's Nicholas Read raised that subject many years ago. For decades the SPCA sold unsterilized dogs and cats, and in fact, may still be selling unsterilized rabbits and cats.

A root cause isn't cities overrun by rabbits having to get rid of them.

A root cause isn't pest control contractors who shoot rabbits. What kind of people does one expect will take a paycheque to kill animals? How can an animal extermination contractor make money if it has to only use humane methods of control?

So what is the root cause of the need to kill abandoned pet rabbits?

The root cause is the selling of intact rabbits so that when they are abandoned they breed like... rabbits, and cause havoc to gardens and farm crops.

Who sells intact rabbits?

The SPCA does. We just phoned the Trail SPCA and they are selling intact rabbits for $20 plus tax. So does the SPCA's business partner, Petcetera.

Rabbits, or their offspring, being killed by pest control companies, are almost certainly those sold by SPCAs and pet stores like Petcetera, as very few people buy rabbits from breeders.

The outraged public is shooting the messenger.