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Ban on bunny sales urged
Eve Edmonds, Richmond News
The bunnies are coming, warns Lisa Hutcheon of the Small Animal Rescue Society of B. C.

Richmond should not wait for another population explosion before it implements a bylaw banning the sale of rabbits and small animals, she says.

Hutcheon says bunnies are often purchased as " starter pets" for a child. But when that child gets bored or the animal - if it's an unneutered male - starts spraying, the bunny is stuck in a box and dropped at an elementary school in the false hope that another kid will take it home.

Richmond's rabbit population in the spring of 2006 was so large that council approved a cull.

" There were 4,000 to 5,000 of them just south of Steveston Highway," said Coun. Harold Steves. They were causing thousands of dollars in crop damage, he said. Farmer Bill Zylmans claimed he lost $ 20,000 on his pumpkin crop alone.

The cull was scheduled for the fall of 2006, but by that time nature took care of the problem with disease and starvation.

The crisis passed and the issue was dropped, until now, said Hutcheon.