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Monday, 2/4/2008 8:42 pm
Kelowna Capital News > Opinion > Bugs and his bunny buddies may get the last laugh yet
Bugs and his bunny buddies may get the last laugh yet
By Alistair Waters - January 23, 2008
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Be vewy, vewy qwiet. The city wants the wegional distwict to start waging war on wasscally wabbits.
But, like cartoon hunter Elmer Fudd-who made a career out of getting outsmarted by arguably the best-known bunny of all, Bugs-the city and regional district could be setting themselves up for failure with their attempt to eradicate the city's exploding rabbit population.
Lets face it, the bunny battle hasn't even begun and already the cute, cuddly, long-eared bunny has better PR than its human hunter.
When most of us think of rabbits, we think of a twitchy-nosed, long-eared little fella that brings children chocolate eggs at Easter. But what do we think of when it comes to politicians and bureaucrats? Rules, regulations and men and women who send us tax bills-ironically around the same time the aforementioned rabbits are doling out confectionaries.
No one is about to write children's stories chronicling the adventures of a velveteen mayor or councillors who frolic in the fields of Farmer McGregor.
So, to be effective in this attempted rabbit rout, the city will have to demonize Thumper and his buddies as destructive procreating pests, intent on destroying the landscape. And that has already begun.
The rabbits that live in warrens in and around Enterprise Way, Glenmore, North Kelowna, downtown and the Mission are already being described as threats to local vital agricultural production in this area.
But short of a shot-to-kill order, it won't be easy to rid the city of its rabbits. After all, there is good reason for the expression "breeding like rabbits."
Bumping off a bunny is one thing, curtailing his libido is something else. These little guys get more tail than your average nightclub pick-up artist.
According some experts, the average female can pop out between five and 10 babies, several times a year for as many as four years. Does the city have the budget to keep up with that kind of birth rate?
Calling for sterilization of rabbits sold as pets in future is fine but what about hunting down to ones out there getting busy now.
And then there is the eradication method to be used. When a rabbit is in the line of fire, when will the trigger be pulled. Slaughter in the streets is unlikely-just think of the traumatized kids who witness such killing. And mass poisonings could be harmful to other animals we don't want killed off, like domestic dogs and cats. The indiscriminate death of Fido or Fluffy would really cause the fur to fly. So the bunnies will have to rounded up by specially trained rabbit wranglers and taken away for execution behind closed doors.
And unless that is done quickly and with ruthless efficiency, rabbit reinforcements will be on their way to replace those headed to the big hutch in the sky.
In the end, it may just be Bugs's buddies, just like Kelowna's wild cats and Canada Geese before them, that get the last laugh.
Alistair Waters is the assistant editor of the Capital News.