Glenda Luymes, The Province
Published: Friday, October 24, 2008
Thousands of Kelowna rabbits could soon be looking for new homes.

The City of Kelowna is conducting a rabbit-control program by live-trapping the feral furballs instead of shooting them with air rifles. If rescue groups can't take them, the bunnies will be euthanized.

The rabbit-control program was suspended earlier this month after a worker was seen shooting a rabbit before stomping on its head to kill it.

The RCMP decided not to charge the man, an employee of EBB Environmental Consulting, the company contracted to control the city's rabbit population, because he did the most humane thing in rapidly putting the dying animal out of its misery.

But the controversy led the city to put the rabbit cull on hold and re-negotiate its contract with EBB.

The use of air rifles has now been suspended, city forester Ian Wilson said yesterday, adding: "The rabbits will be live-trapped and provided to rescue groups or euthanized.

"The good news is that the SPCA will take small numbers and the Rabbit Advocacy Group from Vancouver has also offered to help."

The remaining rabbits will be euthanized in one of two humane ways, including lethal injection or a penetrating captive bolt, a device similar to what is used in the cattle industry.

If live-trapping is not effective, the city may revisit the use of air rifles.

Sinikka Crosland, with the animal rescue group TRACS, said the group would like a cut of EBB's contract to build rabbit pens that would allow them to take in some of the rabbits and sterilize them.

"Something should be done because rabbits are getting hurt," she said, referring to reports of angry homeowners taking matters into their own hands, using baseball bats to dispatch the bunnies.

A spokesman for EBB, who did not want to be named, estimates there are several thousand feral European rabbits in the community. The original bunnies, a foreign species, were likely pets released by their owners.