UVic Invites Community To Help Reduce Campus Rabbit Population

The University of Victoria is looking to the community for assistance in reducing the growing feral rabbit population on campus. UVic will issue a request for proposals (RFP) for a pilot project to trap, sterilize and adopt a minimum of 150 rabbits in a set period of time from a designated area that includes its athletic fields.

“Despite our public awareness campus campaign asking people to not feed, harass or abandon pet rabbits on campus, the population continues to grow,” says Richard Piskor, UVic’s director of occupational health, safety and environment. “The rabbits constitute a health and safety hazard on the athletic fields and are responsible for unsustainable damage to campus vegetation.”

UVic is willing to assist interested community groups and organizations to carry out this pilot project to test the feasibility of the approach and the capacity for adoptive homes in the community.

“Given that rabbit abandonment is a community-wide situation, we feel it’s appropriate to ask the community to help us address this issue,” says Piskor, who adds that the pilot project is another step towards a long-term strategy to reduce the rabbit population on campus to sustainable levels.

“UVic has supported the BCSPCA in our attempt to change bylaws to prohibit the sale of unspayed and non-neutered rabbits and we, in turn, support the university in this attempt to address the growing rabbit population on campus,” says Sara Dubois, BCSPCA’s manager of wildlife services. “The situation on campus right now is not ideal for the rabbits and it needs to change.”

“We accept that there will always be some rabbits on campus, but we want to establish rabbit-free zones in the athletic fields, the Garry Oak meadows adjacent to Cedar Hill Road and Finnerty Gardens,” says Piskor. “We will only consider lethal means of controlling the rabbits if other reasonable options have been explored and found to be ineffective.”

Groups interested in learning more about and responding to the RFP can access information at http://web.uvic.ca/purc/sourcing/rfp.php or by calling John Braybrook, assistant director of purchasing services, at 250-721-8332. The deadline for proposal submission is 2 p.m., Sept. 18 so the pilot project can take place this fall.

For more information about rabbits at UVic visit http://communications.uvic.ca/rabbits/
 

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