Shelter space dwindling as feral rabbit colonies multiply

Every day, rabbit rescues in B.C.'s Lower Mainland get calls from people looking to surrender pet rabbits, or to report feral ones in their communities. 

"People are desperate to rehome their bunnies at this time," said Chelsea Rafuse, bunny welfare manager at Vancouver's Bunny Café. 

"It's sad." 

The café and rescue — which describes itself on its site as a "therapeutic space to interact with adoptable bunnies" — doesn't take in bunnies directly, but advocates say very few shelters and rescue organizations can, either, forcing pet owners to choose between having a veterinarian euthanize them or releasing them into parks.

"They are domestic rabbits, so ultimately they don't belong outdoors," Rafuse said.

And as more rabbits end up in parks or other parts of cities, the faster they reproduce, according to Sorelle Saidman, founder of Rabbitats Rescue Society. 

"Rabbits on the Lower Mainland are an exploding population right now," she said, pointing to a long-standing colony on Jericho Beach. She mentioned groups in Kitsilano, a golf course in South Vancouver, and multiple populations expanding in Surrey. 

But Saidman says the biggest, fastest growing feral rabbit problem is in Richmond, B.C., where she estimates about 1,000 rabbits are loose.

She says the number of rabbits in Richmond has been growing steadily for about a decade; one of the first big rescues Rabbitats ever did, about 10 years ago, was from an auto mall in the city, where about 125 rabbits were rescued from hedges in between concrete car lots. They built a sanctuary to house some of them, and worked to make sure each bunny was spayed or neutered. 

Now, Saidman says, they're struggling to find space for the vast number of rabbits that need shelter, and the number of organizations doing similar work has decreased significantly compared to 10 years ago. 

For several years now, Vancouver animal services have been at capacity for rabbits — meaning they can't take any in, feral or pets, a city spokesperson said. 

The Richmond Animal Shelter, operated by the B.C. SPCA, does accept rabbits. CBC reached out to the B.C. SPCA for more information about how the system is handling rabbits overall, but did not hear back in time for publication. 

"The SPCAs, the animal control people, they have very little experience with rabbits," Saidman said. "Unless you really get to know them and unless you actually deal with rabbits every day, you're not going to have that knowledge."

Mandatory spay and neuter programs

About two years ago, the province amended the Wildlife Act to try to help manage feral rabbits by making it so that people can no longer release European and eastern cottontail rabbits into the wild.

The province removed the requirement for a permit to traffic, possess and export rabbits, to make it easier for cities or rescue organizations to trap and move them. 

But Clay Adams, corporate communications and marketing director with the City of Richmond, says rabbits are considered wildlife under the Wildlife Act, which he says limits how they can be managed, and makes it difficult to have a more wholesome plan to deal with them. 

Saidman says her organization has been pushing for spay and neuter programs to be made mandatory in municipalities across B.C., hoping that will help reduce the number of feral rabbits roaming streets and parks. 

Neither Richmond nor Vancouver have a sterilization program in place.

"Abandoning the odd rabbit here and there takes a while, but when you're abandoning a lot in one place, you can have an explosive colony pretty quickly," Saidman said. 

"They're domestic to begin with and they become super friendly and that attracts more people and they're fed even more and they have bigger litters of babies more often and they're well supported and we end up with a lot more rabbits."