All Posts Tagged With: "rabbits"
And today’s lesson is…
What started as demonstration of where meat comes from ended with outraged parents and upset kids
In the town of Ratekau, what started as a fifth-grade demonstration of where meat comes from—and how it was prepared in the days before refrigeration—ended with outraged parents, upset kids, and a denouncement from state officials. As part of a curriculum unit on how people lived in the Stone Age, one parent (a farmer) volunteered to slaughter a rabbit for the class. Teachers voted in favour, but apparently didn’t inform parents or the principal. Some fifth-graders launched a petition to save the rabbit, but teachers seem to have ignored them. “One can’t collect signatures against a math test either,” one told the newspaper Lübecker Nachrichten.
In the end, 50 students voluntarily gathered in the school courtyard. They said goodbye to the rabbit; the farmer then hit it with a hammer, slit its throat, gutted and skinned it, and hung it to drain. It was later grilled and consumed. Parents complained, leading the state’s Education Ministry to denounce the slaughter as “educationally problematic.” “My point wasn’t to show children death,” the farmer told Der Spiegel. “We wanted to demonstrate that killing animals involves taking on responsibility.”
Photo: Getty Images
Former UVic bunnies shot
UPDATED: Feral rabbits escape from sanctuary onto neighbouring farm
Feral rabbits relocated from the University of Victoria to a sanctuary in Coombs, on Vancouver Island, escaped to a neighbouring farm where they were shot. Barbara Smith, a former lawyer, returned to her farm after the weekend to find around 90 rabbits on her property. She called a trapper who shot at least 30 animals on Tuesday.
“I am a farmer and these things are inherently dangerous. They are akin to rats,” Smith who blames the government for allowing rabbits onto the rural sanctuary, told the Vancouver Sun. “They have dumped UVic’s problem on us, created an environmental disaster zone and walked away.” It is legal to shoot wildlife so long as firearms are not used close to homes.
Wendy Huntbatch of the World Parrot Refuge, the Coombs sanctuary that has taken in some of the former UVic rabbits, says smith’s actions were rash and uncalled for. “This was just so unnecessary. This was just someone being angry,” she told the Sun.
UVic has already removed approximately 400 rabbits from its campus, as part of a plan to relocate the roughly 1,400 animals that had taken over the university. The sanctuary in Coombs is just one of several taking in the rabbits.
UPDATE: Rabbit activist Roslyn Cassells filed a complaint to the Law Society of B.C. against Smith. “This is not acceptable [behaviour] from any citizen and especially a lawyer” Cassells said. The law society has the power to sanction lawyers if they act in a way unbecoming of the legal profession, including actions outside their legal work.
Lesley Pritchard, a spokesperson for the law society, released a brief statement late Friday afternoon confirming that a complain had been received. “The Law Society of BC can confirm it has received a complaint about Barbara M. Smith, a retired lawyer and we are looking into the matter,” the statement read.
Photo by Laura Drake
The Law Society of BC can confirm it has received a complaint about Barbara M. Smith, a retired lawyer and we are looking into the matter.
UVic resumes war against bunnies
Court ruling removes injunction against trapping and killing rabbits that have taken over the campus
University of Victoria’s legendary rabbit infestation will soon be coming to an end. An injunction against trapping and killing the feral rabbits, filed by animal rights activist Roslyn Cassells, was withdrawn by a B.C. Supreme Court judge on Monday. The university was hoping to have all but 200 of the 2,000 rabbits, that dig holes, eat vegetation and litter the campus with feces, removed before students return to class. Instead, because of the delay, they hope to have as many as 500 removed by the end of September, and continue removing them at a rate of about 100 a week if the plan proves successful. The university has now committed to using non-lethal methods for controlling the rabbit population.
In his ruling, Justice A.F. Cullen concluded that the case does not lend “itself to legal action because it lacks the indicia of a private interest or special damage peculiar to Ms. Cassells.” The judge added that Cassells “has failed to establish that she has the requisite standing.” Cullen also noted that the case was “amenable to the sort of social and political activism which the petitioner has, with her supporters, pursued vigorously and successfully.”
By Monday afternoon, the university had begun setting traps. “We had hoped to have five weeks, now we only have one week,” Tom Smith, UVic’s executive director of facilities management, said. “We felt that there was no authority for [the injunction] to be put in place.”
While Cassells’ injunction, which was filed on July 30th, was dismissed, it appears to have served its purpose. At the end of June, the university released its Feral Rabbit Management Plan. Although the university apparently committed to trapping, sterilizing, and releasing rabbits to sanctuaries, it did not rule out lethal methods if enough homes could not be found. That posed a hurdle for groups, such as the Coalition for the Ethical Treatment of UVic Rabbits, because many of the sanctuaries did not have the requisite permits. The injunction halted the university’s plans, which were to start at the beginning of August.
During that time, permits were secured from the Ministry of the Environment, for at least four sanctuaries. A Texas sanctuary will be taking 1,000 rabbits, while the rest will likely go to B.C. sanctuaries located in Coombs, Cowichan Station and Saltspring Island. “We recognize that there are sufficient permits,” Smith said.
Cassells is happy that sanctuaries received their permits but remains skeptical about UVic promises not to kill any rabbits. “We’re going to hold them to it,” she said.
Although the court ruling placed no restrictions on the university killing rabbits, it was noted that a “non-lethal population control plan,” would best serve the community, the university, as well as the rabbits. The university will incur the costs to trap the animals, but sterilization and relocation costs will be paid for by activist groups and the sanctuaries.
Photo courtesy of Heather Clebo
Court injunction stalls UVic’s plans to cull rabits
Activists say the university was not giving enough time to find the feral rabbits news homes
Legal fur is flying over attempts by the University of Victoria to trap and cull feral rabbits munching through its Victoria, B.C., campus. The University says it has been served with a B.C. Supreme Court injunction preventing it from killing the bunnies.
Trapping has been suspended while the university deals with the court action but a statement from UVic also says it continues to work with community groups trying to find new homes for the rabbits. Rabbit activist Roslyn Cassells, who applied for the injunction, says the move provides some breathing room, because members believe the university planned to cull the rabbits before arrangements could be made to move them.
A farm in Coombs, north of Nanaimo, has offered to take some of the bunnies and a rescue organization in Texas is prepared to take 1,000 of the critters. But, Susan Vickery of Common Ground, a Saltspring Island wildlife organization, says red tape has stalled efforts to obtain the necessary permits to ship the rabbits to their new homes.
If Cassells is able to get a court hearing by Aug 27 and the injunction stands, the university will be unable to reduce the rabbit population that surrounds student residences before classes resume for the fall.
The Canadian Press
Step forward in UVic rabbit plan
Feral rabbits on campus will be euthanized or sterilized
The University of Victoria announced plans on Monday to deal with the 1,400 rabbits that have taken over the campus.
The original plan was to trap and euthanize the rabbits to cut down the population, but the new agenda includes a sterilization option. A contractor will set traps around campus and rabbits will either be euthanized or sterilized and relocated. The sterilized rabbits can be adopted by applying for a permit from the Ministry of Environment.
Although, ideally, I’d like to see no rabbits euthanized, it’s good to hear that UVic is trying out other options. With any luck, the Coalition for the Ethical Treatment of UVic Rabbits can recognize this announcement as a positive step forward. The focus can now (hopefully) be shifted to finding accommodation.
UVic will keep just 200 feral rabbits on campus, with 50 in each “rabbit control” quadrant.
-Photo by litlnemo
Rabbit traps tampered with at UVic
Incensed activists give animal lovers a bad name
Nothing says “take me seriously” like vandalism and crying.
Police were called to the University of Victoria Monday after the university accused rabbit activists of overturning traps and spilling bait. The traps are part of a UVic initiative to live-trap and euthanize rabbits in order to stall a campus infestation.
Kathleen Terrio, an English teacher with the continuation education program, admitted to calling members of the Coalition for the Ethical Treatment of UVic Rabbits after noticing the traps. “One teeny-weeny, cutest little baby I recognized was in one of the traps and I asked if I could please take him home, but they wouldn’t let me,” she said to the Times Colonist.
I don’t like the idea of rabbits being trapped and euthanized either. Especially since alternatives have been proposed, such as Victoria veterinarian Nick Shaw offering to vasectomize rabbits for free. But kicking and swooning? Counterproductive, and frankly, embarrassing to those of us who like to call ourselves animal rights activists. If rabbit-defenders want the university to deal with the issue responsibly, they need to behave responsibly as well.
-Photo by _Oblique_
UVic plans to ‘cull’ rabbits on campus
Aims to create ‘rabbit-free zone’ around the university by trapping and euthanizing the animals
