Canmore council revisited the issue of the community's feral rabbit population during budget discussions, with ideas bounced around like getting more aggressive with removing the lagamorphs to reducing the annual amount spent on them.
Canmore council revisited the issue of the community's feral rabbit population during budget discussions, with ideas bounced around like getting more aggressive with removing the lagamorphs to reducing the annual amount spent on them.
Since 2012, Canmore has spent $60,000 a year on a contract to remove rabbits from the community, as they are not a natural species and are a wildlife attractant for various predators. That totals $240,000 in four years to capture 756 rabbits; up until March this year.
Mayor John Borrowman said facing an unending annual cost for the management plan in place is a concern.
“Each year I have a harder time supporting this program,” he said. “Our goal is no longer what it was when the program first started, which was to eliminate feral rabbits. Through experience we have learned that will not happen.”
While administration was proposing a reduction of $10,000 to the 2016 operating budget for the contract, Borrowman suggested it could go further during a budget committee meeting.
Chief Administrative Officer Lisa de Soto said administration considered cancelling the contract, but that did not seem prudent.
“If we do nothing, given the population out there, they will explode and we will be back in the situation we were in 10 years ago,” de Soto said.
She said over the four years of the program progress has been made. The rabbit population is more stressed and vulnerable.
“As the program is successful and we see less rabbits, we can reduce this program over time.”
Councillor Rob Seeley questioned at budget committee why Canmore is continuing to spend $50,000 on it.
“Fifty thousand dollars a year is not responsible,” Seeley said. “Maybe it is time to revisit it, talk to the contractor and take a look at (possibly) eliminating them all in one year.”
Manager of communications Sally Caudill said it is not possible to predict what will happen with the feral rabbit population each year, as it is affected by weather patterns as well.
In fact, the Town of Canmore has no method of calculating the feral rabbit population and relies completely on anecdotal evidence that the numbers are going down.
But the numbers of feral rabbits caught is known. The numbers are tracked by the trapping season, which runs from October to March. In the first season, 189 rabbits were caught, in the second year, 317 were caught and in the third year, 171 were caught. Last season (October 2014 to March 2015) 79 rabbits were caught.
While the rabbits caught are counted in a season, it does not match with the budget year, which runs through the fiscal year January to December. That makes it much more difficult to calculate the cost of the feral rabbit management plan per rabbit.
But over four years of the plan (2012-15) $240,000 has been spent and 756 rabbits have been caught.
Council will vote on the operating and capital budgets in December at its last regular meeting before the holidays. Any changes to the feral rabbit management plan would have to be passed by motion.
As then Mayor Ron Casey remarked, you have it pretty good if the biggest issue you have to tackle is how to handle a rabbit problem.
The lagomorph problem began in the '80s, when a dozen or more domesticated rabbits were released in town. While there are a variety of origin legends as to Canmore's rabbits, the fact is they survived and did what only they can do - continue to breed.
The very fact they came from a domesticated stock caused Alberta's Fish and Wildlife officials to deem it a municipal animal control issue, not a wildlife one.
The feral rabbit management plan was created and council approved hiring a contractor to trap and humanely euthanize the rabbits, which would then be provided to Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation in Lethbridge.
But the fact that the municipality was killing the furry four-legged creatures did not sit well with some and garnered attention from animal rights groups and made headlines nationally. The issue was so heated the RCMP were even brought in at one point to investigate threats being issued to Town staff over the plan.
At first, those who wanted to prevent the rabbits from being euthanized were able to have them spayed or neutered and homed in a sanctuary outside Calgary. The costs, however, were fully borne by those wanting to save the rabbits and after one season those efforts ceased and the municipal contractor carried on with the approved plan of using gas to euthanize them.
Another complexity to the management program is the fact that the contractor needs permission to trap rabbits on private property.
