Trap-Neuter-Return program for Long Beach rabbits underway

Photo of feral rabbits at UVic campus courtesy Jeffery Nichols

Volunteers from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (BFAS), Western University, the Bunny Bunch in Montclair and the Rabbit Task Force of Long Beach City College (LBCC) have joined together to humanely stabilize the rabbit population at Long Beach City College. The first known trap-neuter-return program in a rabbit colony was launched this week as at least 100 bunnies will be spayed or neutered and then returned to their campus burrows. If successful, it could become the model for humane rabbit control nationally .

The approximately 350 rabbits on campus are pets or descendants of pets, abandoned by irresponsible owners once they tired of them. They have been cared for by compassionate and devoted LBCC employees like Jacque Olson and faculty members like Donna Prindle. For roughly 10 years, these caretakers had managed to spay/neuter, foster and adopt out enough rabbits to keep the population at a reasonable number, but when construction projects destroyed some nearby rabbit burrows, those bunnies hopped on over to campus. Worst of all, community residents dropped off the pets they were now tired of with increasing frequency.

Then Olson and Prindle found out about the administration’s proposal to exterminate the rabbits.

Pet rabbits don’t have the skills to survive on their own. “You can tell which ones have been dropped off,” Olson said. “They run up to us and get in our laps (because) they don’t know how to survive in the wild.”

They contacted Best Friends Animal Society for assistance; BFAS sent Tiffani Hill, then-volunteer manager of Community Programs and Services, to present a proposal for TNR to the school officials.
BFAS Bunny Outreach specialist Debby Widolf advised and assisted Prindle and Olson in setting up the Rabbit Task Force. Donations began to arrive from students and faculty for neutering rabbits; adoption events were planned and a vet was secured for the neutering.

In December, the Task Force received a $1,500 grant from the student body group to help feed the rabbits after the surgeries as well as permission to use a $10,000 Southern California Edison rebate that had been assigned to the school’s building and grounds maintenance budget.

The Rabbit Task Force also received assistance from Christina Kane, a veterinary student from Western University. She got classmates and staff on board with the TNR project; Western U offered their portable van to use for the surgeries, 3 volunteer veterinarians and other students who offered to help. The bunnies will be humanely trapped, spayed or neutered, then returned back to the location where they were trapped. This breaks the breeding cycle while allowing the rabbit to live out its natural life in its original territory.

Best Friends’ Debby Widolf : “TNR is well established with feral cats, but it has yet to be attempted with a feral-rabbit population. LBCC is a fantastic example of a community of people working together using a humane approach to a domestic-feral population.”

Widolf said that often the only proposed solution is to kill the rabbits, who are the innocent victims of being dumped by their owners. “LBCC is giving these rabbits the chance to live out their lives at the home they know, without adding to the population,” she said. “I’m proud of LBCC for undertaking this groundbreaking and humane project.”

We in Dayton are fortunate not to be faced with overwhelming numbers of feral rabbits like the ones at LBCC or the University of Victoria, B.C. (photo above) - at least not yet. The dedication of animal control officers such as Judy Kohl, Animal Control Officer with the Kettering Police Department (a suburb of Dayton) and many others has resulted in the luckiest of the area abandoned rabbits being taken to the Humane Society of Greater Dayton, where they are cared for by HSGD staff and Dayton Area Rabbit Network. The unfortunate dumped rabbits are killed by domestic cats, stray dogs, hawks, coyotes and other predators, struck and killed by cars, or simply starve to death as they lack outdoor survival skills.

Rabbits are frequently purchased on impulse, especially at this time of year, later to be abandoned in the wild by ignorant and uncaring owners. Do your research, and if you find that you can meet the needs and the ten-year committment that a pet rabbit requires, adopt one - already spayed or neutered - from DARN or Robyn's Nest Rescue.

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