2010-05-31

Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - 11:30am - 2:00pm

Public Pamphlet Hand Out / Rally
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
11:30am - 2:00pm
Douglas / Yates & Inner Harbour Tourist Center

This is intended as a non-violent .... non-sensational information session – letting people know what is going on at the university – from a factual point of view. Even if we just use what the university has admitted to, that is damning enough and should get support for the rabbits.

(as posted on the uvic buns management facebook group)

2010-05-24

The Mount Tolmie Community Association

How about that Mount Tolmie Community Association, of which Patty Mack is President? It seems that they make a whole lot of noise (directed at UVic) about feral rabbits. Hmmm... and apparently Patty likes to be called about MTCA concerns at (250) 721-2497, at least according to their website. Maybe she needs more calls from persons concerned about the well being of rabbits at UVic.

This might explain the apparent anti-bunny bias that a lot of the A-Channel reports seem to have, what with Patty's husband being Hudson Mack. I think that tomorrow I should post some of the more entertaining excerpts from the MTCA letters to UVic, just in case there's any question of where they stand ;)

PS I wonder if Hudson ever answers the phone ...LOL!

Tuesday May 25th 2010 12-2 pm

TAKING A STAND FOR THE UVic RABBITS - Tuesday May 25th 2010 12-2 pm

The University of Victoria is currently trapping a killing the rabbits that live on their land, as their solution to control the population. We say there are other more humane ways to reduce & control the population. So far UVic has not accepted any of the options, and instead the killing continues.

Please join us for a peaceful demonstration and leafleting event:
  • in front of the Parliament Buildings – near the Cenotaph at Government and Belleville from 12pm-1pm
  • then on to the Victoria Tourist Bureau – at Government and Humboldt from 1pm-2pm

If enough people can come we will demonstrate at both locations for the 2 hours.

Leaflets and some signs are available, however you are welcome to bring your own.

For further information call Laura-Leah @ 604.551.9297

2010-05-19

3 rescued

Three little bunnies got rescued tonight, that would otherwise be heading towards a very grim future. They are now hanging out in a cage stuffing their little faces with alfalfa, carrot slivers and little pieces of apple, while they wait to head to their permanent home. Thanks to everyone that made this possible!

We need to remember the little victories, to help us see the way when things start looking a tad shitty. Like the way things started looking this week when that "red pickup truck" started to appear.

On that note: does anyone else remember references to red pickup trucks being used by death squads in some latin american country? Guatemala maybe? That sticks out as something I read about, a *long* time ago, but it came bubbling back to the surface this week after seeing that truck. UVic now has a bunny-death-squad.

Nevertheless -- I am going to focus on the little victories and urge all (any?) of you reading this to do the same. Illegitimi non carborundum might be a fitting motto for us all - since we can't afford to let the bastards wear us down :)

2010-05-17

uvicbunnies.org site rebuild

On May 5th I mentioned that the uvicbunnies.org website was getting rebuilt to be more easily viewed on devices with smaller displays, like the ever-popular netbooks.

Well; the new site is up. Have a look and let us know what you think. Not a drastic change (someone said they hadn't even noticed anything different) but the intent was improved readability, not some kind of design makeover or something.

Anyway - rabbits need their sleep.

2010-05-16

snare

As some of you might have heard from Roslyn, there have been snares found on campus. I heard about her find through the grapevine and I don't know details of where they found theirs, exactly. This one was found near the back of the stadium, getting near to McKenzie and within sight of the Chevron station.

We found one during a walk-around yesterday, and I thought it would be worthwhile posting a picture, that was taken before the snare was removed for disposal:

snare1, originally uploaded by Spencer.Lebowski.
If anybody sees a snare such as this, please contact the SPCA. If anyone sees someone placing snares such as these on UVic's campus, please contact the police. Hunting or trapping without a license is a chargeable offense, and this would probably fall under the umbrella of poaching. Furthermore; since UVic is private land, and since I doubt the dumb redneck that planted this got permission first, this is again not legal.

UVic cull underway

So.

What a shocker: UVic Facilities (mis)Management comes clean on their lies after someone catches their operation in the works. I think we all owe Andrew a thanks for exposing this earlier in the week.

And now it seems that Andrew has more to share with us ...I think there's a rabbit that'd like to buy him a beer ;)

Anyway -- that's all for now folks.

2010-05-08

UVic Alumni Association Display



There has been a bit of commentary about how UVic is quite happy to make use of the rabbit images for their marketing purposes on one hand, while preparing for a cull on the other. The hypocrisy seems a bit ...uhhh ...thick.

2010-05-06

a publication of note

Here's an excerpt from the first of the relevant publications:
(bibliographic data in APA format follows)

In France, rodenticides are classified into two major product categories: (1) long-acting anticoagulants, representing over 95% of rodenticides used, and (2) short-acting products, such as crimidine and alpha-chloralose, which are still in use, particularly against mice (ACTA, 2005). Anticoagulants are used to control field voles (Microtus arvalis) and water voles (Arvicola terrestris), although widespread use of bromadiolone, a second-generation anticoagulant, has been associated with substantial secondary poisoning of predators and scavengers, mainly birds of prey (Berny et al., 1997, 1998; Berny and Gaillet, 2008). Secondary poisoning has also been observed in some water birds, such as the grey heron (Ardea cinerea). Anticoagulant poisoning is reported less frequently in other birds with some 14% detected in waterfowl, 4% in pigeons and 18% in partridges; however it did account for 47% of all poisoning cases in birds of prey (Lamarque et al., 1999).' Alpha-chloralose is another common poisoning agent in birds in France, primarily in game species, such as water birds (43%) and partridges (10%).

Guitart, R., Sachana, M., Caloni, F., Croubels, S., Vandenbroucke, V., & Berny, P. (2010). Animal poisoning in Europe. Part 3: Wildlife. The Veterinary Journal, 183(3), 260-265. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.03.033

2010-05-05

baby bunny found dead by poison box

Today got a bit busy, what with the rebuild of the uvicbunnies.org site, and all. No poison write-up, yet, or pics of the bunnies in the construction areas. I did get pics of that baby bunny found by the poison box, so I thought I should address that briefly:

The poison boxes are not a "smoking gun". If someone was intentionally giving feed laced with bromadiolone to the rabbits, that would be an entirely different thing. The stuff is toxic, but it is also what is approved for its intended purpose (killing Norway rats) and also for how it's deployed at UVic to that end. I hope to get into this a lot more thoroughly tomorrow, but the bottom line is that it might be killing some wildlife, but the numbers are not statistically significant given what would be the impact of not killing the rats on campus. Since rats have been observed attacking rabbits on campus, including baby rabbits, this isn't a point that should be dismissed, IMHO.

Apparently UVic has a lot of rats.

uvicbunnies.org site undergoing rebuild

The uvicbunnies.org site is undergoing a rebuild!

New features include an canned/prefabricated form letter to a bunch of UVic people, including the Board of Governors, David Turpin (the president), Gayle Gorill (VP of Finance) and Valerie Kuehne (VP of External Relations).

Those same people are now in the mailto: links on the What You Can Do page, too. Not only useful, but more fun than a barrel of barrels!

Since I am talking about UVic and the uvicbunnies site, here's the UVic Finance and Operations Org Chart to help explain why we don't even bother having people email minions like Tom Smith anymore :D

There's a more netbook-compatible version of the site being built, so keep an eye out for that. I hope it will make viewing the pages on a smallish screen less of a PITA.

2010-05-04

poison

I had a little bit of time at lunch today to do some digging into the poison that's used in the poison boxes. Nasty stuff called bromadiolone. If you're bored and have access to journals through a university library account, do some digging...

I found (in a short search) 15 papers on the stuff and it's effects on wildlife as an unintended side effect of its use on mice and rats, primarily Norway rats. These were all in refereed journals, btw, and I should be able to put excerpts and citations up tomorrow. Today was just too nuts :(

I've put up an excerpt from an report that LGL Ltd. did for UVic back in 2008; have a look in the pages. This came from the results of an FOI request, and was kindly donated to our efforts. There's more where that came from, too, it's just a question of time to get it typed up...

2010-05-03

website indexing

Well.

So if Google hasn't found us yet, do we even exist? Heh.

Something on the topic in case you're *really* bored and want something, anything, to read:
Google Not Indexing Your Blogs?

Whee.

two saved

Well...

Today two little bunnies got rescued from UVic. We had two photographers around for part of the day, too, taking pictures of the rabbit goings-on. I hope we'll have some snaps to post soon. How's that for subtle? Heh.

There's a lot of construction mess due to the KIP seismic upgrades, and naturally some rabbits have been building nests among the construction debris. We're now seeing the litters come out and have their first looks at the world. On the plus side, their world includes kind people who give them carrot, lettuce and banana bits. On the negative side, a construction site isn't exactly a safe place for little creatures.

The two dead ones we found were not killed in the construction area, to the best of my knowledge, as they were both by the residences. One was a baby by one of the moderately infamous UVic poison boxes that have been talked about on the interwebs. The other was an adult just lying near a dumpster by one of the residence buildings, though I can't remember which.

Anyway; the two we rescued are off to a happier home on the mainland :)

Thanks to all that helped!
(you know who you are)

2010-05-01

Online Petition Submitted

Please note that the Stop slaughter of U of Victoria Rabbits! online petition has been submitted. Thanks to all who voiced their support!