urbpan: (marmot)
[personal profile] urbpan

Photos by [livejournal.com profile] urbpan. Location: University of Victoria campus, British Columbia.

Urban species #218: Domestic rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus

Domestic animals often find their way into the ecology of urban places. They owe their very existence to humanity and civilization. But humans are flawed stewards, and will allow their animals to escape, or through a misunderstanding of "wildness," will turn pets, livestock, and lab animals out of their enclosures. And then there are the countless deliberate introductions, for the sake of sport hunting, or to seed an island with edible inhabitants, which have wrought destruction on ecosystems around the world. In North America domestic rabbits run free because a pet was no longer wanted, an animal mistaken for wild was "liberated," or because a bunny was only meant to be an Easter gift. The vast majority of released rabbits live short brutal lives, their flight-or-fight instincts blunted by centuries of breeding for life in the hutch. A released domestic rabbit has a life span of somewhere between one and two years, according to the House Rabbit Society, and other sources. In Australia, European rabbits (the wild ancestors of domestic rabbits) have run roughshod through the country, and constitute a serious ecological problem.

In North America, there are a few small cities that harbor breeding populations of domestic rabbits. The requirements for a population to become established include plants to eat, soil to burrow into for protection, and a single month to reproduce. Predators of rabbits are many, but their famously high rate of reproduction may overtake the rate of predation. On the campus of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, for example, the rabbits are well-loved by most of the students, and relatively safe from human predation, at least. University campuses are generally free of roaming dogs and cats, and most wild predators (notwithstanding the occasional mountain lion report at UVic) tend to avoid urban areas.

Some more discussion of urban rabbits occurs here.





Date: 2006-08-12 01:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kloostec.livejournal.com
Being a UVic student, I see the bunnies every day!

Date: 2006-08-12 03:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] urbpan.livejournal.com
How do you like the school? UVic has joined my fantasies of what to do with my life.

Date: 2006-08-12 05:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kloostec.livejournal.com
Having only been to post-secondary at UVic, it's difficult to compare to other schools, but in my program (B.SEng), the department's quite confused at the moment. It's a new degree, and they're still working out the problems with it.

Most of the conventional programs (sciences, humanities, etc.) seem to be decent. If you're looking at Biology (wild guess here), you might want to talk to [livejournal.com profile] arwyn, as she just completed her undergrad degree in Biology and is probably more familiar with the department than I am.

Tuition's decent for in-province students, the bureaucracy isn't too overwhelming (unless you work at the University), and the attitudes of the students are generally liberal.

Profile

urbpan: (Default)
urbpan

May 2017

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
1415 1617181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 15th, 2025 11:32 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios