Six Vancouver Island baby rabbits airlifted to Surrey to avoid euthanasia

Six three-week-old rabbits that had been brought to a veterinary clinic for euthanasia have been flown from Vancouver Island to the Lower Mainland and are now being bottle-fed by an experienced foster volunteer in Surrey. The volunteer is also caring for six other rabbits.

The rescue began when Rabbitats Rescue Society, a volunteer-run charity that houses unwanted, abandoned and feral domestic rabbits, was contacted July 15 by a Parksville veterinary clinic about taking in a rabbit named Oatmeal. While Oatmeal gained enough weight to travel, Rabbitats sought help moving the rabbit to the mainland. Harbour Air volunteered to provide the flight at no charge.

On the morning of the trip, the clinic told Rabbitats that six babies had been dropped off for euthanasia. Executive director and founder Sorelle Saidman said the rabbits had somehow ended up with someone with a drug addiction who could no longer keep them, and the group does not know what happened to their mother. The clinic offered the organization a choice of taking Oatmeal, the babies or all seven rabbits. Because a baby-specific foster was available on the Lower Mainland, Rabbitats chose the six babies; Harbour Air agreed to transport them.

Saidman said Rabbitats limits intake because of a chronic lack of resources and overwhelming demand, but prioritizes rabbits unlikely to survive without intervention. Harbour Air said it was proud to help the rabbits access care and that the rescue demonstrated community strength.

The added animals also create vaccine, spay-and-neuter and rehoming costs for an already strained organization. Saidman said the six rabbits will need spaying or neutering and are unlikely to be adopted. She encouraged donations to local rabbit rescues, including Vancouver Island Fluffle and Rabbitats in Nanaimo. People with unused barns, sheds or chicken coops can also lend space to “adopt a colony”; one barn stall can comfortably house a dozen rabbits. Safe-housing guides are available from Rabbitats at info@rabbitats.org or VI Fluffle at admin@vifluffle.ca.

Rabbitats also welcomes volunteer veterinarians and veterinary technicians to help vaccinate rabbits, with the organization covering supplies. Saidman called for provincial funding for on-the-ground rescue organizations, saying individual rabbit rescues do not receive the ongoing provincial funding provided to the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia. To address the growth of feral domestic rabbits, she advocated collection, spaying and neutering, and relocation to enclosed habitats or micro-sanctuaries, with animal control responding early when new rabbits appear in a neighbourhood.