CALGARY – A planned cull of Canmore’s feral rabbit population is likely to go forward despite an offer from a Stoney Nation man to accept the animals onto his land on the Stoney Indian Reserve.
Greg Two Young Men said he made an offer to Canmore town council last week to accept the feral rabbits onto his land where band members would be able to snare the free-roaming rabbits for their meat and fur.
“There are a lot of us that still hunt . . . we eat rabbits, make stew and use the rabbit fur,” said Two Young Men, who owns a campground on Stoney Nation land west of Cochrane. “Then they won’t go to waste. They will be used and used wisely as we have for a millennia.”
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But Canmore Mayor Ron Casey said Two Young Men’s proposed solution won’t work because the province prohibits the release of non-native species, like the rabbits that have overrun Canmore, loose to multiply.
“It’s great that people want to help out but there are other rules and regulations that need to be followed,” said Casey. “No one wants this to become a provincewide issue, which it would become quickly if people started releasing their pets into the wild.”
Town council has already approved a contract that will see Animal Damage Control begin to trap and euthanize Canmore’s feral rabbit population within the next two weeks.
While the door remains open for non-profit groups to propose a program to spay/neuter and permanently relocate the animals, so far funding has come through for the relocation of only 60 rabbits through the Save Canmore Bunnies campaign.
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