Baiting Complete for Macquarie Island Pest Eradication

“It is fantastic to see that this first stage is now complete and that our efforts to restore Macquarie Island to an ecosystem free of introduced pests is well underway.”

 

The number of non-target species impacted by baiting has been minimised, with a total of 855 birds affected to date.  The introduction of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease Virus on the island earlier this year drastically cut rabbit numbers which resulted in fewer carcasses on the ground and a reduction in secondary poisoning among non-target species.

 

Another key factor in reducing non-target species mortality has been an increased effort by specially dedicated ground crews collecting and burying poisoned carcasses after baiting.

 

Mr Wightman said that while the impact on non-target species was unfortunate, if the pests continued to cause damage it was likely that some seabirds and unique plant species would no longer exist on the island.

 

“This short-term impact will be balanced out by the long-term protection to the island’s ecosystems achieved through the pest eradication.”

 

The team involved in the baiting operation is expected to return to Hobart in late July.

 

Twelve trained hunting dogs are already on the island ready to begin the next phase of the operation, hunting down the rabbits that survived the baiting project.  Hunters will work with the dogs and their handlers to dispatch any rabbits found. This is expected to take up to five years.

Read full article here.

Mars chocolates torture rabbits and other animals

A lack of speciesism..

7 Ways Rabbits are Environmentally-Friendly

There are many benefits to owning a pet rabbit: they're utterly adorable, they're funny, they're quiet, they're clean... I could go on and on.

But one thing many people may not realize is that rabbits are ecologically-friendly pets. Here are seven ways that pet rabbits help contribute to a healthy environment.

1. You can grow a lot of their food yourself in a backyard garden. Rabbits eat an assortment of greens such as romaine and other dark leaf lettuce, collard greens, kale, parsley, and cilantro, which you can grow in your own home garden vegetable patch. They also love dandelion greens and flowers, so you can kill two birds with one stone and feed your bunnies your unwanted weeds. Growing your rabbit's food yourself helps the environment by cutting down on energy consumption and waste production caused by manufacturing, packaging, storing and shipping commercial food. (See our article Bunny Gardening for Beginners for more information on starting a garden.)
2. You can use both their recycled paper litter and their droppings in a compost pile, which will then fertilize your garden. In fact, rabbit droppings contain a large amount of nitrogen and phosphorus which is essential for flower and fruit production. [1] This is not true for carnivorous pets like cats and dogs. Their waste products are not recommended for compost heaps. Furthermore, many kinds of clay-based cat litter come from strip mining and are non-degradable. [2]
3. Even if you're not a gardener, you can purchase their main diet staple, timothy hay, along with other vegetables, from local farmers, again diminishing carbon emissions, chemicals, and other waste products that result from shipping commercial food. [3]
4. Rabbits are effective paper shredders. No need to waste money and electricity on an electric shredder- rabbits' teeth grow continuously, so they need objects to chew on a regular basis. They will happily destroy your sensitive documents.
5. Rabbits' favorite toys consist of items you would normally throw away or recycle. They love playing with toilet paper rolls, outdated phone books, old towels, cardboard boxes, etc. Again, this reduces waste associated with manufacturing, packaging, storing, shipping and advertising commercial pet toys. But, if you really must buy a toy for your bunny, you can be sure that he/she will also love the cardboard packaging (perhaps even more than the toy itself).
6. Rabbits are content to run around in your house or apartment, so you don't have to make regular trips to the dog park. This reduces gas consumption and carbon emissions. In addition, because house rabbits stay inside and use their eco-friendly litterboxes, you don't have to worry about proper poop disposal like you do with dogs. Not only are many dog poop bags non-recyclable and non-degradable, but dog fecal bacteria currently pollutes our storm drain systems causing disease to humans and wildlife. [4]
7. House rabbits are very clean animals and, in general, they manage to carry on relatively disease-free lives. This means a reduction of harmful chemicals and drugs associated with pet shampoos, flea and tick treatments, and other medications. These pollutants cause an array of problems such as drug-resistant bacteria, contamination of waterways, and health concerns for aquatic animals. [4]

So there you have it: seven ways rabbits are eco-friendly. Just another benefit to owning a pet bunny!

From My House Rabbit.

Endangered Animals: Rabbit Relief

(WILDLIFE/ENDANGERED ANIMALS) When it comes to pulling rabbis out of hats, we might soon be out of the Columbia Basin pygmy. The remaining number of tiny rabbits, thought to have gone extinct in 2004, have been raised in captivity in efforts to restore their devastatingly low population. While there’s debate as to the best way to breed the bunnies, most wildlife experts agree that it’s going to take nothing short of a magic trick to replenish the pygmy population. Read on how they plan to do it. — Global Animal

Read article here.

Hostilities resumed in Wyndham's rabbit war

ALTHOUGH floods and mosquitoes have helped keep rabbit numbers down in Wyndham recently, seasonal baiting has begun.

Wyndham Council’s autumn rabbit-control program is in full swing with dog owners advised not to walk their dogs in some areas for the next month.

Baits of chopped carrot, treated with the poison, pindone, are being laid by a licensed contractor in Point Cook, Werribee, Werribee South and Mt Cottrell.

Vitamin K1 is the antidote for pindone, an anti-coagulant poison available from local vets notified of the baiting.

The council has warned residents not to handle carrot pieces or rabbits found in baited areas.

Warning signs were to be placed at all reserve entrances.

Council chief executive officer Kerry Thompson said rabbit populations had fallen in Wyndham due to recent floods and the subsequent increase in mosquitoes, which transmit myxomatosis - lethal to rabbits.

But the council was still required under state legislation to keep rabbit populations under control, she said, hence the continuation of the council’s rabbit eradication program.

“If not controlled, a single pair of rabbits can breed to more than 184 individuals in just 18 months,” she said.

Areas being baited until this Friday are the northern side of Skeleton Creek, between Boardwalk Blvd and Palmers Rd, and Alamanda Wetland Reserve, Point Cook; both sides of the Werribee River from Chirnside Park to the Maltby Bypass, Werribee; Grahams Reserve and K Rd Cliffs, Werribee South; and Cobbledicks Reserve, Mt Cottrell.

For more information, go to wyndham.vic.gov.au

Sourced from Wyndham Leader.

Diggers Rest squatter claims property was a dumping ground for unwanted pets

Nathan Miles from the Western Suburbs Animal Rescue Service holding a rescued rabbit. PICTURE: Dennis Manktelow.

A WOMAN accused of squatting at a filthy Diggers Rest home before leaving behind 53 unwanted pets says she was not responsible for the squalor.

She says other people used the property as a dumping ground for animals and the house was vandalised after she left.

Animal rescue volunteers recovered 30 cats, six dogs, 15 guinea pigs, a goose and a rabbit from the derelict property after the woman and her two teenage children moved out.

It is believed more than 100 animals were housed on the property at one stage.

The woman has now contacted Leader to say reports that she was living in squalor with her two children were false.

Read the rest of the story here.

Peter Rabbit on the hunt

VETERAN rabbit shooter Peter Golden says the lure of the bunny gets in your blood and just won't go away, writes SARAH HUDSON

They call him Peter Rabbit.

And not because he bears any resemblance to the children's book character.

While his parents may have christened him Peter Golden, to the folk around central Victoria he's simply Peter Rabbit.

What else do you call one of the state's oldest continual rabbit shooters, one who targets wild rabbits that are on-sold to markets and high-end restaurants?

"They think I come out of a Noddy book or something," Peter says.

"Bob Hart (Herald Sun food critic) came up to the Redesdale Hotel and had rabbit pie. He wrote that the local game supplier was Peter Rabbit.

"It's just stuck. Everyone knows me as that now."

Given he's been in the trade for 35 years, Peter's pedigree is a substantial one, having seen major changes in the industry, not least the demand for the product itself.

"Rabbits aren't a poor-man's tucker any more. Restaurants are lapping them up and I'd have no trouble selling more," he says.

Read full story here.

Macquarie Island Cull- Waste of taxpayers $$

“At Senate Estimates today its been revealed that of 305 tonnes of rabbit bait, purchased by Labor at for more than a million dollars and dumped on Macquarie Island, 210 tonnes has been spoilt.”


“As a result, another three quarters of million dollars of taxpayers’ money has been wasted.”


“Tragically it’s also been revealed that rabbit baiting on the Macquarie Island has also led to the deaths of more than 900 seabirds. The actual figure is expected to be much higher.”


Quoted from here.

Japanese Rabbit Controversy

Kids' rabbit-fur fashion branded harebrained

A FASHION house has provoked controversy by dressing children as young as five in furs for this year's winter collection.

Bonpoint, the luxury French children's label, in its catalogue dresses little girls in rabbit-fur coats and adorns them with fur purses and brooches made from rabbit skin.

Animal rights campaigners have accused the couture house, which entertained US first lady Michelle Obama and her two daughters at its Paris headquarters during Barack Obama's first visit to France as President in 2009, of courting controversy to get publicity.

Bonpoint is offering a baby's rabbit-fur gilet for $184, while a rabbit-fur coat for a six-year-old will cost $333.

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claims 70 million rabbits are killed for fur in France each year.

"This is a provocative way of getting attention," said Mimi Bekhechi, manager of Peta Europe. "The rabbit fur is not a by-product of the meat trade. These animals are bred for their fur and kept crammed together in tiny cages."

RELATED COVERAGE

• Fur flies in SeoulThe Australian, 16 May 2011
• Test shows 'dog' vest is rabbitHerald Sun, 13 May 2011
• Stores 'stock clothes made from dog'Perth Now, 12 May 2011
• Buying child's love with $900 jacketHerald Sun, 18 Mar 2011
• Fur protesters join the in-crowdThe Australian, 10 Mar 2011

The group has posted a video on YouTube taken inside a fur farm in which live rabbits are shown strung up by their legs on conveyor belts on their way to be skinned.

Andrew Tyler, director of Britain's Animal Aid, said: "It's a pretty perverted marketing strategy to induce young children to drape themselves in the product of extreme cruelty but we expect nothing better from fur advocates."

Bonpoint was unavailable for comment. The label is favoured by Suri Cruise, daughter of Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who at five has been ranked No 21 in a magazine poll to find the most stylish women in the world.

from The Sunday Times

Star Bunny

From Sally Land Art: To celebrate the year of the rabbit avant card has chosen to print some rabbity designs. One of them is the star bunny I drew earlier this year. Because of the fatal myxomatosis virus my little bunny Ralph is living in the stars, along with so many other much loved bunnies. Pick up one of these free postcards from an avant card venue and help spread the word that Australia needs to legalise the myxomatosis vaccine!

Can't make it to an avant card distributer? send your details to me at sallyland@live.com.au with 'rabbit' as the subject and i'll send one your way. xxx

If you would like to support australian bunnies you can help by signing this petition.

Please do, it will only take a moment.

If you'd like to know more or take action visit radical rabbit.

Rabbit resistance plagues Coorong

THERE appears to be a gradual resurgence in rabbit populations in the Coorong area, according to Biosecurity SA's natural resource management-biosecurity senior research officer Greg Mutze.

In many sites where rabbit numbers had been low for 10 years there was substantial recovery during the past five years. The trend was widely reported in arid and semi-arid Australia.

Evidence from studies on wild rabbits collected from 10 sites stretching from South Australia to Queensland indicated that rabbits at many places had developed some level of genetic resistance to rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus.

Current research seeks to determine whether the virus itself has weakened or if it is co-evolving with rabbits to maintain virulence.

from here.