Bunnies become political football

Like it or not, the issue of whether to kill or trap Kelowna's feral rabbit population has become a political hot button, one that Mayor Sharon Shepherd feels she has been wrongly put in the middle of.

"The real hard part for me is that I didn't support going to this in the first place. That was a decision of council," says Shepherd.

"I had a nine-year-old stand in front of me two weeks ago and ask me why I was killing the rabbits. I feel like I am taking a lot of the responsibility for that decision."

Shepherd made the comments the day the city suspended the use of air rifles as a way to cull the wild rabbit population, after a security guard witnessed two people trying to stomp a rabbit to death after it had been shot.

"I have always been concerned about the shooting. It's not a very happy thing right now. We will have it evaluated and the report provided back to council and we'll go from there."

With the municipal election a little over six weeks away, the mayor was asked if she thought rabbits would be a major election issue.

Shepherd says people have the right to ask candidates how they stand on any and all issues.

"At the end of the day, there is a lot more to being involved as a municipal leader than just one issue and I always encourage people to look at the other strengths people bring to the table because there are so many decisions we make each week. Rabbits are not on our plate all the time. We have to evaluate so many other things in our city."

She says while the city has received more than 500 emails and letters from citizens complaining about the rabbit cull, there are other issues people should be concerned about.

"There are many people that are very passionate about animal rights and they are the ones that are making sure they send their emails and letters. I get the comments from others that a lot of attention is being spent on rabbits. I really wish people would feel as passionate about some of the other things because there are a lot of very important issues we have to deal with as a city."