HOST: Sweet viewers, welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today we invite you to join us for an inspiring interview with Ms. Sinikka Crosland, the vegan founder of The Responsible Animal Care Society or TRACS of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, a non-profit charity that promotes the compassionate treatment of all living beings. We’ll also meet some supporters of the Society’s work.

Let’s first explore some of the Society’s loving animal welfare projects.

The city of Kelowna recently had a growing feral rabbit population that was causing concern in the community.
Ms. Crosland: For a number of years we’ve been watching as rabbit numbers have escalated in the Kelowna area and it got to the point where we realized that something had to be done.

Some family had pet bunnies and they let them go because they weren’t able to look after them. And then one thing led to another and over the years the bunny population increased.
The other thing that’s adding to this is people, when they have realized that there are bunnies hopping around Kelowna, and maybe some of them are in park-like settings and so on , they’ve gone and let their own bunnies go onto the streets.

And so before you know it you have huge populations of bunnies. One of the things we’re doing is teaching people about responsible stewardship over animals. You should not be letting them go. In fact that’s called “abandonment” under the criminal code, and it’s not allowed.

HOST: Working in conjunction with local animal sanctuaries and citizens, the Society’s caring animal protectors launched the Feral Rabbit Relocation Program to safeguard the hundreds of rabbits living in the city’s streets and commercial areas.

Backed by Kelowna residents who wish to see the rabbits happy and secure, the Society’s staff has been spaying and neutering and then relocating the gentle animals.