Paul1405: Such controls should be left to the professionals,

Yes they could go & talk to the rabbits. They could discuss; digging holes, birth control & eating vegetables, etc. But, what happens if the rabbits won't co-operate?

Dear Paul,

Thanks for making me laugh.

It's interesting that those like otb, who continually
blather on about "respectable, upstanding people,"
(and those he disagrees with are of course not),
espouse free speech,
and less government regulation yet - choosing to attack people
who speak out about the injustices being perpetuated.

19th century mentality - or is it 11th century.

The facts are these according to information gleaned from
various sources on the web:

Rabbits can be trained or kept in the house. They are
environmentally better pets than dogs or cats. They make
little noise (they don't bark as dogs do). They don't kill
native animals and birds as cats do. Making pet rabbits
so illegal as to attract heavy fines of $44,000 will only
make many people in Queensland less likely to take a
sick rabbit to the vet and some people may be more likely
to dispose of sick rabbits inhumanely or let them die when they
could be treated. This is a cruel state of affairs and
conflicts with the "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act."

Rabbits who are micro-chipped can't logically be
classified as feral or as pests.

Most people who haven't had a rabbit as a pet in their adult
life are the ones that believe rabbits are pests and
uninformed owners of pet rabbits are the ones that keep
them outside. Australian temperatures are high enough to cause
death and feral foxes and dogs attack many. The average
life span of a rabbit outdoors is 3 years, whereas rabbits
kept indoors have a 10-12 year span in comparison.

Dear Jayb,

Rabbits actually do co-eperate. They are very trainable.
It's the cockroaches
that you've got to watch out for.

Actually Paul both are remnants of the gerrymander, a tactic to try and limit the voter base of the Greens.

Back on topic, I have known enough people who have chosen to keep rabbits to have my doubts that the laws really work.

Some personal observations on the topic
- the potential fine is so large that I suspect it dissuades people from dobbing in those who break the law.
- desexed rabbits would present very little risk but if pet rabbits were much more common then it would become all that more difficult to tell when someone is doing the wrong thing. At the moment legal ownership is so rare that if the authorities were tying to deal with them its a manageable issue.
- as has been pointed out not having a legal avenue for ownership makes accessnto vets etc much more difficult. Probably making access to desexing, tagging etc much more difficult.

If there was to be a change in legislation around what can be kept as a pet I'd rather see some shifts that supported the keeping of native animals rather than an introduced pest. There are a bunch of issues around that to avoid wild capture, ensure species coped with domestic situations etc that would need thoughtful work but as a direction I'd rather see steps that increased the survival chances of native species than steps that reinforced the keeping of introduced animals with risky environmental impacts.

R0bert

Foxy,

My daughter and son-in-law have a much loved rabbit. He's an inside bunny except for chaperoned visits out to the back garden.

He's toilet trained as well - uses a litter tray....and doesn't munch on wiring or chords either...Good bunny!

There's a whopping sub-divison near us which has very strict cat rules "to protect wildlife"....it's such a shame that in order to accommodate the huge housing project, acre upon square acre of bushland was clear-felled with gay abandon.

It would have taken an awful lot of cats an awful long time to even approach the destruction to native habitat wrought by the people who created the housing estate.

Dear RObert,

You've raised some very valid points.

That's why I raised the issue of feral cats -
which apparently are increasing in numbers
and they do kill our native birds. We've got a
neighbour who lets their cat out at night and the
beast hunts the native birds with a vengenance.

I think you will find that in the past having rabbits as pets was banned in all Australian states.