With classes moving online and students moving out of residence early, the bunnies are coming back to campus
At the dawn of the 2010s, it was not an unfamiliar sight to see herds of rabbits roaming around the UVic campus.
In fact, it was quite common, so common that the university became frustrated with the damage they caused — and with the people abandoning their pets on campus. UVic shipped off some of the rabbits to a “permit-holding sanctuary” — whatever that means, and quite frankly, it doesn’t sound exactly like a spring break retreat — in Texas. Others were transported to a different “sanctuary” in Coombs.
As we begin the 2020s, however, the Martlet has received various tips that bunnies have been returning to campus after a near-decade absence. Buoyed by UVic’s switch to online-only classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a mass exodus of students from residence, the bunnies are striking back.
“It was the strangest thing,” said John R. Abitt, a first-year student who was in the midst of clearing out his residence when he saw a colony of bunnies appear out of Mystic Vale.
“One by one, the bunnies came, and I swear… My friends think I’m lying, but they started climbing up the walls of my res building,” he said. “I saw it with my own two eyes!”
The incident corroborates a second report that bunnies were appearing in the vacant Student Union Building.
Days after the UVSS closed the SUB last week as a precaution in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, a mysterious sign was posted from inside Michele Pujol room with the words “Rabbitz rulz” written in shoddy writing.
Following numerous similar reports of bunnies, and instances of rabbits forcing their way into buildings, the Martlet is re-opening our “Bunny Bureau” and hiring reporters to correspondent positions to investigate the return of the bunnies.
Established in 2010 as a way to keep the campus community informed about the furry friends roaming UVic, the Bunny Bureau was disbanded following news of UVic’s plans to transport the bunnies to Texas.
Starting this issue, we want to hear your bunny stories. Found a rabbit in the meadow? Rabbit on your roof? Or rabbit in your room? Email bunnybureau@martlet.ca for your story to be heard.
UPDATE: Shortly after the Bunny Bureau was reopened, Brian Unger Nadell Nadin Yaleman, the Martlet’s new bunny correspondent, reported a rabbit takeover of the now abandoned Michael Williams Building.
“I pried the door open, and discovered a group of bunnies huddled around computers,” said Yaleman. “Of significant interest, one bunny seemed to have taken up residence in Jamie Cassels’s office. On the doorframe, Cassels’s name was scratched out and #BunniezRule was written along with ‘Your new UVic President 2020.’”
