This is an excerpt from the radio show Our Metropolis, a half-hour issues and affairs program that airs Tuesdays at 6 p.m. on KUNV 91.5-FM and is hosted by Las Vegas Life editor John Katsilometes. Tune in next week to hear the rest of this interview with Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Executive Director Doug Duke.
Let’s talk about rabbits and bunnies, as they are seasonal pets to give as gifts with Easter approaching. The Nevada SPCA has a new rabbit and guinea pig rescue room. Can you tell us about the history of that room and its purpose?
I’m so glad we are talking about rabbits, and it does fit in with this room. People think of the overpopulation crisis as just being with cats and dogs. The truth is, with rabbits, we’re in an incredibly severe crisis as well. Life and death still plays out with rabbits every day as it does with dogs and cats. What’s happened is, people get them as gimmicky Easter gifts or seasonal gifts and think, this will be a cute animal for the kids to play with in a classroom or for the summer, using the animal as an ornament or decoration. … We’re not looking at these homes as lifetime homes, which we must look at to solve this crisis, and also for the animals. These animals are capable of suffering. They are capable of love. Rabbits can live up to 10 years of age or more. And we can have no more breeding, so the Nevada SPCA is going to spay and neuter every rabbit before they go home, just like we do with cats and dogs. And another problem is, when people get tired of the rabbits they treat them like a pigeon and stick them out on the golf courses. And these animals cannot defend themselves, they cannot fend for themselves, they can’t find their own food. They have been domesticated. Most of them become food for animals of prey.
Coyotes prey on these rabbits, right?
Oh yeah. A lot of the communities, especially at the edges of the Valley, complain about all these coyotes coming onto the golf courses. They threaten their cats, they threaten their dogs, and they are wondering why. It’s because of this rabbit population. We’re baiting them, encouraging them to come down basically by providing them a food source. And that affects the dogs and cats, and affects the coyotes, because they are getting hit by cars. It’s a wide-scale problem.
You use the term “companion animal” in place of “pet.” What is the distinction there?
I just like it better. We try to attract people who want to have the animal as a lifetime companion. Too often when people think of “pets,” they think of disposable animals, that kind of come and go. We go to kids in schools every single week, and our message is very simple but very powerful: Companion animals should be members of the family. We won’t solve the overpopulation crisis unless people start thinking differently about animals as members of the family rather than possessions.