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 Robben rabbits to become bunny chow
    November 13 2009 at 11:46AM Get IOL on your
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Robben Island's culled rabbits are going to be turned into meals for poor people, island acting chief executive Jatti Bredekamp said on Friday.

He also said initial estimates of rabbit numbers -- put at as much as 25 000 -- appeared to have been overstated.

Just over 2 000 rabbits have been shot by marksmen since culling started a month ago, and up to now the carcasses have been buried on the island.

However, Bredekamp said, from Monday all culled rabbits certified safe for human consumption would be "dressed and packaged for donation to charity".

Just over 2 000 rabbits have been shot by marksmen
Rabbits, commonly eaten in many European countries, yield an all-white meat, said to be higher in protein and lower in cholesterol and sodium than any other meat.
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Bredekamp said a "task team" consisting of museum authorities, its animal control expert and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) met this week to discuss progress in the culling.

It had been decided that another animal population census would be conducted and presented at the next task team meeting scheduled for the end of November.

"The initial plan made provision for worst case scenarios regarding animal numbers which it would appear were overstated," Bredekamp said.

The vegetation of the 475-hectare island has been ravaged by 25 000-plus rabbits and around 500 deer, both of them alien species.

Bredekamp said 175 fallow deer had been shot so far, and 21 feral cats, of which about five remained.

The SPCA had offered to trap and find homes for 100 of the flock of 500 free-ranging guinea fowl.

Though the remaining cats had been granted a temporary reprieve, no cats had yet been caught in traps set by an animal welfare organisation.

The marksmen would therefore resume shooting them.

Island environmental officials said in September the rabbits and deer had stripped virtually all the island's edible vegetation, and that the rabbits had actually started eating stinging nettle.

They said the cats were on the hit list because they ate the chicks of penguins, the swift tern and Hartlaub's gull, of the threatened oystercatcher, and of the highly endangered bank cormorant.

The culled deer are being shipped off the island by an organisation that makes use of the meat. - Sapa
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muti
Showing page 1 of 1 comment pages, 6 total comments
12 Weeks ago Don wrote :
So Julius....what have you got to say about this.....if I was you I would DEMAND my share of rabbit meat!!!...or else...BOYCOT them!!!
12 Weeks ago Anonymous wrote :
Those animals also have a right to be here - as we were created by God, so were they!
12 Weeks ago Mike Thurgood wrote :
There can't have been any sensible reason for not considering using the rabbit meat for food right at the outset.

We haven't yet heard what will be done with the Robben Island deer. Someone running a game park along towards Mossel Bay had, as I understood, offered to take them for his game park at his expense, but whether there's just been no one with the capability to make any decision - which is not unexpected in South Africa - I don't know.
12 Weeks ago BB wrote :
At last a sensible solution!!
12 Weeks ago Sue wrote :
At long last sanity seems to have prevailed. Let's just hope that there won't be any corruption involved in this episode of the saga.
12 Weeks ago Craig wrote :
I'm pleased to hear that valuable animal protein will now be used and not just discarded.