infestation

Waaaaay back in the days of the dinosaurs, I studied at the University of Victoria - UVic, as it's known. A new-ish school (my first semester there, it celebrated its 25th anniversary) with modern-ish buildings and lots of green space built within and outside of a ring road and tucked up near some nice and really nice neighbourhoods a distance from downtown.

I have only lukewarm memories of my degree program, but I have strong positive feelings for the university overall. This past weekend, on a quick overnight visit to Victoria to spend time with my best friend from UVic days, we drove up to campus and strolled a little.

I would love to show you many of the buildings I remember: the residences, the gym, the library, the student cafeteria, the SUB. I wish we'd taken lots of photos of the handsome gardens. I'm sorry we didn't run into any familiar faces after all these years, so I have no stories of that either. No, none of those. Instead - good as it was to see the campus and feel the energy of the student orientation weekend - we were captivated by the campus bunnies.








Yes, yes, yes. Conrad and I have our little bunny in-jokes that spill through our lives and tend to nauseate everyone, so we did think it cute in a way. But I do read Canadian newspapers online, and I have been aware of this problem at UVic. The campus rabbit population has exploded to the point where there are colonies (buries? husks? warrens?) of rabbits all over. Big groups of them, not at all afraid of people, blithely munching away on the lawns and leaving droppings everywhere.

Cute, yes, but truthfully an infestation.

We left campus shaking our heads, laughing, but you can be sure I'll be following this story in years to come. I consider it a cute thrill to see an occasional bunny on my own campus, but this? Frankly, a little ridiculous. And maybe it's just me, but gosh, could those res students have a treat if the critters were caught and cooked.