RUN RABBIT RUN
Bunny lover hops across the border rather than part with beloved pets
ANNA Nikolic is so hopping mad for rabbits she kept a pair of bunnies in Queensland for six years – in secret – before moving with them across the border.
Eighteen months ago she packed her bags, quit her job and sold her home – all for the love of rabbits.
Ms Nikolic said she had grown up with the floppyeared animals when she lived in Victoria and just couldn’t kick the habit when she came to the Sunshine State.
Rabbits are banned in Queensland.
The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries says the furry creatures cost up to $1 billion annually in harm to the environment, causing severe land degradation and soil erosion and threatening the survival of many rare and endangered native species.
Ms Nikolic said pet dogs or cats were not an option as she didn’t want to feed them meat, and so rabbits were the clear winner.
“But my mother moved in with me and she would freak out (about the rabbits),” she said. “I said to her, the rabbits aren’t going … so I quit my job and sold up.
“It was truly just for the bunnies.”
Ms Nikolic now lives in Bilambil Heights, just across the border, and doesn’t have to worry about keeping her pets Chopper Read, 6, and Milly, 3, in hiding. And her obsession with rabbits can continue through her volunteer work at the Grafton-based Rabbit Rescue Sanctuary, where she now works as secretary.
But Ms Nikolic says the fact she had to move to NSW to keep her desexed rabbits as pets was disappointing, adding Queensland was the only place in the world where rabbits were banned as pets, even if they were desexed.
“Rabbits can be litter trained, treat trained,” she said. “They are creatures of routine. They engage, they’re interesting and they’re really clever.”
She said rabbits adopted from the sanctuary were vaccinated, microchipped and desexed.
So far this year, more than 400 rabbits have come into the sanctuary’s care.
In October, the sanctuary will host the Rabbit Rescue Sanctuary Spring Conference at Tweed Heads.