Stockholm’s Kungsholmen neighbourhood has solved the problem of finding fuel for a central heating plant by using thousands of rabbits as firewood.
The Local reports that each year, thousands of the animals are culled from surrounding parks, although the use of the cadavers as a bioenergy source has not met with a favourable reaction from animal rights groups. Locals have pointed to the Finnish practice of spraying the plants to make them less appealing as a more practical solution, although Helsinki recently revealed that many carnivores at the city zoo were fed rabbits hunted down by city authorities.
Last year a reported 6,000 Swedish rabbits were rounded up and slaughtered before being sent to the heating plant in Karslkoga. Authorities claim the move is designed to protect the city’s vast network of green spaces. Rather than dispose of the rabbits, the city froze the carcasses before sending them to the incinerators.
Anna Johannesson of the Society for the Protection of Wild Rabbits said: “Those who support the culling of rabbits surely think it’s good to use the bodies for a good cause. But it feels like they’re trying to turn the animals into an industry rather than look at the main problem”.
The Stockholm Traffic Office’s Tommy Tuvunger said part of the problem was due to delinquent pet owners who allow their rabbits to hop free in the city’s parklands. The Traffic Office is responsible for the control of Stockholm’s rodent and wild animal numbers and admits that many of those culled are tame animals.
Tuvunger went on to state that it only takes a few of the animals to engage in the practice that rabbits are most famous for creating a massive problem for authorities. To counter the population explosion officers use a special rifle, primarily at day break when furry faces first peek out from their burrows. The job is made easier in winter as falling leaves make targets more visible. “People who think that the bunnies are cute and cuddly suddenly don’t think they’re as fun anymore and put the animals outside. They think: ‘there they can play with the other rabbits’,” said Tuvunger.
Nice try Eric, but the bunnies are already in existence. Bear in mind that I’m not part of the bunneyfuel lobby. I’m not going to advocate increasing the supply of bunnies so I can harvest more to feed into my furnace.
So, thanks for the (brief) lesson, but you’ll have to try harder.
Have you compared the emissions of a wolf/fox/coyote compared to that saved by shortening X bunnies lives? I thought not. Mind you, in fairness, I haven’t calculated the carbon that the bunnies have been prevented from releasing by being shot before their time and offset it against that released by burning rather than burying them.
Let’s just stick to the obvious point that the increase in atmospheric carbon from burning these bunnies is not worth worrying about.
The best thing you can do from a global warming perspective is to EAT YOUR DOG:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html?full=true
Rabbits do not fix carbon, they are net carbon emitters, just as all animals are. (And then of course if we foolishly burn them, rabbits emit even -more- carbon. Plants fix carbon. You need to study basic biology and ecology.
And your centering on wolves is a straw man. I was just using them as an example of successful reintroduction. (And wolves are much more afraid of, and harmless to, humans, than you imagine.)
The point is that the best way to handle the rabbit problem is reintroduce whatever predators used to be in that ecosystem. Such predators will rapidly resolve any rabbit overpopulation problem.
This has been done very effectively in U.S. cities by allowing coyotes to reintroduce themselves in urban areas, which has greatly improved urban habitats, and in particular small bird survival (the latter because the coyotes control middle predators like raccoons and skunks which decimate birds).
>explain to me how burned rabbits are carbon neutral..?
How is any bio-fuel carbon neutral? Bunnies absorb carbon, are killed, dried, burnt and release carbon. The real question is surely how efficient is the process in terms of watts per kg of carbon released, remembering that a certain amount of carbon will be released anyway using other disposal methods.
How about laying out your plans for the introduction of the wolf to major urban centres?
Interesting Peter,
Can you use your obviously brilliant mind to explain to me how burned rabbits are carbon neutral..?
Lay it out for us genius…
BRING THEM TO ICELAND. 1500 PEOPLE NEED TO BE FEED IN REYKJAVÍK EVERYDAY BY THE CHARITY. I KNOW HOW TO COOK THEM…
Eric Brooks said:
“Those rabbits should be culled through reintroduction of natural predators like foxes and wolves”
I don’t know if people would want wolves running around in public parks, and chewing bunny´s,
what would the kids say ;)
“Free cremation service for the ecologically minded. Donate your loved ones body and heat your home at the same time”
To minimise carbon emissions, bodies should be buried (trapping carbon) rather than cremated (releasing carbon). Same for bunnies.
Burning human bodies?
“Free cremation service for the ecologically minded. Donate your loved ones body and heat your home at the same time”
Killing bunnies is bad karma. Don’t judge Eric least you be judged and found wanting. God will punish the wicked. You will see.
“Those rabbits should be culled through reintroduction of natural predators like foxes and wolves”
Bear in mind that most of those rabbits are abandoned pets (not wild animals), with bodies and temperament bred for humans to find cute. There is nothing natural about using foxes and wolves to kill such pets.
Eric Brooks said:
“Those rabbits should be culled through reintroduction of natural predators like foxes and wolves, not by burning them as fuel and unnecessarily releasing yet more carbon into the atmosphere.”
Bunny fuel is obviously carbon neutral, your credibility is in question if you come out with such idiotic comments.
Foxes are a serious pest in themselves and no answer.
>Those rabbits should be culled through reintroduction of natural predators like foxes and wolves
Really? Don’t foxes and, I suspect, wolves (if anyone was silly enough to introduce them!) in urban environments switch to scavanging?
The rabbits are not being culled by fire. So the culling and the disposal are not directly linked; if the release of carbon is the primary issue then they can just be landfilled.
Your reference to sustainability is a nonsense as we’re talking about culling an overpopulation here, not hunting for profit.
Those rabbits should be culled through reintroduction of natural predators like foxes and wolves, not by burning them as fuel and unnecessarily releasing yet more carbon into the atmosphere.
Such insanity heads us squarely back to the nineteenth century, during which massive numbers of whales, fish and other wildlife were unsustainably slaughtered for fuel oil.
We had animal based fuels in that day, and it was one of the most destructive mistakes in human ecological history.
Eric Brooks
San Francisco Green Party
Sustainability Working Group
This is rather disturbing. What’s next? burning human bodies?? People have to draw a line somewhere.
“officers use a special rifle, primarily at day break when furry faces first peek out from their burrows”
Aw, poor bunnies :-(