The University of Victoria has looked into dozens of options for dealing with its exploding rabbit population on campus, from adopting them out as pets to catch-and-release programs.

But the university has so far failed to find a way to cope with the up to 2,000 bunnies hopping around the B.C. campus and is now looking at a cull.

University spokesman Tom Smith told CTV's Canada AM Thursday that the school has tried to find a non-lethal way to control the rabbit population but has had no success.

"At this point it looks like we're going to have to take more drastic measures to reduce the population a little bit," he said.

Smith said a pilot project to catch the rabbits, spay or neuter them and then release them into wildlife sanctuaries failed because no one was willing to accept the UVic bunnies. And the trial program was only able to catch about 50 rabbits, a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated population of 1,500 to 2,000.

Smith said a university rabbit management plan will be in place by June, including culling some of the rabbits.

"We need to reduce the population at some point to get to a sustainable number of rabbits," he said.

The rabbits, descendants of pet bunnies abandoned by their owners on the scenic campus, are chewing and digging their way through the grounds, ruining sports fields with holes and rendering lawns impassable with their droppings.

"People that didn't want to keep their pet rabbits just started releasing them around the university campus," Smith said. "And rabbits do what rabbits do, so they've expanded their population enormously."

But the issue has become an emotional hot button, with supporters of the rabbits forming groups like the Rabbit Advocacy Group of B.C. and Save the UVic Bunnies and accusing the university of secretly killing rabbits at night, or leaving out "poison boxes" on the grounds.

Save the UVic Bunnies has set up an online petition and blog demanding that only non-lethal methods be used to control the rabbit population, saying: "The bunnies are an integral part of the university and must be respected."

Smith says accusations of secret culls or poison boxes are simply untrue. "We've tried to relocate some rabbits … but we haven't done anything like that

He says the university is also looking into an offer from a Victoria veterinarian to institute a "vasectomy program" for the university's male rabbits.