When Langley City municipal workers excavated an asphalt sidewalk to find what had caused a second sinkhole in as many weeks, they discovered a pet rabbit, looking back at them from a tunnel.
Kyle Simpson, Langley City’s manager of engineering operations, parks and recreation, said it started out in early June as a report about a sinkhole under a walkway in a south City neighbourhood.
A municipal crew filled it in and thought they had fixed it, then came word, about a week later, that the sinkhole had recurred.
“The crews were kind of scratching their head, because there no utilities in the area [that might be a cause],” Simpson told the Langley Advance Times.
When the crew dug out the sidewalk, they saw an industrious rabbit had burrowed a tunnel from an outdoor cage in their yard – under the walkway and into the neighbouring yard under the asphalt sidewall, in the direction of a nearby vegetable patch.
It did not seem especially timid, calmly eyeing the workers while one took the bunny’s picture.
The crew filled in the hole, and left a “while-you-were-out” card at the house, to advise the owner about the situation.
Asked if a ticket would be issued, Simpson said no.
“Obviously, it wasn’t intentional because it was the rabbit, and we can’t fine him [the rabbit] – or her, ” Simpson laughed.
While rabbits “have been known to burrow,” Simpson has never heard of one tunneling under a sidewalk.
“It’s a first for me,” Simpson remarked.
“Hopefully, it won’t happen again.”
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