The West Vancouver branch of the B.C. SPCA has an entire warren of rabbits up for adoption after someone thoughtlessly dumped in a North Vancouver park.
“We got a call from a woman who took about five hours to basically save these little guys,” said Krista Unser, interim branch manager. “They were going under the bushes and then running out basically in traffic.”
The woman called the City of North Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver’s animal control officers but both told her they couldn’t fetch the rabbits.
“So she came to us, desperately trying to find somebody to take the bunnies in,” Unser said. “They have little eye infections and they’re a little scraped up but they obviously were not out for too, too long. They’re a good weight.”
Volunteers have temporarily named the seven little rabbits Hugh, Bert, Shea, Carrots, Petunia, Mango and Pebbles.
“The little females are super social. They’re lovely. They’re highly adoptable,” Unser said.
Dumping unwanted pet rabbits in a park is sadly typical, Unser said. People assume they’ll thrive on their own, but that’s never the case.
“It’s a hard life for them, especially come wintertime. They’re not going to have the food to survive well. There are predators that are going to go after them,” she said. “If they do survive, it’s a struggle and it’s a horrible existence for them.”
And rabbits are, famously, prolific breeders with populations than can quickly grow out of control.
“They just multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply, and then you end up with 100 rabbits,” she said.
If you have your own rabbit you feel you can’t take care of, it’s better to call the shelter, Unser said.
“We’ll get them in as soon as we can,” she said.
