About a month ago, the Stratford Fire Department showed up at Hop Along Hollow's doorstep, in the middle of the night, to deliver to us a small white bunny they had picked up from the parking lot of a local restaurant. The bunny had been dumped there by someone and some of the local kids were throwing rocks at the poor thing. Imagine walking through NYC and throwing rocks at the homeless people? Obviously, that's not OK...but apparently it's perfectly acceptable to do it to an animal.
We took the little guy in, got him cleaned up and he's now waiting for adoption.
But the story doesn't end there. Apparently, there were "a couple" of rabbits who were dumped in that parking lot....and now there are several babies who have just started venturing out of their nest. I'd say they are maybe 8-12 weeks old.
We haven't been able to catch them all but we have picked up two. They are two of the saddest cases I've seen in my almost 6 years at Hop Along Hollow. Both had severe skin irritation/injuries....we aren't sure if they fought each other or if they were attacked by another animal...but regardless, the skin got really infected and of course, attracted flies. They both had really serious cases of fly strike which, if you don't know, is when flies lay eggs in a living animal so that the larvae (aka maggots) have a nice warm, moist place to live and they can feed right off the host animal.
It's horribly disgusting....these two little things were basically being eaten alive.
What's more disgusting, is that I got to watch Linda sit there and pull maggots off of one of them (the other is now in foster care). I can assure you, it's not "cool" or "interesting" or one of those things people refer to as "car wrecks" ....you know "it's so gross but I can't look away!" This was NOT one of those things.
He has been named Carrots and he's well on his way to recovery now! After 2 long weeks, he's been de-bugged, de-matted, well tended to. Next, he will be neutered and then put up for adoption.
I didn't WANT to share this story because it is disgusting and I'm sure that you all some pretty gory visuals in your minds. But I started this blog because I wanted people to know why I do what I do....why I react the way I do when they talk about animals as if they're disposable; as if they don't matter. A life is a life and ALL lives should be treated with respect.
The moral of today's story is that domestic animals should NEVER be released into the wild to fend for themselves. Rabbits have been domesticated for hundreds of years. Most of the wild rabbit reflexes and instincts are gone. If a rabbit lives with a dog or cat in their home, and is then dumped outside and comes across a feral one, do you think they are going to know they should run away when they've never had to before? If you bring your animal food twice a day, and provide a bowl of water for it and then release it into the wild, do you think it's going to know how to obtain these provisions? Most people can't even survive a day or two without their cell phone....nevermind if we took away your food source. As I've said before, just be responsible.
Here's poor Carrots when he first came in:
And here he is now, looking MUCH better!
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