Uneasy Easter for Cadre of Rabbit Lovers

Bunnies grow up to be rabbits.

There. It seems obvious, but that is what Rabbit Rescue volunteers say people don’t realize when they buy bunnies at Easter.

All year, the rescuers retrieve rabbits that have been dumped at shelters and catch them in parks after they have been abandoned. They put them up in houses throughout Orange County or a small shelter in Paramount until they can find permanent homes for them.

But now comes the rush season: Easter. “Most bunnies purchased at Easter don’t live a year,” said the group’s founder, Natalie Mathis.

At a rabbit foster home in Mission Viejo, about nine full-grown rabbits were grouped in separate rooms--rabbits are territorial--as Rabbit Rescue volunteers contemplated the busy days ahead.

The home belongs to Diana, who asked that her last name not be used for fear that her neighbors will object to the warren inside her home. The house itself is a shrine to bunnyhood.

Painted bunnies and stuffed bunnies adorn every nook. Boxes with bunny decorations are scattered throughout the residence, and a glass-top table in the den is supported by three white rabbit statues.

In places of honor sit two small boxes. They contain the cremated remains of Scarlett and Pudgy, two of Diana’s bunnies that have moved on to greener fields.

“I know I’m over the edge,” Diana said. “But they’re just so loving and sweet.”

She wasn’t always that way.

“What happens is that you somehow get your first one and then you get attached,” said Suzanne Dessert of Costa Mesa, also a member of the rescue group.

“I feel more sorry for the [abandoned] bunnies living in the park than I do the person,” Mathis said. “I feel like the person can get out and go to work.”

Mathis and her husband, Sam, spend about $15,000 a year of their own money to run the Paramount shelter, housed in a two-bedroom air-conditioned home with 22 rabbits in individual stalls.

“Most of my friends and family don’t understand--they think I’m absolutely crazy,” she said. “But if I won the lottery, I’d build a bunny shelter, a really good one where I could pay people well to take care of the bunnies.”

The rescuers point out that when parents buy a tiny bunny for Easter, they seldom bother to find out that it can grow to a furry armful and live for seven to 15 years--long after the children have gone off to college.

Typically, the group receives about 20 calls a week, some from shelters and others from individuals, alerting them that a rabbit needs urgent help. At Easter the number of calls doubles.

“Even a lot of the no-kill shelters will get to the point where they’re going to kill them if we don’t come take them; they run out of room,” Mathis said. “I try to take as many as I can.”

A rabbit’s life, the women point out, contains a multitude of hazards.

If left outside in unrelenting sun, they die of heatstroke. If left outside in the cold, they catch pneumonia. The exuberant hug of a toddler can easily break a rabbit’s back.

If brought indoors, as is proper, Dessert said, rabbits need lots of attention, room to roam and places to hide. They will likely gnaw the legs of tables and chew the carpet. They also may try to chew on electrical cords, however, and risk electrocution if owners are not careful.

They need 40 hours of running and hopping time outside each week, but on the other hand, need to be gently introduced to the outdoors if they have always been kept inside.

The barking of an angry dog, even if it is restrained, can give a rabbit a heart attack, the bunny lovers said.

The greatest hazard, however, may be for owners, not the rabbits, if the creatures are not spayed or neutered.

With a stamina known to no other species, a rabbit doe is ready to get pregnant the day after giving birth and can multiply every 21 days.

Nevertheless, rabbits really are rather delicate, even though they have been closely associated with abundant life since ancient times, which is how they came to be connected with springtime and Easter.

“Contrary to what so many people think, they’re really not for very young children, because if they drop them, the bones tend to break,” Dessert said.

Not just anyone can have a Rabbit Rescue bunny. Mathis interviews prospective families on the phone, insists on meeting everyone who will live in the house with the bunny and inspects the home upon delivery.

Adoptive families have to promise they will return the rabbit to Mathis rather than take it to a shelter if they are unable to take care of the animal.

“It’s really an instinct,” she said. “I don’t have to actually like the person, but I do have to feel that they’ll be a good bunny home.”

Mathis does not halt adoptions for Easter, but she is extra careful.

She asks families what they are looking for in a bunny. Where will they keep it? And when delivering the bunny to its new home, she stays for up to two hours to make sure the bunny seems content.

One family recently was refused a bunny after confessing that they had once given away a rabbit when they moved to a new home.

The three rescuers shake their heads over a family seeking a new bunny after having given one away.

“That’s like giving away a child because you want to move from a two-bedroom apartment into a one-bedroom!” Diana said. “We bought this house with an eye to how good it would be for the bunnies.”