The Sad Reality of the Easter Bunny

By Maxine K.

For rabbit lovers, Spring is the most wonderful time of year. If you’re a bunny, however, it’s the saddest. Children beg their parents to get them a real bunny for Easter, but the novelty quickly wears off when that adorable baby bunny blossoms into a hormonal teenager. By early summer, many families decide to part ways with the rabbit rather than committing to care for them. If the rabbit is “lucky,” it is taken to the local humane society or rabbit rescue, leading to the typical summer deluge of abandoned rabbits. The plight of the modern “Easter bunny” is sobering.

According to the Huffington Post, 80 percent of bunnies that are up for adoption at shelters were once purchased as Easter gifts. “When someone gives up a gifted pet, any pet, they are contributing to animal shelter overcrowding and many times, when shelters cannot adopt out all those animals, like rabbits, into loving homes or a rescue facility, they are euthanized.”

59% of the rabbits in rescues were given up after less than one year of ownership.  34% of those rabbits entered rescue because a child lost interest in their pet and parents were unprepared or unwilling to assume the role of primary caregiver for the rabbit’s needs.

Domestic rabbits are gentle, intelligent, and highly inquisitive animals. They can be wonderful companions for the right family, but rabbit ownership is not simple, nor is it all glamor. Zooh Corner Rabbit Rescue, a non-profit no-kill rabbit welfare organization based in San Gabriel, California, says it best: “If you don’t want to commit to 8-12 years of husbandry, vet visits, exercise time and love – even when you have a date or feel sick – a stuffed or chocolate bunny is PERFECT for your [child’s] Easter Basket.”

A little education goes a long way in saving these bunnies and reducing the influx of abandoned rabbits in already overcrowded rescues and shelters. One of our missions as a rabbit rescue is to spread word about rabbits to educate the public about these wonderful but susceptible companions.

REFERENCES:

http://www.mybunny.org/rabbits-are-not-easter-bunnies/
https://rabbit.org/easter/kids.html
https://best4bunny.com/
http://www.notjust4easter.org/
#StuffedBunnyMovement