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It's that time of year when countless rabbits, ducklings and chicks will be given to children only to be surrendered to humane societies a month or so later. If you hear friends or co-workers talking about getting an animal for their children this Easter please take the time to ask them if they have looked into what keeping the animals involves and are ready for the commitment. Rabbits can live more than 10 years. Together we can make a difference! THANKS!!!!!
Attila - my first rabbit, who I adopted a month after Easter after he was left at the wildlife rescue where I volunteer
http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/CrowGirl1970/PICT1456.jpg (broken link)
Dervish, an Easter surrender I adopted from the SPCA
http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/CrowGirl1970/Dervish2.jpg (broken link)
Many years ago people would actually dye chicks, ducks, and rabbits pastel colors and sell them for Easter. They would die soon thereafter because of the dye. At least we are not that bad anymore, but many people do buy these animals for their children for Easter because they are tiny and cute. Well...hello...they grow up, and they need pens or large cages to safely hold them. They need to be fed and need attention and to be cleaned up after. If YOU as the parent/adult are not willing to care for these animals once they are no longer cute, or poop on your child for the first time, or bite, then don't get one.
Pretty bunnies. I had a holland lop that lived 10 yrs.
I'm not ready for hen chicks this Spring yet but this is a good reminder to check the shelters if I am ready to start a flock by mid-summer. That might be about when these Easter babies start showing up at the shelters.
One of the great things about it is the kids have an animal to focus on, Darrel Lea (chocolate company) have cleverly got in on chocolate sales so the kids don't miss out chocolate and a portion of sales goes toward Bilby conservation AND I've found my neices and nephew are REALLY excited about the prospect of the Easter Bilby coming AND they know they're helping them to survive extinction.
IF not a suitable endangeared species that you can make the poster child for Easter perhaps you could start working a similar campaign to still bring the kids the fun of Easter but also with an awareness of the impact of their actions? Obviously it would need to be geared toward kids and the purpose is not to beat them over the head.
Anyway I thank you for drawing this to our attention and hope there might be something useful for others in the information I've provided.
It's terrible that parents do this. My dd had a rabbit for several years who roamed freely in her bunny-proofed bedroom. He was well cared for and loved, and I even had him neutered.
I actually stopped going to my church a few years ago, because the new pastor got up and told people how in her childhood they did a "wonderful" thing---they would release pet store bunnies and chicks into the wild each Easter, "saving" them from a certain fate at shelters. Hello, instead they let them starve/be eaten by wild animals. People can be so ignorant.
Ho, ho. So now it comes out. Crow Girl has bunnies. She works with raptors and owls and has bunnies. Hmmm.... let me think. Yup. I hate her.
Surely I jest.
Every flippin' year the local Tractor Supply store has two big metal water troughs set up in the store. One for chicks and ducklings, one for bunnies. I try to ensure I don't have to go in there from when they've set them up until they're gone. The idiocy of it all really eats at me. In town there's a serious cat problem. Out on the ranchlands unless properly housed (yeah, right)... well, you might as well just shout "Yo, Wily E! Snack time."
To me it always raises that vicious circle of argument: do I go buy (for example) all the ducklings to save them (feed and house them until they could be safely released on our pond to live as Mother Nature intended), or does this just prove to HQ somewhere that, "See? People buy them." and provide further financial incentive for them to continue to sell them every year? It's an argument I've had many, many times with myself and one that, to me anyway, just goes round and round and round....
here here! Plus two for you. And Ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto.
Years ago I lived by a pond and saw too many geese, chicks and ducks dumped just a month after Easter. One year just a few days after Easter someone dropped at least a dozen chicks off. I'm the one that found them and rounded them up. I then called the police officer - i was in a very small town at the time- whom called the farmer that would take any farm animals that showed up.
The local Atwoods, TSC, and feed stores sell these bunnies, chicks, and goslings.
sheesh .... even at the age i am now, people's ignorance, stupidity and cruelty continue to amaze and disgust me......i remember probably 35 years or more ago, went into a pet store a little before easter and being so horrified at the ALL of the bunnies crammed into a few tiny cages that i called the police and humane society...... and btw crowgirl .... LOVE attilla's name ... what a great name for a rabbit....
To anyone looking at getting a rabbit, please read House Rabbit Society Rabbit Care Guide (the house rabbit society). Rabbits are pretty awesome pets (I've had 3 of them over the years), but they are not simply caged animals like a mouse or a hamster. They need exercise, things to do, places to dig, etc.
I volunteered at a rabbit rescue all growing up, and we saw horrible things. Rabbits dyed pink, bunnies left in paper bags for us to find the next morning, bunnies pregnant with up to 8 babies at a time, etc. If you choose to get a rabbit, realize that it can live 8-10 years, multiply faster than you can blink, and chew through everything in your house. It is a big commitment.
(But, they're still awesome pets!)
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Gee this disappoints me. 
Yup. I hate her. 
