Thelma

In December 2005 animal control in New Westminster contacted us about a few stray bunnies hopping around.

We went out to the location numerous times, canvassed the neighborhood, left our cards, have been back several times and haven't seen any rabbits until one weekend...

We found a couple of local kids that have seen the buns many times told us that have caught and let them go many times... They offered to help us out to catch some and they showed us the areas where they are most often seen. They then proceeded to take us to a house that is abandoned and was a local grow op that was shut down. The yard has tons of sheds and lots of brush for the rabbits to hide in.

Now here's where it gets bad.......They took us into the garage to show us a rope hanging from the ceiling...it had a noose on the end of it and they said that is where they cut down a rabbit that was hung (it was a tiny little noose), then showed us a fridge where people have put rabbits into, to suffocate them. They also said a kid comes around with a pellet gun to shoot at them and there are lots of dead ones all over the place. They also told us of a time someone threw one onto the roof of the garage and left it there so they went back and took it down a few hours later. It was absolutely sickening and frustrating as we felt we were walking through a death camp, a house of horrors, all the while not being able to help any of the buns.

We reported it to animal control and the police who promised to go out there.

A few days afterwards a few of us went back to see if we could finally catch any of the bunnies. We were glad to see that the police had locked off the property and especially the garage but we were still able to take a few pictures:

We ended up bumping into one of the neighbors who was great help. She told us where to locate the rabbits. She had been feeding them every day and keeping an eye on them. On the side of her house we managed to see two bunnies - Thelma the gray bunny and her brown friend.

In a neighbors yard we saw a family of little dwarf bunnies.

We bumped into the teenagers again and made them an offer they couldn't refuse - For every bunny they catch unharmed, we would give them $10. They quickly started trying to catch Thelma and together we managed to catch her. As soon as we caught her, she calmed right down. She was a bit dirty but otherwise in good condition

By the time we had caught Thelma all the other bunnies went into hiding and it got dark so we called it quits for the day.

We went back there again but we never saw another bunny. Last time we heard, the police had caught a suspect.

Thelma unfortunately passed away a few month after we caught her, she came down with kidney failure. But at least we were able to spoil her rotten during those few months and she was in a safe and loving foster home instead of possibly getting tortured and suffering a horrible, painful death. Thelma was such a sweet, loving bunny, it's sad she only got to enjoy the good life for a few months.