“Since Easter, a time when some people buy bunnies as gifts, Rabbit Rescue has assisted with 83 dumped domestic rabbits, said its executive director Haviva Porter.”

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After rescuing 12 bunnies (4 adults and 8 babies) from a cardboard box dumped at Brimley Woods Park, CBC’s Here and Now reached out to discuss the epidemic of dumped bunnies after Easter.

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On April 17^th, Rabbit Rescue received our second round of Las Vegas bunnies.  Working closely with rescue, Erin from “Rusty and Furriends” in Las Vegas, and Jodi and Rodney, our stellar drivers, we were able to successfully transport TWENTY rabbits.  We donated space & all travel costs for 5 rabbits that we delivered to rescues in the USA and 15 came to us.  Erin worked tirelessly to prepare the rabbits for this long transport. From fecal testing, health checks and certificates, to emergency packs, toys, treats and water bottles!  A number of truly wonderful and selfless people opened up their homes across the USA to welcome these 20 buns into their homes for overnights.  Its no small feat to set up housing and look after that many bunnies! This trip could not have been done without them. HUGE thanks to our amazing foster homes, who greeted these bunnies with open arms once in our care. A number of these bunnies had forever homes lined up for them, and they were adopted upon arrival.  We still have a number of these adorable bunnies up for adoption, including a few from “round one”.  Please visit the adoption page to find the right bunny for you!   Thank you to everyone who donated to the GoFund me travel fund that helped us raise full travel fees in less than 24 hours!

Most of the bunnies that we received from Vegas are from the “dumping grounds” and their situation was critical. However a few of the rabbits we got were living in shelters for up to SEVEN years!  We are so grateful for the shelter staff for taking such good care for them for so long. We were honoured to spring them from the shelter.

Talmadge is one of the bunnies that came to us from Vegas, although she almost didn’t make the trip!  The day before transport was leaving, she got badly injured by another bunny. She had emergency surgery but had to stay overnight at the vets. Transport was supposed to leave the next morning at 5am, but we were able to delay it, so that Talmadge could get vet clearance to come too! The vet approved her as safe to travel to Canada, and off she went with the other 19 bunnies. Our drivers took superb care of her and ensured her health and well being. She had been living at a shelter for the last FIVE years. After the first year, she lost her bunny mate and has been on her own for the last 4 years. So, it was so important that she did not get left behind, as her new life was waiting to begin.

“Without fail, every year, we get a lot of calls following Easter time when parents will find the Easter bunny they bought at a pet store, or a breeder, aren’t working out for them. We actually don’t do adoptions over Easter,” says Executive Director, Haviva Porter-Lush.

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A local rabbit rescue service anticipates a surge of unwanted bunnies now that Easter has come and gone.

The cute, cuddly creatures are often an impulse purchase as an Easter gift for children, but Haviva Porter-Lush at Rabbit Rescue Inc. wishes people would buy stuffed or chocolate bunnies instead.

“Without fail, every year in the three to four months after Easter we get calls from parents whose children have lost interest in the rabbit,” she said.

Read the full story here.

Rabbit rescue organizations are preparing for an influx of surrendered and stray bunnies as Easter weekend comes to an end.

The executive director of Rabbit Rescue Inc. in Cambridge, Ont., said oftentimes, parents who buy the animals for their kids don’t understand what they’re getting into.

“They’re really similar to cats and dogs, not like hamsters and gerbils,” Haviva Porter-Lush said. They can’t be kept in a small cage, for instance. Porter-Lush recommends keeping them in a pen or a dedicated room to themselves.

Full news story here.

Haviva Lush, executive director of Rabbit Rescue Incorporated, a southern Ontario-based charity, has seen what happens without any protections in place for rabbits. She’s rescued meat rabbits that were missing limbs, covered in abscesses “with pretty much every disease a rabbit could get.”

“Reality is,” says Lush, “rabbits suffer more than most animals, not only due to no codes of practice, but because they do not need to be rendered unconscious before they are strung up for slaughter.”

Read the full story here.

A Cambridge-based bunny rescue organization is seeking a forever home for a rabbit that was left to die tied up in garbage bag last week in Vaughn.

Haviva Lush, executive director of Rabbit Rescue Incorporated, learned about the fluffy white critter on March 8, one of three put out as garbage but later found after one of the bunnies chewed its way out of the bag.

Full story HERE.

A bunny left in the Orangeville OSPCA’s care has been euthanized even though the director of a rabbit rescue agency says a permanent home had been secured for her.

“It is so tragically unfair. This bunny was saved, only to be euthanized,” argued Haviva Porter-Lush, executive director of the Rabbit Rescue based in Cambridge. “They knew we had a confirmed spot, a permanent place where she would get the care she needed forever.”

Full story HERE.

A Cambridge woman who helped rescue more than 70 rabbits from “deplorable” living conditions last summer is still working to find homes for 11 bunnies.

Haviva Porter-Lush, who founded the Cambridge-based Rabbit Rescue foundation more than 15 years ago, successfully located foster and adoptive families for nearly all of the rabbits seized from a Peterborough facility, which raised them for meat in unacceptable conditions.

Full story HERE.

It was controlled chaos at Haviva Porter-Lush’s house on Sunday morning.

Porter-Lush heads Rabbit Rescue Inc., a charity she set up 15 years ago that’s dedicated to helping place rabbits that have been abandoned, neglected or mistreated. On Sunday, she was taking on the delivery of the first 40 of a group of 110 rabbits rescued from the Peterborough area.

Cardboard cat carriers filled all the available space in the dining room, a volunteer was busy photographing rabbits and checking them off a list, while two other people were unloading rabbits from a van and gradually filling the dozens of boxes with bunnies.

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Haviva Porter-Lush is on a mission to find as many local homes as possible for bunnies seized from a Peterborough facility where rabbits were being raised for meat in “deplorable” conditions.

Porter-Lush, who started the Cambridge-based Rabbit Rescue foundation 15 years ago, is working with animal advocates in Peterborough to locate permanent, or foster, homes for the 103 rabbits seized.

Full story HERE.

Many of these bunnies are still looking for their forever homes, check out our adoption section to save one!

While there are cruelty cases of hoarding and mass abuse, other rabbits are abandoned outdoors by families who are simply tired of having them as pets, leaving them susceptible to starvation, dehydration for becoming roadkill. “They don’t have survival skills,” says Porter-Lush.  Read the full story here.