Eight rabbits abandoned in woods
Harvard, MA (US)Incident Date: Friday, May 23, 2008
County: Worcester
Disposition: Open
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Animal cruelty investigators want to find three cold-hearted animal abusers who tossed two cardboard boxes of eight injured rabbits into the woods, leaving the bunnies for dead.
Two of the rabbits had to be euthanized because their hind legs were splayed out. Another had bite marks and cuts on its body from fighting with other rabbits and still another is blind in one eye.
The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is trying to find the loathsome owners.
"I have concerns about the way they were caring for their rabbits," said MSPCA law enforcement officer Lesley Hampson.
She suspects the rabbits, aged 1 to 3, were kept in tiny cages and often fought with each other.
"I'd like them to come forward so we can discuss how they are housing their other rabbits and why they did this," she said.
The rabbits were dumped between noon and 2 p.m. on May 23 in Littleton in a wooded area off an office parking lot near Route 2 and Route 495. A passerby who saw the incident told the MSPCA they saw a green car with two men and a woman dump the rabbits and speed off.
Two bunnies were euthanized because they could not fold their hind legs underneath their body - the result of being housed in a cramped cage, Hampson said.
The two injured rabbits are being cared for by a foster family while they heal. One had a sunken eye and is blind. Another had bunny bite marks and cuts on its body.
The remaining four rabbits - Jennie, Jesse, Jasper and Victoria - will be put up for adoption by the Lowell Humane Society once they are spayed and neutered.
Hampson said the rabbits are friendly now, but were initially skittish.
"They were scared as to what they had gone through," she said. "It was a little traumatic for them."
Hampson said the society is looking for donations to cover the roughly $400 needed to spay and neuter the four rabbits, as well as the extra cost to care for the rabbits.
The rabbit owners could be charged with felony animal cruelty for abandoning the helpless bunnies.
Anyone with information on the rabbit owners can call the MSPCA at 1-800-628-5808 or the Lowell Humane Society at 978-452-7781.
For information on donations and adopting the rabbits visit www.lowellhumanesociety.org. If you have information on this case, please contact:
MSPCA
1-800-628-5808
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