Family rabbits found dead on Easter weekend

“I got to the first cage and saw the house thrown into another corner and there was the first two dead rabbits that I saw laying there and my son was right beside me, which was the worst part because he saw them at the exact same time as me,” Richardson said on Monday.

She explained that her son understands how and why the rabbits are killed for food for the family, but this was something completely different.

“This was a malicious act, so he was like ‘mommy are they dead?’”

She said she told her son they were dead, but didn’t know how until she saw the other two rabbits dead.

“To come out to that … it was pretty traumatizing,” Richardson said. She believes they were strangled.

As it was Easter weekend, she said it feels like it was a cruel joke.

“I know that’s horrible to think but people do, do stuff like that, so I’m thinking that’s what it was. Maybe people walking down the alley or someone that had seen them before and like [thought] ‘oh they have the Easter bunny. Let’s ruin Easter for everyone. Oh, I killed the Easter bunny.’ That’s what I’m thinking happened.”

Although there isn’t 100 per cent proof, she said there was no evidence of any other cause, stating it there was no other animal hair in the pen, no blood, except from the rabbits’ nose. She said this is a sign of strangulation.

This is the first incident they’ve experienced where someone had entered their yard to hurt animals, she said. However, a couple weeks ago an owl had attacked two of the rabbits. She said she handled that well because she could tell it was caused by another animal, unlike the incident on Saturday.

Her son took it especially hard when he saw his first rabbit, Rexi, dead.

“My kid kind of sat there and he said he was sad because he didn’t get to say goodbye Rexi, so he was sitting in the barn holding him crying into his fur.”

She said told him cats must have got into the pen “because I don’t want to tell him people are capable of that, but there is no evidence of any other animal being in there or getting in that pen.”

As for where the pen is in their backyard, Richardson said it’s not clearly visible to passersby.

“Where it is in the yard … if you’re walking down the alley, you’d have to kind of go up into where the parking spots are to actually see that they’re there,” she said.

She said she’s contacted the SPCA and was going down to the police station to file a report.

“If people can do this to rabbits, what else are they capable of is my thinking,” she said.

Family clings to hope for the future

Amidst the death and destruction, there is hope.

According to Richardson, about eight days before the incident one of the rabbits had four babies, which survived the ordeal.

In an unexpected twist, one of her friends has a rabbit that had its babies killed by a cat just two days prior.

“So we kind of took my [rabbit’s] babies and threw them in her rabbit’s nest, hoping that she was going to surrogate mom them and she has so far,” she said.

“We’re hoping they’re going to survive.”

Richardson posted her story on the Missing animals from Prince Albert and Area Facebook page to warn others to be aware who may have animals. Since then, many people have commented on the post expressing their disgust and it’s been shared more than 40 times.

“I’m glad it’s gone … P.A. viral because, yeah, just to get the word out because someone is going to talk about something, someone is going to slip up and hopefully we can find out what happened.”

With files from Chelsea Laskowski

sstone@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @sarahstone84

by Sarah Stone

Family rabbits found dead on Easter weekend

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