Save the Bunnies

By Renee Hawkley

(This article is from the files of summers past.)

Our daughter, Janette, is an animal lover unfairly saddled with parents and seven siblings who are not. She wages a lonely crusade to preserve squirrels that live in our backyard trees, a grey-and-white bunny named Lightning, a remarkable 29 cent goldfish, and a white cat named Sesame that insists on rolling in the dirt every time he is outside.

That’s why I knew there was trouble brewing when the two adolescent boys next door, who love to tease, became the owners of a VERY pregnant rabbit that gave birth to a batch of bunnies much sooner than any of us could have hoped. Their plans for the bunnies, outlined in graphic detail within earshot of Janette, are kindly censored.

Janette and her friends have enlisted me as an ally. I’m not an animal lover, but well . . . the bunnies ARE so cute, and . . . here are some of the girls’ ideas for possible rescue strategies:

• Make a "Bunnies for Free!" sign and set it up on Five Mile Rd.


• Call pet store owners and ask them if they need bunnies to sell.


• Go door-to-door around the neighborhood asking people to save one bunny each.


• Give two bunnies to Anna, two to Cary, and two to Melissa if there are leftovers.


• Make Lightning’s rabbit cage bigger. Put the mamma rabbit and her babies in the cage with Lightning and hope that Lightning is a girl rabbit, too.

This one gets my vote:

• Call a rabbit farmer and volunteer the bunnies to make more bunnies for his farm.