Dear friends,

I wanted to give you one last update on the Tennessee rabbits.

One week ago, Bartlett Animal Shelter in West Tennessee seized 119
rabbits, mostly lops, from a breeder in a hoarding case. The shelter
was desperate and did not have the facilities to care for 119
rabbits, on top of the 30 dogs who came from the same breeder, and
all the rest of the animals in their care. They reached out for
help.

Within a couple of days, at least half a dozen groups pitched in to
help by taking rabbits (if I left any group off of this list, please
forgive the oversight):

Young-Williams Animal Center in Knoxville (a public shelter
themselves), North Georgia HRS, Cape Fear HRS, the House Rabbit
Connection of MA/CT, the Arkansas Pet Rabbit Network, the House
Rabbit Network of MA, Wild Rescue of Texas, and Alabama EARS/HRS.

Transport has been arranged by groups ranging from Bunny Rescue of
Nashville, the House Rabbit Connection, the Humane Society of the United States
in Tennessee, and the Bunderground Railroad.

Alabama EARS and National HRS both have contributed funds to help
with spay/neuters.

On top of the above groups, Patricia Brainard of RabbitwiseMemphis and the
Bunderground Railroad was instrumental in organizing much of the help, as was
Kathy Burke, HRS educator in Greenback, TN, and Deb Young, HRS educator in CT.

We just learned today that the last group of 20 rabbits will be
leaving the shelter tomorrow for WildRescue in Texas. This isn't the
end of the road for the bunnies or the rescue groups who are taking
them, but 90 rabbits have been saved in just a matter of a week by
the actions and cooperations of dozens of people.

(Click here to see a news story with video on the 10 lucky rabbits
who made it to the Young-Williams Animal Center:
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=62609&catid=2 )

House Rabbit Society has paid for the care of some of the TN rabbits
with funds generated from our Emergency Rescue Fund
(http://www.rabbit.org/rescue/Grant.html ). You can help us help
cases like this in the future, by donating to the fund at
http://www.rabbit.org/hrs-info/joining.html . (Put emergency rescue
fund in the comments field.)

One last note:

Rabbits are being bred, sold, surrendered to animal shelters, and
euthanized every day in this country, and rabbit rescue groups and
animal shelters large and small are fighting to care for too many
rabbits with too few resources. Yet it's nice to see that when a
small shelter, ill equipped to handle a large rabbit crisis, reaches
out for help, that even with strapped resources and local demands,
groups like those listed above can still reach out and help.

Thanks, everyone.