The Salthaven Wildlife and Education Centre are caring for five baby white-tailed jackrabbits, who were reportedly victims of abuse.
Megan Lawrence, Salthaven’s director of rehabilitation, said staff brought in two over the weekend and brought in three Monday evening – all in Regina.
The organization received calls from residences claiming there were children throwing rocks at them, trying to run over them with bicycles and pouring water over them to drown or freeze them to death.
Lawrence also said the children reportedly ran off with two more baby rabbits. The fate of those two is unknown.
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“We see it too often, unfortunately, more often than we would like to. We would like it not to happen at all,” Lawrence said.
“It’s extremely discouraging just from the perspective of humans treating animals badly.”
Lawrence said animals feel the same pain as humans, but show it differently.
“The ones we got in were in shock and in a lot of stress and stress for an animal can bring on a condition called capture myopathy which can be fatal,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence said it’s important to use these situations as lessons moving forward.
She said the rabbits are doing well and will be released back into the wild in the next couple of weeks.
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