The Santa Cruz shelter system (including Watsonville), went well over maximum capacity two weeks ago. Even with ongoing Rabbit Haven rescue and adoption shows we have not been able to keep up and the shelters have an urgent need for rescue. Sadly, the community continues to dump unwanted animals at an alarming rate at these shelters. We have been working as fast as we can to manage the flow at this shelter, but we need fosters, rescue and adopters to make this work.
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| This is Meyer, he needs a home of his own |
Some of the rabbit over-crowding is due to a steady flow of rabbits that started last May and has not stopped. They just keep coming in pairs or groups and we your help to get caught up. This year we are facing a much heavier animal surrender rate at our shelters.
For rabbits at the shelter, this problem has been made much worse because 6 spaces have been eliminated at the Watsonville facility and 1 in the Santa Cruz site. In addition, 6 additional spaces were lost 4 years ago when they moved to their new shelter facility. Basically, cage space at the shelters is decreasing when numbers of rabbits are increasing. A bad situation for rabbits.
The awesome rabbit advocate, Leslie, has been busy emailing and calling all the rescues near and far and to date, we have been able to get out only 5 rabbits. Tragically two more came in Saturday! Haven has contacted everyone we know in the rescue community as well to find space. We definitely have a huge task at hand. To save lives we need to secure additional rescue, increase adoptions and set up new fosters sites.
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| "Can you help us RABBITS? love, Harper. |
There is so much you can do. We need you. The rabbits need you:
- Foster
- Adopt
- Rescue
- Help in a supportive role
- Donate
We have only a few days to save their lives. Just fostering for three months will save a life. There are other ways you can help too. You can help transport, pick up supply, put up flyers in the community, assist at the office or even donate. Email me for a complete list of rabbits available at either shelter.
Call us at 831 600-7479 10 AM to 10 PM or email if you want to help director@therabbithaven.org
This is so sad. For the rabbits and for cats and dogs. Horses are in the same boat, miniatures to drafts and donkeys too.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be the second wave. The first wave was from economic downturn as people could not afford to keep their animals and they were added to the usual numbers of unwanted animals.
This second wave may be due to people who took animals they did not really want but felt bad for or were just given, and the lack of funds and/or education to spay and neuter.