While tens of friendly, energetic rabbits fill a South Surrey home’s yard ready to greet any and all visitors, the furry creatures have seen some trouble in their lives.
There’s Boo, who, at just a couple months old, survived the B.C. wildfires from August 2023 and is also blind in one eye. Her adopted family lost everything during the fires and had to surrender little Boo to the Vancouver Rabbit Rescue and Advocacy centre.
While unique in circumstance, Boo is not alone, but one of many rabbits that are being surrendered and abandoned around the region, ending up at Christine Turner’s shelter.
“Just this past three days, we’ve taken two bunnies in off the streets and we’re getting surrender requests and abandoned rabbit requests – at least three to five in one day,” Turner shared with Peace Arch News at her home on Monday (April 1).
Turner runs a shelter out of her South Surrey home, as part of the Vancouver Rabbit Rescue and Advocacy’s only other location in the province for pet rabbits.
“It’s tough, very tough right now,” she added.
The centre has been seeing an increase in abandoned and surrendered rabbits in the past five years, according to Turner’s database. As manager of the shelter for nearly 20 years, the change is difficult for her to ignore.
“We are rescuing a lot out of this community right now – White Rock, South Surrey. It never, never used to happen. We never had that problem, but we are rescuing a lot out here,” Turner shared.
“It’s the places you find them. At Sunnyside Acres, we found a little one lying there, dumped in the woods. That was Dec. 30, in the winter. She was right under the bridge, she had not gotten there on her own (because) they don’t stray far, a pet rabbit. Then a few days later, there was another one reported at Crescent Beach, and we picked that one up.”
Each time a rabbit is found, Turner said a picture and description of it is posted online across the organization’s social media pages in case a family has lost their pet. But more than likely, she added, no owner will claim them.
A pair of bonded rabbits came from Vancouver Island to Turner’s Surrey home as babies, but are now several months old and yet to be adopted.
In addition to the Semiahmoo Peninsula, Turner said Langley is another hot spot for surrendered and abandoned bunnies. A recent rabbit came in “pretty bad condition” from Langley, Turner added.
The shelter manager amounts much of the rise of rabbits in shelters to the pandemic, when families and individuals were adopting pets, including rabbits, more frequently.
READ MORE: Pandemic sparks pet boom in Surrey and beyond
“We can’t take them all in because we don’t have space in the shelters, and without the shelter room, we need the foster homes to take them,” Turner said, adding that the organization is actively looking for qualified foster homes.
Each foster is provided with a kit full of all the necessary items they need to care for the furry friends. Around the region, Turner says there are 200 rabbits living in the rescue’s foster homes, waiting to be adopted.
Additionally, another shelter in Surrey or Langley is being sought, as Turner’s backyard is at capacity, with even a few little rabbits kept inside her home.
“We’re on the lookout for another space, because to carry on doing what we do, we need to expand our operations. The need is there.”
An adoption and bonding event for those looking to provide their pet rabbit with a friend is planned for the South Surrey location on April 21, to be run by appointment only from noon to 3 p.m., with more details at vrra.org
Every rabbit through Vancouver Rescue is spayed or neutered and vaccinated before they’re adopted, Turner said.
“Not every adoption application ends up working out, because then you can find out that they’re not easy. They’re hard work.”