It’s not only the Year of the Rabbit, it’s our anniversary! The Rabbitats name and concept was born in the Year of the Rabbit, 2011.
And exactly a decade ago, December of 2012, we were in the throes of our first official project, rounding up, sterilizing and housing hundreds of abandoned rabbits and their feral offspring living at the asphalt-heavy Richmond Auto Mall. (Why people abandoned rabbits at an Auto Mall is beyond us!) This was our first home, a beautiful service bay at a vacant dealership due for demolition that we were only supposed to have for six months. We rescued between 50 and 100 rabbits a year there over the next six years. Here’s a video of some of our little piranhas enjoying Lettuce Time!
We are coming into this new year with lots of projects and rescued bunnies under our belts thanks to grants from the Canfel Foundation, the Richmond Community Fund, the Margolis Foundation and the Vancouver Foundation. And of course we have some really exiting things in the future for Year of the Rabbit 2023! We are very likely going to be buying our own piece of a property in 2023 (with the Kindred Community Farm) giving many of our bunnies a permanent home. We are also stepping up our advocacy programs and appearances, eg: we hope to play a big role at the Humane Canada Conference in May as well as at other animal welfare and environmental events. We have launched a low or no-cost spay/neuter program to help prevent breeding. And of course we’ll have lots of celebratory and educational events. Our Lunar New Year, Easter Bunny Fest and Mid-Autumn celebrations will all be extra special this year.
We’ll continue to offer up close interaction with rabbits for both education and entertainment at public and private Meet n’ Treat events, and through our Bunny Cafe adoption centre.
We’re looking for volunteers and coordinators! Our board members and other key volunteers have gotten very busy so there will be some changes at our next AGM in February. We hope have some great new people stepping up so please get involved! The bunnies need you!
Sincerely,
Sorelle Saidman,
Founder & President