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Why The Easter Bunny Should Remain A Story, Not An Impulse Pet

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 20:41 PST, Apr 12, 2017

Bunnies become the most popular pets every time Easter comes. But animal activists are urging people to abandon the idea of getting an Easter bunny for the holiday, and stick to a stuffed or chocolate rabbit instead.

As Easter is just around the corner, the demand for rabbit sale has skyrocketed in recent days. While you may think it’s a great idea to buy an Easter bunny for your family members as a gift for the holiday, animal activists think you’re committing a terrible mistake.

Caroline Charland, chief of a rescue group called The Bunny Bunch, says Easter is “a terrible time of year” for every rabbit out there for sale.

While some cities in the U.S., including New York and Los Angeles, have already banned the sale of Easter bunnies in pet stores, rabbits still remain an impulsive pet choice every time Easter comes.

Speaking to the New York Daily News, Charland insists that rabbit sales around Easter is “still a massive issue.”

Animal activists say about 80 per cent of rabbits bought as pets around Easter face one of two terrible fates. No matter how sweet a family is to an Easter bunny, death is one of the two grim fates for an Easter rabbit.

The other fate is being thrown away when the kids are done playing with the Easter bunny. In fact, many Americans bypass pet shops to get an Easter bunny for Easter, as there are a number of websites offering to sell a rabbit.

Buying an Easter bunny straight from breeders at rabbit mills is another popular way of getting bunny for Easter in the cities where the sale of rabbits in pet shops is banned.

But these alternative means of getting an Easter bunny are no less cruel. Even if you’re planning to treat the rabbit you bought for Easter like it’s your own child, animal activists warn that those living furballs are taken away from their mothers too early, which is why many of them don’t survive.

But bunny mills that breed rabbits cash in big time for Easter. Speaking to the New York Daily News, Sandra DeFeo, executive director of the Humane Society of New York, calls every rabbit “a sensitive species that requires a real commitment.”

DeFeo argues that when people think every Easter bunny is “cute,” “cuddly,” and “wonderful,” they fail to realize that those bunnies grow “very quickly.”

Even if a rabbit is not thrown away from the house when it grows up, it still requires tender and careful treatment from its owners throughout its life. And a healthy Easter bunny normally lives from eight to 12 years.

“They’re not an impulse buy.”

While wowing the little ones with a living Easter bunny seems like a good idea, there’s a high risk that the rabbit won’t survive until next Easter. That’s because once the Easter bunny grows bigger, children tend to neglect it.

And that’s just wrong, as bunnies “deserve the same consideration, level of care, and opportunity for longevity” as every pet cat and dog has, as noted by a New York-based group All About Rabbits Rescue.

Interestingly, a rabbit is the third most popular pet in the U.S. after cats and dogs, according to the Humane Society of the United States. But at the same time, every Easter bunny risks being abandoned after Easter, as rabbits are the third most abandoned pets in America.

In fact, a cartoon bunny named Snowball, who was voiced by actor Kevin Hart in 2016’s The Secret Life of Pets, gets abandoned – and this is based on fact.

That’s why it’s a good idea to stick to chocolate or stuffed bunnies for Easter instead of the living furballs.

[Featured Image by Poprotskiy Alexey/Shutterstock]

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