bunnies in the wild

Question
Hi Lee,
I stumbled across your name and you sound like just the person to help me. There is a domesticated bunny living in a very small patch of woods near my house. I have seen him for about a month. I was hoping perhaps his previous owners were not all that, and he escaped to live a long and happy life in the wild. However, he is looking a bit thin. My current situation makes it impossible for me to look after this little guy. My question is should I let him try to survive in the wild or call an animal shelter and hope beyond hope that some nice boy or girl will come to adopt him?  Where do you think he stands a better chance? (I live in Michigan-great summer, super cold winter) Thank you for your time.  Donna

Answer
Hi Donna,

thanks for expressing concern for this little guy.  

You definitely need to call a rabbit rescue group in your area (or state) or the local animal shelter.  Domestic rabbits do not have the survival skills anymore that their wild cousins have.  People think if they release them in the wild they will do fine, but the fact is they have no survival skills.  That's why often you will see them sitting for hours in the open, in the spot they were dumped.  The wild is extremely fatal for domestic rabbits.  They have no hiding places to go.  They don't know what to do.

Call your local rabbit rescue groups.  It is an abandoned stray domestic rabbit.  Start here to look for House Rabbit Society groups near you:

http://www.rabbit.org/chapters/index.html

http://www.rabbit.org/hrs-info/contacts.html

There appears to be an HRS contact person in Michigan listed:

Michigan - Metro Detroit
Evelyn Goldfield
evi@gopher.chem.wayne.edu

If there are some in your state but far from you, call them anyways.  Many will come to help out, or have volunteers in the area that will maybe foster a stray for the HRS.

If there are no HRS around, seei f neighboring states have groups close to you.  If there are no HRS groups, there may be other rabbit rescue groups that are not part of HRS that could help you:

http://www.rabbit.org/links/sections/allywebpage.html

http://www.rabbit.org/links/sections/groups.html

It appears Michigan has a number of independent groups listed here that you can also contact.

If you have some extra romaine, or green leaf lettuce, put a little out where he tends to stay.  Even if you can put some timothy hay or orchard grass hay (from pet supply stores) and put some out he will munch on this (they are designed to eat hay).  Thanks again for caring about him, but definitely get a rescue group over to humanely catch and foster him.

Lee