To celebrate its 15th birthday, Petfinder is launching a campaign to spread the word about animal adoption on March 15, 2011. There are many ways to get the message out including:

• Writing about pet adoption on your blog, website, Facebook page, or Twitter account
• Adding a badge (like the one shown on the right) to your website or blog
• Captioning a Petfinder adoptable photo on I Can Has Cheezburger

You can focus more on spreading the word about rabbit adoption in the following ways:

• Share your rabbit adoption story with the Rabbit Advocate, an HRS educator, who is hosting a contest on her blog
  (UPDATE: See winning story here)
• Link to our article, Benefits of Adopting a Pet Rabbit
• Print out and hang up “Did You Know” posters from the House Rabbit Society that educate the public about rabbit adoption and proper care

Cindy Stutts of the House Rabbit Society‘s New York chapter, Rabbit Rescue and Rehab,was a guest on the Martha Stewart Show talking about responsible rabbit ownership and adoption.

For more information, see the Martha Stewart Show website.

The Burgess Premier Small Animal Show was held over the weekend in Harrogate, Yorkshire and featured a new rabbit jumping event, which attracted newer competitors from England and veteran jumpers from Sweden. The clip above features a champion rabbit show jumper named Flora from Sweden.

Other clips showcased less elegant rounds where bunnies crouched down refusing to jump over the hurdles, ran around/away from the hurdles, or knocked the bars down with their noses.

For more info:

BBC.co.uk
YorkPress.co.uk

The University of Victoria decided today that instead of maintaining a population of 200 rabbits on their campus, they will relocate all of them.  To date, 823 rabbits have been relocated to sanctuaries in British Columbia and Texas.  Currently, 50 rabbits remain on the grounds, and they will be relocated within the next few weeks. After March 1st, any rabbits who are abandoned on campus will be euthanized.  Campus officials hope this policy will discourage people from irresponsibly dumping their pets.

Laura-Leah Shaw of the Responsible Animal Care Society (TRACS) has spearheaded the mission to relocate the feral rabbits who’d made UVic their home for years.  She has personally driven vanloads of rabbits down to the Wild Rose Ranch in Texas and has  taken out a $25,000 line of credit to fund the relocation project.  If you would like to support TRACS, make a donation at their website.

Batch of UVic bunnies en route to Texas

For more information, see VicNews.com.

At Staglands Wildlife Reserve near Wellington, New Zealand, staff went to check for eggs under one of their silky bantam hens and instead found a litter of four baby bunnies.

The mother rabbit, who was out in the parklands, doesn’t mind the avian babysitter.

According to Jayson Davis, who discovered the babies, “The mother rabbit has no problem with it. They only feed once a day which is usually at night time but I have occasionally seen her in there with the chicken herself, and the babies. It doesn’t seem to be a lot of room in there but there’s never any bickering.”

Learn more at TVNZ.

This case really shows the importance of spaying/neutering your pet rabbit.  The owners of these rabbits said they started with what they thought were two female rabbits.  This wasn’t the case, and the rabbits kept breeding with each other. The final count was 78 when officials intervened.

If you live in the Baltimore area and would like to help, the House Rabbit Society of Baltimore, DC, and NoVA are looking for emergency foster homes for these bunnies. Email rabbitinfo@rabbitsinthehouse.org.

Phoenix receiving oxygen after suffering from smoke inhalation. Photo by Trish Johnson.

Earlier this week in Katy, TX, a house fire killed three women and left their 23 pet rabbits stranded. The flames didn’t reach the rabbits, who were caged on the back porch, but the bunnies did suffer from smoke inhalation.  Animal rescue group Special Pals took the rabbits in and treated their respiratory ailments.

According to Yvonne David, Executive Director at Special Pals, “A fireman brought me one rabbit who did not appear to be breathing. I gave him CPR, and the EMS personnel supplied him with oxygen. All of sudden he ‘came to’ and started breathing on his own. We’re calling him Phoenix.”

All the rabbits are recovering and will be up for adoption soon. You can also help by donating fresh produce to Special Pals.

For more info:
Ultimate Katy
Special Pals

The tiny island of Okunoshima was once home to a major poisonous gas facility for the Imperial Army during World War II. The island, only 4 kilometers in circumference, had even been removed from Japanese maps for a period of time for security purposes. Once the war ended, the island was deserted. In 1971, a teacher from the nearby city of Takehara abandoned the school’s pet rabbits in Okunoshima. Now, the island is host 300 feral rabbits.

With 2011 being the Year of the Rabbit, many tourists are making their way to the little island to see the furry inhabitants.

For more info, see:
Wired.com
Japan Probe

In celebration of the upcoming Year of the Rabbit, Canada Post is launching a beautiful new stamp January 7, 2011.  The design, which emulates a Chinese embroidery style, features the front part of a rabbit hopping behind the feet of another. When the stamps are side by side, they line up so the rabbits “chase” each other in the chain.

For more info: Canada Post

If you use a microscope, you can just barely make out a rabbit eating a carrot in a resin figurine created by Taiwanese artist Chen Forng-shean.  The sculpture, made in honor of the upcoming Chinese Year of the Rabbit, is .02 inch long and sits atop an eye of a needle.  It’s 1/20th the size of an average grain of rice. It’s also delicately painted.

When Chen Forng-shean isn’t creating teeny tiny sculptures, he works at Taiwan’s Central Engraving and Printing Plant as a money printing plate designer.

For more info about the miniature rabbit sculpture, see: NTD Television.

To see more of Chen Forng-shean’s work, see: International Exhibition of Calligraphy.