How the Four Seasons were rescued
By Teeny Teh

What seemed like another lazy Sunday afternoon proved to be very different after HRSS volunteer, Jackie mentioned that she spotted a rabbit hopping about a residential area at Sembawang Road. It was 25th July 2004.

With the increasing number of rabbit abandonment cases at the back of our minds, we were fearful that he could be one of them. Thus, we - Jackie, Angie, Adeline and myself, decided to comb the area to be doubly sure. Most of the residential houses there did not seem to house rabbits and we were growing increasingly suspicious that the rabbit was indeed as we feared – an abandoned rabbit. We decided to search the open field beside the row of houses to see if it had run there to hide.

True enough! There he was – a little brown bunny scampering through the tall grasses. We had found him! Just at that moment, from the corner of our eyes, we spotted another 3! One was brown and white, another was black and white and the other was a brown bunny with a white stripe on this head. It was very clear then that these rabbits had been abandoned by some very irresponsible pet owners.

So there we were, 4 crazy women hot on the tails of 4 rabbits (no pun intended), hoping to catch them with our bare hands. Although this method delivered success in past rescues, these 4 rabbits were determined to put up a fight. We tried every method possible- cornering them in teams of 2, various unusual tactics which included Jackie throwing her shirt (aka Spiderman style) on the bunny as it ran towards her (She was hoping that her magic shirt would stop him… heh heh). We also tried luring them with banana and apple slices etc, but to no avail - These rabbits were way too quick and agile for any of us, not to mention smart too.

Adeline then had a brilliant idea to use playpens to corner the rabbits. She then proceeded to borrow 4 playpen panels from a nearby petshop. So there we were again, 4 crazy women, but this time with a playpen panel each, sometimes running and chasing the rabbits towards the “set up”, sometimes sneaking up behind them to catch them unaware. And embarrassing to say, a small crowd started to form, probably amused by our antics.

Initially, with our new props, we were unsure of how to go about cornering these swift creatures. We started off very haphazard, each one trying to chase one bunny each and changing targets when the one we were chasing proved to be too much of a challenge. But soon after, (because of the lack of results) we knew that teamwork was the answer.

We then started approaching each rabbit as a team. Using 3 panels to form an “open trap”, and the last panel to “close it up”, we managed to catch out first bunny, Spring- the black and white female rabbit approximately 1-2 years old. She was unfortunately pregnant when we found her. Forcing us to think of the many times in which she did get pregnant, the present state of her previous litters and the future litters she would have had, had we did not intervened.

Using the same method, we managed to catch the other 3 which we named Summer (Brown female rabbit with white stripe on head, approximately 3-4 months old), Autumn (Brown male rabbit, approximately 3-4 months old) and Winter (Brown and white male rabbit, approximately 5 months old). We then proceeded to scout around for anymore as we did not want to leave any of their friends behind.

All in all, the entire rescue took slightly more than 3 hours. After returning the playpens to the petshop, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter were sent to Adeline’s house for temporary lodging for the night. Angie then sent them for emergency neutering and spaying the next day at the Bishan Park Vet and the Animal Clinic. The Four Seasons are currently recuperating at various foster homes.

If you are interested to adopt them, please visit our adoption gallery or contact us.