The One in Three

I have been doing cottontail rehab for a couple of years now, and I can't think of anything else I have ever done in my life that can be so rewarding and so emotionally devastating at the same time.

My survival rate with the little bunnies is not good at all, probably one in three babies I get survive to be released into the wild.  But in this business a 50% survival rate is considered pretty good, so I'm not that far behind.  Still, losing any little babies that come into my care can be very painful.

One in three is just not good enough.

Two young cottontails came to me recently.  Nine days ago, when I was working at the thrift store, a woman and her daughter came in carrying a glass aquarium with a little bunny inside.  They said it was in danger of being a snack for a bull snake when it was saved, and they wondered if we could take it in, since they had no clue what to do.  I said sure, and brought home the little ball of fluff with the huge ears.  This is a picture of the bunny:

This little bun is probably close to a month in age, older than most cottontails I get.  He or she is doing very well, eating with great enthusiasm, and exhibited genuine outrage and indignance when I tried to clean his enclosure the other day, standing his ground and boxing my hand with the greatest of attitude.  And you can't help but love that.

Three days ago I got a much younger and tinier cottontail, brought to me by my friend Kathy in Payson.  Looking a lot like a furry golf ball with ears, his eyes had just opened up that day, which would put him between 10 and 14 days old.

He looked so very small and fragile, and Kathy asked me to take him because she had never cared for a bunny so tiny.  I agreed, since we have a nursing domestic mother rabbit, Tilly, and usually the mother rabbit will accept another tiny mouth to feed with no problem.  Tilly's four babies, born nearly three weeks ago, were about 4 times as big as the little cottontail, but I would try to place the baby with Tilly.

Unfortunately that did not work out, and the baby for some reason could not get enough milk from Tilly, even though she was loaded with it.  I took the baby back and started to feed him with goat's milk through an eyedropper, standard procedure with cottontail babies that size.

The goat's milk seemed to upset the babies stomach, and appeared to be doing more harm than good.  With my options dwindling, I started the baby on kitten replacement formula, and that seemed to work much better.  The baby sometimes got an "Ewww" face when I fed it, but it seemed to be doing well being fed three times a day.

The little one spent a lot of time sleeping, as do all bunnies that age, but could be very active and spry.  He (or she) got to recognize my voice and ran out of his little cardboard box when I came up to his enclosure.  I would put my hand inside his tank and he would scramble up into my palm.  He loved to be rubbed and gently stroked, and would lick my hands and fingers quite vigorously, until he fell asleep five minutes later.  This is a picture of the little one:

I spent a lot of time holding the little baby, since it seemed to crave physical contact and enjoy it so much.  I loved holding that tiny, incredibly fragile, little droplet of life.  How could that little ball of fuzz with the tiny ears, barely weighing an ounce (less than 1/3000th of my body weight), steal my heart in less than 24 hours?  I swear that if someone came in and stuck a gun to my head and told me to crush the life out of that little speck in my hand, I would say go ahead and shoot.  A bullet to the brain would be fast and quick, as opposed to a lifetime of remembering the alternative.

The little bunny ate fairly well, but never enough, and it didn't seem to grow much at all over the past couple of days.  It always seemed skinny and thin, and it was not putting on weight as it should.  It would consume a bit of kitten formula, but soon started to bat the eyedropper away from its mouth.  In spite of that I was cautiously optimistic, but I knew the little one was by no means out of the woods yet.

Today everything seemed normal, and this afternoon I held him in my hand for a while.  As usual, he licked my fingers and then snuggled in for a little snooze.  I put him back in his enclosure and went to the gym.

I returned to find him lying on his side, breathing in shallow gasps.  He had crashed on me, as is all too typical for these delicate little creatures.  He was dying, and his internal organs were slowly shutting down.

I picked him up and held him in the palm of my hand, cradling his failing body and trying to let him know I was there.  He looked at me with his tiny dark eyes as if to say, "Why?"  I could not answer.  I didn't know why his little life was being ended after such an incredibly short time.  I still can't come up with an answer.

He did not want to go, and fought his impending death for a good 20 minutes.  He gasped, stretched his arms and legs out several times, and endured a series of twitches and spasms.  Finally, he took one last gasp, and reared his head back.  His body went limp, and his breathing stopped.

I am done cursing out the universe or whatever deity is currently in charge.  I can't believe any deity of any kind - even the hateful, vengeful Christian one - would create an innocent life like that, so small and beautiful, only to take it away a short time later.  Some events seem so utterly, completely pointless and without merit.  Why couldn't that little one live?

It's been a rough year so far, with many beloved rabbits going to the Bridge.  Camilla, Babs, Elinor, Georgia, my own bunny Apricot, quite a few others.  At least this newest, tiniest resident at the Rainbow Bridge will be welcomed and cared for by some absolutely wonderful, beautiful rabbits.

And when I get another cottontail baby - and I know I will - so frail and delicate and hanging onto life by a thread, most likely I might have to go through all this again.  Why do I do this?  Why would I subject myself to having my heart ripped apart and stomped on the floor, again and again?

For the one in three, that's why.

Leap of Faith

I did another release of a cottontail into the wild yesterday. I had been caring for the adult male cottontail since January, as he recovered from injuries sustained in an accident with an automobile. Here is a picture of him a couple weeks after I got him:


He came to me very lethargic, in a dazed condition. There was bleeding from behind his right eye, and dried blood in his right ear. I was very concerned that he had suffered a brain injury. I had seen that a couple of weeks before, when another cottontail was brought to me in a similar condition after being struck by a car. That poor little guy just sat in a hunched-up position and would move around and eat very little. I tried to syringe-feed him some food but he just was not interested in eating. I took him to the vet who agreed that there was some severe head trauma but there was nothing we could do for him other than to keep him quiet and comfortable and hope that he will come out of it on his own. Sadly, that was not to be, and I awoke one morning to find him laying on his side. If he was meant to die, I'm glad he could do it in a place where he was warm and safe, and in the presence of someone who cared about him.

This last cottontail rehab had a happier ending, as he got over his injuries and returned to being a normal bunny. As he recovered, he showed he was comfortable with me and would come over to the side of his cage and look me directly in the eye as I talked to him. It was as if he was trying hard to understand me, but I was talking some alien language. Which, of course, was true.

For a wild animal, he adapted very well to living in captivity with a human. I gave him a little wooden house in his cage to hide in, but he enjoyed sitting on top of it so he could watch everything going on in the room. He had a real liking for oatmeal, but for him rabbit pellets were an acquired taste. I tried 4 different kinds of pellets on him until I found one he sort of liked. He also liked grated carrots for a while but in time he decided they weren't really his cup of tea and wasn't as interested in them as he had been.

For the past couple of weeks I had been watching him in his cage and I was slowly coming to the understanding that the life he had with me was not what he was meant to have. Sure, he had everything he needed - food, water, shelter, safety - but he was alone. As he got healthier his instincts started kicking in and he became more wary and frightened of me. I really couldn't take him out and let him play in the playpen as I do the domestic rabbits in my care, because I was afraid he would hurt himself in a more open, unfamiliar environment. I think he could have lived in my home in that cage for a long time, much longer than the life he will have in the wild, surrounded by predators and dangers, but as the old saying goes, a gilded cage is still a cage. I really wanted to keep him, but I had to come to the realization that it's not about what I want, but what is best for him.

I think what really convinced me that he needed his freedom as when I moved him and some other bunnies out of the bunny room in my house to the guest bedroom. His cage had been against a wall opposite the only window in the room. In the guest bedroom, he was atop a bank of cages directly in front of a window, and he spent a huge amount of time on his wooden house staring out the window into my yard. He was clearly very interested in what was going on outside and I couldn't help but think he really wanted to be there. I couldn't deny the feeling that he was trying to tell me something, that he wanted and needed to be outdoors with his own kind, living the life he was meant to have. Sure his life would be fraught with danger every step of the way, and the environment would be harsh and unforgiving. But the cottontails are native to this area and they have the instincts and survival skills to live in this land where death can happen in a split-second. It may sound to humans like a cruel, brutal existence, but to the cottontails, it's what is meant to be for them.

So, on a bright, cool Tuesday morning, I released my cottontail into the underbrush near the home of my friends Kim and Michael in Paradise Valley. This release was pretty much like the others I have done - I took the bunny out of the carrier, said goodbye and put him on the ground. For a couple of minutes, he just sat there and did not move, as if he were overwhelmed by what was happening to him:


Then, as he started to look around and get his bearings, he took what I like to call the "Leap of Faith," his first tentative hop into a world that is both new and familiar at the same time:


As he scampered off into the bushes, I could tell he was very glad to be back in his intended environment. Any misgivings or regrets I might have had about returning him to the wild disappeared at that point, because I knew he was happy:


Then, as I followed him around to a couple of bushes, he stopped and looked at me, and I was able to get one last photo. I like to think he was saying, "Thanks, Dad, for everything!":


If I could say one thing to him, I would say: Thank you, little one, for being in my life for a couple of months and allowing me the great privilege of caring for you. I hope somewhere in the back of your mind you will keep a small memory of me and know that you were loved and had value. Go and enjoy every second of your life, and make hundreds and hundreds of beautiful little cottontail babies who will run and jump and dance in the morning sunlight, just as you did when I set you free.