A hairy situation
It’s amazing how your day can get derailed when your life collides with that of a furry little animal – literally, that is. The creature in question was a bright white bunny, a hare who tempted fate by running through town on a very cold night last week. Come to think of it, it was really his day that was derailed by our encounter.
This is what rabbits do, I’m told; they run when it’s very cold at night to stay warm. I was driving along a fairly busy street in Antigonish and the last thing I expected to encounter was wildlife.
I caught a glimpse of him to my left, bounding out across the street. There was a van behind me, so I couldn’t slam on the breaks. I slowed and hoped he’d somehow miss my wheels. With the thud I knew it wasn’t to be.
I slowly pulled over and checked in my rearview mirror, expecting to see the unfortunate critter’s carcass on the road. Instead, the broken bunny scurried into the driveway of a home, hiding under a half ton truck.
Some of you may have heard a rabbit cry before. It’s like the shrill cry of a baby in distress; very unsettling.
Turns out the van behind me was full of university students heading home. Unfortunately, they had front-row seats to the horror that unfolded. They also pulled over and emptied out of the vehicle.
“His leg is broken completely off,” the young driver said to me as he peered under the truck at the injured critter, still shrieking in pain. “He’s going to have to be put down,” he said sadly.
The young women walked about the sidewalk, covering their mouths in distress.
Now, I’ve been in a lot of sticky situations in the past, but I had to stop and think about this one. What does one do when one runs over, but doesn’t kill, an animal on the road? Well, when someone hits a deer – um, I mean when a deer jumps out and hits someone – I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to call the Dept. of Natural Resources, so why not for a bunny? The students were comfortable with that course of action and went on their way. I thought I should call hubby and explain why I’d be late.
“They don’t come for rabbits,” he said of the folks at Natural Resources.
“But the poor thing has to be put down,” I said. “How else are we to do it?”
By “we” I meant myself and the woman who happens to live in that house. Coincidentally, the incident took place directly in front of the home of a friend of mine, and the poor creature was hiding under her truck. I went inside to explain the situation. She leaned out the side door and shuddered when she heard the desperate cries. We had to act fast.
I know one person who works at the Antigonish Natural Resources office, so I called him. He lives a fair distance from town, but I figured he could advise us.
“So, it’s a rabbit you hit?” he asked for clarification. For a moment I feared my husband was right, that they don’t do rabbits.
“Yes, and he’s really broken; he has to be put down.” The fellow kindly called a colleague in town, who happened to live around the corner. This guy called us right away and said he had to pick up some gear at the office and he’d be right over.
A few minutes later there was a knock at the side door. “That was fast,” I thought.
But instead of the help we needed, there was another group of university students at the door.
“Um, excuse me, but we were just walking along here and we thought you should know that there’s some kind of injured animal under your truck,” a young woman said urgently. “I think he’s really hurt.” Other students were peering under the vehicle.
I assured them we were doing what we could to have him put down.
We waited about another 10 minutes for help to arrive. In the meantime, my friend’s teenage daughter was starting to lose it. I think she wanted us to rescue the rabbit, put a blanket over it, maybe perform surgery.
Finally the professional arrived. He had with him a large net and small cage. But the shrieking was gone.
“Oh no, he must have died,” I said. With the help of the daughter, the fellow searched under and around the vehicles and in the backyard. The rabbit wasn’t just silent, he was gone.
“I just can’t understand it,” I said. “He was so badly injured; I can’t understand how he could get very far.”
At that time, on the next door property, a large black and white cat walked by, turning to glance briefly (maybe even smugly) at us.
“The cat probably got the rabbit,” the man explained. “He would have put him out of his misery pretty quickly.”
It wasn’t the closure we had hoped for.
Later, I thought about this business of rescuing rabbits, of putting them out of their misery when necessary. There are thousands of rabbits in the woods around here. And I’ve seen lots of them dead on the road before. What are you supposed to do if you hit one in the country and it’s not dead?
“You run over it again,” a coworker offered when I posed the question at the office the next day. Perish the thought.
“Oh no, I couldn’t do that,” I said.
But somehow, I doubt that the professionals at the Dept. of Natural Resources are keen to act as a rabbit rescue squad. Maybe hubby is right; maybe they don’t come out for rabbits. Maybe they just come out for distressed – I might even call it panicked – women who want to end the suffering of a little white bunny and could never, ever, do it themselves.
