Ottawa rabbit breeder left with 18 traumatized animals after so-called ‘social justice warriors’ raid property

Anne Marie McNulty and her two teen daughters consider themselves experienced rabbit breeders, but they had never experienced something like this.

On Thursday, November 4, around 1 a.m., McNulty tells CityNews, two people dressed in black broke into the backyard of her property near Barrhaven, put 19 rabbits into a plastic dog crate and dropped it off at the Ottawa Humane Society (OHS).

After sitting in the cold for seven hours, OHS staff members were able to tend to them. 

“OHS staff found the crate with all 19 rabbits piled in, they told me, 'three rabbits high,' all fighting and breeding and all the males and females mixed up with the babies,” McNulty explained on Friday's edition of The Sam Laprade Show.

Many of the bunnies were injured with bites and scratches, as well as cuts to their ears and eyes. One died after skin was ripped on its back — the OHS told McNulty it was irreparable.

She and her two daughters, ages 15 and 17, were devastated. McNulty posted on Facebook right away, asking for help to find her rabbits and luckily someone came through with a tip later that day, that they could be at the OHS.

According to McNulty this incident started when someone made a post, including her address, in a social media group that considers itself to be a band of rabbit rescuers.

A couple people scoped out her property and some insinuated online that she was breeding meat rabbits.

McNulty says she's been breeding pet rabbits with her daughters for years. It's something she did when she was young. She sees it as a good way to teach her kids how to be handy, resourceful and how to care for and nurture something.

McNulty hopes this incident can now serve as a reminder that there are proper avenues to go down if residents suspect someone of animal abuse, like calling the OHS or Ottawa police.

“There are cases where animals need our help,” she said. “This was not one of those cases.”

“What they did was wrong. It was a violation of me and my family and it was criminal, what they did. Regardless of the injuries and death and suffering they caused our rabbits,” McNulty explained. “[The animals] came back terrorized. They were all hiding, burying themselves in each other's faces, hiding in all the kennels that we were given. Rabbits can die of fright.”

And the breeder says, unfortunately, the pain following this incident isn't over.

“It's going to be a very difficult December for several very young mothers, too young to be bred. And the mothers that just had a litter should not have been bred, nor to we breed through the winter. So I'm going to have a really difficult time this winter, helping them with their litters and finding homes for possibly-bred 10-11-week-old females.”

“I would hope that these people don't do something like this again and everybody who contributed in [online] comments, that incited this, learn from this,” McNulty concluded. “I would really love an apology, but I'm not holding my breath.”

Listen to Sam Laprade's full converstaion with Anne Marie McNulty: