The House Rabbit Society notes that "Wild rabbits share their warrens with up to a hundred family members"....Alice would have to do a lot of digging to accommodate 99 other rabbit folk.
One of the things I have become sensitive too is the fear felt by a bunny whenever anyone picks them up. This excerpt makes such fear (and sometimes terror) more understandable
In the wild, being lifted off the ground means being in the hawk’s talons, soon to be his lunch. Restraint precedes the killing bite of predators on the ground. Most house rabbits can learn to tolerate being held and picked up by humans, but it is the rare individual who views these as pleasurable gestures of friendship.So picking up a bunny or holding/restraining a bunny has ancestrally been a prelude to a painful and horrible death. That awareness makes me feel profoundly graced when a bunny restrains their fear enough to not struggle when they are lifted or held.
Quite a gift is being bestowed by a non-struggling bunny....a gift of trust to the human picking her up or holding her......and we human animals are often oblivious to that gift.
What human animals view as affection and caring (holding, picking-up) are the very behaviors that signal an approaching painful and violent death for the rabbit animal.
Hmmm.......that would mean in order to understand a rabbit person you might have to rethink what some fairly natural human animal affectional impulses (holding, hugging, picking-up, etc) mean to the rabbit folk. Hmmmm............
If you "dig" rabbits, support them at: www.heartlandrabbitrescue.org.
Remember, support your local rescue organizations, adopt if you can, if you can't adopt then foster, if you can't foster then volunteer, if you can't volunteer then donate. Do all of these things if you can.
