animals Archives - I am a Honey Bee

As I have started before, I have 2 rabbits and I am a volunteer with House Rabbit Network. I adopted our first rabbit, Bunny, through a shelter and then when I felt it was right to get another I adopted Jack through HRN. I love them to peices, although they eat my books and Jack ate the buttons off the TV remote. Techniqually, all of tht stuff is boiled odwn to being my fault for leaving it without nibbling range for them. No matter what they do we love them to pieces.

In addition to the emails I get as a volunteer, I follow HRN on their facebook page for updates. Most of the status updates are fun with links to the blog and announcements about rabbits that have been with the org for a while are finally adopted. Sadly today’s update had to do with a case of 64 rabbits being seized from a trailer in Marboro NY. {video in the link} A woman had all of these rabbits in a trailer in unsanitary conditions and without food or water. At this point she is being charged with 64 counts of failure to provide proper sustenance under state agriculture and markets law.

I’m sad that anyone would let things get so out of control.

I’m sad that she did not take care of her rabbits.

I’m sad that so many have sores on them and many have lost patches of hair.

I’m so sad that they have been malnourished.

I’m sad that so many rabbits are in need of a good home now.

I’m really hoping that I can help out in some way since some rabbits will be heading to HRN. At this point, nothing is too small… driving to pick up the rabbits in NY, donating some hay, pellets, cleaning cages, etc. As much as this horrible thing has happened I know that I can do something to right this wrong.

House Rabbit Network

781-431-1211

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Ulster County SPCA

845-331-5377

Yesterdays trip to the zoo was interesting. I had not been to the Franklin Park Zoo in a few years and the last time I went I was chasing after an 18 month old so I was not really take it in. Emily and I decided to go since there has been a big stink lately about the economy hitting the zoo’s state funding. The zoo director played dirty by going public and crying out about the drastic cut in budget by saying the zoo might have to close and as a result euthanize animals. Needless to say, Governor Patrick has been attacked for putting the zoo in such as hard place and the zoo has been chastised for saying it would euthanize animals. (Lineham did come back and say that he was incorrect about euthanizing the animals).

Well, we took this as an opportunity to fork over $13 each to visit the struggling zoo. I use struggling nicely. As a designer, it was really hard to embrace a place that uses laminated sheets of paper tacked up to posts telling people that the Andean Condor saying that the bird was born in the 50’s and acquired by the zoo in the early 90’s (I forgot the exact dates). A zoo is an education place that is to teach everyone about the animals. Did you know that the condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere? No? Well, you would not have known that about the condor going to the zoo for it was not posted on the 1 sign of info about them (I looked it up the the nifty Internet).

I know that I am being really harsh about the zoo and its appearance now, especially when it is facing budget cuts. It just makes me wonder if others even notice what the zoo is lacking or they just view it as a place for them to take their kids to kill a few hours on a Saturday morning? Thoughts?

Enough ranting…

They had quite a few zebras that were in two parts of the zoo. I love their short manes…. mohawks!

We did get to see the lion quite a bit and even hear him roar. He sounded more like the cowardly lion than the ling of the jungle. Still really cute. Check out my video.

Moving along the ill-marked paths we came across two hornbills. We watched them for awhile and one became so comfortable with us there that he? dug up a chunk of dirt and grass, walked over to the enclosure fence and put it down to give to us. Well give in the sense that we were still two feet away from it. Then it stuck its beak out of the fence as far as it could and sat there for awhile watching us.

We also saw flamingos, kangaroos, a tiger, giraffes, butterflies, and more.

Post zoo visit we walked back to my house- 5.5 miles. Sweet.

All in all I know I will go back but I just hope that they get the funding they deserve and outfit the zoo to properly house their animals and educate the public.

Breaks my heart

Out of Africa