How Did He Know It Was Exactly 16 Feet Long and Not 15 Feet Long or 17 Feet Long?

The most fascinating snippet of conversation I have ever overheard in my life. (OK, my life is dull. Dull is sometimes good.) Overheard at the gymnasium as I was getting dressed in the locker room after taking a shower.

 

Gym member #1: “A friend of mine once saw a 16 foot great white shark.”

Gym member #2: “Oh? Where was that?”

#1: “He was surfing off the Oregon coast. He was just getting ready to ride a wave, looked down–the water was very clear that day–and below him he saw the shark.”

#2: “Did it have its jaws open?”

#1: “No. It was just swimming below him. Then he caught his wave and rode it in to the beach. He said that for the rest of the day he just stayed in shallow water close to the beach.”

#2: “He stayed in the water? If I saw something like that, I would be on solid ground a mile away from the water and wouldn’t go nearer to the ocean for the rest of the day.”

Indeed.

Social Occasion Part 2

Speaking of International Relations (as David just did), one of the impossible tasks of modern life is to arrange a social event by email. It takes about 57 emails before schedules can be reconciled. I was trying to arrange a date and time when Mama and Mommy and Random Granddaughter and Mary and S and F can all have an international social occasion at the mommies’ house.The date Mary set doesn’t work for S and F. We arranged a week later.

I thought, dinner. The mommies said, how about brunch at 10 am? S and F said, we have an appointment and can not arrive until eleven. I said, how about 11 am? Mary said, that would be fine; I sleep late on weekends. The mommies said, that would be late because RG must take her nap by 1 pm. I said, I am making an executive decision, we will meet at 10:30 am.

Then the mommies asked, what about food preferences? T(hey have had guests who wouldn’t eat this or that.) I will email the guests today and ask what they like to eat and what they don’t like to eat. They are very polite people so they probably will tell us they eat everything. Nobody eats everything. RG hardly eats anything. (She will be the first five year old to suffer from anorexia.)

Mrs. Random is concerned I am taking advantage of the mommies to be my diplomatic social hostesses (which of course, I am), and said, we [Grandma and Grandpa] should pay for the food. The mommies said, don’t worry about it. Of course, Mrs. Random, in her Martha Stewart alter, is fretting about it.

Now RG is on deadline to learn Quechua and Romanian in three weeks. And the mommies said, RG may get bored with all the adults around and wander off and do something else in the middle of the social occasion (and perhaps provoke an international incident).

At the last minute, somebody will probably not be able to make it. I will sulk because all my careful scheming has come to naught.

Then there’s Bunny, the killer rabbit masquerading as RG’s favorite stuffed animal. He may decide to wreak revenge on me (for my bunicide in the woods) in the middle of the social occasion, ruining the mommies’ best tablecloth with bloodstains.

This is the first week I don’t have to go to work. I have a list of 10,000 things I need to do. Mrs. Random has a list of 10,0020 things I have to do. The 20 have to come before any of mine. Perhaps her 10,000 things come before my 10,000 things.

RG’s Alternative Future #2

 

The members of the Survival Pod, bearing heavy packs of scavenged tools, weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies, as well as keeping weapons at the ready, climbed down the bluff leading to the beach. Mia clicked a signal light in the dusk: three clicks, stop, three more clicks. From the inlet by the beach, RG, in the boat, clicked the confirmation signal: two clicks, stop, two clicks.Highly intelligent, obsessive-compulsive, and controlling, Mia was the chief strategist and tactician for the group. She and RG frequently argued vehemently, but once a decision had been taken and it was time to take action, the pod willingly put themselves under Mia’s command.

 

As civilization seemed to be sliding downhill, Mia decided to turn their financial resources from securities and paper money into gold coins. Many people had decided to leave the island; others, including the pod, began to prepare it as a survival headquarters.

The Survival Pod had taken over the two adjoining meadows next to RG’s grandparents’ old five acres, and planted grains and vegetables as well as additional fruit trees and nut trees, and they were raising chickens, ducks, and goats. The pod had also become skillful hunters, collecting game such as squirrels, chipmunks,, rabbits, and deer from the woods at the back of their land.

They had arranged a self-defense pact with the few remaining neighbors to keep an eye on each other’s properties if one group of homesteaders traveled to the mainland for additional supplies.

Besides depending on armed and watchful neighbors, the pod also relied on traps and mines to protect their territory. Yoshi, skilled with the use of surreptitious weapons, had booby trapped the land around the homestead with pitfalls, snares, and mines. They had decided to make a trip to the mainland to see what supplies they could bring back to help see them through the uncertain future. They had brought both cash—in the form of gold coins—and weapons, unsure which they would need.

Circumstances had proven they needed both. First they had gone to a large pharmacy on the mainland and purchased a variety of medical supplies. Then they had headed toward a large sporting goods store to stock up on additional weapons, ammunition, and other survival gear. Unfortunately, as they were in the store, they discovered others approaching with similar goals and little willingness to wait patiently in line for the rapidly diminishing supply of vital items.

Following Mia’s quick-thinking directions, they fired some shots in the air, told everyone else in the store to get down on the floor, and left quickly. As they left town and headed into the woods, they observed several armed people tracking them purposefully. They opened fire on the pursuers. Several fell; several fled. One of the fallen was still alive.

Chad, their interrogation expert, quickly persuaded him to tell how many were in the party. “It looks as if there are three more alive,” he warned the others.

When they reached the bluff down to the beach where RG waited in the boat, they avoided using the trail, instead using their machetes to cut through brambles and berries. Two of their pursuers, thinking to head them off, raced down the path, falling victim to some of Yoshi’s artfully hidden traps.

When they reached the ship, they found RG eagerly awaiting them, with the engine already running and ready to go. Although wind was the main source of propulsion in these gasoline-scarce times, the boat was also equipped with a motor for those times when speed was of the essence.

As they quickly loaded the supplies on to the ship and prepared to leave, Mia called out, “Watch out!” The last of their pursuers had approached underwater and was now climbing over the side of the boat to attack them on deck. RG whirled, kicked, and chopped. Mia fired once; just to be sure the idiot pursuer was really dead; they then tossed the body overboard. They quickly sailed from the inlet where RG had concealed the boat. As soon as they were safely away from the shore, they turned off the engine and used sail to head toward the island.

Chad grumbled, “We’ll have to eat berries and nuts and packaged food from our emergency supplies until our first grain crop is ready to harvest and we can hunt and slaughter some wild animals from the woods.”

“We can do worse than nuts and berries,” replied RG, as they sailed quietly through the night.

 

 

 

RG Picks Strawberries

Random Granddaughter and Mommy (my daughter’s Out of Law partner and RG’s birth mother) arrived at 10 am. My daughter (Mama) did not come on this trip. As a teacher, Mommy has summer off; Mama as a wage slave has to be at work. (She is saving vacation for the coming trip back east to Virginia to see Mommy’s parents and to Colorado to meet dad’s partner’s parents.

Although I think our instinctive reactions to RG have usually guided us reasonably well in dealing with her in the past, now that we are more aware of her introvert nature, we proceed a little more cautiously and consciously in our dealings with her, and carefully observe her reactions to us.

When she arrived, she handed me a picture she had drawn. After she removed her clogs and entered the house, instead of heading for the blocks or the train, she went to the toy barn, her current favorite toy at our “farm” and had a brief conversation with the farm animals. After talking with farm animals, she felt ready to deal with grandparents.

I asked her what animals she learned about in dinosaur study day camp. “T-Rex and brontosaurus,” she replied. Seemed like a pretty good start in learning about dinosaurs to me. Those are dinosaurs you would want to be able to identify if they visit your neighborhood.

We all trooped outside to inspect the garden. Mrs. Random handed RG a bowl for strawberries. Mrs. Random removed the net covering the strawberries and each of the pickers went down one side of the row. The strawberries were large and succulent in appearance, meeting with RG’s approval.

Some of the strawberries had obviously been nibbled (probably by chipmunks). RG looked dubious. Grandma explained that the nibbled portions can be removed. RG was obviously torn between lust for strawberries and distaste for eating strawberries wildlife had snacked on first.

However, a few of the strawberries had large holes running all the way through the berry. Grandma explained slugs had eaten their way through the berry. RG looked horrified. I don’t know that RG has begun indulging in religious speculations yet (growing up in an irreligious family), but the expression on her face communicated something compatible with the thought: What kind of God would allow this to happen? She tossed the damaged strawberries into the weeds in disgust.

Nevertheless, she was quite happy to find herself with a bowl of decent fresh strawberries in her hand by the time she reached the end of the row. She clutched the bowl firmly and securely all the way back to the house, just in case a slug or perhaps a T-Rex tried to grab it from her before she got the bowl safely inside our little dwelling.

Next: Ducks

 

Bunnies and Squirrels, Oh My

I warned you. I warn you again. This blog now enters a zone of violence and gore. Tender-minded readers should stay away.When we lived in the city in a duplex we owned with our daughter and her partner (RG not yet born), we had a bird feeder, squirrels, and no gun.  The squirrels climbed into the bird feeder and ate the birds’ food. I said to my wife, “Squirrels are just rats with furry tails.” [This is an example of the literary technique known as "foreshadowing."]

We didn’t think much about different races of squirrels. But note that the squirrels in the city are gray.

When we moved to our country estate, consisting of five acres of mostly alder woods and had a house built for us, I asked the contractor, “Have you ever built such a small house before?”

Alders are to woods what dandelions are to lawns.

 The contractor replied to my question, “Yes, but it was somebody’s weekend vacation home; not the home people live in year round.”

 (The contractor was not being sarcastic; he is a very nice guy who did a good job; he was just answering my question in a factual way.)

I said to my wife, “My dear, we are now landed gentry.” She beamed proudly.

Squirrels and chipmunks are our nearest neighbors. The Friendly Neighbor shoots rabbits but feeds his squirrels. The squirrels have a lot of nerve. If he doesn’t feed them right away, they run up his pants leg and stick their heads into his pockets looking for nuts. He stores the supply of nuts in his workshop. One day he didn’t close the workshop door all the way. The next day, most of the nuts were gone. Guess where they went.

Mrs. Random doesn’t feed the squirrels. Our bird feeder has a baffle. Every day the squirrels run up the baffle hoping they can get through solid metal to the bird feeder. Squirrels are very smart, but often they are as stupid as people. The squirrels also scold us every day for being on their property and for not feeding them, even though they spend all day eating the seeds that fall out of bird feeder because the birds are sloppy eaters.

The squirrels that live near us and the neighbors are red. Even though they are pests, Mrs. Random considers them to be “OUR pests.”

One day, I heard my wife fussing and scolding with considerable forcefulness. I went downstairs and asked, “What’s the matter?”

She was looking out the window. She said, “I just saw two gray squirrels!”

It turns out that gray squirrels are sort of the starlings of the squirrel world. Just as starlings drive out other birds (even those that are pest birds, like English sparrows), gray squirrels drive out other squirrels. Apparently there are hierarchies of pests.

I asked, “Do you want me to shoot the gray squirrel?”

“Yes! Yes!” she said. “Don’t go out on the porch, you might scare them away. Here I removed the screen from the kitchen window. You can rest the rifle and aim better.” [This is more foreshadowing.]

One of the squirrels ran into the woods. The other, a piggy squirrel, too greedy to flee, continued eating fallen bird seed

I cocked the pellet rifle. I aimed. I have bad eyes and thick glasses; it is hard for me to see through the scope. I shot. I missed. The squirrel ran away. A few minutes later, it returned. For very smart animals, squirrels sure are dumb. I shot four times and missed. A few minutes later, my wife said, “It’s back.”

This was a REALLY dumb squirrel.

It was at the very back of the cleared area. A borderline distance for me, though six feet is borderline for me.  I aimed carefully. The squirrel thrashed for a second and then lay still. I put on my shoes and went out, carrying the rifle, to examine it. Often I don’t kill my prey on the first shot. I don’t like to make the animals I shoot suffer, so I kill them as quickly as possible if I just wound them.

 It’s hard to make a kill shot with a tiny pellet, so I usually have to finish them off.

On examination I could see that I had hit the squirrel in the head and it was very dead. I tossed the squirrel in the woods for the coyotes or crows. (Another terrible example of my not eating the animals I shoot, which in some people’s eyes might provide at least a little justification.)  

I returned to my wife and told her the gray squirrel was now an “ex-Squirrel.” She uttered words of delight and praise.

The next day, the Friendly Neighbors were over on an errand. Mr. Friendly Neighbor said, “I heard you killed a gray squirrel with one shot. Pretty impressive.” My wife had apparently bragged about my shooting prowess to the friendly neighbors. Apparently she had provided information in a selective fashion.

I said, “Well, I completely missed the squirrel four times before I got it.” I thought, A stopped clock is correct twice a day; if Mr. Random shoots his pellet rifle enough times at a very dumb pest eventually he will look like a great white hunter.

 

Bunnycide

Commenting on a long ago post, Bunny wrote:

Are you really offing bunnies?

I don’t have a problem if you kill them for food but otherwise they’re aren’t really doing much harm so why not leave them alone?

Wild rabbits eat vegetables from the garden we spent hours planting and tending and weeding and intend to eat. We don’t share well.

Married with Guns

 

Whenever I think of guns and hunting, John and Mary come to mind.

John and I worked for the same company for a few years, an enterprise that owns a chain of quick printing stores. At the time I worked for it, the chain was owned by a very intelligent, skilled, and troublesome married couple I will discuss in other posts.  

Enough for now to say that they caused most of their employees—including John and myself—to frequently sigh and roll our eyes. The company (still around) is not Fedex Kinko’s, but their business model is similar. Quick printing companies were just beginning to install computers so customers could set their own resumes and letterheads and brochures using the earliest Macintosh computers and Apple LaserWriter printers.

 

I was hired to help them implement this technology for this company.

 

John was the marketing and advertising director for the company.

 

John and I gradually became work friends. The company headquarters was about a 10-minute walk along a country lane from a pizza parlor. About once a week or so, John and I would walk to the restaurant for a salad from the salad bar and a slice of pizza. During those walks, I gradually learned about John.

 John was a very gifted artist. His artistic talent expressed itself in two ways. For one thing, he was a talented cartoonist. I was writing some training manuals for customers just learning to use our computers; I used John’s cartoons for illustrations.

John was also a fine “fine artist” who painted quite well. He mostly painted wild life, especially ducks. He showed me a few of his paintings; they looked very good to my unsophisticated eye. Better judges than I also admired his work.

 For example, in most years, John submitted an entry in the national duck stamp contest. Duck stamps are not postage stamps, but serve as licenses for duck hunters and collector’s items for some people who appreciate wildlife art. Sales of duck stamps raise money for wildlife preservation. John never won the national contest, but he had made the finals several times. As there are thousands of entries each year, making the finals is quite impressive.

 John was such a good painters of ducks because he observed them very closely. He observed them very closely, because his favorite activity in life was shooting ducks.

John also had a lively sense of humor, fairly compatible with mine. For example, a stream ran along the rural street where we walked to the pizza parlor. One day we saw a few ducks paddling in the stream and John burst out laughing as he contemplated the ducks. I raised a quizzical eyebrow. John explained, “I figure if I end up in Hell, my eternal punishment will consist of thousands of ducks with guns shooting at me as I flee from them.”I met John’s wife, Mary, a few times as once in a while she picked him up at the end of the work day. Like John, she loved guns and hunting. They had two adult sons. One son was engaged in a military career; the other was a patrolman for the Oregon State Patrol. Like their parents, they also cherished guns and hunting.

They seemed like an affectionate, relaxed couple. Similar to her husband, Mary also seemed to have a lively sense of humor and a quick wit. One day John mentioned to me that when his wife had turned 40, he teased her by remarking, “I think I’ll trade you in for two 20-year old women.’”Very quick on the draw, Mary had instantly responded, “I’m sorry, John, that won’t work for you. You’re not wired for 220.”

I also learned that they had made a good living for a while as professional hunters in Africa. Mary, in fact, had grown up in Africa, a child of white European colonists in that continent. John, an avid hunter, had met her on a hunting trip. A shared interest in guns and hunting not only sparked romance and marriage, but also a profession and a life style. The started a business of leading hunting safaris for rich Americans, typically Texas oilmen who wanted to bag some African game and hang it on a wall so they could present themselves to their friends as characters from a story by Ernest Hemingway. Frequently, after their clients shot their prey and were in a jolly mood, John found it easy to sell them one of his paintings for a princely sum.

 

They loved their life as hunters and guides for rich wanna-be hunters, but it was not a life style with a good future. First, an economic downturn dried up the supply of white hunters hankering to go on safari and rich art collectors willing to pay high prices for pictures of ducks in flight. When business picked up again, they discovered that safaris for people with cameras were now more popular and more acceptable than safaris with guns. John and Mary found shooting with film quite boring compared to shooting with bullets. They had made a lot of money quickly with their safaris and art sales, but their profession and lifestyle had been expensive. Furthermore, young and heedless of the future they had spent money as quickly as they made it. They unhappily realized they had to head for the United States and seek out more pedestrian ways of making a living.

 

John’s artistic talents and experience with marketing his art and hunting expeditions led him into a career in marketing and advertising. Mary’s experience with tracking and hunting had left her handy with guns, physically fit, and good at pursuing prey. She went into a career in law enforcement. When I met her she was working as a sheriff’s deputy.

They loved guns and shooting and hunting just as some people love driving fast cars, fast boats, or fast motorcycles, or flying or jumping out of airplanes, or diving in the ocean,, or pursuing other exciting toys and activities.

There is a lot of controversy about guns in our society; some people want guns mostly banned for safety issues. Other people decry hunting and shooting birds and animals. At the other extreme, there are people, such as many members of the National Rifle Association, who consider the 2^nd Amendment to the Constitution as our greatest bulwark of freedom and vigorously oppose any restrictions on use and ownership of weapons.

John and Mary fell into neither extreme. They were just fairly ordinary people who loved guns and who loved to shoot birds and animals with them. Until my recent madness with my pellet rifle, I was not much of a gun person, but I’ve never been particularly perturbed by guns or gun owners. As with any other group, people who like and use guns should be evaluated as individuals and not as a group. John and Mary struck me as perfectly sensible and responsible in their handling of firearms.

I never saw John and Mary’s house. As John described it to me, it was filled with guns and memorabilia they had collected over the years. The walls held animals and birds they had shot (fine examples of the taxidermist’s art), John’s paintings, and many fine guns (carefully unloaded).

With my sarcastic sense of humor, I sometimes wondered (but never said out loud to John), about how safe their home decorating scheme was. Even happily married couples have arguments and fights and disputes. If your house is full of every variety of firearm, doesn’t that add an extra amount of risk during a marital spat?

Sometimes people I have known as friends toss out a revelation that startles and mystifies me. One day, as we walked and chatted, John suddenly burst out with the following statement. I don’t think I had said anything to stimulate the comment, nor had any event in our environment or work life provoked it.

John suddenly said to me with some forcefullness, “When I think how terribly I treated my wife a few years ago, I am filled with shame. I am amazed that we are still married.” He offered no further explanation.

This is not the only time in my life when an acquaintance has startled me with an unexpected revelation. When astonished in such a way, I tend to remain in respectful silence rather than asking probing questions, so I didn’t question John about his surprising remark.

Had he cheated on his wife with the wife of one of rich hunters they guided? Had he engaged in physical abuse? I really don’t know, but it struck me as very dangerous indeed if your wife loves guns and knows how to use them very well, to treat her badly. It made me think there was a Hemingway story in his past. As I have little talent for writing fiction, I will leave the tale that must have been behind his remark to your imagination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery No More

I was struggling futilely down by the basement with the enchanted generator trying to figure out how to remove the evil spell cast by the witch we hadn’t invited to the house-warning, when I went up to the main level of the house to get a drink of water and saw my wife talking with several people.

We seldom get visitors, as we live on an island. Furthermore, we live off a private gravel road. Even more further, you can’t see our little house from the private gravel road because our driveway curls down behind some trees so our house hides from the road.

And people who get that far tend to be sorry. A census taker came to our house twice. We had been selected to answer an extra set of questions about our dwelling. My wife said, “We answered the basic census questions. We don’t have to answer extra questions. Frankly, our dwelling is none of your business.”

She didn’t take the fish bonker that hangs by the door to the census worker, but it was a near thing.

However, my wife was talking to the strangers in a cheerful and friendly manner, so I approached in wonder to see what was going on.

“These are our neighbors on lot #4,” my wife said.

She performed introductions. The man is named Carl. Originally from Virginia, he now works for Boeing. “My daughter’s partner is from Virginia,” I said.

The woman’s name Mae (a Westernized adaptation of a Malaysian name too complex for Western tongues to wrap around). She told us she is a botanist.

“My daughter majored in biology and thought she would be a horticulturalist,” I said. “What kind of work do you do in botany?”

“I teach grade school. But I am working part time while I care for our son.” Their son, Chad, was picking up and examining rocks from the collection of pretty pebbles piled on the side of one of the steps to our front porch.

“Our granddaughter collects rocks when she comes to visit us,” I said. “However, her mommies won’t let her take them back to the mainland, so she leaves them on the step when the leave.”

“How old is your granddaughter?” Mae asked.

“Four years old. But she tells us that she is almost all grown up.” I said.

“Chad is five. He thinks he is about grown up also.”

I know RG likes older men, but I figured it was a little early to bring up that topic. Also, RG’s best friend Mia’s diversity heritage may be closer to Chad’s. This may get interesting and complicated when they’re all 15, or maybe not.

Mae told Chad to put the rocks back because they belonged to our granddaughter. He didn’t look very happy, but he complied. One of these days he will figure out that the trick is to bring pretty pebbles to pretty girls, but they probably don’t cover that in kindergarten.

We were getting a good impression. Mae spoke politely to Chat, but she required him to be respectful of other people’s property.

After we had chatted a bit, I raised another property issue. “The person who sold you the property cleared some trees into our property,” I said.

Chad and Mae asked, “Where is the property line?” A good question for new neighbors to ask, I thought. We walked them over to the area where our property ends and theirs begins. We showed them the three little cedar trees and the Douglas fir we had planted a couple of years ago. “The Douglas fir doesn’t look too good,” I said. “It’s been damaged by deer. But it’s still alive”; I pointed at the branches growing at the top of the little tree above where the buck had rubbed it.

We showed the newer Douglas fir we had planted last year in the area improperly cleared. We had put a little fence around the latest tree to give it a fighting chance against the deer.

“We’re planning on planting some evergreens,” they told us. They seemed to be respectful of the property line and to share our desire for privacy.

“It’s very quiet,” Mae said approvingly. Mrs. Random beamed; she loves quiet; she loves quiet neighbors. There was a good feeling in the quiet air as we contemplated common values.

Mae and Carl had met Joe and his dog on his property. They hadn’t me the Friendly Neighbors yet. I told them the Friendly Neighbors have a cat.

“We have a cat,” said Mae. “But I don’t think we can let it out here. The coyotes would eat it.” I told them we had seen coyotes in our backyard, so that keeping the cat indoors was probably a good idea.

We walked back to our property. We exchanged phone numbers. They told us they probably wouldn’t be building on their property for a few years. Chad was restless; he asked if they could go home. However, he didn’t whine and fuss, and waited until the grown-ups had finished their boring grown-up business. We said goodbye, relieved that the neighbors on lot #4 were no longer a mystery.

The Butterfly Comes Out of

At one point during the Barely Extended Family’s weekend visit, Mommy (Random Granddaughter’s birth mother and my daughter’s partner) and I took RG for a walk in the woods.

We spotted a “woolly bear” caterpillar on the ground, inspiring some examination and discussion.

At one point, Mom (who is a grade school teacher at a private school for high-IQ children) decided to provide a “teachable moment.”

She asked, “Do you know what a caterpillar turns into?”

RG thought for a couple of minutes, digging through her mental reservoir of natural history. At last, she triumphantly announced, “It turns into a butterfly.” She thought some more; the floodgates of information were opening; she explicated further:

“The butterfly comes out of the raccoon.”

She stared in bewilderment as Mommy and Grandpa could not keep themselves from bursting out in intense laughter. However, we decided not to amend her understanding at this point. It’s always good to hold such moments in reserve to embarrass children when they become teenagers.

Bunny dumping mystery has animal lovers hopping

MASSAPEQUA PARK, New York (AP) — Animal rights activists are hopping mad because they can’t find the wascals who’ve been dumping domestic wabbits all over the place.

Long Island can be a dangerous place for wandering rabbits, experts say.

People have been dropping the furry creatures on roadways, in parks and near school grounds on Long Island’s South Shore with increasing regularity in recent months, animal control experts said.

Earlier this month, a man was seen dumping 20 rabbits in a box at a train station and driving away, said Nancy Schreiber, a Long Island Rabbit Rescue Group volunteer.

“It sounds like someone is raising rabbits and trying to get out of the business,” said Gerry McBride, who handles criminal complaints for the Nassau County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The SPCA is trying to figure out who is responsible for dumping the cuddly critters, and the Rabbit Rescue Group is offering a $5,000 reward.

The rabbits often can’t fend for themselves in the wild and end up starving to death or being killed by raccoons or diseases.

Many of the rabbits found by the rescue group have been infested with fleas or ticks. They’ve been treated, fed, cleaned and put up for adoption.