Free Republic

Travelers have a warning for drivers who park their cars near Denver International Airport (DIA). Rabbits are chewing the wires under many cars costing owners a lot of money. The rabbits get in and chew the brake lines, the clutch lines and other wiring. Local car repair shops estimates they can do thousands of dollars in damage. “When I had the trouble with the oil light coming on, the dealer told me the wires that controlled the air conditioning were chewed,” said Ken Blum, one car owner who knows all about the not so funny bunny business at DIA. Blum...

Upon arriving home at about 1:40 p.m., she found the animal control officers being unreasonable and milling about on her property — without a search warrant. ... Much “discussion” took place during the day and, when the animal control officers told Bell she had “too many animals for your zoning,” she begged to differ. “No, you need to check your zoning regulations,” she told them. “I moved in before you changed the zoning. I can have as many animals as I want. I have more than an acre. I’m zoned A-2.” Apparently stumped by her knowledge of the local zoning,...

The definition of “totalitarian” is: “of or pertaining to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life. [Emphasis added.]” And while we’re not quite there yet — we still do hear other (mostly stupid) opinions — read the following and tell me if our government doesn’t meet the italicized portion of the above definition. Rural Missouri farmer John Dollarhite was just fined $90,000 by our central government for engaging in a commercial endeavor. Was he an illegal alien running drugs across our border? No, such people benefit...

You can't make this up.  A Missouri man, presumably trying to make a living in the era of Hope and Change, has been fined more than twice the cost of a Chevy Volt for illegally selling rabbits.  John Dollarhite says he didn't know a federal license was required and, even if he had known, probably wouldn't have foreseen the blindsiding of the 8th amendment by the Department of Agriculture.  To wit:Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. Ninety grand?  For those without a calculator, that's the reported profit in question ($200)...

That’s right. I’m putting this right at the feet of the president himself. A family in Missouri has been fined more than $90,000 by the US Department of Agriculture for selling more than $500 of the furry creatures in less than one year. The families profit was a whopping $200 for the year.

A HUNTER died after squeezing his head into a rabbit hole and suffocating. Energy Kamuruko was out tracking with dogs when he noticed a rabbit dart into a tunnel near the village of Mandipaka in Nyanga. The 20-year-old peered inside but his head got stuck. His body was found the following day by a neighbour. A postmortem confirmed he died on Sunday of asphyxiation. It is the second hunting-related accidental death in recent months. In August, Tamsen Lucius, 36, impaled himself on his own spear while chasing wild pigs. Police said he had climbed a tree to try and get...

Travelers parking their cars at the Denver International Airport are falling victim to something worse than high fees: rabbits. The rodents seem to love the delicious soy-based wiring compound in cars built after 2002. The airport denies that rabbits were the cause of the damage to numerous vehicles, but local mechanics — and more precisely, local dealerships — seem to think of the place as a haven for the furry predators. The camera crew shot a BMW guy pointing to a fantastic-looking E30, but we're hoping the car wasn't one of the targets.

Submitted without comment

I just found out there is a bunny living by the garage door, under the cement stoop. I put some small carrots there. He smelled them but didn't eat them. He is eating the dandelions (lots of those around) Should I try to feed him? What would I give him that would not attract unwelcome critters?

Every morning before school, Barney the rabbit could expect a little treat and a bit of loving attention. But when his owner, 13-year-old Kiera Bailey, came downstairs to make her daily check on him, the schoolgirl received a dreadful surprise. Instead of her beloved pet - bought nine years ago after a bad experience at school - there was an empty hutch and a threatening note, apparently from animal rights extremists.

Hundreds of well-bred rabbits took the opportunity to make new acquaintances and reproduce when a roof collapsed at Sweden's premier rabbit show in Nyköping in February. The Local reported at the time that the Nyköping exhibition, 100 kilometres south of Stockholm, had attracted 1,648 rabbits and their owners to the vast indoor tennis complex. When the roof collapsed in the wake of a spate of heavy snowfalls, many of the prize pets found their cages had opened and they were at liberty to roam as they pleased amid the debris. Workers tasked with clearing the fallen roof soon found that...

A few words from Cliff Penrose, and even the most badly-behaved bunny is like putty in his hands. For he is Britain's only rabbit whisperer, a master of the little-known art of hopnosis. His technique is guaranteed to place the patient in a trance, lying flat on its back with its paws in the air for up to ten minutes at a time.     I feel all floppy: Cliff Penrose lulls a bunny into a trance-like state, its legs in the air   Out for the count: Tammy after a stroke from Mr Penrose    Mr Penrose, a 60-year-old grandfather,...

THE mosquitoes set to boom in Sydney after the summer deluges will be put to use helping cull a suburban rabbit plague. Tens of thousands of rabbits have spread across northern Sydney, bouncing around Manly, Ku-ring-gai, Pittwater, Warringah, Ryde, Parramatta, The Hills, Hornsby and Lane Cove local government areas. The State Government's Cumberland Livestock Health and Pest Authority has been waiting for mosquito and fly numbers to increase so that the insects can spread the rabbit-killing calicivirus. Cumberland LHPA ranger and rabbit project leader Steve Parker said the authority had been catching rabbits to test that they were not immune...

In 1994, when Deion Sanders left the Atlanta Falcons for the San Francisco 49ers, there apparently was some bad blood between him and hos former Falcon teammate Andre Rison. This bad blood was on center stage when it came time for the 49ers to play the Falcons. The sports media had done all it could to make sure something would happen by constantly asking the two what tey were going to do when Sanders covers Rison. It was their way I guess of promoting the game in which the two would meet. The game was hyped as much for the...

Researchers have engineered artificial penises in rabbits, using cells from the animals, who then used their new organs to father baby rabbits.The work takes scientists closer to making other complex solid organs such as livers using a patient's own cells, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. It provides a tailor-made transplant, said Dr. Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who led the study.

A PAIR of rabid rabbits has been caught killing a series of snakes near Cairns.For three weeks Armando Del Manso believed his dog was responsible for the dead snakes showing up with teeth marks all over them on his East Barron property’s lawn each morning.But it turns out it was a pair of rampaging rabbits killing the snakes.Pictures: Cairns snakesThe 42-year-old boilermaker first made the discovery Tuesday night when he spotted the two wild rabbits attacking a king brown snake.“The snake was raised up in the air in the striking position and the two rabbits worked their way around him and...

Miriam Sakewitz, 47, violated her probation by having the rabbits, Judge Gayle Nachtigal, of the Washington County Circuit court ruled on Thursday. The judge sentenced Sakewitz to 90 days in the county jail. Police arrested Sakewitz on June 16 after she called a maintenance worker to her room in the Portland suburb of Tigard to fix a broken television set. The worker saw and smelled the rabbits, some of them hopping freely around the house. The woman's legal problems began in 2006, when police found more than 150 rabbits in her home and dozens more bunny bodies in freezers. She...

PORTLAND, Ore. – Washington County's "Bunny Lady" is back in the hutch after violating a court order banning her from owning animals for five years. Miriam Sakewitz, 47, was arrested Tuesday at a hotel in the Portland suburb of Tigard after an employee reported finding rabbits hopping around in her room. Problems for Sakewitz started in October 2006 when police in Hillsboro, about 15 miles west of Portland, found and confiscated nearly 250 rabbits in her home, including about 100 dead ones in freezers and refrigerators.

Easter's rolling around -- what better time to honor hare-raising movies, TV, and books? Count us lucky to have seen the feats of Bugs Bunny, the Energizer Bunny, the House Bunny, and more

A HILL farmer has devised a cunning plan to rid his fields of a plague of rabbits. Paul Coppen, 69, camouflaged his vintage Massey Ferguson tractor as a cow – complete with a firing platform and a gunslit. He admitted the disguise – a black and white cow under a tree painted on a wooden board fixed to the side of the vehicle – was not foolproof. The former technical manager for ICI in the north of England said: " One of my neighbours, Stan Mitchell, came up with the idea and helped me out, and I just went with...