I was able to watch the video and read the comments, but my opinion hasn't changed much. Completely insufficient information. It sounds like there are a lot of people who know her, and that she has a positive image in the community, so I hope they do speak out and bring forth evidence of what they know. Some people were saying that some of the dead rabbits were taken from a freezer (again, no way for me to know one way or the other) meant for zoo food. We used to get in breeder culls for our animals (VERY helpful to get free or cheap meat for our animals, and a useful way to do culling where culled animals don't go to waste), so it would not surprise me at all if she did have bunnies in the freezer. Not reporting that the dead animals were taken from a freezer and why would be incredibly misleading of the media, and I hope they would get strung up for that if that is the case. As it is, they provided absolutely no information about the dead animals, which is definitely misleading at best. The shelter worker clips put me off a bit honestly. I know nothing of this particular shelter, but just in general, I have witnessed several shelters and rescues make a huge deal of high publicity cases as it means more money (through adoptions) and publicity for their facility. If they took advantage of this situation, I hope they are also held accountable for doing so. Again, if the conditions were 'deplorable', I can not understand why they did not show them in the video clip since they were filming everything else. I did not see a 'shed', I saw a barn with proper add-ons. I did not see rabbits that looked like they had been pulled from cages deep in feces. I saw drop pans, and I saw white rabbits with zero staining on their fur. I saw an angora with no noticeable matting or debris in the fur. ...Did they wash and brush these rabbits before loading them up? Definitely brings the accusations to question, especially since I'd assume these would be the worst cases they would show. It sounds like the rabbits were handled poorly after seizure if the reader comments have truth to them, which may give the owner quite a big leg to stand on.
On the other side, not having food I can understand (as far as pellets go, though I do think hay should be always available), and if the rabbits were not thin, then I don't understand why that would be a complaint. But, I didn't see anyone dispute that the rabbits didn't have access to water, just that they weren't without it for long. That does bother me. I think those are the only two things that seem credible at this point to me personally. Lacking access to water and lacking required permits seem to be what would hold some weight if they proved to be true. However, cruelty seems like a ridiculous charge to try to push for if the rabbits they showed were those in 'deplorable' conditions. Hoarding seems to be in the public eye more and more (there is a TV show about it, yes?), and throwing around terms like that without having even a basic grasp on what hoarding entails is ridiculous and damaging, in my opinion. The media saying that this is a case of hoarding because there were 200 rabbits hurts my brain. Ultimately though, just not much to go on though for someone out of state. I'm glad these were not just pets, as breeders tend to have more connections and more back up to fight these accusations.
