An anonymous Crime Stoppers hotline tip led animal control officers from the Jefferson County (Colo.) Sheriff’s Office to descend upon Bell’s one-acre farm at about 10:30 that morning and, before the day was over, remove nearly 200 rabbits from the property. The 59 year old was being accused of 24 misdemeanor charges of cruelty to animals, including charges that she somehow mistreated two meat rabbits already inside her freezer. More on the hotline later.
“My neighbor called and said, ‘They’re seizing your animals! You need to get home!’” Bell recalled.
When Bell asked for more details, the neighbor explained that animal control officers and deputies from the sheriff’s office had arrived around 10:30 a.m. and were preparing to seize her rabbits.
About 45 minutes from home, Bell wrapped up her research as quickly as she could and drove home to find out more about who was taking her rabbits and why. She wanted to save the rabbits, each of which she knew by name, breed, tattoo and sex.
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. The “salt in the wound” that the situation had become was the fact that the sheriff’s office officials were accompanied by volunteers from the local branch of the House Rabbit Society — a nationwide group comprised of people who, according to Bell, think rabbits need to be raised like small children.
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, she said they told her they would set the zoning issue aside.
When she told them her business was a livestock operation, they told her they disagreed and began to push the proverbial envelope.
Bell said one officer told her, “We found a dead rabbit,” and acted as if that was the “nail in the coffin” for his case. She responded bluntly, saying, “Rabbits die” — a fact she learned while growing up in Central Texas, where everybody is aware of that fact.
Hoping to document her experience, Bell said she took three photos — two of which appear above — of the area around her barn. Soon after, she was told by a sheriff’s deputy, under threat of arrest, that she had better stop.
“They told me four, five or six times (that) they were taking the animals no matter what,” Bell said, noting that she pointed out to them several times that there was nothing wrong with the animals or the conditions in which they were living.
When an officer told Bell the rabbits were living in “deplorable conditions,” she told him he was wrong.
“They are not living in deplorable conditions,” she said. “Their cages are clean. The trays are underneath them. We’re cleaning this weekend.”
Bell went on to explain to the officer that kids from the local 4-H organization who are involved in raising rabbits come out every weekend to help clean cages and do other things related to the care of the rabbits.
Several times during the day, animal control officers approached Bell and asked her to sign the rabbits over to them. When she asked what it was going to cost her if she didn’t, their reply stunned her.
“They said, ‘Five dollars a day per rabbit,’” Bell recalled, “and I said, ‘That’s $815 per day. Take ‘em! I can’t afford that.”
As a result of recently putting two boys through Colorado State University, Bell said, she told the officers she has a “mountain of debt” already and could not afford more than $24,000 per month — for a minimum of one month. The entire herd of rabbits was worth only $17,000.
At approximately 4:30 p.m., Bell said, a sheriff’s deputy arrived with the long-awaited search warrant and, within a half hour, the assembled animal control officers and volunteers began hauling out the rabbits in an effort that lasted about four hours.
