When the Easter Bunny comes to fill baskets each year, he typically doesn't get to stay very long.
Almost 80 percent of bunnies that are up for adoption at shelters were once purchased as Easter gifts, MyFoxPhilly.com reports.
"Bunnies grow very quickly, and they're not tiny and cute for very long," Carolyn Gracie of Main Line Animal Rescue told the news source. "Often after a very short time, people abandon them and they end up in shelters, or worse."
Despite the fact that bunnies make poor pets for children, they’re skittish and anti-social, according to PETA, Easter celebrants will often bring them home with their collection of peeps and chocolate eggs to enhance the holiday atmosphere.
"They are nothing like the precious E.B. from Hop whom your children are imagining when they beg for a bunny," Courtney Smith wrote in a PETA blog post. "Even the Hop website has put a disclaimer discouraging viewers from running out of the theater and going straight to the pet store to buy their own 'rock 'n' roll bunny.'"
June Booth, an advocate for pet rabbits who lives in New Orleans, urges people to seriously consider what it takes to take care of a bunny before impulsively purchasing one, Nola.com reports.
Booth has rescued 14 rabbits over the years, including one that she found racing through the streets -- dyed pink from the waist down for Easter.
"They've got to know rabbits mean a commitment," Booth told Nola.com. "They live 10 to 12 years, and rescues and shelters just don't have the room or the money to take them all in."
To get involved with Main Line Animal Rescue, click here.
To find out more about pet adoption, click here.