Don’t Drown, Baby Bunny! I’m Coming!

OMG, OMG, I just rescued a baby bunny from the pool. OMG, I’m still shaking. It’s alive, it ran off. OMG!

I wasn’t even outside; I can’t believe I saw it in time! I was was walking around tidying the house when I paused to bounce a minute to a particularly catchy segment of a song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At2D0NGfGjk) and glanced outside to see something struggling in the pool! Again! It was only 3 days ago I rescued a struggling lizard, and only a few days before that when I found a lizard too late to rescue.

I immediately assumed another lizard, but as I ran outside to grab my skimmer, I could see it was too large for a lizard. A gila monster? As I got closer I thought for a second that it was a huge frog – smooth and round with spindly legs. Clearly it was in trouble. “Oh My God, I’m coming, I’m coming, hang on!”, I shouted (helpfully, I’m sure).

At the last moment, as I struggled to catch it in my skimmer, I realized it was a small bunny. In my haste to get it out of the pool, I almost threw it too hard against the nearby wall.

It was alive, and sat against the wall and stared at me for a moment, too stunned to move. I turned and dashed inside to get my phone to take a picture. I dashed back out and it was still sitting there. When it saw me coming, it started to run.

I was afraid I was going to scare it right back into the pool! I regretted going back outside for it’s picture.

Don’t run back into the pool, little bunny!

But he swung wide of the pool, and dashed under the fence toward the prickly pear cactus where I’ve seen the rabbits before.

Whew! Lizards in the pool, phones in the pool, now bunnies in the pool. What am I going to do with that pool? Now I know for sure – that pool is a hazard for the local wildlife!

I’m not sure what to do about it, although I was already thinking about making our fence rabbit-proof. Once I start planting things, I don’t want rabbits eating my garden. The prickly pear, where I see them a lot, is outside the fence along the side yard – I’m happy to have them live there.