Anonymous Call to New Animal Abuse Hotline Leads to Raid on Colorado Woman’s Rabbit Farm
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.
Bell formed Six Bells Farm Candle Company and Rabbitry as a licensed farm business. Launched as an offshoot of a 4-H project via which she taught her four children how to take care of something other than themselves, it grew into an operation that involved raising more than a dozen varieties of rabbits, primarily for personal meat consumption but also for use in educating children — including kids involved in 4-H — and members of the general public nationwide. As the years passed, Bell’s expertise and reputation grew alongside her rabbit farm. Not only did she become president of the local Long’s Peak Rabbit Club, but she became known as the go-to “resource person” for 4-H kids in Colorado who were interested in rabbits. Her reputation as a top expert when it comes to understanding and caring for rabbits spread throughout Colorado and across the United States. But that was before the raid.
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.
Bell noted that 12 of the seized rabbits belong to 4-H kids who were planning to show them at upcoming fairs — two at the Jefferson County Fair that begins Thursday and the remaining 10 at the Colorado State Fair which runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 5 in Pueblo.
Rabbit raisers in Colorado are so scared they might suffer the same fate as Six Bells Farm, Bell said, that many are not going to show their animals at the Colorado State Fair. The shortage of participants at this year’s Small Animals Show is so severe that officials extended the deadline for entry and, in order to prevent animal rights activists from collecting the names of rabbit owners, officials are planning to not display the names of rabbit owners alongside their rabbits.
“I would hope the entire United States would get involved in this,” Bell said, “because this is a group of people that have gotten away with this crap once or twice and they’re just continuing.
“Because they’ve been given the power erroneously once, they’re taking it more and more,” she continued, “and they’re gonna chase farmers out.”