Rabbit rescue
Meet animal lover Gwen Butler, the founder of a very special charity for small creatures
Straight-talking Yorkshirewoman Gwen Butler is feeling ‘a bit of a fraud’.
She has a date to receive a British Empire Medal next year from the Queen – honouring her decades of devotion to rescuing rabbits. She explains: “It’s not as if I’ve jumped into a river or gone into a burning building and risked my life to save somebody’s else’s. I just wake up in the morning and do what I love doing. I’m a very lucky person,” shrugs the slightly bemused founder of Bunny Burrows, a small independent animal rescue charity that she runs from her home in Richmond, North Yorkshire. Hundreds of happy bunnies who’ve been at the receiving end of the former shoe factory manager’s tender loving care might question her modesty if they could talk. Thanks to Gwen and her late husband John, with whom she launched the centre 22 years ago, scores of animals’ existences were transformed the minute they hopped (or more likely hobbled or were carried) across the threshold of their three-bed semi.
Free bed and board, vaccinations against disease, neutering and other veterinary treatment are all provided at the point of need and those that recover well enough are rehomed or, in the case of wild rabbits, released back into nature.
An only child with an animal-loving mother, Gwen grew up surrounded by pets,
including rabbits. When Gwen was a toddler, the family’s dog, Spot, could often be seen riding in the pram with her. “You wouldn’t hear of that happening now, would you?” she chuckles. Gwen’s love of animals stuck, but it wasn’t until 1996 when her friend, Sheila, needed a lift to an RSPCA centre, where she was a volunteer, that her care work really took off.
The two arrived to find a Channel 4 crew filming an episode of Pet Rescue. While Sheila went off to do her work, Gwen largely ignored the dogs and cats to go straight to see the rabbits. Intrigued, the crew asked
An only child with an animal-loving mother, Gwen grew up surrounded by pets
why she loved rabbits so much and included her in the programme. Popular with the viewers, she was asked back on anything rabbit related and became a regular guest.
Word spread and people turned up on her doorstep with guinea pigs and tortoises as well as rabbits that they’d found or no longer wanted. Unable to turn them away, she admits: “Within a year it had snowballed so much, it had taken over my life and John’s.”
By this time, John had retired from his job as an Army sergeant but was working in a civilian role and Gwen had been made redundant from her job as a production manager but was selling craft products she’d made.
Soon every spare minute was spent caring for the small animals brought to them and they even took rabbits on their caravan holidays in the early days. A 6ft fence was erected round the garden so the animals were secure; they bought a shed and were soon converting their garage to build hutches for the vulnerable creatures. “Nothing lives outside,” she says proudly, though the animals do spend daytime out in the garden, which contains a long wild rabbit run. By the late Nineties, their charity was officially formed which Gwen describes as, “a very special moment” and they went on to win several awards for their unstinting care for animals.
John sadly died of cancer in 2010, but Gwen carries on the work they started. Today Gwen ( 72) works as hard as ever to keep the animals clean, healthy and well fed. Her days begin at 8am mucking out and feeding. Her evenings are spent selling donated goods on eBay to help raise the £30,000 needed each year. Gwen’s weekly fruit and veg bill alone is £200 and vet bills cost £1,500 a month. On top of that there’s the cost of vaccines (which she’s been trained to administer herself) and hay.
‘I wake up in the morning and do what I love doing. I’m very lucky’
It takes a large chunk of her pension but she refuses to worry unduly about cost, saying: “I always believe that if I am doing the right thing with my life, the money will be there and so far it always has been.” Nevertheless, it’s a relentless commitment seven days a week, 52 weeks a year with no holidays or days off, even at Christmas.
Does she think the day will ever come when she doesn’t want to continue? “No, it’s not even on the cards. I had a new left knee last year, a new right knee 14 years ago and a new right hip two years ago. So I’m as good as new!”
For relaxation, she just ‘hugs a bunny’ of which she currently has 23, including six wild ones living harmoniously alongside her 18 guinea pigs, 12 tortoises, 20 cold water fish and even her pet Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Fliss.
“I have a thing about rabbits; I just adore them. I understand them and know when they’re not well. I just connect with them. I think I must have been a rabbit in a previous life!” It’s good news for the people who arrived on her doorstep with buckets and sandwich boxes containing rabbits, some only hours old, that they’ve rescued when digging roads, working on building sites or found injured in the countryside.
“It’s nice to be needed and I have a terrific team around me,” she says. That includes the support of specialist vets and around 40 volunteers to do everything from mucking out to bookkeeping.
She will be depending on them to hold the fort when visiting Buckingham Palace next year.
“Animals always come first,” she insists. As delighted as she is by her royal accolade, awarded in the Queen’s birthday honours list earlier this year, Gwen’s feet are still firmly on Yorkshire soil.
“It’s very nice but if I didn’t get it, it wouldn’t make any difference to me. This is what I do; it’s my life. Nothing can give me more satisfaction than just doing what I do.”
■ If you’d like to found out more about gwen’s charity visit www.bunnyburrows.co.uk