https://www.timesunion.com/7day-breaking/article/Pilfered-bunnies-brought-back-to-urban-farm-12998897.php
Pilfered bunnies brought back to urban farm
Updated 6:46 pm, Friday, June 15, 2018
Schenectady
Two rare American Blue rabbits that were apparently stolen from Vale Urban Farm last weekend were returned after someone who bought them on the street realized the two had been bunny-napped.
Melissa MacKinnon, the garden educator at the farm, said the facility, adjacent to Vale Cemetery, had three rabbits, two females and a male. When volunteers showed up Sunday morning they found the rabbits' hutch empty with the doors closed. The male was soon found nearby, but the females were gone, MacKinnon said.
However, media coverage about the leporine larceny reached a person who had purchased them without knowing their origin, MacKinnon said.
"(T)he people who bought them off the street learned they were stolen and returned them," MacKinnon said in an email to the Times Union. The email did not say whether the people who returned the rare rabbits identified the seller, and it was not immediately clear if the case was being investigated by Schenectady police or if the $500 reward the cemetery had been offering went to the person who returned the rabbits.
The rabbits, named Apple, Banana, and Carrot, are popular with visitors and are mainly used as part of the farm's educational mission to teach city residents ways to start their own urban farms.
They are of the American Blue breed, which was among the most valuable meat-producing rabbits in the early 20th century, according to the Livestock Conservancy. The breed was developed in 1918 and was originally termed the German Blue Vienna rabbit. The name was changed to avoid association with Germany due to World War I. In 1920 their popularity had exploded as the breed produced young that grew to market size quickly.
Today they are considered among the rarest breeds in the country.
