Beloved Rabbits

Beloved Rabbits is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (#SC049128) that was formed in March 2019. Prior to this, the organisation was operating as Fairly Beloved Rabbit Care, a registered Scottish Charity (#SC042706) founded by husband & wife team David & Feona Bell, and so we now have over 10 years experience in rabbit welfare and rescue activities. Our primary goal is to improve the welfare standards of domestic rabbits in Scotland. This is achieved through the provision of a number of services including rabbit rescue & rehoming, adoption, bonding services, care advice and general rabbit welfare education services. When they started the rescue, in December 2010, they saw there was such a massive gap in the area for rabbit rescue and wanted to do something about it. So they set up a Foster-based rescue - relying on foster families only to care for the rabbits, whilst Feona & David focussed on rescuing & rehoming activities only. FBRC was the first rabbit-dedicated charity in Scotland, gaining charity status in Nov 2011, and we are still the only rabbit-dedicated rescue charity operating in the area. The foster network remains the priority as we feel the benefit of the rabbits gaining more focussed care within a fostered environment prepares them better for successful rehoming. It has its challenges too though. Now the charity is operated with over 100 volunteers covering numerous roles. We now have approximately 40 foster carers (a growing number), covering around 7 local authority areas throughout central Scotland. As well as the rescue we have a very active education & awareness programme, and an additional team of volunteers help manage fundraising & awareness events where we attend local galas, community events and public shopping centres, etc. At our events, we have rabbits for handling which gives us an opportunity to talk about rabbit welfare and we run various fundraising activities. We also deliver educational talks - visiting schools, nurseries and local youth groups to do an interactive learning session on rabbit welfare. We do not have any paid staff, and every volunteer from care assistant to Director give up their time and skills for free to help the charity deliver our aims. That means every penny donated goes straight back into delivering our rabbit welfare services. So the charity really wouldn't be able to do this without our excellent teams of foster carers and volunteers - they make David's crazy ideas and plans turn into a working rescue service! Huge thanks to all of them.