Police officers in New York City said they rescued close to 80 rabbits from a backyard in Brooklyn during Monday night’s snowstorm.
DNAinfo reported that 74 rabbits were removed from a backyard in the Gowanus neighborhood of the borough.
The New York Daily News noted that the NYPD responded to the property around 2 p.m. after someone called about the rabbits being outdoors.
Dorota Trec, the owner of the rabbits, was told then to bring them inside, however, around 7:30 p.m. another call came in saying that the bunnies were still not indoors.
Trec said that officers took her animals and told her they were being confiscated temporarily for their safety since they were left out in the elements.
“The rabbits were in imminent danger from a severe blizzard headed for New York City,” a spokeswoman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said Tuesday.
Trec alleged that the police mishandled the bunnies when they removed them by grabbing at their ears and legs.
She has not been charged with any crime and said she plans to sue authorities to get her rabbits back.