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By Lindsay William-Ross

Everyday, illegal vendors sell baby animals in the Fashion District, and many sicken and die soon after they're taken home. But some are rescued by Lejla Hadzimuratovic, founder of Bunny World Foundation, who is profiled today by abc7.
Sick baby rabbits, many contaminated with salmonella, need to be cared for in their infancy, but are often taken from their mothers too soon to be sold on a black market. Hadzimuratovic has been nicknamed "The Bunny Lady" because "she's put her life on hold, taking in some 800 baby bunnies confiscated by police on the streets of L.A. over the past two years."

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By Leslie Sykes

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- It's a crime that's committed every day in downtown Los Angeles: animal cruelty. Baby bunnies just a few days old are sold on street corners by illegal animal vendors. The bunnies are kept in filthy conditions. Many are sick or dying when they're sold. Police and animal activists trying to stop this practice.

A baby bunny draws its last breaths, dying because it was taken from its mother too soon.

It's a scene that plays out over and over again, a story that begins on the streets of downtown L.A.

Performing a raid, Los Angeles Police officers arrest an animal vendor. The haul? Twenty-two bunnies, 10 birds and 40 baby turtles.

"The rabbits will be lucky if they live past four days," said LAPD officer Matt Shafer. "The turtles, some of them live, some of them die, but the majority of them are all covered in salmonella."

"Their eyes start getting open when they're seven days old, and you can see they're barely open right now," said Lejla Hadzimuratovic, founder of Bunny World Foundation.

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by Lindsay Barrnet

Despite the efforts of the LAPD and the Business Improvement District to eradicate illegal animal vendors from downtown L.A.'s Fashion District, the practice of selling live animals on the street -- unweaned baby rabbits, turtles and birds, among others -- continues.

On Easter Sunday -- perhaps a poetically appropriate day for a bunny rescue -- Los Angeles police officer Matthew Shafer, while completing routine rounds, happened upon a man rustling plastic in a van parked in a Wall Street garage. Suspicious, Shafer went to investigate -- and found that the van contained a whopping 118 turtles. In the van parked next to the one with the turtles, Shafer discovered 23 underage rabbits.

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Rabbits, Turtles, Iguanas Rescued from L.A. Street Corner

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KTLA News - 11:50 AM PDT, March 18, 2010

LOS ANGELES -- Police have seized more than a hundred animals, including 35 miniature rabbits, 79 turtles, 1 parrot, and 6 iguanas, that were being sold illegally on a street corner in downtown Los Angeles.

  
LAPD Officer Matthew Shafer (Central Area Patrol Division) comitted to eradicate illegal animal vending in Santee Alley, reunites with Lucky Bunny #605 during his visit to BWF

"The illegal sales of animals is a perennial problem in the Fashion District, especially as certain holidays approach, like Easter," according to LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon.

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By Carla Hall

The bunnies sat in stacked cages on the downtown sidewalk. They nibbled on lettuce as passers-by stopped to pet them. How much? A young woman cheerfully named her price. ($20 is the going rate.)

"No photographs," she said, passing a hand in front of a rabbit as a photographer snapped pictures.

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