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I have a five-months-old wild European rabbit. She was rescued by a colleague from a cat's mouth. She binkys every night and roams freely. She has bonded with me and jumps on me all the time. I'm considering having her spayed because of the high uterine cancer risk, but the vet was worried that she might not survive the surgery because of the high stress (she is very afraid of being handled by strangers). Our worry is that she may stop eating in a strange place, before and after the surgery.

I don't want to release her because wild European rabbits have over 90% mortality rate in the first year, and PETA's research shows that "wild rabbits have relatively short life spans (typically, less than two years)". She is happy and healthy now, but if she's not spayed, eventually she'll probably develop cancer. Does anyone know if it's safe to spay a wild rabbit? Thanks a lot.

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    Welcome to pets.SE :) If you want to let the rabbit stay with you, then she need necesseraly another rabbit for company. A human can not (even if trying very hard) give all the comfort another rabbit will give. Then spaying is most likely needed too, because pairs of male and female give the highest probability to introduce a new rabbit with success. Maxbe the vet could give you some medication, to make she tired before starting the journey to the vet, so she "sleeps" the whole visit long?
    – Allerleirauh
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 17:39
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    Oh and you need to check the laws about wild animals in your country. I know, that there are some in Germany for "not take animals from the nature" and some animals that need to be "registered" by the forest warden, for example when killed or wounded by an accident.
    – Allerleirauh
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 17:41
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    Thank you Allerleirauh, I was thinking if she's spayed maybe I can adopt another male domestic rabbit. She's now living with guinea pigs. I live in UK so it is legal. Sleep medicine is a good idea :)
    – Y L
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 17:46
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    in general I see no difference between domesticated and wild rabbit, that cause a problem in beeing spayed... but I did not think about it before :)
    – Allerleirauh
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 17:49
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    When you did the visit at the vet, then write an (additional) answer here please! It will help other users of this site, to read how you "solved the problem".
    – Allerleirauh
    Commented Oct 12, 2020 at 7:22

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I just found this: https://pets.stackexchange.com/a/1874/19018

in short, a rabbit can be scared to death. I'm not going to have my wild rabbit spayed now. I need to do more research.

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