Home is Where the Hop is

JORDANA STARR'S RABBIT RESCUE

By Melissa Karen Sances | Photos by Nikki Gardner Photography

Published in Northampton Living April 2025

Jordana Starr stared at the Facebook post. “There’s a rabbit running around my yard,” someone had written. “Can anyone claim it?”
It was the beginning of the pandemic. Starr and her husband Mike Schilling were busy filling custom orders through their home beer shop Beerology. Though she was a lifelong rabbit owner, others’ bunnies weren’t really top of mind.

Nonetheless, Starr and a group of friends rescued the rogue rabbit. Then they rescued another. Then another. By early 2021, Western Mass Rabbit Rescue was hopping.

The nonprofit started as a foster network – until Starr was called to a house where 40 rabbits had been hoarded. She and her business partner at the time traveled to Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where they crawled under cars, dug under sheds and rescued as many bunnies as they could, most of whom needed medical attention. The nonprofit didn’t have a physical location at the time, so Starr commandeered her dad’s basement. (He was happy to oblige.) Today the organization is run from a shelter in Northampton.

“When I take in a rabbit, some situations are really hard,” says Starr. “People could be facing houselessness, various financial difficulties, medical issues … I promise that their rabbits are going to be loved, they are going to be in a safe place. They will get the best food and veterinary care.”

That said, she points out that taking care of a bunny is a long-term responsibility. She encourages potential owners to do their research before making a commitment, and advises fostering a rabbit before making a decision to adopt. At the shelter, Starr has a special pen where two adults and one child can spend time with a rabbit they are interested in. Rabbits have unique personalities, she says, and might melt into someone’s lap or bop their nose to get their attention. And two rabbits are as easy to care for as one, because they entertain one another. If two bunnies are able to stay with each other in the same pen, bonded pairs will groom each other, give each other kisses, and snuggle up together.

“A lot of this just sort of happened; it wasn’t necessarily planned,” says Starr, who now has almost 20 rabbits in foster homes and takes care of sanctuary bunnies with special medical needs. “I didn’t say, ‘Well, it’s a pandemic, so I’m going to start a rabbit rescue.’ But it is what happened, and it makes me glad, especially when people send follow-ups. We love seeing those: It lets us know we made the right choice – they’re happy and that always makes us really happy.”

Starr's husband is also an animal lover who is "the least allergic" to rabbits." She and Schilling met at Tufts University, where he was on the ballroom dancing team. After she boldly asked for his AOL Instant Messenger screen name, he wooed her with waltz lessons in his dorm room. Starr ended up joining the team, too, and she says that 20 years later, their party trick is that they can bust a move.

After college, the couple traveled a bit, and eventually settled in western Mass, where Starr’s parents lived. The couple ran Beerology in Northampton from 2016 to 2024. While Schilling helps out with the bunnies, Starr is always on call. She recalls a time when she was getting ready to perform in a local theater production, “trying to get into hair and make-up while in the dressing room dealing with a bunny emergency.” She and an all-volunteer staff lead with their hearts, she says, in a bunny community that is “a society of empaths.”

Starr is excited to introduce readers to the bunnies on this month’s cover. She is holding Kewpie, a white rabbit who was rescued from a neighborhood where he was found roaming. He is now comfortably settled with his foster family. And Schilling is holding Fribble, a nine-year-old dwarf mix brought in by a college student. “She has a little sass,” says Starr, “but if you scoop her up, she’s like a marshmallow in your lap.”

“I don’t have kids – I have rabbits,” she half-jokes.

Other Articles in this Issue…