This story has been updated. 

Decatur, GA — The owners of the Kimball House restaurant in Decatur are apologizing after a photo circulating on social media showed a dead rabbit nailed to a pole outside of the restaurant’s garden.

The photo and accompanying post originally appeared on the Nextdoor website. The post, which was forwarded to Decaturish, said, “Today as I was walking past Kimball House’s garden it was pointed out to me that a dead rabbit had been nailed to a post right next to the garden. Now I was told by some anonymous people that the rabbit had died from poison that was placed near the garden to keep animals out of the garden, but apparently, some employees at Kimball House thought it would be funny to nail the dead rabbit to a pole.”

In a statement to Decaturish, the Kimball House owners did not dispute the photo but said the rabbit was likely killed by a predator and not poison. The employees involved are being disciplined, the restaurant said.

In a joint statement, owners Matt Christison, Miles Macquarrie, Bryan Rackley and Jesse Smith said, “Kimball House has always respected animals on a level above and beyond what you find at most restaurants. We only source from farmers who use humane practices and we only serve sustainable seafood.

“We would like to sincerely apologize to anyone offended by the sighting of a dead rabbit in our garden,” they said. “We were not aware that it was hung up, and as soon as we were alerted to the situation, we made sure it was removed immediately. Disciplinary actions for the individuals involved are being handled internally. We don’t know how the rabbit died, but our guess is that it was from an owl or hawk, which are often near and on our property. The accusation of poisoning this animal couldn’t be further from the truth. We would never put poison anywhere near our garden. There have never been any pesticides or used, and while we have not had it certified organic, we have always used organic practices over the past seven years. Again, we sincerely apologize to any Decatur friends and neighbors who were upset by this.”

The original poster, Laurie Woolfe, spoke to Decaturish about the photo.

“So I was out yesterday and this was about 4:30 p.m. and I was talking with the people in the neighborhood and they said, ‘Did you see what some of the staffers did to that rabbit over there?’ The bunny was definitely dead and they thought it would be funny to nail to the post and it was there all day,” Woolfe said.

She said she confronted the staffers but they brushed her off.

“I said, ‘That’s disturbing.’ It was so hard for me to go over there and take a picture of it,” Woolfe said. “It was really upsetting.”

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