BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Two rabbits were pulled alive from a downtown trash bin, but a third wasn't so lucky.

A City of Birmingham public works employee discovered the rabbits about 10 a.m. in the 1900 block of Third Avenue North across from the Alabama Theater.

Crystal Jones said she was doing some landscape work in a bed near the trash can when she couldn't help but notice the stench of death. She peered into the box, and saw the rabbits.

"They are pet rabbits but somebody didn't want them," Jones said. "They just dumped them there."

The public works employees, along with Birmingham police and City Action Partnership officers separated the live rabbits from the dead one, and then gave them water and lettuce.

Jones said she learned an animal welfare agency received a call about the rabbits Tuesday, but no one had responded.

A CAP officer plans to take the rabbits home with him.