Bunnies in the news

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

The title says it, it would be really interesting to share international news stories about rabbits.

I saw this in the news today: (translated by me from Dutch, orginal source http://www.nu.nl/dieren/4540686/meerderheid-europees-parlement-wil-bescherming-konijnen.html ). It might be a small step, but any step towards improving rabbit welfare is good news.

Majority of the European Parliament wants to protect rabbits

Rabbits should be protected by European law, just like cows, pigs and chickens. A lot of animal suffering could be prevented by setting minimum requirements for rabbit breeders. A majority of the European Parliament asked the European Committee to come up with some proposals on tuesday, proposals to protect the approximate 330 million (meat) rabbits being kept by breeders in the EU.
One of these proposals is that tiny cages with wire bottoms should be forbidden. According to EU-politician Anja Hazekamp (Animal Party) nearly a quarter of all rabbits dies in these animal unfriendly “battery cages”. Their “liberation” is in sight now, reacted Hazekamp “completely overjoyed”. The Dutch secretary of state Martijn van Dam (agriculture) has already been working on improving the welfare of rabbits, turkeys and fish since march last year.

[Luna]

Poor buns . Is there a lot of regulation regarding other farming animals? Most of the regulations here in the U.S. only indirectly protect the welfare of farming animals, but their principal aim is health and safety of humans. Even with regulations that seek to protect the animals’ welfare, more than a few states have “Ag-gag” laws, which basically prevent employees from whistleblowing animal cruelty or health/safety violations (this includes the exclusion of evidence gathered by undercover individuals/animal advocacy groups).

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Yes, there is a lot of regulation in NL. And supermarkets recently started a campaign to exclude “battery eggs” and the so-called “plof-kip” (literally: “exploding chicken”, the kind which is overfed which causes explosive growth). Many supermarkets have stopped the sale of rabbit meat for this reason.

For pork, beef and chicken there is a new quality mark, set up by the Dutch animal welfare society. This quality mark gives a certain amount of stars depending on the animal welfare conditions on the farm. The biggest Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn has radically changed its meat selection: they’ll only sell meat that has at least one star. To give an idea what this means I’ll give the example for pigs:

* = More space, toys to avoid boredom, piglets are not castrated, transport is kept to a minimum
** = Soft floors with straw, they can go outside in an area which is roofed over for shelter, tails are left intact (sometimes tails are cut by farmers because other pigs tend to bite them when stressed)
*** = Even larger indoor space, sows get the opportunity to play around outside in the pasture

There is a strong animals rights movement here, and farms and vets are regularly inspected. Farmers can face steep fines when they mistreat their cattle, and whistleblowers are protected. We even have a political party in our government whose main agenda point is animal welfare, it’s called the “Party for the Animals”. That was a world-wide novelty, we were the first country to have such a party in the national parliament. They have 2/150 seats in the house of representatives (called the Second Chamber), 2/75 seats in the senate (called the First Chamber) and 1/26 seats in the European Parliament. Their main goal is to provide a voice for the voiceless, despite their low number of seats they’ve managed to improve animal welfare a lot by reminding other politicians of their responsibilities for animal welfare.

[Q8bunny]

The more you tell me about the NL, Ellie, the more I want to live there

Although your line for one star made me tear up: toys to play with. I wish I had the wherewithall to be a vegan again. And then become queen of the world and end all domesticated animal suffering. And then tackle things like world peace (if the hoomans behave enough to deserve it).

[Author]

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