The rabbit, exploited from its hairs to its eyes

The real life of rabbits is to dig burrows in the side of hills, nibble clover in bloom and make great leaps across the meadows. Their real life is to fight or cooperate with other rabbits, in large warrens, to warn them of danger by thumping the ground or to nurse in the evening a litter of newly born. Simple pleasures of existence, which humans deprive them of.

This fluffy animal, charming with its long ears and pompom tail, our people’s stories for children and of our mythologies. Some even see it drawn on the moon. Everyone loves rabbits. And yet …

We hunt them

The rabbit is “extremely cunning,” according to the hunters. Equipped with a 360 ° field of vision and always on alert, he escapes as soon as he perceives the slightest anomaly in his environment. He will exploit the smallest bush, the most unlikely elevation of terrain, to fadeaway as if by magic, in sight of his pursuers. Sometimes it suddenly pops back up between the hunter’s boots, before spinning back into the cover of the woods. The rabbit has developed tremendous physical and cognitive abilities to escape death. 

The pleasure of killing is thus increased in these hunters due to the vivacity of their prey which they track down with their dogs. But not only this: there is also the hunt with packs dogs, where “the ardour of dogs that lead loudly after an elusive animal and the ruses deployed by the rabbit offer an incomparable pleasure” (sic). Then there is snaring, beating, hunting – with basset hounds – and ferret hunting, to the bottom of the burrows. So much so that the species is disappearing in certain places of Europe, depriving the food of its natural predators, like the lynx, and thus unbalancing the whole ecological equilibrium of a region.

One Voice advocates for the protection of wild animals in France and for the abolition of the black list for “pests”, on which sometimes appears the rabbit.

We torture him in the laboratory

Every year, nearly 1.5 million rabbits die in laboratories, after horrific suffering. Since the rabbit does not secrete tears, making it impossible to expel any irritant, it is frequently used for the painful Draize test. The head held in a yoke, his eyes are kept open by metal clips. A chemical is then deposited into his eye, to observe the irritation of the cornea and other physiological damage that the substance may cause. The toxicity of herbicides, household products or beauty products is thus measured … for weeks! The rabbit is also exploited for its sensitivity to teratogens, which causes them to create monsters.

During one of its investigations into a laboratory, One Voice was able to film rabbits kept in restraining boxes. A product was injected into their ears and fever was thus triggered and measured. They underwent several tests in a row. Their veins were in such a bad way that they screamed in pain when their blood was drawn. With its clothing labels, its surveys and its participation in the development and promotion of alternative experimental methods, as well as the evolution of a legislative framework, 

One Voice battles towards the end of animal experimentation

We eat them

Rabbits have long been raised in hutches. Occasionally, they could walk in a corner of the backyard, or even nibble at the lawn whilst in their mobile hutches before having their necks broken in the yard of the farm.

Today, the norm is battery breeding. Thousands of rabbits are enclosed in wire-cage cages the size of a sheet of A4 paper. The ceiling is very low and prevents rabbits from leaping, which induces a deep malaise and stereotypical behaviour. Females are inseminated artificially at a steady pace. Quickly separated from their young, they then have another litter a few days later. When they reach the age of ten weeks, the rabbits are then piled into trucks heading to the slaughterhouses. The unfortunate will be hooked by the hind leg on a slaughter line, more or less stunned with electricity, then slaughtered, skinned, bled and carved up.

One Voice works to develop an evolution in our lifestyles towards a more humane diet

We skin them

The trade in rabbit skin has never been so good. Fashion is fur and rabbits are not expensive. In France, some 70 million rabbits are killed each year and their skin sold. It’s not just a by-product of the meat industry, but rabbits are bred and raised for their soft fur.

One Voice fights the exploitation of animals for their fur in France and around the world

We tear out their hair

The angora rabbit is only raised for the production of its hair, a very sought-after textile fibre.

Angora hair can be compared to cashmere, mohair or alpaca. From the age of two months, the angora rabbits are isolated in individual cages, because the cohabitation with other rabbits would cause a felting of their fleece. At regular intervals they are shaved. Attached to a table, the hairs are brutally torn off by the hand full, until they are almost naked in their cages, trembling with the cold and fear. The survey, conducted by One Voice in several of these farms in France, highlighted the pain of these rabbits who cry out when they are epilated. Often, some skin is also removed with the hair… 

One Voice lobbies for the ban on the breeding of angora rabbits and trade in their wool.

Support our campaigns for rabbits, against the cruelty and persecution they suffer in nature, laboratories, and farms for their flesh, their fur or their hair.