Tag Archives: Rabbits

NBC News Interviews SaveToby.Com Proprietors

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In April, NBC News correspondent George Lewis interviewed the two college students behind SaveToby.Com, which is competing with BonsaiKitten.Com for the title of web site most hated by animal lovers.

The site features a picture of a rabbit and the claim that unless the site’s proprietors receive $50,000 by June 30, 2005 that Toby will be killed and eaten,

I am going to eat him. God as my witness, I will devour this little guy unless I receive $50,000 into my account.

If animal lovers were smart, they’d just ignore this sort of silly nonsense, but instead they post horrified e-mails that circulate until finally the issue is big enough that George Lewis interviews those responsible for NBC News.

According to one of the unnamed partners behind the site,

We’ve been getting tremendously varied responses. Many of which include death threats almost on a daily basis.

The unnamed individual maintains, however, that the site is not a hoax,

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, it’s very serious. If we don’t get $50,000, we are going to eat the rabbit.

The odd thing is that people care so much, especially given that its perfectly legal to eat rabbits.

What’s the next step? Is someone going to set up a picture of a lobster with the claim that “I’m going to eat this lobster if I don’t receive $50,000 in my account?” Fine, go ahead and eat Toby already.

But people fall for this crap and the result is that SaveToby.Com’s operators claim they’ve received $20,000 in cash (which I find hard to believe), and have a book deal — all of which they owe to the idiots circulating these stupid e-mails about the horror of the web site.

Yeah, that’s showing ‘em. You have to think that the BonsaiKitten.Com folks are kicking themselves for not starting a “we’re going to eat this Bonsai kitten if we don’t receive $50,000″ campaign. Anyone for BonsaiRabbit.com?

Source:

Fur files over rabbit death threat. George Lewis, NBC News, April 11, 2005.

Is SaveToby.Com The Next BonsaiKitten.Com?

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A new website at SaveToby.Com is vying to replace BonsaiKitten.Com in the hearts and minds of the over-sensitive and humor-impaired.

The site purports to tell the tale of finding a cute rabbit during a storm. Alas, the rabbit’s newfound owner cannot afford to keep the bunny, Toby, and so offers an interesting proposition — either the site owner receives $50,000 in donations or on June 30, 2005, Toby gets killed and eaten,

Unfortunately, on June 30th, 2005, Toby will die. I am going to eat him. I am going to take Toby to a butcher to have him slaughter this cute bunny. I will then prepare Toby for a midsummer feast. I have several recipes under consideration, which can be seen, with some pretty graphic images, under the recipe section.

I donÂ’t want to eat Toby, he is my friend, and he has always been the most loving, adorable pet. However, God as my witness, I will devour this little guy unless I receive 50,000$ USD into my account from donations or purchase of merchandise. You can help this poor, helpless bunnyÂ’s cause by making donations through my verified PayPal account by clicking on any of the Donate buttons on this site, or by purchasing merchandise at the Savetoby.com online store.

The recipes section includes pictures of Toby sitting in a large pot with the caption, “Get me out of this pot!”

You’d think people would have learned from the hilarious outrage over BonsaiKitten.Com not to fall for these sorts of sites, but some folks just can’t contain themselves.

Of special note was one Marine Black who apparently works for the Washington State Department of Ecology (apparently they don’t have very high personnel qualifications at the department). Upon learning of the site, according to East Valley Tribune, Black contacted the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission in an effort to get the site shut down. Black told the Tribune,

ItÂ’s emotional extortion and itÂ’s potential animal abuse so itÂ’s emotionally pulling on people.

Wow. Lets hope Marnie doesn’t stumble across BonsaiKitten.Com — seeing it so soon after SaveToby.Com could cause permanent emotional damage.

Other outraged individuals have also contacted GoDaddy.Com, which the anonymous owner of SaveToby.Com used to register the site. But GoDaddy.Com public relations specialist puts the site in its proper perspective (emphasis added),

It is distasteful, but itÂ’s not illegal to kill a rabbit, and itÂ’s been checked out thoroughly by our own legal group, who says it doesnÂ’t violate our terms and services.

Unfortunately the web is filled with pernicious sites dedicated to the joys of animal flesh. Wait until Marnie finds out that McDonald’s, Burger King and even the Saltgrass Steak House all have somehow been allowed to open web sites. Somebody, stop this madness.

Source:

Hare-raising plot on Web. Katie McDevitt, East Valley Tribune, March 2005.

Violence at British Hare Coursing Hunting Event

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Three people were arrested at a February hare coursing event after hunt participants began throwing things at about 200 animal rights protesters who had shown up to demonstrate against the hunt.

According to the Associated Press,

An animal rights protest at a major British hare-hunting even [The Waterloo Cup] turned violent . . . when spectators pelted the demonstrators with a dismembered hare, bottles, firecrackers and chunks of earth, but nobody was injured, police said.

The Waterloo Cup was moved up several weeks to get the hunt in before Great Britain’s law outlawing hunting foxes with dogs went into effect. That law also has the effect of outlawing hare coursing.

As I’ve said before, there’s simply no excuse for this sort of violent reaction. Such actions are both morally wrong and counter-productive.

Source:

British hare-hunting even turn [sic] violent. Michael McDonough, Associated Press, February 14, 2005.

Start 'Em Young

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No word on whether or not People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has appeared at the school the young girl mentioned in the item below from Decatur Daily columnist Ken Retherford,

Although only 9, a Decatur girl is well on her way toward becoming an animal-rights activist.

While leaving a restaurant with her family, the child saw a lady with a rabbit-fur stole on her shoulders. The girl glared at the woman.

Outside she grumbled, “Dad, if I become president, I am going to make it a law that animals can wear stoles made out of people.”

Well, she’s learning about animal rights compassion young (assuming the anecdote is true).

Source:

You Don’t Say. Ken Retherford, The Decatur Daily, February 2, 2005.

Cooking a Guinea Pig and Rabbit for Class Project Not a Crime in Ohio

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A 16-year-old Ohio boy who skinned and cooked a guinea pig and a rabbit he bought at a pet store will not be charged with a crime after police in Thompson Township and the Geauga Humane Society decided he had not violated any laws.

The boy cooked the guinea pig and rabbit as a demonstration for his living skills class at Ledgemont High School.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, prosecutors declined to file charges after determining that it would be hard to sustain a claim that killing the animal was “unnecessary” as the boy and several classmates ate the cooked animal, and they could find no evidence that the animal had suffered unnecessarily wen the boy killed it.

Sharon Harvey, executive director of the Geauga Humane Society, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer,

From a standpoint of being able to prosecute, we could not find evidence to pursue a cruelty charge. Do we disapprove of what happened? Absolutely. But, sadly, what happened is not illegal.

Unless the school cafeteria at Ledgemore is vegan — and I’m guessing Ledgemore has not been above offering students hamburgers and hot dogs — I’m not sure why this case prompted such outrage.

Do people think that products like hamburgers,
hot dogs and chicken nuggets all come in the middle of the night from the meat fairy?

Source:

Cooking demo wasn’t a crime. John Horton, Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 28, 2005.

Bardot Lends Support to Irish Hare Coursing Ban

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French animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot recently sent a letter to the Irish Council Against Blood Sports supporting that group’s campaign to ban hare coursing in Ireland.

Hare coursing is the practice of releasing a hare and allowing two dogs, usually greyhounds, to chase it down. Along with the animals killed, activists also complain that even hares that survive are terrified and traumatized in the process.

Northern Ireland has temporarily halted hare coursing, but it is still legal in the Irish Republic and the government there has said it has no intention of changing the law to ban hare coursing.

Dick Roche, Environment Minister for the Irish Republic, was quoted by Ireland On-Line as saying,

There is no evidence that hare coursing in Ireland adversely impacts on the conservation of hare populations and there are no proposals to change existing arrangements for the licensed netting of wild hares for live hare coursing.

Which, of course, means that hare coursers in Northern Ireland can simply conduct their hare coursing in the Irish Republic, which doesn’t make the ICABS very happy.

Source:

Bardot lends support to hare coursing ban. Ireland On-Line, January 19, 2005.

Inhaled Anthrax Vaccine Works in Rabbits

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At a meeting of the American Chemical Society, it was reported that tests of an inhaled anthrax vaccine have proven successful in initial animal trials.

The vaccine is a joint project between the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and BD Technologies. The military currently uses an anthrax vaccine that requires six injections over an 18 month period, and is seeking a vaccine that could be given faster and easier to soldiers as well as civilians in the event of an anthrax attack.

According to lead researcher Vince Sullivan reported that in laboratory tests, rabbits given the vaccine and then exposed to a lethal dose of anthrax had survival rates between 83 and 100 percent. The vaccine also appears to be more stable than the liquid injectable version, and appears to be able to withstand temperature extremes better, suggesting it would be easier to stockpile the vaccine.

The inhaled vaccine, however, still has at least several more years of animal testing to go through before any clinical trials could begin.

Sources:

Inhaled anthrax vaccine tested in animals. CIDRAP News, September 1, 2004.

Inhaled anthrax vaccine protects in animals – report. Reuters Health, August 24, 2004.

Russian ALF Outlines Its Extremist Actions

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In July, the Russian Animal Liberation Front Support Group posted on the Internet an English-language outline of the group’s activities in Russia since its first activities in 2000.

The Russian ALF apparently started out with pretty low expectations, bragging, for example, that,

The summer of 2002 was marked by the destruction of 70 advert posters . . .

A few years later they had progressed to stealing frogs,

On 21 April 2004 RALF activists managed to get into the laboratory of the institute named after Anokhin, Russian Medical Academy. They freed 119 frogs and their eggs.

Thank goodness they saved the eggs!

The RALF (their acronym, not mine, but quite apropos) then moved up the food chain to rats and rabbits,

On 8 May 2004, 110 rats and 5 rabbits disappeared from the laboratory of Moscow State University Biological Department. These animals were used in experiments against alcoholism and drugs. Rats were fed drugs and alcohol, and rabbits had electrodes inserted in their heads.

Ah, the globalization of animal rights cluelessness in action.

Source:


History of the Russian Animal Liberation Front…so far. Russian Animal Liberation Front Support Group, July 2, 2004.

Chinese Researchers Claim Human/Rabbit Hybrid

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Chinese researchers claimed in August to have created the first human/rabbit hybrid embryo.

The researcher was carried out at Shanghai Second Medical University and details about the research was published in Cell Research, a bimonthly peer reviewed journal of the Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology.

The researchers claim they fused skin cells from a number of human source with rabbit cells that had most of their rabbit DNA removed. According to the researchers, 400 of the hybrids grew into early embryos and more than 100 survived to become blastocysts.

There are many good reasons, however, to be skeptical that the researchers actually managed to create hybrid embryos.

According to a United Press International story, the report on this research had been submitted and rejected by several more reputable journals over the past two years. The study has been rejected for publication because both the draft and the version published in Cell Research omit data that would make it possible to confirm that the researchers actually resulted in embryonic cells.

And, as UPI tactfully puts it, “researchers in China have gained a reputation for making bold claims about cloning and stem cells that, all too often, prove false.”

Sources:

Scientists Doubt Chinese Claim of Rabbit-Human Clone. United Press International, August 15, 2003.

Cloning yields human-rabbit hybrid embryo. Rick Weiss, Washington Post, August 14, 2003.

Australia Looks to Genetically Engineered Virus to Stop Mouse Population Explosions

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Australia has a regular problem with explosions in its mouse population that occur in roughly four year cycles. The number of mice quickly increases to billions and costs Australian agriculture upwards of US $90 million in crop damage.

The problem is so severe that Australian researchers are currently investigating an exotic solution to prevent such population explosions — a genetically modified virus that renders female mice sterile.

The virus is a modified form of he herpes virus that is spread by mouse-to-mouse contact. Once it infects a female mouse, it will prevent sperm from fertilizing eggs. Researchers at Australia’s Co-operative Control of Pest Animals has shown the modified virus works in the laboratory setting, and now wants to test the virus in the field.

That, however, will have to wait for extensive testing to ensure that the virus will not jump the species barrier and infect other animals besides mice. But Australia has experience with using such solutions. It used myomatosis disease 50 years ago to control the rabbit population, and in the 1990s used the calci virus to lower rabbit populations. The calci virus killed an estimated 90 percent of the country’s rabbit population, allowing some ecosystems that were overrun by the animals to begin to recover.

Sources:

Australia invents new mousetrap with herpes virus. Reuters, April 8, 2003.

NT Queens’s Birthday Honours. ABC Rural, October 6, 2002.