Seventy rabbits were taken from a home in Mn recently. There were few details on the news, but it sounds like a case of an irresponsible breeder. The rabbits were kept in the house, and they were not discovered until the owner put cages outside. Funny how that works! Temperatures reached over 90 degrees F, and the fumes in the house became too toxic. Would it make sense to pass laws on how many adult rabbits a household could own without a license? Licensed owners could then be held to standards as to how they keep their rabbits, and irresponsible breeders could be punished to the full extent of the law. Would this help to cut down on the number of irresponsible breeders? Any opinions?
My opinion on the licensing of rabbit breeders is that I would be fully against it. When you allow your hobby to become regulated, then you give away your rights to keep and breed your animals as you see fit. While I do not think that anyone has the right to keep animals in deplorable conditions, and these people need to be severly punished, when you allow the government to regulate your hobbies, then it is just a matter of time before they regulate you right out of the hobbies you enjoy. The house rabbit society and they ASPCAs and the radical animal groups out there are already trying to tell you what you can and cannot do with your animals. They are trying to pass regulations all over this country now that would pretty much shut down any dog kennel, cattery, rabbitry, or any other breeding operation. You open the door to more regulation and you will shut the door on most animal related hobbies in this country. When you do that, you shut the door on the 4-H and FFA clubs, the door to the ARBA and the AKC will slam shut. The regulations that these organizations are proposing are so rigid that there is no way that even the most consciencous breeders would be able to continue. As I said, I do not feel any breeder has the right to abuse or neglect their animals, but I feel there is enough laws on the books now to deal with them - if they would implement them. People are arrested every day for the damage they do to animal lives and yet, they are very rarely punished to the fullest extent that the law allows. Follow the laws already out there before adding more. I personally do not want anyone telling me how I can and cannot keep my rabbits. I give them the best of care, food, and attention and yet according to the standards of the radical animal groups, it would not be enough. We do not need more regulations and we do not need breeder licensing. Just my opinion.
Good point. There would be no way to get everyone to agree on what the standards would be and a lot of tax-payer dollars would be used up fighting over the issue.
What irritates me more than these animal organizations is our own ARBA. The AKC and cattle groups hire attorneys and lobbyists to help fight against animal over regulation but the ARBA does nothing. As ARBA members, we have asked repeatedly for help in fighting these laws as they are introduced around the country but they leave it up to the individuals living in those communities to fight these battles themselves. It is just a matter of time before the money these organizations are making also get them the laws they are seeking. Then it is a matter of time before the ARBA as an organization itself, will no longer be needed or have a purpose. The ARBA is helping itself right out of business if they do not step up.
I wonder how the HRS in MN can survive! A little less then a year ago, 141 rabbits were siezed from a hoarder, 22 of them adoptable. This time it looks like all 70 rabbits might be adoptible. Then there are the Easter rabbits arriving at the shelters this time of year, along with all the rabbits that people release and are picked up by animal control. They have to be spreading themselves pretty thin. I wonder how many rabbits are going to be euthanized? Outdoor people will be buying rabbits from breeders because the HRS doesn\'t want us adopting rescue rabbits, and then we can be the bad guys for not adopting the rescue rabbits that we are not allowed to adopt. Somehow, it just doesn\'t make sense to me. I guess one way or another, the HRS is going to prove that outdoor rabbit owners are devils and HRS members are saints!
I don\'t think the HRS in MN will have enough money to hire anyone, if they keep going the way they have been going. The price of being altruistic can get pretty expensive. I know the HRS has, at least in the past had a partnership with the Humane Society, and I think they still have one. It would be interesting to know if they also partner on legal issues. I am done giving donations to the AHS.
I have to say I think the hobby of rabbit raising and showing would die if you had to purchase a liscense to own/breed your own stock. Rarely to most breeders even break even in this hobby, and having to fork out an extra $200 or whatever the fee may be is out of the question. I know I am a broke student who puts every extra penny into my hobby.. if I had to pay for a liscense every year I would no longer be in this hobby. I just could not afford it.
Now, people like these people are the ones who ruin it for everyone. I think they should be punished to the fullest extent possible in the law. If you don\'t care about your rabbits, and you can\'t take care of them.. why have them?
If there were to be laws, I think the best laws would be to provide people with information. Even then there would be little chance of that happening because of all the differences of opinions. I think a lot of people who get rabbits don\'t know what they are getting into. They don\'t realize how aggressive they can get when they reach maturity and they buy on impulse. Most people know what they are getting into when they get a dog or cat, but not so with a rabbit. At the shelters in my area, they hand out information about house rabbits provided by the HRS, but rabbit proofing a house can be difficult. I remember talking to a mother and son about a rabbit they used to have. They told me that they released him in the country and they felt they did the right thing when they saw how happy he was! When people have trouble taking care of a house rabbit, the poor thing usually ends up stuck in a little cage. Outdoor rabbit owners that I have known build large cages so that if they have days the rabbits can\'t go outside, they can at least move around. I am sure there are exception, I just haven\'t run into them. But then HRS people don\'t run into responcible outdoor people and don\'t want to. If just outdoor rabbits were being let go, I would think stray rabbits would be picked up all year around. The fact that most stray rabbits are found in the summer makes me think the problem has more to do with house rabbits.
As for the irresponcible breeders and rabbit hoarders, for now I think we should just let the HRS handle the problem because they sure don\'t seem to seek cooperation from the rest of us!
When these organizations confiscate these animals, where do they turn? The Media. It becomes a media event where they are able to vilify the breeder(s) and also ask for donations. They want money for food, bedding, vet care, and to \'hire\' people to help them care for the rabbits. As bad as it is for the animals, it is a windfall for these organizations when they confiscate a whole kennel or rabbitry or farm herd. And....they get the oportunity to \'\'educate\'\' the community at large with their own propoganda. If they are able to adopt out the animals, fine. If they have to euthanize the animals, fine. They still get the chance to spread their agenda and collect donations. I realize that not every shelter in the country is this way. There are still some very caring people out there doing the best they can with what they have. They have only the well being of the animals at heart. Unfortuantely, these are becoming more and more rare.
Breeder licensing would bring an end to most breeding. It isn\'t only the cost - it is the regulations they would require you to live by and operate by. In order to keep your license, you would have to allow inspections at any time that they showed up in your driveway. They would put an end to wire bottomed cages and the restrictive types of diets fed to keep your show rabbits in show condition. They would tell you how much time you would need to spend with your rabbits dailey and how much excercise time per day each rabbit need out of their cages. The people making these rules are not people who have knowledge of rabbit breeding or what it takes to keep a healthy herd. That is why it is soo important that rabbit people keep abreast of the laws that are trying to be passed in their own communitites or you could wake up one morning and find out that these breeder licensing laws have been passed and you now need to change everything you do in order to continue doing what you do. How many would just give up? That is why I don\'t understand the ARBA\'s \'\'hands off\'\' approach to dealing with these sorts of problems popping up around the country. No rabbit breeders = no ARBA. On the good side of things, most states and counties would not be able to afford to hire the amount of inspectors it would take to totally keep an eye on the breeders in their states or communities. It would become an issue of not enough money to back their own regulations. It would still end up one big mess though. Whether it is your rights to be a breeder or your right to keep red flowers in your garden vs yellow flowers, always fight more regulations. We do not need more laws on the books - we need the laws we already have to be enforced. JMO
All 70 of the rabbit in MN will be spayed, neutered and put up for adoption, which will give the rabbit organization a great reputation. The rabbits at the shelter are the ones I suspect will be euthanized with no media attention. This new batch of rabbits could be enough to sink the already struggling organization in MN. I suspect that if there are any fat cats in the HRS, they all are at National Headquarters.
I think the biggest contributer to the problem of irresponcible breeding may unwittingly be the HRS. They have done more to make rabbits popular pets than any other organization. There mission is to find homes for rescue rabbits, but as with any pet, it is the babies that are in most demand. Any shelter can tell you that the most adoptable animals are the babies. By trashing the ARBA, they do not give people any standards by which to look for responcible breeders. To expect that everyone is going to settle for a rescue rabbit is just plain unrealistic. So if there is a problem with bunnie mills popping up, it does not suprise me.
If anyone wants to weaken the HRS, I think one way to do it would be to reach out to outdoor rabbit owners. We could use information, hutch plans for large hutches, and a ways to share how outdoor rabbit owners interact with their rabbits and pamper their pets. In England, garden rabbits are popular and many foreigners can\'t understand what all the negative propaganda on keeping rabbits outside is all about.
I just visited the HRS web site (
http://www.rabbit.org), which I haven\'t done in a long time. I have noticed many, many changes, most noticeably, they aren\'t bashing outdoor rabbit owners. I don\'t know what is going on at the HRS, but let\'s hope that there are reforms going on in the organization for the better! Can we just all get along?