All tag results for 'rabbits'

Choose Chocolate and No Bunny Gets Hurt

Easter Sunday is nearly upon us and that means many of us will be receiving Easter baskets!

BUT, leave those live bunnies, chicks, and ducks alone! PETA has a quick tip for the holiday basket season.

While most of us are busy stuffing plastic eggs and scoping out hiding places, animal shelters are bracing for the onslaught of abandoned rabbits after Easter.

The House Rabbit Society reports that every year, thousands of rabbits as well as chicks and ducks are stuffed into Easter baskets and then turned over to animal shelters after the holiday.

Worse, some domesticated rabbits are simply left outside, where they have no chance of surviving.

Rabbits can live up to 10 years and require specialized care. They can't tolerate extreme heat or cold, and they need specific foods and stimulating environments.

They need as much attention as a dog or cat, but they are delicate and can be nervous, so they aren't ideal for young children.

If, after careful consideration, you have decided to bring a rabbit into your home and care for him or her for the next decade, please adopt from your local animal shelter after Easter—and make the bunny in your basket a charming chocolate version instead.

Tags: bunnies, chicks, ducks, easter, easter baskets, peta, rabbits

Easter is just around the corner and that means bunnies, bunnies, BUNNIES!

But using live bunnies is not the way to go. Check out this tip about businesses using live animals for this holiday season.

PETA QUICK TIP: Bunny Hops, Not Bunny Props This Easter

Like a warm-weather Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny delivers baskets full of treats to children every year. But photographers who use real rabbits as props in Easter photos shouldn't expect anything in their baskets but plastic grass.

Rabbits are easily stressed by unfamiliar surroundings and terrified by loud noises and sudden movements. They often panic when handled, and a frightened rabbit can bite or scratch children. They are also delicate animals whose spines can snap if they kick or if they're dropped or even held improperly. And when Easter is over, these animals are often abandoned at shelters or dumped outside, where they are killed by predators.

Please don't support businesses that use live animals as props. Many national portrait studios have policies against using live animals, such as Sears Portrait Studio and LifeTouch Inc. studios in Target and JCPenney stores. Stuffed animals are a simple, humane alternative, as are Easter bunnies of the costumed variety.

Tags: bunnies, easter, humane, peta, quick tip of the day, rabbits, tips

This should be a relief to diabetes patients tired of pricking their finger up to 10 times a day for blood sugar tests.

University of Michigan scientists have developed a sensor that detects diluted levels of sugar in tears!

So far they've only tested rabbits, but researchers were able to discover the glucose level in tears correlated with the rabbits' blood sugar levels.

Similarly, a biomedical engineer at Arizona State University has developed a device to monitor tear glucose levels by pressing it into the white of your eye for 5 seconds.

Now instead of forcing blood out of their fingers, diabetes patients can either force themselves to cry or force an object into their eyeball. Much better! Ha!

In all seriousness, it sounds like this will eventually be a much more convenient way for diabetics to check blood sugar levels, so we hope it works out!

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: arizona, blood level, glucose, michigan, rabbits, researchers, sugar, tears

SICK SICK PEOPLE!

After a year-long investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific and the National Bureau of Investigations, police have now charged a Philippine couple with cruelty to animals and other crimes related to producing a series of pornographic videos in which young girls torture and kill animals.

WARNING: Graphic descriptions follow

The "crush" videos that the Ridons are believed to have produced show scantily clad 12-year-old girls as they stomp on live animals, a rabbit as he or she is skinned alive, other rabbits as they scream while their ears are cut off and they are set on fire, a dog as he or she is burned with a clothes iron, and a monkey who was repeatedly hit in the eye with the sharp end of a stiletto heel. There is more, including puppies crushed until they vomited their own internal organs. A bill currently in the Philippine Senate would criminalize the sale of such "crush videos," already illegal in the U.S. and other countries.

Faced with the charges, suspects Dorma and Vic Ridon have fled. Warrants have been issued for them.

Tags: couple, investigation, nastyass, peta, puppies, rabbit, rabbits, what a jackass

And the winner is… Snoopy!

"The Bunny Club" in Germany take racing their rabbits reeel seriously!

They train their rag-tag group of outcast bunnies (rabbits that couldn't be sold for one reason of another) weekly for the big races.

Our apologies to club members, but we can't call something that involves a bunny with a beard barley trying to jump over a hurdle shaped like to playboy symbol a sport.

Watch and laugh.

Tags: bear, bunny, germany, rabbit, rabbits, race, racing, video, watch

Someone has an awesome grandma!

Police in Germany discovered a large plot of mary-jane that had been tended to by 84-year-old woman who had been feeding her rabbits with the plants.

“The rabbits really like it,”

the woman told officers.

A police officer had seen the healthy, metre-high plants from the road while on his way to work and told his colleagues, who visited the plot’s owner.

She says that she didn't plant them, but that they had simply started growing there, and had proven to be excellent rabbit food.

Not only did the rabbits love eating the plants, they grew back very quickly after she cut them down, she told the investigating officers.

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: awesome, bunny, caught, funny, germany, police, rabbit, rabbits, weed

Donna, mind your elders!

B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of Iyengar yoga, has written a letter asking fashion designer Donna Karan to stop using rabbit fur in her clothing.

The ninety-two year old Iyengar said in the letter,

“As a yoga practitioner, may I request you, on behalf of myself and my friends from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, to take a stand against using the fur of animals that is removed by the cruelest killing methods.”

PETA’s style of communication about Karan’s use of rabbit fur has been a little more aggressive than Iyengar’s.

At a New York City protest, they reportedly blasted the sounds of screaming bunnies at people walking by–they also have an online petition to stop her. Rabbits apparently are mostly silent, except when they are scared they may scream.

It is not at all likely to be a pleasant sound. Her Fall 2010 line used rabbit fur–you can see an example of a Donna Karan rabbit fur coat on her website. One version is nearly $5,000. Change.org said Karan’s rabbits are from China where they are treated brutally.

You can sing PETA's online petition to stop the Rabbit line.

Tags: animals, fashion, killing, new york, online, peta, petition, protest, rabbits, treatment, walk, walking