- @
- Followers:
No Tweets Found
CNN POLITICS ON FACEBOOK » | CNN POLITICS ON TWITTER »
Year of the Rabbit: Deadly start for impulse pet buys
Dead rabbits are showing up in Chinese mailboxes as pets ordered for the Year of the Rabbit aren’t surviving the shipping process, the Shanghai Daily reports.
The Year of the Rabbit commences on February 3 under the Chinese lunar calendar and bunnies are in demand to celebrate it. One online search showed more than 600 vendors selling rabbits at prices from 15 to 2,000 yuan ($2.25 to $300), Shanghai Daily reported.
But, the paper said, the rabbits can spend five days in shipment and many have suffocated or frozen to death in the small boxes in which they are sent.
At least one vendor had stopped shipments because of the deaths, the paper reported.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a statement from its Shanghai office on Friday urging people not to bring a rabbit into their home for the Chinese New Year.
"Rabbits aren't just cute and fluffy - they're high-maintenance animals who require significant resources, equipment, attention and veterinary care," PETA’s Maggie Chen said in a statement.
"Rabbits are complex animals, and potential caretakers - who often purchase the animals on a whim - rarely understand the specific needs of their new companions," the statement said. “Once the novelty has worn off, many bunnies are neglected, dumped at animal shelters, or simply turned loose in the wild.”
That’s the problem an ocean away from China at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
The school is saying unwanted pet rabbits dumped on its campus after February 28 will be killed, according to a report in the Victoria Times Colonist.
The university has been trying to rid its campus of the creatures for two years because of damage to landscaping and playing fields, according to the Times Colonist report. More than 800 have been trapped and moved to sanctuaries, it said.
But people are still seeing the campus as a place to dump their pets so the university is adopting the get-tough policy.
“While UVic is willing to dedicate some resources to rabbit removal, it is unrealistic for the university to divert funding to this task in perpetuity,” facilities management director Tom Smith told the paper.
On Twitter
On Twitter
@cnnbrk on Twitter
'E's passed on! This rabbit is no more! He has ceased to be!
'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!
'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace!
'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory!
'E's off the twig!
'E's kicked the bucket!
'E's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!
THIS IS AN EX-RABBIT!!
I was thinking that while reading the article. I'm happy I'm not the only crazy one!
No, 'e isn't! He's stunned.
He's pinin' for the fiords.
"VOOM"?!? Mate, this rabbit wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised!
I was thinking more of the revenge of the killer bunny in Grail. 🙂
Haha! I was getting prepared from comments by a million people "outraged" by this "atrocious animal cruelty", but I see sanity still prevails. There is still hope for this world! 🙂
Anytime I get worried about China surpassing the US in certain catagories, I read something like this and realize that the country is still very much 3rd world. Who in the world would buy an animal delvered in a box?
Just stop buying their junk at Walmart and the US economy withh improve overnight.
the last word should have been 'in Visigoth'.
If you're going to steal from Monty Python's Flying Circus, at least steal it correctly.
I'll tell you whats wrong with it, it's dead, thats whats wrong with it!!
How flippin' dumb do you have to be to send a rabbit through the mail. And how flippin' dumb do you have to be to buy one.
My thoughts exactly. Doesn't anyone use their brain anymore?
I assume you mean to buy one through the mail? Rabbits actually make wonderful pets, if you do your research and know what you're doing. The dumb ones are the ones who buy them on a whim for Easter or Chinese New Year or whatever and then abandon it at the first sign of a natural but undesired behavior.
That is how they send baby chickens. The post office doesn't deliver them so the recipient has to pick them up. Many other animals are shipped much like a piece of freight through various freight carriers.
When I was a kid you could buy alligators (actually South American caiman) through the mail in the United States. Most usually ended up riding the rapids down the toilet.
While I think it's ridiculous that they ship rabbits (seriously?), think about this: they ship chicks all over the US in the spring and no one has a fit...
I believe if they shipped the unfortunate animals in BOXES instead of ENVELOPES all of this sadness would not have occurred. 🙁
Rabbits are very high maintenance. Guessing that very, very few of those bought were actually supposed to live long in the care of new owners. How sad humans still do such stupid things.
basically, what you are saying is: How Chinese do you have to be...
Just add this to the long list of ridiculous things Chinese people do.
5 days of poop and pee in a box?
5 days without food or water would mean very little poop and pee. poor little rabbits.
thank you, someone with a brain. lets ship these without brains to some third world country in the same size box and see if they make it.... oopppps guess we should have provided better shipping conditions. oh well, toss them in the dumpster and order some more.
That's why they died. 😉
simple, order a male and a female. When they arrive some of the offspring will have died, but some survived. And you can share the extras with a friend. Hey china, ever heard of a pet store?
Ah, great. Would one really want a cannibalistic rabbit? What would you call them, the Donner Party rabbits?
Rabbits are cannibal, they routine do eat their young and malformed offspring.
Actually, most pet stores buy from mills, which maltreat animals probably just as much as these Chinese did. So the pet store would not be helpful in this case.
You should youtube search for the dog and cat fur trade. It kept me up for many nights angry and sorrowful.
I saw a video of cats and dogs being prepared to be eaten. So disturbing, I will never forget it.
how terrible. think what it must be like to be trapped in a box for days only to freeze or starve to death.
Sort of like being confined to an aluminum tube for 8 hours on the tarmac, eh?
@Blue – Not even close dumba$$...
it might be.. if they didn't feed you or keep the tarmac heated!
wabbit season!
duck season!
roflmao
..........Or do they?
Mailing animals. That's just stupid. And cruel.
Try mailing yourself, see how you like it. I bet you won't do it twice.
I tried, the recipient wouldn't pay the charges....thanks mom!
Every year, thousands of poultry chicks are mailed across the country. They don't need food or water for four days after hatch and are shipped in numbers to maintain core body temperature. While mailing a bunny isn't a good idea, it works fine with baby chicks.
Chicks aren't mammals. Chicks aren't rabbits. Try to figure it out, bozo.
so sad *:( I have a well-trained and well-groomed bunny rabbit in NY. I dress her-up sometimes (beautiful colorful harness) and take her out for a walk (a hop that is) *:) everyone loves her and I'm Asian LOL!
I'm speechless at the stupidity of the Chinese on this one!
@Anne – It is their tradition and it is not stupid. I'm sure there are lots of White or European descent are stupid too. Atleast, they don't en-slaved other races or try to take over the world.
@Uitca – tradition? Really? So what do they do for the year of the tiger, or the year of the dragon? Do they also take rats as pets? And certainly buying a pet through the mail isn't tradition... I think you might want to rethink that comment.
@JT and Anne, I don't think it is a bright idea or humane to mail animal. However, do you people name calling, cursing, or condemn when Western Countries using Animals for Researches. How long did it take for most people here in the USA to appology for Slavery or butchered people around the world?
Utica – read your history. China had slavery and went through empire building, just like Western nations did.
its not just stupid, it's retarded. And it doesnt matter if its a tradition, some traditions are retarded. i would tell it to your face that this tradition is incredibly stupid and no political correctness will change that.
Utica – you are surprisingly stupid. Like a black belt in stupidity stupid! I am truly amazed.
@Utica.
No Utica the Chinese only enslave their own population.
Where were you during Tienanmen Square?
I'm speechless at Utica's stupidity. Like, wow.
kill the wabitt, kill the wabbit.
One of my all-time favorites! LOL...Oh, Bwunhilda, your'e so wovewy...Yes, I know it. I can't help it!!
I dislike some of PETA's extreme stances and campaigns, but the organization is right on the money in this instance. Freezing or suffocating while trapped in a tiny box for days – what a horrible way for any animal to die! I never cease to be incensed by the idiots who buy a pet only to dump it somewhere after they realize how much work caring for an animal entails. I've adopted two cats who were dropped in my neighborhood by lazy/cruel former owners and turned over a dozen such others to our local no-kill cat shelter. If you can't be a committed and responsible owner, don't get a pet!!!
Hear! Hear! I'm an animal lover myself – but PETA is often too weirded out for me. And yes, if owners would just be responsible! I have 6 cats – all strays that were dumped in my neighborhood. I ensure they are fixed, first thing. But I've also been saddended by acquaintances who get animals without any thought as to what it entails and then get rid of the pet for some trait they don't want to deal with. I once babysat for a lady in my youth that went through 8 pets in a year – all deposited at the animal shelter when they were deemed undesirable. One poor animal, a small dog, because it jumped on her 2 year old and knocked him down & made him cry. I kid you not. And then those people who "sell" animals – most of them not full pedigree and no papers. Why does ANYONE pay for an animal that is not full pedigree and has no papers??? I am not talking about fees intended to recover the cost of food, shots, or spay/neuter procedures. But the poor little bunnies. What a horrible way to die – and have you seen how most packages are handled? They aren't exactly treated with care.
gotta love the racist remarks against the Chinese on reader comments.
Stupid yes,
but saying things like "Well at least they reproduce faster than the chinese so it shouldn't be that bad."
wow, just wow
exactly!!