Victory! Cornwall Council Rejects Rabbit Farm
PETA is celebrating Cornwall Council’s decision to reject a planning application for an enormous rabbit farm in Mylor Bridge that, if approved, would have seen around 10,000 rabbits a year slaughtered for their flesh and fur.
The application to the council’s planning department by Phil Kerry of T&S Nurseries sought permission to erect a facility that would have confined 250 female rabbits and treated them as breeding machines. Workers would have routinely sexually exploited them, forcing them to breed over and over again to produce around 10,000 babies per year.
After receiving a letter from PETA – signed by over 33,000 of our supporters – the council ruled in our favour and rejected the application.
Thank you to everyone who signed the petition and helped oppose these hideous plans.
Why We Petitioned Against This Application
Just like us, rabbits can feel pain and distress. On commercial farms, they suffer both physically and psychologically because they are denied the opportunity to engage in natural behaviour like digging, racing, jumping, and hopping. The severe lack of exercise can weaken their bones.
Rabbits can live for up to nine years, but those on this farm would likely have been sent to slaughter at just 8 to 12 weeks old. Their mothers would have been slaughtered before their third birthday – when they stop producing enough babies to be profitable for breeders – but many would have died of disease on the farm before then.
At the abattoir, the terrified rabbits would have been hung upside down to be stunned before their throats would have been cut. As stunning is often carried out incorrectly, many rabbits would have experienced excruciating pain as they died.
Sneaking in Fur Farming Through the Back Door
The farm would likely also have made a profit from selling the rabbits’ skins, under the guise that these are a “by-product” of their meat – even though fur farming has been banned in the UK since 2000. If the farm had been approved, this would have undermined the fur-farming ban and let this abhorrent industry back into the UK.
Take a look at this PETA exposé to see the horrors that rabbits face when farmed for their fur:
Support a #FurFreeBritain
Jo-Anne McArthur / #MakeFurHistoryWe Don’t Need Another Animal Farm
Currently in the UK, rabbit viral haemorrhagic disease 2, which results in an agonising death for rabbits, is spreading rapidly and is prevalent on rabbit farms. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the last thing the country needs is another animal farm.
What’s Next?
Although the council rejected these plans, we know that the applicants will try again. T&S Nurseries already owns rabbit farms around the country and is looking to open even more.
We will continue to oppose every cruel farm plan that’s put forward.
