Representatives Christopher Shays and Peter DeFazio have introduced
legislation (HR 5557, the Farm Animal Stewardship Protection Act) that
would begin protecting farmed animals (which includes rabbits, of
course) against some of the worst factory farm abuses. Here is the
PETA action alert link:
http://www.peta.org/actioncenter/ActionAlerts-item.asp?
id=1965&int=weekly_enews
Here is the link to current co-sponsors of the bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR05557:@@@P
Please consider writing a letter to your representative to co-sponsor
this bill, if he/she is not already. Below is a sample letter. If
they are a co-sponsor, a letter to thank them for doing so is nice.
Below is a sample letter you can use to base your letter on:
Dear (Your Representative's Name):
Please consider co-sponsoring HR 5557 (Shays), a bill to promote the
humane treatment of farm animals. Despite the fact that 96 percent of
Americans believe that animals deserve legal protections, the billions
of chickens, cows, pigs, rabbits, and turkeys who are killed each year
in this country are not protected by a single federal law while they're
in factory farms. Factory farms are allowed to keep animals in cages so
small that they can't even turn around or lift a wing, and they're
permitted to cut off animals' tails, beaks, and toes without any
painkillers. If these abuses were perpetrated upon dogs or cats, the
public outcry would be deafening, but as they are done out of the sight
of the average person to 'food' animals, these animals suffer in
silence.
I volunteer with local shelters to promote the humane treatment of all
animals, and rabbits in particular. We have several rescued rabbits as
house pets (some of them bred for fur and/or meat, others bred for the
pet trade, all of them adorable and loving) and hold adoption shows
each month to encourage local residents to adopt shelter bunnies as
house pets. Rabbits are classified as poultry by the USDA and do not
even receive protection from the Humane Slaughter Act.
I believe that it is extremely important that Congress begins working
to end the worst abuses of factory farming by enacting strong
farmed-animal protection laws. HR 5557 is a good start.
Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to your respons.e
To rescue abandoned,
unwanted, and abused rabbits without prejudice to age, gender, breed,
type, or other issues; to provide foster care; to spay and neuter; to
provide medical and rehabilitative care; to find permanent quality
indoor homes for them;
To educate the public and assist humane societies, animal control
officers, and other rescues, in teaching proper rabbit care to the
public;
To reduce, primarily by public education, the number of rabbits
abandoned at shelters and / or turned loose when no longer wanted.