Breaking! European Parliament Votes In Favor Of EU Ban On Rabbit Battery Cages

The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted today in favor of improving farmed rabbit welfare.

By a vote of 410 to 205, drafting is now set to begin on history-making legislation that will enact a widespread EU ban of the use of battery cages.

The significant ruling will dramatically help the more than 340 million rabbits who currently experience extreme suffering each year while being inhumanely housed in these barbaric wire enclosures.

Battery cages, most commonly used for egg laying hens, are small wire pens where animals are crammed in; on the average allowing each one only 67 square inches of space, which, the EU Reporter discerned, is comparable to “less space than a single sheet of letter-sized paper” per animal.

“Today history has been made! One of the cruelest farming practices ever invented, confining animals in tiny barren cages for their entire lives, could soon be obsolete in Europe,” exclaimed Toni Shephard, Executive Director of Animal Equality UK. “This is amazing progress for hundreds of millions of rabbits who currently endure extreme suffering in battery cages on European farms.”

Animal Equality, an international farmed animal advocacy organization that is dedicated to defending all animals through public education, campaigns and investigations, and its supporters had been lobbying members of the parliament across Europe, sending more than 120,000 emails urging them to support this plan to protect farmed rabbits.

Noted celebrities, such as vegan actress Evanna Lynch (Harry Potter), also lent their voices to the voiceless, urging people to “Join Animal Equality in urging British MEPs to vote in favour of measures to ban this cruel practice on March 14th.”

According to EU Reporter, footage acquired by Animal Equality investigators on rabbit farms in Spain and Italy contributed to the passing of this landmark decision.

Investigations on more than 75 farms revealed the atrocious pain and suffering that caged rabbits are subjected to; “including rabbits left with open and infected wounds and countless dead rabbits left to rot in cages alongside living rabbits, and even cases of cannibalism due to the unnatural and stressful conditions.”

Shephard concluded that “Animal Equality will keep working with European and national politicians until rabbit cages are confined to history.”

Source: EU Reporter, Plant Based News

Photo Credit: Express.uk, ciwf.org.uk, Plant Based News