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ANIMAL WELFARE

46 rabbits discovered in Danish apartment

Animal welfare volunteers made a less-than-fluffy discovery in an apartment in Denmark last week when they found 46 rabbits.

Published: 20 November 2017 16:29 CET
46 rabbits discovered in Danish apartment
Photo: simply/Depositphotos

Many of the rabbits had been mauled by the others in the apartment, reports TV2.

The rabbits were found running freely around a one-room apartment on November 16th, according to the report.

They were not suitable for living together and many had bitten each other, said the Dyrenes Beskyttelse (Animal Protection) organisation.

The charity was made aware of the overcrowded rabbit apartment by a report registered on the 1812 animal welfare emergency number.

The animals were removed from the apartment and brought to an animal shelter in Roskilde, writes TV2.

“An unusually high number of rabbits are involved. This is a serious case in which the rabbits’ needs were far from being met. Many of the rabbits have been unwell for some time, and some had been savaged,” animal protection director Henrik Bucholdtz of Dyrenes Beskyttelse told TV2.

Many of the animals were treated by veterinarians at the shelter and six were put down due to their injuries.

Staff and volunteers at the shelter are now working hard to help the remaining rabbits recover so that new homes can be found for them, according to the report.

READ ALSO: Danish hedgehogs dying in massive numbers

COWS

Italy’s top cheeses ‘products of cruelty’: campaign

Two of Italy's most famous cheeses, Parmesan and Grana Padano, are being produced with milk from emaciated, sometimes lame cows kept permanently indoors, an animal welfare group said on Saturday.

Published: 25 November 2017 13:19 CET
Italy's top cheeses 'products of cruelty': campaign
Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) released film it said it had recently obtained from nine farms in Italy's Po valley exposing the “shocking” conditions endured by exhausted cows wallowing in their own excrement.

The charity is using the footage to launch #notonmypasta, a campaign aimed at pushing producers of the two cheeses to introduce welfare guidelines for their milk suppliers, who manage an estimated 500,000 dairy cattle for a business with annual sales of some five billion euros.

“What our investigators exposed was the misery of life in a factory farm,” said Emma Slawinski, CIWF's Director of Campaigns. “There were extremely underweight, overworked animals being treated like milk machines, suffering just so we can add a topping to our pasta.

“Parmesan and Grana Padano cheeses are marketed as 'high quality' when in fact the reality for the cows couldn't be further from the truth. It's time to put these animals back on the land where they belong.”

A spokesman for the consortium of producers of Parmigiano Reggiano confirmed that production specifications for the upmarket cheese did not cover animal welfare because “it is not something that has an impact, if not marginally, on the quality of the product.”

But he insisted producers cared about welfare standards and said the consortium was in the process of introducing a certification system designed to ensure minimum animal welfare standards are observed.