The Nos Viventia association unveils images taken in various rabbit farms of the Bocage rabbit producers’ cooperative, in particular in the Vendée and Deux-Sèvres. “A life in hell”, denounce the activists, which precedes the slaughter.
“If they are too small, we eliminate them”explains a breeder filmed without his knowledge. It is with these words that the video that traces the “detective work” for which the naturalist Pierre Rigaux says he directed “more than a year” at the Bocage Rabbit Producers Cooperative (CPLB).
“What struck me most was the situation of farmers on a human level”says Pierre Rigaux, co-founder of the Nos Viventia association. “They are no longer farmers, they apply an industrial process given to them by the cooperative”.
These women and these men are “completely addicted”, “feet and fists bound”explains the activist: “Upstream, the cooperative supplies them with sperm from male and female rabbits, which have all been genetically selected. And downstream, the slaughterhouse buys them rabbits by the kilo.”
The result, according to the association, is an industrial process in which rabbits would be treated as units of production – and not as “living beings endowed with sensitivity”as required by law. “We will not seek the vet for a rabbit”entrust a breeder to a member of Nos Viventia, equipped with a hidden camera, before detailing “the criteria for reform” (understand delete) a rabbit: “If they are too aggressive, if they are too old, if they are too small … We have mothers when they give birth, they will eat their babies. These mothers, we do not keep them because the ones that are not the right ones.”
Each rabbit must be qualified for production: have the right growth rate to reach the right size, the right weight at two and a half months, the age at which it will be brought to the slaughterhouse. “We will not keep what is not good because it consumes food. That’s what, it is not good, so we eliminate it.”
The corpses are thrown into large dumpsters. Direction: rendering. And among the dead, a rabbit gesticulates again, dying. And, once again, this mistreatment is due, according to Pierre Rigaux, to the production conditions: “Breeders don’t have time.”
“We love them, but that’s what makes us live, so it has to work”lose the farmer in the video.
Contacted, the CPLB did not respond to our requests. Pierre Dupont, head of the cooperative, instead expressed himself in an article published by Liberation: “Live animals shouldn’t have ended up in the trash”admits. “We know that some will not survive. Among those born, a work of selection is to operate to avoid their suffering. In this case, the breeder must sacrifice them by giving them a blow on the back of the head.”
The cooperative amounts to “from 10 to 15%” the “loss rate in [ses] farms “. However, these statistics are contested by associations for the defense of the animal cause. Nearly a quarter of the rabbits would have died before they were even taken to the slaughterhouse.
The Nos Viventia association announces its intention to file a complaint against the CPLB for acts of cruelty, mistreatment and lack of care. None of the breeders contacted by France 3 Poitou-Charentes refused to answer our questions.
