Position Statements

Millions of adorable dogs, cats, and rabbits are killed in animal shelters in this country every year. In addition, unwanted rabbits are often abandoned in fields, in parks, or on city streets to fend for themselves, where they suffer from starvation, sickness, and are easy prey to other animals or traffic accidents. Those rabbits who are sold to pet stores don’t necessarily fare any better, as pet stores sell pets to anyone with the money to buy and don’t check on what kind of home they will go to. Many of these rabbits will be sold as snake food or as a pet for a small child who will soon “outgrow” the rabbit. HRS was founded in order to help reduce the euthanasia of so many rabbits at our nation’s shelters every year, and therefore opposes the breeding of domestic rabbits as long as the overpopulation crisis exists.

To stop the breeding, sale, and euthanasia of healthy rabbits, please adopt your next rabbit, and tell all your friends to do the same. Let pet stores (stores that sell animals)  know that you won’t shop there. Please shop at pet supply stores that do not sell animals.

House Rabbit Society members and volunteers live and share our lives with rabbits and know what incredible creatures they are: intelligent, curious, willful, funny, affectionate, and even destructive. So to think that millions of our cherished rabbits are being raised and slaughtered in factory-like conditions or individual settings for human consumption every year is highly disturbing. For all of these reasons, House Rabbit Society is opposed to people eating rabbits.

House Rabbit Society believes that a rabbit’s fur should be worn only by one individual: the rabbit. We oppose the use of rabbit fur to make coats, collars, earmuffs, cat toys, key chains, or anything else. We encourage you to contact any company designing, marketing, or selling rabbit fur and ask them to stop.

As for yarn spun from angora or other long-haired rabbit, if you know that it was produced in small batches where the rabbit is a beloved companion, that is a good use of the rabbit’s spare fur. On the other hand, commercially raised angora rabbits are raised–and their fur is harvested–under cruel conditions.

While debates continue to rage over the necessity of using animals in medical experimentation, there seems to be no real need to test cosmetics and household products on live animals, yet hundreds of thousands of rabbits give their lives to the testing of household products like toothpaste and shampoo, even when no law exists to require such testing. Please consider buying non-animal tested products when you shop.

To find out more about alternatives to animal testing and how you can shop compassionately, please visit:

• Leaping Bunny
• Beauty Without Bunnies
• American Anti-Vivisection Society Alternatives
• HSUS Animal Testing and Experiments FAQ

Pet rabbits can live 8-12 years when they are housed indoors, are spayed or neutered, and receive regular rabbit-savvy veterinary care. Rabbits are wonderful companions as part of the family. However, the usual scenario for a classroom rabbit–where the rabbit lives at school throughout the school year–is not good for the rabbit or–often–the students, either.

Below is a list of FAQs about the facts and experiences for a typical rabbit who lives in the classroom. After that, is a description of how a teacher who has a personal rabbit can bring bunny to school in a way that is beneficial for all involved.

FAQ on Most Classroom Rabbits

1. Rabbits are not inexpensive, low maintenance starter pets.
2. Rabbits are intelligent companions and communicate in very subtle ways. Teachers and students who do not understand rabbit communication can be boxed with a rabbit’s front feet, grunted at, growled at, or even bitten—these behaviors often worsen over time, as the rabbit becomes behaviorally conditioned through negative interactions to protect themselves in a stressful environment.
3. Rabbits need exercise and mental stimulation (chewing and digging) to maintain best health and disposition. Constantly caged rabbits without appropriate mental stimulation are bored, destructive, withdrawn, and cage aggressive.
4. Rabbits are prey animals. They do not like to be picked up, feeling secure with all four feet on the floor. When a child picks up a rabbit and the rabbit struggles, the child can be badly scratched or painfully bitten. The most common injuries for dropped rabbits are spinal fractures and dislocated or fractured legs.
5. Rabbits subjected to stressful situations, such as noise, over-handling, improper foods, diet variations, disruption of daily routine, and temperature variations, are susceptible to illness. If a rabbit stops eating (a true medical emergency), a typical veterinarian visit and diagnostics bill can reach over $500.
6. Rabbits are crepuscular and are most active at dawn and dusk, and sleep through the middle of the day. This sleeping pattern is disrupted in a classroom environment where they are kept awake by students and classroom activities during the day, disrupting their natural circadian rhythms. This could potentially contribute to a higher risk of illness for the rabbit, or contribute to producing unwanted behaviors, like biting, when the rabbit is regularly being disrupted from sleeping.
7. Rabbits can die within 12 hours when they stop eating, without veterinary intervention. They cannot be left in a classroom over a weekend or vacation, as it could be fatal.
8. Spay/neuter of rabbits is essential for responsible pet ownership. Up to 80% of female rabbits will get uterine cancer if not spayed, cutting their life expectancy in half. Unfixed female rabbits are often space protective and will display aggressive hormonal behaviors like biting and boxing that would be unwelcome around children. Males will spray urine if not neutered. Both sexes will use a litterbox better after spay/neuter, but without it, will be significantly messier, urinating and defecating everywhere in their space. Rabbit spays can be $600 or more at a veterinary clinic. If a teacher has an unfixed rabbit in a classroom, it is teaching students irresponsible pet ownership.
9. Hay and rabbits are common allergens, and may compromise the respiratory health of students with asthma or allergies at school, or force the rabbit to be rehomed.

House Rabbit Society has seen many rabbits become unwanted from classrooms due to the reasons listed above, and those rabbits have ended up in shelters or rescues, with classroom pets contributing to the overpopulation of unwanted rabbits.

Teacher’s Pet Who Visits the Classroom

Some rabbits like to go out in public and meet new people. Most do not. A person, such as a teacher, who lives with a companion rabbit is best able to assess whether their rabbit has the  appropriate personality to visit a classroom setting. These “teachers’ pets” are ones where the teacher brings the rabbit to and from school with them every day. The teacher makes sure the rabbit is safe and that their every need is tended throughout the day.

Through multiple Youth Outreach Events, House Rabbit Society has found that most confident rabbits can tolerate up to 2-hour long visits to classrooms with direct student interaction. After 2 hours, rabbits tend to lose interest, become defensive, and seek to establish boundaries through retreat, boxing, and grunting.

House Rabbit Society opposes the raffling or auctioning of rabbits as pets. State fairs or other agricultural sites or community organizations sometimes give live baby rabbits as prizes for games, similar to goldfish in plastic bags. This practice is often targeted at children. There are also still groups who host Easter “scrambles” for baby bunnies, where if a child is able to grab and catch one out of a group of loose rabbits, they get to keep the bunny.

House Rabbit Society opposes the raffling, auctioning, or giving rabbits as prizes. State fairs or other agricultural sites or community organizations sometimes give live baby rabbits as prizes for carnival games, similar to goldfish in plastic bags. This practice is often targeted at children. There are also still groups who host Easter “scrambles” for baby bunnies, where if a child is able to grab and catch of one out of a group of loose rabbits, they get to keep the bunny.

Giving away live animals is an old-fashioned, cruel, chaotic experience for the rabbit with no guarantee of quality care when the bunny gets home. Beyond the initial injuries to rabbits from scrambles, many rabbits are accidentally dropped by small children, resulting in broken legs and backs. Those rabbits who survive the first few months quickly reach maturity. When they are no longer tiny and “cute,” kids often lose interest. Then the rabbit, who has no voice to remind you they are hungry or thirsty or need their cage cleaned, is often gradually neglected. While a rabbit can make an ideal pet for the right family, they make a terrible “child’s pet.” Ask yourself: Is my family rabbit ready?

House Rabbit Society opposes giving rabbits as gifts at Easter or any time. All rabbits and all people are individuals–and not every person is compatible with every rabbit, or any other animal for that matter. Selecting an animal companion is a very personal decision. Animals should not be given as gifts without the recipient being part of the decision making process. For this reason, some shelters and rescue groups offer gift certificates for adoptions.

Every Easter, a number of photography studios around the country offer photo sessions using live rabbits as props. Rabbits are purchased or borrowed for these events and some stores raffle the rabbits away after the promotion is over. If you come across one of these businesses, please contact them to let them know that rabbits are not props!

There are other issues related to rabbits and Easter. Here is additional information and educational graphics you can share:

• Rabbits and Easter
• Columbus House Rabbit Society: Make Mine Chocolate

While domestic violence does not naturally seem like a rabbit issue, scholars in human-animal studies and organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States have proven that there is a strong link between violence to women and children in the home and violence to animals. Rabbits, cats, dogs, and other companion animals are often victimized by abusers in the home, and women often do not leave a situation of violence because they don’t have a place to take their companion animal.

House Rabbit Society’s rescue facility in the San Francisco Bay Area offers a program called Crisis Companions. HRS works with local domestic abuse and homeless shelters to provide assistance when individuals or families with a rabbit(s) find themselves in a situation where they temporarily need to seek shelter. HRS can temporarily take possession and put the rabbit(s) in foster care until the family gets back on their feet and can be reunited.

For information on this program, please fill out the Contact Us form and write Crisis Companions in the Subject field.