Rabbit with a gray and white face after transplant
China Daily (Newsphoto)
December 24, 2005
Chinese researchers show a rabbit with a gray and white face after a face-transplant operation at a plastic surgery institute in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, December 23, 2005. Researchers transplanted half the face of a white rabbit to the gray one 14 days ago, local media reported. The gray rabbit is in normal health condition, able to open and close its eyes. It is the first successful face-transplant operation reported in China.
Comment: How many rabbits before this one was considered successful? How much pain and suffering? How many deaths? Cruelty and torture under the guise of science and research for the benefit of man.
In Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the HMS Beagle Mark Twain wrote: “Can any plausible excuse be furnished for the crime of creating the human race?”
Japanese scientists clone embryo of vanishing 'living fossil'
November 28, 2008 mongabay.com
With less than 5,000 Amami rabbits left in Japan,
scientists have implanted a cloned embryo of the species into a common rabbit
according to a recent entry in the EDGE blog. The scientists hope that the Amami
will come to full-term, but warned that the possibility of pregnancy was only 10
percent—not uncommon with other cloned animals.
The embryo was created by extracting a cell from the ear of a dead Amami rabbit
and placing this into the egg of the common rabbit.
“After we confirmed that the egg developed into a cloned embryo, we put it back
into the fallopian tube of the host mother,” Professor Yoshihiko Hosoi told the
AFP. “In about 30 days the host mother may give birth to a baby rabbit which has
the gene information of Amami rabbit.”
The species is being cloned to add a great buffer against inbreeding. “If we can
use the gene information of a dead body, it will help avoid inbreeding which
could lead to a genetic abnormality or frail offspring,” Hosi explained.
The
Amami is ranked as number 43 in the EDGE program’s list of the hundred most
unique and endangered mammals worldwide. The species has been referred to as a
‘living fossil’ due to the fact that it is similar to fossils found in the
Miocene, and remains one of the most primitive rabbits in the world.
Protected by Japanese law since 1921, the Amami still faces many threats.
Surviving on two islands, the Amami has lost much of its habitat due to logging.
In addition it has faced threats from introduced dogs, cats, and, most
seriously, the Javan Mongoose. Introduced to the islands in the late 1970’s by
humans to curb the habu pit viper population, the mongoose, however, focused its
famed predatory skills on the Amami instead.
If the procedure proves successful this would be Japan’s first cloned animal,
and one of few cloned wild species in the world.
Connecticut
pet shop has 2-nosed bunny
- April 1, 2009 The Associated Press
MILFORD, Conn.—It's no April Fools joke. The baby bunny really does have two noses. A Connecticut pet shop worker found the nosey bunny in a delivery of 6-week-old dwarf rabbits that arrived at the Milford store last week. Both noses have two nostrils. The owner of the Purr-Fect Pets shop says he's never seen anything like it in 25 years in the business. He says the bunny eats, drinks and hops around like the rest of the litter.
Beardsley Zoo director Gregg Dancho says the deformity could be the result of too much inbreeding or the parents' exposure to pesticides or poisons.
Comment: The rabbits were produced, of course, by a rabbit mill that supplies "pet" stores with live creatures whom humans will purchase without having any idea of the conditions they were produced under. Or what happened to their mother. Deformities in animals who are mass-produced is nothing new. There have been two-faced kittens and two-faced calves. It seems that humans will stop at nothing in the disgraceful use and capitalization of all other creatures.
Baby bunnies are exploited every Easter, and without fail, parents are still buying them as “gifts” for children. Even thoughtless businesses give them away as “prizes.” The Enzian Inn, Leavenworth, WA is holding its annual draw again this year, despite requests by us to end this “tradition.” It's 2015 and we're sad to report that the Enzian has not moved forward with the changing times. Until the public refuses to participate and is vocal in its opposition, this annual event is bound to continue.
You can find out more about the pet industry; the players, the greed, the deception and how you can help make a positive change by visiting our Pet Page.