mythical.mia/InstagramA vegan activist who claimed to have ‘rescued’ 16 rabbits from a farm actually caused the death of nearly 100 baby rabbits in the process, according to reports.
The activist, who calls herself ‘Mythical Mia’, claims she was attacked by an angry mob during the alleged rescue mission on a farm near Osono in Spain last Sunday.
According to Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, five rabbits, which were pregnant and about to give birth, were killed during the chaos of the ‘rescue’ and several others were left with broken spines.
A number of the rabbits taken by Mia were said to have been pregnant or lactating, which meant that their offspring, around 90 bunnies, had to be euthanised after being abandoned, the paper states, referencing an assessment from a local vet.
The mother rabbits who survived but were left behind reportedly were forced to have abortions.
Citing her ‘rescue’ mission on Instagram, Mia wrote:
This is what has just happened to us, look, I’m documenting the whole thing.
I’m covered in blood. This is what the farmers have done. They shot through our window and chased us down the motorway. Oh my God, I’m literally covered in blood.
mythical.mia/InstagramWith the video, Mia described the events of that day and said after the group had taken the rabbits from the property, the farmer ‘strangled activists and smashed their heads in with metal poles’.
After the police arrived and told the group to leave, Mia said the farmers chased them down the motorway at 200kmph (124mph) before following them down a side road.
Posting updates of the ‘rescued’ rabbits on social media, she wrote:
These 16 are the lucky ones. After actions like this we get to go home but for them there is no way out. We only managed to find a home for 16 beforehand, so had to leave thousands of mothers and babies behind. They will be trapped inside those cages for their entire lives, their only escape is when they are shipped off to a slaughterhouse to be murdered for their flesh and fur.
Rabbits like these are also abused for animal testing, tortured for a lifetime before eventually getting murdered too. They are also regularly kept as ‘pets’ often in solitary confinement and inappropriate conditions suffering from boredom and multiple other health issues.
She added:
What we do to the animals need to end immediately. This injustice has gone on far too long. We will continue to enter in these facilities to expose these horrors and liberate the beings trapped inside for as long as it takes. We are not going anywhere. Join us in our fight, be vegan, be active and let’s put an end to this once and for all.
Rabbit farming is extremely popular in Spain; a report by the Publications Office of the European Union found rabbit farming is highly concentrated in three countries, which represent 83 per cent of total EU production.
Spain is the largest producer with 48.5 million rabbits slaughtered in 2016 alone, followed by France with 29 million rabbits slaughtered and Italy with approximately 24.5 million.
The number of farms in Spain decreased by 40 per cent in the last 10 years, primarily due to a move towards ‘greater professionalisation’, in which farms are becoming bigger in size and more specialised – meaning many smaller farms are unable to keep up.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.