Radio station bludgeons baby rabbit to death live on air with a bike pump to "spark debate".

Listeners to a Dutch radio station have been horrified when a presenter bashed a baby rabbit to death with bicycle pump to ‘highlight the hypocrisy’ of animal rights campaigners who eat meat.

Warning: This post deals with the violent death of an animal and may be distressing for some readers. 

The debate was about the treatment of animals in the agriculture sector.

A prominent animal rights activist was brought in to participate and a nine-week old rabbit named Allan was in the studio.

The baby rabbit had been a resident at the radio studio since Saturday morning, living happily in a cardboard box

The presenters wanted to see if they got “attached to him.”

Then live on air on Sunday one of the presenters took the tiny rabbit from his box and smashed his skull in with a bike pump.

The Danish radio station Radio24syv have defended their presenter, Asger Juhl’s actions saying it achieved its exact purpose, namely exposing the hypocrisy of those who claim to be animal lovers but eat meat.

“I hit it hard over the neck twice so that the cervical vertebrae fractured,” Juhl told broadcaster TV 2.

“I was instructed by a zookeeper from Aalborg Zoo who hits several baby rabbits every week [to feed] the snakes.”

The popular radio station said by killing and eating Allan, they wanted to shine a light on the conditions faced by animals in Denmark’s agriculture sector.

“We buy and eat animals that have had an awful life. And animals that have been killed under the same controlled conditions as the rabbit in the studio,” Radio24syv wrote in a statement.

The animal rights activist, Dutch reality star Linse Kessler who was in the studio, tried to stop Juhl chasing his around the desk.

“They wanted to see if they could kill him during the last show or if they had gotten too attached to him,” she said in a video on her Facebook page.

Kessler said she thought she was capable of wresting the rabbit from Juhl but was worried it would die a more painful death if she grabbed it.

“I could see that the message is actually for the best of animals but I think it is wrong,” she said.

She’s not alone, the radio station has attracted the anger of thousands around the world.

The station’s Facebook page, along with Twitter flooded with criticism.

“You are despicable, sick people. How does cruelly and inhumanely killing another innocent animal help the cause for animal welfare? HOW? This exhibitionist, sadistic stunt is the work of sociopaths. May you all suffer the same fate as the innocent rabbit.” wrote one.

Another: “After the killing of Lions and healthy Giraffe at Copenhagen zoo + the slaughtering of dolphins in the Faroe Islands (an island that belongs to Danemark), I am questioning myself about the Danish mentality and the relationship of Danish people to life. Do you have to go through such cruel experiments to talk about something?”

And thousands more.

Others: “Maybe, somebody should hit you on the head with a f*****g pump, see if that provokes a debate.”

There were a minority who could see what the broadcaster was trying to say.

The station has now said it is receiving death threats.

Juhl said he knew what he did would spark debate.

“We were provocative, on purpose. Of course there are some misunderstandings we need to deal with. People are saying we didn’t do it in a humane way – we did.”

“What I did, I called up a zoo in Denmark – a guy who kills rabbits, to feed them to the predators in the zoo. He uses an iron stick. I didn’t have a stick but I did have a bicycle pump made out of iron. It’s the exact same thing.”

But animal rights activists did not agree with a petition calling for the sacking of Juhl.

Jorgen Ramskov, chief executive of Radio24syv,  appears on Sky News defending their actions. Post continues after video.

34-year old Juhl then took the dead rabbit home where he skinned and cut it up with his children, aged six and eight.

He said that he would have rabbit stew for dinner with fellow morning host Kristoffer Eriksen.

A video posted to the station’s Facebook page shows the stew.

The killing of the rabbit follows widespread controversy last year when a Copenhagen zoo put down a healthy giraffe, known as Marius, and then dissected it in front of children.

This latest controversy has been slammed as just another example of the country’s woeful record on animal welfare.

 

The statement from the radio station in full:

Every day in the nation of Denmark, thousands and thousands of animals are put down to fill the meat counters in our super markets. Danish agriculture is one of the most industrialized in the world. But we do not seem to focus much on animal welfare.

Denmark is one of the top countries in the world, when it comes to consumption of meat products and consumers do not hesitate to buy cheap meat in stores without asking questions about the life or death of the animal. Meat from chickens, pigs, cows and sheep, that have not lead a dignified or pleasant life.

Danish consumers allow chicken farms to keep 13 chickens per square meter. And they accept lengthy and painful transport of animals to the slaughterhouse. 
In Danish pig farms, 25.000 piglets die every day, because agriculture has bred pigs that give birth to more piglets than the sow can feed. This is wasted life.

These conditions provoke very few reactions from the consumers. Animal welfare does not seem to apply to animals in the food industry.

This is an interesting issue, which the Danish public service radio broadcaster, Radio24syv, wishes to highlight. 
Therefore, on May 25th, we chose to put down a rabbit during a live radio broadcast. An animal which is both a pet and a farm animal.

We anticipated strong reactions. To take the life of an animal brings about strong emotional response in vast segments of the public. It was important to us that the rabbit would not suffer unnecessarily, and was put down accordingly to careful instructions by a professional animal caretaker from a Danish Zoo.

We knew that we would be accused of provocation. And yes, we indeed wanted to provoke the public and to stir a debate about the hypocrisy when it comes to perceptions of cruelty towards animals.

But it is not an empty provocation; the presenters of the program ate the animal after killing it.

Consumers generally do not kill animals themselves, but we buy and eat animals, that have lead sad lives. We just don’t see it, and don’t consider the animals ‘cute’ as the rabbit.

These animals have often endured horrific suffering on their way to our dinner tables. These animals are killed according to the same controlled conditions as our studio rabbit, and without it invoking any strong reactions or calls for boycott. We at least believe that the studio rabbit have had a comfortable existence.

We wanted to expose the vast hypocrisy surrounding our relationship with animals. So far we have succeeded. 
We wanted and want to have a debate about animal welfare – for ALL animals.