If you are going to protest Whole Foods selling rabbit meat, I'd better see you protesting cow and pig meat, too. Maybe chicken and fish, too. Certainly any venison, too. I may disagree with your principles, but at least I'll have to concede you have consistet ones.
That some people keep rabbits as pets, and therefore nobody anywhere should be eating rabbits, is sentimentality of the highest order. Not only has rabbit been consumed for meat since the first human was able to actually catch one, it's still consumed for meat today. There's a hell of a lot of restaurants in my home city where you can get rabbit on the menu, and rabbits get hunted and then cooked by a lot of folk.
Again, that doesn't mean hunting or meat-eating is right (or wrong), but that's a separate issue. Making this into some sort of discussion about animals being ineligible to be consumed because some folk keep them as pets is what's really zany.
(Hey, folk — guinea pigs are considered livestock in South America, and if you go to a Peruvian restaurant, you'll probably see it on the menu.)
Protesting Whole Foods for selling rabbit meat because Foofoo is your favorite pet is like protesting a local restaurant for selling venison because you loved Bambi as a child.
(Note: I'm not a big fan of rabbit meat myself — too many bones. But, then, I don't eat much fish, but that doesn't mean I don't think anyone should sell it, even if I did have some goldfish a pets a long time ago.)
I'm fine with considering whether the rabbits in question are being raised and slaughtered humanely. But that's true for any animal that's going to be eaten. Similarly, I'm also fine with not running around yanking pets out of folks' house and sending them to be butchered. To the extent that pet rabbits can emotionally bond with their "companion humans," I would not be inclined to violate that bond. But that's not what we're talking about.
And, yes, this is much like the question of horse meat. Which, if folk want to buy it, cook it, and eat it, I have no problem with. I really see no rational basis for singling out particular species between "can be eaten" and "shouldn't be eaten" based on sentiment. For yourself? Sure. Emotional associations are personal and needn't be rational. But that doesn't provide any justification beyond your own (or my own) hang-ups.
And, no, I don't think I'd ever eat cat meat, or dog meat. I could argue that both species have been domesticated and associated with humans for a different purpose than being eaten, but I'll also confess that it's mostly about my emotional association with those species, not something I should be imposing on others.
It seems to me that the real conflict here is not about arbitrary classification of species between "un-eatable pet" vs "eatable livestock," but a confrontation of what eating meat itself means. We see cows by the road, but (the vast majority of us) don't really associate them with the hunk of stake or blob of hamburger we cook up. Or, if we do, well, they're "just" cows. Eating (or seeing others eat) a critter that we associate as being more than just a cud-chewing piece of scenery forces us to realize how much emotional convenience we exercise in nomming down on bacon while not thinking of Fern and Wilbur. Until you can figure out that distinction, it's a subject that's it's difficult to be rational about.
Are Rabbits Pets or Meat?
Some people are incensed that Whole Foods is selling rabbit meat, and the debate they’re caught up in reveals the contradictions in how we relate to different creatures in different ways.
If they don't agree with it, they don't have to eat it.
Seems all we're seeing, today, is if someone doesn't agree with/like something, they don't want anyone doing it.
I ran across the protesters in Pasadena last weekend, and the part that amused me about the whole thing is that their position is guaranteed to get everybody angry.
I can just imagine how PETA feels about the whole concept of "pets," and subjugation of other species to satisfy our desire to enslave them.
In addition (as you note) the statement that "bunnies are pets, not food" is a lie on its face. When I told my father in law about the Pasadena protests, he thought it was ridiculous.
+Mark Means, I could understand the desire to restrict behavior if it's a moral stance, but as +Dave Hill notes, the moral stance needs to be consistent.
+John E. Bredehoft Exactly. "Eating animals is wrong" is a moral stance that I can respect, even if I disagree with it. "Eating cute animals that I like to keep as pets is wrong" is, frankly, incoherent emotional garbage.
Only slightly less so was the argument made that "WF doesn't sell cosmetics that have been tested on rabbits, but they sell rabbit meat." There is a logical difference between intentionally causing animals pain and distress through animal testing and (for the sake of argument) raising them then killing them in a humane fashion. (If the farm-raised animals are mistreated, well, sure, that changes the equation, but that's not the argument being made.)
Answer to the question is yes.
I ate dog meat at the 1982 World's Fair without realizing it. It wasn't bad, but I didn't really develop a taste for it.
In the 40s and 50s my mum would sometime stay with her Aunt in the country (Aston Clinton). Rabbits would be snared, and my mum would skin them for the pot. Rabbits were a good source of meat for the poor for hundreds of years – indeed they are not native to Britain, they were introduce by the Romans as a source of meat; some escaped and bred like.. um.. err…
@LH – Yup. A long tradition of rabbit as a food source, esp. for the poor. (Just consider how many Bugs Bunny cartoons involve his being hunted.)
Be wery qwiet….