Shocking Footage Reveals What Really Happens To The Little Fluffy Angora Rabbits Who Are Bred For Their Designer Fur

Secret footage filmed on French farms shows the stark reality behind what goes into creating your unique and fluffy angora sweater, and it’s not pretty.

There’s nothing quite as cute or fluffy as a bunny rabbit, and angora rabbits take that whole Walt Disney vibe to another dimension, which is why it is so distressing to see these innocent and defenseless little critters pinned down and screaming in pain as their fur is savagely ripped from their writhing bodies.

Yet if one peers a little further down this rather dark and desolate rabbit hole, things get a lot worse, and quite quickly too.

The secret footage of everyday life and torment on a rabbit farm was recorded by French animal rights charity One Voice.

Over a six-month period, the group travelled across France and visited six angora rabbit farms where they diligently documented the suffering and cruelty they observed.

Warning: The following video is graphic and may disturb some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzstKke5q7M

The rabbits in the footage are rabbits who have never felt the healing warmth of the sun on their fur, the lushness of meadow grass in spring beneath their feet, the balmy air of midsummer in their nostrils, or the freedom of a field at dusk.

Instead, from their birth onwards, life has been one of stagnant captivity and claustrophobic cages for these animals who are born free but destined to live and suffer behind bars purely in the name of fashion.

Bred in hellish captivity in pens not dissimilar too battery chickens, the rabbits are only plucked from the sterile confines of their cage when it’s time to have their fur brutally ripped from their skin.

The Daily Mail reports that the animals are pinned down and spreadeagled as farmers remove the silky fibers so sought after and prized by the textiles and fashion industry.

The farmers pluck the individual hairs as opposed to shaving them, because by using this method, the root remains longer and is of more value in the marketplace.

The rabbits are fully conscious during the plucking because to anesthetize them is considered far too expensive.

Let’s make no bones about it, being plucked is a painful process, as the rabbits who writhe around in agony and squeal in pain during the footage clearly testify.

As they are sheared, many of the rabbits’ skin is torn along with their fur and in one clip a farmer can be heard revealing how sometimes the fur does not come off easy, and he is forced to apply more force.

The same farmer responds to one of the rabbits squeals by mocking, “Aren’t you happy?”

Would you be happy if you were being routinely skinned to make sweaters, socks, and scarves?

One Voice President Muriel Arnal is outraged by the treatment of the animals involved in her group’s investigation and told Europe 1 it was “unacceptable.”

“Rabbits suffer, they cry, this is unacceptable. Sometimes the skin is torn when they are plucked. Compared to China, the only thing different in France is that rabbits have straw in their cage, but it’s to preserve clean and silky hair rather than animal welfare.”

One Voice has now launched a campaign to ban the breeding of angora rabbits and the trade of their wool, which is softer than cashmere and prized for its exceptionally fluffy texture.

Fellow animal rights group PETA have already exposed the hell and horror of the angora industry in China with a disturbing expose.

PETA explains that “Rabbits are sensitive, smart, social animals. They can hop faster than a cat or human can run, have individual personalities and form lifelong bonds with one another. As you can imagine, they suffer intense pain and terror when they are imprisoned in tiny cages, are manhandled and have the fur torn from their bodies.”

They then go on to state that, “As long as shoppers in the West continue to buy angora hats, socks, scarves and other items, farmers will continue to profit from torturing rabbits. Ninety per cent of the world’s angora comes from China, where there are no penalties for the abuse of animals on farms and no standards to regulate the treatment of the animals.”

You can join the campaign against angora wool by clicking here.

[Featured Image by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images]