Put the Bunny Back in the Box

"Make a move and the bunny gets it!"

That's one of John Malkovich's lines in the 1997 film, Con Air, and it's good for a laugh. After all, it's not a real bunny he's holding a gun to, it's only a toy that Nicholas Cage is bringing home to his daughter.

But every year, tens of thousands of real bunnies get it. They aren't toys, but they are treated as playthings.

As a holiday, Easter is one of those strange amalgams of Christianity and pagan ritual. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, but this is grafted onto the even older rites of spring that celebrate the resurrection of the land following the dead of winter. Regarding the latter, there could hardly be a more fitting exemplar of the generative life force than rabbits. And, they're so cute and cuddly, so naturally, every child loves to get one at Easter time. And naturally, there is an industry to serve this demand. It's so American.

In the past month, hundreds of thousands of bunnies have been born that will soon be sold and given to children who will have no idea how to care for them. But we all know what short attention spans children have. This summer, the children will lose interest in their rabbits. Also, what were cute little bunnies will now be exhibiting the difficult behaviors common to adolescence in any species. At some point, a family decision will be made. No one wants to clean out the rabbit's cage anymore, and the parents are pretty steamed about the carpets, furniture, and baseboards that the rabbit chewed up any time it was allowed free reign of the house. So, the rabbit will get carted off to the humane society for the "final solution." That's the throw-away society. It's so American.

My wife and I used to operate a private rabbit rescue shelter out of our home and out of our own pocket. During the 1990s, we placed about 500 abandoned rabbits for adoption. Some of these were former laboratory rabbits. In some cases, researchers were breeding rabbits to manifest a specific genetic defect; they couldn't use the healthy rabbits, but they didn't want to kill them either, so a quiet deal was struck to spring them out of the joint. By far and away, however, our rabbit rescues were ex-Easter bunnies that everyday, picket-fence, American families just didn't want anymore.

Then there are the idiots who buy a male and a female and allow themselves to be overrun, in apparent ignorance of rabbits' legendary fecundity. Rabbits become sexually mature at three months; they're ready to rock, and they will rock you. After a one-month gestation, a female will produce an average litter of six, depending on the breed. Meanwhile, mama rabbit can be impregnated a few hours after giving birth. Not that any of this is healthy, of course, but it's the worst case scenario of letting them breed out of control.

It's like "The Trouble With Tribbles" Star Trek episode, except with tragedy on the crushing scale of "Schindler's List." When you get the phone call, "Please come take my 20 rabbits," you do it because you know you're the only one who stands between them and death. You take the rabbits off of John Q. Pilate's hands. But eventually, the rescuer learns the hard reality: you can't save them all. Eventually, the rescuer learns to pronounce the certain sentence of death: "No." Who shall rescue the rescuers?

A holiday that supposedly celebrates resurrection and life has been perverted by a consumer culture that has duped the American family into perpetrating an annual slaughter of the innocents just to momentarily amuse its children. What family values are these? What Christian lessons does this teach our progeny?

What would Jesus do?

I can't say, but I think Nicholas Cage's character would say to consumers and commercial breeders, "Put the bunny back in the box."