Rabbit ripper shocks Germany

[AXJ]

Looks like this wanton animal cruelty and attacks agains pets and domestic animals is becoming fashionable across Europe. Maybe there is a online cult that is organising this, synchronising it. Maybe it is a backlash against something or another. One thing is for sure, people who are so cruel to Animals often have the profile to be serial killers, as mentioned below... interesting that the rabbits have been killed almost in the kosher fashion. * (see foot note)

Rabbit ripper shocks Germany
By Steve Rosenberg
BBC News, Witten

Seventy-four-year-old Elfriede Dumont invites me into her back garden.

Small and neat, there are little fir trees dotted around the lawn, tubs of flowers on the terrace and rows of firewood stacked neatly by the fence.

There used to be a rabbit hutch, too, at the end of the garden. But not any more.
"One morning, when I came out to feed my rabbits, I was surprised to see that the hutch door was open," recalls Elfriede.

"I looked inside and saw Rocco just lying there. His head was missing. A little later I found Felina in the bushes. She'd been killed, too. I just cannot understand why."

Rocco and Felina are among the 30 pet rabbits killed in the towns of Witten and Dortmund since last summer.

Many of the bunnies have been decapitated and the blood drained from their bodies.

Deadly discovery

It is one of the most shocking cases of animal cruelty that Germans can remember.

Some Germans have put their rabbits in hiding
"I would never expect something to happen here," says Elfriede's granddaughter, Sabrina.

"This place is so quiet. You can leave your car open and everything's fine. Yet there are people who murder rabbits!"

Sabrina tells me about another incident. She says dead rabbits were discovered in the sandpit of a local school.

"The rabbits were there without any heads and the children found them in the morning while playing in the playground. That's even more horrible than finding them in your own garden."

Down at the police station, officer Volker Schuette shows me disturbing photographs of headless pet rabbits. A gruesome pattern is emerging.

"It's always the same," Officer Schuette explains. "Detectives find the rabbit lying dead in a hutch. An unknown person has cut off the head and drained off the blood in a box or a bottle. So we find no blood and no head."

Police fear the attacker could switch from killing rabbits to killing people.

They have set up a special task force to try to track down the killer.

Satellite spy

They are examining rabbit torsos for possible traces of DNA and they have questioned 300 people. But police admit they still have no idea who is decapitating the rabbits and why.

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Jewish law states that kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a strict set of guidelines, the slaughter (shechita) (שחיטה). This necessarily eliminates the practice of hunting wild game for food, unless it can be captured alive and ritually slaughtered. The slaughter process has been branded as cruel as it may take a "considerable time" for the animal to lose consciousness.
A professional slaughterer, or shochet (שוחט), using a large razor-sharp knife with absolutely no irregularities, nicks or dents, and checked carefully between killing each animal, makes a single cut across the throat to a precise depth, severing both carotid arteries, both jugular veins, the vagus nerve, the trachea and the esophagus, no higher than the epiglottis and no lower than where cilia begin inside the trachea, causing the animal to bleed to death.

[DominicJ]

Its absolute madness that one slaughterhouse can be shutdown, but the one thats 100x worse next door is untouchable because its "religious"

[Ellendra]

Sounds more like some group has organized blood rituals and sent its members out to collect.

Worrisome, very worrisome. Such groups too often get tired of sacrificing animals and move on to infants.

And please, don't bother telling me "Satanists don't do that", I have too many friends in Investigations, and I have personally seen too many blood-soaked alters.

[Magpie]

Actually, it sounds more like the work of a weasle or stoat to me! With no evidence, how do they know it's a person? I see the hutch door was open, but perhaps the owner left it open by mistake?

[MKG]

Ah - that would be the Giant Vampire Weasel, then.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Given some of the things that go on "normal" slaughter houses I can't get too upset about religously-sanctioned butchery.

And if someone over there in Germany is trying to stir up some sectarian hatred they would do well to do a spot of background reading first: rabbit isn't kosher...

Me, I reckon it's probably alien vampire weasel people

Either that or a loony.

[MINESAPINT]

Animal abuse is very widespread throughout the world as far as I can see and I cannot see it getting any better in the future. People just seem to get pleasure out of causing suffering or cause animal suffering as a way of making money.

[Jared]

The part that I find scariest is the

"So we find no blood and no head."

so someone out in Germany has a collection of 30 bunny heads, and I'd rather not think about what they may be doing with the blood.

[eccentric_emma]

*shudders* thats just so gruesome. really gives me the creeps. what on earth possesses people to enjoy doing that?!

[Bluemoon]

This actually happened, exactly as described, to a friend of mines pet rabbit. But this was in the UK and 20 years ago. It was done by sick people for the shock value (they left the corpse on her doorstep so her kids would find it when they left for school). Nothing to do with Satanists or religious dogma, just disgusting human beings who wanted to terrorize a young mum and her family and make them feel vulnerable in their own home.

[Magpie]

But that IS what weasels do - they decapitate their prey, and drink their blood. See http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/100-199/nb137.htm - "The weasel is a close relative of the mink but is smaller and lives
entirely on land. It, too, has musk glands that can eject a powerful
disagreeable odor. Summer and winter, it is a tireless fearless hunter
that kills not only for food but also, apparently, for pleasure. A weasel
hag been known to kill all of the 40 chickens in a hen-house, drinking
only the blood of a few.

Hunting at night, and frequently in day time, they prey on mice, rabbits,
chipmunks, ground-squirrels, gophers and ground-nesting birds."

So I'm still betting on weasels.

[MINESAPINT]

Ref Kosher slaughter.

About 5 years ago there was a programme on TV. Secret filming etc. The footnote above describes the knife as requiring to be perfectly sharp but the programme specifically illustrated at least in the cases they filmed that the knife only seems to be sharpened annually. They had to use the knife like a saw in complete contradiction of the description in the footnote. Dramatically adding to the suffering.

[MKG]

But that IS what weasels do - they decapitate their prey, and drink their blood. See http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/100-199/nb137.htm -

Sorry, Magpie, but the Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois) are being very irresponsible and repeating a well-known old wives tale concerning weasels. They don't "drink" the blood of anything. They kill by biting at the back of the neck, crushing the base of the skull. They have been observed licking the resulting blood from the wound, but that's as far as it goes. And if they don't eat the prey immediately, they drag it away to store somewhere for later (unless they're scared off in the act - a couple of events in the report may have been down to this, but all of them?).

I'm merely trying to be fair to weasels, by the way, not arguing with you.

[Sian]

About Kosher/Halal slaughter:

I'm an atheist and I do have a bit of a problem with different slaughter methods being allowed just because of religion when they're less welfare-friendly. But the problem is that if we banned it then kosher/halal meat would be brought in overseas-and the WTO has a ban on countries banning products on an ethical basis (horrible isn't it?!). UK slaughtered meat is always going to be more welfare-friendly. And politically this would be kicking Muslims while they're already down, which I wouldn't be overly happy with. As to the animal taking minutes to die, it all depends on the species as they all have different anatomy regarding the blood supply to the brain, a sheep dies almost instananeously (and I've seen it) but a cow does take minutes. At least the cultural aspects to the origins of most jews and muslims in this country (the middle east/north africa) means that it's not that traditional for them to eat much beef anyway. And the rabbi's/imam's trained in religious slaughter actually have to renew their training a lot more than traditional slaughterhouse employees (can't remember the numbers, but I think it was annually for the former, 3-5? years for the latter?).

[Enormous Sage]

I would suggest it's nothing more sinister than someone with psychiatric problems. Probably someone that needs treatment before it progresses onto something worse.

I can't see the connection between what is happening in this news article and any sort of religious ceremony.