Blog written by Claire Hamlett, a freelance journalist and contributor

Easter is a Christian celebration marking the resurrection of Jesus, but many non-religious people also observe some of its traditions as a celebration of new life. Unfortunately, a combination of various religious practices, symbolic associations, and capitalist enterprising means that for most people Easter celebrations come at the expense of animals.  

Rabbits

The Easter Bunny has a lot to answer for. With its origins in pagan traditions and German folklore, rabbits–or hares–have long been associated with Easter. The Easter Bunny hides eggs for children to find as well as being a symbol of new life, since rabbits are highly fertile.

But the Easter Bunny is no longer just a symbol, having spawned a craze for actual real life bunnies, the majority of whom end up dead or abandoned. Seduced by all of the rabbit imagery that springs up in the lead up to Easter, children want a bunny of their own and are too frequently indulged by parents who don’t know enough about proper rabbit care. 

Rabbits can live for around 12 years when kept as companions. They do better when they have other rabbits for company (they should not be kept alone), but enough space to get away from each other when they want to do so. They have specific dietary needs and are susceptible to certain health issues, which can result in expensive veterinary treatment. Clearly not everyone is prepared to meet all these needs.

This year, Pets at Home and Jollyes pet shops have said they will stop selling rabbits in stores over the Easter period to avoid the inevitable influx of rabbits to rescue centres a few months from now. (Of course, they ought to go further and stop the sale of animals supplied by breeders altogether.) There are also campaigns against giving rabbits as Easter gifts by welfarist charities. While these are well-meaning, some help to shift the exploitation of one animal (rabbits) to another (cows), namely by encouraging people to buy chocolate rabbits instead of real ones–more on which later.

Chicks and ducklings

Being cute and fluffy, baby chickens have unfortunately befallen a similar fate to rabbits at Easter. With eggs featuring heavily as a symbol of fertility and rebirth at Easter, chicks and ducklings have also become associated with Easter. Often you’ll see those little fake yellow chicks with wiry legs dotted about as decoration, but real ones are also given as gifts.

This seems to be a distinct problem in the U.S., where vets and bird rescues keep having to ask people not to buy chicks and ducklings on a whim at Easter only to abandon them outdoors or in shelters a few weeks later. But it’s not hard to order chicks and ducklings (either hatched or unhatched) online in the UK either. Chick hatching projects are also popular in schools, which the British Hen Welfare Trust warns against due to the often substandard care provided for the animals and the number of unwanted cockerels that such projects produce.

Lambs

The tradition of eating lamb at Easter stems from the Jewish holiday Passover, so named because in the Old Testament, God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites to mark their doors with lamb’s blood so that the Angel of Death would pass over them and not kill their firstborn sons. For Christians, it is more a symbol of rebirth and renewal–though oddly this means killing lambs to eat rather than letting them live.

Many farms will invite families to come for ‘lambing days’ around Easter time, when children can stroke and feed newborn lambs. These are not the same lambs who those children and their families will likely eat for dinner, since lambs are between ten weeks and one year old when slaughtered. So the lambs being consumed across the UK on Easter Sunday have likely been imported from abroad, quite possibly from New Zealand.

But that doesn’t mean the lambs that children will pet and coo over at Easter will be off the hook–more than 17 million of them will simply be slaughtered later in the year.

Cows

Over 80 million boxed Easter eggs are sold at Easter in the UK each year. Though vegan options are more readily available than ever, most of the eggs consumed will be made with cow’s milk. The dairy industry is cruel to cows and their calves in so many ways, including that they are separated shortly after calves are born, that cows are repeatedly artificially impregnated and frequently suffer lameness and inflammation of their udders due to so much milking, and that a fifth of dairy cows in the UK live their entire lives indoors.

The sort of campaigns mentioned earlier that encourage people to buy chocolate rabbits instead of real ones might be helping rabbits but they are not helping cows.

It doesn’t need to be this way

Aside from buying vegan Easter eggs for yourself or your family, it’s possible to make all other parts of your Easter celebrations animal-friendly too. You can still decorate eggs–but choose ones that are made of wood or ceramic (usually available online and from craft stores) which can be repainted again during future Easters. Children who don’t want to miss out on seeing sweet little animals at Easter needn’t go to a lambing event which ultimately supports the slaughter of lambs. There are plenty of animal sanctuaries around the UK that allow visitors and welcome volunteers to help care for the animals.

As always,

For the animals. 

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