Yahoo News 
Diners slam ‘cruel’ Easter bunny attraction at a Dubai brunch
Angry brunchers have hit out at a hotel that paraded live baby rabbits for petting at a brunch in Dubai on Friday.
Guests at the Fazaris brunch at The Address Downtown Dubai said drunk adults and carefree children were manhandling the bunnies – with some kids pulling the rabbits’ ears. One angry bruncher said staff even told him he could take one of the animals home.
Mark Barsby, a horse trainer who was attending a friend’s birthday, said: “Children were running around with the rabbits. They had put them in some kind of Easter basket and the poor things were petrified.”
Furious Dawn-Louise Morgan said she plans to file a formal complaint to Dubai Municipality about animal cruelty following the incident.
“For a hotel that’s one of the most modern in the world, I’m amazed that such an outdated and cruel practice of using animals as novelty toys was used,” said Morgan. She said that staff kept referring to the rabbits as “items”. Barsby said the rabbits, “only five to six weeks old”, had been placed in a glass tank. He said he asked staff where the rabbits were brought from and what would happen to them. Yet he claimed staff kept changing their tales.
Brunch guest Aideen O’Mara, owner of the Urban Tails pet resort, said the rabbits were not being supervised.
“The kids were manhandling them,” said O’Mara. “They were pulling their ears. It really upset me. Anything could have happened to the animals.”
Barsby said the hotel has offered a three-course dinner for four people as compensation for the distress it caused him. “I will reject it and ask them to donate the value of the dinner to an animal charity,” he said. A spokesperson for The Address Downtown Dubai said the rabbits were part of the day’s celebrations.
“Only children were allowed to pet them,” the spokesperson insisted. “The rabbits were returned to the supplier, ensuring that they are in rightful care.”
Yet the spokesperson refused to reveal who supplied the rabbits, adding: “We fully understand and respect the sensitivities relating to animal care.”
wafa.issa@7days.ae
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