Rabbit rescuer Leona Schwalback wrote, "We need an education centre and a place for people to surrender their unwanted rabbits."

This attitude actually perpetuates and entrenches the problem. Ms Schwalback's solution is to make it easier for more people to abandon rabbits so it follows that more people will buy rabbits. Ms Schwalback keeps rabbits in her garage, others keep them stacked in apartments and basements and barns.

Not many animals are served by the "bigger shelters" model of animal welfare, as the supply of used pets is much larger than the demand, in the case of rabbits, perhaps a thousand to one.

It is the "shelterer" who is served. It's possible to make very decent money in the sheltering business if your business is big enough, and the center Ms Schwalback proposes would be that. But for the majority of animal rescuers and shelterers, their need to be actively ministering to helpless creatures is the motivation.

On the face of it, that seems beyond criticism. But in fact it serves self-interest as much as the big business shelters do. There is a lot of glory in being a ministering angel, especially if you are on TV or in the press cuddling helpless little animals.

Self-interest drives much of what passes for animal sheltering. There's money and there's glory, and if you are smart enough (and you don't have to be very smart as the public and the media are so easily fooled), there is both. But don't call it animal welfare if you promote more sales and more shelters or condone keeping animals in cages.

Rabbit rescuers must sometimes look into the eyes of the rabbits they are stuffing into cages. Do they not see how wrong it is to promote this by saying that rabbits make good pets for apartment dwellers and people who work full time? Rabbit rescuers know that most rabbits live in tiny cages until they die or are abandoned. They know that rabbits are timid prey-animals and do not like to be handled and are not very responsive to humans. And yet they keep promoting rabbits as pets. How is that any different than the SPCA and pet stores?

There is a lot of self-serving cant about education by the SPCA, Petcetera, and most rabbit rescuers. But their education teaches that it acceptable to keep an animal in a cage as long as you keep the cage clean, let the rabbit out a bit and spay or neuter it. In other words, the education is actually part of the promotion.

An animal in a cage is not a pet - it's a prisoner, and shame on anyone who promotes this. Advocacy against keeping any animal in a cage is true compassion and true animal welfare.