Day 10
Dear Miss Garbutt
Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘The Magicians’ broadcast on 15 January.
We appreciate that you objected to the inclusion of rabbits as part of an act during the programme.
For every trick in ‘The Magicians’ involving an animal we used the services of Amazing Animals, a company with over three decades of experience supplying domestic, exotic and wild animals to the film, TV and event industries.
Through them the rabbits were sourced from a reliable breeder and returned to him at the end of the shoot. Amazing Animals took the rabbits into stock at their premises for approximately 21 days prior to the shoot, this was to handle them and get them used to a studio environment - they have their own in-house studio to do this. This was done to avoid any stress to the animals.
They were rehearsed in groups and are quite happy to be close to each other at this age. The rabbits were not housed in the props, they were only put there for a short period of time for the purpose of the show and they were under the supervision of three of Amazing Animals' full-time, experienced handlers.
Thank you once again for taking the trouble to share your views with us.
NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints