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After nearly becoming lunch for one University of Maine student, a rabbit has found a home with another.
Dane Bolding, a fourth-year English student, intended to slaughter the rabbit as his final presentation for the Camden International Film Festival course. His final assignment was to develop a presentation in the spirit of a documentary, but a film was not a requirement. Bolding said his intention was to share an aspect of his personal culture: the importance of knowing the origins of his dinner.
“I get anything as fresh as I can get it as often as I can,” Bolding said in an e-mail. “I was going to show them a skill and a tradition that is little practiced or seen communally.”
The students who were Bolding’s assumed audience, however, objected to his unusual final project. After returning to Barrows Hall from a lunch break in Tuesday’s presentations, the students saw Bolding setting up a tarp on the table and saw a rabbit in a box. One student said she left the room as soon as she realized what he was going to do.
The student, who asked to remain anonymous, said the idea was “mind-blowing.”
“It was a weird event, definitely,” she said. “Initially, I heard he was going to make a documentary about how he kills rabbits and eats them and uses their hides.”
Bolding did not view his presentation with a scandalized mindset with which it was received. He warned students his presentation could turn some stomachs and invited squeamish spectators to leave. According to the Bangor Daily News (“UM students horrified by bunny butchering stunt,” Dec. 7, 2010), Mike Scott, a new media professor, instructed Bolding to stop.
He complied without complaint.
“I didn’t know where the lines are. I don’t think most students do,” he said. “No student would be able to recite the university codes on ethics.”
The UMaine Student Handbook does contain a clause titled “Humane Care of Animals.” The passage addresses “the use of live vertebrate animals for research, teaching or testing.”
The handbook stipulates that any use of vertebrates in instruction first be approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, that the “research or teaching purposes be conducted in a human, compassionate manner” and that “there must be reasonable expectation that such usage will contribute to the advancement of knowledge which may eventually benefit humankind and / or animals.”
Initial uproar over the incident seems to have dissipated; however, Bolding said he will meet with Kenda Scheele, UMaine’s senior associate dean for students, today to discuss his actions. While his presentation was not approved by the IACUC, Bolding said he approached it expecting to have a positive effect on his classmates by displaying an aspect of life that has been pushed into the shadows.
“There is no doubt in my mind that this has become personal and I’m the target,” Bolding wrote.
“I’m an omnivore and an honest human being toward others and myself,” he continued, explaining how his planned actions did not violate his own personal ethics.
Bolding said he now understands that the main objection of his fellow students and the university is in response to the time and place of his presentation. He said he would not try something like this again, but he contends that preparing one’s own food in this way is natural and should not be viewed as extreme.
He taught himself how to butcher animals “with no instruction,” he wrote.
“It just seems clear to me,” he wrote. “I mean, if [cavemen] could figure it out … .”
“The average American has wiped their hands and souls clean of the ugly truth about our nature and history, rather than admitting to it and working through the difficult discourses this reality presents to our consciences,” Bolding wrote.
Jamie Wren, a third-year anthropology student, said he sees the merit behind Bolding’s presentation but understands the university’s objections.
“I think it was an irresponsible thing to do, but there’s nothing wrong with butchering and knowing where his food comes from,” Wren said. “He should have filmed himself butchering the rabbit. There’s nothing wrong with butchering. Where do you think most of our food comes from?”
Wren is a student research assistant in the anthropology department. He said his job entails the processing of “animal remains to extract their skeletal material, but they come to me already deceased. I certainly wouldn’t slaughter an animal and immediately process it.”
Although his research subjects come pre-slaughtered, Wren was curious about the process and sought out a friend who could show him the process first-hand. Similar to Bolding, Wren cited a background with close ties to the land and mentioned family members who butcher their own meat. He found himself on a farm early one morning prepared to observe the process for slaughtering pigs and was unexpectedly surprised by the experience.
“I wasn’t quite prepared for how empathetic I was going to be with the pigs, but that’s part of the reason why I went,” Wren said.
Despite his personal experience with butchering, Wren maintains that the project was out of place in a Barrows Hall classroom.
“This is a university, one of the top research institutions in the region,” said Wren. “There should be no reason we’re butchering animals in class.”
Some students objected much more vehemently to Bolding’s presentation.
After Scott barred Bolding from butchering the rabbit, the BDN reports, some female students bought the rabbit and have adopted it as a pet.
The rabbit, a chocolate-colored Havana, now lives in the apartment of Erin Dostie. She said the whole apartment has adopted it for now, but they are trying to find it a permanent home. The rabbit currently goes by the name “Luna Lovegood,” but Dostie and her roommates are still searching for the perfect name, saying they want to get to know the critter before they name it.
Christopher Crosby contributed to this report.
Bangor Daily News