Idaho Biology Teacher Kills Live Rabbit In Demonstration

NAMPA (KTVB) -- A 10th grade biology teacher apologized after a lesson last week aimed at teaching students where their food comes from left some feeling a little queasy.

"A teacher brought in a rabbit, and did a demonstration about how a rabbit would be prepared as food for a family," Nampa School District spokeswoman Allison Westfall said.

According to Westfall, the teacher placed the live rabbit in a restraining device, then snapped its neck in front of the class. The rabbit was also skinned and cut up as part of the demonstration.

Westfall says the educator, who has a farm and raises animals to be eaten, was initially reluctant to show the students how to prepare a rabbit for a meal. But when the students asked a second time, he relented, she said.

The killing was not mandatory viewing for the 16 biology students.

"The students had asked that the teacher do this demonstration, and when the rabbit was brought in, he gave the opportunity to students to not view the demonstration," Westfall said.

Some of the students who elected to stay were upset by the display, and the school got a handful of comments from parents who felt killing an animal in the classroom was ill-advised.

The teacher is now facing disciplinary action, although Westfall declined to specify whether he had been suspended from teaching. The district is also not releasing the educator's name.

"It's not appropriate in the 10th grade class," she said."It wasn't approved by the administration, it's not part of biology [class,] so that judgment is not appropriate for that type of lesson in the classroom at 10th grade."