House Rabbit Society and AR prpoganda
Tonic immobility in rabbits is pretty much stated as fact , but finding any studies that actually prove flipping them over induces that state are hard to come by. TI is generally understood as meaning the animal has to be physically incapable of movement, but obviously in real life, rabbits are able to flip themselves back over.
History
In the 1990s, animal rights folks and early house rabbit society people would go to rabbit shows Observe Judges and exhibitors holding rabbits in their laps and the Activists claimed they were "tranced". These folks found a predator response study on tonic immobility from the 70s and ran with it, using this old, small sample, poor studies as "proof". As HRS grew in the late 90s, the house rabbit society began targeting veterinarians still in college. They would offer assistance or positions as the staff vet for their rescues. This caused 2 whole decades of newly graduated rabbit vets to beholden to house rabbit society for their assistance getting their careers started. In this way, House Rabbit Society was able to spread their misinformation and point at the vets on their payroll as the "experts" *even though those veterinarians are steeped in animal rights propaganda and house rabbit society misinformation.
Over the years. this got repeated and repeated until it stuck. Always check veterinarians, rescues, and any article's small print to check for house rabbit society connections, or influence becuse House Rabbit Society does not base there information on sound science.
There's no meta-analysis available. Lots of these newer studies were retracted no abstract or paper available because they got pulled or the sample size is too small to base conclusions on The largest sample size I could find was the one I linked, and that study found tonic immobility safe and effective
