The crackdown reached the near-absurd yesterday when [Russian oil company] Yukos faced possible fresh charges for allegedly failing in its duty properly to monitor rabbit coupling at a farm in Siberia. Regional agriculture ministry inspectors found that female and male rabbits were often kept together in groups of up to four, a violation of the norms. “Couplings take place unsystematically, and no zoological-technological records are kept,” the Interfax news agency quoted a ministry report as saying. [Daily Telegraph, 11/7/03]
