The 10 Worst Abuses Against Animals

I would very much like to believe that our modern society has gained respect for our cousins in life, all the non-human animals. Unfortunately, I can't because we haven't. But not all uses and abuses of non-humans are equal, and some are, in my opinion, more shocking in their continued existence than others. For whoever cares, here's my list of the worst continuing abuses against non-humans. In my opinion, of course. But I'll explain why each lands where it does on my list. (PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT an animal "rights" activist, and I do NOT champion PETA. I AM interested in animal welfare science, and it is in this spirit that I write). So now, the count down:

10.    Zoos – I'm ambivalent on this one, to some extent. There are good arguments for zoos, but few zoos actually living up to those good arguments. The main one is education of the public. Unfortunately, I and others have seen many zoos with incorrect information given to the public! I would rather no education than incorrect information being given out. Another of their arguments is keeping endangered or nearly extinct species alive. Yes, but the vast majority of them will never live in the wild again, due to being raised by humans. That is, when you can get them to breed. Many species are so stressed by captivity that they refuse to breed. And many zoo animals, when born, are quickly removed from their mothers so that humans can establish a relationship ensuring the animal will be docile as an adult. Can you imagine someone taking your child from you? There's no reason to surmise that mammalian mothers of other species feel any less strongly toward their children than we do. Then there is the problem of space. There are certain species – elephants being number one – that should never be kept in zoos. There's just not enough space for them to maintain happiness. The Five Freedoms, created by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1993, state that all animals should have:

    1. Freedom from thirst, hunger, and malnutrition – by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigor.
    2. Freedom from discomfort – by providing a suitable environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
    3. Freedom from pain, injury, and disease – by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
    4. Freedom to express normal behavior – by providing sufficient space, proper facilities, and company of the animals own kind.
    5. Freedom from fear and distress – by ensuring conditions that avoid mental suffering.

It is number 4 that is by far the most difficult for any zoo to provide for virtually any animal larger than a dog. Yes, they have enrichment programs, but that's a poor substitute for non-domesticated animals. All in all, I think the weighting falls against zoos.

9.     Fishing – This one will surprise some people, I'm sure. It's here due to recent research that indicates very clearly the ability of fish to feel pain and suffering. One scientist even stated it is possible that "lower animals" such as fish, with a less developed nervous system than humans, feel MORE pain due to the fact that they don't have a neocortex to explain away the suffering. So, first they get the pain of being hooked, then they get to suffocate. What a nice way to die, hmm?

8.     Stabling horses – OK, this one is a personal thing, as equine welfare is my specialty. Would you enjoy living the majority of your life in a 6' x 6' room with no contact with other humans? And horses are even MORE social than humans. Separation from the herd means certain death to them. This is a needless, barbaric practice. Many people point to horses that have "adapted." It's called learned helplessness and it's a horrible psychological phenomenon that is basically giving up.

7.     Roping donkeys/rodeo in general – I have known the stories of far too many donkeys used for roping practice to believe that they enjoy it, as many a cowboy will tell you. These are damaged, mistrustful, hurt, mentally scarred animals that also sometimes bear permanent physical scars from their ordeal. Bucking broncos and bulls – well, let's see. How would you men like to have a strap tightened around your testicles? Enough said. That's how they get them to buck.

6.     Fighting animals – as in the Michael Vick dog fighting case. The people who run these atrocities have the animals fight to the death, you know. What a horrible way to die. Worse, because of their training, even if the animals are rescued, they're not likely to survive, as most agencies will kill them due to the inability of the animal to suppress the aggression that has been bred and trained into them.

5.     Kosher slaughter – Sorry, but I don't believe religions should get an out when it comes to how we treat non-humans. And Kosher slaughter practices involve slitting the throats of still conscious animals. Horrific at best. This is real barbarism.

4.     Factory Farming – Chickens – Like the next one on the list, too many chickens squeezed into too small a space is horrific for them. Some are raised in buildings all their lives, never seeing or feeling the sun. And slaughter of chickens is very much INhumane. Plus, there are the misleading marketing practices. Cage-free just means they squeeze all the hens into an outdoor pen or inside a building without cages. Free-range are the words to look for if you care about being kind.

3.     Factory Farming – Pigs – The environment of pigs forced to live in large numbers squeezed into small spaces has made many of those pigs quite literally insane. Stress releases hormones. The hormones are in that meat. Do you really want to be eating meat from an animal so severely stressed out? There ARE humane methods of slaughter, when done correctly. But these methods are often not applied to pigs.

2.    Circuses – There's no good reason for circuses to still have live animals in their acts. Does anyone even go to them any more? The animals are kept in horrifically restrained cages or chained, their "training" is, at best, bullying of them and, at worst, outright assault and battery. Elephants are "kept in line" with elephant hooks…horrid creations that are a stick with an extremely pointed hook on the end. The hook is used to "discipline" the elephants, often resulting in open wounds. Never mind that the elephants kept in circuses are already insane from their living conditions – always chained or bullied about. By the way, elephants are among the most intelligent species on the planet – rivaling humans and, on some scales suggested to illustrate intelligence, surpassing us. And they have complex cultures. Yes, cultures. Their family lives are incredibly important and they honor their dead, visiting the bones, which they have placed in a location of their choosing, annually and cradling them, as if absorbing the essence of the departed friend or family member. In fact, their natural lives are so immensely peaceful, touching and poignant that it took decades of poaching, with baby elephants seeing their mothers killed in front of them, their whole herd slaughtered, and other abuses before these placid beings started fighting back against humans. And even now, it is only some that fight back. The atrocities that have been visited on these magnificent animals by humans over the centuries is truly astonishing and shameful in the extreme.

AND THE NUMBER ONE WORST ABUSE VISITED UPON NON-HUMANS BY HUMANS:

1.    Fur – This makes number one on my list because there is literally nothing redeeming about the industry of fur ranching/manufacturing. We do not live in the ice age in caves, so we do not require the skins to keep us warm. And even if that were a requirement, then we should be using cattle hides, not the hides of small, in many cases endangered, species that we do not also consume and have no other use for. The animals used for fur are often so small that dozens or hundreds of individuals are needed for each garment, and all parts of the animal other than the hide is waste. They are kept in the most horrific conditions that, were they dogs and cats, would land their keepers in jail, guilty of the most appalling abuse. Cages are barely large enough for the animal to turn around, and they spend their entire lives in them. Then they are killed in ways that allow the furrier to preserve the maximum amount of fur. This means that they are killed in the most barbaric and inhumane ways possible. Broken necks do not kill instantly. Most people do not know that. No, it takes up to five minutes or more to die from a broken neck. The other option that is proudly suggested by the Canadian Chinchilla fur rancher association is electrocution – by placement of one wire on an ear and the other on the genitals. And because the fur must not be damaged, the current cannot be too high. Thus they are essentially baked to death slowly – by the genitals. Cattle, chickens, pigs and other food animals are given infinitely more humane deaths than fur animals, many, many of whom die slowly and are still alive when the skinning process begins. Again, if it were happening to dogs and cats, the keepers would be vilified beyond belief. Somehow, unfortunately, this industry has managed to survive and fly under the radar of the average American's notice. They know about factory farming and demand "cage-free" eggs (itself a misleading marketing term – see number 4), and about dog fighting. In fact, many Americans were so angered by the Michael Vick dog fighting case that his life could be considered in danger from unruly, angry mobs. Rightfully angry mobs. Yet his dogs lived a fantasy life compared to the millions of chinchillas, foxes, etc. that live on fur farms.

Remembering the Holocaust and World War II

I received this e-mail today from a friend. It was very poignant to me, because my very first landlady…waaaaay long ago in New Orleans when I rented a little efficiency apartment in the back of her house….was a holocaust survivor. After I rented from her I was in her living room filling out the lease, etc. and noticed some blue numbers on her arm, just barely visible before the cuff of her blouse hid the rest. I'll never know where such boldness came from in me, but I actually asked her if that was a concentration camp tattoo! Back then I was REALLY REALLY quiet and shy. My folks nearly fainted when I told them that, because they had felt like they had to force me to even say hello to strangers up to that time, or even to make a phone call to people I KNEW.

 

But my landlady was very gracious about it. She told me yes, and asked if I wanted to see it. I did. I wanted to know all about the whole thing. So for the 6 months I rented from her, about once a week or so she would sit with me and any of my friends that came over and show us the tattoo and tell us about what had happened. Her parents and brother were killed. She was sent to an aunt when the allied forces released her camp.

 

I had been fortunate to have an excellent theology teacher in High School who spent probably about a month on the Holocaust and showed us films, etc. But nothing – not even those awful films, which were the actual footage taken by allied troops as they went into the camps – was as poignant and chillingly real than seeing that tattoo on this little lady sitting there with her fragile-looking, tiny hands wrapped around a delicate china tea cup. And to hear her tell the stories. L I remember her saying many times "I'm so glad you young people want to know about this. It's important." I was 20 or so. It makes me livid to hear people claim now that the Holocaust never happened, and I truly fear losing the lessons of that war and that time.

 

We were just recently talking about how the last of the Greatest Generation are going to be lost to us soon. And then what? We hope we don't find ourselves in an America that has forgotten the great sacrifices made by ALL of those people – and WHY they made that sacrifice, willingly. In this world of glaring and blaring and the loudest one wins, it's hard to hear any more those people who were so quiet about what they did and went through…even though it was likely the single most important time and events in modern history. My landlady was SO grateful to Americans, specifically to American soldiers who, she felt, she owed her very life to.

 

And last year, before my Dad died, we spent many days talking about how many WWII vets were there in that retirement village they lived in, and how many of those men and their wives were silent until Tom Brokaw's book came out. I asked Dad to tell me every story he knew from every man there in the village so I could take notes and absorb as much as I could before they are all gone. Those people did the most amazingly heroic, and IMPORTANT things I can possibly imagine. And I always wonder…was one of these men there in the village one of the soldiers who released my landlady as a little girl?

 

It is a very frightening thing indeed to see the possibility of sliding into such extremist politics anywhere in the world again…and even more terrifying to think of being in a country turning a blind eye to that extremism… yet, I fear that's exactly where we are headed.

 

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In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER

Please read the little cartoon carefully, it's powerful. Then read the comments at the end.

I'm doing my small part by forwarding this message. I hope you'll consider doing the same. 
In Memoriam




It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War inEurope ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 milli on Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian Peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran, and others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.