MountainMornings

Shouldn’t Animal Rights be a bi-partisan thing? We all know the EPA is a left-wing agency and that gun owners and hunting enthusiasts are pretty much right-sided. Yet shouldn’t they all want to protect the animals they love/eat/hunt equally? I posted an innocuous sentence on Facebook about one Canadian Goose and started a mini-firestorm.

Animal Rights. It’s a relatively new movement that gained steam with the publication of a book, Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer in 1975. Before we knew it, chimps were being freed from laboratory cages and walking in a fur coat down Madison Avenue could be considered dangerous. For me, I drew the line somewhere in the broad/general/middle. I grew up with dogs, I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have a dog and though I never really dressed them up (except for that one Xmas picture), I considered each and every one a part of the family.

But my anthropomorphism stopped there. If we needed our medical students to learn something of a child’s vein and practicing on a cat was necessary, so be it. Today the dog and cat labs at most medical schools have been replaced by virtual learning devices. Sacrificing a rabbit to see if a woman was pregnant was common in the last century, but experimenting on a rabbit’s eye to test mascara seemed senseless. Even today, scientists will use pigs and not just crash test dummies, to determine the best, safest design in car seats for children. Maybe you can see where I’m heading?

If an animal’s life could serve a greater good – save a child’s life for instance – then I would be alright with that, within of course some pre-required ethical limits.

What’s troubling me lately is so many small, but extremely vocal groups have emerged that would like to see pretty much all animals exist only in their natural environments; even as we humans dig, damage and develop their natural habitat. Let’s get rid of the horse drawn carriages in NYC! What about Charleston, they are a big industry in SC. And though I do feel that Orcas should probably not be swimming around in a tiny Sea World pool, I’m surprised by the latest rally that will be taking place this weekend in front of the John Paul Jones Arena. You see the circus is coming to town!

A group called Voices for Animals says “…circus animals spend about 11 months a year traveling, chained up and isolated.” They are distributing a video that shows an elephant being abused to further their cause. “The tools of the training include bull hooks, which are similar to fireplace pokers and electric prods. Animals are beaten, they are isolated. Highly social animals are isolated,” said Wendy Harper, a member of Voices for Animals.       http://www.nbc29.com/story/25323589/animal-rights-group-protests-circus-coming-to-jpj

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus of course have denied any abusive treatment and say their trainers have absolutely lovely relationships with their animals. The truth I’m sure is somewhere in the middle, depending on the trainer and the size of the circus. But my kids grew up going to the Big Apple Circus every year, and it was a wonderful experience all around. And for the Love Bug, going to the zoo with friends is a favorite outing. Where else would we see a giraffe in the US? I remember bringing the Rocker to see a brand new baby Rhinoceros born at the Bronx Zoo, I’m sure I was more thrilled than he was.

Should we send our Giant Pandas back to China from the National Zoo? Send all the horses pulling tourists off to a farm in Montana and the elephants in the circus back to India? Let’s send all those geese back to Canada! I believe the Big Apple doesn’t have an elephant act anymore, partially because there are not a lot of them left, and maybe also because of the protesters. But our species doesn’t get to lay waste to animal habitats, pull more and more fossil fuels from the ground and continue to make trillions of dollars with disastrous consequences for our planet AND tell us where and when we can see wild animals. Sorry folks, it doesn’t work like that.

Dogs in the Wild while surrounded by an Invisible Fence

My Facebook sentence? “And in breaking Cville news, a lone Canadian Goose walked across Rt 29 N this afternoon and all 5 lanes stopped for him #whyiloveva”

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