kibbleforlola
Lola Worshiper
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Indian wildlife rangers to be paid reward for every poacher they shoot
- Thread starter Calliegirl
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Ansciess
Forum Legend
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Yes, I think if the thinking is across the board: any human life is worth more than any animal life, that those humans should not have pets. I think humans (as a rule, there are some exceptions) don't deserve pets, and because we abuse, abandon, and kill them by the millions each and every year, we've shown that as a species we can't treat them adequately well.
Is a 90 year old human life (let's even put them on life support) worth more than a puppy's life? Is Ted Bundy's life worth more than this dog's life? Is the guy who's trying to rape your 4 year old worth more than this cat's life?
I don't think so, but then again I suppose it would depend on the human. If I saw a grizzly bear going after Rush Limbaugh I might think twice.
That wasn't meant to be humorous by the way.
i agree wholeheartedly. like in my choice of people I like, i pick and choose. There are animals i'd pick over people any day. and it would depend on the type of animal as well. And there are people i'd choose and say adios to an animal over any day. Like you Diggeroo
Absolutely... and besides... we could both run faster than Rush Limbaugh so in a way... it's just survival of the fittest.
Sevenseas
the original disconnect
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- Jul 23, 2012
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Well, so far this idea of the poachers being too poor to do anything else remains pure speculation anyway -- at least in this thread since I haven't seen evidence to support it. On the other hand, what is not a matter of speculation is that a) poaching occurs, b) it is illegal, and c) it is a form of violence.
I think automatically valuing such a huge category as 'human' or 'non-human' over one or the other is dogmatic. It is blind to any kind of context: blind to how the human or the non-human is related to you, blind to what their circumstances are, etc.
kazyeeqen
Superb Owl
I agree. Not with individual families, of course (all of my friends and family who have dogs treat them as members of the family, quite literally) but in general, animals have been bred and taken away from their family structures, into ours, where they are not like us enough to be on our level. Humans have taken them into our world, and they are our dependents and subordinates here, not our equals.
jeneticallymodified
Forum Legend
In the case of the current situation with cats and dogs, which do you therefore favor for those for whom no homes are available, (a) keeping them confined in small kennels for the rest of their lives, or (b) setting them loose on the streets to starve until they meet a bad end?
It is a horrible situation, but I think killing them because they don't conform to our ideas of how pet cats or dogs behave is unethical. I have no easy solution, I wish I did. People should behave humanely with their pets, neutering when appropriate and not abandoning them. Keeping feral cats caged seems so cruel, so if I have to choose between a and b, I choose b. Some animals will survive. Ideally there would be capture, neuter, release programs, or some kind of birth control given in food like they can do with deer.
I was thinking of the poachers; they are probably healthy, though horrible killers.
The vast majority of dogs and cats and other animals warehoused in shelters around this country are perfectly wonderful companion animals with no behavioral *issues* at all. That's not the point, not the reason they have no homes. The feral cats aren't kept caged - they go to the kill room immediately, if they end up at the pound/shelter - the vast majority die on the streets.
I think that every single cat and dog in this country should be neutered/spayed. I think that humans behave abominably to the companion animal species. Again, all of that is pretty much beside the point with respect to the question I posed to you, which question was posed in the context of grim reality, not in the context of a world where humans magically started behaving responsibly.
And in that grim reality, you currently have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of pet cats currently warehoused in shelters, with no hope for a home, and a somewhat smaller, although still obscenely large, number of dogs likewise warehoused, with tens of thousands of additional animals coming into that system daily. What are you going to do - leave them warehoused for the rest of their lives, or set them loose on the streets, terrified, with little to no survival skills, to be preyed on by the humans who have already let them down so badly?
It's easy to say that its unethical to kill these healthy animals (and I never call it euthanasia). My point is that it's even less ethical to send them to long, lingering, fear and pain filled deaths on the streets.
K-II
Forum Legend
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It seems strange to me that you are 'sending' them to death by releasing them. Wasn't that already the situation they faced, if you (the... um... pound-operative. Whatever the term for that is) had not removed them from it? Why would providing some reprieve from that make it your responsibility to do it continually, in spite of not being the cause of it?
Ansciess
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Are you saying that since as their rescuer you did not put them in the position where they are [starving/freezing/struggling in whatever way] on the street that you should not feel the responsibility to complete the rescue such that you might knowingly put them back in that same position? If you're saying that, that would put you in the majority opinion of not feeling any particularly responsibility or need to help these homeless/abandoned/abused/starving/struggling animals. But rescuers think about this very differently, feel that it's not o.k. to turn their backs on these animals, and are why most of the US does not look like a third world country in terms of seeing companion animals suffering appalling conditions every time you walk out your front door.
