Summary:
Animal rights groups may be doing more harm than good. Animal abuse is wrong, but groups like PETA go to extremes and their actions are sometimes unnessary.
Animal Rights, Evil or Right"
Animal rights seem like a good idea. Why wouldn't we want to save the adorable little creatures that are dying or being abused? Save the dolphins from looking for bombs, they are wild animals after all. Save the chickens, they should have better treatment before they are slaughtered for human consumption, and so on and so forth. Is this treatment really necessary? Couldn't the same wild dolphins end up saving lives of humans, and why do the chickens need to be treated better if they're lives are only months before they are meat? These are questions that I aim to research.
The first question I ask was concerning the dolphins that are being trained in the current war. These animals' jobs are to scout out mines and come back to ships they came from when they have found one, and lead the ship back to the mine so it can be safely disposed of. In a Navy report it was stated that "In the first 36 hours, the dolphins reportedly turned up six enemy mines and, shortly afterwards, they'd found 16 more." (Discovery) This shows that not only did the dolphins succeed in the mission, but none were hurt and the stopped the potentially deadly mines.
According to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) this practice is wrong. They argue that dolphins that go astray (they don't mention the number that have gone astray and only have information on one dolphin) are "recaptured or attacked by sharks." (Boyles) That is their only argument in asking Donald Rumsfeld last year to withdraw the dolphins that are working in Iraq.
In Iraq chickens are also being used to help the war effort. Chickens ride on the top of military vehicles to detect poisons in the air. We have not created a technology that is as effective as this method. It has saved soldiers lives in Iraq, and it works. Why would we make expensive technology that may be faulty in the end and risk the lives of soldiers when this method, while granted; the birds do die if there is poison, is effective? It is without reason that during a war we spend money we don't have on technology when this works.
The UPC (United Poultry Concerns) says that using the bird is wrong. They state that the use of these chickens is inhumane, and that the chicken may die from the ride on the military vehicle. They continue to say "Regarding Saddam Hussein, that 'Using chemicals is a really unfair way of fighting.' It may be pointed out that forcing innocent birds to participate in human warfare isn't a fair way of fighting either." (UPC) Hasn't the US in the past drafted unwilling humans into war? The fact that the birds are being used against their will is crazy, have you ever talked to a chicken? The birds are generally too stupid to take in any situation anyway from the authors experience with the birds.
The other argument involving these pathetic birds is the way they are treated before they are slaughtered. In 2001 the per capita average for chicken consumption by the pound was 57.1. That was the second best selling meat (Beef was best selling.). These companies sell all these chickens and have been accused of mistreating the animals, by cutting their beaks off, cutting their wing up, and caging them. There are reasons for this practice however. The factories cut their beaks off so that they don't peck each other to a premature death. As for the wings, the chickens are in a small cage with other birds, if the go crazy and try to fight, then don't they hurt themselves more? So although these accusations seem like unnecessary treatment there is a reason for the madness and that is keeping the chickens in mind.
Of course our friends at PETA had something to say about this. They blame KFC for the treatment; since Perdue, the chicken company, is their main supplier. They say that the accusations mentioned above should be stopped and want to get a boycott started on KFC's food. Of course if unnecessary abuse is in action than it should be stopped and the aggressors punished, but it should not be done through an animal activist party.
All these examples are of animal rights groups potentially doing more harm than good. They have no care for humanity or respect for the Christian and Catholic religions that believe that animals were put on the earth to do man's bidding. Their theory apparently is that man was put on earth to do animals bidding. They are without reason, and are hard to take seriously. Animals should be treated humanly and respectfully, but not out of reason, which seems to be non-existent in these theories. If all this reason is disappearing as quickly as these activists are making it, then the world will be a very sorry place in the future. A future in which animals are prized above human life.
www.discoverychannel.com
www.peta.com
www.UPC.com
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