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An English assignment I took very seriously (and I hope you will too). copyrighted Lillie 2002.
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Animal Cruelty
When any animal – whether intentionally or unintentionally – is subjected
to pain, we can define that as animal abuse.
Animal abuse is very rarely of a natural cause, such as a new species
causing imbalance in the ecosystem, or rams battling it out for a mate. When animals
themselves cause other animals to die, it’s justified as right, as nature’s way
of working. But it seems ridiculous to say that the only reason that animals all over the
world are currently being wiped out is of their own accord, because the real reason that
they are suffering is us. We are at the top of the food chain, so eventually our
uncontrollable actions will upset the balance of nature.
Of course you might claim innocence on this accusation, and plead exclusion from blame. You, who are reading this right now, peacefully going about in your own part of the world, you aren’t causing any harm to animals and you might not even have any recollection of ever doing so.
But what you might fail to realise that if you aren’t doing anything to stop abuse, you haven’t the slightest idea of what animals are going through. When you fail to help animals who need you, you are no different than a hunter or his clientele.
It’s no harsh statement to say that mankind is the most selfish species on earth. Unfortunately over the years we have also become as destructive as we are selfish. The killings, slaughtering, and brutal treatment to animals are taking their toll, and a great number of us aren’t even aware of it.
We seem to have forgotten that animals are also earth’s inhabitants. That no one is supposed to be top priority, not us, not the whales, not Africa’s Big Five. Balance after all, plays a part in co-existence. Hunters and fishermen and everyone on their side may argue that animals die anyway, so what’s the big deal? They’re just animals.
What exactly does that statement imply? Animals are of a lower class than us? Animals are of a lower rank to us? Earth has never played favourites. But most of us play dirty. Animals feel pain, affection, they breathe, eat, sleep, drink and they die during ugly circumstances just like us. They think differently but not necessarily of a lower standard than us. So we aren’t, really, that much different from them.
There is one obvious difference. Whatever they can’t express, we have to do for them. We give care when they need it. They are our responsibility, they are part of how the world rotates. If we can develop the world to benefit not only us, but them, we should do so. But not enough people are on our side. They are blinded by human lust for the dollar, for the glory, for tradition. When animals can’t defend themselves, we step in and do just that. This justifies us somewhat as the keeper of our world’s beauty. So what right do we have to brutally kill them in a way that can only be described as utterly unnecessary?
Animals haven’t our
language to tell us that “this hurts’ and “please stop.” But they
don’t need to be literally comprehensible if we only just took the effort to listen.
There aren’t enough people listening, and those who do are vastly outnumbered by
those turning a blind eye, those who continue their barbaric money hunt and those who give
them cause to continue.
Money is temporary.
You are temporary.
Your effect on the world is permanent.
So how much do you know of the cruelty and the animals’ plight?
Do you know how most animals are being hunted senselessly to
extinction? Do you know how the “delicacy” veal is made? What of shark’s
fin soup and other cultural delicacies? Do you know how fox hunting works? Do you know
what we are doing to the turtles? Do you know how polluted our waters are and do you have
any idea what dies along with the forests we kill?
The cruel meal of veal is actually cow calves, killed days to weeks after birth for varying kinds of meat, and those who are kept alive for more than a few weeks are confined to a wooden restraining device so small they can’t lie down or stretch. No water is fed to them, let alone food of any nutritional value. Instead, they are driven to lick high-liquid fat feed (for the ‘taste’) as well as their urine and metallic parts of the boxes. Anaemic calves make for an ‘appealing’ pink hue in the veal. The calves are injected with massive doses of antibiotics (later to be consumed by the restaurant customers) merely to stay alive a little longer before meeting a date to be slaughtered or to simply collapse in their faeces.
Since we’re on the
subject of food, shark’s fin soup is a more popularly controversial dish, yet still
regarded as a wedding tradition among the Chinese. What’s in it?
Aside from chicken flavour (because shark’s fins and its soup are
tasteless), there’s enough mercury to make men infertile and cause brain damage to a
foetus during pregnancy. People would stop eating shark’s fin soup if they knew how
the fins were taken.
Pictures speak louder than words. If you saw the pictures I saw while conducting research for this essay, it would make you sick with anger as it did me.
In a boat, a man hauls a
struggling shark in and with one brutal slice or many slow ones he severs the fin. The
shark is thrown back into the ocean in order to conserve space on deck. It sinks to the
seabed slowly, painfully. Barely alive, it will now bleed to an agonizingly long death or
drown, because it can’t breathe. No water flows through its mouth and over the gills.
To add a final insult to this magnificent predator, little fish and critters will peck and
nip on its open salted wounds, as it lies helplessly awaiting its death. It’s a shame
that movies like Jaws have depicted sharks as blood-thirsty and man as the victim. Sharks
are almost never violent.
Where is the rationale? Who is the beast now?
There are other aspects to our cruelty asides from food. Many men ride
horses to participate in the cruel sport of chasing a fox scared out of its wits, bombard
it with dogs and shoot it to death. It is exactly that – a fun sport. Not even
furnished with an excuse of a purpose. Bull-fighting unnecessarily tortures the bulls and
puts the matador as the ‘hero’ and from a shaky light, the brave risk-taker.
Sillier still, people are entertained to see the bull confused and having its legs broken.
It’s a “cultural experience.”
Animals are heavily
decorated and close-caged, whipped and forced to train and entertain at the circus.
Turtles weep, people hover and circle them loudly with bright lights, some of them robbing
their eggs soon after. Delicious, we say. What’s one egg of many? It’s not like
the eggs I’m eating will effect their entire population, we say. Oh, how these
nature-lovers are overreacting!
Have you seen the big picture?
We are all in it.
My words are harsh and cruel, but they tell the truth. The pictures, if you bother to find them, are worse. I want to make my point clear. I want to reach out from these pages and grab your face and expose it to the truth, yank off the blindfold and instil that spirit in us where we want to speak for those who can’t.
You have a voice, use it. Tell the story of the dying calf, of the drowning shark, of the elephant and rhino limp on the plains with holes where their tusks were. The frightened fox, the irritated bull, the crying turtle, the naked tiger, the unaware monkey with a knife to its brain and the whipped little bear dancing for the crowd, they are all calling out to us.
If we spread the world, if we stop giving the killers reason to kill, and we help those who help the animals, there is hope. Prevention is possible.
Don’t you think that there aren’t enough people fighting for animals? We’re wiping them out with our cruelty and ignorance, because we’re hogging the bed, our only bed. We have only one chance. There are many people fighting endlessly for human rights, but at the end of the day the world isn’t just full of people, there are animals of many species, there have always been animals.
However, if we don’t take greater care, it won’t always stay that way.
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