Animals - Hey kids, Let’s Go to The Zoo
Many American and British people are repulsed by the idea that people in China, Korea, or other parts of the world eat dogs. The practice is called a barbaric habit and uncivilized. Horsemeat is consumed in France, Belgium, and Hungary, as well as in Mongolia and Japan. The English-speaking world is horrified—these are our pets!
In 2013, when horsemeat was found in supermarket beef patties, there was outrage. In some cases, the meat patties were 100 percent horsemeat. The legal issue was that it illustrated the difficulty involved in tracing the origin of any meat product. There was no health concern; the horsemeat would have been healthier than beef from a standard nutritional point of view. The public concern was that they were horses!
We domesticate cats and dogs to provide amusement and companionship. Foxes, minks, rabbits, and chinchilla are raised so that we can remove their skin and use their fur. We would not eat a fox; we would only wear it. We pull the feathers out of geese because they can keep us warm in a jacket with a collar made of coyote fur. We have decided that some animals are off-limits for eating, and others are OK.
Most people would agree that the killing of wild, rare, and endangered animals is wrong. It is not wrong to put them in cages with concrete floors, behind bars, or in confined spaces. Putting them in a zoo is OK; it’s educational.
African elephants in the wild may require up to 24 square miles as a “home range.” This is considered a healthy habitat. A captive elephant in a zoo may be given two or three acres if lucky. A trained bear kept in a cage to dress up and ride a bike would have ten to twenty square miles to roam in a healthy environment. She would also hibernate through the winter. This would be like letting you live in your bedroom closet for the rest of your life. So much for entertainment.
If we continue to think of the other animals, we share planet earth with as “the other”, with only value as food or entertainment we will continue to destroy the source of our being. All forms of life have a purpose within the web of nature.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Albert Einstein
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Encourage your friends and family to learn about animals from videos. Video footage of animals in their wild habitat give a much more accurate picture of who they are and how they live. Using animals for food or entertainment makes them objects and not sentient beings. It is important that we are aware of the simple fact that we share the planet with all life and that all life has intrinsic value.