Animal Welfare

We have put together some articles for your interest, which will hopefully serve to help the long struggle for improved animal welfare in our world. Ignore the issues and, not only will animals continue to suffer at our hands but also we shall all be the eventual losers. The subject of animal welfare touches on a large number of issues. Visit the links in the box below.

There is strong evidence that those who are willing to inflict cruelty on animals may move on to do likewise to fellow members of the human species. One reference supporting this contention can be found at:

http://www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/ascione_2.html.

Some quotations:

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.”

St Francis of Assisi

“Oh Great King - the birds of the air and the beasts have an equal right to live and move about in any part of this land as thou. The land belongs to the people and all other beings, and thou art only the guardian of it.”

Arahant Mahinda 250BC

"If you talk to the animals
they will talk to you
and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them,
you will not know them,
and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears one destroys.”

Chief Dan George

Stereotypic pacing behaviour in a zoo elephant baby.

"It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man."

"We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it."

"Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives."

"Whenever an animal is forced into the service of men, everyone of us must be concerned for any suffering it bears on that account. No one of us may permit any preventable pain to be inflicted, even though he would be interfering in something that does not concern him. No one may shut his eyes and think the pain, which is therefore not visible to him, is non-existent."

"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."

Dr. Albert Schweitzer

"They cannot ask for kindness
Or for mercy plead
Yet cruel is our blindness
Which does not see their need.
World-over, town or city,
God trusts us with this task:
To give our love and pity
To those who cannot ask."

Edgar A .Quest
 

Generalities and weasel words do nothing for animal welfare. Animals need intent and actions.

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