Some animal abuse issues are ethics slam dunks, some should be, and some are more complicated than the wo people posture over them seem to think. Here are three examples from the news:
1. Tattooed Kittens?
A law about to be passed in New York, S.6769, will make it illegal for pet owners to inflict tattoos or piercings on their pets except for medical purposes or when a tattoo is used strictly for identification purposes. Violations would carry fines of up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
“I believe that if given the choice, animals would decline to having themselves undergo a painful procedure of being either tattooed or pierced,” said New York State Senator Mark Grisanti, a Republican who is supporting the measure introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Rosentha in 2011.
Ya think? The fact that a law would even be necessary to articulate that tattooing or piercing a pet for the owner’s amusement is horribly wrong and obvious cruelty foretells the approaching apocalypse. That such a law would take three years to pass also tells us something bad about, oh, New York, politics, partisan warfare, human intelligence…just about everything. The problem, was brought to public attention by the prosecution of this idiot.
2. The Opossum Drop
I was a happier man before I knew that residents of Clay County in North Carolina celebrate New Years not by dropping a giant ball, but with the traditional Opossum Drop, by lowering a freshly captured possum in a cage down to screaming and drunken revelers as music blares and fireworks explode. As you might imagine, possums just love this.
At least the revelers don’t drop tattooed kittens.
Yet.
PETA has tried to stop this obviously possum-hostile ritual by various lawsuits. Whether its success has been undermined by PETA’s many ridiculous claims that other animal-centric rituals are cruel (it wants Puxatawney Phil, the famous groundhog, to be replaced by a robot), I don’t know, but again: anyone who can’t figure out that it is unethically cruel to dangle a wild animal in the dark over drunk North Carolinians behaving like wild animals is a public menace. And if they are a menace, what can you say about a state legislature that decided the responsible thing to do was to pass a law allowing residents of Clay County to abuse possums between Dec. 26 and Jan. 2?
Yes, that’s what the North Carolina legislature did. Be glad that Clay County doesn’t celebrate New Years by piercing puppies.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, admitting that the traditional Opossum Drop always has violated animal cruelty laws, acted to head off the latest PETA assault by urging the legislature to pass HB 1131, which legalizes cruelty to North Carolina’s official state marsupial as long as the conduct takes place in Clay County during the week of New Year’s Eve. A responsible, humane, ethical governor would have vetoed such a disgraceful law. North Carolina’s Pat McCrory signed it.
Why would citizens trust lawmakers who could do something this idiotic and irresponsible to be capable of responsible governance regarding anything?
3. The Central Park Carriages
A list of things PETA doesn’t understand would circle the globe, but one of them is cognitive dissonance, which I most recently explained here. Let’s have that Cognitive Dissonance Scale up again, shall we?
Thank you. Now, the theory of Cognitive Dissonance holds that if you want to have a spokesperson for a point of view raise that position in favorability on the scale, the spokesperson has to have a higher positive value than the position he’s promoting. If he’s going to attack another famous individual for opposing that position, that individual must be lower on the scale than the spokesman, or cognitive dissonance can backfire, lowering public regard and persuasiveness of the spokesperson, and harming whatever position he is espousing by his association with it.
PETA, seeking to support New York Mayor de Blasio’s announced desire to outlaw the iconic New York City Central Park horse-drawn carriages as cruel to animals and oppose the well-publicized criticism of the Mayor in this matter by actor Liam Neeson, chose as its spokesperson…Bill Maher, Professional Asshole.
On my scale, the horse carriages are around the mid-point–let’s say zero. De Blasio is a -5 for me: his attack on the carriages causes them to rise on my scale…let say to a +2. Liam Neeson is also about a +2 on my scale, so his support doesn’t change much. Maher? He’s a -10; if the scale was bigger, he’d be a – 60. His support for de Blasio’s effort to ban the carriages sends the carriage tradition, and Neeson, way up the scale…to maybe +7.
See, PETA, the goal isn’t to recruit someone you and your members like to support your cause, or even someone knee-jerk liberals who approve of the heavy hand of government crushing private enterprise on any pretext like. The goal is to choose someone who those on the fence, who might be persuaded don’t detest so much that they will reflexively embrace whatever position he attacks. I’m also pretty sure most people like Liam Neeson, a hero in a lot of action movies, a good actor, and seemingly a nice guy, a lot more than potty-mouthed, anti-religion, anti-marriage bomb-thrower Maher.
Even if he weren’t so loathsome, his take on a complex issue is predictably asinine. In the PETA spot, Maher says,
“If anyone has ever seen a horse run wild, even in movies or whatever, you know that’s the furthest from the way these animal should be. I mean they have a wonderful spirit and to get them to do that job, you have to completely break it.”
Yeah, I must say, when I see those wild horses running through the Bronx, I get a chill myself. Does Bill know what happens to most wild horses? They starve. Or they get shot to weed out the herds. If the carriages are outlawed (Mayor de Blasio wants them replaced by little antique Model T’s, like in Disneyland. Sounds romantic to me!), those horses PETA’s worried about are almost certain to end up dead. Let’s ask Mr. Ed if pulling a carriage is worse than dead. I think I know his likely answer.
This issue is another utilitarian balancing act. If, like PETA, you are an animal rights absolutist who believes that only the animals count, then obviously the carriage rides should be banned. On the other hand,
- It is a living for the carriage operators, who are human beings.
- The care of the horses is regulated.
- The owners seem to genuinely care about the animals.
- The rides are a tourist attraction that brings income to New York.
- Absent testimony from Ed, how much the horses suffer, if at all, is a matter of speculation, and
- Tradition counts for something, and so does romance.
These considerations make the carriages a close call for me. Luckily, Bill makes the choice an easy one.
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Sources: Mediaite, NPR, News Observer, WRCB,
Ethics Alarms 
I live in an Amish area and have friends who ride steeplechase. A vast majority of these people respect and care for their horses and mules. If cars with an audience-cabbie were just as romantic, these last vestiges of pre-automobile culture in NY would have disappeared decades ago. Do people like this want to ban all painkillers because some abuse them, all gambling since some lose it all, or all driving because some go too fast? The mayor is an idiot to advocate banning a tourist attraction that is part of what makes his city a destination.
People who say this don’t want to admit we don’t have the open land for these imaginary herds of horses to run wild and free. The domesticated wouldn’t have the skills to survive. (take a look at the differences in herd health of the Chincoteague vs Assateague) They’d be hemmed in, and probably hunted or taken IF they had enough space. It must be easy for an urban dweller to think there’s plenty of space for wild, free ranging herds, but that just doesn’t make it so. You want to see wild horses, there are places where there are some, go there. They are already under serious threat due to lack of space and good forage. Animals can only run free and wild with wind whipping their mains in the past, or some future when population is less than 1% what it is. People who think this should all give up their homes with yards, vacation homes, sports fields, golf courses, etc, and remove all things that impinge on the natural landscape like mines, drilling, ranches, and farms. All necessary for their lifestyle.
I’m not betting the Mayor would make that sacrifice, it’s handwaving to appeal to other idiots.
Damn! I take it you guys wouldn’t like the Prince Albert on my horse?
Luckily for Maher he was born after the advent of the motorized vehicle. Unluckily for us he was born after the advent of television.
“those horses PETA’s worried about are almost certain to end up dead. Let’s ask Mr. Ed if pulling a carriage is worse than dead”
Did anyone make that argument around the abolition of slavery?
Just kidding, but on a more serious note…
If one assumes pulling a carriage is some despicable suffering for a horse (I’m not some animal activist, just supposing), and that there is no choice that would allow them to run free and happy etc., then surely the choice is not between “This bunch of horses get to suffer or they get to live”, but between generation after generation of horses suffering, or stopping at the current generation of horses, despite what that would necessarily entail.
What if horse-drawn carriages go on for a hundred more years? A thousand? Is there a point where it’s ever better to just stop now?
Well, obviously not if you believe life is always better than non-life, the question becomes incomprehensible, and as I say I’m no animal activist, but is it possible they’re factoring that into their thinking?
Obviously, since PETA is infamous for collecting hundreds of thousands of stray dogs and killing them rather than trying to have them adopted with any diligence. Yes, PETA appears to believe that dignity is better than life. When you can make that choice yourself, I may even agree with them. I think making that choice for others—the elderly, sick, mentally incompetent or inhuman— is presumptuous and despicable except in the most extreme circumstances.
It’s a good thing ;PETA wasn’t around during the filming of “Ben Hur”, “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” or virtually any movie that John Wayne ever made! They would have pretty well shut down “Wagon Train” for television, I guess.
I don’t know, I’d give a pretty penny to see that one…the Duke versus a bunch of lame brained, idiotic strippers? Wonder who’d win that one?
I do find the obvious use of trip wires pretty disturbing in some of the old Westerns. Getting rid of them was a great advance.
That’s true. During the “Charge” movie, for example, a number of fine horses had to be destroyed… plus ten riders seriously injured. They found a better way to stage those things later. PETA, however, had nothing to do with it!
True…other, more responsible, less fanatic, more sane animal welfare groups did. PETA has tarred all of their reputations with its excesses, publicity stunts and ethically dubious tactics
In fairness to Hollywood, it was better for them to find a way to protect valuable, trained animals. Actors, too!
“People who say this don’t want to admit we don’t have the open land for these imaginary herds of horses to run wild and free.”
You would think that, of all places, Texas would have plenty of free land for these wild herds to graze and roam on. Such is not the case. Texas has not had any open range since it’s war for independence (which we won, by the way). As a point of fact the last wild herd in Texas, on Mustang Island, was sold back in the late ’80’s or early ’90’s. Like it or not, horses are domesticated animals. There is just no place for them to live wild and, truthfully, they have been domesticated for almost as long as dogs. “Wild and free” is no longer their natural state and as Jack said, most that tried to live that way would die.
Ethical Reasons to Cause an Animal to Feel Physical Pain:
– medical necessity
– scientific necessity
– tracking/risk mitigation (like subcutaneous RFID tags)
– negative re-enforcement of behavior
– killing it (for the purposes of harvesting, culling, or mercy)
Unethical Reasons
– literally everything else, including PERICING AND TATOOING YOUR DOG
Turning your dog into a pincushion or subjecting your cat to tens of thousands of needle strikes in the name of expressing your identity (by projecting it onto the animal) is unfathomable solipsism.
I vaguely remember a kid’s story (60s-70s) that had a cat in it, a male, and he had a pierced ear – a small gold hoop.
Anyone remember this character?
That could be where these piercing idiots are getting their ideas.
I’ve had cats my entire life and I would never pierce them.
I have considered (ID) chipping them but had second thoughts due to the large needle involved.
They are strictly indoors anyway.
Your cats, of course, being cats, would not thank you, but I would. According to my cat, I am a cat person, and I would never do anything to which my cat would not consent.
Finley,
I rescue cats and care for more than a dozen. The chipping procedure is benign as it is simply a fast subcutaneous injection. The needle is no larger than the type I used to hydrate cats with end stage kidney disease. The process takes less than one second and the cats do not even flinch. I do this to protect the feral cats that we trap/spay/neuter and release from being euthanized by the animal control authorities. It’s more expensive than ear clipping or tattooing that some TNR programs advocate but far less painful.
The chip also provides proof of vaccination by providing my name and contact info as well as the vet. I also chip my indoor cats so that in the event that they ever get loose, need to escape from a house fire, or are stolen. Without that chip, my pets and those that I care for could be quickly dispatched by animal control authorities due to ” space issues”. I am more than happy to provide the space, food and veterinary care for cats in need.
Jack’s main point as I understand it was that if you want to be an advocate for ethical treatment of animals you must not undermine that position by claiming that any life not wild and free must be by default inhumane.
Being humane also means providing the custodial care needed to allow the animal to lead the longest, healthiest most pain-free life possible.
Destroying animals because they are now inconvenient is the height of inhumanity.
Thanks for the info, Chris.
And thanks for the work you do.
Well, I can understand #2, because, ugh, possums.
Yes, like ducks and pretty much all other wild animals they lack gratitude. Selfish little bastards will try to claw your arm off while you are untangling them from a situation in which they would likely have starved to death.
Yes, like ducks and pretty much all other wild animals they lack gratitude.
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And wild humans as well.
Jack,
While I agree getting one’s pet tattooed and/or pierced is cruel, I don’t see it as being necessarily worse than de-clawing them (which is MORE painful and even more unnecessary — unless one considers furniture more important than a living creature), cropping their ears/tails, or using electro-shock as a means of behavioral modification.
Unfortunately, people tend to treat their pets just like the living toys they consider them to be and likewise have no qualms about employing extreme methods so that they can better fill that role. Please understand, I’m not defending any of these practices, only suggesting it should be all or nothing, instead of picking the one evil we find the most vexing.
-Neil
De-clawing a cat should be illegal. Very much like the 2nd amendment, it is forcefully removing a cat’s only way to defend him/her self. Now, try to guarantee me that this de-clawed cat will never get outside. If you can do that, you are NOT a cat person.
I agree…if you can’t let a cat keep its claws, don’t get a cat. It is indeed animal cruelty.