Animals with rights - and so it begins...

[Pajarita]

Michael, you don't give people enough credit for brains and way too much credit for decency/kindness. People in government don't really do research in any depth when it comes to laws and they don't just write laws arbitrarily, they rely on professionals to make recommendations. And they do hear both sides of the argument.

And, YES! I do want the government to tell me which cage size is the minimum for the bird's comfort AND to ban wing clipping, etc. And if those restrictions mean less people will have parrots, better still! Because the ones that will still keep them are going to be the ones that love them enough to sacrifice for them. The world is full of evil people, people who enjoy causing pain, people who are 100% egocentric and want a parrot for the status, entertainment factor, arm candy, money, etc and way too many parrot owners still think 'It's just a bird!' Can people change? Of course they can! Look at slavery, segregation, interracial marriage, child labor, etc But it takes entire generations to get to a point where people start seeing something that was considered OK for it to be regarded as no longer OK and it always takes a law to get the ball rolling.

As to education been the key, that's another PIJAC line meant to sound good enough to make good people believe it's all that's required - problem is, the concept has never worked before so why would it work now? Do you really believe that every single animal owner out there will try to educate himself and do what's good for the animal out of the kindness of their heart? It's like saying that there shouldn't be a Child Services agency because all it takes to protect children from cruelty, rapists, etc is to educate the population... something anybody who reads newspapers knows is nothing but a wonderful fantasy. Animal cruelty is generally frowned upon and cruel activities like dog or cock fighting are illegal but people still do them - do you think that all of them had no idea that what they were doing was wrong? Do you think that people that race dogs don't know that greyhounds die like flies or end up handicapped every year because of them? Do you think that people that breed and train dogs for fights don't know that they are causing pain? How about zoo keepers that keep animals in substandard conditions and allow them to breed so they can have babies in the zoo which always attracts crowds and then kill them when they are grown? Don't they know that what they are doing is morally wrong?

You simply cannot trust individuals to do right if they are allowed to do wrong. It's as simple as that.

[Tori Taylor]

I personally don't think the government has business telling people cage sizes and whether to clip wings or not. They don't tell people what size bed children should sleep in not how big their bedrooms should be so how can they tell people cage sizes etc for animals?

There are far too many variables to take into consideration for there to be "blanket" laws with minimum requirements for all birds. Too many species, too many different "home" environments, too many birds being rehabilitated etc etc.

Yes all animals deserve proper food, water, housing and correct interactions but for a government to mandate such laws for animals takes away too many personal freedoms.

The sad fact is that in most countries an illiterate, uneducated and possibly homes less person can have a child and have parental rights without ever demonstrating the ability to care for a child. Yet we have animal rights activists petitioning for more control over how animals are kept.

My birds do not even have cages they live entirely cage free and have for over 7 years. Yes their wings are clipped and have been since I had two "accidents" with flighted (recall trained) birds one of which resulted in the loss of a birds life. It was a very personal decision especially since at that time all of my birds were flighted and had never been clipped. I made the decision based on how and where my birds live and safety factors. In my opinion it was the right one for me and I would hate to have had a government make that decision for me. I spent over $10,000 usd and six months of my time bringing my birds with me when I moved to another country so I can say that I am most certainly dedicated to their welfare and well being.

The sad fact is that many people do not view any animals as intelligent beings and will always see them as possessions. I feel all we can do is provide education and do the best we can.

[Harpmaker]

Did anyone else notice that what the animal rights people want is for the chimps to go to a sanctuary?
Isn't that just exchanging one jail for another? And likely removing them from people they have bonded with to strangers?

Having worked as an engineer, my experience with government safety regulations is that our representatives do not understand the problems they are trying to solve. If you are lucky they will admit that and pass a law saying you have to follow an industry standard. But industry safety standards get updated far more rapidly than laws do(even the greediest corporation does not like losing people and property from inadequate safety standards), and the laws call out the standard for a particular past year, rather than the current one.

People are often ignorant and sometimes cruel, but governments are ALWAYS somewhat ignorant and don't care if they are cruel or not.

I don't know what the solution is, but I am wary of "fixing" things with laws and courts.

[Wolf]

I agree that the only real solution is through education. I don't like the scene that we have of people with no knowledge passing laws based on who gives them the most monies. I don't like to see all these laws being passed because people would rather be told what to do than to step up and take responsibility for their own lives as well as how their actions affect others. But as long as people have a make a law attitude instead of a do the right thing attitude I don't see much chance other than the inadequate laws that we stupidly pass.
We have long been a nation of non thinking people, putting other non thinking people in positions to do our thinking for us.

[Pajarita]

Did anyone else notice that what the animal rights people want is for the chimps to go to a sanctuary?
Isn't that just exchanging one jail for another? And likely removing them from people they have bonded with to strangers?

Having worked as an engineer, my experience with government safety regulations is that our representatives do not understand the problems they are trying to solve. If you are lucky they will admit that and pass a law saying you have to follow an industry standard. But industry safety standards get updated far more rapidly than laws do(even the greediest corporation does not like losing people and property from inadequate safety standards), and the laws call out the standard for a particular past year, rather than the current one.

People are often ignorant and sometimes cruel, but governments are ALWAYS somewhat ignorant and don't care if they are cruel or not.

I don't know what the solution is, but I am wary of "fixing" things with laws and courts.

Harp, these two chimps live in separate cages in a lab and they want them release to a sanctuary ran by the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance , not a zoo. There are no cages in sanctuaries, they live in natural, forested habitats with other chimps. Given that these two are in upstate NY, I would assume they would go to the closest one, the one in La (http://www.chimphaven.org/) but all of them are similar. Look at the pictures and tell me that this would not be 100,000 times better than living all by themselves in a lab cage.

[Pajarita]

I agree that the only real solution is through education. I don't like the scene that we have of people with no knowledge passing laws based on who gives them the most monies. I don't like to see all these laws being passed because people would rather be told what to do than to step up and take responsibility for their own lives as well as how their actions affect others. But as long as people have a make a law attitude instead of a do the right thing attitude I don't see much chance other than the inadequate laws that we stupidly pass.
We have long been a nation of non thinking people, putting other non thinking people in positions to do our thinking for us.

Do you think that education would have eradicated slavery or apartheid, Wolf? You did not only educate the people you gave the budgies to but also provided them with supplies and they still did not do a good job with them.

I have learned that people are not really 'inherently good', they are what they are and that's all there is to it. Some are good and some are bad and, although the good ones don't need many of the laws of the land, the bad ones do. Me, I would rather have a law that truly protects animals from abuse than none at all.

[Wolf]

I don't think that education is the whole solution, but without education neither slavery nor apartheid would have fallen. Laws are not always the answer either, if they were women would still not be able to vote, segregation in the USA would still be the norm. There are a host of positives and negatives on all sides of this. I am not fearful of what any law passed would do to me with my birds because I always give them the best that I can. I just feel that it is a crying shame that we can't simply do what we know is right without the need for these laws, which usually get twisted by the people who don't want to do the right things anyway. I don't like the need for these laws, I am not always opposed to them, because some people won't do what is right with or without them.

[Harpmaker]

Pajarita, I do agree that living in a sanctuary is probably better than a lab. But I know nothing about the situation of the two chimps on private property, and it troubles me to find them in the same lawsuit as the two in the lab.

On the other hand, I don't think it's a good idea to raise chimpanzees as pets or child substitutes, either. There are too many stories of people losing control of a chimp in public, causing an outcry for the poor thing to be put down because it is too strong.

[Wolf]

Chimps attacking, humans in the families that keep them as well as attacking their friends has been highly documented. It is perhaps one of the most glaring examples of why education alone is not always enough and it takes a law to protect both the chimp and the people. But the same education could be used to craft a law that actually addresses the issues instead of one that is easily misunderstood and nearly impossible to enforce. In this case education needs to be applied to the act of protecting and preventing this type of tradgedy.

[Pajarita]

Wolf, I do believe that education is the answer in the sense that it is education that has shown us that animals do have feelings of pain, of fear, of despair, etc. But I don't think that educating the general public changes things. You need a law for that. Do you know that snakes bred for their skin to be used in fashion (shoes, belts, wallets, etc) are skinned alive and allowed to die on their own which takes hours and hours? Do you know that mares used for their urine to produce hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women are kept pregnant and immobile practically all their lives even though there is now an artificial hormone that works just as well? Do you know that pigs in gestation crates cannot even lie down or turn around? Do you know that elephants in zoos are artificially inseminated, a procedure which is invasively painful and terribly traumatic for them, dozens of times so they would produce young to attract crowds? Do you know that breeders of cockatoos routinely break their jaw bones so they would not attack the females -something they only do in captivity? Do you know that Iams, Purina, etc keep dogs and cats in cages all their lives, periodically doing surgery on them and taking chunks out of their muscles to test how their recipes work? Do you know that the much admired Dr. Roudybush killed hundreds of cockatiels during his avian diet studies? What about the 'crush' industry where animal torture is made into a film to sexually arouse sick people? What about male baby chicks that are routinely put into a grinding machine alive? Battery cages? Geese gavage-fed until they can no longer stand from the neurological damage of advanced fatty liver? What about the horrors of slaughter house where completely conscious animals are dismembered? And I can go on and on and on and on... Man cannot be trusted to do the right thing with animals, education or no education. Period.