[Gpdd] [MISC] Ruth's comments and the treatment of animals

[Cazza177]

Ruth wrote an inspiring email raising many questions about the treatment of
animals by people in response to Jamie's petition to St. Augustine Farm &
Zoological Park.  Many of the things she said (in GPDD, Vol. 6, Issue 98)
were hugely thought-provoking and profound.

The fact is, that wherever people are in the world, you will find suffering,
and it is usually children and animals who are on the receiving end of it.
Most animals in the wild will kill other animals to survive.  This is a
fact.  But what I think has made many of us so angry is that we all know
that animals (not just guinea pigs) are capable of enormous emotional
capacity, including that of joy and sorrow, so why should they have to
relinquish their lives for another living creature capable of those very
same emotions?

I do not have an answer any more than Ruth does.  People are capable of
absurd hypocrisy and contradictions.  The alligator has a right to live as
much as the guinea pig.  If a person takes another persons life, they are
imprisoned for it.
  
For what it's worth, I am deeply sensitive to the issues of animal suffering
and I will do anything I can to stop it.  I create and sign petitions, I
write to world leaders to protest their country's treatment of animals, I
work for a charity called the Dr Hadwen Trust (who fund medical research
without the use of animals), I don't eat animals, I don't wear them, I will
move snails off the pavement and put them back on the grass to stop them
getting crushed (yeap, I really do do that!), and I feed pigeons in the park
in the bitter winter and then have people moan at me for wanting to help
another species to stay alive.

We should all do what we can to help the suffering of animals and people,
because if we didn't, can you imagine how much worse this planet would
actually be?  I would rather do my small bit for the animals than nothing at
all.

Carole