I have no idea if this is a good idea. It is not a science. If you love animals with a passion you’ll hate the abuse of animals with an equal passion. If you love animals slightly, you’ll dislike the abuse of animals to an equal extent.
The more you genuinely care about animals the more empathy you have for them. You can feel what they feel and that is not anthropomorphizing animals. It is simply being knowledgeable about them and connecting one’s emotions to that knowledge. It is a connection with nature and our roots.
The balance between loving and hating in respect of animals and what happens to them is very similar to Newton’s Third Law, which states that forces are equal and opposite. All forces come in pairs. When you push off the ground with your foot you exert a force on the floor. The floor exerts an equal force on your foot.
The same principles are in play in the balance between caring for animals and hating the abuse and the needless killing of animals.
This is why I hate people who hunt animals for sport. Yes, hate is a strong world but so is love. You can’t hate sport hunting and respect the person who does it. Sport hunting is a human self-indulgence. It cannot be justified. If sport hunters justify it by saying there is a need to cull animals to keep numbers down, I argue that is a false argument.
The only reason why wildlife populations need to be kept down is because human population numbers have risen resulting in an encroachment onto the habitat of wildlife such that the animal then becomes a problem to people. It is a self-induced problem and the solution should be focused on people.
Sport hunting is good for the economy. It is good for people. It is an abuse of animals.
In the long term the planet cannot sustain 7 billion people as the earth’s resources will be depleted in doing it. By 2050 the population will be over 9 billion.
The reason why I say Grumpy cat is exploited and rant about it is because I love Grumpy cat. Why do I love her? Because she is vulnerable. The more vulnerable an animal is the more we should love and care for that animal. There is an equality in that equation too.
I’ll end there.
I’m trying to keep an open mind here, Ben. Am I hearing you correctly? Your animal was given a long and good life. You loved it as an animal lover, and then, knowing this all along, you quickly ended his/her life in the most humane manner that you could . Is this what you are saying? I am trying to comprehend this. My mind has a difficult time wrapping around the kill that was inevitable in your mind.
You are correct in that most humans buy meat at the grocery, not giving much if any thought to what that poor animal endured. This actually is extremely selfish.
Wrong, Ben. For humans, it is all about how you combine non-animal foods to result in the protein that provides all the essential amino acids for the human species. One of my favorite cookbooks and teachings was from Francis Moore Lappe. Complimentary proteins(combined amino acids) was an education that I learned from her. “Diet for a Small Planet,” is/was the book that changed my outlook–on life.
I’m no saint Caroline and used to eat meat, poultry and fish too until it came to me what a hypocrite I felt saying I love animals yet eating them. Working as vet nurse in a mixed practice I saw some of the horrors of farming animals and birds for food.
Some images never leave your mind do they! My visit to a slaughterhouse with the duty vet who was called out for some reason, remains in mine!
We are lucky as we have a neighbour with rescue battery hens so have free range eggs, they cost so much more in shops.
What you say rings so true, Ruth. I do eat chickens, beef, now and then. It is very expensive to buy meat that is not slaughtered in the convenient way. I don’t even like to talk about it. Was a vegetarian for decades. I most likely going back to my old lifestyle. Even Salmon has been a problem for me. Cage-free/Free Range eggs are probably the only animal product in my future, just to continue to support it (which I feel is very important!).
I am just a simple soul who doesn’t dress comments up in fancy words or search for statistics which can’t be relied on anyway, as people can so easily distort them in their eagerness to try to convince others they are right.
But I do know hunting animals for fun is wrong and my own opinion is that breeding animals and birds only to be killed for food is wrong too. Food animals DO suffer, they all don’t live happy lives in fields and as I already said, some suffer even more than necessary because the people doing the job of killing them enjoy torturing them before they die. Which is why we are fighting for CCTV in ALL slaughterhouses. But I also know that at present veggies are in the minority and there is no point preaching to those who think they can’t live without eating flesh or those who don’t care that animals and birds suffer so as to satisfy their taste buds.
Apparently all the grain grown to feed animals to be killed to feed human non veggies, would be enough to feed ALL the people of the world including the children who starve to death in some countries.
BTW Marc I thought HUMANE sprung from the word HUMAN, I think humanity was meant to move on, but sadly it hasn’t moved very far!
Thanks for this report Rudolph. I have heard about the difficulty of seeing tigers in reserves before. They seem to be getting rarer and rarer. In one reserve it was discovered there were no tigers left. They had all been poached. I would love to go on one of these safaris. Sounds fascinating.
The British were the main culprits in destroying the tiger through hunting 100 years ago. The attitude about hunting was different then of course but the tiger population was severely affected by hunting in the days of the Raj in India.
I look forward to your report. If you email me some pictures I will publish them as usual. If you email me the photo of the SERPENT EAGLE I’ll add it to your comment.