Guest guest Posted November 5, 2003 Report Share Posted November 5, 2003 Dear Sandra et al: I fully expect most of you to become irate about what I'm going to say, but I have come to believe that animal welfarists shouldn't have anything to do with " endangered species " protection. We want to protect all animals, whether their species is endangered or not, however by emphasizing endangered species, we are implicitly saying that rare animals are worth more than common animals. That's what the hunter-conservationists believe, and the general public has come to believe it, because the animal protection movement has gone along with it for the last few decades. THUS furriers can assure their customers that the skins they sell are not from " endangered animals, " so it's OK to wear them. THUS conservationists have refused to call for closure of the cruel live markets of Asia, because most of the animals butchered are from non-endangered species. THUS conservationists in central Africa encourage the natives to eat more dogs rather than bushmeat. THUS the Ethiopian wolf conservationists have been murdering homeless but non-rabid dogs in Bale National Park this week, ostensibly to stop an outbreak of rabies among the highly endangered wolves, but in reality to cover their own failure to vaccinate the wolves against rabies (easily done with oral rabies vaccine) and because they wanted to kill the dogs several years ago to prevent hybridization of the wolves and were only stopped through the protests of the fledgling Homeless Animals Protection Society of Ethiopia, whose pleas to the international animal welfare groups this past week to help stop the dog massacre have fallen on deaf ears. THUS foxes are poisoned to protect endangered birds, and some birds are killed to protect other more endangered birds, and feral animals are despised everywhere by conservationists, and on and on infinitum... To say one kind of animal has more right to live than another kind of animal is speciesist. A " species " is an abstract...a " species " doesn't suffer. Individual animals suffer, and animal welfare is supposed to be about prevent suffering. Of course an animal welfarist cares about the survival and well-being of an endangered animal as much as one of us cares about any other animal, but that the animal is from an endangered species shouldn't appear to be the focus. Mainstream conservationism follows the " sustainable use " philosophy, which means that they believe animals should be " used " (mainly " harvested " ) unless doing so jeopardizes the survival of the species. I say that if we are trying to protect animals so that they can be " sustainably used " at some point when their species has recovered, they might as well go extinct now and get all the dying over with. In the meantime, giving a higher status to " endangered " animals only lowers the status of non-endangered animals. --(this is the personal opinion of) Kim Bartlett, publisher of ANIMAL PEOPLE > >From HSUS: > >YOUR COMMENTS NEEDED (AGAIN) TO STOP HUNTING OF ENDANGERED SPECIES: > >Monday, November 10, 2003 is the final deadline for citizens to send >their comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) regarding >the Bush administration's proposed rule to revise permit regulations >of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). These changes, if >incorporated into the final ESA regulations, will have disastrous >consequences for endangered species worldwide, because they will >allow hunters, circuses, and the pet industry to capture and kill >endangered animals and import them into the U.S. These >changes run directly contrary to the intention of the ESA, but trophy >hunting groups, the circus industry, and the pet industry are >offering the absurd argument that exploiting the animals will allow >funds to be raised to save them. > >WHAT YOU CAN DO: > >Previously, we asked you to write in on this issue regarding a draft >policy change to the ESA. The response was so great, that the FWS >has requested future comments on the ESA proposed rule change to be >sent via email. > >Please email your comments by Monday, November 10, to: >fw9escs > > >Whether or not you have written in before, please just send one final >round of comments asking the FWS to withdraw its proposal to weaken >the ESA regulations. Let them know that killing animals for sport and >entertainment is no way to protect them. > >The Federal Register notice of the proposed rule can be found at: > >http://policy.fws.gov/library/03-20941.pdf > >For a sample letter to the USFWS, see: >http://action.fund.org/action/index.asp?step=2 & item=5090 -- Kim Bartlett, Publisher of ANIMAL PEOPLE Newspaper Postal mailing address: P.O. Box 960, Clinton WA 98236 U.S.A. CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS IS: <ANPEOPLE Website: http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/ Please do not send attachments! - please paste information in your message. Something to think about: We believe that the Golden Rule applies to animals, too. We don't accept the prevailing notion that " people come first' " or that " people are more important than animals. " Animals feel pain and suffer just as we do, and it is almost always humans making animals suffer and not the other way around. Yet in spite of how cruelly people behave towards animals -- not to mention human cruelty to other humans -- we are supposed to believe that humans are superior to other animals. If people want to fancy themselves as being of greater moral worth than the other lifeforms on this earth, we should begin behaving better than they do, and not worse. Let's start treating everyone as we would like to be treated ourselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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