Top Ten Animal Articles
We have collated a fine selection of articles from all over the world. From outright hilarious, to deeply disturbing, these passages will enlighten you on animal welfare, wildlife conservation and humanity’s place among the animal kingdom.
“Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife – birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes – by the million in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative – and fatal – health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions of more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because the food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for Peace on Earth.”
-David Coates, Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm.
“The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.”
-David Attenborough, Life on Earth.
“In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.”
-Jane Goodall, Primatologist.
“And if we dare to look into those eyes, then we shall feel their suffering in our hearts. More and more people have seen that appeal and felt it in their hearts. All around the world there is an awakening of understanding and compassion, and understanding that reaches out to help the suffering animals in their vanishing homelands. That embraces hungry, sick, and desperate human beings, people who are starving while the fortunate among us have so much more than we need. And if, one by one, we help them, the hurting animals, the desperate humans, then together we shall alleviate so much of the hunger, fear, and pain in the world. Together we can bring change to the world, gradually replacing fear and hatred with compassion and love. Love for all living beings.”
-Jane Goodall, Primatologist.
“A dolphin’s smile is the greatest deception. It creates the illusion that they’re always happy”
– Rick O’Barry, ex-dolphin trainer and founder of Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project
“There is no doubt that people love dolphins. They are cute, playful, and intelligent wild animals. These are the traits that make us want to get closer to them. And these are also the traits that cause us to put them in captivity. During the 1960 there was a realization that money could be made out of their cuteness and intelligence. So the swim-with-captive-dolphins experience was born and captive dolphin shows became a huge money-making industry. People flocked to zoos and aquariums to see all the tricks that these animals could perform. Play ball, kiss the trainer, jump through a hoop…you name it. And through it all we told ourselves that the dolphins loved it. We were wrong.”
– Christina Garcia, The Selfish Connection. How our love for dolphins is killing them.
“The way that the average humans harms animals is not through visiting SeaWorld. A customer could visit SeaWorld every day the park is open for a year and not match the direct negative impact they have on animals during one day of grocery shopping. The issue is not restricted to the purchase of meat directly. Products like Jell-O contain gelatin, a substance derived from animal collagen. Each gallon of milk comes from a restrained being, usually severely abused both physically and psychologically before eventually being slaughtered. Every egg is the product of a chicken that wasn’t born, usually taken from a mother in conditions so vile the farming industry is taking increasing action to make filming the premises illegally.
What “Blackfish” did was show a positive trend, however slight, toward thinking about animals as individuals. Systemic exploitation exists when humans delegitimize the existence of fellow beings by denying their own interest in being free. The U.S. has one of the most glaring examples in history as its economy was built on the backs of African slaves, a practice that was endorsed by both the dominant religious community and culture at large. In contemporary society, we shudder when we hear about the disgusting large-scale abuses of humans by North Korea, despite exacting the same sorts of tortures in this country to derive our dinner.
The exploitation of animals at this point in time has no parallel in history. As we celebrate the increasing global progress for human rights, we turn a blind eye to the fact that the number of animals consumed in the U.S. alone this year surpassed the entire population of humans alive on this planet. These numbers are staggering. But to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was paraphrasing a sermon by Theodore Parker decrying slavery, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” President Barack Obama echoed these words to a new generation in 2009, when he wrote about the responsibility to “shape our history.” Not long after, President Bill Clinton brought light to the concept of veganism, heightening the consciousness of Americans who may have not even known what the word meant a year prior.
Until we begin to see animals as individuals like ourselves, beings with families, joy and pain, society has no claim to being just. And dismantling this sprawling system of exploitation starts at the grocery store. The vegan diet is recognized by healthcare professionals across the world as a balanced one. Studies show that plant-based diets are a useful tool in fighting cardiovascular disease and increasing life expectancy. This is to say nothing of the environment, in which animal agriculture serves as a leading cause of climate change. But the benefits to the human body are far outweighed by those to the non-human animals who share our planet. Boycotting SeaWorld isn’t enough. I believe in meaningful change outside of culture’s timetable, and for me, that means reading the label and choosing vegan.”
– Chris Sosa, SeaWorld Is Dying, Animal Exploitation Isn’t.
“If modern society was cast in a Greek tragedy then our character description would be this: exhibits hubris – grotesquely arrogant, casually cruel, doomed to be clubbed to death by a winged deity. And the only proof that the audience would need of our hubris would be a few examples of the way we treat animals, or more accurately, the way we share our planet with the other animals. From the cashed-up, drunken swill at the Melbourne cup roaring and vomiting up betting tickets while a majestic race-horse buckles, collapses and is slaughtered in front of them, to the 17,000 greyhound dogs per year in Australia that are killed for not making the grade, to keeping chickens and pigs in factory farms, to testing cosmetics and pharmaceuticals on mice, there is no doubt that we are the unfeeling unthinking tyrants of our world. Humans, it seems, are profoundly inhumane. Of this list of everyday sadisms, there is one particularly repugnant practise that should be banned: keeping animals in captivity for our own entertainment. I am not talking about animals kept in captivity for conservation or rescue purposes. There are certain zoos that perform good work. But if we wince at the idea that only a few decades ago you could find lions in circuses, or if we read with horror of gladiatorial combat with bears in a blood-soaked Roman empire then surely supporting any modern industry that converts animal cruelty into human amusement, makes hypocrites of us all.”
– Alecia Simmonds, Keeping animals in captivity for our own entertainment must stop.
“Vegetarians have often been on the wrong side of history. Muggeridge, Hitler, Paltrow. It is interesting how veggie activists like to co-opt the great and the dead to their cause. Einstein, Darwin and Shakespeare are often included in the veggie listings despite there being little or no evidence that they eschewed meat at all. The trouble is, they are right, those etiolated salad-munchers. They may be missing one of the great pleasures of human existence, the sheer, feral joy of ingesting a lump of charred amino acids, myoglobin and pure animal fat, the sating of human meat-hunger, a hunger that probably led to our ruling the world (the primatologist Richard Wrangham thinks that when our ancestors learnt to cook meat rather than eating it raw, the flood of extra nutrients enabled our brains to double in size) but no matter, they are right.”
– Michael Hanlon, Why soon we’ll all be vegetarian.
“Being vegan is easy. Are there social pressures that encourage you to continue to eat, wear, and use animal products? Of course there are. But in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and ableist society, there are social pressures to participate and engage in sexism, racism, homophobia and ableism. At some point, you have to decide who you are and what matters morally to you. And once you decide that you regard victimizing vulnerable nonhumans is not morally acceptable, it is easy to go and stay vegan.”
– Gary L. Francione, The abolitionist approach to animal rights.