Animal Abuse & NEglect



Animal Abuse & NEglectBy Julia Evanscenter850008549640May 27, 2015A-B Tech. Comm. College 1000000May 27, 2015A-B Tech. Comm. College Julia Evans Mr. CopelandSenior ProjectSpring 2015 Animals and pets have made best friends and companions for years. Unfortunately they’ve been abused and neglected for just as long. Undeserving animals have fallen victim to neglect, abuse, and cruelty. Nonetheless, an animal’s quality of life is important, and there is no way to justify the cruel treatment many of them receive. Luckily, organizations and individuals all around the world are helping protect and care for these animals. To better understand the neglect and abuse these animals face, its best to first learn about the history. As long as animals have been domesticated, (the period after WWII is credited as the time in which pet ownership became popular) (petfinder) they’ve been abused and neglected. Unfortunately, this abuse has been a long-practiced activity. Since the 12th century, animals have been used for human entertainment, cruel experiments, fighting, and killed for the purpose of their fur or other body parts for the purpose of fashion and/or consumption. The most common type of animal cruelty is neglect or abandonment. “Neglect is not giving an animal the right food, water, shelter or vet care. Abuse can be either deliberate abuse or the failure to take care of a pet, a farm animal, or even wildlife.”(humanesociety) In 1877, the American Humane Society was created. (americanhumane) Their goal was to prevent abuse and cruelty to animals as well as children. And in 1986 in the United States, only 4 states had laws against animal cruelty, today all 50 states have felony provisions within their animal cruelty laws. (humanesociety) Although today most animal cruelty and neglect continues to go unnoticed and unrecognized. Even though the most common type of animal abuse is neglect or cruelty, there are many other types as well. Dog fighting has been traced as far back as the 12th century in European countries. () “Dogfights serve as a host to gang activity, illegal gambling as well as drug abuse and dealing.”(ocfl) Much animal abuse is linked back to the fact that the owner responsible is unstable and/or mentally disturbed, or lacks the proper knowledge to care for the animal. It is a sad truth that dogs (especially the pit bull breed) and other animals have been used for fighting since the civil war as a source of inhumane entertainment. Because of this, pit-bulls have since obtained a poor reputation and are often still used in such practices. Dog fighting has been reported in not just rural settings but also urban and suburban. (dosomething) The Humane Society estimates that approximately 250,000 dogs were placed in fighting pits nationwide in 2007. () Other entertainment practices such as rodeos/circuses, horse-drawn carriages, zoos, and the ownership of exotic animals all create a stressful environment with harsh handling in order to get the animals to perform. They even violate the safety and care standards set by The United States Animal Welfare. (Dosomething) In the circus industry, the animals are often abused with cruel tools like whips by the trainers and forced against their will to perform. The animals are captured and taken away from their home and families to be put in the entertainment industry. In many circus acts, animals are beaten, enslaved, and kept in chains to make them perform for humans' "entertainment". (peta) Unfortunately, horse-drawn carriages are a popular but outdated practice in many places around the world. The horses are forced to pull heavy carriages all day long and have no choice but to suffer through it. “There is no way that cities, with their exhaust fumes, hard road surfaces, and busy traffic patterns can provide a humane environment for a carriage horse.” (peta) Perhaps that saddest fact of the matter is that horses that grow too old to participate in carrying humans around are often slaughtered and used for human consumption. In zoos, animal’s living conditions are far from pleasant. They are deprived from the proper care, food, companionship, and especially freedom. Wild animals should not be placed in confined cages just for the purpose of gawking humans. Many captive animals acquire a condition known as “zoochosis,” where the animals often rock, sway, or pace endlessly, and some even mutilate themselves.(peta) The best way to prevent these sad occurrences is to not pay to see them suffer in zoos. The ownership of exotic animals is a cruel and popular practice. These wild animals are captured from their natural homes and shipped to their new destination in a less than comfortable journey. Many die through the process of transportation. “They often suffer in captivity and die prematurely from malnutrition, an unnatural and uncomfortable environment, loneliness, and the overwhelming stress of confinement.” (PETA) In a nutshell, wild animals are not meant to be used as pets. Aside from abuse from entertainment, there are many other types such as fur and cosmetics industries, hoarding, experimentation, puppy mills, slaughtering for human consumption, and overall improper care by the animal’s handler or owner. "Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way." States Peta’s current straight-forward slogan. More than 100 million animals annually suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics tests. They are burned, blinded, poisoned, and cut up alive in the name of “science”. (Peta) Is the livelihood of thousands of innocent animals really worth it for some cheap makeup from a company with low values? To too many people, the answer seems to be yes. Animal hoarding is another popular type of animal abuse. Hoarded animals are commonly deprived of minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, shelter, exercise and veterinary care, which often result in starvation, illness and death. (ocfl) This is why animal hoarding is classified under abuse and neglect. “The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) estimates that approximately 250,000 animals per year are hoarding victims.” (ocfl) These animals often suffer in an almost unlivable environment with a lack of human companionship and happiness because of uneducated and heartless owners. Although, there are often deep-set reasons for why people hoard and/or abuse animals. Hoarders may feel that they "love" animals, but they can be blind to the fact that they are not caring for them responsibly even in the face of starvation and death. (ocfl) Psychologists conclude that "Perhaps the most prominent psychological feature of these individuals is that pets (and other possessions) become central to the hoarder's core identity," Similar to the abuse animals face in the cosmetics industry, there is also abuse through experimentation. The first national law to regulate animal experimentation (the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876) was passed in Britain in 1876, (awic.nal.) yet this act is often overlooked, and improper practices still continue. The U.S. is only one out of two countries that does not have any regulations on experimentation. Mice and rats are forced to inhale toxic fumes, dogs are force-fed pesticides, and rabbits have corrosive chemicals rubbed onto their skin and eyes. (peta) Big corporations are responsible for the many cruel and inhumane activities performed on innocent animals. Animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year by heartless corporations. (peta) Animals such as mice, rats, rabbits, and other smaller mammals suffer for use in science classes for experiments and dissection. Even more incomprehensible is the continued demand by some US environmental organizations for more animal testing of cosmetics products even as the rest of the world moves away. (peta) A puppy mill is a large scale dog breeding corporation that breeds puppies for sale in conditions regarded as inhumane and without using proper or responsible breeding practices. (dosomething) These establishments care more about the profit than the well-being of the animals they’re breeding. Unfortunately, puppy mills are unrecognized by many people and they end up buying from them unknowingly and supporting the cruel corporations. This is why it’s important to inform people about puppy mills. Animal care and control agencies are not uniformly required to keep statistics on the number of animals taken in, adopted, euthanized or reclaimed, (dosomething) and most cases are never reported, and most animal suffering goes unrecognized and unabated, (humanesociety) which is part of the reason puppy mills are able to get away with their so-called “black marketing” of dogs. Thankfully, The Humane Society has an Animal Rescue Team that investigates animal cruelty with the help of law enforcement. They rescue animals from puppy mills, animal fighting operations, hoarders, and other situations that put the animals in danger. (humanesociety) Animal slaughtering for the purpose of human consumption and product use is perhaps the largest scale of animal abuse. “Nearly all animals killed for food in the U.S. are chickens and turkeys—more than nine billion each year.” (peta) The animal’s livelihood is far from pleasant in a slaughter house. They are mutilated and confined to tiny cages so that we can kill them and eat them. (peta) Chickens are perhaps the most abused animal in the consumption industry. “More than 7 billion chickens are killed for their flesh each year in the United States, and 305 million hens are used for their eggs.” (peta) Ninety-nine percent of these animals spend their entire lives in total confinement and there are no laws to protect them for the harsh practices. It’s good to be aware of these sad statistics, though the problem is not enough is being done to stop the production and cruelty of these animals. If the consumption of animals wasn’t bad enough, this consumption also effects our environment. “A staggering 51 percent or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture.” (Peta) “Every year, millions of animals are killed for the clothing industry—all in the name of fashion.” (Peta) An immense amount of pain and suffering goes into every piece of clothing bought from clothing companies that do not support the fair treatment of animals. Animals involved in these industries are electrocuted, strangled, and skinned alive so that humans can wear their coats. (peta) They are used for fur, exotic skins, leather, wool, and angora (more exotic skins include silk, cashmere, and shearling) and the price is their lives. The cruelty these animals face is perhaps the worst case of abuse because of the unfathomable performances that go into the clothing industry. There is a long cycle the animals must suffer through in the process. For example, in “fur farms”, where animals are breed and raised for the sole purpose of skinning them. They spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages and the fur farmers use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods available, including suffocation, electrocution, gas, and poison. (peta) Unlike fur farms, wild animals are first trapped in brutal devices. Some examples of these devices are: steel-jaw traps; which often break their bones; Conibear traps; which break their necks with 90 pound of pressure; or water-set traps; (specified for water animals such as beavers and muskrats) where the animals struggles for almost 10 minutes before drowning. (peta) Other types of skin animals are used for is leather and wool. Much of the leather available in the United States come from China or India, where animal cruelty laws are unenforced, ignored, or even non-existent. (peta) Though all around the world these laws are often ignored. In the United States, cows used for leather also must endure factory farming and slaughter houses. At slaughterhouses, these animals routinely have their throats cut and some are even skinned and dismembered while they are still conscious.(peta) Another type of animal skin used in the clothing industry is wool. In the wool industry they strip them of their skin, and even teats, tails, and ears, which are often cut or ripped off during shearing. (peta) In slaughter houses, the sheep’s throats are slit while still conscious. Every year, hundreds of lambs die before the age of 8 weeks from exposure or starvation, and mature sheep die every year from disease, lack of shelter, and neglect. (peta) Perhaps it does not occur to workers in factory farms, slaughter houses, and other animal-cruelty industries that these animals feel pain, fear, and loneliness just like humans do. They don’t deserve the brutality they face all for the purpose of human ‘needs’. People that buy from the clothing industries that treat animals as skin-producing machines are directly supporting them and are largely part of the reason they still exist. Luckily, there are cruelty free and faux products widely available all over the world. ................
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