Sophie’s personal tragedy - a recurring true story
Submitted by Animal Rights Malta’s Blog
Today’s The Times provides us with the following story:
“Sophie felt pains in her belly. Instinct told her that she was due soon and an hour later a new being was brought into the world.
About three hours later, after having washed her babies properly, she lovingly cuddled them close and, while they contentedly sucked warm milk, she closed her eyes. Feeling exhausted after five hours of labour, Sophie slept.
The next morning, a lot of shouting could be heard coming from the house.
A pair of hands roughly snatched the four newborn kittens from Sophie and they were thrown into a plastic bag.
The bag was securely knotted up with the kittens wriggling inside it, still half asleep, not knowing what horrible fate awaited them.
The bag was thrown into a skip with the kittens meowing piteously for their mother. The cover of the skip was slammed down, muffling their tiny cries.
This is a true story. Fortunately, the kittens were saved by a man who went to the skip to dump some garbage and heard their cries. They have since been fostered and later adopted. They are now about eight months old.
The StreetCat Rescue wants to highlight these stories, because what happened to these kittens is something that happens quite frequently in Malta.
Kittens are put into plastic bags and thrown away, battered or drowned. They are left behind people’s doors, in fields or near garbage heaps at the corner of the street.
Cats who live for years in a home and are treated as part of the family, are suddenly dumped because they are no longer wanted in the house; either because they are sick, old or pregnant or perhaps because there is a new baby in the home.
Cats who are brought up in a home environment do not know how to survive well when thrown out of the home. They especially suffer if they have been de-clawed or not neutered.
In every locality in Malta and Gozo, stray cats and kittens can be seen sheltering from the hot sun or rain under cars or roaming about the streets.
‘Most of us feed and neuter them while many of us do not. Sometimes stray cats are found injured after being hit by a car or hurt by some other incident,’ the organisation said.
After having individually taken care of stray cats for over 10 years, a number of animal lovers have decided to come together as a team and form part of StreetCat Rescue.
A project plan has been structured with the aim of minimising the suffering of stray cats and kittens, as well as educating the public on animal welfare.
StreetCat Rescue believes in feeding, neutering, medicating and protecting the stray cats and kittens on our island. When possible, homes are found for abandoned cats, kittens and unwanted pets.
To succeed StreetCat Rescue needs all the help it can get. Even if people feel stray cats are a nuisance, they can help this voluntary organisation with neutering.
‘If everyone works together as a community we will be able to minimise this problem,’ the organisation said.
Volunteers of all ages and from any locality are needed in the following areas:
• Fostering cats/kittens - to take care of a cat or kitten for some time until it is adopted.
• Socialising feral cats/kittens - taming cats/kittens to give them a better chance of being adopted.
• Feral trapping - to help catch cats which need to be neutered.
• Feline chauffeur - to drive cats/kittens to the vet and back.
• Homing officer - to visit homes in groups of two before a cat or kitten is adopted.
• Emergency calls - going to wherever a cat/kitten emergency arises.
• Aftercare - keeping a neutered or injured cat after being treated medically.
If you wish to help send an e-mail to streetcatrescue@yahoo.co.uk or send a letter to Hello, PO Box 78 Birkirkara. Donations can be sent to the APS account 2000059470-3.
www.freewebs.com/streetcatrescue”
Of course, I wholeheartedly support the efforts of StreetCat Rescue, who, in their website, among other things state that “by preventing (non-human) animals from being born, we prevent (those) animals from being hit by cars, infected with lingering, painful diseases, attacked by other animals or cruel people, stolen by laboratory dealers, used as bait by dog fighters, or simply stuck outside to suffer from starvation, exposure, or neglect”.
However I cannot help but mention the fact that the cat story above also happens to several other animals every single day, unfortunately with more tragic outcomes. Male calves, for instance, are routinely taken away from their mothers either to be killed instantaneously, or to be raised for slaughter. Meanwhile, female calves, are raised to share the same fate of their mothers - that is to be raped for the sole purpose of stealing their milk (only mother cows give milk) - which in turn leads to the repetition of the story (calf taken away so that the mother cow’s milk is given to humans instead of her calf). Of course, when the mother cows are no longer “productive”, they are immediately killed.
I need not mention every case involving non-human animals used to be killed for food or to be used for their “products”. Suffice for me to say that in all cases involving “food” animals, the offspring is most often taken away from the mother soon after birth, and is either killed immediately, or else taken away to suffer the same exploitation (or worse) as her mother.
It bears insisting that the only way to stop most non-human animal suffering is for humans to stop “domesticating”, breeding, selling and buying any more non-humans as if they were human property.
Hopefully, people who are moved by the above story will get to realise that there is no fundamental difference between the suffering of cats or kittens and the suffering of cows or calves, pigs or piglets, chickens and chicks, etc.
All animals are sentient and equally deserving of the right not to be unnecessarily made to suffer or die, as well as not to be treated as if they were human property. Property could only have as much value as the property owner arbitrarily assigns to his/her property. Property is disposable and replaceable. All non-human animals are unique individuals. To treat individuals as replaceable is to deny them their individuality. It is to deny them their rights.
If you empathise with the kittens in the above story, there is no logical and consistent reason not to empathise with the fate of any other sentient animal. The only way to stop most animal suffering and abuse is to stop using animals for human purposes as if they were human property with no individuality or inherent value of their own. The only way is to stop breeding, selling and buying non-human animals, and to stop buying “products” derived from murder and/or exploitation. We should care for the non-humans we have already brought into existence, but we should bring no more into existence.
As StreetCat Rescue says, “by preventing (non-human) animals from being born, we prevent (those) animals from being hit by cars, infected with lingering, painful diseases, attacked by other animals or cruel people, stolen by laboratory dealers, used as bait by dog fighters, or simply stuck outside to suffer from starvation, exposure, or neglect”. Similarly, by preventing other non-human animals from being conceived (by not buying “animal products” - the more we buy, the more animals are bred for exploitative purposes), we prevent the abduction of animals from their mothers, prevent their confinement, exploitation and use until they can take it no more, and also prevent their unnatural death by human hands, all of which is done for the sake of profit, pleasure or convenience.
Are you an activist or just an animal lover? Register on Animal Rights Blog now and get published within minutes. Before posting, it is recommended that you review our posting guidelines.
