Submitted by Animal Rights Malta’s Blog

Vulnerable non-human animals

In a letter to The Times, congratulating Nature Trust for educating young people about the love of animals and thanking Ralph and Calla Guild of New York for contributing substantially towards the purchase of a rescue vehicle for the Gozo SPCA, and congratulating the Gozo SPCA’s small staff and volunteers for their work, Carmel Hili writes:

“As a species, we humans are called to respectfully share our planet with other species and not enslave them. Being vulnerable, cats and dogs in particular call for our protection from cruelty and exploitations. These are sentient beings that recognise friends, warm up a home and return affection many times over”.

Mr Hili got it half right in the above quote from his letter. As a species, us humans truly should respectfully share our planet with other species and not enslave them. However, it is not only cats and dogs in particular who call for our protection from cruelty and exploitation. All non-human animals are sentient beings who deserve respectful treatment, and have the right not to be enslaved and killed.

Like I said in “Overdue recognition of animal rights“, it does not make any sense to speak of dogs or cats as deserving of protection, while ignoring or denying the right to protection to other equally sentient non-human animals. Non-human animals either deserve protection (in which case, this would mean they have the right to protection) or they don’t. And one cannot reasonably claim that some animals have rights while others don’t, and not give valid morally significant reasons for making such a claim. And the only non-arbitrary measure of whether one deserves rights or not (including the right to life), is sentience. Any other measure would exclude many humans as well as most non-human animals.

Mr Hili also says that “Every time I see stray dogs or cats or brutalised animals as in the recent picture on Kullhadd (local newspaper), I feel pain as a human being. Stories of people abandoning their animals in strange and distant towns are disgusting”.
It is only the fact that usually, non-human animals destined to be murdered legally, are hidden from the public eye, that most humans do not “feel pain as a human being” and are not disgusted by all the abuse and murder in the name of taste and convenience.

It bears repeating what I said in “Sophie’s personal tragedy - a recurring true story“, that unnecessary suffering of non-human animals by human hands also happens to several other animals every single day, unfortunately with more tragic outcomes.

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, and is ultimately killed when she is no longer “productive”.

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 news reporting of cruelty to cats and dogs, 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 one empathizes with stray cats and dogs, 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.

And this applies equally to all sentient non-human animals.

No-kill animal sanctuaries

Meanwhile, Joe Grixti also writes a letter to The Times, in which he says:

“People who frequent Ta’ Qali stadium and the surrounding area have noticed the number of stray dogs running about, many of them maimed by vehicles and in a miserable state. The first roundabout leading to the Centunary Stadium is the home of many of them begging for something to eat.

At present there are three litters of puppies in the grounds, many of them suffering from hunger and the elements. I have contacted several organisations for stray animals but each one of them has given me the excuse that they have no space for them. What about the fund-raising events that have been going on for years now? Not a single stone has been laid for the so-called sanctuary for stray dogs”.

While it is to be hoped that the dogs in question are eventually rescued, it must be understood that no-kill animal sanctuaries cannot perform miracles. That most (or all) animal sanctuaries have no space or time for more dogs to be admitted in their sanctuaries is not simply a feeble excuse to brush off responsibility. It is a fact that the care of hundreds of dogs requires lots of time, space, money, and a lot of volunteers giving their little spare time to care for the dogs. If Mr Grixti checks the facts, he will most probably find that most sanctuaries barely cover the costs of feeding and veterinary bills from the donations they recieve.

As for admitting more dogs, the problem is not just funding. As I explained, the care of dogs (each with different personalities and his/her own unique requirements), requires a lot of time and volunteer workers, who usually either do their unpaid work after their regular day jobs, or else, if they are not employed, in the little spare time they have left after meeting the requirements of their own families.

Of course, the best way to find out what work at dog sanctuaries really involves, is to volunteer to do some work there oneself. It would also be more beneficial to the non-human animals most of us pity from a distance, if, instead of complaining and expecting animal sanctuaries to perform miracles, we do some sanctuary work ourselves. If more people volunteered, and if people finally got it into their heads not to breed or buy any more non-human animals, people would see less or no more stray dogs suffering, not only at Ta’ Qali, but anywhere at all.

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