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Should government allow 25,000 cattle to starve or does it allow them to graze (until the next wet season) in protected nature reserves where they will certainly damage the natural environment? If this is an accurate way of posing the issues – I am unsure that the choices are as stark as this* – there is [...] A group of barbarian hunters went on a rampage over the last few days and wiped out close to 1000 birds in a Victorian wetland. They didn’t hunt for a feed but to gain pleasure from killing. 600 ducks killed were left where they were shot. The killers also shot raptors, black swans and other [...] The images coming out of Egypt of Australian cattle being tortured by some* dehumanised cretins demand that the live export of animals for food to that country end. Why is it Animals Australia that always uncovers these hideous outcomes? Why not the official inspection agencies? How can anyone have confidence in Minister Ludwig’s claim that 99.9% [...] What animals should be assigned moral status? Some (like Peter Singer) draw the lines at crustaceans and shrimp? What about octopuses (octopi?) These creatures have remarkable intelligences including the ability to change their colour to suit their environment. They also have remarkable straightforward reasoning power in anthropocentric terms. I liked this piece in the NY Review of [...] I was interested to read in the NYT that in a dozen US states it is now (i) Illegal for unauthorised whistle-blowers to make videos of workers harming farm animals and (ii) that any such videos must be turned into the authorities and not screened. The grounds seem to be that this form of whistle-blowing [...] This is probably the silliest op-ed I have seen in many years. At least on conservation issues. It argues that seeking to control feral cats is unnecessary since there is no evidence linking species extinctions to feral cat predation. It doubles up on the stupidity by arguing that the dislike of feral [...] I am doing some work on environmental and specifically animal ethics. Comments appreciated on this first draft on the animal ethics topic. (941) [...] I am a somewhat uncomfortable carnivore who eats meat daily. Uncomfortable because I value the life of all sentient beings but continue to eat the flesh of animals killed for human consumption. There are standard arguments I can plausibly tell to justify this practice (it encourages additional animals to gain access to life etc) [...] I am pleased that the issue of animal cruelty has been raised in relation to the ritual killing of sheep and other animals for Jewish and Muslim consumers. It is important that humans extend their scope of welfare concerns to both all forms of human life and to non-human life as well. This is not [...] Throughout my life I have been a somewhat hypocritical carnivore. I eat meat (and invest in agricultural businesses) but fundamentally dislike the notion of killing animals for food. The best way I can live with this hypocrisy is to seek to promote humane treatment of the animals that as a human I do eat. I [...] I was delighted to see an advertisement on CCTV Beijing where a legendary Chinese basket baller, the 7 foot 6 inch, Yao Min, rejects a plate of shark’s fin soup. In fact, as I later found out, he has been pursuing a campaign against the appalling practice of ‘finning’ (removal of a shark’s fin and then dumping [...] This provocative piece “The Meat Eaters” by Jeff McMahan in NYT has aroused much negative comment. The idea is an extension of ‘animal liberation’ and ‘vegen’ philosophy. The question: Should we arrange for the gradual extinction of all carnivores so that only herbivores remain in order to avoid animal suffering? (1114) [...] Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in his address to the Australian Parliament said of the relations between Indonesia and Australia: ‘The most persistent problem in our relations is the persistence of age-old stereotypes, misleading simplistic mental caricatures which depict the other side in a bad light.’ (117) [...] With the Great Leader Kim Jong Il’s interest in nuclear proliferation this tends to be where the West’s diplomatic focus tends to be in relation to North Korean affairs – its atrocious human rights record tends to be placed in the back-burner – even by South Korea. This excellent article in the Washington Post – [...] This issue of animal rights just will not go away. The author Nicholas Kristof is referring to: ‘… the stunning passage in California, by nearly a 2-to-1 majority, of an animal rights ballot initiative that will ban factory farms from keeping calves, pregnant hogs or egg-laying hens in tiny pens or cages in which they [...] |
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