Getting the public to understand the difference between animal rights and animal welfare is the first step in fighting the growing and often misleading animal rights movement, according to a Montreal consultant.
Alan Herscovici, author of Second Nature: The Animal Rights Controversy, suggests an underlying contradiction of the animal rights movement in North America and Europe. He told the fifth annual meeting of the Foundation for Animal Care of Saskatchewan the animal rights movement here is far behind other regions.
“You don’t have a particularly difficult problem here in Saskatchewan, but you’re probably the last place that can say that,” Herscovici said.
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“But if you think this is not an issue, think again because it is very intense even if you’re not seeing it here.”
Making a distinction between animal rights and animal welfare is the most important first step to understanding both sides of the movement, he said.
“It is still not well understood today that animal rights is not the same as animal welfare, which is the responsible care of the animals we use,” he said.
“It has nothing to do with animal rights, which promotes no use whatsoever … even if a rat was used to cure AIDS they could care less.”
Animal rights supporters say humans don’t have special rights over animals, he said.
“‘If you raise animals and eat them, why shouldn’t you do that to people?’ They’re going into classrooms and telling kids this kind of stuff,” he said.
The industry has to build alliances and create a well-informed animal welfare network that can fight against animal rightists, he said.
“The name of their game is divide and conquer, so you have to explain what you do and get that message to the pubic,” he said.
He pointed to several trends in the animal rights movement in the past few years:
- Groups are more politically sophisticated, Herscovici said. “They are very good at running polls and politicians are run by polls,” he warned. “Keep that in mind.”
- Greater participation on government committees, which shows they are gaining credibility in the mainstream.
- Popularity is increasing, especially among single, educated, white females, which make up 75 percent of the movement, he said.
