Re: Appreciate animals for their animal attributes, Nov. 11.
I find Barb Glen’s column confusing. She refers to the public’s anthropomorphism as a reason behind the success of animal rights activists in “staking out the moral high ground to fight animal agriculture.”
The purpose of animal rights activists is not to stake out ground, morally high or otherwise. We, if indeed the Vancouver Humane Society is included in her generalization, simply want to reduce the amount of animal suffering, and in the most effective way possible.
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Secondly, animals don’t need to be given human characteristics in order to make a case that they’re suffering on conventional farms. In fact, animal rights activists use established scientific evidence, not anthropomorphism, to expose the cruelty inherent in many common agricultural practices.
Take, for example, battery farms. Dr. Ian Duncan has spent an entire career doing research that provides clear and irrefutable scientific evidence that hens suffer in battery cages. He states: “Battery cages for laying hens have been shown (by me and others) to cause extreme frustration, particularly when the hen wants to lay an egg. Battery cages are being phased out in Europe and other more humane husbandry systems are being developed.”
In addition, Dr. Bernard Rollin states: “Virtually all aspects of hen behaviour are thwarted by battery cages: social behaviour, nesting behaviour, the ability to move and flap wings, dustbathing, space requirements, scratching for food, exercise, pecking at objects on the ground….
“The most obvious problem is lack of exercise and natural movement. Under free-range conditions, hens walk a great deal. Wing flapping, which is common in free-range animals, is also prevented in cages. Comfort behaviour is likewise truncated, as is leg stretching and preening. Research has confirmed what common sense already knew-animals built to move must move.”
Yet, 98 percent of Canada’s hens are still kept in battery cages.
I can’t help but finish with the observation thatThe Western Produceritself is repeatedly guilty of that which it exhorts others not to do. Case in point: Craig’s View, Nov. 18. A cartoon picturing a chicken sitting on a cow’s head beside a horse and a pig, stating in clear English, that “Animal abuse affects us all.”
Perhaps those in the farming community, including those who write forThe Western Producer,should stop trying to blame others for the public’s increasing lack of trust in animal agriculture and try to do something to deal with its problems.
Debra Probert,Executive Director,
Vancouver Humane Society Vancouver, B.C.
