Is Animal Welfare fake?

[Count of Cutesy]

It seems like every day, I notice more and more hatred to non-humans, especially from "Animal Welfare" supporters.

Supposedly, animal welfare is the welfare of animals that says that animals should not be killed injustly unless it's necessary. And in most cases, "necessary" is at basically any time. The Animal Welfare supporters I've met act like they don't even care about animals. They talk about how killing this animal will help other animals, or how killing those animals help endangered species, and how meat, fur, and animal testing are god-send. They also act like animal lovers, REAL ONES, and vegetarians are such awful people. But if they even hear that an animal is being benefited, they shriek. They talk as if every saying anything nice about animals without the support of death means they have dishonored themselves and should commit Seppuku/HaraKiri. In reality, the only animal's welfare they care about is human welfare. Animals can die for all they care. ...That's how "Animal Welfare" supporters act, anyway.

[Kio]

I always hear mention of animal welfare charities causing more death to non-humans than anyone else. My parents are pesco-vegetarian but eat meat substitutes, as well, hence I eat the same, don't understand why some people are against any form of vegetarianism. I mean I see nothing wrong with the natural chain of food, but when you think about it, humans seem very abusive of animals they treat as a source of meat, the industry is practically a factory process. Besides, that, I understand people's beliefs differ here but I see it more as hypocrisy among these so called "animal welfare" groups. I think a lot of welfare supporters seem to just like the drama, the rush behind the protests, they care more for rebellion than what they are rebellious about. It reminds me of the pro-anarchist punks, you think so much for anarchy when you realize now that those people are now older and probably wouldn't survive an anarchist society.


And at the moment in the UK they want to kill foxes (before they were after badgers), although they aren't a problem at all. Though, recently, apparently a wild fox bit a finger off of a human baby and I find that odd because the baby was in their cot and the weather has been fairly cold so I neither understand how they would have got in or gone for the baby and not the obvious sources of food like the kitchen if they were that hungry. I know foxes and there's even a neighborhood one who always eats food that my parents leave for them (I don't go close in case they get over-used to people), other people can be anti about it attracting them but they live in the town regardless / come around anyway and if they don't get fed then they might just go for people's pets. But I don't understand why animal welfare is not working against things like this instead of aiming for cases of poverty (humans experience poverty, so you can see that their pets will also), I think they should be fending more against malicious cruelty and unnecessary culls...
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/blogs/foxes_to_cull_or_not_to_cull_1_1926962 (PS I'm not from Kent)

[Count of Cutesy]

I just don't what to think of the whole Animal Rights/Animal Welfare debate.

[Kio]

Tbh, I agree with animal rights, but I don't agree with people using it for their own ego / enjoyment who don't really care for the true cause. But then it makes you think, would anyone volunteer for that? A lot of people in society who really support animal rights are working all the time so they don't get the chance to volunteer for legitimate causes. It's kind of a difficult thing because "rights" seems quite a human concept, yet without it applied to non-human animals, humans who don't care may well be at risk of destroying certain species, especially ones depleting. As said, it is hard to come to a conclusion because the whole thing is a bit messy, to leave it how it is, would this not be better for animals, or would changing things in hope of improvement only to cause more debates and risks. That kind of makes me want to leave it alone. What can I do on my own, for example? What can be done and for who and for what species, exactly? In what cases? It's actually a very diverse ethical topic.

[Count of Cutesy]

I know a bunch of people on a site I go to who are basically evil. They say they support animal welfare, yet they also support trophy hunting, factory farming, poisoning, leg traps, being hypocrites towards vegetarians by forcing meat on people, and all sorts of things that most certainly do NOT involve the welfare of animals.

[Kio]

I get you, if you are in direct support you should be able to give up anything of hypocrisy almost religiously, if not it just seems inconsistent. Though, I respect people's opinions on certain things may vary, but when people see the hypocrisy it just shows, like you said, they aren't really in it for the animals. They also remind me of witch hunters, they pick on the potential and weaker cases like people who own certain animals without a license (even if they are being looked after), then innocent suffer and even for the ones that don't particularly support this, the ones that are choosy hypocrites just make it even more confusing as to core intentions, hence stereotypes. I'm not always sure who to believe, though, I don't like disturbing the status quo only to make things worse or those that are trying to support seem like they shouldn't be trying at all in some senses. Yeah, best to stay out of it, I often think. Rather less talk, more action if it were case. The goal is clear for animal rights, but the opposition should be the other side, seems animal welfare are both friend and foe and that just outweighs things negatively.

[anoni]

I, personally, am not an activist of animal rights but I do like to say I believe that animals should have rights. I suppose, the reason I say that is because yes, I do believe animals shouldn't be tortured or deprived of many rights, but at the same time I really like meat xD. I think I'd be one of those people you are talking about, but I guess society in general, or at least a lot of people, are like that and the reason is because we don't want to feel bad, and we do actually believe animals should have rights, but at the same time we don't want to go on radical life-style changes either. It's with everything, not just with animal rights, the person who doesn't like global warming will still keep his air conditioner on at night, or will still sometimes not recycle, just as examples. We do care about the issue, but we don't want to do things like give up meat entirely, because to us that's too radical of a lifestyle change.
  As for hunting I'm against that, but if a friend says "I'm going hunting" I'm not going to give them a lecture about why it's bad, simply because I'll know that'll just piss him off and won't actually fix the problem. As well, I do justify killing animals if they are invading a natural animals territory. For example, if a foreign species of animals is eating the food and thus starving a domestic species of animals, it's actually probably good to some how remove the foreign species. If we can remove them without killing them that's great, but I dunno how we would. The foreign species got there by human intervention and will pretty much entirely wipe out the native species that existed there originally, the foreign species is a weed and usually we get rid of weeds, someway or another.

  I mean, I guess my opinions aren't optimum, it would be great if I didn't take part in any of that stuff, if I became a vegetarian or vegan or something, if I used the minimum amount of electricity possible and if I saved as much water as possible and what not. But the truth is I just simply don't want to, because I like to life comfortably.

[Kio]

I, personally, am not an activist of animal rights but I do like to say I believe that animals should have rights. I suppose, the reason I say that is because yes, I do believe animals shouldn't be tortured or deprived of many rights, but at the same time I really like meat xD. I think I'd be one of those people you are talking about, but I guess society in general, or at least a lot of people, are like that and the reason is because we don't want to feel bad, and we do actually believe animals should have rights, but at the same time we don't want to go on radical life-style changes either. It's with everything, not just with animal rights, the person who doesn't like global warming will still keep his air conditioner on at night, or will still sometimes not recycle, just as examples. We do care about the issue, but we don't want to do things like give up meat entirely, because to us that's too radical of a lifestyle change.
  As for hunting I'm against that, but if a friend says "I'm going hunting" I'm not going to give them a lecture about why it's bad, simply because I'll know that'll just piss him off and won't actually fix the problem. As well, I do justify killing animals if they are invading a natural animals territory. For example, if a foreign species of animals is eating the food and thus starving a domestic species of animals, it's actually probably good to some how remove the foreign species. If we can remove them without killing them that's great, but I dunno how we would. The foreign species got there by human intervention and will pretty much entirely wipe out the native species that existed there originally, the foreign species is a weed and usually we get rid of weeds, someway or another.

  I mean, I guess my opinions aren't optimum, it would be great if I didn't take part in any of that stuff, if I became a vegetarian or vegan or something, if I used the minimum amount of electricity possible and if I saved as much water as possible and what not. But the truth is I just simply don't want to, because I like to life comfortably.

Eating meat is a bit of a gray area for me, I grow up on a pesco-vegetarian diet (as mentioned previously) because of my parents, but I am concerned for a) how much animals are wasted (i.e. not even eaten), b) hurt, c) killed at a unnecessary high amount (especially for gluttony). When you're in the wild it's often kill or die, I find that respectable, especially considering it being nature but if human society as a whole wants to be a so called "higher race" (which is their own invented concept, btw), I feel they have to start being more responsible, humans could live alongside nature as a large race but a large race sustaining itself on sentient animals is going to result in cruelty. Which is why scientists are often trying to find meat substitutes, healthy ones already exist, some are pretty good and if you've got sensitive teeth a lot of meat substitutes have far less bristle and corrosive acids, I'm not sure if I agree with meat grown in a lab, though (considering organs may have some form of residual/psychic memory, google "body memory" which could be arguably a sign of semi-sentience). I doubt humans will see evolution past reliance on meat for perhaps many millennia, if ever. Hell, I won't force this ideology onto others, but I'm happy to suggest it. May be it'd take a few world wars and other breaks in society for this to happen (providing those wars aren't highly destructive, that'd no doubt result in regression on the matter).


And I agree that it's not just with animal rights, hypocrisy and contradiction is a strong trait in humankind, and it's no doubt why humans express humor a lot (i.e. they enjoy these contradictions as an extra sense of emotion). Although, I think it is a survival trait in all beings, through error you learn, but oftentimes for more subconscious things, humans have a habit of using it in humor to strike an ego (which is often also boosted by a sense of material worth - such as money) instead of taking it on board with thought, and I feel this leads to the ignorance we see. Although, everybody is ignorant in some degree, but it's only those who care that are affected by their error, this may be innocent animals or innocent humans (let's say plants, too?)


I don't agree with hunting, either, unless your life really does truly depend on it, and it should really be a fair match, targeting the weak is of prime, the weaker get killed first by predators and this asks beneficial to the hunted race in a sense it helps reduce any weakness in the gene pool, humans seem to more often go for the strongest just to prove a challenge. Besides that, those hunters nowadays that are human can go to a convenience store or supermarket, which makes their killing in high cases murderous if not simply damn right unnecessary.


"For example, if a foreign species of animals is eating the food and thus starving a domestic species of animals"
That's very rare to affect domestic species, besides something would need to attract the foreign species, to protect the domestic animals it is an owner's responsibility to keep the foreign species out, and in most cases this would not require a cull but said owners may well just not be bothered to spend money on such defenses, I find that makes them liable. If you did that with foreign humans, though, I add, now that'd cause some severe ethical issues to kill them for invading, that's why there's such things as "border defenses". If both species are wild, I don't really think humans have a right to intervene, unless they have somehow caused the desperation among certain species, and in that case it's the humans' fault and they shouldn't have caused the issue in the first place. Also, weeds, no need to describe them negatively, they're just another species trying to survive, really, you could say by that logic humans are weeds to this Earth, similarly as some other species are, life can be a viscous battle.


Also, I don't really believe in man-made global warming, natural history shows that climate change has been extreme throughout history and man-made issues are usually from where man has built on dangerous territory, the Earth is forever changing and the surface is never calm, just we witness it relatively slowly. It's like scientists reckon they knew the global temperature before the technology was even conceived, that's not a safe concept, you can't really verify technology works for the past if you have not traveled "into" the past, there is no empirical evidence. Note that any man-made source of climate change is more likely to do with the mass destruction of forests and not fuel pollution, after all, is it not plants that absorb the "greenhouse gases"? You are sitting/stood on a ball of liquid rock and metal orbiting a ball of plasma in a vast void of space, orbiting a super-massive black hole. Albeit, my main concerns is that the governments are trying to get people to spend money to work against climate change, when ironically it seems they only talk about this when they are low on profits themselves, I find that fishy.


Of course, that's my opinion, I think most are aware of this, just it seems unnecessary to many to change, as for what does any generation do? Live, die? That's the point people realize it's not really a bother, and when the likes of animal welfare participants are usually a bunch of volunteers seeking their own life purpose in dramatic protests rather than caring for animals. Until I get to be the ruler of the world (which I wouldn't really want, tbh), I can't really do anything so meh.


PS: Excuse the wall of text, just trying to give out some reasoning to my views.

[Count of Cutesy]

I'm not against eating meat. I'm an omnivore myself. I just strongly dislike omnivores who are huge hypocrites.

[Kio]

Yeah, that's kind of more a timely thing, I'd support less of an abusive meat industry but I don't feel I would force anything against it as that would cause issues that linger for a long time (processed animals probably wouldn't be able to survive long due to bred/engineered human reliance, apparently, don't know how true that is, but population of such altered animals might become a... well... "domestic" issue). That said, to sum I've no issue with carnivorism, but the meat industry. To add, although death is not involved (necessarily), the likes of the dairy industry can be very abusive if not cruel. I wouldn't give up fish but then in regards to ship-based fishing the fish have a chance of a escape and in a way it's not as bad, especially considering the amount of nutritional benefits of such seafood (land meat nutrients can be also found in plants, such as mycoproteins, although about 50,000 in 7 billion people (est pop max) would perhaps experience some kind of symptom). Still, getting a bit off-topic here.

[anoni]

Ok well I only have two points.

1. There has been an example of a foreign species killing a lot of domestic species here in Australia, the introduction of the cane toad in Australia has caused some severe side effects. The toads eat much of the food the domestic animals eat and if the domestic animals eat the cane toad, the animals die as the cane toad is poisonous. That sounds ok, because that's just normal life, but in this sense the cane-toads have spread [so abnormally quickly] that they've become an extreme threat to our natural flora and animals. So we had to do our best to exterminate the cane toad out of our territory.

2. Yes, the world does change and yes, it's already been stated that global warming will happen eventually. But generally evidence shows that it's happening [faster] than normally expected, and the most likely cause of that is the fossil fuel effect and other damages on the environment. These have been shown many times with tests and charts that predict the time in which we SHOULD be starting to see the effects, and the time we are ACTUALLY seeing these effects. Think of it like death, everyone inevitably dies, yet we still try to make sure people live a healthy life-style, because then they won't die as quickly. By doing our best to stop global warming and climate change, we are delaying the inevitably, but we want to delay it, as much as possible.

Also foreign humans do get killed when they invade, usually ending up in a war.

[Count of Cutesy]

I'm all for hunting evasive species, but... Ugh... Those people I mentioned before have been on my mind for so long. I wish I could stand up to those two, but I have a friend on DeviantArt who's seriously effected by them. And every time I get into an argument with them, he feels depressed and acts like he's such an awful person for caring about animals. I wish I could do something to exploit those frauds, though.

[Kio]

Ok well I only have two points.

1. There has been an example of a foreign species killing a lot of domestic species here in Australia, the introduction of the cane toad in Australia has caused some severe side effects. The toads eat much of the food the domestic animals eat and if the domestic animals eat the cane toad, the animals die as the cane toad is poisonous. That sounds ok, because that's just normal life, but in this sense the cane-toads have spread [so abnormally quickly] that they've become an extreme threat to our natural flora and animals. So we had to do our best to exterminate the cane toad out of our territory.

2. Yes, the world does change and yes, it's already been stated that global warming will happen eventually. But generally evidence shows that it's happening [faster] than normally expected, and the most likely cause of that is the fossil fuel effect and other damages on the environment. These have been shown many times with tests and charts that predict the time in which we SHOULD be starting to see the effects, and the time we are ACTUALLY seeing these effects. Think of it like death, everyone inevitably dies, yet we still try to make sure people live a healthy life-style, because then they won't die as quickly. By doing our best to stop global warming and climate change, we are delaying the inevitably, but we want to delay it, as much as possible.

Also foreign humans do get killed when they invade, usually ending up in a war.

1. There must be some way to prevent them in the first place, though, it's like rats it's the human waste that often attracts them so thus it is human fault. And how would you kill a toad? Poison? Wouldn't that also be a threat to the domestic species in question, other domestic species, the other wildlife?


2. According to history, the world has been getting cooler, for example, the climate was cooler during the roman invasion period and this shows that a lot of man-made climate change is downright shaky at its best. I've also noted that ironically the "top scientists" behind believing the whole man-made global warming idea happened to grow up in the so called "hippie tree-hugging" era, which makes me think it's all woo on their part with the government only in support of it for "green tax" propaganda.  There are more inevitable causes of death to worry about from natural disaster in general than the hypothesis of man-made climate change. The surface count of man-made chemical release is not exactly large, either, especially considering how much this planet has put up with things in the past, and a basic process is that if the world ever gets too hot, the clouds will block out the sun more and cool the temperature. All the contradictory statistics behind man-made global warming seems to rely on pseudoscience that has never really been verified due to the fact mankind hasn't had the technology or lived long enough as a race to tell, I do think man causes environmental issues, however, such as the disposal of waste and like said, cutting down the world's forests and jungles. Nonetheless, I won't believe it, especially considering the exploit of taxes when most persons seem well over-charged, anyway, but not everyone can afford this and those that suffer the most are the ones that are the least contributing (for example, those who can't afford fuel or electricity very easily).


"Also foreign humans do get killed when they invade, usually ending up in a war."
That doesn't stop immigration, I live in the UK and many around here don't seem very English anymore, which serves a few domestic issues, some time ago that would have sparked a war, yet it happens in all countries all the time now, at the expense of the native. Yet we don't kill these persons, and they don't deserve to be punished really for coming to somewhere that seems to be the land of "milk and honey". As a hence there is a lot of independence vs union politics in Western Europe. The ethics are very similar in the case of foreign species culling, when I mentioned this I was referring mostly to the recent want among alarmists for culling foxes in the UK, yet there has been no change if not a reduction in the fox population which I say makes the turn pointless and malicious.

[Bandal]

Animal welfare has a lot of bits and pieces to it and like any sort of cause their are varying levels of supporters from the people who just give lip service to the extremists who generally cause more harm then good with the majority somewhere in the middle. It is a real issue and their are people who generally care I think you may have just run into some of the bad apples . As for meat eating although their are some bad practices in the industry that should be curtailed I'm fine with the consumption of meat in general. Although for those who are really concerned with killing another creature it may still be possible to eat meat since it is possible to grow meat in a lab without ever being part of an organism. Although not practical currently in terms of costs in a decade or so who knows  .

I terms of invasive species some of them are going to get across eventually with all the travel we do now. One of the best examples is the brown tree snake which stowed away on cargo and traveled from it's native habitat to Guam. The snake quickly devastated many of the native bird species who had no natural defence against the thing. Consequently the population of the brown snake exploded while the birds slowly depleted .  The best we can do is try to have more thorough inspections of traveling vessels before and after they reach their destination. If we catch them early they can be weeded out pretty quickly.

Although I certainly have my own opinions on the climate change issues that is a bit off topic maybe we should make another topic so this one isn't derailed ?

[Count of Cutesy]

I wish I could link to the ones I met before, but unfortunately it's against the rules. I just want to stand up to those guys, but... I'm just not strong enough. To make matters worse, I have a friend on that site who gets upset every time I'm in a conflict with them. I want to expose those guys so badly, but I want my friend more.