Animal Rights Quotes by Roedy

Quotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please, including on your own website, blog, social media page or forum debate posts.

h2>Things Are Getting Better

1. In Roman times, people gathered in the Colosseum to watch people and imported wild animals killing each other.
2. In the middle ages, people would put a cat into a bag and roast it over a fire.
3. In the early 1900s, people would watch dog fights and cock fights.
4. In the 1950s, Thais would watch betta fish fight.
5. In the 2000s, wealthy Americans would go to Africa to shoot tamed endangered animals confined to pens.
6. In 2016, people watched TV of fish and animals being killed on fishing and hunting channels.
7. In 2017, people would watch large exotic arthropods fight on Youtube.
8. In 2017, people watch movies and video games in 3D with CGI showing people and animals fighting.

The distressing thing is humans are just as sadistic as ever. It is just they are now willing to put up with more simulation, so long as it is realistic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Acceptable Cruelty

It is acceptable cruelty to catch whales in fish and crab nets and drown them. It is acceptable cruelty to make noise so loud under water it deafens whale so they can no longer communicate or find food. It is acceptably cruel to hold whales in extremely small ponds until they die in solitary confinement in cells relatively smaller than the cells used to break the will of human prisoners, simply for the entertainment of human children. The only cruelties that sometimes count are ones guaranteed to lead to species extinction within 5 years. Imagine if that were the only limit on cruelty to fellow humans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Acceptable Cruelty

What is an acceptable level of animal cruelty? One way to figure it out is to ask yourself would it be acceptable to do this to humans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Activities of the Intelligent

What do intelligent species do that non-intelligent ones do not? Use tools, communicate with language and torture.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Communication

We have so far identified 70 different cries that elephants use to communicate. Alex the grey parrot leaned to use, not just parrot, 150 words. Washoe the chimpanzee learned 350 words of ASL (American Sign Language). Uneducated humans use about 500 words. Educated ones make do with about 800. The range of human contemplation is not that much greater than other animals.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Compact

We humans have a sort of compact with domestic animals. We protect them from predators, we ensure they have food, we protect their health. In return they give us milk and meat. I think we are obligated to give them lives free from cruelty, reasonably close to life in the wild. But we have reneged. We care not a whit for their well being. Everything is for human convenience. We cheated. We ripped them off.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Cruelty

Some people argue that since animals cannot reason as well as humans, it does not matter if humans treat them cruelly. Yet when a human is born with brain damage, preventing them from reasoning, we still treat them humanely. What really counts is can they suffer.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Cruelty Video

Imagine the outrage at a reality TV show where people shot puppies and kittens with arrows and guns and inserted hooks in their mouths and dragged them behind vehicles. These shows are common, except that the animals selected for maltreatment are deer, moose, ducks and fish.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal ESP (Extra Sensory Perception)

Of course, animals have extra sensory perception, but it is only extra-sensory relative to humans. To dolphins, ultrasound is sensory, to elephants, infrasound is sensory and to dog, the ability to detect emotions in others through enhanced sense of smell is no magic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Rights

Animals, even ones more intelligent than humans, such as cetacea and elephants have no rights at all in human law. It is much like the apartheid system where black people or Palestinians have no rights and everyone sees this as natural because religious tradition bestows special status on those currently with rights. The smug delusion of superiority that sustains apartheid is one of the least attractive features of humans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Transport

In Canada, animals (cattle, pigs, horses) are trucked to slaughter on trips up to 36 hours without water. They are packed without space between them like slaves on a ship. There are three layers so feces drop from the higher layers onto the lower. The temperatures are so high that animals die of heat stroke. Industry makes the absurd claim that the longer the trip the lower the mortality. The industry charged a woman with attempting to poison the food supply when she offered a pig frothing at the mouth some water.

When humans travel, they have access to water. They have space enough to turn around. The air is kept at a reasonable temperature. There is decent ventilation. Animals deserve the same treatment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animals are Sentient

People I don’t like often call for increased cruelty to animals on the grounds they are not sentient. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary Luxury Edition defines sentient as able to perceive or feel things. A rabbit has ears to hear, eyes to see, a nose to smell. It clearly can feel pain, fear and sexual excitement. Clearly it is sentient. How can anyone in their right mind claim rabbits, whales, dolphins, seals, cattle, fish… are not sentient? It must be that these people don’t know what the word means. They seem to use the word to mean, I care about it’s welfare.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Arquebus

The Spanish arquebus, the forerunner of the rifle, was designed primarily to kill horses during battles.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Banning Factory Eggs

I think the selling of eggs except free range eggs should be illegal. Those caught buying or selling should be treated with the same disdain we had for Michael Vick.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Beluga Captivity

The Vancouver Public Aquarium is debating whether to continue keeping belugas in captivity. They offer two main advantages to doing this:

• They increase ticket sales.
• The allow scientists easy access to them for study.

To them, the belugas are just great slabs of meat. Their welfare does not matter, even though they have brains larger than humans. I oppose holding belugas in captivity on the grounds it is inhumane.

• In the wild, belugas swim over 80 km (49.71 miles) a day. Keeping them in such confined tanks is like binding a boy in a plaster cast.
• Belugas have a phobia of dashing on the rocks. The tank keeps them from moving, close to echo-reflecting cement sides that sonically look like rocks.
• The ancient Hawaiians used to hunt dolphins (a relative of the beluga) by taking two rocks and smashing them together under water. The loud sound would rupture the dolphins’ ear drums. They would leap from the water with blood streaming from their ears. The aquarium encourages mothers to bring their young children to view the belugas. The children naturally pound on the glass. The staff make no attempt to stop them. There nowhere in the tank free of the racket.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blood Festival

This sounds so bizarre, you may think I am putting you on. Have a look at the photos. In each of the mountain villages in Peru, once a year, the people capture one of Peru’s 600 endangered condors and lash it to the back of a bull. The terrified bull and condor then try to kill each other to cheers of the town’s people including the children. The Peruvians justify this animal cruelty on the grounds it is traditional and they consider it symbolic of liberation from Spain. Because of the popularity of the spectacles, the federal authorities turn a blind eye.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bull Baiting = Rodeos

In Shakespear’s time, genteel people watched bull baiting. They did not consider it cruel. They had been doing it for centuries. Similarly, in modern day Canada, we have rodeos. It never occurs to the audience the cowboys are tormenting the animals no matter how they bellow, buck and struggle or how many animals are killed each year.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bull Fighting

To this day, the Spanish torment and kill bulls for amusement. If we can demand the end to cock fights and dog fights surely it is time to end bull fights world wide. If they refuse, then the rest of the world should boycott all Spanish goods and services.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Butchering Vocabulary

I find it disgusting the way hunters refer to harvesting as if they had planted and cultivated the moose like pumpkins, or game as if killing moose were like some carnival game. The proper word is killing or shooting.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Caged Eggs

We don’t need to ban caged eggs. A photograph on the box of what the chickens contend with should shame people into avoiding them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Captive Cetaceans

By keeping cetaceans with brains bigger than theirs cooped up for years the Vancouver aquarium staff proved to me they were interested only in the well-being and education of humans. They had almost no interest in the interest of the cetaceans. They treated them like cattle rather than the highly intelligent, highly social animals they are. I don’t believe their argument for rescuing and keeping cetaceans in captivity was sincere. They were just looking for a backdoor way to get new animals for display. Thankfully the Vancouver Parks board has said enough.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cat Cruelty

In the 14th century a popular game for two people was to nail a cat to a post, then compete to batter it to death with their heads, at the risk of cheeks ripped open, or eyes scratched out by the frantic animal’s claws.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Cat Psi

Cats have a strange mental power to command humans to send fleets of ships out to fetch them fish.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Chickens are Not Vegetarians

A diet of pure grain is no more suitable for a cow or a chicken than it is for a human. Meat producers tout it as if it were preferable to their natural diets.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christian Arrogance

One of the beliefs of the Christians I find particularly odious is that they claim their sky fairy created the entire universe just for them. Our earth is 4.543 billion years old. Yahweh did not care about any of the species that evolved until about 6 million years ago when a hominid evolved almost genetically identical to a chimp. They are so conceited they believe it is moral to impose any imaginable suffering on any of the other 8.7 million species, including extinction, for the tiniest convenience of a human.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christian Parable

This is a parable. There was once a village that had been continuously occupied for thousands of years. Then some new people moved in. At first they did their best to fit in, but then they started stealing food and then pushing existing people off their land claiming it belonged to them. Their religion forced them to keep their females continuously pregnant starting at puberty ending only at menopause. They rapidly overwhelmed the village by sheer numbers. They started killing other villagers claiming there were stealing food, since the new comers claimed title to all the land. (Their holy book gave them title.) I hope you were clever enough to guess that the village was earth before people and the new people were humans, though I would not fault you if you thought I was talking about the Jewish takeover of Palestine.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cock Fighting

Today in America there are still some people who enjoy watching cocks fight with blades attached to their feet or pit bulls fight to the death, but few yearn to watch a cat burned alive or a human broken on a wheel. This is progress.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Coconuts vs Sharks

In Australia, each year coconuts kill 25 people and sharks 10. Yet you don’t see hunters out exterminating coconuts on the pretext of protecting people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Commerce in Babies

To be consistent, if you disapprove of buying and selling humans or human babies, you should also oppose the buying and selling creatures of other species, especially fellow intelligent species like whales, dolphins and elephants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Compassion For Other Species

Nearly all man’s woes stem from his lack of compassion for other species. Huh? How could that be? Man’s problems are nearly all about destroying the environment that sustains him. If he had any consideration at all for other species, he would not do that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cowardly Spanish Bull Fights

I don’t care how long they have been doing it, the Spanish bull fights are barbaric and cowardly. It is time they stopped. The French fight the bulls fairly without swords, risking their own necks, but not harming the bulls.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Criminal Cetaceans

The Vancouver Public Aquarium has been incarcerating cetacea for life, often in solitary, in cells so small they can barely turn around. Dolphins in the wild range over 80.47 km (50 miles) each day. The captives have committed no crime. The aquarium staff justified this injustice because it was educational for children. It would be much more educational to view these animals in the wild. The aquarium staff seem to think of cetaceans as sea cattle they can abuse as they please, not intelligent creatures with brains bigger than theirs. Thankfully the Vancouver Parks board has said enough.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dangerous Animals

Most people know that keeping an adult chimpanzee in your house is not a wise idea. They could at any time eat your face off, rip off your testicles, slit your belly open, and bite off all your fingers. Most people know that keeping a trained bear or tiger requires extreme care. But people get quite careless about keeping pit bulls or orcas. Some Christian sects risk their children’s lives by forcing them to handle poisonous snakes. What is the error these people make? They look at the usual docile behaviour and ignore the potential for violent behaviour. If a creature has fangs, the fangs are there for a reason. It is only a matter of the right constellation of circumstances and they will use them. The same is true for humans who carry knives, guns or nuclear weapons.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dawn of Animal Rights

The first animal rights legislation was passed in Ireland in 1635. It prohibited pulling wool off sheep and attaching ploughs to horses’ tails.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deafening Dogs

10% of Dalmatians born are deaf. Imagine selectively breeding humans to be deaf. We would not put up with it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing with Warming

Americans have emitted so much greenhouse gas that it is causing record temperatures. Americans deal with it with trips to the beach, iced drinks and air conditioning. The wild animals have access to no such relief.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deformed Dogs

The canine nose is a masterpiece of evolution. For dogs, it has replaced sight as the primary sense organ. Breeding dogs with pushed-in faces that deform the nose is deliberately blinding them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Development Is Poison to Other Species

People claim that more development is needed to support growing populations to save threatened species. Development always hurts other species. Human population growth always hurts other species. Trying to save threatened species with development is like try to put out a fire with gasoline.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disability Consistency

If humans with severe disabilities are still considered persons in the law, then any animal than shows similar functionality should enjoy the legal protections of personhood too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disturbing the Peace

I would like to see snowmobiles, motor cycles, ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles) and any other noisy vehicles banned from wilderness areas. Using them is similar to driving down city streets drunk with bums hanging out the windows shouting. They show complete disrespect for other humans and other species using the area too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Do Fish Feel Pain?

Read Do Fish Feel Pain? by Victoria Braithwaite for the latest science. To a child, it is obvious fish indeed feel pain. They writhe when poked, same as people. Science now concurs.

Even a genius like René Descartes got it wrong. Even though he knew full-well that fish and humans had almost identical nervous systems, he ignored that evidence and swallowed an ancient Catholic superstition, that people have invisible, undetectable souls but all animals including fish do not. Therefore men are conscious and fish are not. Therefore people feel pain but fish do not.

According to Catholicism, fish are like robots that just pretend to feel pain. His Catholic mother drummed into him the Catholic doctrine that animals have no rights of any kind. God created them for the sole purpose of pleasing humans. They can not actually feel pain no matter how it looks. This rationalisation allowed people of the time to indulge extreme brutality toward all animals with a clear conscience.

Anyone who has kept tropical fish, like myself, is frustrated by the aggressive ignorance of people who enjoy finding inventive ways to make fish miserable, but never stop for a second to study them. They remind me of the ignorance and denial of slave owners.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dog Fighting

In rural Alabama, the biggest business is dog fighting. They capture local pets for bait animals. The locals are known for taking the law into their own hands. They drove out the drug dealers, but they are afraid of the dog fighters whose clients include large crowds of the most wealthy Alabamans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dogs Or Chickens

In Thailand, gangs round up wild and pet dogs and smuggle them into Viet Nam. There they force feed them. Then they skin them alive in front of the other dogs awaiting this treatment and boil them in pots. The meat sells for three times pork because superstition claims it cures erectile dysfunction. The process spreads rabies. Westerners hearing this are usually horrified and perhaps may fantasise about skinning the dog killers alive. Yet the westerners hire people to do pretty much the same thing to chickens and think nothing of it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dolphin Frustration

When I was working at the Human Dolphin Foundation, Dr. John Lilly told me this story. A researcher came to investigate dolphin intelligence. He had an apparatus with two paddles and red and green light. The dolphin was supposed to hit the left paddle the green light went on and the right paddle when the red light went on. Lilly warned the researcher this would be far too boring. It would need at least a dozen lights. The researcher persisted. The dolphin figured it out within a couple of trials. The researchers said he needed 30 trials to be statistically significant. The dolphin tossed the apparatus out of the tank and would never let the researcher back into the tank.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dolphin Souls

Do dolphins have souls? is an even sillier question than Do dolphins have RAM (Random Access Memory) ? Nobody has ever demonstrated that anyone or anything has a soul. It is as imaginary as a unicorn. Possession of a soul is used as an excuse, a licence for bad behaviour, for humans to mistreat other species.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dolphins and Humans

Why do dolphins hang out around humans? Perhaps they are waiting for the music to start.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Earthworm Habits

Earthworms like to congregate in balls in coffee grounds.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Does this mean that coffee is a more healthful food than generally presumed, or that earthworms too like to get buzzed?

Eating Jesus

Scientists have grown artificial meat from beef stem cells. With that technology it would cost no more to grow more expensive meats like goat, lamb, caribou, rhinoceros and homo sapiens. If Catholics can figure out some way to reconstruct Jesus’ DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid), they could literally serve the flesh of Jesus, cooked or raw, at communion as they falsely claim to do now.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Eating Meat

For millennia we have had the same reasons for avoiding meat:

• Compassion for the animals, particularly avoiding factory farms.
• Expense. Animal feed and meat are heavily subsidised.
• Health. Animal-based diet tends to clog the arteries and put on fat.

Today, we have a new, much more important reason to avoid meat — 18% of greenhouse gas emissions are generated as a side effect of raising meat.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Economics of Cruelty

In the days of slavery, slave-produced cotton was cheaper and out-competed cotton produced by paid labourers. Today, ordinary eggs produced by confining chickens with their feet wired to the bottom of tiny cages out-compete free range eggs produced by chickens than can run around outside. Eggs ought to be labeled with a photo of how they were produced, then, if that does not stop the trade in cruel eggs, all but free range eggs should be made illegal for the same reason we abolished slavery.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Elephant Thieves

Man has pushed elephants off almost their entire original range so that now only a handful of elephants remain. Yet man has the gall to term elephants crop raiders and detusks or shoots them, as if the elephants were the ones stealing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Elk vs Man

In Banff, rangers use sheepdogs to run elk off their golf course. Of course, from the elk point of view, the humans invaded their pasture and built a golf course.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Estimating Intelligence

Our estimation of the intelligence of any creature rises with time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Evolving Slaves

Slave owners considered their slaves as livestock. So presumably they would have selectively bred them just as they did horses, cows and dogs. They likely introduced their own genes into the mix from recreational sex with the slaves. What traits were they trying to enhance? Yet I never hear about this or what effect it had in differentiating American blacks from Africans. What effect does this have on black people living in the USA today? It is probably considered too sensitive a topic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Experiments

We are horrified at Dr. Mengele because he performed experiments on humans that we perform on animals. I suspect future generations will not see that much difference. Both were done without informed consent.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Factory Cruelty

If someone were taught torturing chickens in their back yard doing the same things factory farmers to do them routinely, the police would throw the book at them and the neighbours would drive them out of town.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Farmer Extortionists

Poultry farmers are extortionists. They demand yet more money not to torture chickens.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Father and Son Bonding

Why is it Americans consider killing creatures and watching them writhe in death agony the most exciting and wholesome possible activity for a father and son to share?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

First Rights For Horses

In 1821, Colonel Richard Martin, MP (Member of Parliament) for Galway in Ireland, introduced the Treatment of Horses bill into the House of Commons. It was hooted down amid shouts that the next thing would be rights for asses, dogs and cats. He persisted and his bill was passed a year later. The law made it illegal to beat, abuse, or ill-treat any horse, mare, gelding, mule, ass, ox, cow, heifer, steer, sheep or other cattle with fines up to five pounds and two months imprisonment — more teeth that today’s laws have, though not well enforced.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fish Feel Pain

Biologist Victoria Braithwaite in her book Do Fish Feel Pain? presents evidence fish are more intelligent and their behaviour more complex than we’d given them credit for. Anyone who has watched fish has seen them react just like other animals when hurt. The default assumption should be they too feel pain until proven otherwise.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fish Have No Feelings

Fish have no feelings. What an idiotic idea. They behave just like humans when you hook them. They have nervous systems and brains. The only reason such an idea gets any traction is because of wishful thinking. People don’w like it that fish suffer when humans catch them, so they pretend they don’t.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fish Torture

People who would never dream of torturing a creature will casually discard plastic rings like the one that severed this fish.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Flavours of Suffering

Even though we know that all mammals have equal capacity to suffer, for some reason some suffering is more equal than others. The suffering of the young, the beautiful or the human counts more.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Foolish Killing of Endangered Species

People who buy rhinoceros horn, dried seahorses or bear gall bladders have no excuse. They know they are driving the animals to extinction. They know there are now far better treatments for erectile dysfunction.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Free Range, Rah Rah Rah!

Free range eggs taste better and look better. You give up nothing but cruelty.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

French Bull Fighting

In French bullfighting, the bull is neither harmed nor killed. Surely this form of fighting requires greater bravery than the Spanish style where the bull is crippled by the picadors to keep its head low. It is time to propagandise Spanish bull fighting as cowardly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Frog-Despising Zoologist

When I was in high school, my teachers arranged a number of field trips to the local University Of BC. On one of the trips, we visited a zoologist who had a filthy aquarium full of African frogs. One of them was dead, rotting and floating on the surface. It was clear from the researcher’s responses to my questions that he was completely indifferent to the welfare of the frogs and that he was proud of this indifference. I was baffled. I felt intense affection for small fish, amphibians and reptiles. How could he be so curious about his frogs and yet not care about them?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

From the Animals’ Point Of View

From the animals’ point of view, the problem is not being eaten (that happens after it is dead); the problem is not being slaughtered (that takes only a minute at the end of life. It lets the animal avoid the suffering of old age.); it is being kept in filthy, parasite-ridden, tight quarters for a lifetime and fed unnatural food.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Galactic SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

If ever we are visited by aliens, it will be a delegation from the galactic SPCA. coming to shut us down for atrocities to fellow species, especially elephants, dolphins and whales.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Game Food

When high-end restaurants serve non-domesticated animals, they refer to them as game, as if the slaughter of the animals were primarily an pleasant entertainment, like playing Backgammon. If they served human flesh, would they still call it game? or would they call it desperation?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Gentler Testing

I was wondering why animal testing of shampoos required applying chemicals in such concentrations and durations the rabbits went blind. Surely it would sufficient to push them to the point of showing irritation. Then it hit me. The cosmetic companies don’t care if their shampoos irritate. Plenty of them do. They are just worried about lawsuits from someone claiming the shampoo made them go blind. Still, what they are doing makes no sense, since chemicals that cause blindness are of no legal relevance because they don’t make it into the products. There is no need to prove that caustic chemicals are indeed seriously harmful, just that they are unsuitable.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Golden Rule for Animals

A day will come when we accept the principle that you should not do to animals what you should not do to humans. The following will thus wither away:

• sport fishing including catch and release.
• Factory farming.
• Hunting and trapping.
• Whipping horses during races.
• Spanish style bull fighting.
• Dog and cock fighting.
• Artificial insemination.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Harvesting

Traditional wisdom says you should throw back or avoid catching small fish/animals so they can grow up. However, consider that the most likely fate of such small fry is to be eaten by a predator or taken by disease. A large animal is rare. It must be genetically superior to reach that age/size. It is already capable of spawning another generation of superior creatures. So perhaps instead, you should throw back the large fish and eat the small ones.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Help Yourself

You may have noticed how quotations pop up at random all over my website, aimed at getting people to re-examine the way the see animals and animal cruelty. You are welcome to use any or all of the quotations in my quotation collection in a similar way on your own website. To get your point across these days, you have to shrink it to a sound bite.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

High School Turtle Torture

When I was high school, a biology teacher, Mr. Jackson cut the bottom shell off a live turtle and attached its heart to a lever that charted the twitchings on a graph. I told everyone he was a sadist. Mr. Mackenzie, the principal, called me down to his office and gently chastised me for slandering a teacher. Mr. Jackson reassured me The turtle feels no pain. I countered How do you know? He replied It’s spinal nerves are cut. I said Well, it sure looks as if it is in pain. It is struggling frantically to right itself. He responded That is just a reflex. He offered Using the turtle will save many lives. This turtle will last all day. Had I used frogs, I would have had to kill one for each class I accused Your experiment has no point. Everyone already knows that hearts beat He said You are planning a career in biology. You will have to get used to this I said If that’s what it means to be a biologist I want no part of it. Since I am writing this years later, I can compose a better retort: If you are so sure this will not hurt, how about I poke a scalpel into the back of your neck and cut your spinal nerves. Then you can reassure me, based on evidence, that the procedure is painless. From my personal experience, nerves hurt like the blazes when you cut them. Turtle nerves and human nerves are almost identical.

That was the last day of my biology career and my first day of animal rights advocacy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Human Inconsistency

Humans are such a diverse species. Some torture animals for pleasure. Others spend thousands of dollars for surgery to patch them up again.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Human Interests Trump

Usually we treasure that which is rare, but when it comes to animals, the interests of any human, no matter how trivial or how crass, always trumps that of any animal.

Animal Populations

Animal Populations
Global Population	Animal	Humans per Animal
200,000	gorilla	35,000
150,000	chimpanzee	46,666
32,000	caribou	218,750
20,000	gray whale	350,000
10,000	bonobo	700,000
10,000	blue whale	700,000
2,500	mangrove hummingbird	2,800,000
0	golden frog	∞

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Human Meat For Dog Treats

The Icelanders are killing fin whales for the Japanese who make them into dog treats. In my essay I argue why I think whales are more intelligence and more worthy than humans. To me what the Icelanders are doing is worse than kidnapping children and puréing them to make dog food.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) source

Human-Animal Violence

Humans use violence against animals all the time. The law rarely intervenes. But if an animal uses violence against a human, it is immediately executed without trial, no matter what the provocation. Further, any human who used violence to defend an animal against another human will be prosecuted as if the violence were unprovoked. He cannot use a variant of the self-defence excuse. The defence excuse is valid only when protecting an animal of the human species. Why the asymmetry? Humans believe they are superior to all other species and they are the only species deserving of legal projection. In a few cases, the law will intervene to protect salmon. But this is not because humans believe the salmon have any inherent right to life; killing salmon is considered equivalent to destroying some other human’s food.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Humane Treatment of Bears

When female bears attack people, they are almost never euthanised, because It is in their nature to protect their cubs. However, when bears come into back yards to eat the fruit, garbage or dirty barbecue grills, they are often shot. This does not make sense. A bear eating garbage has not harmed any human. It is surely just as in the bear’s nature to eat the banquet we humans put out especially when we humans have shrunk their natural wild food supplies through climate change.

A more humane way to handle this is to put a GPS (Global Positioning System) collar on problem bears. The collar could give the bear a shock if it got to close to civilisation. The shock might only need be sufficient to make the bear uncomfortable. If it did not work, the collar would warn authorities of a bear in forbidden territory before it could get into trouble.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hunter Motive

Every person that hunts endangered species or species in decline has the same motive. They hate that animal and they want to blast every last one of them to smithereens. Anything they tell you about their motive, e.g. traditional indigenous rights, need to feed a family, family tradition, the health benefits of game… is just bullshit. They are refusing to look at the situation as it is now.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inconvenient Pain

There was a time in recent memory when physicians believed babies could not feel pain. They performed open heart surgery and circumcisions on the them without any anaesthesia.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

I think it is time we presumed, until proven otherwise, that any creature that cries or writhes to avoid a painful stimulus is indeed feeling pain.

Intelligence is Not Such a Big Deal

Humans imagine their intelligence makes them infinitely superior to everything else in the cosmos. This can’t be true. Intelligence can’t be that big a deal because we share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees and because our intelligence evolved almost overnight. It must be just a handful of relatively simple tricks.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inuit Cruelty

It is demeaning to excuse animal cruelty in the Inuit and other native peoples. It is like excusing them on the grounds they are children, that they should not be held to the same high standards of their betters. Excusing them on the grounds the cruelty is ancestral is like excusing Christians for burning witches or dragging homosexuals behind cars just because they did it in the past.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Japanese Government Scam

Here is what I wrote to the Government of Japan: I was absolutely shocked to learn that you improperly misappropriated funds intended for tsunami relief to your whale killing masquerading as research. Anyone in North American who donated to help you out feels betrayed at this theft. Don’t ask for any help ever again. Give them an earful too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killer Cats

Domestic cats kill billions of endangered songbirds each year. There is opposition to stopping them for the following reasons:

• Cats are doted on as pets and owners think cats should be free to kill birds because cats enjoy killing birds.
• Cats are not malicious. It is their nature to catch and eat birds, so we should let them.
• There are other ways birds are killed, such as windmills. Why pick on cats?
• Cats are not an invasive species. They are people.

My thinking is all these reasons are irrelevant. We have to do something to stop the loss of so many endangered birds which are important to agriculture for insect control. It is not about punishing cats, but protecting birds. Possible measures include:

• Dogs are not permitted to roam free killing wildlife, even if they have licences. The same rules should apply to cats.
• Use some kind of high tech collar for cats that warns birds of a pending attack. At the owner’s option, it might be smart enough not to warn mice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killer Snake

If somebody told you a horse had taken its oats and dug little pits in a field and buried oats in the pits to eat later, you might be sceptical. If somebody told you a python had killed two prey and saved them both to eat later, you would say to yourself, that is not the way snakes behave. They always eat their prey immediately after killing it. Further, they take weeks or months to digest before feeding again.

On 2013-08-05, a 4.30 metres (14.11 ft) African rock python allegedly killed two sleeping boys in New Brunswick but did not eat them. This in the first time in recorded history anything like this has happened. The python was immediately executed before any investigation could be completed. The story in the news kept changing about where the snake lived and how it got to the boys.

On the other paw, a handler said the snake had a temperamental disposition and wasn’t used to being around humans.

On the other paw, pythons attack only when they feel threatened. Why would it be threatened by sleeping boys?

The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) censored me when I tried to discuss this anomaly on their website. I think they were squeamish about the thought of a snake eating a child.

I would hope a full autopsy would ensure the children were not only asphyxiated, but asphyxiated by the snake executed for the crime by looking for scale prints on the boys’ necks and snake DNA traces. I just don’t want the book closed without an explanation for this mystery. My best explanation so far is when the snake fell from the ceiling vent it was badly frightened, which caused it to lash out.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing Dolphins

The ancient Hawaiians hunted dolphins by pounding rocks together under water. The dolphins surfaced with blood streaming from the ears. Zookeepers are well aware of how sensitive whales, fish and reptiles are to vibration, but to do nothing to stop little brats from pounding on the glass all day long or to isolate the animals from the vibrations.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lead Buckshot

So-called sportsmen have known for years that lead is poisonous, but they still use it for buckshot. Now many lakes are fatal for ducks who land there because the sediments are carpeted in lead.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lead Fishing Weights

So-called sportsmen have known for years that lead is poisonous, but they continue to use it for fishing weights.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Leave Them Alone

Whenever man decides to manage populations of other species, he usually screws things up with unintended consequences. In general, we should not do this. We know that leaving animals alone is guaranteed to work.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Life as a Cow

If I were a cow, I would far sooner be permitted to graze outside in a pasture for all but the last hours of my life than have some sanctimonious Christian offer a prayer for me after he had butchered me after keeping me confined in a filthy feed lot my entire life.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Life in the Dolphin Lane

Imagine going to a cocktail party with 200 guests, each zooming around at 65 km/hr (40.39 mph) and maintaining a conversation with each of the guests simultaneously, all talking at once. Dolphins do it all the time. One trick they use to help sort it all out is putting the name of the recipient on the front of each phrase, much the way a computer does when talking on a LAN (Local Area Network). The closest a human would come is sitting on a bus texting with many friends at once.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Live Food

On 2013-12-21 CBC Radio The Current did a show about eating live octopus. The guest, Dana Goodyear, described the taste and texture, the way the suckers clung excitingly to her throat and the arms charmingly climbed her chopstick. She also bemoaned the loss of fois gras (totally ignoring it was banned because of cruelty to geese). This decadent bitch does not understand that the octopus (along with the cuttlefish) is the most intelligent of invertebrates. They are comparable to dogs. Would she consider eating a dog live, strapped to her table? I hope she chokes to death on a live banana slug slathered in pig turd sauce.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Local Customs

Let us say I went to live in mainland China. Let’s say I made a habit of grabbing and hugging people I was introduced to. I would walk down the streets snapping my fingers and whistling Bach. I would put my feet up my desk when I talked with people. I would point at interesting things with my foot. I would loudly blow my nose into a silk handkerchief then fold it up as if it were something precious and save it in my pocket for later consumption. My hosts would consider me an utter boor for not paying attention to the local customs. When Chinese people come to Canada, they eat shark’s fin soup, which many Canadians consider so repulsive and barbaric, they have murder fantasies. You would think the Chinese would be more sensitive to local customs. They seem to take delight in angering Canadians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

A love incomparable to anybody else

Alistair Hayne died in an accidental shooting accident 2017-09-24. I think it is inaccurate to call somebody who entertained themselves by killing small animals loving even if they are dead.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Measuring Consciousness

How can you tell if a creature is conscious? You can tell if it is not conscious if it does not react to stimulus, but even a plant reacts to stimulus (albeit slowly). You know that you are conscious and presumably other humans are the same, but everything else, you are just guessing until we find some way to measure or detect consciousness. What bothers me is so many scientists claim such and such a creature is or is not conscious. How could they possibly tell?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Meat

We treat domestic animals, particularly chickens and pigs with extreme cruelty. If we treated humans that way, we would call it torture. If you don’t want to torture animals, what can you do about it?

1. Become a vegetarian.
2. Pay farmers to treat animals ethically. Buy only free-range eggs and meat. Since these products are more expensive, you may have to cut down your consumption.
3. Cut down on your factory meat consumption.
4. Shift to eating less sentient meat. Absolutely no whales. Try fish, lobsters, clams, oysters.
5. Make no changes to your behaviour.

In China, they would never slap down an 226.80 grams (8 oz) slab of meat in front of you. They cut it into small pieces as use it as a condiment. This makes it go a lot further.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Meat Euphemisms

North Americans are squeamish about meat-eating. They have special words to disguise the fact they are eating cows, calves, sheep, deer, pigs, stomachs, brains, intestines, muscles, testicles, penises… They like their steaks bloody, but use the euphemism juicy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Monumental Conceit

Most of mankind’s problem stem from his monumental conceit and self-centredness. He believes in religions that preposterously flatter him that the entire universe was created solely for his benefit and he is the center of it. He believes no other species matters at all. He steals lands from them and enslaves them, and even tortures them without even allowing the interests of those other species to be heard. In the process, he forgets that he too is an animal just as dependent on the other animals, plants, water, air and soil as any other animal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Moose, Yuck!

When we were kids, each fall, my Dad would go hunting for deer and moose. When he returned we would shout in a chorus, Did you get anything? When he answered No, we would cheer and he would give us an irritated look. We did not like him killing animals. We not like the bitter taste of endless moose and venison dinners. We did not like the stench of the rotting skins and the hanging aging/rotting meat. We looked on this as a sort of Jekyll/Hyde transformation of our normally gentle father.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Most Hated Woman on the Internet

Jacine Jadresko of Victoria BC (where I live) is a sadistic young woman who dedicates her life to slaughtering endangered animals. She loves freaking people out who disapprove. She smeared her face with blood and ate a raw lion heart. She bragged The more people complain, the more I will kill. She behaves like a snotty little brat of a child.

She denies what she does is killing. She insists it is harvesting as if she were a farmer gathering the pumpkins she had raised. As you would expect, she discards the meat.

In her view, animals have no right to life, not even ones with brains much larger than hers. All that matters is her sadistic pleasure. Come to think of it, I would derive great pleasure from beheading her, but I do not consider that sufficient reason to decapitate her. I wish she shared my restraint. sourcephotos

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Natural Indifference

In nature, indifference is the norm, with the exception of concern for offspring. It is thus remarkable that humans have any concern at all for the welfare other species. You will notice, for example, that conservationist arguments are nearly always couched in terms of self-interest.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No to Grain Fed

You probably want to avoid any beef or chicken labeled grain fed. It means the animals were penned tightly, knee deep in liquid manure and force fed grain, a not a natural food for either cattle nor chickens. They become obese. The meat has a high fat content and hence will make you obese too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Not Really About Whales

Almost any time you pick up a book about whales, it turns out to be really be about the men who killed them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Observing Ants

Humans tend to feel creeped out when they discover that ants enslave aphids and other homoptera, feeding off their secretions. Yet they rarely are grossed out by humans doing the same thing and worse to domestic mammals.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Original Function of Pets

The two most popular pets, the dog and the cat, are both predators. That is no accident. They were not originally pets, but rat killers and hunters.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Owning An Inappropriate Term

You would not speak of owning your children, even if you are responsible for their care and feeding and have many legal rights similar to the ownership of chattels. We need to find an appropriate word to use for the relationship of children and other animals in your stewardship. Owning is something you do to a stereo system. How about I steward my St. Bernard? For creatures with brains larger than humans’, we need something a little more humble, perhaps I serve or I see to the needs of Rosie the dolphin.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Packing Cattle

Cattle are packed as closely as possible in feedlots to keep them from being able to move. The less they move, the faster they pile on weight.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pain ≠ Intelligence

If a retarded child hit his thumb with a hammer, or Einstein hit his thumb with a hammer, the pain is the same. You know someone is in pain by the way they scream and writhe. The same is true for the pain an animal experiences. It a convenient lie that just because a creature is not intelligent, it cannot feel pain. That is just an excuse for mistreatment. Our nervous systems and chemistry of pain are identical. Think I’m pulling your leg? Read Do Fish Feel Pain? to see what science has to say on the question.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Paragon Of Animals

Largely because of Christian influence, when humans study animals they have a strong bias to presume humans are superior by every measure except athleticism, despite the evidence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Preserving Mosquitos

Do you like mosquitos? No? Then kindly stop wiping out all the frogs that eat them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Property Rights

People refer to my property. They believe the have exclusive right to the land. They claim the right to kill anyone or anything that trespasses.

It took four hundred years for white people to question whether they had a moral right to invade North America and push the indigenous people off their lands. Perhaps in another four hundred years we will question whether we humans had the right to invade the ancestral habitats of wildlife and push them off their land. Perhaps we will learn to share lands with the original inhabitants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Puppy/Chicken Inequality

If a man treated a puppy the way farmers treat chickens, mobs would burn down his house.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Relative Abundance

Consider the panic that ensues if someone suggests culling pigeons, rabbits, deer or kittens. Consider the complete ho-hum when the extinction or near extinction of some species is announced. It seems the safer the creature is from extinction, the bigger the fuss.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Republican = Animal Cruelty

Republicanism is the political arm of the animal cruelty movement. Republicanism teaches that all that matters is profit. The suffering of others, human or animal does not matter. It exalts selfishness even when small personal indulgences bring major suffering for others.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Republicans Plead Poverty

Republicans plead poverty when it comes to fair trade coffee or free range eggs, then spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on gas-guzzling cars and sprawling energy-inefficient homes so they can impress their friends with how wealthy they are.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Retarded Children

Consider the behaviour of a severely retarded child. We offer to them the full protection of the law from harm and death. I think any animal that can demonstrate the same functionality as a retarded child should be given the same guarantees and rights.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge

In 1920 a male sperm whale rammed and sank the whaling ship, the Essex. The 21 crew were cast adrift to die by exposure and thirst in the South Pacific. That is about as horrible a death as imaginable. These fool whalers had no idea of the magnitude of their crime for which they were so fittingly punished.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rise of the Apes

For millions of years the dolphins and whales have been the playful kings of the sea. Then one day primates came down from the trees, figured out how to construct boats, then set out to sea to kill them all. In dolphin lore, we must be like the coming of the bubonic plague, only worse. The plague killed only 1/3 of us then disappeared. You’d think the would kill or torture humans every chance they get, but they are too smart for that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sadistic Sealers

Canadian sealers enjoy hacking baby seals to death with a hakapik, a heavy wooden club with a hammer head and metal hook on the end because they want to punish the seals for stealing their fish. They forget that long before the seal hunt, cod were so abundant you could walk across their backs. Seals selectively eat the weak and diseased fish thus improving the stocks and preventing the spread of epidemics. In 2008 public outcry banned the hakapik and insisted seals bleed for a minute before skinning.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Salmon Sisyphus

When I was quite young I visited a fish hatchery. There were some salmon swimming in a tank with a flow of water forcing them to keep swimming. The attendant explained these fish spend their entire lives in this tank. They might have the same spot in line for years at a time. This struck me as a ghastly metaphor for the human rat race. I could not believe humans could impose such a nightmare on such a noble fish.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Selfish Bitches

Activists have had an impossible time ending the trade is blood diamonds and furs from animals killed in deliberately cruel traps because the selfish bitches who consume the products get off on the suffering.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Selfish Meat Choices

A free range pig farmer pointed out most people use nothing but price to decide which pork to buy. Some buy free range, not because it is less cruel to the pigs, but because the pigs don’t have to be saturated with antibiotics the way they do in cages and the customers don’t want to put antibiotics into their bodies. Basically, most people are effectively accepting small payments from farmers to give permission to the farmers to torture pigs. And we wonder how slavery, child labour and third world sweat shops managed to persist so long.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shark Fin Soup

Chinese cuisine has more options for ingredients than any other. Complaining about the loss of one dish — shark fin soup, an endangered species harvested in a deliberately sadistic way is pathetic. Shame on those who refuse to make even the tiniest sacrifice. Their selfishness is shameful. The motive, conspicuous consumption, and bragging about one’s wealth is revolting.

CBC radio in Victoria aired a woman who claimed the practice of cutting fins off living sharks was a myth. Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Society is on the lam for protesting this very practice. I have seen all kinds of video of fishermen cutting the fins of sharks and releasing the shark alive. If you Google shark fin images, you can see for yourself.

learn more learn more learn more learn more

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shark Fin Soup

Shark fin soup is tasteless. Its only value is as a status symbol costing a bowl. Chinese fishermen haul endangered sharks from the ocean and hack their fins off and toss them back into the ocean where the sharks die slowly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shark Wrestling

Shark wrestling is the only form of fishing that has a right to call itself a sport.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shunning Humanity

If there are intelligent beings in space watching us, I don’t think they would want anything to do with a species who cavalierly toss a species or more per day into extinction or who torture fellow mammals needlessly as part of food production.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sicilian Ecocrime

Sicilians to this day massively slaughter endangered blue fin tuna, just before they can spawn. If the Japanese can give up traditional whaling, surely we must demand the Sicilians give up this environmental crime. If they refuse, then the rest of the world should boycott all Sicilian goods and services.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Slaughter Debate

Despite the cruelty of the various ways men slaughter cattle, nearly all of them are preferable for the cow to a natural death being eaten by a bear or cougar. We should evaluate the quality of the entire lifespan of a domestic animal, not just its last few seconds.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Solitary Confinement

Is there any moral difference between keeping a lion and a human in solitary confinement?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soul = Suffering

Christians postulated that horses and slaves had no souls and presumably thus could not even truly feel pain despite how it looked. This meant it was ok to beat them or work them to death. How convenient that this soul was invisible and undetectable. Its existence could be asserted or taken away at whim without evidence. Modern day Christians mistreat whales whose brains are considerably larger than theirs, justified with similar medieval superstition.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Spanish Sadism

The essence of Spanish culture is sadism. It goes back centuries. For example:

• A particularly cruel, cowardly and unfair form of bull fighting that should be called bull tormenting or bull torture. The French have a version that does not kill the bull and puts the toreadors at greater risk.
• Religion in Spain involves flagellation and bleeding.
• The Spanish Inquisition mastered the art of torture as no other.
• The Spanish conquistadors were utterly merciless in their conquest of the Americas.
• The Spanish were unbelievably cruel to their Moorish citizens.
• In 2013 the Spanish revived pig sticking — the ancient Roman entertainment of killing wild boars by sticking them with spears.

If Span cannot outgrow this sort of primitive behaviour, Spain does not belong in the EU.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Spay Your Cat

A single cat’s descendants would number 950,000 in ten years if they did not die from euthanasia or homelessness. If you don’t spay your cat, you are necessarily condemning her descendants to an early death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

SPCA

The SPCA was founded in 1824 in Britain. The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was founded in 1866.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Studying Captives

If you wanted to learn about black people, you could go to a prison and watch one through the bars in solitary confinement lying on his bunk bored out of his mind. Or you could go to a black neighbourhood and have a look at all going on. Or you might watch a film. The same is true of lions. Going to traditional zoo gives you a very warped view of what lions are like.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Stupid Sealers

I can hardly believe how stupid the seal hunters were guaranteeing their defeat.

• They insisted on using the hakapik to hack the seals to death, thus portraying themselves as sadistic bastards.
• They tortured Paul Watson for his protests.
• They projected a manly fuck-you attitude to those who disagreed with them, a ruthless enjoyment of shocking protesters with excess barbarity. They projected themselves as rednecks.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Thought Experiment

When I was 14, I came up with this thought experiment. Imagine it were possible to replace a single blood cell with an electronic equivalent that behaved transparently. Let’s say we start replacing cells in a being, we will call Jimmy, with equivalents one by one. Any any stage our Jimmy is still indistinguishable from the original. Jimmy still dreams and has an internal conscious experience.

Let’s say, as were replacing, we constructed a duplicate. When we are done we have two identical Jimmy androids. The common sense view in the 1960s would assert that one Jimmy was conscious and the duplicate was not, even though they were absolutely identical. How could you tell which was which? I find that absurd. It seems to me simpler to assume that brain activity in some way creates consciousness. It is not as though ghosts/souls possess bodies and the original Jimmy had one of these souls and the duplicate did not. Even if there were such things as souls, both bodies should be equally suitable homes for a soul. I so I fully expect complex machines to evolve consciousness.

SAL-9000: Will I dream?
Dr. Chandra: Of course, you will. All intelligent beings dream. Nobody knows why.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Through a Possum’s Eyes

In a documentary, I was watching an opossum stalking a snail. The black snail glistened and writhed. For a fraction of second, I could see the snail as delicious and desirable, the way the opossum would.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Touching Dead Animals

Few women could be persuaded to touch a dead pig. Yet if you cut it up in pieces, called it pork or bacon, not only would they touch it, they would eat it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Toward More Humane Slaughter

Priests long ago commanded people to slaughter animals in a humane way they called Kosher and later Halal. Today there are more humane ways to slaughter animals, but Jews and Muslims refuse to use them. They stick with the old ways, adhering to the letter rather than the spirit of the law.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Traditional Rights To Kill

The Makah claim a right to kill whales because their ancestors did. By that reasoning, modern day descendants of the Aztecs have the right to revive child sacrifice; Americans have the right to revive slavery; and Indonesians have the right to revive head-hunting. The notion that sacrificing a whale would somehow help the Makah’s social ills including drug addiction, poverty and alcoholism is as nutty as thinking yanking the heart out of a child and throwing it into a volcano would work too. Whale sacrifice is an ill-considered distraction from doing something truly useful. Further, there many more Makah today than before the coming of the Europeans. They can’t hunt as they did because they would put far too much pressure on the environment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Trout Homes

There few places as beautiful as a mountain lake brimming with rainbow trout. There are few places as depressing as aquaculture pens for these same noble fish.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Turtle Torture

People who would never dream of torturing an animal will casually discard plastic rings like the one that deformed this snapping turtle.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Two Kinds of Conservationists

There are two kinds of conservationists: the rare type believe that animals have an inherent right to a corner of the earth to live unmolested. The more common type want other people to stop killing off animals so they can.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Two-Way Communication

When humans talk of inter-species communication they usually mean the art of bullying animals to perform tricks. True communication should also include the ability read an animal’s messages about its desires the same as you would inquire about the needs of a human friend.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Typical Human Behaviour

The heroes of the British Sci Fi TV series Torchwood, torture, cage and kill alien visitors to earth. How else could they behave? This is how humans usually treat other species.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vegan Nit Picking

I think vegans make rather too much of the distinction between euthanising an elderly dog then discarding the corpse and killing a mature cow humanely then eating it. What counts is how well you treat animals while they are alive, not what happens to the corpses after they are dead. Animals do not revere their own corpses.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vegetarian?

There are many good reasons for reducing meat in your diet including:

• Meat production, particularly beef, releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, especially methane.
• Meat production uses huge amounts of land.
• Meat production uses huge amounts of energy.
• Meat production uses huge amounts of water.
• Meat production produces more total sewage than people do. By odd legal fluke, it is dumped into rivers untreated.
• A low meat diet reduces risk of heart disease and obesity.
• Usually animals used for meat are mistreated and kept in filthy over-crowded barns or cages.

However, I consider the argument that killing animals is cruel to be bogus. What is the alternative? Letting an animal get old and arthritic with failing kidneys and die slowly? Surely that entails far more suffering that a quick bolt to the brain. The other alternative is to ensure the animal is never born. I would think a free range cow would be happy for a chance to exist, even if life ended suddenly. Vegetarians consider eating meat disgusting. However, the cow does not care what happens to its corpse. The normal thing in nature is for corpses to be eaten. All that matters to the cow is how well it is treated while it is alive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Veggie Fed Unnatural

Egg producers advertise their eggs come from veggie fed chickens, as if a diet of pure grain were natural and healthful for a chicken. Chickens left to their own devices eat all manner of shoots, seeds, insects and worms they find while scratching in the dirt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Weasel Words

Whenever hunters talk about killing animals they never say shoot or kill. They say harvest (as if deer were pumpkins), bag (as if the deer were potatoes) or take (as if the deer were kept alive).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Were It Done To Us

Imagine if some advanced species decided to interfere with human reproduction, selecting the most grossly fat males as the only suitable mates then later forbidding copulation altogether, managing all reproduction with artificial insemination. Might we humans harbour a little resentment? It would be hypocritical of us to complain since this is what we have done to pigs and cattle.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

We’re The Best

Early anthropologists spent their time pointing out how superior European culture was to everyone else’s. Early animal behaviourists are intent on proving man is the paragon of animals. When they discovered that Neanderthals had bigger brains than us, they immediately reversed themselves and decided smaller brains meant greater intelligence. If a dolphin and a man perform identical actions, behaviourists will interpret the dolphins’ acts in the most demeaning possible ways and interpret man’s as intelligent transcendence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Whale Bondage

Compared with the space a cetacean roams over a day, an aquarium is like being bound in a full body cast.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Whale Captivity

Belugas have brains larger than humans. We know they communicate with each other, even if we are not clever enough to figure out what they are saying. Surely the belugas should have a say in whether they will be kept confined in relatively microscopic cages. Dolphins, for example, range over 80.47 km (50 miles) a day. Tanks are like encasing them in plaster.

Pro-captivity whale keepers are self-centered. All they care about are the interests of fellow whale keepers. They treat the belugas as if they were mindless sea cows.

They argue you need captivity to study whales. The information gleaned is useful in preservation from extinction.

We now have much better tools too study whales in the wild: sensors, cameras, GPS transmitters. Studying whales in captivity is like studying human behaviour by studying prisoners in solitary. Further, it is simply wrong too keep intelligent, innocent beings in solitary.

In the 1800s, slaves were considered not human. But for some purposes, they counted as a fraction of a human. We should do the same with whales, to give them at least token consideration.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Do You Think of Homo Sapiens

What would you think of a man who stole the homes of his relatives and evicted them? What would you think of a man who drove his relatives off the lands they used to feed themselves, leaving them to starve to death? What would you think of a species that threw other species after species into permanent extinction by stealing their habitat? What you would think of a species so conceited that it believed the very creator of the universe gave them title to the entire planet to do with as they pleased without any concern for their cousins on the tree of life?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Man does this even to species with larger brains than he has, such as elephants, whales and dolphins.

What’s Conscious

How do you decide which species of animals are conscious and which are not? Recently scientists have been changing their minds and declaring mammals and birds conscious. We humans are sometimes conscious and sometimes not, e.g. when under anaesthesia. What other criteria could you use to decide if some species is conscious than the how closely a creature behaves like a conscious or unconscious human? Perhaps that could be fine tuned with an MRI. Which creatures are declared conscious is usually a religious and economic determination. If it would be humbling or inconvenient to presume a creature conscious, it is declared incapable of pain without any objective evidence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wild Animal Health Care

So far it has never occurred to mankind to use technology for the benefit of species other than man and domesticated species. At some point we might consider medicine and dentistry for wild creatures, helping caribou with their plaguing hordes of mosquitos, cleaning up water to optimal condition for fish…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wild Not Zoo

You will learn far more from one of David Attenborough’s wildlife documentaries, than you will watching animals trying to sleep at a zoo in a totally artificial environment. Studying animals in a zoo is like studying humanity by watching people in solitary confinement. As 3D animal photography matures, the difference will be even more pronounced. It is possible to create a realistic environment only for very small animals like tropical fish and lizards. Consider that a dolphin can swim hundreds of miles a day in the wild. There is no way to simulate that in a tank.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

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