ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer
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"The pet industry is directly responsible for animal suffering of gargantum proportions and should be phased out of existence."
Says John Bryant in Fettered Kingdoms.
Whilst breeders have unlimited licence to produce animals by the thousand to sell to "animal lovers", hundreds of thousands of unwanted, old, lost, or dumped animals find their way to pounds and animal shelters which have the ghastly job of putting them to death. Though the public is led to believe that homeless animals are "put to sleep" in a painless procedure in reality their wholesale massacre is a degrading and sordid affair. Many pounds in New Zealand send homeless down-and-outs and unclaimed strays to vivisection laboratories, as do breeders of surplus animals and 'owners' of "finished" greyhounds. In some countries pound seizure is prohibited by law1 but animals down on their luck in New Zealand have no such protection. Whilst statistics show that in most so-called civilised countries hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs exist by scavenging on scrapheaps, eventually dying from disease, infections, accidents or starvation, animal shelters shoot, chloroform and fatally inject others with barbiturates. These are buried on tips, incinerated or rendered down for fertiliser. Meanwhile the breeders ensure the ongoing supply of kittens, puppies and deliberately deformed but fashionable freaks. Millions of exotic pets, the world over some with longer natural lifespans than their 'owners' endure stunted, tortuous, lonely and totally unnatural existences. Many suffer lingering and premature death through loneliness, neglect and mismanagement.
"This is the age of the disposable animal"
says Auckland SPCA Director, Bob Kerridge. (N.Z. Listener and TV Times, April 29 1991.)
Of these, he estimates that at least half were simply no longer wanted by their 'owners' - impulse purchases that had outgrown their appeal.
"And when times are tough, animals are the first to go."2
Former pets with their wide variety of unknown hereditary and lineage, background and characteristics, ages, temperaments, and health problems make poor models in the laboratory and for this reason their use is being discontinued in some countries. In New Zealand where the rationale behind using them for vivisection is rarely questioned by a public which is encouraged to believe that:-
"Since the animals are being put to sleep anyway they may as well be usefully put to medical research"... there is little hope for the animals which fall on hard times.
Large numbers of dogs which were former pets are shuttled to vivisection laboratories behind the scenes in this country to be used in procedures which are criticised by a growing number of doctors as erroneous and useless. Useless, that is, to all but the animal dealer, the vivisector who receives his "research grant" and his buddies on the various Foundations and Health Research Council.
Under the erroneous illusion of philanthropy generated by carefully contrived but phoney advertising the petfood industry is responsible for the indiscriminate slaughter of whales, dolphins, wild and farmed animals, and millions of victims of intensive poultry and rabbit farms. These are processed and packed into gay, brightly labelled tins which the producer exploits other "cute" animals to advertise. Whilst the pharmaceutical industry in all its inherent horrors is among the most cruel and ruthless of animal exploiters, the horseracing and greyhound racing industries, pet-shops and animal health companies are also responsible for suffering of great magnitude being motivated not by sentiment but by profit.
"Animal-lovers" never purchase animals but give sanctuary to the abandoned or homeless animal of which there is an endless supply. And then, for its sake and not for his own, and always thinking what he can do for the animal and not vice-versa. The claim that vivisection exists to administer the health and well-being of pet cats, dogs and farm animals is emotional blackmail and far from the truth. The vivisection industry and its affiliates promote the pet industry solely for the source of income and availability of animals it represents.
Footnotes
1. Refer to Where Do Laboratory Animals Come From?, this Chapter.
2. In 1990, 10,269 animals were voluntarily surrendered to the Auckland SPCA.