BANNING THE UNNECESSARY KILLING OF ANIMALS

Verónica María Sánchez Baquerizo

Unidad Educativa Particular Experimental Bilingüe Delta

III Año Especialización Químico-Biólogo

2008-2009
 BANNING THE UNNECESSARY KILLING OF ANIMALS

The unnecessary killing of animals should be banned because it is inappropriate and not

humane, each day it increases animal’s alteration, and it modifies the environmental

processes.

I. Introduction

A. Background

B. Thesis statement

II. Animals Suffering

A. Ways of Taking Care of the Animal

B. Ways of Killing

C. Hunting

III. Animal’s Alterations

A. Experimenting with Animals

B. Cosmetics

IV. Environmental Damage

A. Human Health

B. Natural Ecosystem

V. Conclusion
 BANNING THE UNNECESSARY KILLING OF ANIMALS

INTRODUCTION

Animals are living creatures just like people. They eat, feel, and breathe the same air.

Consequently, everyone should be in favor of animal rights that do not mean people are going

to see cats in the voting booths on Election Day or chickens behind the wheel of a car. What

animal rights mean is that people have to consider the interests of humans and other animals

equally. No one should grant less weight to an individual’s desire to avoid pain simply

because she or he is not human. Complementing this statement animal rights, also known as

animal liberation, is the idea that the interests of animals, such as the interest in avoiding

suffering, should be afforded the same consideration as the interests of human beings.

(Reagan, 2008). Just like humans, animals that are used for fur, animal research, and

entertainment are capable of feeling pain.

Because of this, animals should be treated compassionately and people should let them

live without fear of torture or an awful death just for business. Currently, animals are a huge

source of profit. In some way, this is a positive point in the economy, but methods of treating

or killing animals are the ones that make this business the worst. Following this further the

human mentality has changed through time and with it the method of dealing with animals.

These days money could be considered the primary worry in every person’s mind but the

animals’ care is not mentioned in the process of treating or killing animals.

Currently, animals’ skins are taken away from their bodies when they are alive; this is

a cheaper and faster method, but animals’ suffering is the primary consequence. People would

never claim that someone should be used in painful experiments, have their skin worn as
clothing, hunted as a sport, or used for entertainment, so why do they make those things to

animals? In addition, when it comes to experiencing pain, animals are equal to people.

As this business becomes bigger and bigger, many species are in extinction or living

awful lives. Without the threat of man, it is likely that these animals would not be facing

extinction, at least not to the degree that they are today. Because of humans’ threat the Earth

loses 30.000 species per year. That averages out to three species going extinct every hour, and

their genetic uniqueness, beauty, and contributions to the ecosystem going with them (Benton,

2008). Clearly, the killing of animals should be banned because it is inappropriate and not

humane, each day it increases animal’s alterations, and it modifies the environmental

processes. 1

BODY

Many countries do not respect animals and they are each day more insignificant to

humans. “Most leather comes from countries like India and China, where animal welfare laws

are either non-existent or not enforced making millions of animals who are killed for their

skin endure the horrors of factory” (PETA f, 2008). Because of the lack of interest in the

health or life of the animals, workers keep them in horrible cages without giving them the

necessary care. Dogs, cats, foxes, and thousands of other animals are transported in tiny metal

cages where, confused and terrified, they suffer from injury, freezing cold, blistering heat,

overcrowding, hunger, and thirst. For example, ranch-raised foxes are kept in ninety cm 2

cages with up to four animals per cage (See annex 1, figure 1). When animals get to their

destination, workers take the cages from the top of the truck and throw them to the floor;

animals who are still alive in the cages suffer from serious cuts, broken bones, and mental

disorder (PETA d, n.d).

 Moreover, animals are placed on extremely crowded cages, with little access to food

or water for weeks or even months. Because of that, many fall ill and are unable to move,

many others are asphyxiated or trampled to death by other animals. (See annex 1, figure 2).

Also, a few minutes before their death, animals are usually too sick or tired because of the

cruel treatment (The Human Society of the United States, 2008). In a PETA investigation

cruel procedures were found and shows that cows have their tails broken and chili peppers

and tobacco rubbed into their eyes in order to force them to get up and walk after they

collapse from exhaustion on the way to the slaughterhouse. When they are slaughtered, they

are often too sick or lame to walk (PETA g, 2008).

Indeed, even though people are aware of this cruelty and conscious that the methods to

kill animals are not the right ones, every year millions of animals are killed especially for the

clothing industry, which specializes in fur, leather, and wool. The most use is fur, which is an

excellent product to make coats. It is a source of clothing for humans, especially in colder

climates. To kill the animals without damaging their fur, trappers usually strangle, beat, or

stomp them to death (See annex 2, figure 1). Animals on fur farms may be gassed,

electrocuted, have their necks snapped or poisoned with strychnine. These methods are not a

hundred percent effective and some animals "wake up" while being skinned, others are

skinned alive (PETA a, n.d)

Subsequently, there's wool that comes mainly from sheep. Shearing sheep involves

more than just a haircut. Because shearers are usually paid by volume rather than by the hour,

they often work too fast and disregard the animals' welfare. In the wool industry, just weeks

after birth, lambs' experiment the process of the ear tagging, tails chopped off, and the males

castration, all without anesthetics. Ear tags with numbers are attached for easy identification
of sheep, and castration is performed on lambs not intended for breeding. Sheep are routinely

punched, kicked, and cut during the shearing process (PETA e, 2008). This kind of treatment

leaves sheep bleeding to death. In other cases, they get serious wounds and suffering is just a

routine for them.

Finally just as wool, leather is used in the world of business. Leather is a material

created through the tanning of skins of animals. Every year at slaughterhouses 35.7 million

cows have their throats slit and are skinned and dismembered while they are still conscious.

Because of the high speed of this business that often processes up to 400 cows per hour,

workers use awful and cruel methods (PETA g, 2008). The vast majority of animals

slaughtered for their skin suffer all the horrors of factory farming intense confinement, painful

mutilations, deprivation, harmful hormone and antibiotic injections, and cruel treatment

during transport and slaughter (Born Free USA united with Animal Protection Institute, 2003-

2008). The animals transported to the slaughterhouse throughout the United States suffer of

long days and nights of grueling travel. After these long travels, animals have broken legs,

infected eyes, foaming mouths, and bleeding cuts and sores (PETA g, n, d).

Another way to use animals as something insignificant and useless is hunting. For

humans, hunting is a sport; for animals, it is hell. Many animals suffer prolonged, painful

deaths when they are injured but not killed by hunters. In addition, hunting interrupts

migration and hibernation patterns, destroys families, and contributes to the extinction of

animal species all over the world. The stress that hunted animals suffer, caused by fear, and

the inescapable loud noises that hunters create, affect their normal eating habits, making it

hard for them to store the fat and energy that they need to survive during winter. For animals

like wolves, who live in close family units, hunting can devastate entire communities.
However, natural predators help maintain this balance by killing only the sickest and weakest

individuals while hunters kill any animal that they would like to hang over the fireplace,

including large, healthy ones that are needed to keep the population strong. (Moffett, 2004).

Animals are not only used for clothing and food, people also use them on experiments.

Could someone ever imagine treating a person like this? Or could anyone imagine a person

living locked inside a closet without control over any aspect of his/her own life? Well, this is

life in a laboratory for animals. It is deprivation, isolation, and misery. Animals are used

every day in labs to experiment on them with dangerous products, from cosmetics to drugs.

Hundreds of thousands more animals are bred and killed so bits of their bodies can be used in

research. Almost 60 percent of the animals in these experiments are carried out without

anesthetics. (Heywood, 1990) Hundreds of these animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed

every year in ineffective product tests for shampoos, household cleaners, cosmetics,

hairsprays, and other personal care and household items. Besides these awful tests, labs keep

cats and dogs in tiny cages alone and inside windowless buildings where temperatures reach

dangerous extremes. Labs were not given them any socialization, or appropriate treatment. In

the beauty business they use rabbits which are locked into full-body restraints and a test

chemical is applied to the shaved skin on their back, so the person who is testing on the rabbit

will know how much a product penetrated the skin (See annex 2, figure 2). In some cases, the

products or ingredients are applied to the mucous membranes of the animal, including eyes,

nose, and mouth, to determine whether they cause allergic or other reactions (PETA h, n.d).

All these kinds of tests make animals live in an unknown world.

Laboratories are not allowing animals to accomplished their own necessities and have

their natural behavior. According to Indra Pastrha, the boss of Producosmetic’s production,
“Although more than 600 companies have banned all animal tests forever, some corporations

such as Mars, Mc Donald’s, Johnson & Johnson, and many others, still force substances into

animals' stomachs, rub them onto their skin, squirt them into their eyes, or force animals to

inhale them as aerosol sprays”(Personal communication, June 27, 2008). These tests are not

required by law, and they often produce inaccurate and misleading results because animals’

bodies are different from those of people, and they do not get the same diseases as people do.

Even if a product has blinded an animal, it can still be marketed to humans.

This use of cruel and unhealthy methods to the unnecessary killing of animals brings

problems to the entire animal world. Currently, animals are not the only victims of this

cruelty, humans are also affected. For instance, most of the leather around the world is tanned

using chromium which creates waste and pollution and consumes huge amounts of fossil

fuels. Among the disastrous consequences of using this noxious waste is the threat to human

health from the highly elevated levels of lead, cyanide, and formaldehyde in the groundwater

near tanneries were people that are exposed to chemicals dye form cancer (Thyagarajan,

1999).

As in tanneries, in factory farms, animals are more susceptible to external parasites

that are passed from cage to cage rapidly, as are fleas, ticks, lice, and mite. Video footage and

photos taken by undercover investigators show animals suffering from severe infections and

injuries, untreated and left to die slowly (PETA a, 2008). These diseases not only affect

animals, but also affect humans. “Because of the lack of veterinarian attention and an

inappropriate cleaning to animals, serious diseases such as avian flu or the mad cow disease

are now a threat to human health. Also, farm animal’s meat is always contaminated by
antibiotics that animals receive in order to prevent infections from the hygiene problems that

they live” says veterinarian Gisella Pope (Personal communication, October 17, 2008).

Besides the threatened to human health because of the unnecessary killing of animals,

there is also the damage to natural ecosystem. One of the primary causes of this damage is the

extinction that ecosystems face today especially in sea species. Besides there are rules and

limitations in the fishing business to prevent these awful extinctions, and in some places it is

totally prohibited, people often break them to fullfill themselves with thousands of dollars.

For instance, sharks are now facing their own extinction because of the sale of the shark fin,

especially in Asian countries. People cut the shark fins when sharks are still alive and return

the body into the ocean where sharks can only count the few hours that they have left. Rob

Stewart, director, producer and protagonist of Sharkwater talks about this business. In his

research, he found 200 dead finless sharks in the ocean. This could cause a tremendous

damage to ecosystem because sharks are the balance in the ocean; they are the principal

predator in its food chain, making them a fundamental tool in the ocean’s life. People keep

doing this kind of cruel killing without knowing that seventy percent of the air people breathe

comes from ocean’s life, making it the most important thing in this planet. Ninety percent of

sharks have already disappeared and the number keeps increasing. (Stewart, 2008)

CONCLUSION

After saying this is clearly noticed that humans assume the role of taking away

animals’ liberty and happiness. “People that kill, hunt, or experiment on animals, and all just

for money, are damaging animals’ natural ecosystem without allowing them to act in their

natural behavior. Animals’ families are being destroyed by separating them and keeping
animals away from their real home, so people can use animals for experiments, clothes, and

fun,” says biologist Karla Villagran. (Personal communication, June 12, 2008)

Knowing these facts the unnecessary killing of animals should be banned because it is

unreasonable and not adequate. Poor and innocent animals are used in experiments in cruel

ways or killed because now is known as a fun sport. The unhealthy methods of tanking care

animals have provoked new diseases on humans and each day contributes to ecosystem

damage. With every pair of leather shoes, cosmetics, coats, among others, that people buy,

they sentence an animal to a lifetime of suffering.

People still use fur but, and like many others, they have had a change of heart when

they have learned what actually happens to animals. Because of people’s ignorance and lack

of information about the methods that are used to kill or treat animals for experiments, they

still buy clothes made of animals. In order to avoid this problem, people should join to hold

informative campaigns and protest about the way animals are treated. Another alternative is to

take advantage of technology to stop using methods that involve suffering. For instance,

animal tests can be avoided if the cheaper, faster, and better non-animal tests that science

provides are used to replace them. If all countries followed these non-animal tests, the

suffering and deaths of countless animals could be prevented, the ecosystems will not be

damaged, and it will be a release for thousands of humans and the Earth planet as well.