Selective outrage and animal cruelty<\/a> (Think Tank, Feb. 22)<\/p>\nI applaud Jessica Scott-Reid\u2019s opinion piece about the selective empathy our society has for animal suffering.<\/p>\n
As former executive director of The Winnipeg Humane Society, I had the opportunity to learn first-hand about many common practices used in industrial animal agriculture and was shocked at the inherent suffering imposed on the animals, all accepted as legal within the Animal Care Act in Manitoba. Most people are not aware of the clause within that act which allows this. It\u2019s called \u201caccepted activities\u201d and spells out that no one will be charged with cruelty to animals if they are conducting their actions consistent with generally accepted practices or procedures for such activity. There is quite list of accepted activities, section 4.1 of the Act, for those who want to learn more.<\/p>\n
Every living being (human or animal) experiences pain at various times in the natural course of life. But over the years, I have come to believe that most of the suffering endured by animals other than what would be expected in their natural flow of life, is imposed by humans for the benefit of human gain. And I have also come to understand that it doesn\u2019t have to be this way. In the case of animal agriculture there are ways to raise animals for food that do not involve confining thousands to small, stench filled spaces which do not allow the animals to behave as nature intended but rather respects their instinctual drives.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, we still have some family farms raising smaller numbers of animals in barns and outdoors when weather permits. I hope that many more people will support these farms and in doing so, decrease the suffering of thousands of animals.<\/p>\n
Vicki Burns<\/p>\n
Winnipeg<\/p>\n
Jessica Scott-Reid\u2019s thought-provoking article raises fundamental questions about our relationship with animals: Who do we eat? Who do we pet? And why?<\/p>\n
John Youngman<\/p>\n
Winnipeg<\/p>\n
Agricultural use is but one of 15 so-called \u201caccepted activities,\u201d encompassing every conceivable way we (ab)use animals in our society, that are exempt from Manitoba\u2019s Animal Care Act, the last being, \u201cany other activity designated by the regulations as an accepted activity\u201d just in case they forgot something.<\/p>\n
Included on that list are activities as frivolous as exhibitions and fairs. This is why in rodeos it is perfectly legal to yank calves running at full speed off of their feet with a rope thrown around their neck, slam them to the ground and then tie their legs together. But the average citizen would be charged under the Act if they thought it fun to do the same thing to their dog. Incredibly euthanasia, defined as \u201cproviding a painless, peaceful death for hopelessly sick or injured individuals as an act of mercy\u201d is also exempt, making it a most cruel contradiction.<\/p>\n
Our laws should be based on science and not emotion. It makes no sense to provide a modicum of protection to those animals we are emotionally attached to, those lucky enough to be considered companions, while science informs us that all are sentient beings who are capable of suffering.<\/p>\n
Debbie Wall<\/p>\n
Winnipeg<\/p>\n
Hold manufacturers responsible<\/p>\n
Re: Stop flushing flushable wipes (Feb. 23)<\/p>\n
So, we allow the manufacturers and marketers of these products to continue to mass produce these unnecessary, non-water-soluble products; and continue to falsely advertise them as flushable?<\/p>\n
Please tell me that there is a system in place to shut down companies displaying this callous disregard for municipal infrastructure and our shared environment.<\/p>\n
The company profits from these \u201cflushable\u201d wipes carry a huge price tag on the environment and the rest of us.<\/p>\n
Marilyn Bird<\/p>\n
Winnipeg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Proud of Team Canada Re: Hockey heartache: Canada finds no solace in second place (Feb. 23) Canada is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-496023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}