Human's have been using animals as far back as history goes, whether its for hunting partners, entertainment or simply as a commodity to be traded.
Humans have used animals for entertainment for thousands of years, in the Colosseum, in circus's, for racing and for fighting each other to gamble on.
Why do we show such a low level of respect for anything that doesn't look like us. Actually scratch that, we don't even show respect for our own kind, but the way we use animals is on a whole nother level.
Have you ever read about the horrors performed in the Colosseum? It's sickening at best, animals starved and beaten to make them angry and then sent in to fight unwillingly, even if they won their fight they were slaughtered afterwards to reduce costs in housing them.
Certain species like the North African Elephant were wiped off the planet forever while others like the Hippopotamus disappeared from the Nile river, the wildlife of North Africa was decimated due to Roman hunting.
Lets skip forward to modern times though, while it may seem on the surface we're not as cruel as we were in those times that simply isn't true. Think cock fighting, dog fighting, horse racing and circus's.
Animals are trained and kept cruelly simply to entertain us, in circus's they are sometimes permanently chained up and trained with beatings to make them perform for us. Elephants are one of the most amazing creatures on the planet and they have been abused for thousands of years just to make us laugh. It breaks my heart to see them forced to perform for us, their lives taken away and replaced with beatings and cuffs.
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(Anne the beaten elephant who was eventually freed)
You can see the defeat in her eyes, the life of misery has broken her spirit, an incredible, intelligent, gentle beast broken by mans selfishness.
In Australia we just had a national holiday for a horse race. Whilst not inherently cruel when you look behind the scenes the cruelty soon emerges, the animals are forced to race for nothing more than us to bet on. If they aren't fast enough they're put down, if they injure themselves they're put down, if they get too old they're put down.
We're finally getting some exposure to the cruelty of the racing industry, especially after widespread reports of live baiting in our greyhound racing industry emerged where trainers were using live animals to train their greyhounds to run. The greyhound industry is also cruelty ridden with thousands of dogs bred and then put to death every year simply for being unable to perform. As someone who has adopted an ex racing greyhound i can tell you they are some of the sweetest laziest dogs you can find, they want nothing more than a 5 minute sprint and then a day of sleeping on the couch with you.
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Don't even get me started on bullfighting and cockfighting, forcing animals to fight to the death just so we can bet on it, disgusting at best.
Illegal dog fighting, still a massive issue and yet people who do these sorts of things face harsher penalties because of the betting aspect of the crime rather than the disgusting way the animals are treated.
There are 3 types of animals in this world.
Companions/pets
Livestock/meat
Wild/nature
These are the only way we should be using animals, and while some may disagree on the meat aspect i do not find eating meat to be morally wrong, many animals eat meat and it is a very natural thing, the only part of eating meat that is wrong is the methods we have in place to get it from farm to table eg, battery farming, slaughter methods, the way they're treated before and during the process. The actual eating of meat is not wrong its just everything else that comes with it.
Honestly i could go on and on about the ways we abuse and mistreat animals but i won't, i don't want to be preachy and i don't want to be boring by rambling, all i want is for the human race to show a much higher level of respect for the other creatures we share this planet with, whether big or small every life is worth something and we shouldn't get to disrespect that for our own entertainment value.
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