Sky News is very upset today. The Chinese have been abusing their animals again. There is footage of live animals being thrown to tigers in Chinese zoos. Onlookers revel in the spectacle of the hapless animals being set upon and torn to shreds. To add to Sky’s incredulity, the Chinese authorities don’t see anything wrong with the practice.
Animal rights campaigners are not happy either, although I can imagine the Chinese authorities would simply make the point that the zoos are merely replicating what happens out there in the jungle, anyway. It is perfectly normal to see a tiger chase down and kill a weaker animal out in the jungle, so the Chinese are wondering what all the fuss is about when they move the location of the killing and eating away from the jungle and into a cage.
Is it the rights of the animal being killed that we should worry about? Or is it the fear that little children watching such ‘entertainment’ may be traumatised?
As to the ‘rights’ of the animal, it is easy to see what upsets the campaigners. However some might argue as follows: almost every weekend, there is some wildlife documentary on television in which animals (in their natural habitat, it must be said) are filmed attacking and killing their prey. This is also entertainment, but in what we no doubt think is a sanitised form. We are watching it in our sitting rooms, as opposed to going to the zoo to do so. And in addition, there is an educated voice in the background giving us such revealing gems as ‘the tiger circles his prey for the last time.’ Yes, this is entertainment, the civilised way.
I spent part of my early years in Africa. My parents worked all over the world and we ended up living in many exotic places. It was very common in those days for the zoos to put on the sort of entertainment that the Chinese are now doing. In one particular town, the lion was fed only on Saturdays. The meal never changed; one live goat. The time also never changed; midday. Eleven thirty on Saturdays therefore found the local (and also some expat) children and their parents waiting at the zoo gates for their weekly entertainment. And the lion never failed to disappoint. As for the goat, well, no one spared much thought for it, reason being that it would have been killed and eaten, anyway, whether or not by the lion. I never went to watch; my mother wouldn’t let me. However, the next Monday at school, the place would be abuzz with blow-by-blow accounts from the children who had attended the weekly proceedings.
Why am I telling this story? Who knows, actually? Maybe watching Sky News being so incredulous about it made me think. I am not making any judgement here, simply recounting my experiences. Perhaps the only point I will make is that, in places where human rights count for little, animal rights do not even enter into the conversation.
What happened to the lion in the end? Oh, it eventually died of starvation. As is the way with many African towns, poverty began to bite, and the zoo attendants began to baulk at feeding a whole goat to a lion when they themselves had very little to eat. At first the weekly entertainment was cancelled, as the lion began to receive only portions of the goat - the rest being diverted away by the attendants. Soon, even that was too much, and the lion stopped getting anything at all. Before long, the lion was dead, and by some bitter irony, its cage was occupied by two goats, so frail and advanced in years, that nobody had the heart to kill.
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Last week I was at a charity ball for a children’s organization the purpose of which, of course, was to raise money for children in dire need. A young lady at my table proceeded to tell a story about recently putting up a sheepskin blanket on Freespace (think eBay without money being exchanged - the premise being you list things you don’t want/need anymore and folk tell you why they deserve to have it and you determine who sounds most worthy). This young lady received two requests for the blanket - one from a young mother who wanted her baby to crawl on it while she learned to walk. The other was from someone who thought it would be nice for their dog to sleep on it. “So of course I gave it to the dog!” - without a trace of irony. I guess a ball for children is more about wearing a nice frock than possibly helping children……….
Anyway the moral of the story was that people (in my opinion) have little sense of reality when it comes to the rights of animals. They are animals and have the right to act as their species dictates. Having a bear on a street-corner wearing a hat and banging a tambourine and dancing to Bob Dylan - that’s a travesty. But what was going on in the zoo, well is that not real life? Not my cup of tea but I’d rather my child see that sort of thing (which I actually have taken him to Africa to see). Than have him think that chicken breasts are concocted in the back room at Tesco’s rather than coming from those cute little fellas with the feathers.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:25 pm
One difference between the Chinese zoo experience and the real experience is that in the wild, the animals aren’t thrown to you; you have to work to catch them. This is why the documentaries are so enjoyable; you actually get to see the chase, and the strategies that the eater and eatee use during the chase.
I wonder if Sky News would be less upset if this hadn’t occurred in a Communist country.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Hi Bel: I’m sorry. I think that I am more concerned with the human rights of bloggers being abused in China.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I agree, JHL. Which is why I made the comment that in places where human rights count for little, perhaps it’s a bit fanciful to expect anyone to care that much for animals. Perhaps if Sky News considered that fact, they wouldn’t sound so shocked in their coverage of this story.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:51 pm
What an interesting story… tossing animals to their deaths for amusement strikes me as barbaric. I don’t understand how people can take pleasure in watching it…
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Ruthie, yes, I wouldn’t want to watch that now. But is your objection based on the fact that the animals are ‘tossed to their deaths’, in other words, would you object to someone travelling to the jungle to watch animals chase, kill and eat each other? That is also ‘amusement’, difference being that in Case 1, the animals were thrown into the ‘ring’, while in Case 2, it all occurred in their natural habitat.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Ontario Emperor, you are right; out in the wild, the animals aren’t thrown to the lions. But is this one fact enough to mean the difference between animal abuse and observing nature? I suppose there is an argument that if you keep a tiger in a cage, perhaps you are duty-bound to create conditions for it that closely resemble what said tiger might expect out in the wild.
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
They are not particularly kind to sharks and some are in danger of extinction to satisfy those who still want to eat shark fin soup, it is served at weddings and special occasions and even Disneyland has it on their menu there.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
I was in two minds when i watched that this morning on sky. Part of me said yes, that happens in china, why is it news? Its not like its the first time animals have been abused. I suepct that somebody decided that we have had enough of madeline as the lead story and need something else to collectivly feel outrage and compassion. I visited china last year on work and was lucky enough to visit the great wall of china. The part we visited had a bear zoo, well actually more of a large pit where several bears stood on hind legs begging for scraps of food that tourists would buy from the attendants. Some of the bears would sway from side to side, but their begging did tug the heart strings. moral dilema buy food to feed them and fill the pockets of the ‘keepers’ or to let the bears starve. Anyways i digres smy point was that using animals as entertainment is part of china as it is part of many places in the world, its distatstefull but its not news. As for animal rights - i eat meat - preferably nice fatless lean chicken breasts, individually wrapped from the freezer cabinate at tescos (sorry morag) so personally i consider animals as part of the worlds resources that i consume. I dont want the animals un ncessarily abused but I do want to eat. Which brings me to back to my other thought as i watched the ‘news’ item. While death and eating is part of life and children should beaware of such the realities of life, i think it IS wrong to view it as entertainment to be revelled in as a spectator. A thin line but one that i think forms a foundation for how you value life in general. The one part of the report that did stick with me was that the animals were not hungry, but were killing for entertainment.
A mismash of thoughts and views that hopefully makes sense. And honestly a week from now i’ll have forgotten this ‘news’ story as i expect there will be some new outrage to watch on sky next week.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Hi, Bel. I take your point. But I don’t think Sky should have shown the pictures without a warning - and there wasn’t one, at least not here. They really upset me - Ok, I know I’m a softie and a hypocrite because I eat meat. I suppose the difference is that these days, with the media as it is, the Chinese cannot fail to know that this shocks people in the west, even though they may pretend not to. I think anoher point you have made is the crux, though: it seems to me that Sky have been wanting to back off the Madeleine story for days [for all their righteous cries about how they’re keeping it in our minds]. We all know, and the McCanns know, that the media will pull out the minute there is a royal death or terrorist attack in a western country - or something else that knocks the story off the front pages. Maybe they were experimenting with this diversion?
May 24th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
“Almost every weekend, there is some wildlife documentary on television in which animals (in their natural habitat, it must be said) are filmed attacking and killing their prey.”
Could the argument be turned around? I.e. the sort of entertainment which is considered okay in China, and (formerly?) in Africa, should be regarded as barbaric, and therefore so should the same thing in documentaries?
It seems to be getting more common to show this on TV, perhaps rationalised as “realism”, but maybe it is really the same thing, i.e. pandering to a kind of blood lust.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Exactly, Heraklites. Exactly.
And while we’re at it, who made us (in the West) the arbiters of what constitutes barbaric?
I’m sure I have seen some of these ‘civilsed’ wildlife documentaries on Sky. It’s OK for them to pander to bloodlust in what they think is a civilsed manner, but heaven forfend China do the same thing.
October 7th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I was just watching an animal abuse video and after was crying for about 30 minutes. I am a humugous animal lover and go not stand this type of trash. I despise Chinese people for their belifs in animal cruilty. What I hate about the most is that we are not doing anything about, but just rading and watching videos. Someone phsically needs to do something and if know one will, I will.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Hi,
I would just like to give my opinion on two points:
1) It has been pointed out that in a country with little animal rights, they are unlikely to care about human rights and many of you have implied that human rights are more important. But why is this? Whose right is it to say that human lives are worth more than animal’s lives? I assume it is because you are human and therefore it works out as best for you. But I’m pretty sure the animals being stuck in a cage with a tiger (and nowhere to run) are not being comforted in the fact that they are only a goat and therefore not as important as a person so that’s ok… No, they feel fear and pain exactly the same as us…
2) You have also pointed out that in their natural habitat, animals are killed & eaten by other animals. Yes this is true but the zoo is not their natural habitat. In the wild, the weak animals are chased and they have a chance to escape if they can. In the zoo they are locked in a cage with their predator, waiting to die. Plus, in the wild, predators usually try to kill their animals quickly (such as by breaking their necks) before eating them so they do not struggle/get away). In the zoos, where the animals do not have natural killing instincts, the prey is left to suffer and struggle with nowhere to run while they are eaten.
Maybe if people had a little more thought to the lives of other rather than just seeing things how they wish to see things (with the lives of humans being the only important thing to them, for example), then the exploitation and painful killing of fearful animals would be less readily justified.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I hate the animal abuse going on in China. What’s with anyone trying to kiss China’s a** anyway? This needs to be exposed, spoken about, and condemned.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Boycott the good name of the spirit of the Olympics in 2008! Save the animals!