DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: I’m an animal lover and try to do what’s right by animals, whether volunteering at a shelter or donating to animal charities. Recently I visited with PETA members and our conversation got ugly when I mentioned going to the zoo. It got even uglier when they discovered I owned a pet. They feel that eating meat, wearing fur, and testing life-saving medicine on animals should be considered criminal. Now I’m questioning how I treat animals. How far should animal rights go? — Anonymous, 16, Irvine, Calif.
Editor’s Note: These times they are a-changin’. At the same time that most people think animal-rights groups like PETA are over-the-top, most people do want positive change in the way meat is brought to the table. If today’s 20-somethings weren’t so hard-hit by the recession, many would purchase only organic free-range meat. And many are influencing their parents to shop organic. U.S. sales of organic foods grew from $1 billion in 1990 to $24.8 billion in 2009, with growth during the recession. Farmers and real-estate developers, take note: Awareness is high in this huge (they don’t call them Echo-Boomers for nothing) generation and as members rise in economic status, they will be looking for local, sustainable, and holistic sources of meat and other foods. —Lauren
Comments
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I totally believe in the humane treatment of animals, but there are some animal rights advocates who take it too far. I invited a new friend to spend the night. My sister and I have a pet bird in a cage in our room. When she saw it, she was horrified that we keep a “caged animal” in our room. She said that she could not ethically spend the the night in our room as that would be condoning “the inhumane caging of animals.” She walked out and will no longer speak to me. I really think that extremists such as this are taking it too far and give a bad name to legitimate animal rights activists. We take very good care of our bird and it sure seems like it is happy, so I honestly do not think we are doing anything inhumane by having it as a pet and keeping it in a cage in our room.
Betsy
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I’m all for saving animals and pets from cruelty, but it seems that your PETA friends are a bit too severe on the topic. Owning pets is nowhere near animal cruelty, as long as you feed them well and dont abuse them. And as for animals in zoos, believe it or not, they LIKE it there. Animals’ minds dont work like ours. When people think of a caged zoo animal being able to “run free in their natural habitat,” they are generally thinking of a lion or a similar predator. They OWN the territory. But what of the lesser animals, the prey? A zoo provides saftey for them, as well as an assurance of regular meals and a healthy environment. I tend to think of a zoo as a large hotel for animals in that sense. Animals are territorial. What do you think would happen if you went to someone’s house, kicked down their door, and chased them into the street yelling, ” Go! You’re free, free as a bird!” Would they leave happily? No, I don’t think so. They would most likely take you for an intruder and chase YOU out. Zoo animals are content in their homes, as we are in ours.
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I agree that there are some fanatics who take it too far. On the other hand, there are those who abuse animals for no valid reason or the most stupid of reasons and that is wrong. My sister and I also have a bird in a cage in our room. We have to share our room with our stepsister when she stays with us every other weekend. One time she violently shook our bird’s cage and scared it half to death because she claimed that it “chirped at her” when it saw her naked if you can believe that! I was there and it did happen to chirp when she was naked, but it chirps all the time at random times and certainly wasn’t chirping “at her” because she was naked. I mean, a bird doesn’t know what it’s seeing and would only have a sexual interest in other birds anyway. She now insists on covering the bird whenever she’s undressed. Our bird happens to be a male and she says she has the right to privacy from “males” when she’s undressed. She’s not a modest person and isn’t the least bit shy about being naked in front of us, but says that’s different since we’re girls and that she wouldn’t care if it was a female bird. Our mom agrees with us that this is totally stupid, but says that we have to go along with it to keep the peace. She says it’s really not any great burden. While that may be true, we still find it incredibly stupid.
Lori
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Wow! Talk about stupid stepsisters! My sister and I also have a stepsister whom we have to share our room with when she stays with us and have our share of stupid stepsister stories, but nothing that compares to Lori’s stepsister! We thought our stepsister was stupid because she can’t undress in front of us and changes in the bathroom, but to be worried about a bird seeing her naked? That really takes the cake! Except for her hurting the bird, it’s so stupid that it’s very funny and if it were me, I would try to see the humor in it.
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I am a member of PETA. I signed up on the internet. I mainly did it because I don’t believe in killing animals for their fur. I watched a video where people were killing baby seals for their fur and I started crying. I was at one time both vegan and vegetarian. That was really hard!
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How can we help these poor little animals from being extinct. Deers, wild cats, lions,pandas,bears,frogs,rabbits, and more other animals are dying out. People kill rabbits, wild cats, and other small animals to make these stupid fur coats, jackets, sweaters, and other things. Some animals eat trees and people are cutting it down to make furniture. So if the world keeps being like this in maybe10 years we will are be dead. Please help. How can we help all these animals from running out. They need our help, and if they run out then we will die slowly, suffering, and with lots of stress.
