Expert: Tina Volpe - 2/12/2010

Question
QUESTION: I have to interview an expert for an animal rights paper and just wanted to ask a few questions

1. why should animals have rights?
2. what should their rights be?
3. what should the penalty be for violating their rights?
4. what is the most common form of animal abuse?
5. how can you stop/prevent animal abuse?

ANSWER: Hi Krystal,

Glad you asked!  I'll take these one at a time:

1.  Animals are sentient beings.  They feel love, fear, pain, sadness and joy.  The love their offspring and do everything in their power to protect them, including dying for them.  They want to live and fight with everything in them to survive, and stay alive.

2.  Their rights should be to live as they were intended to live.  Without human interference and cruelty.  They are their own souls and deserve to be acknowledged for that fact.

3.  The penalties are pretty steep for domesticated animals (dogs, cats, etc.) but we have yet to pass laws (we're working on it) to stop the inhumane treatment of animals raised for food, entertainment and fur, also vivisection (testing).  The laws are so minimal that the cruelty that is displayed is horrific.

4.  The most common form of animal abuse is factory farmed animals raised for food.  10 BILLION  animals are brutally slaughtered each year in the most horrific ways possible:  see p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4 for in-depth description of this.  (I suggest you have tissues)... animal abuse is everywhere, but because of the numbers of animals, farm animals are the most abused.

5.  Stop eating them, stop using products that test on them, stop paying for entertainment (circuses, rodeos, etc)... and do not wear fur!  Go Vegan!

I hope this helps.  Feel free to ask follow ups if you need to... and good luck.  

Tina Volpe

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I just had a few more follow up questions.

1. is it ok to hunt animals to support your family if you don't buy meat from the grocery stores?

2. having a pet lion, or tiger is a form of abuse because you are taking it out of it's natural habitat, but is it ok to have domestic animals as pets?

Answer
Hi Krystal,

You are asking someone if it is ok to kill something that does not want to die.  I think you should answer that question.  I don't believe we should be killing anything, whatsoever, ever, for whatever reason.  There is plenty to eat without taking lives.

Domestic animals as pets is really ok (dogs, cats, etc), in my opinion because they are so far from their original wild ancestors they would not be able to fend for themselves without human care, however, having wild animals is wrong, mostly because they do not know how to interact (remember the chimp who malled the woman's hands and face who was a pet?) with humans in a domesticated environment.  

Hope this helps.  I think if you watch Earthlings (on YouTube) you would gain a better perspective of animal rights :)

Tina