Critter News

AUGUST 24, 2011

Someone posted a question about why humans have human rights and whether they should considering that others do not. Therefore, we are the only ones who matter and the only ones who should have rights. In the matter of science, and there are varying levels of this viewpoint, the human is the most advanced of creatures.

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Humane Rights Stray Dog Stray 100

Animal Person

JANUARY 27, 2010

I've been blogging here less partly because I've been blogging at Animal Rights & AntiOppression (check out my latest post " On Corporate Personhood and Animal Rights " and the better-than-the-post comments) but also because I've been feeling like a broken record and I don't want to bore anyone.

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China Cats Speciesism Dogs 100

Critter News

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Humane Society International (HSI) called on Wednesday for a ban on the fur trade to Australia. The call was issued after the animal rights group discovered that the fur were sourced from the raccoon dog in China, ABC Radio Australia reports. The dog fur are used are inside lining for ugg boots.

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Fur Australia Groups Raccoons 100

Critter News

JANUARY 26, 2012

MEXICO CITY – Animal rights activists staged a protest against the sale of pets in Mexico City, urging residents to adopt dogs and other animals instead of buying them. The protest’s goal was to make “society aware” of the fact that animals “need time, love and lots of care,” AnimaNaturalis said.

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Protest Protesting Protesters Adopt Dog 100

Animal Person

AUGUST 16, 2011

Hal Herzog’s “ Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat ” (Harper 2011), though fascinating, is ultimately depressing for vegans and animal rights activists. Over at Animal Rights and AntiOppression , we’ve been discussing tactics and sharing our thoughts and experiences about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to advocacy.

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Vegan Morals Animal Rights Advocacy 100

Animal Person

APRIL 1, 2010

Here are some of the my favorite quotes: In reality, species don't evolve toward greater humanness but toward greater adaptiveness in their ecological niche (105). No living group of nonhuman animals--no existing species of invertebrate, fish, amphibian, reptile, bird or nonhuman mammal--is ancestral to humans.

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Speciesism Apes Advocacy Salamander 100

Animal Ethics

APRIL 19, 2016

"There is no longer dispute among serious scientists that humans aren’t the only animals who have the capacity to suffer physically and mentally. Elephants, great apes, orcas, dogs, cats, and many other animals can experience depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and compulsive disorders.

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For Animals Apes Psychology Suffering 40

Critter News

DECEMBER 9, 2009

I was browsing for some quotes when I came across this group - The National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA). They had a page with quotes from animal rights activists, but as I was reading, I noticed that they were very unfavorable quotes from such activists as Wayne Pacelle and Ingrid Newkirk. Clever bastards.

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Animal Welfare Wayne Pacelle Welfare Groups 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 11, 2012

In responding to Suzie’s post defending wildlife rehabilitation I began to think again about the areas in which animal rights and animal welfare overlap with the field of conservation, and the ways in which they don’t. And people that work in either conservation or animal welfare tend to like animals.

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Animal Rights Rights New Zealand Animal 262

Animal Ethics

JUNE 11, 2008

So far McCloskey is on solid ground, but one can quarrel with his denial that any animals but humans have interests. I should think that the trustee of funds willed to a dog or cat is more than a mere custodian of the animal he protects. The animal itself is the beneficiary of his dutiful services.

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2004 Animal Rights Rights Animal 40

Animal Person

AUGUST 16, 2009

Many bloggers who are pro-animal rights have either not used Google's AdSense or stopped because they discovered that, for instance, their anti-fur post was surrounded by ads for fur. pro creating-animals-to-skin-them-for-their-fur. Better yet, HSUS could start a campaign targeting at Google's DOG AND CAT SKIN Trade.

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HSUS Fur Ethics China 100

Animal Person

JUNE 20, 2009

Bea sent me a link to an article in Gourmet called " Humane Slaughterhouses ," by Rebecca Marx, that is absurd. They believe you can take a life that doesn't want to be taken in a humane way, and I don't agree. It’s how we treat humans, too. To treat animals fairly, he needs to treat his workers fairly." Not eating them.

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Slaughter Slaughtered Cows Meat 100

Animal Person

MAY 23, 2009

I notice that if I use "animal rights activist" or anything with the word "rights" in it, because it's loaded and misunderstood, my listener often has an immediate bias of some kind. People have a relationship, whether or not they are aware, to the term "animal rights." But I don't want to talk about PeTA.

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Animal Advocacy PETA Animal Advocacy 100

Animal Person

AUGUST 18, 2009

It has been a humbling 17 days as I walk the dogs early, shower, and get gussied up to sit in traffic for 1.5 While spending hours in the car I've been thinking about various issues related to sentient nonhumans, animal rights and veganism. I want humans to stop using sentient nonhumans for their own gain.

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Vegan Ethics Humane Killing 100

Animal Person

JUNE 8, 2009

For those who didn't read the five-part Slate series " Pepper, the stolen dog who changed American science " by Daniel Engber , I recommend it for the history, but also for the misconceptions and assumptions that you might want to discuss on the Facebook discussion about the series. Part II: Man Cuts Dog.

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Animal Welfare Monkeys Animal Welfare Act Vivisection 100

Animal Person

JUNE 29, 2009

What makes Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home the best in vegan education and animal rights education is that, without getting too much into the hideous treatment of anyone, James LaVeck and Jenny Stein (a.k.a. Tribe of Heart ) have managed to leave the viewer no option that includes eating animals.

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Vegan Puppy Mills Sanctuary Farm Sanctuary 100

Animal Ethics

JULY 8, 2012

Indeed, precisely because one expects indifference from animals but pity or mercy from human beings, people who are cruel by being insensitive to the suffering they cause often are called "animals" or "brutes," and their character or behavior, "brutal" or "inhuman." Both active and passive cruelty have fuzzy borders.

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Cruelty Los Angeles Suffering Inhumane 40

Animal Person

MARCH 23, 2009

Stephanie has been dealing with the usual "dogs-love-to-run" and "it's-part-of-our culture" and "this-is-what-they're-bred-to-do" crowd, which is a thankless, enervating and maddening job. Finally, there's an alert from Susan Hargreaves, who is a humane educator here in South Florida (via Trish). which includes a poll.

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Elephants Vegan Bullhook Laws 100

Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2007

By abusing evolutionary biology in this way, we are able to read back the sophisticated conduct of people into the animal behavior that prefigures it. But this means that the apes appeal to animal-rights activists for precisely the wrong reason—namely, that they look like people and behave like people, while making no moral demands.

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Animal Morals Apes Emotional 40

Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Causing an animal to suffer for no good reason is cruel, and our ordinary commonsense morality tells us in no uncertain terms that cruelty is wrong. A brief look at the public outcry concerning Michael Vick’s dog-fighting ring shows just how widely accepted premise (1) is. Animal abuse is a crime in all fifty states, and rightly so.

Vegetarian 40

Vegetarian Meat Ethics Lacto-Ovo 40

Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 18, 2006

There are some personal anecdotes I plan on sharing on this site that range from my most recent experience of getting trapped on a hunting trip with my relatives, to an early memory I have of experiencing empathy for the first time with my dog Tabatha. Currently, I do not believe that killing an animal is prima facie morally wrong.

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Factory Farm Factory Farming Morals Factory 40

Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

The Argument from Human Grain Shortage All of the clearly moral arguments for vegetarianism given so far have been in terms of animal rights and suffering. New moral vegetarianism, however, rests on moral arguments couched in terms of human welfare. The next assumption is no less dubious.

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Vegetarian Morals Meat Cattle 40

Critter News

MAY 28, 2009

Is what he did consciously to his pitbulls that much worse than what we do unconsciously to animals every day? Some of us forget that dogs are mere animals, and that animal mistreatment is as American as Apple iPods. Like Vick, most of us shamelessly abuse and kill animals. I think we have it backward.

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Michael Vick Guinea Pigs Animal Cruelty Animal Abuse 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2013

In the past I have attributed some of this conflict to differences between the conservation mindset and that of animal rights/animal welfare. The way things should be is a very powerful motivating factor in human lives. Dogs should not be used to hunt foxes. A hungry child should be fed.

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Tigers Hunting Game Protection 172

Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

Becoming a vegetarian is the most practical and effective step one can take towards [sic; kbj] ending both the killing of non-human [sic; kbj] animals and the infliction of suffering upon them. KBJ: Singer’s claim is that one should not contribute, even incrementally, to animal suffering.

Vegetarian 40

Vegetarian Morals Protest Protesting 40

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

The interests of those working for conservation and those working for animal rights and animal welfare don’t always perfectly align like you might think they do. With no permanent habitation inside its boundaries, human disturbance is low. I’ve discussed this, at length, before. You do a lot of good.

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Lions Killing Hunting Hunters 183