Animals We Love and Torture

I remember growing up with movies like "Tommy and the Wildcat", "Free Willy", "Nikki, Wild Dog of the North" and two children's books that had almost the same plot - namely a captive bird being unhappy with his life in a cage despite a very caring owner and in one story escaping, while in the other story being released by its caring and loving owner. Also I of course read the bestseller "The Fox and the Hound" about a young male fox named "Todd" who is raised by a huntswoman, but later runs away and survives in the wild for quite a while. These are all fictional stories of which the author has all rights to include unlikely things - like a tame animal surviving in the wild without anybody ever training him to do so - to the plot. Judging by diary-entries I wrote back then I already understood at the age of then that to make a captive animal survive in the wild for more than just a few days needs massive training and in some cases - like when the animal is too old or missimprinted - is even impossible. That's why I'm so surprised to hear from "Tierschutz Euskirchen" that last night at least two men broke into a park and "freed" three lynxes by damaging their enclosure making it possible for the bobcats to escape. One of the animals already got caught, but the other two are still roaming free and according to "Tierschutz Euskirchen" are most likely to die soon as they won't be able to catch anything to eat. Also - considering that winter is approaching - the two cats won't know what to do once the water is frozen. They are going to die of thirst. If you've been to "Harz" and seen them, please contact the local police.

>In Leipzig a newborn rhino now died of pneumonia – as the zoo itself states.. In most parts of Germany it's getting very cold at the end of October and as it seems this young animal just couldn't deal with these temperatures that are very different from where rhinos usually live.

>“Tierschutz Euskirchen” says that now after a number of cases in which venomenos reptiles simply got abandoned by their owners – which lead to some dangerous incidents involving the people who accidentally came across said creatures – politicians from all kinds of German parties now came together to fight for a country-wide de-legalization of venomenos animals as pets.

As it seems Englishbaby.com has one of those days again when they won't let me post a comment in the form I want it to appear on the screen so please forgive me:

>“Tierschutz Euskirchen” says that this week a bull escaped from a transport to the butcher. The animal injured three people before police officers had to take the frightened animal down by shooting it.

>“Tierschutz Euskirchen” said on Monday that somewhere in Germany last Sunday someone had killed six kitten-cubs by throwing them out of his car. As it seems he did not bother to sterilize his cat and she became pregnant unexpectedly.

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On September 27th police officers involved in this case reported the following to “Tierschutz Euskirchen”: A lady found a presumably abandoned little mongrel dog and put the female into her car – either wanting to take her home or bring her to a pet shelter; they weren't that precise here. After a few seconds however the stray dog attacked her rescuer and tried to bite her. The lady immediately fled the car and – as the dog refused to get out of the car – called the police. When police officers tried to lure the animal out of the vehicle, it became very angry and tried to bite them as well. In the end they somehow got her out of the car and brought her to a shelter.

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On October 9th "Tierschutz Euskirchen" reported about a German who when moving to another city just abandoned his 19 rattlesnakes. He simply left them without food or water in their enclosure and left the house forever. As it seems dealing with this breed of snakes that is known to be very venomenous and aggressive became too dangerous from his point of view.

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The party "Mensch Umwelt Tierschutz" says that at the end of this month the so-called "fur-harvest" begins in Finland. This is the time when fur-farms kill thousands of foxes, bunnies and other animals in order to make fur-coats out of their fur. Actually foxes and bunnies aren't meant to be held in cages in the first place, but they need some time to jump around freely - and in the case of bunnies to graze -, too to keep themselves from getting mental problems, but the even bigger problem is that many of these animals neither get sedated nor killed before their fur gets torn off which means they are in a lot of pain at that time.

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Soon the circus “Crocofant” is going to be in Tübingen and through my fellowmen at the university there I already heard first rumors about upcoming protests against this.

Reasons that caused these alleged protests are:

>On their homepage the circus itself claims that firstly their two elephants were caught in the wild of Zimbabwe and that secondly said elephants only get to be two hours per day outside their cages – plus a few hours in the manege - on some days.

>They have big cats such as tigers and lions. These animals are unpredictable and not controllable and unlike domesticated animals they have strong natural instincts – like hunting instincts – they can't oppress which means that people who work with them can get injured anytime.

>I don't know much about horses or donkeys, but I read somewhere that the stables there are way too small and not species-appropriate.

>They also have porcupines even though these are known to be wild animals that hardly adapt to all this travelling around and the loud and bright world of a circus. Also these animals are known to be active at night only although the circus forces them to perform at daytime.

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You may need knowledge of the German language for the following, but: The aid-organization “TASSO” says that considering that October 10thwas the “World Dog's Day” they now want to collect photos of pet-dogs until October 19th. If you don't mind them publishing the photo and the name of your pet dog – and if you actually have a pet dog of course – please send your photo to:

http://www.tasso.net/Welthundetag

Like they used to do two years ago at around this time they are going to donate 1,00€ per photo to an organization that sterilizes stray dogs in Romany in order to prevent them from further breeding. This is important insofar as feral dogs are known to spread diseases – among themselves and among human beings -, steal food and attack people. Plus this also happens for these dogs' own good as delivering and nursing puppies on the street without human aid means a lot of stress to them and as said puppies would live a life in misery anyway – especially since there are many people who are very cruel towards stray dogs and even towards their puppies. Good thing that by sterilizing these animals "TASSO" is going to limit the suffering of doggies on the streets!

>“Tierschutz Euskirchen”: A travelling circus in Hessen lost 19 animals of different kinds when the circus-staff underestimated the dangers of a heavy thunder that Hessen went through two weeks ago. The animals were outside in an enclosure and lightning stroke them.

>Last week the German animal aid-organization “Tierschutzbüro” - not to be confused with “Tierschutzpartei” - brought the state of Berlin to court. In every German federal state but Berlin it is illegal to keep a horse in a stall housing, since it is known that this way of keeping a horse can lead to abnormal behaviour and health issues for this animal. However there also is a Germany-wide law for the protection of animals and thus “Tierschutzbüro” argues that what Berlin does may be against the nation-wide law of Germany and that Berlin should be ordered to stop legalizing stall housing.

>In Saxony it still is legal to clip the beaks of laying hens, ducks and turkeys, since due to having too little space they become aggressive towards each other and would hurt themselves or each other if their beaks were long enough to inflict any harm. The German party “Die Grünen” now is working on a new bill that should make the clipping of a bird's beak illegal over there and that also should make sure that the birds get more room instead to avoid that these animals could turn against each other. “Die Grünen” argues that the clipping of the beak is extremely painful for aforementioned birds and that furthermore it keeps them from doing certain things with their beaks that would be only natural for them. Additionally there is no reason not to plan on giving them more space while making beak-clipping illegal as they say that this will make meat and eggs of these creatures only 4ct. More expensive.

>The latest example of the magazine “Dein Spiegel” says that Germany still houses five bears that are forced to do unnatural tricks in shows and that live under non-species-appropriate conditions. Yet nobody ever did something about their situation.

>The German party “Mensch Umwelt Tierschutz” now published an article about Spanish fur-farms for bunnies. They say that even though bunnies can live up to twelve years, these animals get killed after only two months. The animals can hardly move in their crowded small cages that despite the widely known fact that bunnies have very sensitive feet have a wire shelf – of course without any hay or straw - for ground. Of course these bunnies never are allowed to leave these cages to for example graze outside and even if they are sick, injured or disabled workers usually just leave them to themselves. Only in a few rare cases when a bunny had a transmittable disease did workers take it out of the cage and hit it to the ground until it died. The party found out that the customers who buy fur from these fur factories also are well-known fashion companies like Burberry, Dior, Armani, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Jacobs and Diane Von Furstenberg.

>In late August:

- one python was found that showed signs of having been neglected and eventually abandoned.

- a box filled with a lot of living guinea pigs was found.

- 8 turtles that presumably were abandoned were found by someone and brought to a zoo where they now live.

- one parrot – didn't the owner know that he could have earned a fortune by selling his pet? – was found all alone in a little cage in the wild. It is clear that it was abandoned. Also it can be presumed that its former owner kept it all alone even though this isn't species-appropriate.

>”Tierschutz Euskirchen” reported about a cat the pet shelter of “Euskirchen” has been trying to find a home for since May. Her – it is a female – family simply locked her into their flat and left instead of trying to find another home for her when they moved to another town. Her name is Brummi and one of the reasons why nobody wanted to buy her until now may be that – presumably due to this incident in which she almost died – she is very suspicious towards human beings and has more faith in fellow-cats than in people.

>a venomous cobra was first sighted in Los Angeles before the animal that somebody must have abandoned could get captured in early September.

I got these news from “Tierschutz Euskirchen”.

>In the middle of September “Tierschutzbüro” reported that somebody in Germany – I don't remember where - abandoned a litter of kittens by...putting them into a box, sealing the box and then throwing it into a trailer. Luckily the cubs were found in time.

>Including a very long boa constrictor that was found abandoned and injured on September 19th an aid-organization “Tierschutz Euskirchen” reported about had to take in 7 abandoned snakes this year.

>It occurs to me that being cool has become the most important argument in favor of buying a pet...“Tierschutz Euskirchen” now reported two stories – one that took place in Germany on 4th of July and one that took place in Greece one day later. In Germany someone found two large pythons that were about to suffocate in the plastic bag where someone must have abandoned them. These two animals showed clear signs of being underfed. In Greece identical photos that were taken on Friday proved that somebody must have abandoned his pet-crocodile in a lake.

Both specimens of reptiles are known to be very small after hatching, but to slowly grow into very big predators. Obviously their former owners didn't consider that before deciding to take in their new pets. Nor did they consider that abandoning your pet is not only illegal in many countries, but in a case like this also very dangerous. Only a few days later – on Friday - “Tierschutz Euskirchen” also could report about a US-American gentleman who owned multiple pythons in his house even though he couldn't even care for them. When someone informed the police about the “awful smell” coming from this persons house, the police officers who entered found out that the intense as well as unpleasant smell came from dead dying and very sick snakes that just couldn't survive under these harsh living conditions. Huh, they say that in Italy the police even found someone who illegally owned a tiger cub as his pet. This animal was treated so badly by its owner that it now requires special treatment. Plus, on July 18th somebody – or maybe these were two separate people – let two snakes loose in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis. And on 21st of July the police caught a wild snake that wasn't supposed to live free in Germany. Probably an abandoned pet! On July 23rd two more exotic snakes were found in a bag on the train station of Berlin. Obviously they got abandoned. On the very same day an abandoned pit bull-terrier was shot by the police because the dog reacted aggressive towards anybody trying to free him – it was a male – from the line tying him to this tree. Finally the dog even managed to bite someone and only then when the police officers realized that he wouldn't let go of his victim one officer pulled the trigger. It was obvious that the poor animal wasn't treated by its former owner the way a complicated fighting dog like this one should be dealt with. The pet shelter in Berlin even is so overcrowded with abandoned creatures like these that for now they refuse to take in any further cats, bunnies and guinea-pigs according to a statement they gave to “Tierschutz Euskirchen”. Furthermore I almost start to believe that abandoning your pets has become fancy. On July 27th – so “Tierschutz Euskirchen” says – a man was startled when a presumably abandoned python crawled up his balcony while he was having breakfast. My mother says she read somewhere today that in Bavaria somebody abandoned his pet-turtle by dumping this reptile into a lake. Early in July 2014 a female Siberian husky and a male husky-mix were found abandoned somewhere in Reutlingen and brought to a pet shelter. It is unknown whether or not these two once belonged to the same owner, but the female was advanced in pregnancy and already delivered in this shelter. While she most likely was abandoned for being pregnant, he probably was too hard to handle for his owner. On their website the British organization “The Dogs Trust” said meanwhile quite a while ago that last year just in Great Britain 261 Alaskan huskies, Siberian huskies, malamutes and other “wolf-like” dogs had been brought to British pet shelters because their owners had realized they would never be able to really take care of them. Leaving aside some tragic cases in which the owner just passed away or lost his or her job most of these dogs were just bought in the heat of the moment when their owners were inspired by one of the many popular movies about a human being befriending a wolf or a pack of wolves. It isn't always a bright idea to let a movie tell you how to live your life in the first place, but apart from that these movies obviously weren't that educational as they lacked to inform the viewer about the following characteristics of huskies and malamutes: These animals were born to do hard work in the wild by pulling sleds for example. Especially huskies were bred to work in a team and to deal with the fact that in the wild huskies often have to use their own head. Also other natural instincts like the instinct to dig or to chase are still preserved in these dogs. This doesn't only mean that you shouldn't be too surprised if your husky digs up a mess in your garden, attacks your pet bunnies or guinea-pigs and constantly needs to be taught that you are the boss, but that also means that they are unhappy if you make them live without a second dog and even show abnormal behavior if you don't give them physically hard exercise every day or if you can't behave dominant towards them. Also they require trimming. Many deadly dog attacks could have been avoided had the dog owner known about this. According to "Tierschutz Euskirchen" a python that someone must have abandoned now managed to enter the motor of a car. Some children saw this and Informed an adult who in return called the fire brigade. August 2nd: You realize that August is the month when most people go on a vacation trip when the number of abandoned animals increases. "Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that a lady found an abandoned kitten in a container. As she couldn't reach the animal that was stuck between the rubbish,  she called the fire brigade. They in return brought the kitten to a pet shelter where he or she soon will be up for adoption. Obviously its first owner either diidn't think of the fact that sooner or later he would go on a trip where he couldn't take along the kitten or he thought that cats had a very short life-expectation or he just got annoyed when he realized that kittens need much more attention than he thought they would. On August 1st someone abandoned all of his five dogs – including a puppy – by tying them to a tree. He probably couldn't take the stress anymore it takes to own five dogs. On 3rd of August a lady – thus says “Tierschutz Euskirchen” - found a python running loose on her own porch. Obviously this reptile was abandoned as this specimen is really hard to keep healthy. Another lady found another abandoned kitten in a container on the exact same day. According to "Tierschutz Euskirchen" an elder gentleman now found a snake that someone must have abandoned in this city. He informed the police who immediately caught the huge reptile and brought it to a pet shelter. Luckily it was not poisonous. On August 6th “Tierschutz Euskirchen” reported that a giant Australian lizard presumably got abandoned on purpose as its owner didn't come yet to claim his pet back and no specimen of lizard has been reported missing in this “Bunesland”. This specimen of lizard is known to require much room and attention. July 7th: "Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that pet shelters from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern say that recently so many kittens got abandoned, were found and got brought to a shelter that they can't accept any further kittens. Furthermore the same organisation says that the German police now took away 23 geckos from a gentleman who did not treat them species-appropriate according to German law.

Considering the high number of African pygmy hedgehogs that were legally captured from the wild to keep the breeding of “domesticated” African pygmy hedgehogs alive, considering the fact that many of these formerly wild hedgehogs died on their way to Europe or the USA, considering that many pet-hedgehogs already died because their owners didn't handle them properly, considering that it was thanks to this breeding of “domesticated” African pygmy hedgehogs that we now have a new disease called “WHS” that already killed dozens of hedgehogs, considering that in the wild these animals dig deep holes to have a place to sleep – which they can't do in a cage - and considering that scientists now found out that individuals from this specimen of hedgehog get some sort of depression if you keep them behind bars or glass-walls for too long - which makes them boring and unattractive in the eye of some pet-owners and could lead to them eventually abandoning their pet - “Tierschutz Euskirchen” now gave a clear statement against the idea to buy one as a pet. In addition these hedgehogs that were captured in the wild of Angola and Zambia would be needed by many local farmers as they mostly feed on slugs, worms and bugs that tend to destroy whole harvests. On August 10th the police caught another snake in a dark and dry garage – the ideal place for reptiles like this one to take a nap. This specimen of snail is known for being able to survive without tropical surroundings or a warming lamp and also for not growing too big. However the person who abandoned this reptile probably didn't know before buying his new pet that this animal still needs certain things – like enough earth for it to dig a hole and also a special diet – to remain happy and healthy. On August 10th - it was late at night – a retired elder gentleman found another presumably abandoned snake in his house - “Tierschutz Euskirchen”. “Tierschutz Euskirchen” says that on August 6th someone found a bunny that must have been abandoned in the shoebox where it lay. Its owner either knew that he would abandon his pet after only a few months and simply didn't care about it or he didn't think that much – How long does a bunny live? What am I going to do with it if someday I want to go somewhere where I can't take a bunny along? Will I be able to deal with the time pressure it takes to feed a rabbit, to clean its cage, to bring it to the vet etc.? How am I going to make this animal trust me? - while buying it and sooner or later found a pet-bunny less appealing than a little journey. Sadly the fact that it was all alone in the box also implies that it probably was kept alone in its cage. No wonder the owner started to become more interested in seeing the world than in watching the rabbit. These animals can be very lethargic if kept without a companion. Anyway the pet-shelter of “Euskirchen” now tries to find a new home for the little black and white darling. By the way they also search for a new home for a giant turtle that also was abandoned. The owner probably didn't bother to read about how big these animals can become and when it definitely grew big he just threw it into this lake. Another theory is that he did not expect it to b that hard to clean a turtle-tank regularly. A presumably abandoned snake that in the wild can survive in Mississippi only now was found by a retired gentleman in his own garden. At least that is what “Tierschutz Euskirchen” says. Somewhere near Koblenz there is a tree that stands close to a roadhouse. As "Tierschutz Euskirchen" reported yesterday that one of the visitors of said roadhouse called the police some days before because he saw a cat that was sitting on top of the tall tree and seemed to be unable to come down. Furthermore it also stunned him to see a cat in this area so close to a well-used highway and the closest residential building being a few miles away. A police officer rescued the cat and brought it to the animal-shelter of Koblenz where they presume that the following must have happened: The owner was on his or her way to another area to spend his /her vacation there. Maybe he also was disappointed with the pet-cat as he probably didn't inform himself before buying the young male that these animals are hard to train tricks, tend to bring dead or living birds, rats and mice into the house and will bite or scratch you if you bother them. Maybe he didn't even know how old these creatures can get and thought his pet would die after only a few years and then he could get to his vacation. Anyway he probably waited until nobody was looking, then let the cat out of his car and immediately drove away. At least that would explain why no cat recently was reported missing in this area.

> The German political party "Mensch Umwelt Tierschutz" says that each year just in Germany 60.000 people die of unexpected complications after taking medicine that was successfully tested on animals only. Thus they now encourage people to participate in a demonstration that is going to take place on July 26th between 3 and 6 PM in front of the animal research laboratory in Neu Wulmstorf-Mienenbüttel that is famous for testing most things on monkeys, dogs and cats. Because of this – thus says “Tierschutz Euskirchen“ Hessen now decided to reduce the number of animals they are going to use to test animals on.

> “Tierschutz Euskirchen” says that even though this is illegal in Germany many owners of German feeding-lots still kill male chicks as the fact that they don't lay eggs makes them “unproductive”.

“Tierschutzbüro” says that even though this is illegal in Germany as well many peasants still have their cows chained up permanently. It remains unknown whether or not these men are aware of the fact that what they do is illegal.

P.S. I'm sorry! After four attempts I've given up! I dont know why this very long comment of mine came out in such a strange form.

Oh my! Considering that the episode I'm referring to aired almost one month ago these news aren't real news anymore, are they? The TV channel “Was geht ab-Shorts” now published a news report under the title “Tod hinter der Kamera - Die Filmtier-Lüge!” (Death Behind The Camera – The Movie-Animal-Lie) in which they state that despite organizations who would be responsible for making sure that no animals could be harmed on the set, many movie- makers actually got away with (accidentally) killing animals. The movie “HBO” for example – which I never heard of before – caused 4 horses to die. The famous movie “The Hobbit” was responsible for the death of 27 horses, sheep and others. In “Life of Pie” a tiger almost drowned in a basin which it was forced to enter. The movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” - and I always loved this adventure-comedy-movie – meant the end of life for dozens of marine animals when an underwater-detonation was caused due to technical malfunction. The reason why all these movies still got a certificate stating that no animals were harmed on set are various. First of all to make this certificate workers of said organizations only have to observe 50% of the shootings, meaning that many accidents go unseen. Secondly it sometimes isn't clear what can be counted as “animals were harmed during the making of this movie”; like in “The Hobbit” where all of these animals died just because the enclosure they spent their free time in wasn't save. They usually injured themselves due to a bad piece of fence or found a way to escape from said enclosure and got killed this way. In fact no animals were harmed during the making of the movie scenes used in “The Hobbit”. There even is evidence that the workers of an organization had a real argument about whether or not they should give the makers of “The Hobbit” stating “No animals were harmed during the making of this movie.” and in the end they did so. In addition it happens that evidence just gets lost or forgotten like in the case of this poor almost drowning tiger when a worker reported this incident by writing a letter to a colleague who would have been responsible for bringing this letter to the responsible authorities. Alas he somehow forgot about this – perhaps due to reacting under stress – and since this letter never reached anybody to examine this case, the movie still got its certificate – even though modern science knows that animals can feel fear too and also can be traumatized by an event like this. After all he – because it was a male tiger – almost died by drowning and if that isn't a reason for him to be scared or to be somehow traumatized, I don't know what is.

On Friday the aid-organization “Aerzte gegen Tierversuche” (Doctors Against Animal Testings) had an exhibition in the centre of Tübingen and of course I was there, too. There were experts whom you could ask questions about animal-testings, informative placards hanging on the walls and brochures you could take home. Before going there I of course made a whole list of questions I wanted to ask:

1.) What can ordinary citizens who are not members of a group like this do against animal-testings?

Answer: If you've got a great idea about a new campaign, you may contact the aid-organization “Tübingen für Tiere” (http://www.tuebingen-fuer-tiere.de/ueber-uns/kontakt.html) or “Ärzte gegen Tierversuche” (info@aerzte-gegen-tierversuche.de) and tell them about it. They speak English, so there really is no problem at all.

You could donate to “Aerzte gegen Tierversuche” (Sparda-Bank /Conto-Account.: 951 731 /Bank Code 500 905 00 /IBAN: DE 305 009 050 000 00 951 731 /BIC: GENODEF 1S12) or you could run your own homepage on which you inform people about why animal-testings are bad. You could start an online-petition. The easiest thing to do however would be to simply not buy any products that involved animal-testings.

2.) Since monkeys are very smart and almost human-like creatures, I think they are the most pitied of all testing-animals. Do they at least breed the animals used for these testings?

Answer: No! Many of them are caught in the wilderness of China, Cambodia, Mauritius and Thailand. The poachers usually are poor people and in fact Cambodia the poorest one of these countries has the highest number of poachers. However they don't only catch monkeys for German laboratories, but they also kill some of the family-members of the monkeys caught for animal testings and sell their body-parts illegally. That's why I think you can say that animal-testings improve the conditions for illegal trading. By chance a baby-monkey is born into a laboratory and gets sold to another laboratory, but many are from the wild.

3.) Does the number of animal-testings on monkeys increase or decrease all over the world?

Answer: I only know about Germany and here the numbers vary every year. Sometimes the number increases by some hundreds of monkeys and sometimes it decreases.

4.) I'm sorry if I ask too much about monkeys, Madam. It's just that I like these animals a lot. I once saw a documentary-movie about a testing-laboratory somewhere in the USA. The chimps they used for testings just wouldn't die and after years the laboratory decided not to use this group of chimps for further testings and to sell them to a zoo instead where they got a huge enclosure. Do German laboratories treat monkeys that survived several testings the same way?

Answer: No! We even heard reports about monkeys getting euthanized after surviving “too many” experiments. The laboratories we heard of through these reports normally kill them after 15 months.

5.) What do you think, Madam, is the silliest experiment German laboratories do these days with monkeys?

Answer: Oh! There are so many experiments, but I think the HIV-experiment is the most unscientific one of them. Monkeys can't get infected with AIDS and thus doctors just inject a similar disease that monkeys are affected by. They've been doing this for years now and as you may know, Madam, they still don't know how to cure people from AIDS.

6.) Now something that is not related to monkeys. I once read that the frogs used for animal testings feel pain. Is this true? I already heard about several animals – including some amphibians – that are unable to feel pain. That is why I thought that frogs didn't feel anything – until I read this.

Answer: Of course there are some insects, fish and amphibians that don't feel pain, but it is proven that all frogs known by mankind do feel pain.

7.) I never knew what to think of animals being killed so that they can be used by university students of medicine or biology. On the one hand this procedure means that a lot of animals must die, but on the other hand the students who deal with these carcasses later will profit from this experience and will probably be able to save the lives of many human beings or animals.

Answer: Yes! You may be right, Madam! But then again we don't kill human beings to use them in anatomy-class either, but we wait until a human being dies of old age, a disease, by crime or by accident. If enough human beings sign a contract during their lifetime that says that they are willing to donate their corpse after death, universities aren't running out of dead bodies that their students can use either. With animals it is even a little easier. Veterinarians, animal shelters, pet shops, slaughterhouses, zoos, circuses, peasants, shepherds and breeders deal with dozens of animals that eventually will die and that nobody wants to bury as his or her beloved pet. Dead wild animals are found by men every single day. Why don't we just use their carcasses?

As it seems to me people need to learn that not all animals are supposed to be held as pets. Sure we now wouldn't have any pets at all if it weren't for the people who lived thousands of years ago domesticating wild animals. On first sight this argument these men have seems to work, but they obviously ignore the fact that back then people didn't care whether or not the boars, wolves or wild horses which they domesticated had a species-appropriate life. These wild animals most certainly suffered in captivity, many of them dying under these conditions – while no human being cared or even just noticed - and it would take hundreds of years until they finally adapted to this life. It may be only human that we want to bond with a special and thus somehow interesting creature, but that is exactly the problem. It is human and thus these exotic animals don't feel the way we do about it. Most people already should have problems trying to deal with the more complicated breeds of dogs like pitbulls and accidents while dealing with a rather complicated “pet” already happened to professionals: Yesterday when after several hours I just needed a break from learning I watched this interesting documentary movie about the now extinct family of sabretoothed big cats that came on the TV channel of “National Geographic” and there was this particular scene in which the narrator thanked the “Center For Animal Research and Education” in Bridgeport (Texas /USA) for supporting the making of this documentary movie. They did so not only by explaining to them about the big cats they have or by providing them with some of the meat they actually were going to feed to the animals, but also by allowing the crew to walk around in this several square kilometres wide center to watch and examine the big cats to get the testing results they needed for the movie. The Texan “Center For Animal Research and Education” in Bridgeport was so helpful that to thank them the narrator even spent a little time making some advertisement for them by saying that they take in mistreated and abused animals from private people who had no idea how to treat this animal, but just wanted something fashion, from circuses that had no use for “this old, disturbed and due to bad treatment also disabled animal” and from zoos as well as parks that realized that spectators seemed to lose interest into this specimen. In the center however they receive more species-appropriate and huge enclosures. In the end they even superimposed the website of this center's homepage “http://carerescuetexas.com/about-care/”.

I paid a visit to my grandfather today and as always he had his radio on - as always on the radio station SWR4. Of course we interrupted our chat and listened to the news when the reporter of SWR4 started to speak. He said that the university of Tübingen soon will receive more money for a project they have started which is about finding alternatives to animal testings on mammals. An idea they have is using lower animals like bacteria for their testings. Also they say that it is possible that in some cases the ressistance of virus and bacteria could be tested without injecting them into animals. Thus some of their testings will be about killing these germs without injecting them into any creature.

Till the beginning of this week most Germans thought that poultry that was sold under the label of "Wiesenhof" came from chicken, ducks and other birds that actually had an acceptable life until they got slaughtered. This week however an animal rights group sent a detailed report with photos to the German newspaper "Focus" which prove that even this supplier doesn't treat its' animals well. One especially shocking example was a photo that depicted seriously ill and injured birds lying on a pile of birds that were already dead, meaning that instead of giving their animals medical treatment or euthanizing them, the workers there just select birds that are going to die within the next days /weeks and then put them in a place where they are going to die a slow and - depending on their sickness or wound - perhaps even painful death.

What does this story teach us? Most people here thought that this supplier wasn't cruel to animals and they were proven wrong. Thus this story teaches us that when buying an animal product you can never be sure that no animals were harmed during the making of this product - unless of course you buy products from farmers you know personally.

It's hard to say what people consider to be funny about seeing animals getting tortured...Okay! I'm sure most people don't know what an odyssey the life of a race horse is or that living in a small tank isn't species - appropriate for whales and dolphins. Perhaps they don't even know the cruel methods people use to train a dancing bear.

However in some cases it's obvious that the animal gets tortured: In Pakistan bear baiting still gets practiced officially and nobody who ever saw this photo

can claim that he didn't know that this animal gets tortured.

Also they see how the bull gets killed after a bull fighting.

In cases like these it's very hard to say why people still want shows like these: It's impossible that all of the many people watching this feel something like sadistic joy while watching the show. Also it's unlikely that all of them just want to keep traditions alive, because most modern European people actually break many norms of their ancestors every single day.

I seriously don't know the answer to your question, but perhaps that's because there isn't only one answer...

hiii dear dorothee!

u know i DON`T LIKE BULL FIGHTING! it completely hurt & suffer poor bulls! i think it`s just funny for humans! not BULLS! they r animal & can`t say anything!

i do`n t know why human do something to animals unsuitable?! why we hurt animals when they r very useful & kind to us? WHY?!