Every now and then, I get emails through that make me laugh so much my sides hurt. I won’t go into too much detail, the email discussion between Ingrid and MEP Roger Helmer speaks for itself. If you want to know what the devil they’re on about, check back on this entry I posted late last month about the push for the UK to adopt higher animal welfare laws like the Swiss.

18 June 2008

Dear Roger,

Thank you for your abominably rude and ignorant letter: It is worthy of being framed!

I took a chance on including you in the letter to Members of Parliament in which I suggested that Britain - universally known as a “nation of animal lovers” - not take a back seat to Switzerland and other countries with progressive animal protection legislation. Specifically, these countries have legislation that recognises that many cruelty-to-animals cases would never occur if people who want to take a dog or cat into their homes were required to pass a basic animal care test.

I knew a few things about you - including that you are a global-warming denier and an award-winning environmental disaster (Friends of the Earth, was it?); that you had mocked homosexuals’ “sensitivity”; and that you are otherwise hopelessly out of touch - but I thought there might be a tiny chance you could understand that cruelty to animals is something that needs to be prevented.

I also thought perhaps you realised that many young people today do not know anything about the needs of cats and dogs and how to care for these animals. They haven’t a clue that dogs can’t perspire (as people do) and leave them tied in the heat or locked in a car in summer; haven’t a clue about the nutritional needs of dog and cats are and starve them; and often haven’t a clue that dogs and cats have emotions, feelings and needs and treat them as if they are stuffed toys or punching bags. However, it turns out it is you who hasn’t a clue. 

I don’t mean to be harsh, but don’t you think it might be time for you to see that you are a dinosaur in a changing world? If your name lives on, it might be because your letter is one that children in future generations will see used in textbooks to illustrate how entrenched and unenlightened even well-placed people were in 2008. Even slave runners changed their opinions. If you don’t change your opinion on issues like protecting the environment and animals, that will be a shame.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid E Newkirk

Founder

—
Dear Ingrid,

Thank you for your letter of June 10th, regarding what you quaintly describe as “companion animals”.  I take it you mean pets.

You are asking that all dog owners should be required to take a training course and an exam.  I thought at first this must be some kind of spoof, but I see that it is not April 1st.

I spend most of my time trying to reduce pointless and unnecessary regulation in the EU, and to resist the tide of the Nanny State.  I am certainly not about to support a measure like this.

Its main effect would be to greatly increase the number of abandoned animals, and animals kept in refuges because no homes could be found.  Why don’t you have the honesty to admit that this has nothing to do with animal welfare, and everything to do with your real agenda — the criminalisation of pet ownership?

Best regards.

ROGER HELMER

PETA has been entangled in a bit of a scrap with The Wright Stuff show, over their two goldfish – Brad and Jen. Well, I have some good news for you: get your address book out, they’ve moved! The fish are now homed in a larger tank and with “environmental enrichment.”

Of course it still sucks that Brad-fish and Jen-fish are living in the middle of a stage set, surrounded by bright lights and loud noises. Maybe the Swiss Guard will take notice, invade London, and liberate the fishies once and for all.

Image: Crave / CC

Two experiments to study rhesus macaques’ brains have been banned by a court in Zurich. The ban is being appealed and may yet be overturned, but hey, what a great story anyway! According to Nature News, the court ruled that “society was unlikely to see the benefits of the research during the three-year funding period approved, and thus the burden on the animals was not justified.” Swiss law, which I’ve praised before, requires society’s benefits to be weighed against the ‘burden’ on the animal before any experiments can take place. You may not know this (neither did I ‘til I just quizzed my main man on the ins-and-outs of vivisection, Alistair), but this is no different from UK law!

Sadly, in Britain claims that benefit will occur can be extremely vague and still get a rubber stamp from the government. You can see this in the 3 million experiments that take place every year despite all the scientific failings of vivisection. What also separates us Brits from the Swiss here though, is the time measured from doing the experiment, and when the ‘benefit’ is seen. So, in this case a “benefit” would have to be seen straight after carrying out the test, but done in the UK, vivisectors and scientists just need to indicate there may possibly be benefits far in the future. Fingers crossed the decision isn’t overturned…

Image: ABC / CC

As we all know by now, fish are pretty smart. They have long-term memories, can use tools and are interesting individuals, just like dogs and cats.

A load of complaints have been pouring in from members of the public about the goldfish on channel Five’s chat-show The Wright Stuff. They sit in a small bowl with no stimulation, and are clearly there for ‘decoration’ purposes. Not to mention it must be stressful being surrounded by stage lights and the general noise you get on a TV chat show.

The science on fish intelligence and their need for social stimulation is so clear that Switzerland has just banned keeping solitary goldfish as ‘pets’, as did Rome a few years back. Picture it like this: to keep a fish in a tiny bowl for his or her entire life is like shoving your dog in a closet and never letting him out.

Here’s the letter that got sent this morning and what Yahoo had to say about it.

23 May 2008

Nick Vaughan-Smith, Series Editor
The Wright Stuff
Channel 5 News

Dear Mr Vaughan-Smith,

PETA is an international non-profit organisation with more than 2 million members and supporters dedicated to the protection of animals. We have received complaints about the live goldfish contained in a small bowl on the reporter’s desk during The Wright Stuff on Channel 5. We are writing to ask you to please consider the following information and find this goldfish a more suitable permanent home in a large tank with places to hide and explore for stimulation.

Goldfish might be small and somewhat alien to us, but I’m certain you’ll agree that they are worthy of care and respect. Goldfish have personalities and abilities that most people don’t know about. For example, they have interesting ways of communicating with each other, forming bonds and grieving when family members and companions die. When confined to toxic enclosures without proper filtration, fish are often poisoned by their own waste, which results in slow and painful deaths. I have enclosed a news article that includes findings from studies showing that fish have feelings and feel pain. The article also encourages people to consider the welfare of fish in the same way that they would consider the welfare of other animals.

All too often, fish and other animals are considered nothing more than expendable commodities and their deaths are caused by inadequate handling and treatment. The city of Rome and entire country of Switzerland have banned keeping goldfish in bowls because the containers do not meet the animals’ needs, and as one sponsor of a similar law in Monza, Italy, pointed out, bowls give fish “a distorted view of reality”. We hope that you agree that no animal deserves to be robbed of their natural habitat and forced to endure a life of endlessly swimming around in the same few cubic inches of water.

We urge you to make The Wright Stuff a more compassionate place for animals and viewers alike by removing the goldfish from the program and finding the fish a permanent home with companions, lots of room to swim around, a working air tank to provide oxygen, a filter to remove waste and places for the fish to hide and explore.

So that we can inform those who have contacted us with concerns, can we please hear from you? Thank you for your consideration of this very important matter. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Bruce Friedrich
Vice President
International Grassroots Campaigns

Enclosure: “Goldfish Have Feelings, Too, Say Fish Researchers”, The Sunday
Times, 28 May, 2006

Image: BBC / CC

This morning, our Managing Director, Ingrid, sent a letter to all members of Parliament asking them to introduce a law like the new Swiss one you might remember me telling you about. It states that prospective adopters of cats, dogs, birds and other companion animals must demonstrate their ability to properly care for animals by first taking a course and passing an exam. Which is only fair really.

Here’s what Ingrid said:

“The UK is supposed to be “a nation of animal lovers”, yet we now seriously lag behind other EU countries when it comes to our animal protection laws.

The law in Switzerland, which would be a good starting point for a new law in the UK, requires anyone who wishes to acquire a dog to take a course and pass an exam. The law has similar requirements for other animals, including a requirement that guinea pigs and budgies must have companionship, since they are, of course, highly social animals.

Such a law in the UK could not be timelier. The latest reports show that the number of abandoned dogs, cats and other companion animals rose by almost one-quarter last year, and animal shelter workers warn that the upward trend is likely to continue. Anyone who has ever worked or volunteered at an animal shelter knows that many people casually acquire animals and then discard them like rubbish, and recent pet purchases by high-profile celebrities like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have exacerbated this sad trend.

Of course, every abandoned animal is a tragedy and a betrayal, but this growing trend accentuates a larger problem: That people are growing up not knowing how to care for animals, and they don’t think about the commitment that such a responsibility entails.

Legislation that emulates Switzerland’s new law requiring some basic knowledge for anyone who wishes to acquire a companion animal – whether a cat, a dog, a rabbit, a fish or any other animal – as well as some basic species-specific requirements about physical and psychological stimulation would be supported by all kind Britons and people all over the world who care about animals.”

It certainly seems like animals are treated with a bit more respect in Switzerland than in its European counterparts (other than the, ahem, alleged cat fur problem – make up your mind people!). A new law, which will come into place in September, gives ‘rights’ to animals - or at least encourages people to treat them a whole lot better than in most parts of the world. Welcome to the world where prospective dog guardians will have to pay for and complete a two-part course on the needs and wishes of the animal and how to walk their dog and react to various situations. Farmers, anglers and goldfish guardians are also on the list affected by the new law, which will see an increased awareness of animals’ individual needs and preferences. Obviously this new world is not a complete Utopia for animals and there are still many, many problems that all countries need to deal with, i.e., animals will still be incarcerated and slaughtered for their flesh. But hey, what a great start! The Daily Mail has more on this story…

If you thought that the cat and dog fur trade was confined to China, think again. The news is that a healthy, if secretive, trade in the skins of cats is rife in Switzerland, selling from as little as five Swiss francs (£2.50) per pelt. What’s perhaps even more shocking for Britain’s kitty lovers, is that it’s not unusual for the remains of the animal to be cooked with thyme and eaten. You know what I think? This is no more of a travesty than the rest of the fur and meat trade. I am a great cat lover, I have a cat as a companion animal myself, but all animals are the same, and one being killed for it’s skin or flesh is really no different than it happening to another.