Anyone here speak french, we can clear this up now...watch this all the way through http://www.30millionsdamis.fr/FR/Do...nserrantscommeappatspourlapecheauxrequins.asp
I think I would honestly enjoy putting a barbed hook through the face of whoever did that and dragging them around town behind a car.
Yeah, murdering third world peasant fisherman trying to feed their families is definetly the way to make the world a better place... I think you have much better things to do with your time than flying around the world to kill people for breaking YOUR moral code. Many people consider a cow a sacred animal. Does that mean they can put you through a meat grinder for eating steak? Does that picture of the dog with the hook through its nose disturb you? Check this out then: http://images.google.com/images?sou...05-39,GGLG:en&q=starving children&sa=N&tab=wi
I'm with Altron on this one. I couldn't give a damn about the animals while meanwhile humans are suffering. It's far to easy to preach to poor countries while sitting behind internet connections in our luxury homes.
I still fail to see any justification for the cruel treatment of animals, whatever the reason. Maybe thats just me.
Yes, let's leave that to President Bush and assorted terrorists. It's just you. Just kidding. Those arguments are not justification, they are putting the issue in some perspective. I'm not saying what those fishermen do is OK in any way, but I do say that it is easy for us to judge a guy in a third-world country who just tries to scrape by a living in what is a pretty hard and dangerous occupation, sitting in our ergonomic office chairs typing away on PCs which could feed his whole family and put his kids through school for a year. Hell, that kitten I picked off the road several weeks ago enjoyed more immediate, higher quality medical care than these fishermen are ever likely to see in their lives. As I said, when life brutalises you on a daily basis, you can become, well, brutal when it comes to living.
I only got to the second page, but this is bad, SPCA has every right to flame people for doing this, not cool. and if you guys want to delve into the realms of cruel death... ever taken a gander at abortion methods? again not cool. Why the hell do we have to come up with these things?
did anyone read todays angling time and keiths rant on why that picture has so much speculation around it? 1, The hook is not a bait hook but infact a meat hook 2, The hook points outwards and has NO barb 3, The knot is all but useless 4, The fact the line is monofilament and not wire! 5, the fact that its been hooked the weakest point. all valid points.
Reading the Snopes info, I don't think that's the argument. Plenty of well-off Westerners think it fun to mutilate a horse or set a cat on fire. Or use lab animals to see if the new shampoo hurts the eyes. And when it comes to testing new weapons, then they get really creative. Your point becomes valid when the Sun reporter comes round offering a few months income for a photo of the dog-bait, but who's the bad guy now? While we're petitioning to stop an already unlawful act, let's have a few more petitions to stop mugging, rape, shoplifting. Though I'd sooner sign up to petition against barbaric but currently lawful practises.
is it okay to use a fish on a hook to catch another fish? If so...why not use a dog to catch a shark? Cruel? Yes, but pick one or the other. Live bait or none...
I think the argument is that as a dog is a much more sentient/intelligent being, it is less acceptable to use it as live bait than a fish. However by that reasoning we should treat pigs with more consideration than our pooch, as pigs are more intelligent than dogs. What I think is really going on is anthropomorphication (as someone else pointed out in this thread also). You see, cats and dogs are pack animals and therefore possess a range of social behaviours that many other animals do not. They can relate to us and we to them because we are very much social animals also. As such we ascribe them all sorts of human qualities and inner lives. That they are cute and cuddly helps, of course, but is not sufficient because lambs are cute and cuddly too, and we eat those. Of course pigs live in groups too. However they have been assigned relatively early in human history to "food" rather than "tool", as the cat and dog were (for mousing and hunting, respectively). And that is another factor: not just how much animals are predisposed to relate to us, but also how we are predisposed to relate to them. Wild pigs would have made formidable hunting tools but we decided that their bacon was of priority value to us. Same with cows --easier, admittedly because cows are not that social or bright. But when we use them as tools (for cart pulling, or milking) we start to give them names and anthropomorphise Betsy just as much as Fido. Horses are another example: herd animals with very few social skills. However we again anthropomorphise them, ascribe them noble sentiments and human emotions because they are useful tools (not to mention that their status is elevated by association to the higher class people that tend to ride them). Like with cows however, as soon as they stop being useful they are stripped of their name and other human qualities and it is off to the glue factory and abattoir. There is no reward in being loyal to humans... What it comes down to, in the end, is irrational human sentimentality. I think kittens are cute, but I'll happily eat sausages made of a much smarter animal. I feed the ducks in the park, but enjoy them in plum sauce just as easily. There is no rational sense in it, and I know it. And I think that before we challenge other people's values, we should at least sort our own out first.
