JCC Cetaceans to get the same rights as Humans?....

top ten smartest

Rights? I draw the line at spiders.

 

"Transylvania 6-5000"?

I was half expecting Jeff Goldblum!


EDIT-- And according to Animal Planet/Discovery Entertainment Co...

10. Rat (a delicacy in south east Asia)

9. Octopus (not as delicious as their squid and cuttlefish cousins)

8. Pigeon (Squab!)

7. Squirrel (for use in a jambalaya. Skin and quarter 2-3 squirrels and throw them in the pot in lieu of pork)

6. Pig (a delicacy everywhere...except for the middle-east)

5. Crow (nobody eats it, except for bosses and mothers-in-law)

4. Elephant (a delicacy in parts of Africa....legally harvested elephant meat can fetch $35-$40 USD per pound)

3. Orangutan (once eaten in Borneo, now protected.)

2. Dolphin ("You can't eat that! Dolphins are intelligent!"..."Not this one. He blew all his money on instant lottery tickets.")

1. Chimpanzee (not eaten by humans, but are known for partaking in cannibalism. So there's that)

 

OH WHAT THE HELL.

Ok, top ten smartest. *sigh*

 

Again, being smart does not automatically qualify you to have rights.

Insects and/or "bugs" and their varients don't have rights at all, hence why you can feed live ones to captive animals or stamp on them in your garden without getting into trouble. This is because they are not deemed to have any emotional range or be able to feel fear and distress, therefore maiming or attacking them is not considered cuelty. A spider would never be granted rights, however smart it might be.

 

If a spider could be capable of holding a conversation like we are having right now then they would most certainly qualify for rights. I would deny them those rights because they are icky.

 

So to quote Jules Winnfield...


Personality goes a long way.

 

I'd support this, though I'd rather they stay away from the word "rights" in favor of a more benign-sounding "protection" instead. Probably just semantics, but the question of whether or not animals, even highly intelligent ones, should be treated as equivalent to humans does not seem to be a conversation that our society is ready to have.

 

That is pretty much what I was going to post.


Considering the Supreme Court just threw out PETA's case about Whales being held in captivity breaks the 13th amendment about slavery, I'm not too worried about this.


If it DID come to pass, there's a lot of questions; would this decision from Canada have to be implemented world-wide? By whom? What about the orcas and dolphins already living in captivity? As Keiko and numerous other cases have proven, releasing animals who have lived in captivity into the wild is essentially a death sentence.

It also would mean I'm out of a job.

 

Building houses unique? what I think is much more impressive than brick houses are nest made of aluminium coathangers (or tin) or thsoe weavers nest, it is like a multi storey living community. Very impressive.

 

I meant more in terms of cities and technology. Many animals can build shelters for themselves, but they make them from things they find lying around like twigs. They don't create new materials out of other things and use them to construct a home. But that sort of behaviour is not why you get rights, rights are a moral concept so you need to prove an animal has the ability to make moral decisions if you want them to have rights.

What is there to be worried about? Surely a proposal for Cetacean Rights is a good thing. PETA are stupid and are clearly run by people who have no understanding of what captivity does to wild behaviour.

True and it would also raise the question about whether animals that kill humans such as Tilikum would have to be tried for murder and most likely killed. Protection already exists for Cetaceans but it is not binding for every world nation which is why hunting still goes on. This idea of a proposal such as the one made in Canada is to make sure no-one can harm them anymore.
I don't approve of releasing captive-born animals into the wild, and new ruling might simply mean that bringing in wild cetaceans is not longer allowed or breeding them in captivity. In other words the ones that exist in captivity currently can stay, but after they die there will be no more.

Maybe, but Sea World is not a circus. It can survive without performing animals just as so many other Aquarium places do. I do some work in a zoo which has a Sea Lion Show, but the Zoo won't close down and make people redundant just because the show stops.

 

Surely it is not.

No. Hunting goes on because there is a demand signal.

Unless you're prepared to back up that declaration with bullets, it won't change a thing. And even then, it won't change much.

Maybe, but Sea World is not a circus. It can survive without performing animals just as so many other Aquarium places do. I do some work in a zoo which has a Sea Lion Show, but the Zoo won't close down and make people redundant just because the show stops. [/quote]

So you're ok with zoos enslaving animals, just not making them perform? Gotcha.

 

Slavery involves labor. Zoos are more...babysitters than anything. Not to mention that zoos also serve both an educational and ecological purpose.

 

Let's admit our true nature and just hand rights out to animals based on cuteness.

 

You do understand what Zoos exist for, right?
Most species they keep are endangered and are there to make sure the populations are not totally wiped out by the mad people who want to kill all of them. Without zoos many more species would be extinct, they aren't slaves they are there to stay safe and have genetic diversity retained. Research and conservation projects are then undertaken to establish the best ways or protecting species and/or restoring them to the wild if possible.

I'm not in favour of keeping anything captive in unsuitable conditions, but zoos now are much better than they were back in the day when it was deemed acceptable to put everything in a 2x4 cage so everyone could see it all the time with no regard for its welfare. Huge sums are spent re-creating enclosures to replicate natural habitat and create big spaces for all the inhabitants to live and move around as freely as is possible.

 

Those are all wonderful off-shoots of zoos but that is not what zoos are for. If no one paid money to go to zoos, they wouldn't exist. Zoos are for people to pay money to go and gawk at animals. Even publicly funded zoos.

 

Double post. Didn't see this before.

Fair point. I should have said false imprisonment instead of slavery.

The point is we're intentionally using stupid, incendiary language to imply harm where there is no evidence harm exists. I say "imprisonment" you say "babysitting". PETA says "slavery", I say "play". What we do with killer whales and dolphins is no different than what we do with college players in football. The animals may well be better treated. They are safer than they would be in the wild, they have a steady diet that is brought to them, and they get to play a lot. Is it against their will? That's debatable since they don't have the ability to tell us they want freedom. But even if it were, to equate that to slavery is ridiculously insulting.

 

Yes, but my specific job is running those shows.

 

Isn't that exactly what much of humanity currently does? Our species keeps fluffy kitties and puppies as pampered domesticated animals and presses charges against humans who are violent to them, designates certain un-fluffy animals as pests and passes no moral judgment on their mass killing, and not only refuses to prosecute but actually hands out farm subsidies to those who commit acts of violence against certain species whose tastiness outweighs their fluffiness.

 

There's many cute/fluffy animals that aren't allowed to be domesticated, like raccoons:

Arizona man arrested after rescuing and adopting drowning raccoon

 

That article doesn't say they can't be domesticated, only that you need a license to keep one and should get one from registered breeders.

That is how they make money, that isn't what they are for. The Zoological Society of London & in fact London Zoo itself existed nearly 20 years before it became open to the general public. It was originally set up as for scientific study. Having people pay to come along was the easiest way for ZSL to make lots of money to keep animals and promote the work they do. There are plenty of animal reserves that are privately owned and not open to the public.

 

Plus, zoos in America and Europe are generally non-profits. Every dollar that they make from admissions, concessions, and souvenirs goes directly back into the park.

When zoos turn to profit as their motivation, hijinks ensue.


EDIT -- And Disney and Busch Gardens do not really count, given that the main attractions there are not the animals, but the rides.
I mean, come on, people trek to Orlando to experience a broken robot yeti. They don't care that there is a family of wallabies in the park.

[image=http://www.diszine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Yeti.jpg]
"Quick, Jim. Put a strobelight on it. Then at least it will LOOK like it's moving!"

 

I don't believe SeaWorld is non-profit, but most of the money we make goes straight back into the park for caring for our over 60,000 animals, and the rest goes to our private foundation, the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, which is a non-profit.

 

We charge people for cruelty to tasty animals too, though. The nature of the killing is a huge part of it. Which is why people get charged for killing a dog, but not for euthanizing it. Similarly, people raising animals for food that mistreat them in certain ways do get charged.

That said, I'd not oppose going full across the board and being okay with eating most animals so long as they're killed in the most humane fashion possible.

 

Yes it is.

Exception to the rule. Congrats. We're not talking about animal reserves. We're talking about zoos. You can't make something true that isn't. Zoos exist because people pay to see animals. Period. I didn't say they exist for profit. I just said they exist because we want to see animals.

Regardless, you're either intentionally missing my point or you're obtuse. These zoos/reserves/whatever may have noble intentions and all that, but at the end of the day no one asks the animals in the zoos if they wouldn't mind too terribly being held captive for the rest of their natural lives, be forcibly separated in many cases from their young, and be poked and prodded in the name of science. Why is this not only acceptable behavior, but is actually laudable in your eyes? Yet somehow giving these same animals regular exercise, training, and an opportunity to play as a means to help fund those activities you celebrate is abhorrent behavior commensurate with slavery.

 

So if I meet a person who has no sense of morality can I keep him as my pet? Pretty please? I promise to take good care of him.