I think this section of Earthlings was even harder for me to take because I felt that there was not enough—or really anything that I could immediately do. I could respond to the section about food production and become vegetarian—to appease my guilt. I am hungry all the time and haven’t really figured out how to do it right. But it’s at least some way I could react, even if it didn’t really do much. After the second half, I am once again hopeless and lost. It showed once again the biggest problem we are truly facing—human mindsets. How can we combat people’s perceptions and the views we’ve held for millennia, essentially that animals are our objects and nothing more?
Earthling’s message really resonated with my viewpoint that what really needs to change are people’s thinking processes. You can’t tell the people who run factory farms that what they’re doing in wrong. They’ve heard it before; what they are dealing with is the “product.” They are either desensitized or never truly thought about animal rights in the first place. We need to promote understanding and combat what Earthling’s highlighted as a major problem—ignorance. It is all too easy—ignorance is bliss—to forget about what we’re doing to animals or to redefine it in a way that hides the truth of animal cruelty even from the perpetrators. We must face animal cruelty and be conscious of it. Do everything we can to stop it. The scary question is HOW?
I cried the most during the retaliation segment. Because the hopelessness of the situation seemed so apparent. Animals obviously do not want to be abused and mistreated. During the movie I imagined myself walking up to those elephant trainers, slapping them and yelling at them for what they’re doing. I wanted to be put in that situation. But my thoughts continued, and the trainers responded by becoming angry and hitting me with the same sticks they beat the elephants with. I was scared. While my thoughts were, admittedly, a bit disturbing, I think they reveal a major problem: violence engenders violence. The people who mistreat animals will not willingly admit that what they are doing is wrong. They may even respond aggressively if people implore them to change their actions. For the time being, the animals they hold in captivity really have no hope. The rampant elephant shown during the retaliation segment was finally taking a stand against her captors—in a sense I actually saw her as a hero. What hurt me so much is that she really had no chance, and there was nothing else she could have done. There was no escape. The last moments of her life were spent in panic and pain, a mad dash for escape amidst screams, gunshots and hatred. The last words she heard were screamed: “you fucking animal!” I’m getting teary even thinking of it now. Where is the escape? It can never truly end until the captors realize their captive’s worth and the harm they’ve inflicted on them. How long will it take for them to see their crimes—if at all?
These animals would escape if they could.
www.flickr.com/photos/farmsanctuary1/2162610423/
As much as I agree with Earthling’s message, there is once issue which I believe was not treated appropriately. Let me give you one guess. It is their treatment of zoos. I cannot deny that there are bad zoos. Those are unequivocally wrong. But working at a great zoo myself and understanding their true message and purpose, I cannot accept Earthling’s claims universally. Earthlings argues that a zoo’s purported message of conservation cannot be made when the animals are not wild, are taken out of their element and are treated as mere objects. This is an inadequately supported and highly one-sided claim. The Houston Zoo has a strong focus on conservation. It uses many of the funds it raises, as a non-profit organization, to both support conservation organizations and send zookeepers and other staff members to work on wildlife conservation projects abroad. The zoo even has programs of its own—they have developed a highly successful prairie chicken breeding program offsite which is bringing this native Texan species back from the brink of extinction.
http://www.australiazoo.com.au/conservation/images/banner-conservation.jpg
The zoo’s policy is that people will not be prompted to support conservation causes unless they are faced with the issues or can have a positive interaction with the animal itself. Isn’t that even the idea behind Earthlings itself—prompting action with images and “first-hand” exposure? I worked in the Education department for two summers, and I can testify to this fact. You would not believe how much some people don't know about animals and how much they were later interested when we were able to talk to them. Handling animals, I was able to tell people when they weren’t touching the animals gently enough and reinforce—in a very small way—a sense of the respect needed for animals. Working with the “scary” or “gross” animals such as snakes or hissing cockroaches helped prove that these were not animals to be afraid of, that they were actually fascinating and even sweet. I even changed my own mind after handling the cockroaches! Little changes like this occur in zoos daily. They may not seem like much, but they are a step in the right direction.
The zookeepers at the Houston Zoo are also very concerned with the lives of their animals—after all, they are not paid very much! They do this job because they love animals and want to take care of them. This does not mean that the animals are treated as pets, anthropomorphized and babied. While the animals are treated kindly and relationships are formed between the keepers and animals, they are understood as wild animals first. (I would recommend Life of Pi to read about how some animals are very comfortable in zoos and being taken care of.) They are given enrichment daily to complement their natural instinct and diets carefully formed by the Commissary based on nutritional requirements.
This is actually one of the girls I worked with and where I worked! Natural Encounters has an emphasis on Education so that's why some of the animals are being trained.
In addition, many of the animals I worked with were rescued—taken from airport and border confiscations, private collections or shelters which did not have adequate space or resources. Fiyera, the tamandua—a species of anteater, who I worked with was sold into the pet trade after her mother was illegally poached in South America. She was fed an inadequate diet and now requires constant medical attention. Where else could she have gone? Animal shelters and rescue programs are wonderful, but they are also very difficult and costly to maintain. Zoos help rehabilitate animals and give them new lives. They bring endangered animals back in greater numbers and release many animals into the wild. They are not simply hoarding “exotic” specimens for our enjoyment. I think it was wrong for Earthlings to discredit all zoos and not even with very much evidence.
Yes it is true that some zoos are inadequate—anything may be perverted—and that there are some people go to zoos that have less-than-respectful understandings of animals. These are problems which may be handled. Just think about how far zoos have come in the last hundred or even fifty years, and education programs help combat people’s ignorance and foster an appreciation for animal life.
Wow. To quote myself, I think I lied when I said “this DB’s going to be a little shorter.” I guess I had a lot to say. This shows how important dialogue is. I was talking to the same boy yesterday that I had an argument about speciesism with earlier. The topic of speciesism essentially had come up in class—a discussion about eighteenth-century British literature no less!—I was sort of awkwardly put on the spot, and we all continued talking about it after class. I loved that I got to share my opinions. They all asked me questions and started talking about it amongst themselves on our way back to the Quad, and I think that’s what’s most important—getting people to at least think about animals. He asked me, “so what are these similarities between animals and people?” and I said, “The similarities don’t really matter too much. It’s that we all have a simple, common purpose.” He responded by saying that we’re still “better,” and when I asked him what “better” meant and why that even mattered he said, “Let’s just say I’m not trapped in a cage right now.” I said, “is that really even something to be proud of?” We ended up going different ways then, but I’d like to think that maybe I changed his mind a little bit. I don’t meant to promote myself with this example, but it’s just one way I see this issue playing itself out in my life. I hope I get to share my ideas in the future and change people’s thinking at least a tiny bit. Any positive change is progress, no matter how small. Maybe the situation isn’t as hopeless as I thought it was.
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