Animal Abuse

Thesis: Animals are being abused for three main reasons: economic benefits, lab experiments, and pleasure and entertainment.
I.
Animals are being abused for economic reasons.
A.
For their meat.
1.
Chicken.
2.
Pigs.
B.
For their fur.
C.
For their leather.
II.
Animals are being abused for lab experiments.
A.
Drugs testing.
1.
Cosmetic testing.
2.
Eye irritancy tests
B.
Acute toxicity tests.
C.
Organ transplants.
III.

Animals are being abused for pleasure and entertainment.

D.
Sports.
1.
Duck shooting.
2.
Fishing.
3.
Racing.
E.
Circus.
F.
Zoo.

Emmanuel Kant once said

..If man is not to stifle his human

feelings, he must practice kindness
towards animals, for he who is cruel
to animals becomes hard also in his
dealings with men. We can judge the
heart of a man by his treatment of
animals.

 Encarta defines abuse as the physical,

psychological, or sexual maltreatment of a
person or animal; the illegal, improper, or
harmful use of something.
As defined in Encyclopedia, Animal abuse
encompasses a range of behaviors harmful
to animals, from neglect to malicious killing.
As defined in ERIC, Intentional cruelty, or
abuse, is knowingly depriving an animal of
food, water, shelter, socialization, or
veterinary care or maliciously torturing,
maiming, mutilating, or killing an animal.

Animals are being abused for three

main reasons:
I. Economic benefits.
II. Lab experiments.
III.Pleasure and entertainment.

I. Economic reasons
A. For their meat
1. Chickens
Raised in crowded, dark sheds.
Bred to grow so fast that they suffer joint and
bone problems.
Manure accumulates over 6 weeks :the air
becomes polluted (dust, ammonia, bacteria).

2. Pigs
Intensive farming"

B .For their fur

 The United Nations reports that countries

such as France are killing as many as 70
million rabbits a year for fur, which is used
in clothing.
Zoologists at Oxford University who
studied captive minks found that despite
generations of being bred for fur, minks
have not been domesticated and suffer
greatly in captivity, especially if they are
not given the opportunity to swim.

In fur farms animals are:

Electrocuted.
Poisoned.
Suffocated.
Skinned alive.

C. For their leather

 Kangaroos are slaughtered by the millions

every year; their skins are considered prime
material for soccer shoes.
Snakes and lizards may be skinned.
Kid goats may be boiled alive to make
gloves.
The skins of unborn calves and lambs,
some purposely aborted, others from
slaughtered pregnant cows and ewes, are
considered especially luxurious.

II. Lab experiments

Animals are being abused for:
A. Drugs testing.
B. Cosmetic testing.
C. Organ transplants.

A.Drugs testing

 Animals are used in drug testing in 2

main ways, firstly to see if new drugs
work against particular diseases, and
secondly to see if drugs are safe.
To see if a drug works, diseases are
deliberately produced in animals:
cancer is produced
viruses are infected

 The safety of drugs is tested on animals in a

number of different ways.
LD50 test - how much of a drug does it take to kill
half the animals?
Chronic toxicity - will the drug cause any damage
in the long term?
Carcinogenicity - will the drug cause cancer?
Teratogenicity - will the drug cause birth defects?

These tests not only kill large numbers of

animals, but also cause a lot of suffering
before the animals die.

B. Cosmetic testing

Why are these tests cruel?

Cause blindness.
Abdominal pains and cramps, convulsions, vomiting, paralysis,
breathing difficulties, bleeding ulcers.
At the end of each test all animals are killed.

C. Organ transplant
One writer once said: Animals have a
right to live, to be free of pain and
suffering, and to pursue their own natural
and essential interests.
Animals used in organ transplant will be:
Fed only sterilized food.
Kept in sterile pens (no opportunity for them to
express their natural behavior).
All these animals will die after organs have either
been removed from them or transplanted into
them.

lll. For pleasure and entertainment

Animals are being abused in:
A. Sport .
B. Circus.
C. Zoo.

A. Sport
1. Duck shooting

2. Fishing

3. Racing

 A study of race horses at Rand-wick in NSW found that

89% had stomach ulcers. Many had deep, bleeding
ulcers within 8 weeks of starting race preparation.
In a Victorian survey, 13% of horses showed 1 or more
forms of abnormal behavior.
Another Australian study acknowledged that abnormal
behavior is related to how horses are kept:
"Stereotypes are repetitive, invariant behaviors with
no obvious goal or function. In horses, stereotypes are
primarily based on feeding and locomotors behaviors,
and are associated with management practices that
limit foraging behavior and social contact.

B. Circus
It is certainly cruel to keep animals in captivity. The cruelty comes
not from neglect or ill-treatment, but from depriving animals of
stimulation.
Dr
Desmond
Morris,
zoologist and former curator
of mammals at London Zoo
said: There is something
biologically immoral about
keeping
animals
in
enclosures
where
their
behavior pattern, which has
taken millions of years to
evolve,
can
find
no
expression. Animals do not
live by nutrition alone. They
cannot live without it, but
we must go a good deal
further."

Biology Professor
Sir Julian Huxley
said: The
frustration of
activities natural
to the animal
may well be the
worst form of
cruelty."

C. Zoo
In 1993 the Born Free Foundation in the UK
issued its Zoochotic Report, a 3-year
investigation of zoos in the UK and Ireland,
the USA and Europe. They found evidence of
severely disturbed behavior in many species.
As the famous zoologist Desmond Morris has
said: They are medically cared for, protected
from the elements, well-fed and well-housed.
They lack for nothing except variability,
novelty and stimuli to maintain a high activity
level ".

The most common abnormal

behavior was repeated movement
Rocking from side to side, pacing up and down
or round and round, waving or circling the
head, over and over again.
Biting or licking bars and walls.
Self-mutilation .
Chewing the end of their tails.
Playing with or eating excrement.
A study in Japan observed 116 giraffes in 31
zoos and that all of them showed such "tongue
playing" and other abnormal behaviors.

 In conclusion, Animals are being abused

for several reasons. They are abused for
economic benefits, lab experiments, and
pleasure and entertainment.
Animal abuse is a problem that goes
undetected far too many times every year.
Thousands of animals are often
victimized, a crime that goes unpunished.
Many people do not even know how to go
about reporting a case of animal abuse.

Thank you