For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By PaulB
#1690392
OK this is the USA (where else?), but how should we act in animals' best interests and should they have rights?

Happy, a 47-year-old female Asian elephant, has been living in New York’s Bronx Zoo since 1977. For the past 13 years she has lived alone. Her lifelong companion Grumpy was fatally injured by two of the zoo’s other elephants in 2002, after which Happy was placed in an enclosure with a young male elephant named Sammy. Sammy died of liver disease in 2006. That year, the Bronx Zoo announced that it was ending its elephant programme and would acquire no new elephants. Either Happy will be transferred elsewhere, or she will die in solitary confinement in New York.

In October, the Nonhuman Rights Project, a non-profit organisation that is seeking to achieve legal rights for certain animals, filed a petition in New York claiming that Happy is being “unlawfully imprisoned”. At the Nonhuman Rights Project’s request, the judge issued on behalf of Happy a writ of habeas corpus – a court order that is usually given to allow prisoners to challenge the legality of their detention.


There's so much more in the article than the above... do read it.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/na ... man-rights
By Spooky
#1690394
Although perhaps not rights as we usually have them, I do believe that animals should be properly cared for and allowed a pleasant existence, regardless of whether these animals are destined for a zoo or a dinner plate.
User avatar
By FlarePath
#1690395
This one will be worse than the divided Brexit fiasco.

From a non-lawyer view,

1: Animals are property & non human so cannot be murdered for human food. (Another big debate)

2: Rights infer/require responibilty, animals have no resposibilty whatsover, therefore should have no rights.

3: The animals "rights" as such should be the resposibilty of the owners/keepers and should be enforced by law to ensure animals are not treated cruelly.

So my opinion is no they dont have rights as we do ie: The Human Rights Laws that protect us, but we have a resposibilty not to let another humans rights to inflict cruelty on animals.

PS: I am not an animal lover and the only pets I have is pond full of goldfish.

PPS: Composed before previous post.
Last edited by FlarePath on Fri Apr 26, 2019 3:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
By Miscellaneous
#1690401
The only animal that can have rights is us humans, since rights are a human concept. To infer animals inherently have rights is nonsensical only having obscure meaning to humans.
By PaulB
#1690402
FlarePath wrote:Somehow had two posts but cannot delete copy just edit (this one) so ignore


I mentioned this here in the "airportal" bit of the forum. We certainly used to be be able to delete our own posts if they were the last post in a thread. The permissions bit at the bottom still says we can

You can delete your posts in this forum
but something has changed to stop us.
User avatar
By FlarePath
#1690421
Yes they are. Stealing livestock is a farmers property nothing else.

Cattle rustling is stealing property, be as wooly minded as you like about animals but unlike humans (except for modern slave traders) they all belong to someone even in the wild they are on someones property and are theirs.

Have you never been to a cattle market or a pet shop?
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690423
Animals have some rights established by humans in that you can be prosecuted for abusing those rights.
Robin500 liked this
User avatar
By FlarePath
#1690424
Animals have some rights established by humans in that you can be prosecuted for abusing those rights.


From my post...

The animals "rights" as such should be the resposibilty of the owners/keepers and should be enforced by law to ensure animals are not treated cruelly.


So my opinion is no they dont have rights as we do ie: The Human Rights Laws that protect us, but we have a responsibilty not to let another humans rights to inflict cruelty on animals.


I think that is the same sentiment.
User avatar
By lobstaboy
#1690428
FlarePath wrote:Yes they are. Stealing livestock is a farmers property nothing else.

Cattle rustling is stealing property, be as wooly minded as you like about animals but unlike humans (except for modern slave traders) they all belong to someone even in the wild they are on someones property and are theirs.

Have you never been to a cattle market or a pet shop?


What about, say, a blue whale in the middle of the ocean?

And, in any case, many species of animal and bird have legal protection of various sorts - are these not 'rights' of a kind? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_ ... e_Act_1981

I don't think it matters that animal rights have been established by humans - human rights are established by humans too, they don't exist outside of the construct we call 'society'.
JAFO liked this
User avatar
By JAFO
#1690445
FlarePath wrote:Yes they are. Stealing livestock is a farmers property nothing else.

Cattle rustling is stealing property, be as wooly minded as you like about animals but unlike humans (except for modern slave traders) they all belong to someone even in the wild they are on someones property and are theirs.

Have you never been to a cattle market or a pet shop?


Seems a little blinkered and small-minded to me. Of all the world's species what proportion do you imagine are farmed or kept as pets?

Believing that the natural world is property is precisely why we're in the position we are with regards to the environment.
By Nomad63
#1690452
The sad part is that US humans presume that WE have the right to decide if Animals have rights.
It always gets me when some bloke says he is managing the wildlife/forest/habitat, he isnt managing it he is manipulating it and when we humans manipulate a natural system we invariably **** it up

Nature left alone always does a far better job, it just might not seem so from our blinkered, self interested, short term mindset.
JAFO liked this
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690454
Agreeing with others, they do not have "rights" but they can be protected and we have a responsibility to look after them well / not be cruel.
I'm not sure when an animal becomes "owned" although I'm sure there will be some obscure legal definition. If its bought, or is given birth to by an owned animal, its owned. Not sure how that works for wildlife rescues.

The concept of us having responsibility to look after this world goes back a long way in history (in written works, see Genesis, but also cave paintings of people looking after animals).
By Chris Martyr
#1690462
Blimey Paul , you dunnarf ask 'em mate . :D

The laws that animals conform to in their own habitat , is often normally and colloquially referred to as 'jungle law' isn't it ? The animals all understand it and if some daft human goes into the jungle and ends up getting mauled , then it isn't going to help him by getting a lawyer to nail that naughty lion , tiger , rhino ,,etc is it ?
But once an animal comes into the custodianship of a human , then that human is bound by law to oversee the welfare of that animal . As is the case with Happy the elephant , who appears to have been in the zoo since the age of five . Releasing Happy into the wild would probably result in an animal which was very confused and vulnerable and would probably hasten an early death. That decision is with the human beings , not Happy .
For example , if Eddie Grundy's sheep were to get attacked by some unknown dog , the sheep probably wouldn't be the one calling an animal rights lawyer to help prosecuting the dog would it ? The whole shebang would be the responsibility of Eddie .

Maybe in the interests of good judgement and common sense , we could merge this thread with the Joe Grundy thread .

The American lawyers wouldn't have a clue about that one would they ................... :thumright: