CSM EDITORIAL
The 2015 ban in Mexico on wild animals in circuses was urged by animal rights activists who declared that circuses were all places of animal exploitation and therefore cruel. Many in Mexico agreed with them without examining the issue in any detail. The Mexican Government enacted a ban, giving the circuses up to a year to find alternative homes for their animals, including tigers, lions and elephants.
What happened next is a case study of a policy, thought up by extreme idealists, with unintended consequences.
The dishonest position of the animal rights activists – their untruth that ALL circuses were cruel – sadly mixed with the ignorance of politicians who had failed to examine the facts on the ground. The result? Thousands of circus animals dead, grief-stricken circuses, thousands left unemployed – an aftermath of human and animal suffering.
The following video is a brutal watch:
The points that can be drawn from this sorry mess are the following:
First, the so-called ‘sanctuaries’ where many of the Mexican Circus animals were sent were places of monotony and drudgery for the animals compared to the excitement and adrenalin they experienced in their circus homes. Many animals suffered depression and passed away. “A place without feeling, without their loved ones to touch… sent there like rubbish” was how one circus worker described them. Many of these sanctuaries were private commercial zoos masquerading as sanctuaries – some were even monetarily linked to the animal rights activists who pushed for circus animal bans in the first place. The circus owners who the animals had become attached to were not permitted to see their beloved animals. More detail can be found on this pdf below:
Secondly, in Mexico, far from ending animal participation in circuses, the bloodbath-creating policy of excluding animals from circuses has created such a public outcry that now a new breed of politicians has arisen. They are demanding that circuses be given the remaining animals back. As one MP argued: “We have the opportunity to rectify what went wrong in law that, driven by political opportunism, ended up generating a social and environmental disaster. We propose to review the #LeyDeVidaSilvestre and not allow that again from the social outrage, the life of animals is sacrificed for the benefit of those who call themselves environmentalists but that on paper, are just opportunists.” In other words, the blind idealism – the convenient lies – of the animal rights brigade have built up strong resistance whereas before they had none. Their ends-justifying-the-means dishonesty has come home to roost.
Thirdly, when Governments and regulators are presented with cases of genuine animal cruelty they need to ask themselves if there needs to be an industry-wide ban or whether individual cases can be prosecuted. Out of the 700 + circuses in Mexico, only 2 cases of abuse were highlighted, so why was an entire industry punished because of the abuse allegedly perpetrated in just 2 cases? (We know the answer – because the animal rights crowd had social currency and real currency which trumped the political power of the hard-up circuses).
Fourth, of course Animal Rights activists use emotion – feeling not fact – to generate funds and to promote changes in legislation. The only way to counter this powerful, emotive and politically-powerful force – which ended in such tragedy in Mexico – is to police the animal rights activists’ fundraising, to split fact from mere belief and dogma, while setting an ‘unintended consequences’ test for any proposed legislation pushed by them.
Animal Rights – as opposed to genuine animal welfare – is based on lies, on the nonsense of animal sentience and Disneyfying animals who happily kill each other in the cruellest possible ways every second in the wild. There is no ‘transition’ to animal sentience – foxes are not going to suddenly trade killing lambs for carpet slippers and a pipe, crows will not stop nicking lapwing eggs because a crow conference decides their actions threaten an endangered bird. Thus so much of what stems from animal rights is inevitably a perpetuation of lies, a sham and a fraud, creating a disconnect between real world norms and animal rights’ activists absurd expectations, while disrupting nature in damaging, often unintended ways. As the NAIA clarifies:
“Nobody wants to see animals suffer. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about pets, wildlife, livestock, working animals, animals in entertainment or animals in science — no matter what our relationship is with the animals involved, we want them to have good lives. This is true of the hunter, the farmer, the rescuer, and the trainer. We all feel the same way.
So, it is no surprise that whenever animal abuse is publicized, it causes widespread outrage. How could it not? Horrific images or “video exposés” depicting animal cruelty, a long-time staple of animal rights activists, play to this sentiment, and have proven to be excellent tools for inflaming passions, galvanizing public opinion, and raising oodles of money.
But once you have seen even a few animal rights campaigns, a disturbing pattern of sensationalism and deception emerges: Their videos show animals living in filth, and depict unspeakable cruelty as standard operating practice, rather than the sick — and generally illegal — aberrations they are. When campaigning to outlaw American farming or hunting practices, for instance, it’s not unusual to learn after the campaign that the images of mistreated animals shown on the film weren’t even taken in the US but in developing countries; or to learn after the campaign that activists themselves participated in the on-film cruelty. Especially disturbing is how the most egregious cruelty is allowed to continue for weeks and months on end — oftentimes encouraged by the so-called undercover activists, despite the fact that simply alerting an owner or the authorities could have stopped the cruelty immediately.
To most people, these tactics make no sense, but it is important to remember that in the minds of those who view animal use as inherently wrong, regardless of how well animals are treated, the ends justify the means. The campaigns are about advancing an extremist agenda and raising funds. If the most effective way of doing it is by misleading the public and smearing a farmer, a dog breeder or a scientist, so be it.”
It is high time that fact and reason overcame feeling and ideology. Just because you believe something, that does not make it in any way true or harmless. In the UK, the Trophy Hunting Ban is similarly leaky and yet a popular political bandwagon of late.
When will we ever learn?
When animal rights is exposed and legislation put in place to regulate their pulling of heart strings for purse strings. When bona fide animal welfare is given the airtime it deserves.
