For a while now the people trying to protect dolphins from their brutal slaughter in Japan have argued that dolphins with their very high intelligence, close family bonds, sophisticated communication, should have a right to be protected (as “non human persons”) in the same way humans are from slaughter and exploitation. Similar claims have been made to try to get captive whales out of amusement parks. And the same claims could of course be made for the whales being hunted and killed year after year in our southern seas by the Japanese, and in the Arctic by Norwegians and Icelanders.
Obviously the right thing to do, to add to the calls for the great apes (Chimpanzees, Orang-utans, Gorillas) to be given similar status for the same reason. The heart-breaking stories of habitat destruction, and of mothers cradling dead babies, babies calling for mothers, in all these cases should be enough to stop the hunting of these animals, their incarceration in zoo cages or small pools, and their use in medical experiments. We must surely be civilised enough to recognise this now.
But I would be inclined to look even more widely. I think we could consider extending similar status to a number of species that are among the most intelligent and social of their kind. I am thinking for example of dogs and cats, bears and pigs, fruit bats. Of birds like crows and magpies and the larger parrots. Perhaps of live-bearing reptiles and fish. And even of some invertebrates like octopus and the larger spiders.
In British culture we long ago gave up brutal use of animals for entertainment in bear and bull-baiting, dog and cock-fighting, although all of these continue today in countries like Spain and even in America. It took a long time to bring them to an end in England, but it’s hard to imagine anyone arguing for a return to them now. In parts of the world too other intelligent animals are tortured to extract bile for phony medicines, skinned, slaughtered for cheap food, have their habitats destroyed for palm oil plantations, killed with poison baits, nesting trees knocked down. It will take time to get across the idea that many animal species are so intelligent and aware that we should stop all ill-treatment of them too in other countries, but we could make a start in our own.
One day our great-grandchildren will look back and say “People used to do WHAT to dolphins and chimpanzees?”
Hi david.
I have no doubt there will be a price to pay for the destruction and abuse of these poor animals. As an atheist waiting to read the new book of Alian de Botton. I have the belief that these actions plus our uncontrolled population issue must somehow backfire in our future. I think we as humans are being tested and we are failing whilst thinking we are winning.
Hi Debbie,
Curious who you think “a price” for animal abuse will be paid to? And who will be doing the testing that we are failing?
A cogent and incontestable argument.
Perhaps it should be extended to superannuated cockatoos.
A minor correction: there’s just the one ‘g’ in ‘orang-utan’. It means ‘man of the forest’ in Malay – not that that has stopped anyone hacking down their habitat.
Thank you, a slip of the mind! And welcome to the blog. Come again.
David, I’m certainly not one to be abusive to animals and quick to condemn those who are. But, if they are entitled to a right of protection because of their level of intelligence, at what point does that level of intelligence become so low that they are not entitled to rights? And, who gets to make that decision?
I assume that somewhere between the dolphin and the anopheles mosquito that it’s OK to maim, injure, squash and kill the animal. Let’s take good care of humans while we’re concerned about the animals.
Hi David, yes agreed. So many animals display, not only intelligence, but emotions that we humans seem to think are exclusively human. A case in point, friends have about 100 head of cattle, which, being cattle, are pretty good at looking after themselves, so only get close attention during drought/flood/etc. My mate turned up at their property to find not a single cow in sight, but he could hear them at the back of the property. He eventually found them all, standing in a huge circle around a dead, young bull. The ‘funeral service’ was only discontinued when the corpse was buried.
It may have just been a coincidence!