animal-rights activists
You get one of these begging letters from a bunch of animal-rights activists who need some money to safe a few poor animals, well you dont really wonder about from where they know your name and address, after all you live in a corrupto-cracy which protects such personal data …
But the real question is what do you do, donate a few euro to them? I mean the case iam talking about is not about some corrupted spammers but rather the following, quick summary (based on unverified info from the net)
an austrian zoo (safaripark gänserndorf) goes bankrupt somewhere in 2004, over 800 animals need to find a new home, many of them are being bought by animal-rights activist groups or zoos, the politicans and other austrian zoos who should take care of the animals until a new home is found rather fight against each other and try to squeeze money out of the whole while pretending in public that they would work pro bono. In the end there are a few lions and HIV infected monkeys left. The monkeys needs are being paid for by the pharma industry, yeah anyone surprised they care more about the wellfare of the animals than our politicans and other zoos? The lions owned by animal-rights activist group “Vier pfoten” from whom the begging letter was, they also bought some area in south africa for the lions but not surprissingly need more money …
Now why did i write this off topic blog entry? Well iam unsure if i should donate them a few euro or not, i want to help the animals but iam not so sure if what the animal rights activists do really helps anyone. Ive no doubt they have only the best intentions but the question is not dead lion vs. alive lion living in a nice natural environment but rather dead lion vs. a few hundread dead cows, yes lions arent vegetarian also the lions cannot be let loose into true freedom as they have been used to being close to humans. So being part of a working ecosystem where they hunt and kill their pray and by that positively contribute to the evolution of their pray (weakest dies strong survives and reproduces …) isnt possible.
And just in case anyone is curious, i belive its a detestable thing to lock animals into cages for the publics entertainment. Or in other words i hate zoos, thouse running them and thouse who support them (by visiting and thus paying for them).
there’s another issue at play here: should you donate money to animal rights activists at all? I say no, because I feel my money is better spent on human rights activism.
Comment by ninth — 2007-04-12 @ 09:19
> there’s another issue at play here: should you donate money to animal
> rights activists at all? I say no, because I feel my money is better
> spent on human rights activism.
this statement is a little too generic i think, i mean first if i want to
donate some of the little money i have, i would look at precisely what the
various groups plan to do with the money how usefull that is and how likely
it is successfull
for example 50Euro donated to some animal rights activists might be enough
to pay for food for some animal for a week, 50 million euro donated to AIDS or
cancer research might not even safe a single human, its rather research in
genetics, biochemistry and related fields from where breakthroughs might
lead to new cures …
similarely donating to some group which protests against some human rights
violations in (put your favorite country here) is likely also not going to
change much, yes maybe iam exagerating a little but the point iam trying to
make is that all factors should be considered, especially the likeliness
of success and the amount of money needed for success, past actions of the
group, …
Comment by Michael — 2007-04-12 @ 12:21
Michael, I don’t really see what you have to wonder about?
1. The group is genuine. They are going to spend the money in best interest of these lions.
They are not going to use half of your money for their month income or something.
2. The fact that they have bought land in Africa probably means they are trying to create environment most close to lions natural one.
3. Animal born in cage is hard to adapt to the wild life. Some spices could be adapted in “training camps”.
You probably should try to find out if they are going to take care for them in that area, or they are going to train and release them.
4. 50Euro are more like food for one month. The prices in Africa are different than in EU.
5. Caws are killed when they don’t produce enough milk. I think most of caw meat is veal (from calf). These animals are breded to be slaughter with or without lions. I wonder if you are vegetarian to bring this subject.
I think you are probably thinking of lions released on the wild that are trying to get back and kill animals breded by humans. But I don’t think that animal activist are so stupid to release animals near to human habitats. I mean.. humans hunt lions, even if lions try to stay away.
Anyway, you can phone “Vier pfoten” and ask them about your concerns. And if you think your questions are too stupid to ask on the phone, then you shouldn’t ask them to yourself either.
My personal opinion is that you should not hesitate to donate money to them.
They probably know their area of interest better than you ever will.
They may not be professionals, but same may be told for you and FFmpeg.
Been activist doesn’t mean you are worse than any “professionals”.
p.s.
spam protection of this site sucks.. javascript checksums… crap
Comment by Ivan Kalvachev — 2007-04-13 @ 23:41
How about pets? Are we allowed to have pets?
You’re still using Hash-cash for spam protection? You really should disable that, get a free Akismet key key, enable that plugin, and never worry about spam again. Akismet has already caught around 100,000 spams between my various blogs.
Comment by Multimedia Mike — 2007-04-14 @ 00:58
> Michael, I don’t really see what you have to wonder about?
> 1. The group is genuine. They are going to spend the money in best interest of these lions.
yes, my probably silly sounding question is if the lions have more right to live than the animals humans kill to feed them
> You probably should try to find out if they are going to take care for them in that area,
> or they are going to train and release them.
from what i read before writing the blog entry they dont plan to release them if they did plan to release them then i would have already donated the 50euro or so and would have never written this offtopic post
> 5. Caws are killed when they don’t produce enough milk. I think most of caw meat is veal
> (from calf). These animals are breded to be slaughter with or without lions.
but the more meat is bought the more is produced. So if more is bought more animals are breeded and killed
> I wonder if you are vegetarian to bring this subject.
no, though i tried it once for half a year or so
> I think you are probably thinking of lions released on the wild that are trying to get
> back and kill animals breded by humans. But I don’t think that animal activist are so
> stupid to release animals near to human habitats. I mean.. humans hunt lions, even if
> lions try to stay away.
i _think_ that lions who lived close to humans arent afraid of humans and so have no fear
from humans, neither from hunters so they wont live long when released, they would get shoot quickly, especially as they are used to be feeded from humans they might search humans in hope to be feeded when hungry even after being “trained” to hunt on their own.
also i dont know the legal aspects of releasing lions …
and releasing a lion somewhere far away from humans doesnt gurantee that he stays there …
but truth is i dont know much about lions …
Comment by Michael — 2007-04-14 @ 02:53
> How about pets? Are we allowed to have pets?
depends, if the pet lives in a relatively natural surrounding, has enough space to move around like it would in the wild, has other animals of its kind to play with in case its species normally lives in groups and is happy why not but for example a bird in a cage is not something which falls under this
> You’re still using Hash-cash for spam protection?
yes, ive disabled it now, its broken i couldnt post myself, i dunno but it worked better in the past
> You really should disable that, get a free Akismet key key, enable that plugin,
> and never worry about spam again. Akismet has already caught around 100,000 spams
> between my various blogs.
i refuse to use non free crap especially if i have to click on any i read and agree to 100 pages of legally meaningless toilet paper …
Comment by Michael — 2007-04-14 @ 03:13
sure, you are far more likely to see a tangible difference if you donate 50E worth of food to an animal sanctuary, but for me at least, I feel it is irresponsible to donate money to save animals when there are humans to be saved.
The reason I feel this way is because I feel the life of a human is worth far more than an animal, to me at least there is no contest between feeding a lion for a week and donating to some sort of disease research/amnesty international/human rights group. The only situation I would change my position would be where there is a significant threat to an ecosystem if animals were to die.
Comment by ninth — 2007-04-17 @ 06:07
You guys think that Vier Pfoten are genuine!!??
How much do the directors pay themselves?
W
hat do they actually use most of the money donated to them? Jetsetting around the world and buying farms in South Africa for ZAR 8.8 million, thats how!
The “area” is South Africa was paid for by donour funds, yet it is owned by one of Vier Pfotens directors, in his private capacity!
I think more research is in order!
Comment by John — 2007-05-03 @ 07:17
I wouldn’t give that money. I think that it would be better spent on the buying or maintaining of some natural park/already existing ecosystem. Habitat destruction kills more animals than just four lions. That would help more animals.
Off course you need to find a trustworthy organisation which does that.
Comment by Wilfred — 2007-05-10 @ 01:53