Tuesday 3 December 2013

Compassion

I simply cannot understand the ethics in trapping.
No matter how many people try to explain to me about "soft" leg hold traps,
how little damage they do,
how quickly the traps get checked,
how quickly the animal is put out of its misery,
I still cannot find it acceptable.

I do not understand how people
cannot feel empathetic to a wild animal caught in a trap/snare by its leg?
The panic, pain, stress and fear
constitutes suffering in my opinion.

Yesterday, while driving down the highway I saw a coyote.
I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture of it.
I saw the coyote limping away, with a raven flying close by.


When I looked closer at  my pictures,
this is what I saw:



And,
I felt empathy towards this animal.

 This picture on facebook has generated a range of comments such as
"its just a varmint"
"no sympathy"
" sympathy is found between shit and syphilis in the dictionary"
 and a whole bunch of comments about how evil coyotes are,
the damage they do to livestock,
that there are way too many of them
that they need to be "controled"
 etc..

This lead to some debate over morals and ethics.

No matter what the circumstance,
no matter the animal,
no matter its crimes,
I cannot help but feel empathy and compassion towards this animal.



2 comments:

  1. Man made suffering... it's inhumane. And yet we came up with that word, and still humans do this. He'd be better dead than suffering. We can live harmoniously with wildlife. We share the land with them. I have bears and lions through my property routinely, and primarily, they respect the boundaries established by my guard dogs. I lock my sheep up at night, so the wildlife may access the water in the swamp without harassment from the dogs. During the day, they are kept at bay and wander off to another drinking spot. This picture makes me very ashamed of humanity.

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  2. I enjoy watching the wildlife as much as I enjoy my livestock. We have limits....they understand the limits. we co-exist. It's how I want it to be. Hate, hate, hate traps!!

    ReplyDelete

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