27,790,000 animals are killed for fur world-wide every year (animalliberationfront.com). That’s 76,137 animals per day. It takes thirty to forty rabbits to make one fur coat, thirty to two hundred chinchillas, or twenty five to forty five lambs (animalliberationfront.com). Why should we kill so many innocent animals when we can recreate the fur using our own man-made materials? Animals have rights too. Look at it this way: genocide. Killing so many animals for one reason is essentially the Holocaust all over again, only it never ends. We are killing animals for fur; Hitler killed Jews for being Jewish. The aspects may be different, but we’re still killing far too many creatures for a bad reason. Whatever happened to animal rights?
Some people do not believe animals have feelings and the ability to think for themselves, so they feel justified in killing nearly 28 million animals a year. According to an article on Discovery.com, this could not be more false. “Elephants pay homage to the bones of their dead, gently touching the skulls and tusks with their trunks and feet” (animal.discovery.com). Elephants are known to have extremely good memories and can frequently be seen mourning their dead in ways that could be seen as similar to human mourning. This is one clear example of how animals do have feelings and should thus have their own rights as well. Just look at your own pets. Look at how your dog expressed such joy when you walk in the door, or how your cat purrs as it rubs its body on your leg. Shouldn’t these be clear examples of animal emotion? How can people justify killing so many animals for their fur, ivory, or whatever they’re looking for, when they so obviously have emotions?
While elephant hunting has been outlawed due to their endangered status, people have turned to other animals to hunt for their bodily goods. But again, shouldn’t animals have the right to their own body? While animals are commonly thought of as not as intelligent as humans (at least in the areas of technology, structures, etc), they do have emotions. Is it ethical to kill something that feels? It murdering humans is against the law, why should killing animals be legal? This brings up the question of killing animals for food. Yes, meat is good. But I can’t be the only one who has pondered becoming a vegetarian just to save some animal lives. In my family, there are several hunters. At dinner, they like to discuss their latest kill – how they shot it, how they dragged it to their trucks, how they cleaned its insides, in gruesome detail. Sitting there listening, I find myself growing sick and can’t eat the meat that sits in front of me. Am I the only one who’s had this experience?
Animals, although not human, should have the same rights as us. They feel, they think, they protect. Apart from their bodily form, what separates them from humans? What gives us humans the right to kill them for meat, fur, or whatever we need? So many studies have been done, proving that animals have feelings and emotions. “Prestigious scientific journals publish essays on joy in rats, grief in elephants and empathy in mice” (thebark.com). The average person can look at their pets, or their friends pets, and see emotion. Sure, humans are omnivores and meat helps us survive, but vegetarians are doing just fine, if not better than those who eat meat. In the days of the Native Americans and those without indoor heating, I could understand killing animals for fur. They didn’t really have another option for heat. But now? Now we have heating, we have man-made materials that we can make look and feel like fur, we have all we need to be warm without the murdering of innocent animals. Killing animals for food I can almost feel is justified, but it still makes my stomach turn.
Why should we kill animals for something we do not need? I don’t see how this is ethical.