...........The case outraged animal-rights advocates. The Humane Society of the United States, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, United Poultry Concerns and other groups urged Dumanis to reconsider her office's decision.............
By Elizabeth Fitzsimons
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
District
Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has decided to uphold an earlier decision by her office
not to prosecute the owners of two ranches where workers threw thousands of live
chickens into wood chippers.
Dumanis' office concluded that brothers Arie and Bill
Wilgenburg were not acting maliciously when they instructed workers to dump old
hens into the wood chippers, said Gail Stewart, district attorney spokeswoman.
"We understand that there are those who are outraged
by this means of disposal," Dumanis said in a statement yesterday. "But we have
looked at this case very closely and, after thorough review, we believe the
ranch owners did not do anything criminal under the law as it is written."
After additional extensive investigation, which
included a review of the standard practices used for animal slaughter, it could
not be proved that using wood chippers to kill chickens had violated the
standard set under the law.
The American Veterinary Medical Association does not
approve of the method, and animal-rights groups, including the Humane Society of
the United States, have said the case clearly constitutes animal cruelty.
Last month, Deputy District Attorney Elisabeth Silva
decided not to prosecute the Wilgenburgs for animal cruelty because they were
following the advice of a veterinarian.
Silva said then that the Wilgenburgs, owners of the
Escondido-based Ward Poultry Farm, faced few options for getting rid of the old
hens. Restrictions imposed by a quarantine in Southern California counties
prohibited them from moving the birds to a Northern California facility, where
they would normally have been killed.
Animal-services investigators said workers in
February had thrown at least 30,000 hens into the chippers at ranches in Valley
Center and Potrero. Most were alive when thrown into the machinery, an
animal-services official said.
The case outraged animal-rights advocates. The Humane
Society of the United States, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,
United Poultry Concerns and other groups urged Dumanis to reconsider her
office's decision.
(760) 737-7578; elizabeth.fitzsimons@uniontrib.com
A neighbor of mine got fined $500 and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. His crime? He reached over another neighbor’s fence and shot their dog in the head.
Though my neighbor tried to explain to the judge that the dog had repeatedly attacked his wife when she went on walks, and that two complaints to the dog’s owner didn’t change anything, the judge took sides with the dog. The judge gave him a strict punishment because his act was “so cruel,” and he wanted to set an example.
It seems ridiculous to me that the life of a dog would be more important than the safety of a human being. But this is the direction many animal rights activists are going: animals are equally as precious as humans and have the same rights too.
Germany recently passed a law “obliging the state to respect and protect the dignity” of animals as it does humans. England has outlawed farming animals for fur. PETA recently launched an ad campaign that compares eating meat to the Holocaust.
To be sure, some of the cruelty to animals on farms, in zoos and in labs should change. But this doesn’t mean we should treat animals humanely. They are not on the same level as humans, and to put them there is dangerous.
If animals have the same rights as humans, then butchers and meat- eaters are murderers. (Hence so many people who support animal rights are “vegans.”) Will we prosecute people for enjoying a sirloin steak, or put them in jail for eating turkey on Thanksgiving? Or what happens if I kill a mosquito or spider – PETA declared March 15 “Save a Spider Day” (no joke)? My neighbor’s experience certainly foreshadows this kind of “justice.”
Not only would eating meat be out, if animal rights activists had their way, but so would wearing leather and fur, using animals in experiments and going to zoos. PETA’s motto on their Web page is, “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.” I guess having pets would be out too, since they are a form of entertainment. Hell, maybe the whole domestication of animals is where we’ve gone wrong.
Another problem with animal rights is what’s to stop Westerners from enforcing their overindulgence in civil rights upon other cultures and nations? I can foresee the EU pressuring Poland and the Czech Republic to do away with their hog farms if they want membership, or France calling for the end of discriminatory acts towards pigs by Jews.
One would think we have more important problems to deal with: the AIDS epidemic, global poverty, racism, sexual abuse and war. All of this petty complaining about animals only distracts us from the more serious problem we have – living with each other.
Maybe once we get that down we can worry more about the animals, though something tells me that if we were able to get along with one another, then we wouldn’t be so cruel to animals either.
Source: http://www.arbiteronline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/05/08/3eb994eb4138e
Courtesy: Marc R.