Animal Abuse and People Relations to Nature - Essay Example

Animal Abuse Animal abuse is an issue that has caused a lot of disputes so far. We can’t even imagine how frequently people who live next to us behave cruelly towards animals. That’s why to prevent such cases of animal abuse the problem must be discovered carefully to find out what are those reasons that make people to be violent with their pets. Animal abuse is a notion that can have multiple meanings and describes different aspects of violence towards animals. The level of harm people can do to their pets or animals they interact with should also be estimated. The most common kind of animal abuse is children’s cruelty with their pets or other animals. The situation is so widespread that we don’t notice how frequently it happens around us, but sociologists claim that statistics show that the quantity of children who treat their pets abusing is growing (Flynn 971). The main question is what makes children so aggressive towards their animals? Psychologists are working hard on exploring this situation and argue that the problem is in parents who develop these tendencies in children. The first reason is domestic violence of parents towards each other or their children, for example, when parents use corporal punishment while raising kids (Flynn 974). The desire of beaten children to free their anger for parents transforms into unreleased aggression so they start looking of some weaker objects to make them suffer as their parents made them. Theorists of psychology claim that it’s a pity that parents often don’t pay attention to this aggression and don’t notice animal abuse, because if the situation happens frequently in a family then children learn how to relieve their anger in destructive violent way (Faver and Strand 238). Another important point noticed by family psychologists is that parents don’t teach their kids how they have to treat animals, so children simply don’t understand that their animal treatment is abusing and cruel. And finally the consequences of such a wrong upbringing lead to further these children’s animal abuse when they are` grown up. Such aggressive treatments of animals psychologists call a “dirty play”, which is a part of adolescent socialization in a bad aggressive manner (Arluke 407). It turns out that animal abuse by children is the first step in becoming cruel adults. Another kind of animal abuse has been widely discussed so far – the usage of animals in laboratory experiments. Nowadays this problem is under the blaze of publicity, as far as people became more conscious about the fact that animals need their protection. Society is definitely concerned about laboratory experiments on animals, because animals’ death becomes unethical. For example, scientists use animals like monkeys and rats in order to create new cosmetics or medical drugs (“Experiments on Animals” 948). From one point they come out with new effective drugs that help treating people, but on the other hand who asks animals whether they want to help people or not? The problem here is concerning animal rights. Such organizations as WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals) claim that animal rights exist and who else but people can protect animals from being abused by other people (worldanimalprotection.org). The same ethical problem appears when we consider the cases of animal extirpation, especially the rare species. Even though it can’t be called animal abuse, still both abuse and extirpation are about the ethics of animal rights. Still anyway as animals are living beings and some of them even have trace of intelligence they deserve their right to be treated respectfully. But some scientific evidences show that frequently the experiments on animals can be done in totally inappropriate conditions like surgeries with unsterile instruments or in places unprepared for surgeries, which shows scientists’ disrespect of living beings’ right for existence (“Animal-Abuse Case Update” 230). One more situation that frequently turns out into animal abuse is keeping animals in such places as zoos and other entertaining sites for people. We never think of how it works the way that animals never escape from their open-air cages. The strangest thing is how birds don’t fly away from aviaries. The point is that zoo workers and special veterinary surgeons cut their wings so that they can’t fly anymore further and higher than their zoo aviaries. Pretty much cruel, isn’t it? But the most elementary violation of animal rights is the imprisonment of wild animals in under the conditions of captivity. Besides, animal abuse exists in many zoos, zoo workers don’t treat animals as they are supposed to care of them so animals live untended in terrible conditions, and we don’t take into consideration the fact that instant attention is also stressful and frustrates animals. The same happens with circuses and the way animals are abused there. Except the same conditions as in zoos circus animals live in, they additionally have to perform on daily basis, which is exhausting for them. Furthermore, the cases of animal abuse while training are widely known as, for instance, it is impossible to teach animal some tricks without beating it. So it becomes obvious that entertaining industry that uses animals is also a kind of abuses them and violates their rights. The question is what we can do to prevent animal abuse and make this world less violent. First of all, it is crucially important to talk about the problem of animal abuse, because only in such way society will pay attention to problematic of the issue. The second thing which might be helpful is upbringing of new generations in teaching them that violation towards animals is unacceptable, because obviously the tendency to be rude and violent comes from childhood and family. If parents allow their children to relieve their aggression on animals then their children can become violent not only towards animals but also towards humans, which would make aggression normal. That’s why upbringing is one of decisive factors in preventing animal abuse. Also, people should support the organizations that deal with protection of animal rights like Greenpeace and World Society for the Protection of Animals. The point is that these organizations help people to realize that animals are also living creatures and they deserve being treated carefully and their lives are also important for this world, so we must protect them from violation, because they can’t protect themselves. People should become more conscious about animals, because they are innocent and don’t have to be treated in a rude way. Indeed, animal abuse exists and sometimes it is even closer to us than we could have imagined. Our children treat animals in a bad way, we support the entertaining places like circuses and zoos where animals live in inappropriate conditions, we maintain industries that use animals and kill them in laboratories to make cosmetics and medical drugs. But the thing is that we should start thinking about the issue of animal abuse as problematic one. Otherwise we’re risking bringing up violation in our children and, finally, the consequences of animal abuse can lead our planet to animal fading. Works Cited Arluke, Arnold. “Animal Abuse as Dirty Play”. Symbolic Interaction. 25(2002): 405-430. “Animal-Abuse Case Update”. Science News. 128(1985): 230. “Experiments on Animals”. The British Medical Journal. 2(1990): 948. Flynn, Clifton P. “Exploring the Link between Corporal Punishment and Childrens Cruelty to Animals”. Journal of Marriage and Family. 61(1999): 971-981. Faver, Catherine A., and Strand, Elizabeth B. “Domestic Voilence and Animal Cruelty: Untangling the Web of Abuse”. Journal of Social Work Education. 39(2003): 237-253. “Our Work”. World Animal Protection. 27 Sept. 2014. http://www.worldanimalprotection.org/our-work Read More