Animal rights and human wrongs: ignorance to animal welfare

I’m currently reading an old book by Konrad Lorenz, one of the founders of the science of animal behaviour but I’m struggling with it. I’m not struggling with the content so much as I’m struggling to respect this great thinker due to what I suppose you could call ‘cultural differences’ or perhaps ‘ethical differences.’ You see, Lorenz kept a whole menagerie of animals in his house from song birds to lemurs and nowadays we would condemn such practise but in the 50’s issues of animal welfare were very much only beginning to be considered. In one chapter on pets he describes which birds are best bought from dealers or taken form nests to be kept as ‘interesting pets’. My edition of this book, printed in the 70s however, does contain a warning of the legality of the trade of some of the species he mentions. So it’s not all bad. At least in England anyway, we have same laws to protect our wildlife from the pet trade, however inadequate they maybe, it’s a start.

The sad thing is, 55 years after this book was written we still have a trade in exotic pets. Even Lorenz comments that with higher species the trade is ‘ethically dubious’ and since then the UK has introduced the Dangerous Wild Animals Act (1976). But since the introduction of the internet the trade has found new ways of doing business. Whilst browsing the other day I came across sites offering an array of animals for sale from sugar gliders to zebras, without so much as a disclaimer of the legality of the trade in certain species. Even the more well know sites such as eBay and youtube seem to have a rather laissez-faire attitude towards animal welfare laws with pelts and skins from cites listed species being advertised for sale on eBay and videos of pet tigers being taken for walks on youtube.

I wish I could end this rant on a lighter, positive note but I can’t. Even so called scientists aren’t doing us any favours. Recently a new pet cat called the ashera went on sale. The cat is a hybrid of the domestic cat and the serval. This dog sized cat is a beauty but how could any self respecting scientist believe it’s a good use of time and equipment to create a designer pet at the expense of genetic diversity of a rare cat? If only the time and research had been put into the conservation of this species instead of creating the feline equivalent of a prada bag.

Offsetting your guilty shopping

There are times when charity shops and ethical shopping don’t measure up and you end up in a chain store when you didn’t want to be. Things like pyjamas and underwear you just can’t get elsewhere (there are some ethical retailers such as Green Knickers but they tend to be a bit pricey). So every now and then these unethical purchases have to be made. (I’m sure there are hard core environmentalists who would argue that you can live without these things but personally, I’d rather not!). Anyway, I got thinking about these unavoidable purchases. If you can offset the guilt and carbon from flying, perhaps you can offset your unethical spendings with charity donations? For example, buying something that isn’t fair trade could be offset with donations to charities that promote fair trade and fight child labour. It’s just a case of working out how much. I spent £11 on new pyjamas yesterday, which if I was offsetting my carbon emissions from a flight would mean about a 20p donation which I think is far too little. I think between £5 and £11 is fairer, so I’ll find a charity online and make that donation today. I feel so much better now; I suppose that’s the major selling factor for these offsetting schemes!

The curse of the carrier bag

Everyone knows that plastic carrier bags litter our streets, get stuck in trees and can kill sea birds that mistake them for jelly fish. Even advertisers have picked up on this with car adverts promising that their car saves plastic bags (seems odd when you phrase it like that), Sainsbury’s keeps giving away their ‘bag for life’ bags and many supermarkets offer free ‘bag for life’ bags if you bring in some carrier bags to be recycled. But the problem runs much deeper; you see just recycling these bags isn’t enough. We need to stop making them, we need to stop giving them away to people in shops and we need to stop using them. I recently read an article in favour of the plastic bag. One of the arguments was that paper and canvas bags are useless when it rains or your food leaks but Oxfam have some great new bags made from recycled plastic. And the best thing about proper bags is that they don’t rip and they don’t hurt your hand when you’re carrying something heavy. As a commuter on the train I find canvas bags so much better than carrier bags. For a start you can fit so much more in them, put them on your shoulder and they don’t make your veg sweat either.

Plus, the best thing about canvas, recycled and jute bags is that you can buy them from charities which means that you will be helping the environment and your money will be going to a good cause too. Unfortunately, there is one thing which prevents a huge number of people from taking their own bags to the shops – apathy. For some people, using a little bit of forethought and actually remembering to take a bag or two with them is just too much like hard work. And the shops don’t help matters either: you actually have to stop the shop assistants from putting your stuff into a plastic bag. Even in shops like superdrug that are supposed to ask every customer if they want a bag, more often that not they just put your shopping into a bag. My favourites are these jute bags from the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB.Of course, I rarely go into shops anymore and when I do I proudly say I don’t need a bag, I have one already.

Mind the gap: 21st century crimes of fashion

A couple of days ago I was starting to wonder why I had bothered with this ethical shopping malarkey – did it really matter? Does anyone really care? And then the news of Gap using child labourers hit the press. Well, for a start ‘labourers’ is a bit of a stretch of the word, it seems more like slavery to me. But, for me this news just confirming my beliefs. It proved to me that we need to make a stand against this. This is not acceptable in this day and age. I, like many people, sponsor a child to be in school so she doesn’t have to work. How many people are sending off their donations to educate former child labourers but then spend more on a pair of jeans from Gap? Its time we all started to think about where are clothes, not just our food, comes from. I think its time for fair trade clothes to become as common as fair trade bananas.

Christmas badgering and ethical Christmas presents

Yes, it’s that time of year again; the adverts have started on TV and Christmas is only a matter of weeks away. This Christmas will be a little tricky for me if I’m going to keep up my ethical shopping thing (which by the way, has been going for 8 ½ weeks with only one little slip when I bought a Christmas present from Play.com). So, ethical presents. Well, really if I’m going to be spending money on stuff then I want it to really do some good which is why some of my friends will be receiving badgers for Christmas! Not real badgers of course, toy badgers from Secret World Wildlife Rescue. These adorable badger toys are free when you adopt a badger. These adoptions help pay for the care and protection of real life badgers. With the government still dragging its heels about stopping the badger culling (a reactive response to farmers complaining about bovine tuberculosis) despite all the evidence that it culling actually increases the spread of bTB, badgers need all of the help they can get.

Can you have an ethical or responsible holiday?

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a while. Well, the reason is that I’ve been away on holidays and before you start about carbon emissions from flying – I didn’t fly! I went to Wales which is just a few hours drive from my home (here in Southern England). Now, I do believe that carbon emissions from flying is a major contribution to climate change and I do think that people really should try to reduce the amount they fly but I don’t think all flights should be grounded and no one should fly anywhere, ever again. This extremist attitude has been widely publicised by certain individuals but tourism plays a major role in the economies of many countries and well organised tourism can be carefully managed so its impacts are minimised and its benefits are maximised. For example, the wildlife reserves of Africa probably wouldn’t be protecting their wildlife is tourism didn’t pay for their anti poaching patrols. So, by taking a holiday where you money benefits local conservation projects, employs local people and your accommodation tries to be as environmentally friendly as they can, you can actually have an ethical holiday. Generally, mass tourism is bad for everyone except the tour operator: tourists don’t see or understand the country they are in and all the profits head out of the host country. So, this is why I went to Wales, stayed in a tiny lodge on a farm and bought lots of food from little restaurants and not big American fast food chains. If you need any help with ethical holidays check out responsibletravel.com which collects holidays that try to help the local community and the environment.

Yesterday, I actually bought something, but it wasn’t for me

I went into a proper shop yesterday, not a charity shop and bought something. But I can still justify it. It wasn’t a chain store or a franchise but a small independent toy shop and I bought a little notebook and pen. Plus it wasn’t for me. I’m going to post the notebook and pen (along with a couple of jumpers) to the small girl I sponsor in Nepal. Well, I’m going to post it to the charity help2educate who run the hostel where the girl stays. Help2Educate is a great charity that helps children out of child labour jobs and funds their education so that they can lead a better life. Perhaps, if I can save enough money with this ethical shopping of mine (so far I have spent very little money) then I will be able to afford to go to Nepal and visit her in person.