Keep animal in cage = cruel?

[Justaguy]

I'm extremely happy for all replies.
I don't know if I should reply to each one of you but I read all of your posts.
I'm happy that you all agree on this one. I didn't expect that anyone on a reptile forum would actually be an extremist.

I wanted to hear you guys opinion on this and thanks so much to all who did bother to reply. After some more search it seems that you can find many questionable articles about PETA.

I will most likely keep my plans to actually get a snake.

[Thatjanelady]

Peta can be a little extreme. What I will say that border lines on agreeing with Peta, if there is an option to buying a snake that was bred and born in captivity versus a wild caught, go for the captive bred/born snake because most snakes, especially for beginners, are readily available on the market.
Also, consider where the snake's food comes from and that they are humanly killed for our pet's food.

[MartinD]

Apparently PETA stands for Please Excuse The A**holes

[sirtalis]

Originally Posted by MartinD

Apparently PETA stands for Please Excuse The A**holes

PETA-People Eating Tasty Animals ( I've seen this somewhere before but can't remember where haha)

[cat001]

I know this is an old thread now and has been answered very well but the subject of animals rights vs animal welfare is quite an interesting one.

I might be repeating what's already been said but in a nutshell, Animal Rightists hold the belief that humans and animals are both equally subjects of moral concern, humans do not possess a greater importance than animals as one animal is not more important than another. Animal Rights also believes that animals be granted the same rights as humans in order to gain this status of equality. Humans are afforded certain legal rights which allow for the protection of an individual’s basic interests. This requires understanding of such rights to know when one is entitled to compensation if ones rights are violated and to recognise that interference with another’s rights leaves the individual liable to punishment. Animals cannot be afforded the same rights as humans because animals cannot justly make claims to such rights nor understand the rights they may be given, nor recognise the rights of other animals. For this reason the Animal Rights philosophy simply does not work. I find Animal Rightists focus on fulfilling their ideology, their human made construct of an ideal animal-human relationship but do not pay much attention to the actual practical welfare of animals.

Although animals cannot be granted human rights, their life and well-being can be made secure by laws that confer on them certain moral rights such as the right to subsistence, i.e. sufficient food and shelter and other rights to physical necessities of biological survival. Animals are outside the community of rights, but welfarists still recognise that we have duties towards them. These moral rights are provided to our reptiles through the construction of habitats that provide appropriate heating, humidity and other environmental considerations and allows for the expression of the animals natural behavioural repertoires. Animal Rights views this as caging and imprisoning an animal, therefore it is cruel, while Animal Welfare decides if the action is cruel by how it actually effects the animal. A cruel action is one that harms the animals either physically or psychologically, if the animal is content with it's surroundings and is in no way suffering and the environment is supportive rather than suppressive (as it is in this instance with reptile habitations) than their is no cruelty, ergo it is not cruel.

Welfarism deems any sentient animal to be worthy of moral consideration, that is animals with the capacity to suffer or creatures that have a perspective or point of view of its own. They argue strongly for the welfare of the animal focussing specifically on the well-being of individuals.

The actions of Animal Rights protestors have damaged ecosystems through the release of invasive species (e.g. the release of Mink in Hampshire devastating native inhabitants), halted conservation efforts (e.g. halting the conservation of the Islands of Mauritius and its Endangered Reptiles by delaying the removal of invasive species for several years), not to mention the level of criminal activity committed by such groups, whose moral actions are similar to that of terrorist organisations. Animal Rights goes by the philosophy of achieving ends by any means (meaning they're willing to turn a blind eye to individual acts of terrorism in order to get their point across) while Animal Welfare believes in achieving ends by reasonable means.

At my University where I studied Animal Science we had a module in Ethics. The Ethics tutor would invite people from different ethical philosophies to tell us their point of view. He had to stop inviting the Animal Rights Activist because the students, who were initially sympathetic ended up being quite angry when he'd explain what Animal Rights was and show himself to be a hypocrite (e.g. believing all animals should be in the wild yet he'd own pets, not believing in animal research but taking medication derived from animal research, etc). My Ethics teacher was adamant we should keep open minds about all philosophies but even he couldn't help but to cringe at the Animal Rights philosophy.

On a trip to South Africa we went to Pilanesberg National Park and one of the keepers started saying how the Animal Rights group that 'helped' them to care for injured elephants from a fire some years ago did more harm than good, he seemed pretty angry and the Animal Rights groups, so in my experience those dedicated to the actual welfare of animals do not like the Animal Rights philosophy.

[MartinD]

I have met vegetarian's and vegan's who wear leather shoes and had leather sofa's and chairs, so they all seem to pick and choose what rules/ethics they think will suit them