Animal cruelty reaches new lows

In the past week, I received an email from the Care2 petition website concerning the slaughter of 100 sled dogs in Canada.  This is one of many advocacy actions which Care2 seeks to bring about awareness and justice for the sake of abused or killed animals.

According to an Associated Press story on Yahoo!, the dogs were killed by being shot or their throats were cut just because business was down.  This was an unnecessary and heartless act by those involved to take the lives of these dogs.

The sled dogs did the job of taking people out on off-the-beaten-path tours that were offered by Outdoor Adventures Whistler, according to the Associated Press.  As an unusual activity, it seems that there would be plenty of thrill-seekers out there wanting to see Canada’s wilderness with such a tour.  A company such as Outdoor Adventures Whistler would always have its targeted audience of adventurers who could keep business going, right?  However, the killing of 100 sled dogs was a no-win situation.

The way I see it is that business could have still picked up, maybe with the help of strengthened efforts in marketing and advertising. If business does not pick up, arrangements could have been made to give the dogs to good homes.  There was no need to decide that the dogs were completely useless and undeserving of their lives.  Those involved in killing 100 sled dogs definitely need to be brought to justice.

As word gets out, they won’t have a business to worry about because nobody will want to deal with a company involved in such a terrible act against animals.  If a humane decision had been made, the dogs would still be alive and there would still be a chance for the business to pick up again.

This is only a part of the situation.  According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), an employee of the adventure company who killed the dogs is said to have won coverage for post-traumatic stress disorder that killing the dogs caused.  Dogs are murdered and the killer makes a claim as a victim?  If that part is true, it is crazy because the killer is still alive and breathing.  Those 100 sled dogs are the true victims in this story because their lives ended in a terrible way, furthest from natural causes.

Maybe the killer felt guilty, but greedy jumps out to me as a better description.  Business is lacking, so dogs are killed and suddenly a monetary award goes to the killer for PTSD.  It almost sounds like a there was a plan to do that in order to make up for the loss in business profits.  But again, that is all dependent upon if the PTSD claim in this story is true.  If it turns out to be true, what kind of insurance company decides that the killer of these dogs is the victim?

I’m no expert on PTSD.  However, I can think of many other situations that happen to people that really cause them to suffer from it.  A person held in a hostage situation could suffer from PTSD, but not the one holding people hostage.  So how does someone who kills animals claim to be the victim, on the receiving end of something traumatic?  If doing such an act really torments the killer so much, why did it happen in the first place?  It doesn’t make sense.

Killing an animal or animals over a lack of business also doesn’t make sense.  It says that the killer only saw dollar signs when looking at whatever animal they work with.  Animals are much more than dollar signs and should be given their chance at life.  As pets, they give people happy and humorous moments.  As wildlife, they help people to appreciate nature whether they are viewed in person or represented in various forms of media.

I feel that there is a growing respect and effort to protect even wildlife that tends to have fearsome reputations.  This is because people see how those animals benefit the ecosystem in their own way.  On social media websites, I see advocacy under way to stop shark finning and aerial wolf hunts.  This shows that people see those animals as deserving of life and I agree because they have a reason to be here.  The 100 sled dogs that were killed did not have a harmful reputation, like many other non-menacing animals that also get slaughtered.

Animals, dangerous or completely harmless, should not be killed for the sake of a business and its profits.  I hope that this makes people aware of how companies treat animals when their business incorporates them in their activities.  It would definitely help to know that if a business treats animals poorly, so that the animals can be rescued from abuse and death.  Then people can take their business to similar companies that treat animals ethically in their practices.