Animals Have Feelings As Well

As the truck disappeared into the distance the little calf was never to be seen again. The mother elephant felt nothing. She just stood there watching. This is what people are saying, people say that animals don’t have feelings and cannot cry emotionally, they say they can’t feel sad. Doesn’t sound more natural to say: as the truck disappeared into the distance the little calf was never to be seen again, the mother elephant felt destroyed, she felt as though she could never be happy again, tears of sadness dripped down her face. For she had just lost her baby.

Some scientists state that animals are not bothered by the fact that they are being shoved into cages for shows, forced to perform for circus and more. They are getting tazed, burned, whipped and hit for no good reason but human greed and people still think that they can’t get sad or can’t cry. “We are just like animals, we are animals” A grade 8 student at UWCSEA states. “Most people think we are better than animals but in reality we’re not”

“What you see when you actually get to know wild animals is very different from a casual sighting. If you saw human beings doing nothing but drinking water or running around a field, would you think that is all there is to human beings? If you know the people drinking the water or running around, you have a different experience watching them” Carl Safina, author of ‘Beyond Words’ states. This suggests that there is much more to animals than we see. What could be going on inside these animals minds that we are not seeing? If you saw someone walking down the street you wouldn't assume anything. That person might of been going through a divorce or just found out that he had a long lost brother. Since these are just things we will never know, we might as well consider them.

“Charles Darwin is a bit of an embarrassment for modern psychologists in that he was more willing to ascribe human emotions to animals than scientists tend to be today” Says Dr Thomas Dixon. Millions of animals are dying are year, having their family taken away, being abused and so much more and yet people still believe that animals can’t cry emotionally like us. “They can, I’ve seen it” Says some students in grade 8. Fear, all animals that live like this live in fear. People and animals are the same, except animals can be faster, smarter, hear better, see better but they don’t go around killing humans for fun. So why are we at the top of the food chain? Do we deserve to be?

Why do we make such a big deal over human slavery when we are the ones creating animal slavery, they have to work longer and harder than humans. “Humans have this very sad habit of denying the existence of any emotion or reasoning within other species but why” Because recognizing other animals as similar to us is harder. It is much harder to hurt someone you can relate to, so in order to justify the abuse of other species humans must sustain an image of us and other creatures as more dissimilar than we are. I really don’t think animals like being whipped and forced to act in circuses, I really don’t think animals like being put in a small cage all by themselves and I really don’t think animals liked having their families and friends killed.

‘Just as people began filling in the seats the elephant trainer came to untie the elephants ankle, as the chain dropped to the ground the elephant shook with fear. Forced to stand on a ball for 1 hour and if he fell he would be punished afterwards. A single tear slid down his face as he thought about his family, he was taken away when he was only 4 months old. The trainer grabbed his whip and whipped the elephant hard around the stomach just as a warning. A few years ago this elephant would have of taken this chance to run, to crush the trainer but no. This elephant was so traumatised, so broken that he just stood there, tears continuing to fall. When the elephant first taken to the circus his ankle was tied to a metal pole. He pulled and yanked for hours and hours which lead to months and months. After a year of trying the elephant gave up, believing that he would never be able to get free. As years passed the elephant grew older and stronger the elephant still never bothered to pull or yank. Although the elephant was strong enough to break free and run away, he had already given up and never bothered to try.’

Is The Extinction Of Elephants Inevitable?

All around Thailand elephant trainer also known as mahouts believe in stabbing their elephants with hooks and other weapons to get them to behave and obey their every command, this treatment causes both physical and mental disabilities to the elephant and has been happening for hundreds of years. This has resulted in a major decrease in the population of the Asian elephant in Thailand.

“If we don’t do anything now we may loose this beautiful giant” said Lek the founder of the elephant nature park in Chiang Mai.

In Thailand one of the biggest industries is the tourism industry, many of these mahouts put their elephant into the tourism industry, like providing rides for tourists or putting them in a circus to earn an income enough to take care of the elephant and the mahouts family. But many of the things the elephants are made to do hurt them and more often than not handicap or cripple them.

Sometimes because of an insufficient income the mahout and elephant are forced into begging during which they go to the city at night and beg on the streets, this has resulted in many injuries to the mahout and elephant due to the traffic.

Many of the people who understand the situation want this cruelty to this gentle giant to end and are figuring out ways to stop this, one such way to gain the animals trust and loyalty without violence is to use positive reinforcement with food, this is what they are doing at the Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, they are now planning on expanding to shelter more elephants that they will rescue from situations like street begging.

Let's Reinforce Positivity

An elephant is slowly treading in an open field with it’s trainer on it’s back, it is a hot, sunny, humid day and soon the elephant gets exhausted he wants to slow down but he knows what will await him if he does. He pushes on, but then after a while he can’t take the heat anymore, stops and falls to the ground. The trainer immediately pulls out a hook with a tip as sharp as a knife and with one swift motion he drives it into the elephant’s shoulder. The elephant yelps in pain and agony, but the trainer doesn’t stop. He repeats this action again, and again, and again until the elephant starts moving.

You would be surprised to know that this is still going on in today’s society. More specifically in Thailand, these trainers are known as Mahouts and because of tradition they are made to treat their elephant in this cruel. They use tools like sharp hooks and steel chains to get the elephant to ‘behave’ and respect them.

These actions cause many permanent mental and physical disabilities, from things like non functioning eye to a non functioning foot and not being able to move at all because of mental disabilities. This leaves the animal scarred on both the inside and outside. These practises have been going on for centuries, and now it is very difficult to stop this as it is happening on such a large scale.

The Elephant Nature park is doing the best the can to help with this ever growing cause. They provide a home for these abused animals by buying them from their mahout and bringing them to their huge park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They currently have 63 elephants and plan on expanding. Over here they educate people on why we should help these animals and the threats to them, and the area is open for tourism. Over here there is no elephant riding as research shows that this is very harmful to the elephants.

Josh Chanmugam, an eighth grade student from UWCSEA said, “If you are trying to discipline a dog you may need to use physical force if all else fails”. Many people agree with him and use electric collars to train their dogs. So whenever the dog does something bad the owner can push a button to send an electric shock through the dog. This way the dog registers that action as something they should not do. However, too much of the electric shocks can cause the dog to have a heart attack. But is this method better that positive reinforcement , and if it is, is it worth taking the risk of your pet dying to make it follow your orders better?

John Krupa another 8th grade student said, “Why should we treat animal differently from humans the only difference from them and us is that we talk.” But statistics show us that most of the animal cruelty that occurs isn’t intentional, and often happens because of ignorance and less social awareness about the issue. That brings us to the question, is animal cruelty society’s fault or the person who is hurting the animal’s fault?

Animal cruelty has been an issue that has been in our society for a really long time and many people think it needs to be stopped. But how can we do this and more important is it even possible? Vaibhav ‘V’ Bakhshi, an 8th grader, said, “Animal cruelty is a big issue in our society today and it cannot be stopped”. He is correct by saying that animal cruelty is a big issue in today’s society. It is estimated that over 300,000 animals are killed every year, and 53% of those animals that are abused are dogs. But is animal cruelty really happening as much as we think is or is it all just hyped up?

According to SPCA Singapore there have been about 177 known cases of animal cruelty from just July to September, this year in Singapore. These statistics prove to us that animal cruelty isn’t exaggerated and needs to be stopped soon. The SPCA had the details of many of the horrific animal cruelty cases. One of them caught most people’s eyes and was even featured in the newspaper.

It was about Lim Soo Seng, a 76 year old businessman. In, April this year he was fined $10,000 for starving his 8 year old mongrel to death, he didn’t take the dog to the vet even though it was severely emaciated because he claimed he was busy. The SPCA along with many other people are trying to initiate an online petition for a jail term for him.

Many 8th grade students say that the only way to stop animal cruelty is to address it at the roots and educate people about animal cruelty rather than just help the animals that are abused, but this may not not work. Animals are the test subjects for many drugs and cosmetics even though the owners are well aware about the side effects of these actions. Some of the animals that are treated this way are pigs, mice, dogs and cats. This is why many people think this is an issue that cannot be stopped.

Many people say that the laws set for animal cruelty are insufficient as they cannot even send someone to jail for intentionally killing an animal. “The laws and punishment on animal cruelty are very light and people can literally get away with murder”, said an eighth grader from UWCSEA. This is very true as the maximum penalty for animal cruelty is a $10,000 fine along with 1 year in prison, and this is for worst cases like killing multiple animals. Many people say the punishment need to be increased so that people stop doing these horrendous acts, and the people who do so are brought to justice.

So today you can start by telling your children and friends that it is wrong and maybe tomorrow you will be the leader of an initiative to stop animal cruelty and animal testing and fighting for animal rights.

And if we stop this we will be enforcing positivity into the world.