Warm Blooded with a Collar = More Animal Rights!
 

Have you ever noticed that our warm blooded pets...dogs, cats, horses, etc...have more rights in the eyes of the law than, say fish and reptiles?

How many people have you ever read about in the newspaper being imprisoned or fined for improper treatment of a fish? How about a snake?

But...nearly every month...sometimes twice...there is a story in Philadelphia about a person who was arrested or fined for having too many cats in the apartment or not properly feeding the dogs.

Interesting, huh?

Now, I am not part of the tang police...in fact, I think the tang police are nothing more than social outcasts desiring to feel the sense of power in a forum of annonimity...

Where was I? Oh yeah...but no one seems to mind when fish and reptiles are traded like Pokemon cards at swap meets or over the internet.

End of rant, back to drinking Baileys.

It is very simple.


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You can not cuddle with a reptile or fish.


Just like the fur bashers, you never hear them complaning about snakeskin boots.

Simple numbers really. There are more dogs and cats in the USA than people, and a good percentage of the people have at least one. Fish keepers are a minority.

Another good example is motorcyclists. Did you know motorcycle emmision laws are tougher than car laws? 4 stroke motorcycle engines are amoung the cleanest burning motors on the road, but since they have a small lobby in D.C. the EPA can hammer them and feel good about themselves.

Anytime you are in the minority you are a target for either harassment or neglect (or both). :rolleyes:

Maybe the Dogs & Cats do have more rights than fish,but there still seems to be way too many of them that get abused!

Certainly true, but that goes for humans as well. IMO all you can do is take care of your own family and be a good person. If everyone does this, there will be no problems. :D

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Entropy [/i]
[B] IMO all you can do is take care of your own family and be a good person. If everyone does this, there will be no problems. :D [/B][/QUOTE]


Words to live by Rich :thumbsup:

Fish rights? yea fish got rights :D

You go to the corner get your fishing license and go yank them by the lips out of their homes in to an alien environment where they suffocate . Now if I could just get a "Catting" license
whoohoo....

errr
 

Here is another way to look at it. Around here, people are stupid and many, if they see a snake, no matter what kind, go find a shovel and chop its head off. Try pulling that with a dog and see who comes running after you backed by the law.
Dont you just love double standards. Rattlesnake roundups, one of the most brutal and barbaric festivals of our age is legally allowed and thousands of rattlers are killed each year during them. Lets just not put the numbers of snakes together, we might find out they are close to being endangered from just this kind of activity. Hey, I have an idea, lets have a Marine Reef Kitty Cat Round-Up festival and find a bunch of stray cats, trust me, there are millions of them, and start taking their fur. If anyone complains we will simply mention the rattlesnake round ups or the wholesale slaughter of sharks and seahorses on the high seas that other people get away with and they cant punish us because animals are animals, it doesnt matter what kind they are. If they can get all that to stop we will stop de-furring kitties. Lets start with the grey cats, because my old roomate had a grey one and it was the most annoying animal I have ever dealt with. Lets hold it in the most holier than thou state of California, right in the middle of San Frikken Cisco. Hey we might even be able to have kitty steaks, put em on little spits in a park and cook em over a fire, YEEHAW! We can use the proceeds to fund other Kitty Cat Roundups in other states and fund some real conservation efforts such as paying for lobbysts to press the issue of the US Gov giving out Letters of Marque against Asian fishing fleets, and then funding the attack vessels, which is quite expensive. We can also use it to put bounties on the no-longer breathing heads of collectors who use cyanide or on the heads of the people above them that make them do so. (By the way, if you havent noticed by now I tend to be extreme in my opinions, for example, IMO capital punishment should be extended all the way down to drug pushers, without all the ridiculous appeals. Conviction, then if the govener wants to parden or delay the execution fine but if not, bring em outside, put the guilty evil person against a wall built at every court for that purpose and remove them from the genepool). Let me think other fun things the Kitty Cat Round-Up can fund... secret shoppers to go around to LFSs asking for information and then charging the LFSs fines for giving out straight up false information- sure that 15" volitans and blue damsel will get along fine in a 55 gallon tank- BAM $500 fine, thank you drive through. How about a foam party at MACNA, that would be awesome and definately a way to get todays kids involved in conservation. I am failing to see the problem of this plan, you can shoot wild pigs all year round since they are a non-native pest animal, why cant we do the same with feral cats who are even more numerous and more destructive to natural ecosystems? Rants over, time for bed.--- Mike

just what we need, real tang police. the environmental cops here
don't even know what they're looking at most times and i'm going
to let them tell me how to keep them?? we're going to be hammered
by the feds soon enough, no need to wish it on ourselves early.

BLUE TANG:
"IMO capital punishment should be extended all the way down to drug pushers, without all the ridiculous appeals. Conviction, then if the govener wants to parden or delay the execution fine but if not, bring em outside, put the guilty evil person against a wall built at every court for that purpose and remove them from the genepool" could not agree with you more. In CT we have this piece of **** that killed 4 girls after torturing them and his execution has been postponed again and again (scheduled for friday) he actually wants to die (good for him) but every bleeding heart activist in town has to appeal on his behalf...And I the tax payer pay for it......which brings me back to that idiot american that years ago was caught in signapore for vandalism and was about to caned and the whole country was upset......

Let's stay on the topic and not get too political here.

A little fun story for you
 

Here in Florida 4 years back a guy got drunk and decided to lay his seat back and prop his 4 ft iguana up on the steering wheel of the car and let him drive it at 45mph.When they arressted the guy for a DUI they also slapped him with animal cruelty because when they were side swiping cars on a 4 lane road the iguana got banged up pretty good. So I guess it depends what you are doing with them.Had the Iguana got a kick from old drunko he would have not been bothered with.

A friend of mine and I were the complainants involved in a cruelty case a couple of years ago that involved a dozen or so snakes. It took a friend and I two days of repeatedly calling the county sheriff's office, animal control, the district attorney's office - we repeatedly got the run around, people saying it wasn't their job or they simply didn't want to bother. The city cruelty officer said that his solution for cruelty against a snake would be 12 gauge buckshot. Most people said that if it was a cat, dog, or livestock they'd be all over it, but because it was snakes, no one cared - despite the fact that state law specifically includes reptiles in its cruelty statute. Finally we decided to call Fox news about it. Suddenly, about 15 minutes after Fox news was involved, the sheriff's office decided to cooperate and everything went smoothly from there - even though the sheriff was less than happy to be in front of a camera the whole time. It was absolutely stunning the reaction we were getting from people whose job it was to defend these animals. Even if they didn't believe us, they could have at least looked into it, but no one wanted to lift a finger.

D

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Dawson [/i]
[B]Finally we decided to call Fox news about it. Suddenly, about 15 minutes after Fox news was involved, the sheriff's office decided to cooperate and everything went smoothly from there - even though the sheriff was less than happy to be in front of a camera the whole time. It was absolutely stunning the reaction we were getting from people whose job it was to defend these animals. Even if they didn't believe us, they could have at least looked into it, but no one wanted to lift a finger.
D [/B][/QUOTE]

Maybe they would have responded if there was a snake in the donut shop :lol: Hey I was a civil servant at one time and I can tell you from personal experience that there are some really lazy folks on federal, state, and local payroles. Of course there are exceptions to this rule as in any other general statement, but it just burns me up to see it firsthand, and stories like this just fuel the fire. Hence my move to private sector work.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Randall_James [/i]
[B]Fish rights? yea fish got rights :D

You go to the corner get your fishing license and go yank them by the lips out of their homes in to an alien environment where they suffocate . Now if I could just get a "Catting" license
whoohoo.... [/B][/QUOTE]
anyone learn how to frag a cat yet?

teriyaki anyone?

Frag a cat...sweet.

i think that the reason cats and dogs have such rights is because, scientifically, they show the effects of pain. or something like that. i remember thinking that that is an idiotic reason for why one creature has more rights than another because how exactly can they assume one feels pain and another doesn't? perhaps one animal doesn't react the way the scientists were expecting them to, therefore the scientists assumed that the animal didn't feel pain. effin' ridiculous.

Read no further, albeit interesting but the fact of the matter is, in general, fish and reptiles are food in the U.S. and dogs and cats are not.

I've been in restaurants where they serve croc/alligator meat and I'm sure some of you have seen or tasted it as well. So I think it would be mighty difficult for lawmakers to throw down something like 'animal cruelty' when it is legal to be swallowed and chewed followed with a sip of fine wine. It's the facts.

By the way, there are many countries outside of U.S. that legally dines on dogs, cats, & reptiles (including your very cute iguanas). In those countries, you can hang a cat by the neck and use it like a pinata and no one cares. Sad, but true.

Yeah, but if you go and beat on a cow for no reason or kill it slowly they can still get you for animal cruelty. Heheh when I was in Korea we had a dog farm right up the hill from our camp and could hear the dogs getting the axe(well bat actually, makes the meat sweeter or so I am told) every morning when we were standing in formation for PT. Due to the fact in the US farm animals can still get got on animal cruelty, I think it still comes down to in the US that dogs and cats are our "furry friends" and we have much more emotional attatchments to them than we do to a cow or an alligator. Horse steak tastes great but how often do you see it for sale even though it is a farm animal per say? Not very often because they too have been ingrained in our psyche as being companion animals not food animals thus "DONT EAT THEM EEEWW!" The problem is that fish are still relatively new to the scene and do not have the same indoctrination as dogs and cats. After all we have only had them in a large scale for what, maybe 2 generations? Plus they are still not near as wide spread a pet as dogs and cats so dont look for protection for them anytime soon.

Have you ever seen a slaughterhouse in the U.S.? Look it up, then you'll know what our animals rights are doing to our cows before we slice and dice'um up and enjoy a nice fillet mignon. It's much too cruel to post here!

IMO, animals are protected for the industry and lobbied by those who wants votes from animal lovers. If we were all vegetarians, I think every animal would be protected like cats and dogs. ;)

Re: Warm Blooded with a Collar = More Animal Rights!
 

Well, we all have to draw the line somewhere, and fish are on the other side of the line, with bugs and trees. Heck, you can buy bug spray at the store, but I don't hear anybody crying about how unfair it is to kill bugs. [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Nuhtty [/i]
[B]Have you ever noticed that our warm blooded pets...dogs, cats, horses, etc...have more rights in the eyes of the law than, say fish and reptiles? [/B][/QUOTE]
[b]MAMMALS:[/b]

Mammals have more rights than other animals, probably because they have the most in common with us. Similarities to humans like feeding and caring for their young are endearing. Also, they are common place, and many people have mammals as pets; the personal relationships we build with one animal can easily make us feel empathy with other, similar species. Plus, we can also teach some of them to crap where we want (litter box), do work for us (plow horse), serve us (seeing eye dog), and all that other stuff.

Young mammals seek the protection of their parents, just like people. Mammals scream and cry out when they are hurt, even rabbits, just like people.

[b]Birds:[/b]

Birds are probably next in line because some of them can mimic speach, or sing really pretty, and that's endearing. There was a chicken that played the piano on TV.

[b]Fish and Repliles:[/b]

Fish and reptiles are not used as widely as pets, and (like Jeremy said) you can't "cuddle" with a fish-you can with some reptiles, but most people don't. Snakes are often dangerous and are even used as a representation of evil by some (but let's not go down that discussion too far) and that mindset is extended to other scaled, [i]generally[/i] egg-laying creatures that [i]generally[/i] don't raise their young and [i]generally[/i] don't make any vocal sounds. Teaching a fish to eat out of your hand really isn't the same as having a cat curl up on your lap, or a dog bark when a stranger comes to your home.

Kids have been dragged from burning buildings by dogs more often than by fish. IMO, getting people to see how clowns defend their eggs (ie, Nemo) and how mandarin pairs can stick together like lovesick teenagers goes further that saying, "but it's not fair, just because they don't have hair".

[b]If you REALLY give a crap:[/b]

Give a talk at your local school. Bring in a lil tank with some inverts and stuff like that, let the kids touch stuff-they'll kill some stuff, but most of it will just die in a power outage or heater malfunction, anyways. And, bring a fish or two that does something COOL, besides swimming around and looking for food. Maybe a grunting trigger. Make a movie of some stuff so they can see: jaw fish stealing each other's shells, triggers re-arranging rock work, clownfish actually defending their eggs.

But, just complaining on the board is cool, too.

Re: Re: Warm Blooded with a Collar = More Animal Rights!
 

Well said Shoestring
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Shoestring Reefer [/i]
[B]...And, bring a fish or two that does something COOL, besides swimming around and looking for food. Maybe a grunting trigger. Make a movie of some stuff so they can see: jaw fish stealing each other's shells, triggers re-arranging rock work, clownfish actually defending their eggs... [/B][/QUOTE]
My puffer would spit at me when she wanted to be feed

Re: Re: Warm Blooded with a Collar = More Animal Rights!
 

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Shoestring Reefer [/i]
Give a talk at your local school. [/QUOTE]

I do reptile programs at local schools and various other wildlife educational events - and while many people find them fascinating, I still get a taste of "The only good snake is a dead snake." every time I'm out. People always feel the need to tell me this drawn out story how their grandpa found a snake near the barn and had to blow its head off with a shotgun or hack it up with a shovel... and when I start pointing out native species that I have on hand 9 times out of 10 they find out it was a harmless snake, very few show any sort of regret. Now what do you think would happen if I went to a Humane Society educational booth at an event and started talking about how I saw a puppy in my yard one day and hacked it up with a shovel? Would anyone want to hear it? Think people would get upset? I agree with all that has been said, but at what point is animal rights just hypocrisy and at what point does it actually protect animals regardless of their disposition or purpose in nature? Theres so many sides to the coin its hard to draw a line - we could all take the PETA approach and say that no animal can be even looked at by a human being for any reason. :)

D

I don't think it [i]is[/i] hipocracy. They could call it "select higher vertibrate rights, according to widespread social endearment" but that's sort of a pain to say. "Animal rights" rolls off the tongue a little better. You could get a pretty good concensous if you asked people on the street what animals [i]they[/i] thought were covered, and I imagine the enforcement follows that concensous; basically, it's a law that panders to that concensous.

It's about making most people feel good, not about the animals. :)