Hunter's Path XVI

Conservation
The Animal
Rights Movement
by Ron Thomson
(A presentation prepared for the 7th Annual Oppenheimer/De Beers Group Research
Conference, held in Johannesburg, October 18-19, 2016)
On May 16, Dr. Duncan MacFadyen
invited me to “present” at this
conference today, my thoughts
on what he called “the hunting debacle”. He
was particularly concerned, he said, about
how current “green” NGO propaganda was
going to impact on South Africa’s wildlife
industry.
Few people understand the danger and
extent of the web that the animal rightists
have been spinning over Africa for the last
several decades. Fewer still, know what is
REALLY going on.
Six weeks ago I wrote an extensive report
on this subject for the European
Commissioner for the Environment.
It was published, in full, in today’s issue of
the African Outfitter Magazine. During the
CITES convention I gave an extensive talk
on this same topic entitled: “Africa’s Elephants
and CITES”. What I can tell you
about this issue in the next fifteen minutes,
therefore, will only be a skeleton of what
really needs to be said.
The entire “hunting debacle” - as Duncan
calls it - can be laid at the feet of the
international animal rights community, whose
agenda it is to ABOLISH all animal “uses” by
man. This means the animal rightists wish to
terminate all current programmes involving
the sustainable utilisation of living animal resources
(domestic and wild) and to not allow
any new ones to be created.
In the wildlife arena, this includes stopping
hunting, essential culling, vital population
reduction, population manipulation,
harvesting, capture-for-sale, and all trade
in wild animals and their products. The animal
rightists disapprove of wildlife ranchers
“owning and selling” wild animals – and
keeping them contained within game fences.
They disapprove of man eating venison and
biltong – or the sale of these commodities
to the general public. And, this year, it was on
their CITES agenda to close down all hunting;
all wildlife trade - especially the trade in ivory
and rhino horn; and a whole lot more. They
are relentless in their pursuit of success.
In the agricultural sphere they disapprove
of domestic stock farming. That is, the keeping
of cattle, sheep and goats and the production
of meat for man to eat; the keeping of
chickens in batteries and pigs in pigsties; the
slaughter of such animals in abattoirs and the
selling of their meat for human consumption
in butcheries and supermarkets; the keeping
of pet animals - dogs and cats, even budgies
in cages; the use of oxen to plough fields and
donkeys to pull carts; the recreational riding
of horses; and the use of leather and fur.
They disapprove of angling, fish farming and
commercial fisheries; and the consumption
of fish by man.
If they had their way, the animal rightists
would ban the South African tradition of a
braaivleis after the rugby on a Saturday afternoon.
There would be no bacon and eggs for
Sunday breakfast. No slicing a stick of biltong
with a sharp knife to share amongst your
friends. No pet dog lying at your feet in front
of the fire, looking up at you with contented
but doleful eyes, on a cold winter’s night.
For the animal rightists to achieve their
goals, therefore, they will have to violate the
legitimate rights of every human being on
planet earth. Consequently, there is TRULY
no place in any civilised society for the animal
rights doctrine. BUT - strangely - society still
complies with their bombastic demands!
Animal “rights” is NOT the same
thing as animal “welfare”. Animal welfare
organisations (like the SPCA) do not object
to man “using” animals for his own benefit -
but with provisos. They insist that when man
uses a LIVE animal to obtain benefits - like
when he uses an ox to plough a field; or a
donkey to pull a cart – there should be no
cruelty involved in the process. Also, when
he slaughters an ox to obtain meat to eat,
the killing process should be humane. Animal
welfare people, therefore, oversee man’s civilised
standards when it comes to his “use”
of animals. That means we should ALL be
staunch supporters of TRUE animal welfare.
The animal rightists claim that man has
no right to kill an animal – any animal – for
his own benefit. They consider this to be an
abuse of the rights of the animal concerned.
They believe that animals have the same right
to life as human beings. They are not REALLY
concerned, therefore, whether the treatment
that man metes out to animals when he uses
them, or kills them, is humane or cruel. What
they demand is the total prohibition of any
“use”.
The animal rightists have no time at all
for animal welfare organisations. They say
that by “regulating” man’s use of animals,
animal welfare organisations demonstrate
that they condone “animal use”; and that
that tells the public it is “Okay” to do so.
This fact, the animal rightists lament, makes
their drive to abolish all animal uses by man,
almost impossible.
The animal rightists are, in fact, not concerned
with the animals about which they
purport to care so much. Theirs is a confidence
industry - the biggest the world has
ever known - and they use the “emotional
appeal”, contained within carefully selected
“animal use” controversies, to make an awful
lot of money out of the gullible public.
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