PETA sues SeaWorld over 'enslavement' of killer whales

Discussion in 'Animal Welfare' started by Blackrook, Oct 26, 2011.

  1. Blackrook

    Blackrook Banned

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    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...of-killer-whales/story-fn3dxity-1226177999163

    The beautiful thing about the American legal system is that anyone can file a frivolous lawsuit and get away with it. This case will be dismissed quickly, but Sea World will have to hire lawyers to file a motion to dismiss and go to court to argue it. Here's hoping the judge awards them Rule 11 sanctions.
     
  2. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If the Orcas have rights, then should they not have responsibilities? If, in the wild, they kill someone or any other Orca or animal with rights, then they should be charged, prosecuted, and if found guilty, punished according to law. Well, if rights are to be respect anyway and doesn't PETA want rights respected??

    That's the problem with animal rights, it apparently only works one way in the mind of those who believe in them.

    I'm well convinced that many of the sea world type places are bad for the animals in their care, but the fight shouldn't be done by government power and declaring animals to have rights that they cannot be responsible for.
     
  3. Makedde

    Makedde New Member Past Donor

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    PETA are pathetic. Of course this lawsuit will be dismissed but it shouldn't even reach a courtroom.
     
  4. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    Personally I'm behind it. Not sure about the "constitutional rights" part, but these an other animals should not be kept in captivity, with the following proviso's:

    1. Breeding programmes for endangered spiecies - eg Chinese Panda programme.

    2. Animans injured in the wind, unable to be returned.

    We should not be capturing animals for zoo's, not breeding them for captivity.
     
  5. Colonel K

    Colonel K Well-Known Member

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    I agree. Their method may be dubious, but the thrust of the argument, that intelligent creatures should not be taken from their home and family, transported to a strange land, bought and sold by their owners, and kept in captivity without pay against their will. That's hardly slavery, is it?
     
  6. wopper stopper

    wopper stopper New Member

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    liberals would argue with a road sign
     
  7. Colonel K

    Colonel K Well-Known Member

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    Illiberals are more to be pitied than scolded.
     
  8. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've personally seen these animals fairly compensated with Fish...Believe it or not, the Dollar has no value to them. They lack the thumbs necessary to count a roll of bills, or open a wallet.
     
  9. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    A. Lawsuits in the U.S. can trundle along as long as a lawyer is making money on it.

    B. PETA is pitiful. Before I left the U.S. they were demanding an end to the last vestige of slavery in the U.S., what some despicable people call pet ownership. I looked at my little Llahso Apso and tried to imagine him hunting his prey. I just couldn't do it so I fixed his dinner for him.

    They're nuts and so is a legal system that listens to this crap.
     
  10. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    I agree with you partially. I think deadbeats should be left in the wild to survive...or not.
     
  11. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    Using animals for entertainment is an obscenity. Making them perform tricks for your amusement is an obscenity. Whales and dolphins communicate vocally and the confusing echoes of an aquarium can be damaging.
    Depriving animals of their freedom purely so they can make for a nice day out is an obscenity.
    Britain banned this practise years ago. Seems that America, as usual, is lagging behind.
    Oh, and as far as I am aware, the Orca is not an endangered species.

    http://www.marineconnection.org/campaigns/captivity_captive_free.html
     
  12. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    You're depriving an intelligent, wild animal of its freedom for your amusement. Of course it's 'slavery' in a sense. They perform and get fed as a 'reward'.
     
  13. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Right, guess you don't have Pets in the UK?

    Ever get your dog to sit or stay with a biscuit?
     
  14. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    Nuts? Really? If they work against idiot pet owners who mutilate their animals to satisfy their vanity by trimming and wiring the ears of dogs so they look 'tough', amputating cat's first knuckle joints so they cannot scratch your precious furniture, docking dog's tails etc., then I'm all for them and support them in their efforts.
    Animals were not put on this earth to be our play-things.
     
  15. paco

    paco New Member

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    So do most women, if you think about it. If the wench don't put out, she don't get fed, paid, or a place to sleep. Everyone has a role in life, <<<Mod Edit: Name-Calling Removed>>>. It's about time you learned about it.
     
  16. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    I have a cat from a pet rescue centre. It can come and go as it pleases via the cat-door. If it decides it would rather be somewhere else there's nothing to stop it going.
    I'm not charging people money to watch it perform tricks-nor am I keeping it imprisoned and away from its natural environment, and preventing it from behaving as it naturally does.
    Besides a cat is a tame, domesticated animal. Dolphins and whales are not.
     
  17. cenydd

    cenydd Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In my opinion the radicalism (to the point of silliness) of PETA is actually counter-productive to the campaign for improvements in animal welfare standards and legislation (in the USA in particular, where standards are in some ways lower than in many other countries, partly because nobody listens to the leading animal welfare orgnaisation, and rightly so, because they are just nuts!). The way to achieve improvement is to deal in logic and sense to persuade others that your arguements have merit and should be considered, not to just protest and spout radical nonsense, and make yourself a pain in the backside and a laughing stock to everyone, so that anything you say is simply dismissed as being just 'some madness from those idiots again'.

    This kind of thing is, I'm sure, a part of their 'anti-pet' agenda. They will try it on with somethign like this, and if it gets anywhere try to apply the principle to peoples' own pets so that they can get pet (and working animal) ownership banned (something prominent elements of their organisation have been after for a while, which is why so many dogs placed in their care have been killed instead of being rehomed as people giving them up expected them to be).

    PETA are thoroughly bad news for animal welfare, and most of what they say should be ignored - they certianly shouldn't be seen as representative of animal welfare groups in general.
     
  18. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Firstly, the cats natural environment is gone. Believe it or not their natural environment does not include flats, apartments, roads trains and cars. by allowing the animal the ability to roam outside in what is now Mans environment, you are actually putting it at risk. This "natural environment" that you refer to, never included mans automobiles which can come along and flatten said cat.

    And just because cats and Dogs are commonly accepted as "tame domesticated animals" does not remove it from the entire rant you put forth about the Orca. It's an animal, taken from it's "natural environment" for the sole sake of Mans need for Companionship. It's just a way for you to try and ignore you are doing the exact same thing, but you rationalize it differently...so it's ok.


    Whether it's companionship, or entertainment..we have man in both cases using an animal to fulfill his own needs. You can spin it to try and sound different, but as a pet owner at all...you fall into the same category you are railing about.
    On top of this, what is the difference between an animal performing tricks for a persons enjoyment, and being kept to fulfill some persons need for companionship?

    Seems everyone with any kind of animal pet is guilty of the rant you make about orcas, without the admission prices of course...but your rant didnt really seem to list that as the primary concern.



    To sum all this up...One needs to come to grips that this entire Planet is now Mans Environment. Wild animals "natural environment" is long gone, whether it's on land, the sea or the air.
     
  19. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    No. I gave the cat a home, not a cage. I live where there are few cars and no traffic, in a real house, in a part of the country where the cat's only enemy is the fox.

    My 'rant' as you call it, is nothing of the sort. If you can't see the obscenity in imprisoning animals and using them as toys to amuse dumb parents and their dumber kids, there really isn't much point in debating this. Furthermore simply because man is systematically destroying wild habitat why should I, or anyone else, believe it is right or accept it as a fait accomplis?

    Wild animals have a right to lead a normal life-and that doesn't include being imprisoned in a tank, nor farmed for their fur, nor hunted for no other reason than to kill them because it's a nice day out in the woods, playing Davy Crockett.
     
  20. micfranklin

    micfranklin Banned

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    The whales will rise like the machines, you all just wait.
     
  21. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    I'm sorry that people like Snakestretcher torture pets. That is certainly not the norm and is illegal in most places. And, please note, PETA isn't suing to have better laws again abusing animals. Lordy, no. They're above that.
     
  22. Travis Bickle

    Travis Bickle Banned

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    PETA is a ridiculous group, but agree with others here who think zoos and animal entertainment is cruel. Most aquariums are okay, provided they leave the fish to live in the environment. But looking at beasts in cages or having them trained to perform nauseates me. But animals do not have rights as we know them. People should just not partake in their exploitation, I mean the consumers.
     
  23. micfranklin

    micfranklin Banned

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    Eh, I don't mind zoos or aquarium because for some of the animals there they just can't make it in the wild lest they be slaughtered by another animal or simply starve to death.
     
  24. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree with you on the Davy Crockett stuff...but I think you are telling yourself false truths on the rest to somehow pretend you are doing something different.

    You tell yourself what you are doing with the cat, is good for it, and not the same as what people are doing with whales..however at the end of the day you have an animal in your house for your enjoyment. I would risk a guess that the Orcas in Sea World are actually at less risk of harm , than is your cat.
     
  25. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    LOL If Shamu is a slave, then so is every single Gorilla and intelligent primate in every zoo on the planet.

    Good luck with that.
     

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