Society & Culture Animals as "things" - where's the logic?

[Bob's ya uncle]

Why do some people view animals as inanimate objects? I don't understand. Animals show a variety of emotions, can feel pain like we do, get scared like we can. Only difference is that they can't comprehend what's going on with them.

What spurred this question was from a blog I follow, well, I used to. I tend to follow quite a few gardening blogs to get hints and advise, it's a hobby of mine. This guy uses what's called a glue trap to catch any mice that are brave enough to venture into his house or garden. Okay, so he has to catch them, fair enough. But the problem is the disposal... after catching the animal, rather than mercifully killing it or trying to free it from the glue, he just dumps the animal into his garbage bin, like it was some kind of plastic wrapper. I don't know how many of you have seen glue traps before or what they do, but if an animal is left on them it will die a pretty horrible death. It will twist and pull its little body to contorted, unnatural positions, often breaking its bones and ripping parts of its skin off. The animal will even be desperate enough to gnaw a leg off if it means escaping. Typically it takes the animal a day or two to die from dehydration/starvation. People typically use them on mice/rats/birds/snakes/lizards/possums. Even people's pets are caught on them.

I urge anyone who has a rodent or bird or lizard problem, PLEASE DO NOT USE THEM. Take a look at some of this person's arguments for his behaviour:

It is true. I have no empathy what so ever for the suffering of mice. They are vermin to me. When the cats catch them and play with them until they stop moving I do not intervene. When they chew holes in my house to get inside and take up residence in my truck they are going to die. I do not care how or how long it takes.

I am completely indifferent to the suffering of mice stuck to a glue trap. I have no qualms or remorse about throwing them in the trash.

What y’all don’t want to accept is the fact that I just don’t care about their suffering. They are vermin, the bottom of the food chain, garbage that needs to be gotten rid of. That doesn’t make me evil, unfeeling, an animal abuser or a psycho. It makes me fed up with mice, period.

In the previous blog:

Jordon usually they are already dead after a night stuck in the glue trap. If not, yes I throw them in the trash alive stuck to the glue trap to suffer a slow, agonizing and painful death. They are vermin. There is an endless supply of them. I don't have the time to add another process to the procedure.

Charming person, isn't he? He complains about people verbally attacking him, how that people are rude to him. Yet he tortures small animals to death on a sheet of glue. He can't take a few seconds to finish the poor creature off? A true coward.

I realise that there are plenty of assholes in the world who treat animals (and human beings for that matter) like absolute s**t, but for some reason this guy in particular really pisses me off. Maybe I am too expectant of people if they use such traps, to humanely kill the animal on it. I expect this from any reasonable person. Or perhaps I enjoyed previous articles from this guy, only to find out that he's an inhumane ass. Or that I don't like the idea of someone casually tossing a live mouse into the bin for it to suffer who knows how long. I think it's all of them.

What do you guys think?

TL;DR - guy catches a mouse on a sheet of glue, dumps it into the bin even when it's alive, causing a horrible, prolonged and torturous death, then cries when people point out his cruelty as not being 'good mannered'.

 

[policegetthatman]

tl;dr part was tl;dr so tl;dr is what i did

 

[liam_13]

Mice and rats are the animal I give the least s**t about - still terrible and not at all ok. Yes, he does have to kill them. If they are chewing through his house and such, being a pest, then yeah, put some traps out. But jesus, do it with some humanity and thought.

 

[FlyingBurittoBro]

do animals have souls op?

 

[liam_13]

do animals have souls op?

Not to get all SRP board, but do human beings have souls? What is a soul?

 

[thecatattack]

Not to get all SRP board, but do human beings have souls? What is a soul?

What is matter? Never mind. What is mind? No matter.

 

[Catfish Alley]

Yeah, I've only seen those glue traps used once and they are not nice. I understand they are vermin but just use a regular trap and kill them instantly. I agree with the OP. Whether it's a cow, dog or mouse there isn't a good reason to inflict uneccessary pain.

A bad story here in Vancouver a few weeks ago was that somebody dumped an 8 year old German Shepherd in a garbage dumpster. He was badly injured and died eventually from a heart attack due to stress. Turned out he was turned away from being a police dog when he was young because he was too friendly

 

[morri]

what kind of police dogs does canada have? they are used here to sniff drugds or other stuff how can you be too friendly?

 

[estibador]

I hate those glue traps, would never use one. If I had my way they'd be banned considering there's far more humane methods available. I do recognise mice are vermin and have a couple of traps around my house, but they're the instant death kind.

Seeing someone be cruel to animals is an instant red flag for me to indicate they're the sort of person I want nothing to do with. I value empathy very highly as a trait in people.

Back to the traps though. I once found a few mice trapped on one in the back area of somewhere I worked (I think I've mentioned this on here before). I knew the owner would just leave them there to die so I filled a bucket full of water and chucked them in. I felt like a complete c**t even though I thought I was doing the most humane thing possible.

It pisses me off that people use these things and let animals suffer just because they're too lazy to spend 30 seconds a day checking normal traps and resetting them if they've caught anything.

 

[Juddy88]

It's pretty ****ed up if you ask me.

I can understand catching and killing rodents (although it really makes no difference as there are so many), but to subject something to extended periods of unnecessary pain is something I can not fathom; what is there to gain? The goal has been acheived of preventing the animal from having free roam of the property (or what not), so why not put it out of it's misery if it is still alive?

People will say they are just rodents, but that doesn't mean they don't feel pain or it's fine to subject them to pain and suffering. It's all about empathy really, but not having empathy is really not an excuse for causing deliberate pain/discomfort to another human/animal. I hate watching shows such as animal cops and the like, as it makes me quite uncomfortable/angry that people can treat animals that way; my girlfriend is even worse.

 

[Catfish Alley]

what kind of police dogs does canada have? they are used here to sniff drugds or other stuff how can you be too friendly?

They have German Shepherds. You hardly see it though. I think most police forces in the world have canine units. I assume they need to be a little bit aggressive. Not really sure. Just read it in the news.

 

[Catfish Alley]

They have the drug dogs here at airports too. They are usually Beagles.

 

[SugarShane]

A middle ground would be nice. Yes, animals are living things and they have feelings. But please don't talk to them like people and treat them as if they're your child.

 

[FlyingBurittoBro]

Not to get all SRP board, but do human beings have souls? What is a soul?

Your soul can mean a few different things. It can be just your mind and awareness or the part of you that lives on after your body dies. Your soul is whatever you want it to be. Reading my post it might seem like I'm s**t stirring but I love to ask people this when the topic of animal cruelty comes up.

 

[Cricket444]

I love all animals. I literally feel bad about killing crickets and cockroaches that get inside. I get try to catch them and release them in the garden. I remember when I was young I deliberately killed a catipillar and it haunted me for years.

Animals dont have bad intentions. They just do what they do to survive.

This probably sounds bad, but I think there are animals that deserve life more than some humans out there.

 

[Thrawn]

That person is an absolute scumbag. Is it bad of me to wish something extremely bad to happen to him, because he's an evil moron who needs a bit of karma heading their way? He's deserving of a bloody nose as far as I'm concerned. I'm not the violent type but animal cruelty pisses me off something extreme, there's something very wrong about doing this to a helpless animal under one's complete mercy. The animal is only guilty of being a mouse, what did it do to deserve something that that? Heartless Moron. I find it hilarious (and disturbing) he gets on the defensive when people call him out, as if he did no wrong, as if his statements weren't disturbing. IMO, this person deserves no verbal respect at all.

With regards to glue traps, yes I have heard of and seen them. Extremely brutal things, there's zero justification for their use unless you're some kind of sadist who prefers the animal to suffer. I agree that they should be banned, the guy's responses are typical of the kind of person who would use something like that. I have two rats as pets so I can't imagine being that cruel to one of their wild cousins. If you have to kill them that's totally understandable, but there is no need for that kind of cruelty. Do it humanely if you have to.

People will say they are just rodents

People will say anything to justify their actions, no matter how horrible, because they are unthinking, selfish pricks. This line of thinking in particular shits me. So what if it's "just a rodent" ? I could justify doing anything I wanted to them with that statement. I could upscale it too, people who abuse their dogs would also say "it's just a dog". When people start use the "insignificance" factor as a reason to be a dick, then their character comes into question.

 

[Dazb86]

Srs question.

Do fish get hurt when being hooked on a fishing line?

 

[morri]

f you think a dog isnt trainable for police service they could have taken it for adoption. I am sure a 'too friendly' dog would be a great family dog.
Here they start using a different breed of dog, not shepherds so much anymore. They are trained from pup age and they look so cute when they do their training.

 

[morri]

Fish havent got nerves where they get hooked apparently.

 

[Catfish Alley]

f you think a dog isnt trainable for police service they could have taken it for adoption. I am sure a 'too friendly' dog would be a great family dog.

Yeah, I believe that is what happened. The police didn't throw it in the dumpster. Unfortunately the dog ended up with a bastard of an owner.

 

[radiojake]

Srs question.

Do fish get hurt when being hooked on a fishing line?

Why don't you seriously think about that question and see if you can work it out

Fish havent got nerves where they get hooked apparently.

Do you believe in the tooth fairy?

 

[woopedazz]

Not to get all SRP board, but do human beings have souls? What is a soul?

Soul (n.) Something people who are scared of dying invent to make themselves feel better.

 

[Bob's ya uncle]

do animals have souls op?

I don't think there's such thing as a soul. But if animals do have souls, then this guy has some explaining to do in the afterlife.

 

[Bob's ya uncle]

Want to bump this thread to raise awareness of how disgusting these things are.Reading this might shed some insight.

But please don't talk to them like people and treat them as if they're your child.

Or give them human clothing. Today I saw someone walking their dog... it was wearing sneakers.

 

[Dont be a lemon]

Humans are animals.