ANIMAL CRUELTY: FACT OR FICTION? Fact!
Delivered at the First Leg, Hall Category, Jaw War 2017
As a child, I always wanted to be a Fox. This was because I loved Fox’s craftiness and how the stories portrayed it as always getting what it wants. But then I learnt that if I were a fox, my craftiness would never save me from the craft of man, the craft of getting entrapped in a huge trap with 90 pounds of steel pressed against my torso, the craft that will end up getting a fox’s skin on a human’s skin. This is the reality of animal cruelty.
Ladies and gentlemen, the question animal cruelty asks is not whether we can do without animals or not, but “how many animals are killed painfully for food and fashion? In a research carried out by factretriever in February, 2017, to make a knee-length fur coat from foxes, it takes at least 20 foxes. This means that for 10 of us to stand with a knee-length fur coat, 200 foxes fall. Distinguished audience, imagine the number of fur coats we have in the world, which is directly proportional to thousands of animals that have lost their lives. We must note that these furs are necessary for the survival of animals, but are frivolities for humans.
Furthermore, Global Forest Resources Assessment, 2015 reported that over 120 million hectares of forests have been destroyed by man through deforestation since 1990 and these forests house the largest species of animals. It is only that when a man is deprived of his home, his hope will be to live on the streets and for animals, the streets are our homes. Animal cruelty involves causing suffering to animals. Taking the natural home of an animal will cause suffering to it, thus so far deforestation exists, animal cruelty also exists.
My opponents might say that animal cruelty is fiction because we need animals for our basic needs thereby suggesting that we need animals for our survival. Well, I agree that human survival is key, but we should not confuse dependency with survival. Dictionary.com, defines dependency as relying on someone or something, while survival is continuing to exist, especially under adverse or unusual circumstances. This means that if there is a need to stay off animals forever, human beings, as our survival instinct propels, can do so. This was the case of Ebola in Liberia, as reported by MedicalXpress.com, whereas as a result of the threat to their existence, the people stayed away from animals. So ladies and gentlemen, while my opponents are dependent on their parents now does not mean they can’t survive without them later, so also while human beings are dependent on animals does not mean we can’t survive without them.
Finally, we should not elevate animals to the position where we feel we cannot do without them. Neither should we demean them to the point of hunting them to extinction. Animals and humans need not have equal rights but all we’re saying is that every animal should be treated right.
