animal-welfare

When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left?

The forces of justice had finally come to Annawadi. That the beneficiaries were horses was a source of bemusement to Sunil and the road boys.

Some animal rights activists are demanding vegetarianism, even veganism now, or nothing. But since only 4 or 5 percent of Americans claim to be vegetarians, 'nothing' is the far more likely outcome. I ask these activists to weigh the horrors of Bladen County's industrial farms and the Tar Heel slaughterhouse against the consequences of doing nothing to alleviate the hour-to-hour sufferings of its victims. Is not a life lived off the factory farm and a death humanely inflicted superior to the terrible lives we know they lead and the horrible deaths we know they suffer in Bladen County today?

A simple act of kindness and compassion towards a single animal may not mean anything to all creatures, but will mean everything to one.

See this abdicated beast, once kingOf them all, nibble his claws:Not anger enough left__o, nor despair__o break his teeth on the bars.

So many nights, I stared out at the inky black ocean, believing that if I could only learn how to eat again and keep my hands out of my throat, that would be enough. I prayed hard and desperately to God and the sun and the moon and the ocean and the universe and every shelter dog I__ ever met, as if they were all genies, that I wouldn__ ask for anything more.But perhaps God isn__ a collection of genies, and perhaps it__ okay to hope for more than relief. To hope big. To hope for Sunny__ limitless capacity to love.

Sometimes we take leaps of faith, and sometimes we take tiny steps. Even the tiniest step can require a lot of courage. Like climbing out of denial and admitting my real need for help. Like trusting someone who said I wouldn__ die from eating a bowl of pasta, and taking another bite. Like reaching for a pen or a yoga mat when what I really wanted to do was reach for a cookie. Like searching for a smile in my heart when my mind was busy screaming about how sad and serious I should be.

When I was around Sunny, there was no time to dream about some easier, prettier, more comprehensible, less fucked-up existence. Now was all we had: Sunny lifting her eyes to meet mine. Cupping water in my own hands to rinse the blood off her head. Sunny__ tongue on my nose, her tail thudding on my leg. The reach of my hand across her spine. The words of comfort and rage and fear and sadness and hope that I spoke only in her presence.

Because the truth is, while bulimia is a devastating illness I would wish upon no one, it has taught me about the fragility of life and the vital need for compassion. Today, I__ quick to love and throw my arms around any girl who has ever stared at a puddle of her own vomit and questioned the point of her life. Or who has ever let a Photoshopped image on a glossy magazine preach to her about her own self-worth, her own beauty. Or who has ever been afraid to face the pain and suffering, within and outside of herself.Today, I__ quick to love.

If you are not filled with overflowing love, compassion and goodwill for all creatures living wild in nature, You will never know true happiness.

The war against the Canadian seal hunt is more than a protest. It is a crusade to bring harmony between the natural world and humanity. All of us who oppose it are dedicated to the protection of life and the abolition of cruelty.

There can be no question that parrots have more intellect than any other kind of bird, and it is this that makes them such favourite pets and brings upon them so many sorrows. ...Men will buy them ... and carry them off to all quarters of the native town, intending, I doubt not, to treat them kindly; but "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel", and confinement in a solitary cell, the discipline with which we reform hardened criminals, is misery enough to a bird with an active mind, without the superadded horrors of ... life in a tin case, hung from a nail in the wall of a dark shop... Why does the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals never look into the woes of parrots?...However happy you make her captivity, imagination will carry her at times to the green field and blue sky, and she fancies herself somewhere near the sun, heading a long file of exultant companions in swift career through the whistling air. Then she opens her mouth and rings out a wild salute to all parrots in the far world below her.

In an era of globalization, we recognize that we are part of a global society, but we have no idea how to make such a society work. So far, no unified vision or leadership has emerged to guide us in this endeavor. We have not yet found a way to expand the spiritual ideals of democracy so that they pertain to every human being, every animal, and every plant. Until we do, human civilization and the Earth's ecosystem will continue to be in peril.

You can't forge a relationship with learned helplessness, you can only force one and it will always be tenuous. There is always the possibility the peregrine will rediscover the strength of his heart.

I'm fighting now only for individual captive dolphins and dolphins in general but also for people, for the mind and sensibilities of future generations toward the world itself.

The future of wildlife and the habitat that they depend on is being destroyed. It is time to make nature and all the beauty living within it our priority.

I've seen all kinds of things done to dolphins in my travels around the world, but I have never seen anything as horrible as this dolphin drive hunt in Taiji.

Animal welfarism is a blatant lie. Anyone who truly cares for the welfare of another, would never dream of exploiting them. For just as when slavery is deeply set into the psyche of a nation, those crying for slave welfare and not abolitionism, argue in favour of slavery and exploitation, and thus push eventual abolitionism further into the future.