According to the American Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), a non-profit organisation dedicated to preventing cruelty towards animals, acts of cruelty are not circumscribed within the category of abuse, neglect and abandonment only.\u00a0 Despite meanings of these terms differing from one jurisdiction to another, it is no longer a hidden fact that factory farms (where animals are raised in the thousands purely for commercial purposes, and where in some countries such as the United States nearly all farm animals are to be found) regard some of the worst cruelties to animals as normal and part of the routine way mechanised factories operate.<\/p>\n
Most societies in reasonably developed and developed countries often hear about laws protecting companion animals (in Malaysia look up the Malaysian National Animal Welfare Foundation for example).\u00a0 Without meaning to unnecessarily upset the status quo as it were, animal welfare groups all over the world are increasingly voicing their concern and are challenging the prevailing trend of accepting the current concept of a \u201cfactory farm\u201d as being an industrial operation that regard farm animals as no more than commodities never considering significance of the animals as being fundamentally sentient beings (they can feel and they suffer pain) as well.\u00a0 In general terms, to begin with, factory farm animals (FFA), as a matter of standard operating procedure are confined in densely packed spaces in which they literally cannot move, have no access to natural sunlight and the outdoors, spending their lives in pens, cages and open floors of ware-house type of dwellings.<\/p>\n
In such a scenario, the animals cannot manifest their natural behaviors, they become injured and ill, suffer severe stresses with physiological if not psychological implications, which are passed on to the consumers at the end of the day. \u00a0Reports also show that FFA also suffer extremely painful mutilations without anaesthesia (log on to any of a number of you-tube materials to experience their squeals and cries of pain first hand).\u00a0 Such treatments are for making them docile and more manageable especially in filthy conditions.\u00a0 In addition many farm animals are fed \u201cnon-therapeutic\u201d antibiotics to ensure their increase in weight and reduce the number of death.<\/p>\n
A list of commercial or farm animal cruelties include battery cages (a wires cage the size of a file drawer can be made to contain up to 10 chickens at any one time), beak-blunting (abrasive materials are put in feed troughs to blunt beaks to reduce cannibalism, common among highly stressed chickens living in extremely confined spaces); branding (burning marks into the flesh of animals without anaesthetics); castration (to tame and alter fat ratio, also performed without anaesthesia).\u00a0 For sheep and cows, as well as surgical removal, methods of castration includes crushing the blood and nerve supply using clamps, and tying with rubber bands).<\/p>\n
Another cruel practice on FA are their subjection to practices such as tail docking (the tails of swine and cows are ligatured to stop the blood supply after which the tail atrophies\/die and drop off).\u00a0 Tail docking is deemed necessary by the farmers because in factory farms, bored animals tend to bite the tails of others apparently.\u00a0 The list of inhumane treatments include many more practices which scientists, policy makers and consumers think should now be reviewed.<\/p>\n
It is with the view of reviewing such practices and its implications on zoonotic disease such as the avian flu, H1N1 (swine flu causing the 2009 pandemic), MERS-CoV (middle east respiratory syndrome, developments of which is currently being closely monitored) SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by a virus which affects 8098 people in 2003), rabies epidemic in Taiwan recently etc., that the Department of Religious Studies, Hsuan-Chuang University and the Life Conservation and Association as well as the Hongshi Cultural and Educational Foundation organised the 2014 International Conference on \u201cAnimal Liberation, Animal Rights, and Equal Ecological Rights: Dialogues between Eastern and Western Philosophies and Religions\u201d recently.<\/p>\n
The conference gave a balance of views of all the stake holders involved \u2013 the animal liberators, policy-makers, scientists, civil society representatives as well as those expressing guidance on animal welfare by religion.<\/p>\n
In Islam for example \u201canimal rights\u201d if it has to be phrased that way is contained in well\u00a0 documented literature as put together, for example by Al-Hafiz Basheer Ahmad Masri in his book\u00a0Animal Welfare in Islam<\/strong>\u00a0(Islamic Foundation UK 2007).\u00a0 Simplifying the code of ethics with regards to humans\u2019 treatment of animals derived from the Quran itself and prophetic sayings and practice, humane treatment of animals especially in the categories which we have been discussing include the following.<\/p>\n Animals must be given care and protection; those under threat should be assisted in their conservation; animals should be given love and compassion; they must be given sufficient and appropriate food and drink; cruelty on them must be avoided; they must be reared in a clean environment and their physical features must not be changed.\u00a0 To illustrate the above the Prophet once said \u201cDo not clip the forelock of the horse, for a decency is attached to its forelock; nor its mane, for it protects, not its tail, for it is its fly flap\u201d. The Prophet prohibited inciting animals to fight each other; he forbade the skin of animals to be used as floor coverings.<\/p>\n Some Quranic verses regarding the status of animals include:<\/p>\n One lesson that can be learnt from the issue of animal cruelty is the attitude of the contempt for life that has been bred into the modern farmer.\u00a0 To them cows and chickens are just numbers in a herd that number tens of thousands. \u00a0Will such callous attitude towards the animals who are sentient beings eventually be extended to others of our own species?\u00a0 What can the numerous cases of baby dumping tell us in this regard?<\/p>\n Perhaps we should not simply blame the meat-producers. \u00a0If we as consumers approve of the way our \u2018demands\u2019 are met by the suppliers then we are equally responsible to make the appropriate changes.\u00a0 We depend on animals\/FFA and together with them we dwell in the same ecology and environment.\u00a0 Treating them right is not a duty without effect on ourselves.\u00a0 Let us continue to educate ourselves about why we should care about the animals, and encourage the draft of The Animal Welfare Act 1953, 2006, 2012 to be passed quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to the American Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), a non-profit organisation dedicated to preventing cruelty towards animals, acts of cruelty are not circumscribed within the category of abuse, neglect and abandonment only.\u00a0 Despite meanings of these terms differing from one jurisdiction to another, it is no longer a hidden fact…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-star","category-220","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n