Animal Cruelty
Imagine a pig. Take a moment.
Now imagine a dolphin.
What do you see?
The dolphin – and indeed the whale – has assumed an almost sacred-like status in the West, while other animals such as the pig… well, have lost out.
The Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove, which aired Sunday night on ABC1, is a masterfully crafted spy-like thriller telling the story of dolphin hunting practices in Taiji, Japan. The documentary shows terrible scenes of dolphins being rounded up, netted and then slaughtered with spears.
It is shocking to see an animal, any animal, being killed. So what about the meat that makes it to the Aussie dinner plate? Does its past life get a fair hearing?
According to the RSPCA, most farmed pigs in Australia are subject to painful husbandry procedures without anaesthetic and are enslaved to a lifetime of intensive confinement.
When you imagined the pig and the dolphin what did you see?
A mundane pig standing idly in a grubby pen?
A graceful dolphin gliding nimbly through the open seas?
Our view of the world is shaped by our social and cultural upbringing. Chances are, if you were brought up in Australia or the USA you identified with this form of imagery.
Yet both pigs and dolphins are living creatures. Both are intelligent warm-blooded mammals.
And both are subject to questionable butchery practices.
In the end it comes down to a learned cultural affinity. The dolphin has won our hearts. The pig has
Now imagine a dolphin.
What do you see?
The dolphin – and indeed the whale – has assumed an almost sacred-like status in the West, while other animals such as the pig… well, have lost out.
The Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove, which aired Sunday night on ABC1, is a masterfully crafted spy-like thriller telling the story of dolphin hunting practices in Taiji, Japan. The documentary shows terrible scenes of dolphins being rounded up, netted and then slaughtered with spears.
It is shocking to see an animal, any animal, being killed. So what about the meat that makes it to the Aussie dinner plate? Does its past life get a fair hearing?
According to the RSPCA, most farmed pigs in Australia are subject to painful husbandry procedures without anaesthetic and are enslaved to a lifetime of intensive confinement.
When you imagined the pig and the dolphin what did you see?
A mundane pig standing idly in a grubby pen?
A graceful dolphin gliding nimbly through the open seas?
Our view of the world is shaped by our social and cultural upbringing. Chances are, if you were brought up in Australia or the USA you identified with this form of imagery.
Yet both pigs and dolphins are living creatures. Both are intelligent warm-blooded mammals.
And both are subject to questionable butchery practices.
In the end it comes down to a learned cultural affinity. The dolphin has won our hearts. The pig has