Australia has yet to recognise the rights of its native wildlife to even survive extinction because we prefer the developers and loggers rights above the species that make Australia the unique island that it is.
Examples like Tasmania's use of 1080 and the incredibly prolonged and painful death that occurs to her native animals does not seem to have any impact on the psyche of the Australian people. Loss of habitat right across all Australian states is not being dealt with in a sustainable way, which will lead to continued massive extinction of wildlife across the entire country.
As much as I would like to think that people are now becoming more aware of the dire straits that will engulf the native animal population, it is still deemed as not newsworthy enough for our main stream newspapers to report on it with any sort of urgency. Add to that the involvement of business and religious organisations paying for propaganda to be published against the Greens and any environmental parties and we have no bloody show.
When a large part of the community and most of its leaders have decided that if you care about animals, the saving of the trees and different habitats, you are a whacko, what hope....?
I do agree that people are becoming more interested in the way the animals we eat are being treated, but I find it amazing that we can discuss live exports, the painful killing of whales, and raise certain animals rights over others....it is time to recognise the rights of all animals to be treated in a humane and decent manner and for our future generations to be able to see for themselves the animals for which Australia is so famous.

The author is a well respected international expert in this new and thus provocative legal area. She does not strike one as a fanatic, but rather as an adventurer and innovator of good sense. Anything she states on the subject is worthy of attention. It is perhaps because I am an unashamed carnivore who happens to know the autor that I myself can bring a balanced attitude to what she has to say. An important piece for sensible people. Iudex

There is a program in the Netherlands that allows people to adopt a chicken and this seems to have worked very well for the past 3 or 4 years. I wonder if this is feasible in Australia as well.

The action program helps the farmers as well as the chickens. Shame this site isn't in English http://www.adopteereenkip.nl/ but the general idea is to pay a certain annual amount (about $50) to adopt a chicken, and in return, once a month you can pick up your eggs from your nearest health food shop. The farmer still owns the chicken but the eggs are all yours.

The chickens live in excellent conditions, have a great life on a farm, are being organically fed and kept and you will be able to check on your chicken via webcam (example of video on the website). You can also visit the farm.

You can adopt a chicken, give one as a present, or earn a chicken by opening a bank account at a certain bank. Pay for the chicken annally.

When you adopt a chicken it will not only benefit the animal but also organic farming in general, because part of your adoption fee goes towards Biologica, the Dutch Organic/Biologic agriculture/farming organisation. This organisation keeps an eye on the quality of the products and helps educating and advicing farmers on all of their organic farming.

There is also a similar 'adopt an apple tree' program, where, obviously, you can pick up your apples but the tree remains in the farmer's possession.

The program is meant to extend to benefit other animals/fruits/vegies as well.

I grew up on farms and refuse to eat meat for that very reason - the cruelty to the beasts bred to be killed and eaten make me sick.

Horse racing should be abolished because no-one ever asked the horses if they want some stupid human on their backs while they are forced to run around in circles with other horses while being whipped. But the rich and famous love torture of horses.

The brutal torture of sea creatures has turned me off eating any sort of seafood except the occasional fake stuff in my pasta.

Live exports of animals is grotesque and who on earth would want ships full of sheep and cattle floating around the seas dying of disease and hunger, being dumped in the sea to kill the waters and poison the animals in the sea only to have the survivors die a slow and terrible death at the other end.

And who in their right mind would gloat when a 500 lb bomb is dropped on a house with 6 people murdered?

Or when they see children behind razor wire screaming and weeping in terror as the guards spray them with tear gas and water cannons while bashing them with batons?

What about having another pizza while 30,000 children die of starvation every day? These children die in silence too tired to cry.

Who on earth would want to be cruel to an animal - kill them decently and quickly and feed the starving children instead of turning away or dropping bombs on them.

It has always been a puzzle to me (and I have lived with one for more than twenty years) how vegetarians can get all teary about the conditions in which animals-we-eat are kept, but at the same time get all stroppy when I suggest that keeping animals as pets is also a form of despicable cruelty.

We recognized more than a century ago that keeping humans in slavery was not a very nice thing to do. The reason for that is that the slave-owner effectively deprives the slave of their ability to live a life of freedom, and freedom is something that we value very highly. Just think of the number of wars that have been fought in its name.

Imagine yourself in the position of a domestic pet. It is slavery, pure and simple.

Deprived of the ability to think or act for yourself, you are at the whim and command of another. Some owners may be kind, and feed you well and often, some may be cruel and beat you. But underneath it all, your free will has been taken from you, your contact with your peers is eliminated or restricted, and none of the basic freedoms that we take for granted is afforded you.

How would you feel?

I know many animal-owners who protest their indefensible position by saying “Ah, but Rover (or Tiddles or Fluffybunny) has such a good life – look, you can see he's happy and just loves me to death”.

I have two words for them: Stockholm Syndrome.

Treating animals with cruelty, in whatever form, demeans us as human beings.

Eating animals for food seems to me to be a far more honest act than keeping domestic pets, which is an exercise in mass self-deception

Pericles,
I think that if I had the choice between being eaten or being part of a family, I’d choose the latter.

Out of interest, are you suggesting to outbreed pets altogether?
Even though I do hear your opinion on pets, and I agree with things like stopping live export of animals and other cruelty, I’m personally fine with people ethically keeping pets; this includes that pets are free to display their own natural behaviour. I can’t see a problem, really, if pets are being treated with lots of respect, given what they need and loved for who they are.

For instance, dogs living in the wild live in packs and will have developed a natural pecking order. In a home, the dog adapts naturally because they develop a hierarchy in where the owner is the ‘top dog’. For the dog, this feels all very natural- the only difference is that the top dog is a human, not a dog. The leader of a pack will bite the others in the back when they are out of line and growl at them. The responsible human owner of a dog will use their voice to give it a command if needed.

We can all do ‘something’ towards improving animal conditions. Insist on quality of life for the animals. For example, buy free-range eggs or find out about which butchers sell cruelty-free animal products, animals that are not kept in factory conditions etc.

For me, it is important to be realistic about the issue- to expect or insist on all people to become vegetarians is never going to happen. To work with the idea that people will remain omnivores is a more effective option. We can then work towards things like try getting people to eat less meat, to stop exporting animals, to aim for quality of life for animals etc and as Marilyn says, kill them decently and quickly.

People will never give up pets. It is more effective to fight for tighter laws against animal cruelty then it is to fight for outbreeding pets.