Animal rights vs animal welfare – Term Paper

What daily, monthly and yearly habits should people adopt to stop animal suffering

The attitude to animals is one of the most significant indicators of humaneness and mercifulness in our society. In other words, it is impossible to be merciful to people and cruel to animals at the same time. Today we live in the highly developed society and can provide ourselves with comfortable existence. Nevertheless, animals often pay a high price for our comfort. Thousands of species have already disappeared and many other animals will soon disappear because of the human intervention in the natural environment. The time to change our attitude to dumb animals has come. What daily, monthly and yearly habits should we have to make their existence better?

As animals suffer mostly because of the results of human behavior, it is necessary to change the traditional approaches to this problem. Traditional approaches imply an accessible veterinary treatment or educational campaigning persuading people to change or even get rid of their consumer habits. Such educational campaigns are the most effective among other measures since they change the way people got used to thinking. Furthermore, these campaigns promote a desire in humans to improve the world around them both for humans and animals.

The habit to feed street animals can be the daily habit all of us can adopt. This measure will not result in the increase of the number of street animals as most people got used to considering. Some food we donate to these animals will prevent them from attacking the people in the streets. The second daily habit we should adopt is the participation in the promotion of campaigns aimed to make the life of animals better. With the help of social networking sites, we can easily share the information with our followers and find the people who can also help street animals.

Environmental campaigns 

Environmental campaigns aiming to reduce the number of cars and promote the use of eco-friendly vehicles are also necessary. Such measures will make the air more clear. Thus, the health of animals will be improved. If we adopt the habit not to use our cars probably once a week, it will be a positive change for animals. The most gratuitous offenders among other vehicles are the following ones: school runs, 4×4 vehicles, and short journeys. Demonstration of the harm caused to the environment and photos of the habitat loss and destructive climate changes (for example, hurricanes and flooding) will persuade people to change their habits. Explanation of how air pollution kills millions of animals per year is a serious argument in favor of purchasing an eco-friendly car or rejecting the use of one’s vehicle probably once a week. Furthermore, today the campaigns for car-free Mondays are launched. Although they do not have as many followers as it was expected, this initiative inspires the animal rights advocates and those who want to change this world for the better.

The yearly habit we can adopt to make the life of animals a bit better is to participate in the events aiming to treat ill animals or arrange the animal shelters. We find this habit as an expression of the merciful attitude towards those who cannot defend themselves. It should be pointed out that our habits aiming to protect animals from cruelty should be systematic. Only systematic efforts will bring the fruit we will be proud of. Adopting of these habits is like building a muscle – the more effort you do the stronger you become.