When people think of animal cruelty, they often times don’t think of keeping previously wild animals as “pets”. People often end up keeping wild animals because they rescued them from a bad situation, but instead of letting them go upon reaching full health, they keep them captive. This is not seen as animal cruelty by many people, but in reality, it is.
Wild animals live in the wild for a reason. They have family, they have lives. They know their place in the wild. When humans come in and take them from their families and their lives, they have no idea what’s going on. They’re put in cages and sometimes seen as “vicious” for fighting against this theft. They’re used to their lives in the wild, and it’s completely unfair of humans to assume they know what’s best and kidnap an animal. Granted, they’re cute, sometimes they need saving, and many other excuses. This is the most ridiculous reason for caging animals and treating them as commodities to serve humanity.
Animal rescue is great, and unfortunately it can be necessary. If they need saving, that’s horrible, and the fact that there are people who dedicate their lives to saving wild animals is very admirable. However, in animal rescue, the wild animals are freed back into their natural habitats upon healing. Wild animals are not kept for longer than is needed after healing. However, keeping wild animals as pets is excessively cruel, and very unnecessary. It denies animals their rights to freedom, it takes them away from their children and mates, it pulls them out of everything they have ever known. What is this for? This is usually because someone feels the desire to exert dominance over wild animals, or because someone thinks they’re oh, so cute and cuddly, and must have one!
Wild animals have no desire, nor care, to pander to human whims. They don’t live to serve humans, nor do already domesticated animals. When animals of any kind, wild or domestic, are treated in such a self-serving nature, it cheapens everything that caring humans have worked for. The humans who have painstakingly dedicated their lives to making sure wild animals thrive (some have even died for that cause), the people who have rescued wild animals and gotten close, only having to let them go. They feel heartbreak that they can no longer care for the animals they once did, but they still let the animals go because that is the way it has to be. Any other way is cruelty, plain and simple.
Unfortunately, cruel animal captivity goes beyond just wild animals. Domesticated “pet” animals are also targeted for this kind of cruelty. Often times, the animals people think are “cute” will often times be adopted or “bought” into a family, who will expect them to uphold human standards. These animals are not human, and that is a very good thing. They cannot be expected to be trained to abide by human whims. That is degrading and humiliating. Often times, when an animal does not abide by what humans want them to do, horrible things happen, while humans don’t think they’re being cruel.
It is cruel to strike any animal, especially for not doing what you want them to do. It is also cruel to demand that any animal show respect, or obedience, without first respecting them.
Many humans don’t understand this. They believe that their dog lives to obey and respect them. They believe that animals somehow owe them respect, when they haven’t shown respect to them. The universe doesn’t work this way, and no living creatures do either.
Another horrible form of animal cruelty that happens to both domestic and wild animals in captivity is when someone believes them to be cute, therefore they want one. They end up treating the animal, a living being, as a novelty toy. When the novelty wears off, they pay no more attention to the animal and move on to something else. This is cruelty, and should never be tolerated. Usually, the animal dies lonely, unloved, and starving. Often times, no one reacts to this situation with anything more than a shrug. That is, after all, the way that people have been raised: to think that it’s “just an animal”.
There are many things that are animal cruelty, that humans do on a daily basis, without realizing just how horrible they’re truly being. It’s one thing to eat meat and inadvertently support slaughter houses, which are horrible. However, meat is something that many creatures depend on for survival, humans included. It’s one thing for animals to be rescued and live in enclosures at the Wild Animal Park, taken care of by people who know how to take care of them, and who provide them with their needs. It is something completely different for a civilian, who lives in a house, to keep wild animals. Civilians often times cannot accurately provide the kinds of conditions that wild animals need. Collars and cages are horrible, and most people just act like they somehow have a right to subject any animal to that level of degrading.
Regardless of how a wild animal came to live in a civilian home, it is important that they not be expected to stay forever. If they’re held captive, it’s not love – it’s domination and cruelty.
