Dani Garavelli: Humans have feelings too

WHEN, under duress, I bought two goldfish for my son’s Christmas and one of them promptly died, I did what I always do – I turned to the internet.

Terrified that the second ailing creature would pop its clogs before we’d ushered in the New Year, I Googled: “Help – my goldfish is sick,” confident that a more experienced fish owner would throw me a lifeline.

But I quickly realised any hopes I had of receiving a sympathetic hearing were misplaced. Stumbling on a small pets site, I read the advice Malinda had been given when she confessed to having cleaned her tank out with soap and water, killing Nemo and Fishy in the process. “It’s disgusting how you treated these animals,” a poster called Sarah replied. “Why didn’t you ask how to care for the fish before you got one instead of after you killed two of them?”

Scared of suffering the same abuse, I logged off, spent a week’s wages on anti-bacterial medicine and prayed I would not have to come to terms with myself as a serial killer. I just hope “Sarah” spent as much time worrying about the hurt she’d caused “Malinda”, but I doubt it. Because the thing about people like Sarah is that their love for animals is rivalled only by their contempt for human beings. To them, the meanest creature is more worthy of their compassion than a woman who misguidedly uses detergent as part of her tank-cleansing regime.

I thought of this exchange again last week as animal rights group PETA launched its latest campaign. In the wake of a spate of shark attacks, including one which claimed the life of newlywed Ian Redmond, the group has produced an advert which shows Jaws chomping on a severed limb, with the tagline: ‘Payback is Hell. Go vegan.’

The campaign – centred on billboards in Florida – was aimed not at Redmond, but at CJ Wickersham, a 21-year-old man who needed 800 stitches after he was attacked by a shark off Anna Maria Island. Criticised for its insensitivity, PETA responded: “We are very glad Mr Wickersham is going to be OK. We just hope that after this painful and frightening experience, he will consider what fish feel like when they are impaled and suffocated, and go vegan.”

Although it seems more likely Wickersham may now dwell on the possible impalement and suffocation of PETA members, they see the hurt they cause as collateral damage. You see, they want the public to understand that, while sharks kill around five humans a year, fishing fleets kill 70 million sharks. The difference being of course, that the relatives of those sharks don’t have their suffering compounded by adverts which exploit the tragedy for political gain.

This is just the latest example of PETA’s misanthropy; other highlights have included an image of an obese woman with the caption, ‘Save The Whales. Lose the Blubber. Go Vegan’ and the image of a cow hanging in an abattoir juxtaposed with one of black men hanging from trees.

PETA, it seems, hates all humans beings. But it particularly hates women; many of its adverts feature images of scantily dressed glamour girls, the subliminal message being that they, too, are pieces of meat. Earlier this month, the organisation went one step further, announcing the launch of a PETA porn site, which will mix graphic sexual images with graphic footage of animal cruelty.

Although there are plenty of vegetarians/vegans who abhor PETA’s tactics, animal rights misanthropy is not confined to this group. Recently, the world’s first vegan strip club opened in Portland, Oregon; there, meat is not on the menu but it’s very much on display, the welfare of the animal kingdom apparently taking precedence over the welfare of the serving staff.

It’s perfectly legitimate to lobby for tougher rules on the use of whips in horse racing as several charities did successfully last week. But when animal welfare starts to take precedence over issues of social justice, when double page spreads of newspapers are taken up with campaigns over the plight of a single creature – such as Woofie the death row dog – then my sympathies begin to wane. And when an attempt by animal rights activists to move an ailing elephant from her home in Edmonton Zoo to a warm-weather US wildlife sanctuary looks set to take up time in Canada’s Supreme Court, I want to hold my head in despair.

I don’t hate animals, but until dogs can engage me in conversation and cats can do a cryptic crossword, I’m going to put humans first. As for my goldfish, I may not clean out the tank quite as often as I should, but, as he recently celebrated his nine-month birthday, I think I’ve become attuned to his funny little ways. In fact, so adept have I proved at keeping him alive, anyone experiencing high mortality rates in their own fish population might like to seek me out. I probably won’t be able to dispense information on dangerous ammonia levels, but I promise I won’t give them a hard time.