Pets in Trouble

When a pet that we humans come to love and care for is hurt, it really brings pain to our hearts into realizing that we must do something to stop this. These days, people are doing ridiculous actions to these amazing pets like keeping them in cramped cages,starving them to death, and even setting them on fire. But animals deserve much better treatment. Pets are creatures that have hearts and feelings just like us, so imagine if someone ran you over with a truck and left you there to die. We would all have that feeling of despair and pain, and all hope would seem lost. But remember, any animal is vulnerable to animal cruelty and that is why in order to prevent this from happening, we have to let the public know that animals deserve better than how they are treated. For stories about some animals look at the links below:

http://www.animal-abusesite.info/AbuseStories.html
http://animalcrueltyworldwide.com/index.html

Horse Racing

Horse Racing is an amazing sport, and everyone is used to watching fantastic racing like the Kentucky Derby, but most people don't know the truth about how cruel racing can be. For starters, most horses are trained to race at a very young age just as their bones and muscles are beginning to mature, so as the horses are put into rigorous training, their bodies are suffering the price of winning as they commonly strain their muscles and break their bones as a result of the racing. Horse racing owners also only care for their horses if they are in good condition, so if a race horse is injured as a result of the race and their practicing, they are later killed since they are no longer of use for the racing industry. Even though racing is an amazing sport, it's not worth the cruelty that the horses are put into and we should say no to racing if it will be at the expense of the animals.




MLA Citation:
Chai online. Concern for helping animals in Israel. 1998-2013. Web. 24 September 2013

Elephant Tusk Poaching

Every year, thousands of Asian and African Elephants are killed just for their ivory tusks. Ivory is an elegant material that is used for piano keys, hiking sticks, and practically any item that has sturdiness to it. But the danger of having such wonderful items is wiping out the elephant population to near extinction. As of a couple years ago, only about sixty-thousand Asian elephants are still alive and are officially considered to be endangered. But the ivory business is one of great wealth and profit. The term for people who hunt elephants for their tusks are called poachers and poaching is considered to be illegal, yet people still manage to do it. When poachers hunt for elephants, they kill them by either shooting extremely poisonous darts, or catching the elephants in snares and then mercilessly cut out their tusks and leave the body behind. Elephants are amazing creatures that need to be protected from illegal poaching, so please help us spread the word of this animal cruelty or else someday, elephants may not even exist in this world without your help.

Top: Endangered Asian Elephant
Bottom: Elephant Tusk Collection

MLA Citation:
eleaid. eleaid. np. sept. 2003.web. 24 September 2013

Shark Finning

                                                                   

Another type of animal cruelty is shark finning. Most Asian countries eat shark fin soup at celebrations or main events, but even people who eat the soup don't realize how high the risk of extinction is. Sharks are considered to be the kings of the sea and are probably one of the most dangerous animal predators there are, but the sole purpose of their loss in population is their fins. Currently, one hundred and forty three species of sharks run the risk of extinction yet people still choose to not save them. Not surprisingly, a single bowl of shark fin soup is worth from seventy dollars to a hundred dollars. But the reason why this bowl of soup is worth such a hefty price tag is because of the process to get these fins. Shark finning is only legal if after you take the fins, you bring the body of the shark back to port. If one of the shark finning ships comes back to port with only fins and no bodies, everyone on that ship is arrested for illegal finning, so professional finners run the risk of becoming juveniles which makes these fins so expensive. The method for shark finning is that the finners either net up the sharks, or do some deep fishing. Once the shark has breached the water and is on the ship, the finners slice off their fins, and as the shark is still alive, they are dumped back into the ocean to suffocate to death. Help us spread the word of these poor animals' suffering because no bowl of soup is worth the risk.

Top: Shark Fin Soup
Bottom: Finless Shark

 MLA Citation:
- Jacques, Peter. "Sea Shepherd Conservation Society." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society.
ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 25 Sept. 2013.
- "Endangered Species Act (1973)." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society.
ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 25 Sept. 2013.

Our Action Plan

Our action plan as a group is to create a website to raise awareness to help stop animal cruelty. On our website, we have different cases of animal cruelty and after reading the cases, you can comment on how you feel about them. Below is a chart that shows the amount and percentage of animal cruelty cases in the US alone. Remember, animal cruelty can happen anywhere so help us to possibly save another animal's life.

End the Animal Cruelty

One of the many types of animal cruelty is animal testing. Various brand name companies use animal testing on their products all the time. See the links below to see if the products you have at home have been tested on animals, if so you should probably think about getting rid of them or finding another company who does not use animal testing.

Companies who use animal testing
Companies who don't use animal testing