Animal rights nationalism

I guess they don’t care about the Turkish animals, a funny position for a group with trans-species (but not trans-national?) concerns:

Animal rights activists in Australia have alleged that Australian sheep and cattle are being mistreated in Turkey and stated they will voice their claims at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, an Australian newspaper said on Wednesday.

According to The Australian, animal rights investigators will present fresh claims of sheep and cattle being mistreated in Turkey to Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig on Wednesday ahead of a Senate hearing into the live export industry.

The daily said Animals Australia, a federation of civil society groups that deals with animal welfare and animal rights issues, has new video footage of livestock being handled and slaughtered in ways that breach international animal welfare standards.

The footage was reportedly taken recently after the group went to Turkey to investigate the treatment of Australian animals for the Senate inquiry into the issue and the independent investigation of the trade being carried out by former diplomat Bill Farmer.

According to the report, investigators said they were unable to confirm that animals documented in the footage were Australian, only that Australian livestock was slaughtered at the Turkish facilities.

The Australians who shipped these animals to Turkey seem oddly exempt from criticism, or did the Turks come, sneak across the border, and capture the sheep and cattle with nets?

Imagine further applications of the principle of animal rights nationalism.  Should the nations of the South put “(im)migration restrictions” on the birds coming down from the North each wintertime?  Some ideas are too silly to contemplate.

For the pointer I thank Ashok Hariharan.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed