Advocates for Animals by Lori B. Girshick

Author:Lori B. Girshick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

Issue Focus: Animal Cruelty

One of the reasons animal cruelty exists is because most people do not see nonhuman animals as equal to humans in terms of rights, sentience, or reasoning/thinking. If that is the way you think, you can use animals for entertainment, food, or experimentation, and treat them any way you want—as treasured companions, as backyard guards without adequate food and shelter, as objects or commodities to be used regardless of the result to the animal.

Justice for Tiger

A case that really took the spotlight is Justice for Tiger. I don’t know if you could be on the Internet, and interested in animals, and not know this case. In April 2015, Texas veterinarian Kristen Lindsey shot and killed Tiger by shooting an arrow through his head. Tiger was an orange tabby who had the misfortune of being spotted by Lindsey. She posted a photo of herself on Facebook holding the arrow with Tiger’s limp body dangling, along with the comment, “My first bow kill LOL. The only good feral tomcat is one with an arrow through its head! Vet of the year award . . . gladly accepted.” This repulsive attitude was only compounded by the fact that Tiger was a family member, and his family lost their kitty in such a needless, gruesome way. And it goes without saying that no feral cat would deserve such a cruel death.

The Justice for Tiger Facebook campaign, along with Alley Cat Allies and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, were active in pushing for Dr. Lindsey to lose her veterinarian license to practice. Her action is certainly outside the scope of her oath to prevent and relieve animal suffering. After her Facebook posting, Lindsey was fired from her job, a practice that focused on equine medicine. Alley Cat Allies was clear that this act of cruelty is so unacceptable that few animal owners would ever trust her. The organization filed an amicus brief, pushed for license revocation, and kept the case alive on social media.

On August 20, 2016, two Texas administrative law judges recommended a five-year suspension of Lindsey’s license, plus completion of continuing education on veterinary jurisprudence and animal welfare, as well as one hundred hours of community service at a cat rescue, free spay/neuter clinic, or other animal service. In this recommendation, Lindsey can practice as a vet under supervision after one year. The full Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners met on October 18, 2016, and ruled to temporarily suspend Dr. Lindsey’s veterinary license, a decision that is an insult to Tiger’s family, and is inadequate to punish such severe animal cruelty. The ruling was a major disappointment to the thousands of people following the case, who were hoping that a strong response to animal cruelty would be taken.

The Justice for Tiger case is an example of what most people think of with animal cruelty or abuse—the mistreatment, often deliberate and outrageous, of individual animals, usually by individual humans. I read daily of these cases—dogs with acid poured on them,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.