Animals suffer like we do, we must care for them

This letter displays a fundamental lack of understanding of all animals and their right to life on Earth. Humans need all other creatures, but they do not need us.
Some 20,000 years ago, driving animals into natural rock compounds to confinement was found to avoid the effort expended on hunting. This has become refined to trapping animals behind barbed wire fences and in cages to form a ready supply of meat.
Entrapping animals makes it more convenient to slaughter them en masse. Animals have become products of factories where they never touch grass or see the sky above. By denying animals their natural habitat, humans created a dependency, assuming total responsibility for the animals: for their food supply and their welfare. With their freedom denied, all domesticated animals have become a human responsibility.
The writer claims that animals cannot communicate “so we cannot know how intense their pain is”. Anybody with a degree of sentience who has any experience with animals knows perfectly well how animals communicate. If it’s painful for a human it is equally painful for any other animal.
All animals have a central nervous system and many have far greater sensitivity than a human being. With a severe toothache a horse will bolt. He won’t whine and sob and an intelligent horseman will recognise that symptom. Try locking yourself in a tightly fitting cage like a battery hen. No thanks, it’s inhumane.
Arrogance is a product of ignorance and it tends to dominate mankind’s perception of other animal forms. This attitude has to a large degree been encouraged by such writings as The Bible, which tells people that they alone have dominion over all other creatures. What it does not say is that ‘dominion over’ means ‘responsibility for’. One thing the human race dislikes is taking responsibility. They claim in their self-pitying whine that they alone have rights. All animals have a fundamental right to the freedom of life and that is the issue.
JC Wilcox