Bears--the horrible things that happen to them by humans

[hyphenate]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/12/facing-medical-torture-chinese-bear-reportedly-kills-cub-then-self/
____________________________________________________________________

I can't post any part of this story, because it breaks my heart. But it makes me so sick to see these kinds of articles. Some alleged "human beings" in this world are among the most depraved monsters I've ever become acquainted with in one way or another. There are days and longer periods of time when I realize a great many people in this world need to be dealt a justice as brutal as what they deal to other creature in this world, especially those who could--and would--never torture, maim, kill or otherwise harm another, except for food or other basic need.

When will we learn? Or maybe the question is, WILL we ever learn? If I had the power to pass judgement on others who do these horrific things, they would all be dead.

And before I get the argument about food, clothing, yada, yada, re-read that sentence:
"never torture, maim, kill or otherwise harm another, except for food or other basic need." We are not supposed to be barbarians. We are not suppose to kill for pleasure. We do, yes. Need we? I don't think so. We might show some degree of artistic beauty over the centuries, but humans have also spent millenia inproving torture, ways of extermination, and more and more ways and reasons to justify the killing of both other humans, and all the animals in creation, including the rather paradoxial justification for religion.

My life has been spent, in one way or another, trying to understand the mores and rationale of humans in their domination of this planet. If I were an alien trying to decide whether to subjugate humanity or simply wipe us out, I would vote for eradication without a second thought. Those who have compassion, who have wisdom and an immense empathy for others can't, and will never be able to win over the likes of the cruel and evil ones. If it came to that, I'd say that it would be wiser to destroy the beauty in the world to keep the evil from inflitrating the rest of the universe.

It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but who knows? All I can say is that humans have no right to pat themselves on the back for anything. When even animals kill their own to escape from the horrors of the world of humans, we know we're not worth a second look.

[NYC_SKP]

1. For these crimes I would embargo all trade between China and ourselves.

Would have done this long ago.

Fuck this shit.

K/R

[TorchTheWitch]

2. humans are the most revolting creatures on earth

And the most stupid.

[Mnemosyne]

3. That was beyond heart-breaking. I agree, the aliens would have to choose eradication. n/t

[amerikat]

4. I read that story today. Left me in a state of grief.

Ashamed to be a human sometimes.

[Big Blue Marble]

5. How many animals would kill themselves then suffer the torture they must endure at human hands?

Billions of animals suffer and die every year due to human cruelty. Few have the
opportunity to kill themselves rather than endure their fate. This brave bear was truly
one of the lucky ones. I, sadly, commend her courage and fortitude.

As painful as this is to read, thank you for posting this gruesome story.

We, humans, are far too insensitive to what we do other animals. We are truly a very
flawed species.

Why do you exclude animals intended for food? How is it justified that these animals
are dammed to the hell of factory farming for our benefit. Does existing in a factory
farm or being a breeding sow excuse the the tormented life these animals must live?
They also know that their calfs and piglets face a dismal future that they cannot
prevent.

Did you ever drive by an livestock truck on it's way to the slaughter house? Did
you see the faces of cows on board? They are terrified, as terrified as you would be?

[hyphenate]

7. If I had my way, animals would never be used for food, either

And perhaps that can still be done in the future. I, for one, hope that we might be able someday to clone animal parts--NOT the whole animal, but the parts that provide nourishment and nutrition only, without any pain or distress to a living animal.

I think that until then, we can't just stop, cold turkey (sorry for that pun), from eating meat of some kind. Without it, at this moment in time, without finding some alternative, there would be dire consequences, mostly in terms of dietary needs.

There is only one other reason I have for my exclusion in this case: my cats. We have named ourselves stewards of these companion animals, and one thing about cats is their carnivorous nature. Healthwise, they could not survive without some meat in their lives. Perhaps we could at some point find a way to let them eat all the mice and rats they could ever desire, and perhaps when something along the line of cloning brings alternatives that the cats can eat those cloned meats as well, we can stop all meat production as well. This would certainly make me happy as well in all instances.

But I think winding down the world of mass production of meat is goign to have to take a little while longer to acclimate the population to finding other sources of protein, for example.

No, I do want it to stop, too, and I only eat fish when I can afford it, and have been mostly a vegetarian for 20 years now. Once in awhile, I've eaten meat when I got a specific craving, but meat doesn't do anything for me, and I don't truly care to eat it.

I think people will find that the health of the human race will vastly improve if we got off the whole of slaughtering animals. And I like to hope it will change the world in a lot of positive ways when it happens.

[Big Blue Marble]

8. Actually, many of us currently living without meat

with no dire consequences at all. I have lived most of my adult life with little or no meat.
I am now in my late sixties free of disease, on no medications and thriving. I still eat some dairy
and occasionally seafood, but less and less of both. It is kinder to ourselves, our planet, as well
as our fellow animals if we rely less on them and more on plants for our survival.

And by the way, I am a gourmet cook who thoroughly enjoys eating wonderful foods.
Living without meat is much easier than anyone who eats it can imagine. Protein is quite
plentiful in a plant based diet and in forms that easier on our bodies.

I know exactly what you mean about your cats. I, too, have cats and feed them meat. I share
your conflict. Of course, feeding them mice and rats really is not much different as they are animals. too.
Watching one of my cats "play" with a mouse is painful indeed.

It is a fact of nature that animals do kill each other for food in the wild. We cannot change that.
But we can choose as you are doing to reduce the suffering. We can make our footprint smaller.

Thank you for caring. And thank you for choosing to make our world a little more peaceful place.

[hyphenate]

10. I'm only doing a little compared to some people and their work

I should have begun years long before I started. I know there are many other there who could do a lot more than myself. However, there are now many new ways to fight for the cause and spread the word. The internet enables us to inform the world of these horrible things, and we need to move it from the realm of darkness and bring it into the light.

[undeterred]

19. We can stop it if we choose to and I don't think more technology

is the answer. We don't need cloned meat.

[hyphenate]

29. I would like to agree with you

but respectfully disagree. Here in the US, there are many, many people who would never give up meat no matter what.

I think that no matter how hard we try, there are groups, like the cattle ranchers, who would do everything in their power to make sure they stayed in demand. Meat is a big business. And like the Koch brothers, the industry will always be around until the attitude completely changes in the country.

[undeterred]

30. The cattle ranchers can't force demand on me.

I gave up meat 15 months ago. I'm done. It was the right thing to do, and nothing is going to make me go back to it. People can change if they open their minds.

[Quantess]

28. She didn't "exclude" animals intended for food. She's just highlighting a specific cruelty

we may not have heard about. Which I think is really necessary.

I would argue that yes, the misery these bears endure is a bit worse than, say, a veal calf. At least the calf only gets a few days of miserable deprivation. Those bears have to endure several years of meaningless existence, of boredom spiced with excruciating pain.

Of course, I agree with everything else you say. Factory farming is cruel and mechanized torture, for the most part. I have seen how a few lucky "happy cows" live, and I personally don't feel bad about eating them. There are extreme degrees of meaningless, needless, cruelty to animals, that need to be addressed first, before we tackle the subject of all animal exploitation.

[Kablooie]

6. I saw a bear in a cage at a Hokkaido, Japan tourist restaurant years ago.

It was a horrible tiny cage with bars instead of a floor.
the cage was filthy and just barely big enough to turn around.
The bear had filmy eyes and most of it's hair had fallen out.
I guess they kept it as some kind of awful tourist attraction but no one paid it any attention.
Sad and useless cruelty.

This was about 25 years ago and I think some animal rights have entered Japanese societal consciousness since then.
(Though the Japanese didn't even have a word for rights, even human rights, until the 20th century. It was a foreign concept to them.)

[csziggy]

9. When I was very small child a place outside of Winter Haven, Florida

Had a bear that they kept as an attraction. This was over 50 years ago. I seem to remember that the bear was retired from a traveling circus. The bear had a decent sized enclosure and seemed to be well cared for and happy, but that is not where a bear should be living.

About the time that bear disappeared (it probably died of old age), a traveling circus came to my home town. I went to the part where they had animals and cages and was sickened - the animals looked so unhappy and the cages stank. I've never been to a circus since and will never go to one again.

In those days, lots of small places had various animals as tourist attractions. A very few of those places still survive, but the variety of animal kept has changed and the quality of their care has improved.

[hyphenate]

15. I first learned about the bear bile farms

about 1991. The Genesis Awards, from the Ark Trust, gave out an award to a show called "Animal Investigators." This group would go undercover and show the horrors of animal abuse, and I am still haunted by the images I saw in their video on the subject. It was one of the hardest things I had ever had to do at that moment of my life.

20 years later, now, I am appalled that it hasn't been any further exposed to a wider scale. There are many horrific things going on in Asian nations, particularly in China, that should be condemned through any and every route possible.

There is so much ignorance, both blind and deliberate, in this world, and too many people choose, in nations with a decent education system, to ignore what goes on in this world. Things like this are not going to stop until everyone makes the decision to choose compassion over cruelty.

All I can hope is that it ends at some point. Albert Schweitzer, for example, hoped that it would become an outlawed practice. "Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." Albert Schweitzer, in Kulturphilosophie (1923)

There are countries in the world which don't have very many educated people, or where conditions don't allow for them to reach a position of equality with the rest of the animal kingdom. The people in these countries need to be educated, their welfare kept as a priority, and the greed of all those in power curtailed.

But it's the same in countries where there are educated people, too, notably here in the US. There are people in our very own country whose education has been neglected, whose minds have been warped to some degree from infancy, and where compassion is the last thing on their minds. These people need to be given proper educations, and taught that cruelty to animals is forbidden.

Anyhow, I thought 20 or more years ago that some changes would happen while I was still able to see them, but alas, much of what happened then is still happening today.

[Raine]

11. I just can't read those articles they haunt me

so after reading them, they break my heart. :cry:

[TorchTheWitch]

12. you and me both

Especially now after just losing my dog. I'm just much more sensitive to any kind of animal cruelty right now. Even the little bit I found out from the posts is really getting to me.

[hyphenate]

17. Me, too

When I first got into the cause of animal welfare and rights, PETA was just beginning, and had people working undercover in some of the worst violators of compassion toward animals. I got sickkened by some of the things that went on, and thankfully, some of these places are now good examples of changed philosophies, thanks to PETA and their work.

Whenever I see a monograph for a medication, I look for their "testing" conditions, and if I see they've done LD50, I refuse to take that prescription. It's a barbaric practice, and it should be condemned. We have much, much better human and animal computer models and can now grow human tissue in the lab, and there is no need to harm animals like they continue to do.

[flvegan]

13. I have to ask...

"never torture, maim, kill or otherwise harm another"

Oh, shit the disclaimer..."except for or food other basic need"

Thank the Gods you stupid fucking idiots were on the job at the time.

Seriously, compare the subject line to the rest of it. Yeah, you lose. Every time. Now, you come to me, morons as you are, heh. And I'll end you later, fucking idiots.

[hyphenate]

21. hmmmm....

what's that all about? I don't understand. Is "Thank the Gods you stupid fucking idiots were on the job at the time" meant for me?

Please explain--I suppose I can be dense sometimes.

If you read the above posts, you notice I clarified my comments.

If it's not directed at me, could you please say who it's about? My brain doesn't work as well as it used to--I wish it did: I could use the wit I think I lost. :)

[H2O Man]

22. I also was

unsure of the intended meaning.

[ZombieHorde]

14. Humanity becomes slightly less cruel with each generation.

Education is a major factor.

[amborin]

18. yes and no

rampant development....subdivisions....habitat destruction and species extirpation are
increasing not only in places like Indonesia, but throughout the West....

[hyphenate]

23. I can agree with you on some things

but I think in some parts of the world, the "art" of torture has gotten more effective, and it sadly continues unabated.

There is a psychological theory that those who are serial killers spent a large part of their youth torturing animals. I would say that is quite likely--some people are just born bad.

[Rex]

16. I spent many years saving wildlife from the encroachment of civilization

I find it deplorable what humans do to animals.

[H2O Man]

20. Recommended.

There have been quite a few bears in my area this spring and summer. They cause an interesting response by humans. A few think them frightening -- and I'll admit that I've been more aware of my surroundings while harvesting the blackberries this year.

Decades ago, when I lived on the dead end of a very old dirt road, on a farm with a gas pump in the barn, humans often attempted to steal gas. I'm pretty laid-back, and remember being a teenager, driving back roads, etc. But when they'd leave the barn door open, the pipes would freeze. I remember one Christmas morning, with broken pipes all over, but that's another story.

One late summer night, my dogs were barking in a manner that was distinct from if a creature like a skunk was nearby, or even a fox raiding my chicken coup. Medium story short, it was a bear. And even in a truck, seeing a medium-sized black bear rearing up on its back legs, a few feet ahead of you, does tend to get the heart racing. No doubt.

I'm fascinated by the spiritual "bear cults" in Europe and North America. There were some interesting similarities, which suggest a close relationship, prior to the ocher cult phase.

I asked an elderly shaman about these things one day, while I was assisting him in gathering herbs. He said that if humans had not experienced the evolution of the brain, when Early Man began using tools in Africa, that he thought bears would have been the best candidates for such an amazing growth in brain. It wasn't that he was applying human traits to bears. Just a different level of respect for a powerful life force.

[Doremus]

24. Links to groups that are trying to help

http://ursafreedomproject.ning.com / - lots of links to other pages here

http://endbearbilefarming.blogspot.com / - a wonderful blog with lots of photos


http://ursafreedomproject.ning.com/opensocial/ningapps/... - DONATE


This unspeakably horrific practice must stop.

Thanks to the OP for his heartfelt sentiments. I wholeheartedly agree with every word, most especially this sentence:

If I had the power to pass judgement on others who do these horrific things, they would all be dead.

[Quantess]

27. Thanks for the links, even though I probably can't stand to see them.

If I had the power to pass judgement on others who do these horrific things, they would all be dead.

What do you think about my take on "judgement", in my post #25?

[Quantess]

25. I believe that consciousness of all life is connected at a deeper level than we are aware.

The experiences, feelings, actions, of every creature that ever lived belongs to our shared consciousness, is known to our collective shared consciousness, but only at an unconscious level while we are alive. Upon death, I believe that each of us will fully know and experience the consequences of our lifetime of actions toward others.

So for example, the sick, cruel human who subjects a bear to a lifetime of misery will know and experience and feel the consequences of his/her cruelty, from the bear's perspective. Every single detail will be knowable for all of eternity, with the end result a heightened awareness of the sum of our actions. The person who tortures the bear for a little money, or whatever reason, will get to experience what the bear experienced, from the bear's own perspective.

This is my concept of karma. It isn't punishment or reward, just a full, complete, awareness of your how your actions affect other living beings. This is something I deeply believe to be true. This is pretty much the only "religious" belief I have. It's why I call myself an agnostic instead of an atheist.

[amborin]

26. more horrible human vs bear here: comments are particularly good:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/08/oregon_fish_wildlife_euthanize_black_bear_trapped_near_bonneville_hatchery.html