A THOUSAND CROSSINGS X

Dear Diary...
Animals and Birds should never be kept in cages
lundi 24 août 2009

Animals and birds, works of the Creator, are naturally beautiful. When Man saw such beauty, he wanted to have all of the most beautiful animals and birds. Men are possessive creatures; we keep these works of art in cages, so that they will always be ours.

However, freedom should be theirs. Over the years, we have domesticated millions of species of animals. Ranging from the hamster to the killer whale, our greed for beauty has led us to kidnap these beautiful creatures.

In my opinion, it is cruel to keep any animal in cages, in captivity. We claim to be protecting these animals; however what we have been doing is to destroy these animals’ natural instincts and make them completely dependent on the human race. This might just be another of Man’s ploy to dominate the landscape.

Have you ever thought how it would feel to be kept in a cage, where you only have enough space to pace back and forth, get poked at by others and be deprived of freedom? Wild animals and birds are caged up only to offer the sole purpose of stroking Man’s egoistic nature. Man feels powerful to be in control of another being’s life.

Caging animals and birds serve little purpose. Apart from stroking our egos, we claim to be conserving the environment and protecting wildlife by keeping them in captivity. We promised to release them into the wild as soon as their population stabilizes. A novel idea indeed, however the numerous failed attempts to release these domesticated animals in the wild have shown how difficult it is to help these animals reintegrate. When these animals were kept under captivity, they did not have to hunt or worry about the next meal. These animals were literally fed with a silver spoon. Soon, they lose their innate ability to hunt or find food, and they are thus unable to survive in the wild.

The red wolf was considered extinct from the wild in 1970. In recent years, there have been efforts to reintroduce captive wolves into the wild. However, researchers and scientists often realized that these wolves die shortly after being released into the wild, as they had been unable to find food. The red wolf was an apex predator, thus there definitely was no shortage of food, the fact that they did not survive in the wild and died of starvation shows how keeping animals in captivity had destroyed their natural ability to hunt.

Another excuse Man provides for keeping animals in cages is to breed these animals in captivity to help restore their population number before releasing them into the wild. However, there have been many failures in captive breeding. Often, animals bred in captivity have high mortality rates. This is partly due to the fact that the parent animals do not have the ability to teach the young animals how to feed or drink, as they themselves have lost their own natural ability to hunt. This causes the young animals to die quickly. Apart from this, some animals cannot be bred in captivity. Some animals such as polar bears need certain environments to be able to breed successfully. Penguins are extremely selective when it comes to finding a partner, thus efforts to breed such animals are often futile.

In 2003, a furore arose in Singapore over the Pink Dolphins in Sentosa’s Dolphin Lagoon. ACRES, the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society made a press release of the truth about the Pink Dolphins in Sentosa. In the press release, it was shown that the Pink dolphins were deprived of freedom and the basic rights any life form should possess.

Although the pink dolphins were not starved, they had to perform tricks correctly to earn food. The pink dolphins did not do tricks because they liked to, but they did it for food. As the dolphins do not have an alternative source of food in the lagoon, they are forced to perform tricks for crowds. Thus, keeping animals in captivity for entertainment is cruel. Not only does it destroy the animals’ natural instincts, it also damages the animals’ psychology and is harmful for an animal.

Sentosa also claimed that the dolphin lagoon serves as an education and research centre, where the public can learn more about wildlife and the dolphins, which will be beneficial to both humans and the dolphins. However, in my opinion, there is no way how anything can be learnt from watching a dolphin play football, balancing balls on its rostrum or having people ride on them as if they were jet skis. This only reinforces the notion that man is dominant, man is above all animals and that man controls nature, rather than being a part of it.

In conclusion, animals and birds should never be kept in cages. Keeping animals in captivity destroys their natural instincts and innate abilities. There is no use in keeping animals in captivity since they would still die as soon as they are released into the wild, Thus there is no point in caging them in an attempt to ‘protect’ them as they would die either way. Humans are part of nature and we do not control nature, thus we have no right to cage animals and birds. We should allow nature to take its own course and allow the animals to fend for themselves. They are part of nature, and part of the fragile ecosystem. Without this animals in the wild, the food web would definitely be disrupted and end up in haywire. Ultimately, humans are the ones who will suffer the most.

It felt a little messy. But I was focusing on content on this one. I followed Mr Tan's advice by adding examples to make it less theoretical and more real. I hope I do better with this one.

Au Revoir

yongliang

he closed his diary at {00:24}