The survival of a two-week old lamb from Cedar, B.C. is “a miracle,” according to an animal protection officer. Apparently in the post-speciesism era we live in the survival of livestock constitutes an act of intervention from God.
The lamb, who of course has since been named “Murphy”, is alive following an attack on its mother and eight other sheep by a cougar. (In its defence, the cougar is well-known for its inclination to prey on young things). The incident occurred on a rural property in the south of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
A cougar attacking and eating sheep isn’t newsworthy, nor is a two-week-old sheep who has been anthropomorphically dubbed Murphy, but apparently what is newsworthy is the fact that the landowner did nothing to stop this heinous animal-on-animal crime:
Hitchcock, who has worked as a special provincial constable for the BCSPCA in Nanaimo for four years, said what she found most disturbing is that the owner of the property and the sheep was aware of the attack, but didn’t assist the animals in any way or even report the incident to authorities.
She said she was called to the scene by city bylaw officers who were contacted by neighbours days after the attack.
Hitchcock said charges are pending against the property owner, who she still has not made contact with despite numerous phone calls and letters, and they may include charges under the criminal code as well as under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
It’s bad enough that the state now has the power to ensure your parenting meets with the appropriate guidelines set out by various ministries of government. But the country has truly jumped the shark when livestock property suddenly become a moral responsibility worthy of criminal charges. Let me say that again: criminal charges for not doing something to protect livestock.
“Murphy was found alone and hyperthermic in the rain so we rushed him to a veterinarian and, fortunately, he survived.”
First of all, there’s no such thing as Murphy. That’s ridiculous. It’s a lamb, and is usually served best with lemon and rosemary and a side of apple sauce. I’m sure the cougar would agree, if it had the intelligence to articulate that opinion. Fortunately, like the lamb, it doesn’t. That’s probably because it’s an animal.
In a post-agrarian nation I can understand the domestication of certain animals as companion pets. Dogs and cats have certainly edged their way into the status of protected animals, if only because of common social conventions. Enough people have either one or the other in their home, and though some people anthropomorphize them in baby high chairs and woollen jackets, they have earned their place.
Lambs, on the other hand, are good for one of two things. Food for humans or food for other animals. Any attempt to make them more than that is the kind of folly that your grandfather would have given you a stern look and questioned your sanity.
But sane is not how one might describe the modern world.
“Murphy is a pet and we intend to conduct home visits to anyone interested in adopting him.”
State visits to your house to ensure you’re not cooking lamb. Yeah, that sounds like the kind of world I want to live in.
This is just their way of preparing us for “Prime Minister Jack Layton and Finance Minister Michael Ignatieff”.
It truly is End of Days.
There’s a difference between loving animals and knowing their place in the food chain.
From the article, I believe the charges stem from the owner having actually found the animals severely wounded, and *not* doing anything to tend to their wounds, or put them down.
“In my many years as an animal protection officer, I’ve never been in a situation where an animal owner simply drove away and left critically injured animals from a predator attack to just die like this,” Hitchcock said.”
I too, think that owner should be charged for cruelty, in walking away from them at that point.
As to the ‘prevention’ of cruelty part, sheep owners must know that sheep are totally defenseless…pretty dumb for the most part. Responsible owners would at minimum try to provide basic protection.
And people can still eat lamb…no problem there.
Property is property, is it not? Whose business is it that he didn’t tend to the wounds?
We do not have that strength of property rights yet.
Until we do, or some form of that, I will stand with the wounded innocent.
We will have to agree to disagree, ’cause the heart is too involved as far as animals goes for me. No apology for it either….it is my one weakness, Adrian.
Ok.
Thank you, Adrian, for this excellent post. I just came across the articles written on the subject, and was following comments – as a sheep producer and director of BC Sheep Federation, and Canadian Sheep Federation. The BCSF is part of a predator pilot project, and are monitoring predator attacks on sheep. On Vancouver Island cougar attacks on livestock have been on the increase with loss of habitat and following natural prey onto the farms, in the rest of BC it is coyotes, in the north BC wolves and coyotes, and where I am on the Gulf Islands it is eagles, ravens and dogs.
Just this morning I saw an eagle fly off with a lamb, while I was checking the flock on the pasture. It could not be stopped. We have seen an increase in eagles, including golden eagles who kill larger lambs. Lambs are tasty to humans, and a host of other beasts. One report stated that the owner thought it was a dog and had buried some of the sheep – some were missing. The report also said the owner did contact authorities, just not right away. that is not unusual – we have had animals killed here, and we did not report it right away. Where I live a neighbour had a dog repeatedly enter his property at night and chase and kill sheep – some scattered and took days to find. Animal control lent him a cage to trap the dog, but it didn’t work and finally someone caught the dog on its way to his farm. The report that interviewed the SPCA officer gave a slightly different story, and I agree it had an animal-rights perspective that made more than a few assumptions about the owner and the situation that other articles did not have. Sheep producers do what they can to control predators, but sometimes the predators win.
I had similar experience with a lamb in BC, but it wasn’t a cougar but the neighbors dogs that was killing the sheep. Phone the RCMP to do something about it and they said it was a domestic problem and to phone the SPCA. SPCA said they had no authority to do anything out where we were. Then went to Fish and Wildlife and they told us if the dogs were chasing deer they could do something about it, but since it was sheep they passed the buck to the SPCA. Went to the neighbor and complained, but the attacks continued. In the end we followed the three S’s, we Shot the dogs, Shovel the grave, and Shut are mouths when people came looking.
The BCSPA is the one of the most corrupt organization in BC. Their management all make 6 figure salaries, money often goes missing. Will only act if their is some publicity or money in it for them. Will only raid puppy farms that raise small dogs (easy to sell) and ignore the puppy farms with large dogs (hard to sell). Some politicians have told people to donate their time and not any money, especially the Nanaimo BCSPCA
Shoot, shovel and shutup. I like it.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Barbara. I think people are quick to jump to judgement on the owner without really hearing their side of the story.
Archie, I totally agree with your point of view on at least a few of the SPCA’s I have had contact with in BC and Alberta.
There are many ways for them to avoid real assistance to the animals.
In fact they will sue groups who dare to take those animals out of their miserable situations….legal fees funded by donations.
That is another thing you might want to explore, Adrian. I could give you some contact info.
I grew up on a farm, and know what dogs can do to livestock.
Still the key note for me in this article is the implication that this farmer did not provide treatment to the wounded, or finalizing their condition, so to speak.
That also is not on for me.
You were fairly warned, Adrian. This subject brings a certain intensity for me.
Here is a video on animal rights: http://meat.org
Acacia the problem is the BCSPCA will lie to make people look bad or make things a lot worse then they actually are, especially the Nanaimo BCSPCA. Lets say I know some people that had some dealings with them. It was the Nanaimo BCSPCA that one BC MLA told people to donate their time instead of money. Every time something happens like this the BCSPCA are out there with their hands out. Yes the owner should of been shot, but when I hear someone for Nanaimo BCSPCA is involved, I take every thing with a grain of salt
Just today there was a lengthy report in the Calgary Herald re a guy who was falsely accused (by a crackhead no less) of shooting a wild horse (i.e. a feral horse) in the foothills. He endured unreasonable abuse from the SPCA and the RCMP, received DEATH THREATS on himself and his children, was fired from his job as a counsellor in a rehab camp for homeless substance abusers and spent $100,000 of family money for legal fees. Now, big whoop, he has been exonerated thanks to some passers by who saw the horse shortly after it died of apparently natural causes. His life was turned upside down for a year all because of the death of a @$#%!& broomtail. We live in a society gone mad.
Seriously? That’s pretty crazy.
I also raise sheep among other types of livestock and can confirm the comments by Barbara. I should also mention that most often a wounded animal surviving such an attack will go into a state of shock and no amount of vet treatment or care can save it, so the officer in this case demonstrates his ignorance of nature. I have had to deal with all kinds of predators in the Fraser Valley including coyotes, bears, cougars, Bald eagles and stray dogs, and found that the provincial predator control officers (they now go by some other name) were useless. One told me I had to have a fence that would keep out bears, which showed his ignorance. I have had some of the best and expensive fencing destroyed by bears, including electric, and cannot afford to fence all my farm with a prison type fence. I had no choice by to deal with each predator caught in action myself, and it was impossible to get them all. My solution has been livestock protection dogs who live constantly with the livestock and will protect them from four-legged, winged or two-legged predators. I have not lost any livestock since their introduction.
I also have a comment about the SPCA out here. One of their main people bragged to me about how she had rescued some poor coyote caught in a trap, taken it to a vet to be treated and was waiting for it to be well enough to be released. I told her should it be released on my farm I would shoot it. She was your typical urbanite with no understanding of nature and had no concern that we already have an overpopulation of coyotes that have eliminated the wild pheasants, partridge and grouse around here to say nothing of neighbours losing pet cats and smaller dogs to coyotes. I have no interest in trying (for that is all it would be) to wipe out all the coyotes, bears, cougars and eagles, but there needs to be some common sense and understanding that for livestock producers their livestock is their livelihood.
One of the main problems is urban thinking for rural problems. Seldom works. Our gun registry laws are a prime example.
I don’t have a farm now, but I grew up on one. Just wanted to respond to Acacia’s comment that the owner would not provide treatment or “finalize” the animal. Given the gun registry and the general difficulty of owning guns these days, many farmers on Vancouver Island no longer have rifles or shot guns.
Should the owner have broken the lamb’s neck? That takes a lot more effort than a chicken, and would frankly be more traumatic, especially if the animal was wounded and bleeding. The animal was surely no longer good for meat. Why not leave it for some other prey animal? I’m sure that seems callous, but I doubt I would want to bloody myself killing a lamb when nature will do the job for me. Providing first aid in such a situation is ridiculous. Vet bills would almost certainly exceed the potential profit from saving the animal.
It’s dangerous as a farmer to start treating meat animals as pets. They are money in the form of meat. If they are no longer useful as such, then cut the loss and move on.
This thread makes sense of the wish to get rid of the gun registry program altogether. It is even more than criminalising gun owners
Not disagreeing but this is a different ” Jean” than the Jean that usually posts comments here.
I guess it can become confusing if two people have or use the same name.
( I realize that I’m not the only person first Jean as a first name …. LOL ).
Scouts’ honor. See the big spread above the fold in the Calgary Herald of April 28th. I’ve been following the story off and on for a year.
The original Jean again to Adrian: Maybe when we have two people using the same user name we need some sort of unique identifier to distinguish which is which to avoid confusion ?
Well you do have different avatars that will show up based on your IP address. But I don’t think the other Jean is likely to be back anyway.
Conservatives – not just pro-Muslim torture anymore. Also pro-animal torture.
I wish I could understand what the hell you’re talking about.
Knowing that people have the responsibily to treat animals properly doesn’t make you an post-speciesism nut.
If a livestock animal is attacked by a cougar and survives, any responsible owner calls a vet or puts the animal down. You don’t just let it die slowly. It’s the same deal if you hit a deer with your car. If the animal is mortally injured you put that animal out of it’s misery. You don’t just drive away.
A post-speciesism nut would think you should be charged with manslaughter or perhaps accessory to murder. A responsible person knows that’s ridiculous, but also knows that you need to do something. Thinking you just let the animal die slowly? That sounds a bit sociopathic Adrian.
I doubt you really think that way, I suspect you’re just letting your irration at nutters who think that animals should have human rights get the better of you.
That’s ridiculous Adrian. I own my couch and if I want to I can light it on fire. I suspect you wouldn’t think too highly of me if I lit my puppy on fire.
He didn’t light the lamb on fire. It was attacked by a wild animal.
No, I honestly find it offensive to think a man could be charged criminally for what happened to a bunch of animals.
In wingnut BC, if you hit a animal with your car and dispatch it on your own, you can be charged with a number of offences including (ironically) cruelty to animals. You MUST call a conservation officer to put it out of its misery.
Ah, thanks for the AVATAR ” thingy “: I did notice them but wasn’t really attentive to them being consistent for each poster i.e. I thought erroneously that they where more random and just ” decorative “;)
And the animal waits in pain for hours before they show up if ever ?
Animals should be treated with respect in that any unneeded cruelty should be avoided or minimized when we use them for food.
Vegetarians may have a different view on this but nature isn’t sentimental and everything alive eventually becomes in nature something else’s food ! Our responsibility is to do our best to be as kind as possible but we are part of nature and honestly we are predators as a species being omnivores like ” bears ” we can eat just about every food group.
So it’s not relevant to say “property is property”, because it’s property of an entirely different kind.
I’m going to say more, but I’ll put it in our conversation below.
I know people who’ve put animals out of their misery themselves, and been quite open about it, and there hasn’t been even the suggestion that this was an offence.
I’m sure you *can* be charged with an offence if you kill an animal with needless cruelty. This is not to say that it’s an offence to kill to put an animal out of it’s misery *in the most humane way possible at the time*.
I don’t mean to rude, but I’m not going to take your statement as accurate without a source.
I don’t think he was charged criminally for “what happened to a bunch of animals”. If I’ve read this correctly, he was charged for his failure to execute his responsibilities as an animal owner *after* what had happened with animals.
If my animal is attacked by a wild animal and it survives, my responsibility to care for my living property remains. As such, I either have to call the vet, or put it down. (Or both if I’m unwilling to put it down myself). This does not imply that I am responsible for the actions of a predator, because I am not. I am responsible for caring for my animal after the fact.
You can interpret that responsibility as deriving from the animal’s “rights”, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I think it derives wholly from our responsibilities as humans.
I don’t know if this will help illustrate where I’m coming from, but if you’ll allow me, I’ll explain. While you don’t share my beliefs about God, my belief about animals derives from my beliefs about God, how he made us all and what for. We were put at the dominant position on earth. Power comes with responsibility. We have a responsibility to care for the world we were given and a responsibility to care for the things in it. This does imply that they are of equal worth as humans, and they are not. But our responsibilities remain because of our superior position and understanding.