Karma: Why It's Time To Re-evaluate Our Relationship With The Animals Around Us

I’d like to share a belief I have with you. My goal is not to try to convince you to believe what I believe, but to explain my belief as a concept in the hopes that it might resonate with you, or more importantly, resonate with those who might not necessarily view the relationship between humans and animals in what I feel is the proper light.

You see, I believe that while we can see the glimmer of intelligence in many of the creatures we share this planet with, ultimately, in the end, it is us, as humans, who are responsible for many of the behaviors and incidents that lead to the unnecessary demise of far too many animals. I also believe that as the obvious top species on the planet, it is our responsibility to properly care for and ensure the survival of each of the other species. We have been given the gift of intelligence, for whatever reason, and it is up to us to use that intelligence to be the stewards of those species who were given less intelligence, even if it would appear only slightly less at times.

We encroach on the habitat of a coyote, strip its native land, put up houses, then blame the coyote when it attacks our small little domesticated dogs when it is feeling particularly territorial or hungry. We do the same with bears and other large predatory animals the world over. We also do the same with creatures as small as insects, though it’s the bears, wild canines and large cats that tend to result in us getting on high horses and demanding justice when animals inconvenience our lives.

A case in point made a few headlines where I live, here in Orange County, California. The story was about a husky named Karma. Karma, unfortunately, spent a good part of her life with humans that were addicted to drugs. These humans would sometimes forget to feed Karma, leaving this poor dog starving. We as humans have domesticated these animals and brought them into our sterile habitats where they are then reliant upon us for food. So, when poor Karma finally was able to get free of the humans that had forgotten to feed her, she went out on the hunt and killed two domesticated cats. Now, I don’t see how any single person on this planet could blame a starving dog for killing and eating whatever it could find to eat as soon as it was loose. What in the hell else would a dog do in that situation? Go scrape against the back door of a pasta restaurant like in a Disney movie?

So, who is to blame in this scenario where these poor cats were killed by Karma? Do we blame the cats’ owners? The cats? Karma? No, I would argue that it was Karma’s owners that were too busy being the victims of human circumstance to feed the dog and therefore, should bear the blame for the dead cats...not the dog.

Do you see what I am getting at here? Do you see how this situation was created completely by humans, stemming from our insistence on the domestication of animals and our insistence on our right to have animals as pets no matter how careless we might be? Yet, somehow, when our idiocy and lack of forethought result in an animal reverting back to it’s native, instinctive ways, all of the sudden there is a group of humans ready to blame the animal instead of the humans who put the animal in that situation.

You keep a python in the house. You forget to feed it, or lock it in its tank, so it gets out, strangles you at night while you are sleeping, then eats you. I am sorry, but there is only one living entity on this planet to blame for your death in that scenario, and it is you.

Sadly, the dead cats were not to be the end of Karma’s story. It turns out that at one point she got out of her yard again and ran towards a lady that was carrying a child. The lady was not injured, nor was the child, though the lady did have to spray Karma with water to get her to stop.

Fortunately, for Karma, neither the incident with the cats or the lady carrying the child resulted in her being taken away, but that, unfortunately, also left Karma still in the care of her owners. That was until one day when someone reported that Karma’s owners were involved in a domestic dispute. Police officers were dispatched to the home, resulting in the state taking four children, and Karma, out of the home. Once in custody, Karma was DNA tested and it was determined that she had traces of wolf DNA. This led Animal Control Services to believe she could not be vaccinated to their standards, which led them to decide the best thing to do was to kill Karma.

Animal Control Services retroactively scored the incident with the cats as Karma’s first strike, the incident with the lady and the child as her second strike, and the wolf DNA as her third strike. So, to quote the late great Robin Harris, “Gotta go! Gotta go!”

Let’s pause here for just a second. So, you have a dog that is living among us and in the care of humans because of our insistence on the domestication of the species and our insistence on our right to keep them as pets in our very own homes, amongst our neighbors; a dog that was not fed for long periods at a time and then went out and hunted and ate because it was starving; a dog that was obviously not cared for properly by humans that then frightened, but did not physically harm a lady who was carrying a child. And who is to blame for all of this? Of course, the dog, right? Who is the one that should have their life cut short? Obviously, it should be the dog. And who remains absolutely unaccountable for all of this? That’s right, the humans.

Poor Karma’s case even went in front of a judge, but even after reviewing the situation, the judge let the kill order stand, and Karma was to be snuffed out for nothing more than being a dog. It was then, fortunately, that Karma’s case was taken up by one of our county supervisors, Todd Spitzer. Todd brought Karma’s case before the other county supervisors because he also understood that Karma being Karma was just not Karma’s fault.

So, Todd stood up before his fellow supervisors and said that we as humans who will act like humans cannot kill a dog for being a dog. Todd said that Karma’s wolf DNA was the same wolf DNA that lingers in every dog that we’ve domesticated. Todd even said that there was a plan in place to take Karma out of our neighborhoods and send her to a sanctuary where she could run with other huskies and just be a dog – about as close to the wild as you could get.

And what happened? All of the other four country supervisors sat on their hands and would not second Todd’s motion to save Karma. Todd pleaded his case but at the end of the night, Karma was still heading to doggie heaven despite the fact a place at the sanctuary, far away from us, had been secured.

County Animal Control Services argued that Karma was a danger to the world – to literally every single human on the planet - and that simply sending her to the sanctuary was not an option. They felt she had to be killed so that all of us would be safe from a dog that was much more doggier than all the other dogs we’ve domesticated. Sounds pretty asinine, doesn’t it?

Well, I’ll spare you some of the long-winded details, but long story short, Todd Spitzer made a big enough stink that he finally got some of his fellow supervisors on board and they eventually voted to spare poor Karma’s life. Now, Karma is going to the sanctuary and hopefully will find some humans that will treat her far better than her owners, a judge, and some Animal Control Services folks that probably shouldn’t be the ones deciding which animals live or die.

But the point of Karma’s tale, much like that of so many other animals whose lives are affected by humans, is that instead of blaming the animals for following their natural instincts, we should take a much closer look at the human instinct to not blame ourselves for anything that is our doing, ever. It is time for us to take a more reasonable and understanding stance when it comes to dealing with inconvenient human/animal interactions that are ultimately the result of our domestication of animals and our encroachment on their natural habitats. It is time that we start acting as the stewards of these animals that we were obviously designated to be.

Photo by Anoir Chafik via Pexels

How Faux Is Your Faux Fur? Chances Are It's Not 100% Fake...

In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed a law that banned the sale of dog and cat fur in the United States.

This law was designed to stop Chinese manufacturers from a practice of sneaking in cheaper dog and cat fur into garments labeled as "faux fur".

While commendable, the problem is that the U.S. Congress, as it usually does, left a bit of a loophole. Any garment trimmed with $150 or less worth of real fur can be sold without any label, therefore, giving manufacturers in China the ability to substitute faux fur with real dog and cat fur and not have to put a label on the garment stating that they had done so. Without a label stating that a garment was made using real animal fur, American consumers just assume that the garment was made with faux fur.

Both the House and the Senate are currently working on bills that will close this loophole, stating that garments with ANY amount of animal fur must be labeled. Over 75 million animals are killed around the world for their fur each year, with 2 million dogs and cats being killed in China alone.

Hopefully, this legislation will help to reduce those numbers.

A Victory For HSUS

The baby seals of the world, and especially those born in Canada, received a wonderful reprieve from the European Union last week when 550 members of the European Parliament voted to ban the trade of products made from seals throughout the EU member nations.

This will deliver a decisive blow to Canada's seal hunters as Europe is one of the last remaining markets for the products that are made from the seals that they slaughter each year.

The Humane Society of the United States has representatives that travel each year to the ice floes of Canada to report on Canada's annual seal hunt.

Each year, they invite lawmakers from around the world to come and witness the event in the hopes that it will lead to new laws protecting the seals.

This year, one such visitor during the 2006 seal hunt was Swedish Member of the European Parliament Carl Schlyter, who introduced the bill that led to the EU's seal product ban.

Progress Made In Stopping Canada's Seal "Hunt"

Each year, the Humane Society of the United States sends team members to Canada to document that country’s still-legal “hunting” of baby seals on the ice.

HSUS team members brave bitterly cold, dangerous conditions, not to mention the constant threats from the fishermen who turn to butchering baby seals to supplement their income.

This year, the HSUS team made real progress in their efforts to end this gruesome and completely unnecessary slaughter. HSUS has asked people to sign on to a Canadian seafood boycott in the hopes of effecting the market enough that fishermen would abandon the seal “hunt".

Over 600,000 individuals and over 5,000 businesses have pledged to not purchase Canadian seafood until Canada bans the seal “hunt”. The fishing industry is losing money, and prices for seal skins have crashed to $15 (CAD) -- an 86 percent drop from 2006.

Most fishermen aren't bothering to leave home to join the hunt, and tens of thousands of seals have been spared. Also, for the first time in history, Canadians had introduced a bill that would ban the seal slaughter entirely, largely backed by the efforts of HSUS.

Russia has agreed to a ban of killing harp seals less than a year old, effectively ending their “hunt” as the furs of older seals are not a desired commodity. In fact, Yuriy Trutnev, Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, called the seal slaughter "bloody," and remarked that the killing of defenseless animals can't be deemed a "hunt."

The Seal Hunt Has Begun

Each year, I get an alert from the Humane Society of the United States, and each year I hope that it is the last time, but it seems like there never will be a last time. The senseless killing of baby seals in Canada began this morning at 2:48 AM Pacific Time, opening yet another season of one of the most unnecessary slaughter of animals by man.

Seal hunters, "regulated" by the Canadian government, are allowed to enter the nurseries where the baby seals are being raised and allowed to club to death 280,000 seals for their fur. It's a good thing we don't have fur, well, at least some of us. I wonder if we'd be clubbing each other to steal each other's fur. We do it to steal other things from each other, right? What if someone's fur was nicer than yours, or would keep you warmer than yours...would you kill them for it? We're killing baby seals to steal their fur.

The worse part is, we are at a point where mankind can manufacture synthetic furs, which truly has made this slaughter of these baby seals completely and totally unnecessary. Seal hunters claim that it is their livelihood, and I get that...I mean, I am sure that I could make a good deal of money clubbing people to death, especially some particular people, but I don't, because that is wrong. Plain and simple.

Each year a large group of Americans, Canadians, and people around the world, call for the Canadian government to end this practice, and each year, they give the same lip service, do nothing, then throughout the year are sure to point out everything that is wrong with America.

I'll let my rant end there, but I encourage you to visit https://www.humanesociety.org to learn more about what the Humane Society of the United States is doing to help stop the seal hunt.