Thursday extracts: Crackdown on Cruelty

I found this piece in a magazine I read at work. I'm employed as a communications officer for a charity devoted to finding humane alternatives to animal testing in laboratories. Most of the things I read are quite scientific. I thought this was a refreshing change.

(Note: I'm not having a go at farmers or anyone else whose work exploits animals in a humane way. If anyone wants to get into a discussion about the rights and wrongs of animal experimentation I'll happily direct you to my work persona, where we can have a full and frank discussion.)

Crackdown on Cruelty
While glancing through a newspaper
I paused to study there
A story of a youth
Who kicked a cat into the air.
His doing so was witnessed
By police, who chanced to be
Nearby and who were watching him
On closed-circuit TV.
The court did next to nothing with the thug.
What do I mean?
'You'll pay £60 and be supervised
By the Youth Offcending Team.'
A week before, a man who was
(In a sense) a 'pal'
Of the youth, was stopped when about to throw
Two cats in a canal.
(A passer-by said:'Give them me,'
And took them to the vet's,
And now they have been taken
Into someone's home as pets.)
I doubt that either of those culprits
Feels in any way abashed.
People who treat creatures cruelly
Really should be thrashed.
If being convicted does not bring
Real punishment, what then?
It would not be surprising
If they did the same again.
'Human rights law rules out thrashing,'
Say the liberals, 'and that's that.'
Protect the sadist, yes.
It's just a shame about the cat.

Anthony Hofler

Thursday extracts: e.e.cummings on pest control

Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse
still who alive
is asking What
have i done that
You wouldn't have

*********

No apologies.
You know what I do for a living.
This poem, and a similar photo, appeared this week in a journal I read for work.

I recently had a mouse infestation at home that my lazy cats didn't seem to manage. (I still suspect it happened because Maisie thought I needed hunting practice and brought me a live one to work with!)

I use live capture traps and let the mice go a good distance from the house.  (It has to be at least a quarter mile or they come straight home.) I don't use spring traps and I refuse to use these cruel things. They're called glue traps and the mouse gets stuck to the card and slowly dies from poison, or in the worst cases, starvation.

I don't care how much stuff was spoiled and how much cleaning I had to do to remove all traces. There's no excuse for this.