02 September, 2010

Animal Abuse in the Media

The recent video of a young woman throwing week old puppies into a river, has horrified all who have watched it.

Hopefully the video is a fake (like the recent fox killings), but watching the squirming and yelping puppies in her hands before she throws them into the river appears to be the Real McCoy.

Sadly, drowning puppies and kittens in rivers has been a method of ‘population control’ for years, especially on farms. In fact, poet Seamus Heaney even wrote an entire poem about growing up where drowning kittens was common place.

The reason for the outcry? The media. With the internet now accessible to almost everyone, videos and pictures depicting animal cruelty are available everywhere.
Recently, a facebook group which tortured and murdered animals and then posted the videos on the group was removed. On the internet, you can find crush videos (videos showing young women in stilettos squashing animals with their feet), animals being tortured and videos depicting animals being hunted. An American court has even placed protection on these videos, as they come under the First Amendment, namely, the freedom of speech.

However, the coverage of these videos means it has been possible in some cases to identify the person in the video. In the case of the woman who bizarrely dumped a cat in a wheelie bin outside a home, only because the cats’ owners placed the video on the internet were people able to identify her. The police and RSPCA are now looking at prosecuting Mary Bale.

Hopefully, with the wide coverage of the puppy deaths, someone out there will be able to identify her, and hopefully the country she resides in, has strong animal welfare laws. What is most horrifying about this video; is the sheer pleasure she seems to take in throwing the defenceless pups into the water.

Whilst publishing this post, a sanctuary goat was brutally mutilated; hopefully the internet sleuths can focus on finding out who tortured this poor animal, who had to be euthanized because of his extensive injuries.

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