Sobering News from the U.K.

This report is from Ananova.Com:

Animal cruelty 'deep-rooted in society'

Cruelty to animals is rooted deep in society, according to university researchers, after the RSPCA revealed that they are alerted to an attack every 19 seconds.

Inspectors rescued 193,280 animals in 2000 after the number of calls to the charity rose by 20,000 to nearly 1.6 million during the year. Prosecutions for harming animals also jumped by 9% last year, figures from the charity showed.

A Manchester Metropolitan University study concluded that cruelty to animals is deep-rooted in society and normally formed in youth. Retaliation, fun and peer pressure were the top reasons given for animal abuse, the report found.

More than half of the young people surveyed had first-hand knowledge of harming animals. Incidents included shooting cats, strangling ducks, dropping concrete slabs on cats' heads, juggling mice, tying fireworks to cats tails and blowing up frogs and toads with straws.

Some of the 1,000 children and 100 adults interviewed suggested that cruelty to animals was a normal stage in growing up.

Overall 1,175 dogs, 256 cats, 213 sheep and 69 pigs were the victims of cruelty last year. The total number of convictions fell slightly compared to 1999 but the charity said this was due to an increase in multiple convictions.

Attacks included a jealous husband jailed for three months for bludgeoning his wife's cat to death in a violent rage.

Rupert Ford, 32, from Redruth, Cornwall was also banned from keeping animals for life by magistrates for killing Siamese-cross cat Rufus with a hammer after finding his wife in a pub with her ex-boyfriend.

A teenager who twice hurled a puppy off a 70ft railway bridge was jailed for six months and banned from keeping any animals for 25 years.

Obi, a tan-coloured spaniel cross, suffered a fractured skull and some neurological damage after plunging from the bridge over the River Wansbeck between Ashington and Stakeford, Northumberland.

Story filed: 06:39 Wednesday 27th June 2001



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Even if I live a thousand years I'll never be able to understand what can make anyone hurt an animal. I'm not talking about cases when you just have to do it for the sake of your safety, health and even life.
Ungrounded cruelty not matter if it is to animals or people is one of the most disgusting things!
It makes me sort of uneasy to think that such people and I are of the same species, what do you think?

i agree.

it's hard to comprehend that people can and do, do this to animals. how?

how can you willingly and knowingly kill a helpless animal? to me it is the same as
killing an infant who is just as innocent, helpless and dependant.

this is sobering indeed, my heart breaks for the thousands of animals that are killed,
and for the fact that i cant stop it, and for the rate at which it seems to be rising rapidly.

not to mention the lack of attention these cases recieve from police officers or lawyers,
as though the torture of animals is not one of the most brutal acts.

if a person can torture and kill an animal, why then, would that person not be able to harm a child, or adult?

thank you Katie, for being able to articulate, what I could not.

I'm with the research that says children who are intentionally cruel to animals have a better chance of hurting people later in life.

The school I work at is in a low-income neighborhood. Many of the kids come from all sorts of hideous backgrounds, including, but not limited to: abuse, drugs, neglect, parents in jail.

Kids often talk about hurting animals like it was no big deal. There is simply no social conscious there. One kid I had last year would tell me about his attempts to injure a cat in the neighborhood to get a reaction out of me. He knows I am a cat person because I keep pictures of Joey and Squirt in my room.

I think there is a boatload of correllation between the environment in which kids are raised and their ability to do harm to other living things.

I'd like to see statistics on the ratio of male to female abusers there are. I'll bet dollars to donuts the males outnumber the females.

How incredibly sad I can't imagine why, or how. What could make humans believe that it is fun or "a part of growing up" to torture and kill helpless animals.

I don't get it, and I don't think that I ever will. I pray something will change and that these crimes won't be just a slap on the wrist anymore.

Atleast some of these heartless creatures got some jail time or forbidden to own an animal. When this happends here nothing ever seems to be done. It truly is aggravating and frustrating.

This story sickens and angers me more than I can express!

How anyone could get pleasure out of hurting, abusing, neglecting, or killing an innocent animal is more than I can fathom!

:confused3 :disturbed :confused3
And then the system has the audacity to lessen the punishment, and add insult to injury by imposing pathetically small sentences (if any) because, after all, it's "only an animal"

Anyone caught hurting, abusing, neglecting, or killing ANY animal should be punished (need a better icon) no matter how young they are...to teach them early on in life that harming living creatures is Wrong!

Sorry, just had to vent, this just infuriates me.

Need to hug my girls now,


Cleo

You know, I truley beleive that people who are sadistically mean to animals, and enjoy torturing and killing them, must be demon possessed!!!!!! I have never doubted that hell was created for people like this!!!!!!! Same for child abusers!!!