tougher laws for animal cruelty needed

In rural Wassau in the southern US state of Florida, the Wausau Possum Festival has become an annual summertime folk festival over the past forty years. This event is said to celebrate the role of the opossum in the survival of the populace of Northwest Florida during the depression. Aside from the music, a key feature is the fundraising possum auction for the local Wausau Development Club, which involves holding opossums by their tail. Possum is served up as a main fare.

The Virginia oppossum (Didelphis virginiana Kerr) is the only marsupial native to the south eastern region of North America and extending through Central America.

American Republican politician Katherine Harris of Florida is shown here in August 2006 during her campaigning for the 2006 Florida United States Senate election, holding a possum by the tail and is said to have bid $400 at the so-called 'possum auction'.

According to the festival's sick tradition, every election year, national and statewide candidates in Florida must prove they are good country folk by mistreating a possum at the Wausau Possum Festival. "Candidates bid for a possum, taking it out of a holding area by its tail and giving it a shake to terrify the creature into going limp so it won't claw them. They're later fed and released into the wild.

As one commenter rightly suggested:

"Someone should pick her up by her nether regions and shake her until she goes limp. Then take her back to the woods."

A Mr Taufa of Mangere adopted his cousin's “pitbull-cross” because it was "too skinny". But Mr Taufa's wife found the dog noisy and messy, so hubby killed the dog and proceeded to start barbecuing it. The Taufa family invited friends around for a meal, and roasted their dog, a Staffordshire bull terrier named Ripper. This was defended by Lupi Taufa who said it was common in Tonga to eat dogs! Horse, dog – it is “good for you”.

It is currently not illegal to kill a dog for consumption provided it is done in a humane way and the dog does not suffer. This assessment came after a man killed his dog and cooked it on a barbeque! He faced no penalties because it was killed "humanely"!

Euroasia director Kenneth Leong, whose company specialises in cultural consultancy, said the uproar was a demonstration of cultural insensitivity bordering on ignorance and hypocrisy. However, there is a lot of hypocrisy imposed on us due to government and public sanctions. We raise and kill sheep, don't we? We slaughter and eat cattle? So why would dogs be any different?

The existence of abattoirs, hunting, lives exports, factory farms, puppy farms etc is the battle ground for animal rights activists. Cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs, horses, turkeys, kangaroos, dogs, pigs, whales and dolphins – where do we draw the line to what is “acceptable” to eat, and what is not? Each culture has its own definition. Cannibalism was culturally acceptable in some cultures!

We actually have no inbuilt right to raise, kill and devour animals, because their right to life trumps our right to eat what we want. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, prohibited the eating of meat, but due to the Flood and the consequential lack of food, permission was given to eat some species. However, this was not a general licence to enslave, breed monocultures of herds, kill and eat the whole range of living creatures to satisfy our taste buds!

Professor of Pacific at Auckland's Massey University, Sitaleki Finau, says in Tongan culture dogs are not viewed as companions, but as another source of meat, and the boundaries do not cross.

Every living mammal could easily be down-graded as a source of meat, and their killings justified for a meal! Customs and traditions cannot, and do not, over-ride barbarity, cruelty and betrayal. Staffordshires make devoted pets and bond strongly to their owners. An "emotional" response, over the desire for flesh, is something that makes us moral beings capable of making ethical decisions. Pets are animals we let get closest to us, and the ones we form the loving relationships with. They become family members.

There is no need for meat in our diets. As Primates, our diets should be mainly based on plants. It is purely about customs and conditioning. An animal's intrinsic value stands whole and does not depend on how they are "viewed" by us humans - as companions or for meat! Aren't animal rights universal?