After the Slovak government lost a no-confidence vote last year, parliamentary elections were moved from 2024 to next month. Slovak politics is divided into liberals and conservatives, and an issue appeared amidst the campaign: bear attacks. Populist oppositors call for reduction of animal protection measures and blatant disregard for animal welfare, recommending the removal of bears' protected status so they may be shot when near humans; they include incumbent National Council speaker Boris Kollar of the conservative We are Family, and the left-wing Putinist party Smer-SD (I would rather call it "Smrť" ("Death" in Slovak)), led by notorious former prime minister Robert Fico, who resigned after the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak in 2018 and is against Western military aid to Ukraine. I do not wonder why populists view animal welfare as an impediment; they see human rights as such in the first place.
This kind of disregard by Slovak demagogues, however, is an intended policy of indifference to animal welfare, unlike other governments' inadvertent lack of consideration. The current trend is that many authorities tend to exclude animal welfare in managing certain issues; the animals left behind during the eruption of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines in 2020, for example. This is due to the values they hold, heavily prioritising problems faced by humans, and forgetting that humans are not the only sentient beings. Animal sentience is absent in their vocabulary, but those who also reject the concept of human rights are already obvious and incapable of understanding it (see also: "Democracy, dictatorship and animal welfare"). Meanwhile, not all of those who claim to respect human dignity are into considering animal welfare.
For instance, remember the walrus named Freya, who in her final days last year found herself in the Norwegian capital Oslo, which is far south from the walruses' native range. Locals were then delighted to find a walrus in their place, but she was disruptive to the community, and so was the residents' behaviour to her life and well-being, so she needed to get out of Oslo. The choices the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR) thought of to relocate her were: anaesthetise Freya, which could drown her and give suffering; put a net under a boat, which could entangle her and cause panic; and build an open-top cage and detain her inside during transport, which would be the "gentlest". The IMR however did not provide recommendations to the authorities, and the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries had her shot using a rifle on 14 August 2022.
Outrage and division followed. Biologist Rune Aae denounced the decision as "too hasty", as she would be still able to leave Oslo; Fredrik Myhre of World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) Norway had a similar comment. Siri Martinsen of animal rights group NOAH lamented over the absence of fines against those going near Freya. And former Norwegian Nature Inspectorate adviser Espen Fjeld took note of the country's decision to provide new licences for oil drilling in the Barents Sea, which is near walruses' native ranges and could displace them. Prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre turned pragmatic and defended the killing; "sometimes we have to make unpopular decisions", he argued. Unpopular or inconsiderate, like dictatorships refusing to consider? Popularity is not to be taken note of here in the first place. The IMR was also concerned about the "significant use of resources" needed to relocate Freya. It is also feared the efforts might end up like the rescue of the beluga from a Parisian river four days earlier and the transport of Finnish walrus Stena a month before for treatment, which both failed. Why are resources lacking, then? Because authorities hate to give animal welfare priority. "They're just animals"; "they're not humans"; "what sentience?".
A more serious debate happened in Australia in 2019, when feral cats posed threat to the country's indigenous wildlife, so the measure that was to be taken was to kill them with local poison (sodium fluoroacetate from native Gastrolobium peas) which would not affect certain indigenous species. This made a dilemma on the argument of prioritising animal species, and the division involved resource usage (e.g., relocation vs extermination) as well as time (If cats were to spayed or neutered, how much time would it take to reduce their threat? The process may also not abruptly end their predation of indigenous wildlife). Criticism to pragmatism of authorities was sharp, and I think this also stirred the minds of animal protection advocates.
The disregard to animal welfare will continue if the international community keeps its indifference. Until now, the United Nations remains silent on this aspect; "animal welfare" is not explicitly mentioned in the any of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And if more populists directly challenge the concept of animal welfare like Smer-SD does, we'll see the state of animal welfare drastically degrading like human rights currently is. The international community should then establish its animal welfare policy, governments should strengthen their animal welfare laws, and masses should embrace animal sentience and vote public servants who will explicitly include it in their platforms.
On a side note, Slovaks should not fall back into the demagogy of the Smer (Smrť). Fico's return would be a disgrace to the late Kuciak and enable Putin's crimes. I don't know about the stance of far-right politician Marian Kotleba and his People's Party (ĽSNS) on bears, but he's also a no-no.
And maybe bear attacks were politicised in order to bring Slovakia back to the deadly Russian bear.
Article posted on 14 August 2023, 18:05 (UTC +08:00).
No comments:
Post a Comment