What happens when you take animals off the survival of the fittest track? In human society, we believe in social welfare for domestic animals as well as for human beings.
In times past, the culling of animals was a regular and acknowledged part of animal husbandry - from dog and cat breeding to large livestock. Yet today, Americans have become, at least on the surface, kinder and gentler.
Although thousands of domestic animals, particularly cats and dogs, are regularly euthanized because they are unwanted pets, we also have animal cruelty laws against slaughtering dogs and cats for food and killing unwanted puppies or kittens.
The burden then becomes: when and how does one make the judgment call? Your average chihuahua or pug could not survive in the wild, and even the most aggressive chihuahua would have a hard time remaining the alpha dog in an uncontrolled dog pack, but pet owners have taken dog breeds way off the track of evolution for survival. Similarly, some wild animals have been taken in and given better protection and care than they would in the wild.
In order to observe and, in some cases, preserve some non-domestic species, and some rarer domestic species, we have placed them in unnatural protected situations in zoos and aquariums.
Animals that would have been killed off long ago in the wild when they fell behind the pack or couldn’t keep up with the herd or were too deaf to hunt or hear the hunter are allowed to survive well past their prime. As a result, they fall prey to old age ailments that would not have befallen them in the wild.
According to a recent AP article, one problem was with dental hygiene. Human beings can, through due diligence, take care of their teeth and even do the same for their dogs and cats, but the same can’t be said for animals like the 17-year-old Rollie, an Emperor tamarin at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. He has only six of his 32 teeth remaining.
In San Antonio, TX, a geriatric tapir was given acupuncture treatment for his arthritis. When my old dog began to complain about his arthritis, someone suggested both aspirin and acupuncture. Yet there was no help for his forgetfulness and inability to focus his attention. More significantly, the younger alpha male had already begun to reject him as a member of the pack, instinctively driving him away even though it was the older dog who had chosen and then welcomed the alpha into our pack (which had once numbered three).
Article comments