Frequently Asked Questions about Animal Cruelty


What is animal cruelty?

Animal cruelty encompasses a range of behaviors harmful to animals, from neglect to malicious killing. Most cruelty investigated by humane officers is unintentional neglect that can be resolved through education. Intentional cruelty, or abuse, is knowingly depriving an animal of food, water, shelter, socialization, or veterinary care or maliciously torturing, maiming, mutilating, or killing an animal.

Why is it a concern?

All animal cruelty is a concern because it is wrong to inflict suffering on any living creature. Intentional cruelty is a particular concern because it is a sign of psychological distress and often indicates that an individual either has already experienced violence or may be predisposed to committing acts of violence.

Is there any evidence of a connection between animal cruelty and human violence?

Absolutely. Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology during the last 25 years have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.

Why would anyone be cruel to animals?

There can be many reasons. Animal cruelty, like any other form of violence, is often committed by a person who feels powerless, unnoticed, and under the control of others. The motive may be to shock, threaten, intimidate, or offend others or to demonstrate rejection of society's rules. Some who are cruel to animals copy things they have seen or that have been done to them. Others see harming an animal as a safe way to get revenge on someone who cares about that animal.

What happens when authorities prosecute an animal cruelty case?

Depending on the severity of the case, individuals found guilty may be imprisoned. Appropriate sentencing can also include individual or family counseling, community service, or diversion programs. It is rarely the goal of the authorities to imprison a child for cruelty to animals. Law enforcement officers and judges recognize that cruelty to animals is one part of a complex problem. Sometimes the official response to animal cruelty provides a family its first opportunity to get help.

Can reports be made anonymously?

While many jurisdictions will respond to an anonymous complaint, successful prosecutions often depend on an identifiable witness who can authenticate evidence.

Will I be required to testify?

If a case goes to trial and you have identified yourself as the complainant in either a written or an oral report, you may be called to testify.



What Can You Do?

1. Get help for the animal. If you see someone hurting an animal or if you know of someone whose animal looks sick, injured, or deprived of adequate food, water, or shelter, get help. Call the police, your local animal shelter, or a trusted adult. Do not try to help the animal yourself—that could put you in danger.

2. Get the facts. Write everything down. As a witness, you'll need to provide the date, time, location, and any other details you can remember, including descriptions of the animal, the type of cruelty, and the person who may be responsible for it.

3. Get the word out. Educate your friends, family, and teachers about animal cruelty and its connection to human violence by sharing information and materials from The Humane Society of the United States's First Strike™ campaign. For more information, call 1-888-213-0956, or write to us at First Strike, The HSUS, 2100 L St., N

1.Becoming vegetarian reverses heart disease
2.Meat makes you fat
3.One third of grain is given to factory farmed animals while it could be used to feed starving people-with the amount of land used to produce meat you can produce around 10 times more food by harvest, this would end world hunger!
4.Animals are kept in horrible conditions, when finally sent to slaughter the majority are still alive after their throat has been slit open. Sometimes cows are skinned alive for leather before made into meat.
5.Because you know it is wrong to treat animals like this
6.20% of animals on the market were diseased before made into eat for you.
7.Animals are defenceless
8.Everybody wants to be free and have a family they dont want to see slaughtered
9.It is a violence that can be stopped
10.eating meat can cause impotence
11.No animal deserves to die for your taste buds
12.Because animals also feel pain and fear, and because they don’t want to die
13.Because going vegetarian decreases chances of getting certain types of cancer
14.Because the rainforest is being cut down to make room for factory farms
15.Because you wouldn’t eat your dog, which is also an animal

Recourses:peta, viva


Saving Animals
Disease, dirt and crowding, antibiotics and chemical growth enhancers - that's the five month life of most pigs.
24 per cent of dairy cows are pregnant when slaughtered - many nearing full term.
Calves are taken from their mothers a day or two after birth. Males are usually killed.
75 per cent of all piglets have their teeth crushed and tails cut off without anaesthetics.
Up to one fifth of chickens may be fully conscious when they enter the scalding tank to loosen their feathers.
Broiler sheds may contain up to 50,000 birds - each one allowed a space the size of a telephone directory.
Nearly all 850 million UK chickens are fed antibiotics daily. 72 million die from disease
Four-fifths of broiler chickens (killed for meat) have broken bones and deformed feet, legs and other bone deformities.
80 per cent of all eggs come from battery hens - kept five to a cage no bigger
than a microwave oven.
25 per cent of turkeys are in chronic pain because of swollen joints - 70 per cent of big birds.
Most ducks are factory farmed in crowded sheds. they never see daylight or swim in water.
Millions of calves, lambs and pigs are conscious when their throats are cut.
20 per cent of lambs die from cold, disease and starvation.


Saving yourself
Vegetarians are less likely to suffer strokes caused by coronary artery disease.
Vegetarian diets offer disease protection because of lower saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein and higher folates, antioxidant vitamins and plant nutrients.
Vegetarians have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gallstones.
Vegetarians often live longer and suffer less from several chronic diseases
New research suggest that dementia may be linked to a BSE-like 'prion' found in some meat.
Vegetarians have half to three-quarters the risk of dying of heart disease compared to non-vegetarians.
Vegetarians have a much lower incidence of caesarean section.
95 per cent of all food poisoning comes from meat and animal products.
Cancer rates among vegetarians are 25-50 per cent less than non-vegetarians.
Diabetes is much less likely to be a cause of death in vegetarians
Hypertension (high blood pressure) in vegetarians is one third to one half that of meat eaters
Vegetarian diets have been successful in arresting and reversing severe coronary artery disease

Saving people
35 per cent of the world's people can be fed on a meat-based diet. A plant diet could feed everyone - then plus some.
It takes about 10kg of good quality plant protein - such as wheat and soya - to produce 1kg of meat protein.
The amount of veg protein fed to the US beef herd would feed almost the entire populations of India and China -
two bill

Picture from The Times of Malta
Let me make it clear from the start. The number killed is irrelevant. What species are
killed (whether endangered or not) is irrelevant. In which season a bird is killed is
irrelevant. Whether the bird is killed on legal or illegal grounds is irrelevant. Whether
hunting is legal or illegal is irrelevant. Hunting is killing and unnecessary killing is always
immoral and wrong.

All animals suffer individually, and birds are no exception. Birds, like other animals, are
sentient animals, capable of feeling pleasure, pain, suffering, and are also capable of
several emotions like friendship and family ties. All animals have the right to be free
from unnecessary abuse, suffering or killing.

Several excuses are presented to justify hunting in Malta. The first is the excuse that
hunting is a tradition. Well, traditions change with changing values. Slavery was once
an accepted trade, but it was abolished because it was cruel, even though it generated
jobs and riches to the white upper class. There is no reason why hunting should not be
abolished as well, for exactly the same reason.

Another excuse is that hunting is practiced throughout the world. Just because
something is practiced everywhere does not make it right. The same people who come
up with this feeble excuse never have the courage to openly say that they are in favour of the introduction of abortion simply because it is practiced throughout the whole world, this being "Catholic" Malta, where we are "Catholic" enough not to introduce abortion but apparently not Christian enough to abolish unnecessary cruelty such as hunting. If abortion is right or wrong, it must be so for other reasons rather than simply because everyone is doing it. The same applies to hunting.

Another hunting excuse is that it is a "hobby", and that it's none of anyone's business what hobby one takes up. Well, what if I had the hobby of doing damage to property? Would that be ok? Of course not. Damaging property is a destructive activity, and calling it a hobby does not change this a little. And what's more destructive than killing, irrespective of whether it's called a hobby or not? I expect some hunter to reply "but damaging property is illegal...hunting is not". Well, if all it takes for hunting to stop is for it to become illegal, hunters should find no problem at all. The urge to hunt would stop the moment that hunting becomes illegal. An activity is made illegal because it is wrong, and not the other way round.

Another excuse, which really deserves no attention, but which I will mention just so that I don't miss anything, is that it's better to hunt than to take drugs. Well, then I suppose whoever justifies hunting by saying this, would not object if I were to steal his car, provided that I tell him that it's better than burning his house! Two wrongs never make a right. What's the problem with not taking drugs and not hunting, anyway? Are we so weak that if we are stopped from doing some destructive activity we like, we start taking drugs? And this from people who would usually consider themselves tough guys?

The last excuse, and the most feeble one, is that non-human animals were created by God for us to do as we please with them. I personally feel very uncomfortable about the thought of a just, kind and loving God who creates a creature capable of feeling and several emotions, and then allows another species to do with this creature whatever it likes.
I would rather like to believe that if there is a God, this God is a God of love who cares for all creatures.

And before someone says...but people kill other animals for food....well, first of all, one can always go vegetarian and kill no animal. And secondly, even if one does not go vegetarian, there is a difference between killing for food and killing just for the fun of it. Unnecessary killing is always unethical, immoral and wrong.