Abusing and using animals for human good- new to you

Using animals for the welfare of man is an old tradition. For centuries, we have relied on the use of animals for the welfare of humans. But with time, we forget that using animals for the welfare of humans was a privilege handed down to us. Soon, the time is nearing when it will be taken away from us. We all know well that we are not using our privileges responsibly.

Animal rights is a term coined to protect the rights of animals. But we are not considerate towards even the term.

There are two points I am trying to stress here in using animals:

 1. Anything that allows us to use it for our benefit loses importance and becomes weak, vulnerable, and an easy target of abuse.

 We are forgetting, it’s a privilege we have been allowed in using animals.

 2. Harming them is not going to take us anywhere since they are a world of their own.

 We have a very difficult process of understanding where some of us are built in a way neurologically and physiologically to think in the following lines:

• Animals do not work towards human welfare and the gross GDP; hence, they are exploitable.

• They are small and, therefore, by all means, insignificant and less important than humans.
• Animals would never attune to human life and living; thereby, they make themselves vulnerable. Due to their inability to mold our lives, they can easily be subjected to our wrath, neglect, and our views and opinions on them.
• We have to put everything to some use; even they should earn and live. In fact, why should we let them eat for free while we struggle to make ends meet?

 All these reasons provoke people to think and take actions as they please since there are no robust laws around them.

Robust laws for using animals are intended to be directed in the following directions:

1. What kind of work they can be used for without feeling loaded and burdened.

2. How to manage their mating behaviour in such a way that they don’t seem to be a burden for humanity and yet have healthy numbers.

3. They are not targeted by loose-based people who run their lives by snatching other’s lives and wealth.

Due to all these problems, we are constantly forcing them to work as per our will and needs, thereby being responsible for their deaths, destruction, and devastation. Every action that is taken here will come back to us in some way or another. The question is when and how, which we never know.

In this article, we will point out all the ethical and non-ethical ways of using animals.

Most of us don’t even know some ways in which they are being used right now, and no or little knowledge is dangerous, and ignorance is bliss here.

Using animals in different ways

Here is how we use animals in ways that will seem painful for those who don’t use them directly for their benefit or are not a part of the entire process.

It is true that we are all built to die, but we are also built to die in a dignified way. Every single human and animal must have basic dignity. Whenever a human fails to be treated with dignity, they might resort to harming the weaker sections and the vulnerable ones. The use of animals unethically is a kind of action people take.

But it is also true that many people do it even when they have everything. They are doing it out of greed, participating in it to become bigger or to control a particular human population through the control and use of animals.

Details of using animals for areas where we can control and cease our activities.

1. Use of Animals- Whales

Whales have been hunted since time immemorial. Here is a list of what is done with whales.

Whale vomit

1. People make perfumes out of their vomit.
2. They are used to make makeup ingredients and are in heavy demand within the cosmetic industry.
3. Ambergris, or whale vomit, is extracted from whale’s vomit, and each gram costs thousands of dollars.

It floats on the surface of the ocean but is banned by many nations. Ambergris or whale vomit harvesting might increase their demand, further leading to increased hunting of different types of whales. Sperm whales are heavily hunted, and if you happen to come across their vomit, it would be illegal to trade it.

Bones of whales

It is used to make figurines and tools. They are used even for making corsets and hoop skirts.

Whale Oil

1. It is used to make candles and oil lamps.
2. They are a source of fat and are used for making butter.
3. In making soap and
4. Even for making margarine
5. The oil was earlier used to lubricate machinery, rifles, and different kinds of military equipment, but that was reportedly in the 18th century

Whale Meat

The consumption of whale meat goes back to the ancient times.

• The tongue of the whale is salted and eaten since many people find it to be soft and chewy.
• The blubber is distributed in many provinces when a whale is hunted down, and during Lent, many eat it with peas.
• Most used whale fat and ate it as cracklings or fritters, and it was found to be crunchy like toast.
• The Japanese market has been found to be selling the meat of the dolphin, porpoise, fin whale, and even the sperm whale.
• In Norway, Greenland, and Japan, people have a history of using the whale’s resources abundantly

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2. Misusing and using animals: Different types of monkeys

Monkey Meat

Apart from using animals in circuses, roadshows, laboratories, and also for medical research, there are other brutal ways called fun and entertainment for humans where these animal species are being used extensively and unnecessarily.

Common in Central Africa and in many parts of Asia, Europe, and America, monkey’s meat is consumed regularly. Using animals for this purpose is a question of debate given these are extremely backward nations.

Bushmeat, some might call it, and many countries right now have restrictions or have a ban on their hunting and meat consumption.

Experiment on monkeys

• Monkeys are made to recover from sedation while their heads are restrained or severely clamped- using animals for research is extremely painful for them.
• Injection chambers are implanted on their skulls while they are recovering from head surgery.
• MRSA infection can spread in monkeys for head wounds.
• Scientists all over the world have always forcefully used animals as testing grounds on the pretext of human benefit. But what they fail to implement is a restraint on the number of them being sacrificed for their tiny results.
• Stopping their sacrifice and using humans in their place is also as unethical as using animals without counting.
• Strict laws are missing in every country on the pretext of human welfare.
• Though in current times, a regulation is in place on their sanctioned numbers, there is still a whole poaching world out there who wrongfully acquire these animals and sell them to the secret laboratories and their experiments.
• Things need to change for these poor animals, who have considered humans to be a race higher than them. Sadly, we haven’t proven ourselves to be capable of it.
• In the US alone, there are 50000 monkeys being sacrificed each year.

3. Elephants and their hunting

Almost 100 African elephants are hunted down each day by poachers, despite all restrictions. Every year, 20,000 elephants are hunted down by poachers. Using animals as big as elephants don’t seem to have big purposes but only insignificant ones.

Uses of Elephant tusks as beautifying agents

We must remember that people make jewelry out of their tusks- this is how we love using animals.

It’s like putting down these animals, where we tell them when they hunt them down that they are not bigger than us after all. “Look how we use it, and how we use you is how we think of you.”

The tusk is in such demand only as it serves to bring impeccable jewelry ranges, figurines, small carvings, piano keys, and even chess sets.

But some of the cultures have used animal tusks for healing diseases and illnesses.

Elephant tusks in terms of medicines

People can use it as medicine for the following illnesses- using animals for health benefits.

1. Glowing glass skin experience: Chinese use the ivory tusk for purging toxins from the body—a beauty hack.
2. Parasitic infection treatment
3. Head lice
4. Scabies
5. River blindness
6. Diarrhea
7. Bone tuberculosis
8. Osteomyelitis
9. Ulcer
10. Bone tumour
11. Epilepsy
12. Anti-fungal agent

Elephant meat

Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are still using animals for food and exhibit a high demand for the elephant meat in comparison to other nations.

Here’s a graphical representation of the ways elephant meat is consumed in these countries.

Even though many religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, even Jews, do not talk of using animals for food and eating elephant meat, elephants still get killed here. Poachers transport animals to zoos and experimental units and kill them to take their assets from wherever they can.

4. Using pangolins for human benefit: How?

A prehistoric animal, pangolins have lived before us. They are currently with a mortality rate of 70% in one year’s time.

They are here for the past 80 million years.

But they are the least known and the most hunted of all, so much so that they have been incorporated in the critical list. How are people using animals of such kind? Go through the details below.

What are they hunted down for?

Hunting and using the animals for their scales and meat is known to be the most common cause.

What kind of purpose do the scales serve?

They serve medicinal needs of humans.

1. In Chinese medicine, using animals like pangolins for scales serve to increase lactation in lactating mothers.

2. They also tend to reduce any kind of swellings in the body.

3. It seems to do good to people with rheumatism.

4. Kleptomania is a disease of the eyes which these scales seem to cure.

5. Ejection of the placenta is facilitated by their scales.

6. Divinity comes upon those who drink the scale powder potion is what many claim.

7. They are also used for wading off witches.

8. The head and the tip of the tail serves as a medicine for those who want to have a thriving business.

9. Stomach ulcers were treated with the help of the pangolin scales.

10. Stroke is treated with the use of the pangolin scales.

11. Back pain is also cured with the help of pangolin scales.

12. Whole organs of the pangolin are used for success in business.

Use of Pangolin body parts for treating different diseases

Using animal parts	Diseases treated
Bone	Rheumatism
Eye	Kleptomania
Female reproductive organ	Placental ejection
Flesh	For endowing someone with the divinity, protection, safety & good luck
Head	Good luck & to treat mental illness
Internal organs	Food poison antidote
Limbs	For raising one’s fortune
Scales	Back pain treatment, healing of wounds and cuts, kleptomania, mental illness, rheumatism, stomach ulcer, stroke, aphrodisiac, antibiotics, venereal diseases and for protection from witches.
Thorax	For the treatment of convulsions, menstrual pain, unconsciousness.
Vertebral bones	For treating stroke

5. Cats- Using animals for human fun and entertainment

Use of cat meat and its use in different countries

For a Ph.D. in neuroscience, a researcher might have to kill up to 1000 cats. Where do the cats come from? They come from normal households and nearby bushy forests. Using animals for not making an important landmark in medicine needs to undergo stricter control measures and restraints.

Our darkest sides incorporate nothing but using animals like cats for food is not making much sense in such advanced countries:

• France: In the 18^th century, there were typical French recipes for cat meat and cat meat production was itself an industry.
• Spain: Cats were also eaten in Spain during the 17^th century.
• Wars: Cat meat was used as famine food during both the world wars.
• China: In China, cat meat is popularly in elderly people during the winter months. During winters, it brings warmth to old bones.

Organized cat collectors

They are known to serve cat meat to restaurants in in Henan, Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces. Using animals of their kind for food is everywhere.

• Japan: During the Edo period, cats are eaten. In Okinawa, people eat cats to cure costochondritis, bronchitis, lung diseases, and haemorrhoids.
• India: According to a Huffington Post, cat meat was being served in hotels in Chennai as mutton. In Bengaluru, Narikuravar people were hunting stray cats and there were several online allegations way back in 2016. For Irula people in South India, cat meat is a regular source of protein.
• Indonesia: They consume cat meat.
• South Korea: Cat meat was used for the treatment of neuralgia, and arthritis.

Ten cats are needed to create a small bottle of goyangi, soju or cat (an alcoholic elixir known to keep arthritis at bay for weeks at a time).
Almost 10,000 cats are used every year to make Soju in South Korea.

• Malaysia: Use of cat meat is not considered to be illegal even in Malaysia.
• Taiwan and Vietnam are also places where only recently, legislations have been passed banning cat meat.
• Austria, Belgium, and Denmark have reports of cat meat use.
• Italy: Vicenzans use cat meat and are known as magnagati or cat eaters.
• Switzerland: Owners can eat their own animals but can’t kill others animals.
• Australia: Feral cats are roasted in open fire and cat stew is common in their parts.
• Argentina: Cat meat is often used in towns to feed young children.
• Peru: Fricassee and stews are made of cat meat.
• United States: Only when the Dog and Cat meat trade prohibition Act was signed in 2018, commercial slaughter of these animals came to an end for food.

Use of cat bones for treatment of HIV

A local practice, cat meat and bones are used unofficially in many parts of the world as a treatment for HIV. Using animals for the treatment of HIV is being harvested for many years since the inception of the disease.

Mostly felines who have FIV are used in this case. New HIV treatment is found through the use of FIV reverse transcriptase protein.

In FIV, reverse transcriptase was found to be resistant to reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs).

RTIs cannot bind to it as the FIV generates a closed pocket.

The new finding through the research can further endanger the species survival and can bring doom to them easily.

In India, people are already feeding cats to HIV patients, especially those who cannot afford the medicines. 
The HIV counter is being kept in control in these people through the use of cat meat and bone powder.

Use of cat bones as lucky charm

Using animals and especially the cat bones for treating bad luck! It is said and people need to understand that nothing can bring luck to us this way.

Killing and using animals for your own luck is a way too selfish measure but would people be willing to listen? I doubt.

The killing of 9 cats happened even in my home and it seems using animals for this facet could be a possibility.

Cat skin for making clothes

Using animals for clothes and their hides for our pleasurable items is a major contribution of the fashion world ever since the kings ruled the Earth. Cat skin is used for making clothes in many countries since centuries.

Even Muslim areas of Iberian Peninsula hold a study where a cat skinning facility was noted to exist previously.

6. Big cats (Lions, Tigers and Panther)

Every single cat type is hunted down for everything. The bones, hide, nails, and the flesh serve as food and money for many.

The hunting continues and in earlier times when the world took pride in killing these big cats, people used rifles and guns to hunt them down.

But now, they are being killed and poisoned stealthily and then their carcass is being transported for further uses.

How are big cat animals used?

• Tiger bone is used as an alcoholic beverage (Hu Gu Jiu or Fu Gu Jiu) in China. The bones are soaked in alcohol after being peeled and is used as wine post removal of the bones.
• Used in the treatment of rheumatism, headaches, general weakness, arthritis (common replacement of big cats is the small cat bones).
• For treatment of stiffness and paralysis.
• In dysentery treatment, cat bones are used.
• The cat meat is used to increase the general intelligence quotient of a human being.
• Even erectile dysfunction has a cure with these big cat bones.
• Tiger bone medicines are also manufactured in South Korea.
• Their meat is served in the restaurants of many South East Asian countries and their meat is sold in the wet markets worldwide.
• The cost of tiger meat can go up to $300 in China.            

The list is endless for these big cats and it’s alarming how people give in to some such insignificant practices. It is to note and is of great importance to understand if all these practices drive us towards being a healthy minded race?

Every single animal is put through death and destruction and there are very few species who are not put through any torment.

People feed on snakes, crocodiles, and even the small rats and ants.

Every single animal is hunted down for their powers. We are growing in population and our health needs are increasing along with our desires every day. If we do not want them to become mere memories of the past like the giant mammoths, dragons and dinosaurs we might have to do a lot more than what we are doing towards them.

Why do we need to save animals?

Using animals, birds, insects and reptiles and saving them is a step to ensure the ecological balance remains. Nature is one with us and by feeding on them when there are no necessities, we are only imbalancing and provoking nature.

We are eaten and beaten by them. We in return, beat and eat them. It is the cycle we follow but its time to change and alter the cycle by altering the use of animals and the way using animals in these ways is proving to be an unnecessary practice.

In the coming few weeks, we will bring you an extensive list of what we do with animals when we kill them.

Mostly used for food, these animals are hunted down irrevocably. Try to use your judgement and modern medicines in place of these innocent animals when looking for a cure of a disease. If their bones and flesh could heal successfully and mere keratin of the claws and scales could create all the difference, people would not have died in the past then. Death is an ever mark that no matter what we do to live, our ends have been marked ever since. Killing them is not going to save us, using animals for our benefit never has saved us and it never will.