Why Is A National Nespaper Printing This Hysterical Garbage?

[andy-hughes]

WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGES IN THIS LINK -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6965469/The-savage-cruelty-law-lets-crows-torture-kill-sheep-writes-SUE-REID.html


I am as much of an animal lover as the next person, but l also understand that nature is often cruel and violent.

But we have to keep a sense of proportion, something which seems to have utterly deserted the Daily Mail in its coverage of the change in the laws governing the shooting of crows.

It's coverage is slanted in an utterly inaccurate and unreal way - no doubt to appeal to the animal lovers in its Middle England readership.

But let's be factual here shall we? Crows are not 'demons', in spite of the picture used to infer that message, neither do they 'torture' ewes and lambs like some species of flying psychopath.

Crows eat to survive, and part of their prey is the soft and easy-to-eat parts of sheep and lambs, and like any creature, they will take what the can find when they can find it.

Yes, lambs and sheep are fluffy and defenceless, and crows look menacing and unattractive, but that is not the crows' fault - they simply do what they do to live - they don't do it for sadistic fun, they do it to survive, as all animals and birds do.

After all, farmers don't want to shoot crows to protect their fluffy lambs and sheep because they love them - they want to shoot them because blind and killed animals represent financial loss, which the farmer recoups when the animals are killed anyway, albeit more humanely.

Does anyone else agree that the Mail's slant on this issue is ludicrously biased, and pandering to the anthropomorphic attitudes of its readers and it should accept that nature is nasty, regardless of how 'appealing' some species are.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// The Mail is taking the side of the people making the death threats, ///

What utter garbage, the Mail is simply taking an opposite view to those who are wanting protection for these killer birds.

But then most of us know that the Anti Daily Mail Leftie Brigade does not like anyone or any publication that dares to take an opposite viewpoint to them.

[Old_Geezer]

Not really sure why the mother sheep isn't protecting her lamb.

[Gromit]

AOG
Farmers can protect their property without blowing animals to bits with guns or ripping them apart with hounds. Crows, rabbits, foxes, badgers can be culled to reduce their populations.

[237SJ]

^ and how do you propose they do that? Badgers for example are being culled and look what a fuss there is about that

[dannyk13]

Gromit, hoe do you propose these culls take place without the use of guns or hounds?

[Old_Geezer]

Pretty massive cull and with a 'justification' that many don't believe.
Culling needs to be at a reasonable level with an accepted reason for it to be uncontroversial.

[dannyk13]

^how^

[Cloverjo]

O_G, sometimes the crows attack while the mother sheep is giving birth. Not much she can do then.

[jobjockey]

Please give the Mail a break, don't
forget it does a lot of good work.

[anotheoldgit]

/// The RSPB has killed more than 8000 animals* in the name of conservation over a five year period.
1715 Crows, 1760 Foxes, 508 Fallow Deer, 160 Muntjac Deer, 2008 Red Deer, 1734 Roe Deer, 906 Sika Deer....... ///

http://jasonendfield.weebly.com/home/8000-animals-killed-by-rspb-its-a-conservationists-dilemma-they-say

[dannyk13]

Agree with jobjockey, they did a fantastic job in getting people to clean up the streets.

[anotheoldgit]

/// Why Is A National Nespaper Printing This Hysterical Garbage? ///

Might as well say "why is AH repeating what he describes as Hysterical Garbage"

Most on AnswersBank would have completely missed this, if it hadn't been highlighted by him.

[jobjockey]

Please give the Mail a break'
it does a lot of good work.

[andy-hughes]

vetuste - // I assume, by the way, that the OP knows that the word "anthropomorphy" means the attribution of human moral judgments to animals, and is not the assertion that they do not feel pain. //

I don't believe it does, as I understand it, the term refers to attributing human characteristics to animals, such as the Mail is doing with it's 'demon' image, and nonsense about torture -

anthropomorphism
/ˌanθrəpəˈmɔːfɪz(ə)m/
noun
noun: anthropomorphism
the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.

[andy-hughes]

AOG - // Why shouldn't farmers protect their livestock? //

My point is not about the arguments for and against the shooting of crows, it is about the bizarre way the Mail has framed its story with nonsense about 'torture', as though crows are 'evil' and lambs are 'innocent', whereas in reality, neither is either of those things.

It's deigned to create a scenario which does not exist, in order to justify the culling of crows.

I have no special opinion either way, I just object to media manipulation, and that is what is going on here.

[andy-hughes]

Old_Geezer - // I think the anthropomorphism argument is well overplayed. Animals can think and make decisions regardless whether it's different or identical to other species such as ourselves. It seems to be used to imply non-human species are just automatons and so we have no reason to consider how we treat them. //

I think that is a different moral argument.

I don't believe that anmals and birds 'make decisions' because I don;t believe their brains are developed enough for such a sophisticated concept.

I believe animals act on instinct, and the instinct to eat to survive is what crows employ when attacking sheep and lambs, not the nonsensical notion that they 'torture' animals for 'fun'.

[andy-hughes]

AOG - // Most on AnswersBank would have completely missed this, if it hadn't been highlighted by him. //

Something of a pot / kettle interface there AOG - the majority of Muslim and or race-based threads you start would have missed the general view of most AB'ers, were it not your daily task to highlight them to us on here.

[-Talbot-]

Why hasn't Douglas been given BA?

[anotheoldgit]

/// Something of a pot / kettle interface there AOG - the majority of Muslim and or race-based threads you start would have missed the general view of most AB'ers, were it not your daily task to highlight them to us on here. ///

I think that you insult your fellow ABers by suggesting that most of news items that are reported and which happen to refer to Muslim terrorist attacks and child grooming gangs also Black on Black knife crimes, etc, etc, would have missed their view if it wasn't for myself and the Daily Mail referring to them.

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

Oh and just to put the record straight, let it be know that it was you who has introduced Muslims and Race into this thread.