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[Snickerdoodlesmom]

Hi everyone,
I found this petition on change.org and thought I should share it with everyone.

Please sign it! We can make a difference!

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

I just watched part of the video. I say "part" because I had to turn it off- I knew I would start to cry. How could these people do such things to such beautiful, loving creatures?!

[GrayRodent]

I think you should be forewarned that I recognized parts of this video to be propaganda from PETA that were proven to be manipulated in a court dispute although the court ruled that no damages were owed to the farmer who was misrepresented in the final editing. The video was edited to make the operation look as evil and cruel as possible but the editing they did was protected as free speech. The farmer's pet sales steeply dropped after the video was released and his family was severely harassed for no good reason. I do wish I could find that article or I'd be glad to post it. It is very easy to make false accusations but not easy to defend against them.

PETA is well known for fabricating and manipulating media. They have no credibility to me nor should they to anyone because they are a propaganda machine designed to rake money in from gullible consumers. Anyone using their videos to promote legislation should have no credibility either.

Having assisted with the butcher of animals including rabbits and chickens I see nothing wrong with the method used in the video for euthanizing the chinchillas. It is a method known as cervical dislocation which has the same effect as chopping off of its head by severing the spinal cord. His technique was perfect. A headless chicken or rabbit will twitch in the same manner. The sounds on the video were faked. For those who are familiar with chinchilla noises I recommend you take another listen and also consider the physiological impossibility of the matter. The nerves have been completely severed from the brain.

There is no benefit to mistreating chinchillas on a farm. The process of pickling and tanning chinchilla hides is extremely delicate compared to other furs and injury or defects caused by stress will make a highly valuable pelt worthless. We should be thankful to fur farmers for pet chinchillas that have good genetic lines. There is no way a pet breeder can breed thousands of animals in a year and expect them all to sell as pets. It takes a very high volume of selective breeding to get high quality animals in any industry. Unlike fur breeders, pet breeders are not obligated to breed for the highest quality animals. They will get paid even if their chins have horrible genetic disorders. Fur farmers can't afford that and quickly eliminate diseased or low quality animals from their lines.

Reputable pet breeders get their breeding stock from fur ranches for this reason. Eliminating those ranches is a good way to ensure the extinction of the chinchilla species as a whole. Speaking of extinction, banning fur here won't make a lick of difference for chinchillas in the wild other than make the fur more scarce and make illegal fur trade more valuable.

If you want to craft legislation and promote it understand that in order to be consistent with your views you would have to outlaw pet breeding and ownership, every kind of meat, and animal sciences because if they truly should have rights, they, like people, should be protected and never be traded, or purchased, or exploited as commodities. You're going to have to regulate everything from how we control vermin at home to trimming a bush outside your home an animal may live under.

Laws that are enforceable to regulate the handling of animals on the basis of cruelty would have to be very subjective. In fact regulations that aim to keep people from suffering are already fraught with problems for that reason. Now Americans are in danger of being fired from their job or being expelled from school if their political or religious views offend someone, or if they are misconstrued as being "cyber bullies". Because this all is so subjective all it takes is a false accusation to get you wrapped up in litigation by claiming cruelty. This is where the true evil lies with these kinds of laws.

Some people think riding a horse is cruel to a horse. Could keeping a chinchilla in a cage be cruel to a chinchilla? Or letting it out and handling it? Or not handing it enough? Or what about having an accident where it becomes injured or requires treatments? Since animals can be legally euthanized should we have a criteria for mandatory euthanasia to prevent prolonged suffering? (Assuming animals suffer in the same sense as people) Could the police raid my home and arrest me if someone accuses me of mistreating my pet one day because they don't like me? Or if someone finds a dead pet that was injured in an accident that I discarded? Are they obligated to call the police? Would law enforcement have to do a necropsy on the body now to prove it wasn't abuse? If we can regulate "cruelty to animals" in an industry that way then why not individuals?

Then you have the question of where you draw the line? Aren't chinchillas just the tip of the iceberg? Are lower creatures like insects or reptiles worthy of the same rights? Or is it just because chinchillas are more visually appealing than other animals? Why not apply the same logic to all animals? I think the law needs to be drawn right below people. That is because people are made in the image of God and animals are not. Our rights as Americans are based on the fact that rights come from God as clearly stated in our Declaration of Independence. Outside of this view the line truly is arbitrary as well as the existence of that line. What's next? Machine rights?

Who is to say that we should have rights at all? If we do not ground our laws in God then we are on a truly logical slippery slope that puts us at the mercy of the whims of popular culture. We should be thankful that animals do not have rights and we should be taking the opposite stance by lobbying to reverse legislation that takes rights away from people. Animals were not created to be treated like people and without being able to exploit them our entire civilization will suffer for no good reason. We would never be able to enjoy having pets, or meat, or milk, or leather, or furs, or the benefit of animal sciences, while living in constant fear of the law whenever we encounter an animal.

So if you don't like fur farms I recommend that you vote simply by not buying animals or products from them instead. The American fur industry is pretty much dead anyway as our culture has shifted and has ascribed sentiments to animals in ways that no one would have thought when our nation was founded. And this is not a good thing.

That is my political opinion. I hope it doesn't offend anyone.

[chinclub]

Very well said GrayRodent.


My Two points:

#1 Our group is open to ALL chinchilla breeders and these sorts of posts are not allowed.

#2  I personally know the person in that video.  He was trying to sell his house along with his huge herd.  A couple came in with an offer to buy and asked to be taught how to properly euthanize and pelt chinchillas.  They asked to video it so they could have it to continue after the sale.  The couple were PETA plants.  The couple BOTH killed and pelted chinchillas.  The couple asked leading questions and then edited the video without their questions to make the person look like he was saying things that he wasn't.   The video is very misleading and the couple were beyond out of line.   

The breeder in that video is a very well respected member of the chinchilla community and has wonderful animals.  I have purchased chinchillas from him on many occasions.



What people fail to remember is that chinchillas in the wild are endangered.  American pelters are the ones that learned how to breed chinchillas in captivity and are the reason we are now able to have them as pets.  Although chinchillas in the wild are still very endangered, the species as a whole are now more than safe from extinction.  Chinchillas are still very new as pets and their careful study of their own animals are the textbooks many vets use to care for our chinchillas.  Without pelters we would not be able to own our wonderful pets and we wouldn't know how to care for them properly.  Just 15 years ago when I was first starting out in chinchillas it was almost impossible to find a vet that had ever seen a chinchilla.  Pelter books from wonderful people like Alice Kline were the only reference for normal stats like body temp and heart rate. 

Pelters are the reason why we have all of the beautiful colors of chinchillas that we have.  All the chinchillas in the wild are grey.


Please take a minute to do research before you believe anything you see on the Internet (or tv for that matter).  Especially anything from PETA.  They regularly kill animals in their demonstrations and don't care or apologize.  They have released many chinchillas into the wild to be killed by heat. They have released thousands of mink who couldn't care for themselves in the wild and were found dead in the weeks after.  Not long ago they released dogs at an outside dog show next to a busy road and many were hit by cars.  These were family pets!

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

Really? PETA is bad? I've been idolizing them for a long time...

[chinclub]

Yes,  PETA doesn't believe people should have ANY pets or own ANY type of animal for any reason and they are ok with animal extinction and with killing animals.  Talk about hypocritical!

" The cat, like the dog, must disappear... We should cut the domestic cat free from our dominance by neutering, neutering, and more neutering, until our pathetic version of the cat ceases to exist."  - John Bryant  (Washington, DC: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 1982)

"We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. ... One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding."  - Wayne Pacelle, Senior Vice-President oF HSUS

   "The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship they should seek it with their own kind."- Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA

ALEX PACHECO, THEN CHAIRMAN, PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS [PETA] (NEW YORK TIMES, JANUARY 14, 1989):
"We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child"


 but don't take my word for it.  Do some research on your own.


"According to records from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed 1,911 cats and dogs in 2011 while placing just 24 in adoptive homes. Since 1998, a total of 27,751 pets have died at the hands of PETA workers."
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/

VERY disturbing news concerning the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=44940

I find this site interesting since they are no kill advocates and still denounce PETA:
http://www.nokillnow.com/PETAIngridNewkirkResign.htm

[GrayRodent]

I recommend you don't. These facts are just a very small sampling of the harm they actually do. Very small. And most Americans will never know because they'll never suspect they are being lied to. They will never actually read the laws they are pushing to get passed and actually have had passed. They will vote to the destruction of freedom, business, and even the the animals they wish to protect unless they wake up and examine the facts with the willingness to accept them.

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

That's scary... Is there a single good animal- rights organization out there?

[GrayRodent]

I do know for a fact that all of the animal rights organizations I'm aware of that are mainstream are extremely corrupt. Perhaps there other lesser known ones that may be more honest but it doesn't change the fact that the paradigm of animal rights itself is corrupt.

If animals are given rights like people then people will loose their rights of ownership and all use of animals no matter how trivial and will be in danger of being incriminated when encountering animals. These are the logical consequences of giving animals rights of any kind an on any basis. Animal rights are mutually exclusive to the rights of people.

No one can be logically consistent and draw a line saying animals' rights should start at one place and stop at another. It is either all or nothing which is why we encounter the extremism associated with some animal rights activists. They are the ones being consistent with their paradigm. It cannot be any other way.

The best way to promote the well being of animals is not to give them rights but to promote good practices for breeding and sound husbandry and push to reverse unreasonable laws that ban pet ownership and squelch animal agriculture. So to answer your question there can be no good animal rights organizations.

[chinclub]

We just volunteer at our local animal shelter.  They are always underfunded and in need.  If you call yours and ask I am sure they would love your support.  We take our kids regularly to help walk the dogs and play with the cats.  It is a lot of fun for our family and gives the animals some much needed play time and human interaction.

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

Well, I'm sorry for the mistake I'm only 16; PETA made an impression on me at a bad age.

[GrayRodent]

I've supported some pretty crummy causes and philosophical ideas myself in my younger day so don't feel too bad!

[chinclub]

Please don't think we were judging you.  We are just sharing our thoughts.   

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

Okay good