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Animal Rights:
An Annotated Bibliography
Savannah Kraich
Academic affiliation: Oklahoma State University
©Read the copyright notice at the bottom of this page
before reproducing this essay/webpage on paper,
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Bauston, Gene. Battered Birds, Crated Herds, How We Treat the Animals We Eat. Michigan: BookCrafter, 1996. Animals have been used in this world for pets, work and of course meat. Animals are a large part of our economy today. However, quite a few people nowadays think that killing animals for food, for survival, is wrong, inhumane, cruel, and it should be stopped. This book describes that people do not realize how awful these animals are treated when they are being raised for slaughter. All of the animals mentioned in this book-cattle, pigs, poultry, fish, horses, sheep, and goats, are described as mistreated due how they have to survive such inhumane living areas. The animals live in an environment that is not clean, not spacious, and is a horrible place to confine something to live. This book is has a biased view and does not explore all aspects of the animal industry; however, it is a good source of information.

Bob, Elisa. "Excuse Me Ma'am, Are You Wearing Fetal Lamb?" The Animals' Agenda 21.1 (2001): 30-31. Infant lambs are adorable, soft and any person likes them; however, some of them are being killed at birth for their soft, slightly curly coats. This type of cruelty has upset many people and they are now taking actions into their own hands by reporting it to television stations, as well as calling major stores such as Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales. People are doing this so that they might try and convince these major stores to stop carrying these types of furs, because of the unnecessary cruelty that occurs while obtaining these furs. If these major stores take a stand then maybe others will follow their lead and we will not have this inhumane type of killing taking place. This article was an eye-opener, which made it a good source of information.

Fox, Camilla H. "Raining Bullets: The Aerial War on Coyotes." The Animals' Agenda 21.1 (2001): 18-19. Coyotes have been a predator of livestock for a while, and now these predators are being hunted so that they are unable to kill anymore livestock. Many people started aerial gunning of the coyotes, which is shooting them from an air plane, because they are easier to see in the air. Many people believe this type of hunting is not necessary, and actually any type of hunting of these predators is not necessary. The ranchers and farmers want the coyotes gone, because they kill the livestock and their offspring which will decrease their income. Experts say that the more we try to kill off the coyote the more it is going to become more resilient to whatever it is that the humans give to them to try and decrease the coyote population. This article shows both sides of the story, which makes it a good resource for research.

Machan, Tibor R. "Why Human Beings May Use Animals." Journal of Value Inquiry 36.1 (2002): 9-14. Animal rights activists think that humans have no right using animals in the ways that we use them mainly for food. The activists think this cruel and not necessary. However, this article explains why we as humans are allowed to use the animals in this way. We can use animals, because they are unable to think for themselves, and if human were not here to take care of them in the first place, the animals would not survive anyway. This article also mentions that we as human beings have a more valuable life than animals, therefore we are should be allowed to use them in anyway we please. This article was very informative and was a great research article, because it gave both sides of the story and a point.

McMillan, Suzanne. "A Battery of Evidence." The Animals' Agenda 21.3 (2001): 12-13. Chickens are thought to be well taken care of at facilities where they are used for their eggs that they lay. However, they are not well taken care of and some are even so cramped in a cage where they cannot even move. The International Standard of Excellence-America plant in Maryland that these activists visited reports of hens dead on the floor, because they had died of dehydration, or hens that had cysts, infections and tumors. These activists reported the abuse; however, nothing was done to the company. This article was a very good source of information, because these people had actually been to the plant and witnessed the abuse; therefore, they know for a fact that this type of abuse is real.

Newkirk, Ingrid. "Let Them Eat Road kill." The Animals' Agenda 19.3 (1999): 33. Road kill is something that everyone has seen at least once in their lifetime. But no one thought that eating it is any different than eating another animal, whether or not it was killed on the road or in a slaughter house. However, in this article a law is in the process of being passed so that people are allowed to eat the road kill off of the road, which PETA supports. They think that since the animals are already dead that it is no difference, because the animals have already suffered by being run over. This article is a good piece of research; however, PETA seems to being going away from their rule of no meat, which is hypocritical in my views.

Rollin, Bernard E. Farm Animal Welfare: Social, Bioethical, and Research Issues. Iowa, Iowa State University P, 1995: 3-26. Animals are thought to have just as many rights as humans; however, it seems that our treatment of animals is unethical. They should be able to live free and do as they please. The animals do not receive the rights they should be granted. They have to live under poor living conditions, receive small rations and work long hours. These conditions were brought into federal legislation, so that someone could fight for the rights of all these animals. One was admitted as an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act and the other is a mandate to the National Institutes of Health. This book had many good points; however, it needs to have more points on whether or not animals are able to take care of themselves.

Rosmarino, Nicole. "The Ultimate Underdog: The Battle over Prairie Dogs on the Great Plains." The Animals' Agenda 19.4 (1999): 23-27. Prairie dogs are viewed as cute creatures, but also as a nuisance. Animal rights activists today are fighting for the eradication of this species to stop, because they believe that the prairie dogs are doing no harm. Farmers and ranchers believe that the prairie dogs harm their livestock, because of the holes they dig so that they may live underground; however, the animal rights activists believe that they are good for the soil as well as the livestock. Animal rights activists are pushing for a law to be passed so that the prairie dogs will be protected and have their own land to live where no one can try to get rid of them. This article was biased on information and makes the article not very good for research, because the article is not on a neutral stand point.

Scruton, Roger. Animal Rights and Wrongs. London: Demos, 1996: 10-27. Humans and animals both have feelings. Humans are able to express their feelings better than animals, because we are able to talk through words, unlike animals. It is hard to determine when the right time it is to control animals and when the right time it is to just let them roam free. Animals perceive things different than we do, because we are able to speak out against or for something; however, they are unable to do so, therefore they have to take life as it comes to them. Some animals are highly intelligent, but even with this high intellectuality they are unable to speak for themselves or even provide for themselves, which is why humans control their lives at times. This article was a very good one to read, because it gave both sides as to whether or not we as humans have rights to control animals.

Wagner, Susan. "Pissing Their Lives Away: How the Drug Industry Harms Horses." The Animals' Agenda 21.2 (2001): 22-26. Premarin is a drug used for types of estrogen replacement for women during and after menopause. People do not realize that this type of drug is extracted from the urine in pregnant mares that stand in crowded stalls for lengthy amounts of time. The horses give about five eights of a gallon of urine each day for collection to produce this drug. Animal rights activists believe this is wrong and the horses should not be put under these stressful conditions. The horses will age with time, as any other living thing does; they are then shipped to a slaughter house where they are killed for their meat. This meat is then shipped to France where it is a popular commodity, because of the foot-and-mouth disease that has affected the beef industry. This article was a very good source of information, because most people do not know that the mares are used for estrogen products.


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