Rescue Rover

Linda FortuneAuthor of Regal: An Intimate View of One Magnificent Feline

My take on California’s Prop 2 election vote.

Welcome,

Before I continue with what PAWS does to help animals, I just have to extend my joy and salute the people of California, The Humane Society of the United States, Oprah Winfrey, and all the people who worked on passing Proposition 2 in California. How animals are treated is certainly a core issue and at the heart of all rescue organizations.

Proposition 2 will stop the worst abuses of factory farms. It will stop the confinement of farm animals to limited spaces for the duration of their lives. Let me quote directly from Wayne Pacelle’ blog on November 5, 2008:

“Giving farm animals a little extra room to stretch their limbs, to move like animals should, is a small matter for us humans. But it’s a very big thing for a hen who would otherwise be confined with a half-dozen other birds in a cage about as big as a filing cabinet for her whole life. It’s a really big thing for a sow who would otherwise be stuck in a crate so small she can’t turn around. It’s a way big thing for a calf who would spend life chained inside a miserably tiny crate.

Prop 2 will phase out those inexcusable confinement systems and usher in a new era. No state in the U.S. and no Agribusiness titan anywhere in the nation can overlook this mandate: people do not want their farm animals treated with wanton cruelty.”

I feel very deeply about how animals are treated in whatever setting they are in with us. Having become acutely aware of animal feelings, intelligence, and spiritual natures as I was writing Regal: An Intimate View of One Magnificent Feline, I have come to an increased deep sense of responsibility, that we humans have in the compassionate care of all our world’s animals. The passage of Prop 2 in California is a major step in the recognition of this responsibility. It is a dawning step in the development of our own human consciousness.

I totally concur with Wayne Pacelle again when he states “As a result, you’ve brought forth a new, more compassionate age.” I say, let us all continue this work of compassionate care of all animals and learn to see the magnificence of all animals as we learn to live more ‘in the present’ with them. This will not only enrich their lives but our own as well.

Next entry: What PAWS does to help animals.

With blessings, Linda