Stop Australia's Wildlife Slaughter

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http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-australias-wildlife-slaughter.html

 

 

 

 

Stop Australia's Wildlife Slaughter

 

 

1830 Signatures

 

 

 

 

 

Published by Ray Drew on Mar

28, 2009

Category: Animal Rights

Region: Australia

Target: Commonwealth

and State governments

Web site: http://www.kangaroolives.com

Background (Preamble):

In regard to wildlife, contemporary science is underwritten with

an ideology which believes in the commodification and management of nature. It

follows on from the notion of Aristotle and some religions, that animals exist

only to provide humans with food and clothing. This perspective has no place in

the 21st Century, especially in the context of the unprecedented ecological

crisis. This outdated attitude has negative consequences not only for wild

life, but for the quality of life of humanity.

 

The ideology denies the intrinsic worth of animals. It conceives them merely as

objects to be managed, utilised, exploited, tortured, or killed. This attitude

is so deep seated and widespread, so embedded in Western civilisation that few

scientists have challenged the belief and its methodology. Thus a myth is

propagated: that humanity is separate and superior to other animals and nature.

 

Current scientism is still burdened by the neo-Cartesian notion that animals

are more machine-like than consciously aware. This attitude, popularised, makes

killing easy, as evidenced by the alarming loss of wildlife worldwide.

 

12, 259 species around the world are now threatened with extinction including

1,324 Australian species (WWF Australia, 2009). Australia has “the worst

rate of mammal extinction in the world”, and the dubious honour of being

accountable for “almost 40 per cent of mammal extinctions globally in the

last 200 years” (WWF, 2008). For example, on August 1927, in Queensland

alone, 800,000 or more koalas were killed. Most Australians now only see a

koala in zoos (Fowler, 1993). Currently, many kangaroos such as the Eastern

Grey, Euros and red kangaroo are also thought to be over-abundant and around

10,000 per night are killed by commercial hunters. These numbers do not include

those killed through government sanctioned culls or death through other means

(bush fires and road kill). In NSW alone “more than 104 million native

mammals, birds and reptiles have died or will die as a result of clearing native

vegetation approved…between 1998 and 2005” (WWF, 2008). Current

scientism is incapable of ‘managing’ the environment because of its

anthropocentric (human-centred) utilitarian approach.