Be careful this fall, your elk my have rights

[texwest44]

Forget the elephant, repeal legal personhood status of lawyers!

 

[MTLabrador]

The bears in question may not agree with you. Besides that, there are millions of people that do like zoos or they wouldn’t have zoos.

Just my opinion and I know plenty of people don’t agree with me. The zoo here in Billings has a grizzly that got into trouble in the park. Seeing that thing in a zoo is pretty sad to me.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I don't have access to the WSJ, so unable to read the article. But a question for those who understand law better than I.

Corporations are certainly non-human, yet we (the courts) have decided they have all sorts of rights. From the first result on a google search, "corporations have nearly every right a corporation might want under the Constitution: free speech, freedom of religion, Fourth Amendment privacy rights, due process, equal protection, property rights – rights corporations use to challenge laws regulating the economy and the marketplace."

Are corporations different since they are made up of human persons?

I think we should be prepared to see more challenges like this.

Rivers Get Human Rights: They Can Sue to Protect Themselves

In New Zealand and Ecuador, rivers with legal aspects of “personhood” open up new environmental battles

www.scientificamerican.com

There are some non-human entities that do have legal standing (the govt. itself, corporations, unions, charities, trusts, etc). These legal entities have the rights granted them in the laws establishing/recognizing them. In each case there is a specific person who is identified by that entity to speak on its behalf. These entities’ activities and actions are done by humans and in theory could be done by humans without the legal entity form.

The primary logic for these folks is not that bears are the same as or more worthy than charities, but rather bears are senscient beings with inherent rights just like homo sapiens. How they get to lakes having rights is beyond logic.

This is not entirely new, some devout Hindi’s see every living (non-plant) creature as worthy of fullest protection and will not even step on an ant.

My counter to the tree-hunger folks is to point out that avocados have rights and I am their representative - no toast for you. That quickly ends the discussion

 

[Ben Lamb]

My counter to the tree-hunger folks is to point out that avocados have rights and I am their representative - no toast for you. That quickly ends the discussion

 

[shrapnel]

Just my opinion and I know plenty of people don’t agree with me. The zoo here in Billings has a grizzly that got into trouble in the park. Seeing that thing in a zoo is pretty sad to me.

Would you rather see him dead? I grew up around all things wild, including grizzlies, and problem bears were always killed.

It may not be a perfect world, but animals don’t always think like humans. Seeing a bear or any animal for that matter, in the wild is always a thrill, but it isn’t a perfect world…

 

[Ben Lamb]

Would you rather see him dead? I grew up around all things wild, including grizzlies, and problem bears were always killed.

It may not be a perfect world, but animals don’t always think like humans. Seeing a bear or any animal for that matter, in the wild is always a thrill, but it isn’t a perfect world…

Agreed, it 's not a perfect world and zoos do have a place, but it's still a shame, and we can work to make it better.

Especially how wild animals are treated when forced into captivity.

 

[MTLabrador]

Would you rather see him dead? I grew up around all things wild, including grizzlies, and problem bears were always killed.

It may not be a perfect world, but animals don’t always think like humans. Seeing a bear or any animal for that matter, in the wild is always a thrill, but it isn’t a perfect world…

Yes I would rather see him dead. I have no problem putting down problem bears. Again, just my opinion and I’m far from an animal rights activist. I grew up here too.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Would you rather see him dead? I grew up around all things wild, including grizzlies, and problem bears were always killed.

It may not be a perfect world, but animals don’t always think like humans. Seeing a bear or any animal for that matter, in the wild is always a thrill, but it isn’t a perfect world…

Correction- animals never think like humans, because they aren’t humans. We humans, however, have a very bad habit of anthropomorphizing everything, because we can’t fathom the world from any perspective other than our own.

Would I rather see him dead? I can honestly say yes. Went to a zoo once that had both griz and some wolves on display, former “problem” animals. In both instances, they were behaving abnormally, exhibiting some pretty serious neurotic repetitive behaviors, and did not seem right mentally at all. Looked like classic stress responses to me. I’m not really a big softy, but it was disturbing to see them like that. I absolutely would have rather they were euthanized than kept that way.

Bred in captivity is one thing, but you can’t cage wild and keep it captive without killing part of it. Just because the animal is breathing doesn’t mean you did it a favor. Quality of life is extremely important. Sure, some individuals and species might be able to tolerate it better than others. In this case, they were not tolerating it.

Would have been interesting to run some biochem panels and see just how messed up they were physiologically. Stress does bad things to wild animals, but it’s easy to ignore what can’t be seen.

Anyway, back to personhood for rivers…

 

[Sytes]

When the first, "National Enquirer" media blast, such as begins for.... :

Woman marries her dog: 'He's perfect for me'

'Dogs are better than men'

www.independent.co.uk

 

[kwyeewyk]

Correction- animals never think like humans, because they aren’t humans. We humans, however, have a very bad habit of anthropomorphizing everything, because we can’t fathom the world from any perspective other than our own.

Would I rather see him dead? I can honestly say yes. Went to a zoo once that had both griz and some wolves on display, former “problem” animals. In both instances, they were behaving abnormally, exhibiting some pretty serious neurotic repetitive behaviors, and did not seem right mentally at all. Looked like classic stress responses to me. I’m not really a big softy, but it was disturbing to see them like that. I absolutely would have rather they were euthanized than kept that way.

Bred in captivity is one thing, but you can’t cage wild and keep it captive without killing part of it. Just because the animal is breathing doesn’t mean you did it a favor. Quality of life is extremely important. Sure, some individuals and species might be able to tolerate it better than others. In this case, they were not tolerating it.

Would have been interesting to run some biochem panels and see just how messed up they were physiologically. Stress does bad things to wild animals, but it’s easy to ignore what can’t be seen.

Anyway, back to personhood for rivers…

Well put as usual, and I think it's all a sad testament to the conditions we've created through our own species' overpopulation and overexploitation of our surroundings.

Similar to using animals for research, I think there are times and reasons when it is unacceptable, but I also see the need at other times, and it becomes intertwined with the other choices our society has made for how we interact with and "manage" the natural world.

We drive species to the brink of extinction, and then we force them into captivity to "save" them. It's a bad situation and those individuals certainly suffer, but is their suffering justified to (maybe) prevent extinction of the species? And if they're in captivity, shouldn't we learn from them?

Many zoos perform these functions, and many other captive animal situations are purely exploitational. But if we're going to treat animals and everything else as humans, we'd have to make changes our society hasn't been willing to make.

Looks like we're coming to the point where it will be judges deciding more and more, and seems like usually when we get to that point with issues nobody likes the outcomes.

 

[Gerald Martin]

When elephants, bears and rivers can show up in court and file their own lawsuits then they deserve to have their case to be heard. Some of you Neanderthals need to be a little more forward thinking…

 

[Huntkook]

Order in the court, you all will get a fair trial.

 

[antelopedundee]