Quotes & Sayings About Animal Welfare

I think everything in my life has led to my animal welfare work. — Doris Day

I'm very much into animal welfare. — Teresa Palmer

The slaughter of dolphins and other marine mammals is no more horrible than captive dolphins performing tricks because it's not just dolphins were talking about, it's also people. Especially children [...] The effect is devastatingly the same because millions of people every year who watch and cheer this spectacle of dominance are in some way also cheering every other form of environmental ravishment. If dolphin is a reference point in our relationship with nature, then when we teach people that it's okay to abuse dolphins, we're teaching them that it's also okay to abuse the rest of nature. — Richard O'Barry

Miley [Cyrus] is so sweet. In this generation - and I know because I have two teenage boys - they don't really have to care about things. It's kind of a desensitized generation. I'm so impressed that she's really vegan and outspoken about animal welfare. — Pamela Anderson

I definitely could not write a character that was cruel or unconcerned with animal welfare. For me, not just as a writer but for the person I am, I love animals. — Lori Foster

I wrote for years before I was ever published, and I don't think I could ever stop. That said, I was also a veterinarian before I sold my first book, and I still volunteer my time to help with animal welfare causes. So that is a career I would be happy to return to - while still secretly writing strange stories back in my doctor's office. — James Rollins

The biggest damage to the Baghdad Zoo had not been done in battle, fierce as it had been. It was the looters. They had killed or kidnapped anything edible and ransacked everything else. Even the lamp poles had been unbolted, tipped over, and their copper wiring wrenched out like multicolored spaghetti. As we drove past, we could see groups of looters still at it, scavenging like colonies of manic ants. — Lawrence Anthony

Animal research has lead to advances in the treatment of many conditions ... Where there is no alternative available, we will continue to ensure that the balance between animal welfare and scientific advancement is maintained. — Andy Burnham

In my own field, I know that solid science can easily be done with ethics and compassion. There's nothing wrong with compassionate or sentimental science or scientists. Studies of animal thought, emotions, and self-awareness, as well as behavioral ecology and conservation biology, can all be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous. Science and the ethical treatment of animals aren't incompatible. We can do solid science with an open mind and a big heart.
I encourage everyone to go where their hearts take them, with love, not fear. If we all travel this road, the world will be a better place for all beings. Kinder and more humane choices will be made when we let our hearts lead the way. Compassion begets compassion and caring for and loving animals spills over into compassion and caring for humans. The umbrella of compassion is very important to share freely and widely. — Marc Bekoff

You can't forge a relationship with learned helplessness, you can only force one and it will always be tenuous. There is always the possibility the peregrine will rediscover the strength of his heart. — Rebecca K. O'Connor

Animal welfare - yes. Animal rights - don't make me laugh. I'm not an animals rights activist. I certainly do not love animals. In fact, I secretly mistrust all four-legged / furry / two-winged / feathered / shelled ar scaly brothers and sisters. If I were them, I would by now be plotting ultimate revenge on a scale previously unknown to man. ... I stick to a vegan diet only for reasons of self-preservertion. Call it insurance. When the time of the great animal uprising comes, I may have a small chance of escaping ... — Sharon Dodua Otoo

When it comes to animal agriculture, there is conventional, which is really hideous, and "compassionate" or "certified humane" or whatever, which *may* be *slightly* less hideous. But it's all torture. It's all wrong. These "happy" gimmicks are just designed to make the public feel better about exploiting animals. Don't buy the propaganda of "happy" exploitation. Go vegan and promote veganism. — Gary L. Francione

Who's gonna bring the wild animals some hope? If we don't love them the way they are.. — Munia Khan

Out of the blending of human and animal stories comes the theme that I hope is inherent in all my books: that man is an inescapable part of all nature, that its welfare is his welfare, that to survive, he cannot continue acting and regarding himself as a spectator looking on from somewhere outside. — Fred Bodsworth

One's interest or need does not annul other's right. — Al-Hafiz B.A. Masri

I believe that the best way to create good living conditions for any animal, whether it's a captive animal living in a zoo, a farm animal or a pet, is to base animal welfare programs on the core emotion systems in the brain. My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal's emotions rights, we will have fewer problem behaviors ... All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain. — Temple Grandin

I would absolutely commit to holding a vote on the hunting ban - I think it is not proven to be in the interests of animal welfare whatsoever. — Andrea Leadsom

The middle way is still driving on the wrong side of the road; it still permits the killing of the fox for pleasure. One cannot kill half a fox. Like Monty Python parrot, a fox torn apart by hounds remains dead, deceased and off its perch for ever. Before the fox has been dispatched - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly - it will have suffered the agonies of the pursuit by animals four times its size and four times its strength. The middle way is a compromise that still seriously compromises the welfare of the fox. — Lyndon Harrison, Baron Harrison

I realize that at a certain point if we're going to change our food system, it's going to be the next generation that's going to be critical. This generation is very interested in food issues, very concerned about things like animal welfare and the impact of the food system on the environment. — Michael Pollan

For me the two biggest issues are climate change and animal welfare/animal agriculture. And oddly enough animal agriculture is such a contributor to climate change. According to the United Nations, 25% of climate change comes from animal agriculture, so every car, bus, boat, truck, airplane combined has less CO2 and methane emissions than animal agriculture. — Moby

Animal welfare issues have always been important to me. — Cathy Guisewite

Beyond the economics of production efficiency, animal welfare laws that require "humane" treatment are really not about animals; they're about humans and making humans feel better about using animals. We can comfort ourselves with the idea that we are acting in a "humane" way. — Gary L. Francione

What does animal welfare have to do with food safety? The animals are the food! They are living in their own excrement, developing horrific sores, stressed out, and, therefore, more vulnerable to illness and disease. — Jane Velez-Mitchell

Often the greatest challenge of the animal welfare movement is to remind people of the things they already know to be true-that to mistreat any animal is beneath us, that cruelty of any kind is dishonorable and inexcusable, and that we all have duties of kindness and self-restraint in the treatment of our fellow creatures. — Wayne Pacelle

When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left? — Matthew Scully

Rising demand for animal products highlights microbiological risks, with animal-welfare measures sometimes creating new hazards. For example, open pens for poultry may increase the spread of communicable diseases like avian influenza. — Louise Fresco

Even if only one person's respect for animals increases, then writing Talon would have been worthwhile. — Christopher Gerard

Putting even one thing in your shopping basket that's locally produced or organic makes all the difference. It's a vote for the future, for animal welfare, for the environment, for your children's children. — Sheherazade Goldsmith

My wife and I, we started a foundation about companion animal rescue, but there's a group called Performing Animal Welfare Society just outside of Sacramento ... and they offered me a job as an elephant keeper. — Tony La Russa

Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion? — Marianne Moore

Man's highest duty is to protect animals from cruelty. — Emile Zola

One saw a bird dying, shot by a man. It was flying with rhythmic beat and beautifully, with such freedom and lack of fear. And the gun shattered it; it fell to the earth and all the life had gone out of it. A dog fetched it, and the man collected other dead birds. He was chattering with his friend and seemed so utterly indifferent. All that he was concerned with was bringing down so many birds, and it was over as far as he was concerned. They are killing all over the world. Those marvellous, great animals of the sea, the whales, are killed by the million, and the tiger and so many other animals are now becoming endangered species. Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I despise 'animal welfare.' That's like saying, 'Let's beat the slaves three times a week instead of five times a week'. — Gary Yourofsky

The forces of justice had finally come to Annawadi. That the beneficiaries were horses was a source of bemusement to Sunil and the road boys. — Katherine Boo

I'm convinced that welfare reforms deserve our support, both because they are better (or at least much less bad) for the animals involved (the Golden Rule), and because they push the envelope, moving us closer to the compassionate world that all animal rights activists are working toward ... On the other hand, working toward welfare reforms has the immediate benefit of helping improve animals' lives today and acts as a crucial stepping stone toward animal liberation. — Bruce Friedrich

Some animal rights activists are demanding vegetarianism, even veganism now, or nothing. But since only 4 or 5 percent of Americans claim to be vegetarians, 'nothing' is the far more likely outcome. I ask these activists to weigh the horrors of Bladen County's industrial farms and the Tar Heel slaughterhouse against the consequences of doing nothing to alleviate the hour-to-hour sufferings of its victims. Is not a life lived off the factory farm and a death humanely inflicted superior to the terrible lives we know they lead and the horrible deaths we know they suffer in Bladen County today? — Steven M. Wise

Whatever the reason, for most of the present century, the literature and publicity of the old established [animal welfare] groups made a significant contribution to the prevailing attitude that dogs and cats and wild animals need protection, but other animals do not. Thus people came to think of "animal welfare" as something for kindly ladies who are dotty about cats, and not as a cause founded on basic principles of justice and morality. — Peter Singer

In the winter of 1987 India was full of iskeems that had gone awry. Agricultural iskeems, political iskeems, economic iskeems, educational iskeems, stop black money iskeems, attract white tourists iskeems, drinkable water iskeems, animal protection iskeems, women's welfare iskeems, nurture children iskeems, don't scan female foetus iskeems, privatization iskeems, medical iskeems, entertainment iskeems, old India iskeems and new India iskeems.
We had mastered the art of nomenclature from the white man.
Grand labels could disguise unforgivable things. — Tarun J. Tejpal

Even people who are aware that the traditional family farm has been taken over by big business interests, and that some questionable experiments go on in laboratories, cling to a vague belief that conditions cannot be too bad, or else the government or the animal welfare societies would have done something about it. — Peter Singer

Eating a piece of meat, at its most efficient, we could say is like throwing away six times that amount of food every time you eat it because you're recycling all those calories through it. I know a lot of people who came to this issue not through animal welfare but through wastefulness. — Jonathan Safran Foer

The food system is not a free market. In this country, we impose reasonably high standards of animal welfare - but we haven't applied the same standards to food we import, so all we're really doing is exporting cruelty from Britain elsewhere, and at the same time undermining our farmers. — Zac Goldsmith

I had been involved in animal welfare groups, but DDAL presented an opportunity to actually create and pass legislation aimed at issues which really matter to so many people. From local spaying and neutering ordinances, to legislation against puppy mills, to standards to prevent animals from being tested for the sake of a new cosmetic, we could - and did - make a difference. — Doris Day

There are so many causes. Gun control, climate change, deforestation, animal welfare, human welfare, education. Working on the big issues is noble and great, but being aware of what's going on around you right at this moment, being kind to the people around you, extending compassion and decency, not just to everyone you meet but also to yourself - I think that's one of the biggest challenges most people face. — Moby

Britain makes it absolutely, blindingly clear that it is liberal social welfare policies. And they have turned a good chunk of their native population into animals. They are absolute animals. They are not humans with free will. They eat, they screw, they drink. — Ann Coulter

This for many people is what is most offensive about hunting - to some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing. It's not as though the rest of us don't countenance the killing of tens of millions of animals every year. Yet for some reason we feel more comfortable with the mechanical killing practiced, out of view and without emotion by industrial agriculture. — Michael Pollan

If you don't like pictures of animal cruelty being posted on social media, you need to help stop the cruelty, not the pictures. You should be bothered that its happening, not that you saw it. — Marie Sarantakis

While anyone who practices a religion has the right to their own religious truths, it doesn't give them the right to violate the welfare of another human or an animal. So, where necessary, it is the task of the government to intervene and curb the freedom of religion. — Marianne Thieme

If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they should throw it in Charles Manson's eyes and ask him if it hurts. — Ellen DeGeneres

Do you know what the Negro is? Animal right out of the jungle. Passion. Welfare. Easy life. That's the Negro. — Leander Perez

In my opinion, one of the greatest animal-welfare problems is the physical abuse of livestock during transportation ... Typical abuses I have witnessed with alarming frequency are; hitting, beating, use of badly maintained trucks, jabbing of short objects into animals, and deliberate cruelty. — Temple Grandin

Without knowing it, we utilize hundreds of products each day that owe their origin to wild animals and plants. Indeed our welfare is intimately tied up with the welfare of wildlife. Well may conservationists proclaim that by saving the lives of wild species, we may be saving our own. — Norman Myers

Out there is South Dakota," Kitch had said, "Matt said they treated Fern like some kind of animal. — Karen Joy Fowler

Animals on factory farms and slaughter houses are mutilated, drugged and abused in ways that would be illegal if dogs or cats were treated similarly. The problem is that farm animals are exempted from the Animal Welfare Act. Therefore, companies often act with impunity. — Bruce Friedrich

We didn't, after all, sing "Another One Bites The Dust" as the coffin was carried out; Hazel and the vicar had settled instead on the more traditional "How Great Thou Art". And Aunty Rose's old adversary the mayor was pressed into service as a coffin bearer to replace Matt.
Rose Adele Thornton, born in Bath, England, died in Waimanu, New Zealand, a mere fifty-three years later. Adept and compassionate nurse, fervent advocate of animal welfare, champion of correct diction and tireless crusader against the misuse of apostrophes. Experimental chef, peerless aunt, brave sufferer and true friend. She had the grace and courage to thoroughly enjoy a life which denied her everything she most wanted. The bravest woman I ever knew. — Danielle Hawkins

I've broken an arm before, but no one wanted to shoot me!' Suzie says. 'I mean, when you go to the emergency room I hope to God the doctors don't decide it might cost too much to care for.' -Suzie Schwab co-owner of East Maui Animal Refuge — Toni Polancy

Actually I do believe we need a proper licensed regime that works better and is much more focused on animal welfare. — Andrea Leadsom

If you've got any concern at all about animal welfare, you've got to not eat meat. — Russell Brand

The animals of the planet are in desperate peril ... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen. — Alice Walker

See this abdicated beast, once king
Of them all, nibble his claws:
Not anger enough left - no, nor despair -
To break his teeth on the bars. — Cecil Day-Lewis

The simplest and clearest motivation for taking animal welfare seriously is the recognition that pain is in and of itself a bad thing, and that to inflict significant amounts of it unnecessarily is wrong. — Julian Baggini

It is vitally important that we can continue to say, with absolute conviction, that organic farming delivers the highest quality, best-tasting food, produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modification, and with respect for animal welfare and the environment, while helping to maintain the landscape and rural communities. — Prince Charles

I'm fighting now only for individual captive dolphins and dolphins in general but also for people, for the mind and sensibilities of future generations toward the world itself. — Richard O'Barry

Whatever the country or the venue, whoever I find myself with, I strongly believe that whenever you agree to pay for something, you vote for it. I personally try to be in coherence with my core values (as much as possible) so, since I do not want to vote for animal exploitation in any form or under any circumstance, I do not derogate from my chosen alimentation. I do not un-veganize myself for the time of a meal. Even if it implies eating only bread and drinking only water... And being made fun of by workmates in a convention (be there, done that, got the t-shirt). — Martin Blais

Comrades!' he cried. 'You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink the milk and eat those apples. — George Orwell

Around the world, about a thousand dolphins are held in captivity, while millions have been killed in purse seine tuna nets and drift nets. Tens of thousands of others have been "sacrificed" in the name of scientific research, some marine mammals merely to find out what they've been eating. — Richard O'Barry

I'm not into animal rights. I'm only into animal welfare and health. I've been with the Morris Animal Foundation since the '70s. We're a health organization. We fund campaign health studies for dogs, cats, lizards and wildlife. I've worked with the L.A. Zoo for about the same length of time. I get my animal fixes! — Betty White

KFC has no excuse for refusing to adopt these basic, minimal animal-welfare standards ... After two years of fruitless negotiations with the company, we're trying a more personal approach. — Bruce Friedrich

I've seen all kinds of things done to dolphins in my travels around the world, but I have never seen anything as horrible as this dolphin drive hunt in Taiji. — Richard O'Barry

Who knows what the long-term effects of saving rescue dogs are and the healing lessons and love they bring to Earth? Each one of us has the capacity to influence hundreds - even thousands of people or animals through the way we live our lives. — Jadi Kindred

None of the writers suggest that rape may be morally permissible dependent on "contextual relations." None of the writers suggest that the morality of human slavery is dependent on "contextual relations." So, although these essays purport to reject the hierarchy of patriarchal ethics, and to offer the ethic of care as an alternative, the ethic of care is applied in significantly different ways depending on whether we are talking about humans or animals. When we apply the ethic of care to human beings, we assume from the outset that human beings have at least some interests that cannot be compromised irrespective of context. When we apply the ethic of care to animals, we assume that all animal interests can be violated if the "context" justifies it. The feminist ethic of care and animal welfare theory both accept the notion of animals as "things" and accept the legitimacy of the resulting hierarchy. — Gary L. Francione

We're supposed to show people how the world is, to give them the tools they need to make good decisions as citizens or consumers. Depending on what your values are - the environment, your health, animal welfare - the answers are going to be different for every person. — Michael Pollan

The war against the Canadian seal hunt is more than a protest. It is a crusade to bring harmony between the natural world and humanity. All of us who oppose it are dedicated to the protection of life and the abolition of cruelty. — Paul Watson

Curious that a man as selfish as he should be offering himself to the service of dead dogs. There must be other, more productive ways of giving oneself to the world, or to an idea of the world ... But there are other people to do these things - the animal welfare thing, the social rehabilitation thing, even the Byron thing. He saves the honour of corpses because there is no one else stupid enough to do it. — J.M. Coetzee

When we walk around thinking we have a greater right to eat an animal than the animal has a right to live without suffering, it's corrupting. I'm not speculating. This is our reality. Look at what factory farming is. Look at what we as a society have done to animals as soon as we had the technological power. Look at what we actually do in the name of "animal welfare" and "humaneness," then decide if you still believe in eating meat. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Breaking, in modern psychology, 'learned helplessness.' This is where you crush an animal's desire to fight. Why is it that we believe broken things are tamed possessions? — Rebecca K. O'Connor

They too, are created by the same loving hand of God which Created us ... It is our duty to Protect Them and to promote their well-being. — Mother Teresa

KFC is not black owned, but it sure knows to market heavily to African Americans - obviously hoping we won-t care about what they do the underdog, or in this case, the underchicken - So, if KFC wants to take our money and use it to pay for sloppy practices that hurt animals?I say we send them a message that this is not going to happen. I-m calling on people to boycott KFC until they adopt animal welfare systems recommended by PETA and until they stop the worst abuses of the birds they raise for their restaurants. — Bill Vaughan

There are many animal-welfare groups that sometimes seem to forget that human beings are animals too, that we need to include them in our sphere of compassion. — Jane Goodall

Hunting because of the 2004 Hunting Act. This is not a good advertisement for legislation. Yet, to appreciate the full force of the sham, recall, in wonder, the great ruptures between town and country, left and right, liberals and animal-welfare nuts, that preceded the ban. The march of 400,000 wax-jacketed pro-hunt protesters through London, the 700 hours of parliamentary debates devoted to the issue, the threat from Labour backbenchers to oppose all government business unless the ban was brought - it was madness. Even at the time, it seemed so: a dilettantish, illiberal, class-infused blot on what was otherwise a British golden age, for politics and the economy - as even the ban's reluctant main architect, Tony Blair, later admitted. A man not given to regrets, the then prime minister considered the ban one of his biggest. "God only knows," he reflected, what the point of it was. — Anonymous

I'm an ambassador for Best Friends [Animal Society], an incredible organization that's devoted to the welfare of animals - in particular, trying to help make every animal shelter a no-kill shelter. My two dogs were rescues, and I'm a firm believer in finding every dog or cat a home. — Patrick Fabian

You always fed strays and bent down to talk to the dogs you met on the street, looking straight into their eyes as if they were old friends. (Maybe they are, you said. From another life.) You liked to go to the pound and look at them. You tried to send them messages of comfort. I couldn't go because I started crying the one time I tried. All those eyes and the barks like sobs. — Francesca Lia Block

It's admirable, what you do, what she does, but to me animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-intentioned that after a while you itch to go off and do some raping and pillaging. Or to kick a cat. — J.M. Coetzee

What sensitive, sane soul can stand in the presence of such insanity and do nothing? Yet to expose the slaughter of seals in Canada is to deliver oneself into the hands of a bureaucratic inquisition. To witness the killing of a seal is a crime. To film or photograph the slaughter is a felony. To oppose the massacre is to subject oneself to jail time, beatings, heavy fines, and officially sanctioned harassment. - Paul Watson — Paul Watson

Dogs see the bigger picture - everything as a whole, not broken pieces of glass that need fixing. - Madison — Pam Torres

Even a wolf knows how to be polite when animalistic humans have no clue about politeness — Munia Khan

Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal welfare separated by irreconcilable differences ... the enactment of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of animal rights ... Welfare reforms, by their very nature, can only serve to retard the pace at which animal rights goals are achieved. — Gary L. Francione

The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare ... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights. — Gary L. Francione