Bert Kelly, “Are whales cruel to kill krill?”
The Bulletin, April 7, 1981, p. 108.

A few months ago I satirised the activities of the animal libbers and I certainly got myself into hot water. This did not surprise me because, years ago, when the whale libbers were on the warpath, I tried to form “The Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Krill.” My logic was impeccable: if whales were left to breed unhindered, they would roam the seas chomping up great mouthfuls of krill. I asked querulously: “How do you know that krill don’t hate being gobbled up while they are still alive and kicking any more than whales hate being harpooned?” I didn’t get any answers, only abuse!

Eccles says that giving human attributes to animals is called “anthropomorphism” which is one of the longest words I have ever seen. But surely this is the trap into which the animal libbers fall; they imagine that animals think as humans do. Mavis says that some of the blame for this must be borne by A.A. Milne, because we all came to regard Pooh and Piglet as having human attributes and they became embedded in our childhood minds.

The patron saint of the animal libbers is Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy at Monash. In his book Animal Liberation — Towards an End to Man’s Inhumanity to Animals he says, when discussing what would happen if his book were as influential as he hoped it would be:

Farmers will turn to other types of farming, and the giant corporations will invest their capital elsewhere. The result will be that fewer animals will be bred. The number of animals in factory farms will decline because those killed will not be replaced, and not because animals are being “sent back to the wild”.

Eventually perhaps (and now I’m allowing optimism free rein) the only herds of cattle and pigs to be found will be on large reservations, rather like our wildlife refuges. The choice therefore is not between life on a factory farm and life in the wild, but whether animals destined to live on factory farms and then be killed for food should be born at all.

This is anthropomorphism in an extreme form. I can imagine Singer trying to explain to a group of gambolling lambs that it would have been better if they had never been born because they were doomed to have their throats cut in two months time! I don’t know what the lambs would think, but neither does Singer. But my guess is that the lambs would much rather be alive than not born at all.

The next thing the libbers will be getting worked up about will be the sexual frustrations suffered by cows served by artificial insemination. I can imagine Singer saying, “Surely a cow should be loved by a real bull. It is surely not fair for the poor cow to be impregnated by a human, and him not even wearing a white coat. Is there no tenderness left in life?”

And what about the psychological traumas suffered by a bull kept at an Al station? Just imagine his suffering if he were to discover that it was not a real cow he had been serving, but only a wooden frame covered in cowhide, with a fellow lurking underneath to catch the sperm in a warm rubber sheath! And then, to cap the lot, he finds that his single contribution is to be shared by 40 cows!

Singer would imagine the poor bull being led sobbing back to his stall vowing that he would never be tricked again. But, in truth, after an hour or so’s rest, he would come ramping eagerly to his next task, fairly dragging his groom behind him!

The life led by battery hens is something that the libbers loathe. They cry, “How can a poor chook be happy, shut up with two others in a cage? It would have been better if she had never been born.” But how do they know how a chook feels? Many experts think that a chook would rather live in a cage with two other chooks she knows really well than be one of a great flock of chooks having continually to look anxiously over her shoulder lest some rival sneak up on her and supplant her in the pecking order. In a battery cage she does not have that worry and that may well be why she seems so content and lays so many more eggs than she would have if she had to contend with all those wretched females outside.

Fred says that politicians are a bit like chooks. His theory is that if they are let loose in a big place like Parliament House, they spend too much time trying to prevent other politicians beating them in the pecking order. He thinks that they would be much more productive if they were kept in smaller groups. That may be why they work so much better in committees than they do in parliament. He thinks they would lay more eggs, but he is afraid there would be the same amount of cackle!