People, animals and values in a complex country

The way people relate to non-human animals is deeply rooted in need, culture and upbringing, and this has extensive historical precedence. For most of our species’ time on earth, our relationship with animals was likely to have been very different from the current situation; it was almost certainly a more threatened and utilitarian one. More recently, our ability to control the immediate environment meant that animals no longer posed the constant threat they once certainly would have, and this was significantly consolidated once we learned to harness animals for our own purposes through domestication.

Domestic-class animals exist because humans exist. They are a quintessential artifact of human agriculture, and it all began with dogs in the earliest stages of the Neolithic Age. The process of domestication is complicated and likely includes at least some active agency from the affected species themselves; it is extremely unlikely to have been the simple ‘human confines and tames animals’ story so many have long assumed.

Originally, the purpose was almost certainly entirely for direct human advantage, but since then the relationship foundations have become far more entangled and nuanced. And these relationships can be experienced very differently by different people, especially in a complicated country like South Africa.

People and their pets

Even though primarily interacting with a very narrow, economically privileged band of the population, Animal Behaviourists experience the bizarre range of emotional attachment levels different people have with their pets as a daily reality. This stretches from the furbabies’ mommies at the one extreme who haven’t yet encountered an indulgence they don’t want to bestow on their pets, to those that treat their domestic animals as purely functional – a conscious ‘alarm system’ needing only water and some cheap processed food once a day – and who can become extremely annoyed when the system malfunctions. At both ends there are usually problems to be had, so Behaviour Counsellors try very gently to explain why the situation isn’t sustainable, and to recommend alternatives… but this advice seldom changes the foundational relationship. In many cases these relationships are based on deep-rooted emotional responses, not any reasoned decision.

Amongst the middle-classes, I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t describe themselves as an ‘animal lover’. Even if they don’t like any one or other particular species, or choose not to keep any pets, describing oneself as ‘disliking’ or ‘hating’ animals just seems too close to admitting to a serious psychological disorder for most to contemplate. But the contradictions abound. The same person who tells me during the day that their pets are like ‘children’ to them, will happily devour the rib-cage of a recently slaughtered sheep that evening. And the same person that so indignantly disses their neighbour for never taking their Rottweiler off-property for a walk, won’t think twice about a relative going on a ‘hunting safari’ in December for some hard-earned ‘rest-and-rec’.

Now I’m a resolute omnivore, and this certainly isn’t a ‘meat-is-murder’ piece. But I have ensured that I fully appreciate the intricacies of the wretched process that goes into providing me with every plate of meat I consume; and the unbelievable animal suffering involved in getting that steak in the shiny punnet from farm to supermarket. I firmly believe that every meat-eater who describes themselves as an ‘animal lover’ should either visit an abattoir at some point in their lives, or be fully aware of exactly what happens there – the decision to consume flesh should be an informed one, and should include an honest appreciation of our role in the process.

And yes, hunting free-ranging animals for food is undoubtedly more humane than industrialised slaughter, and I have no issue with people hunting to eat. That doesn’t make it any easier to wrap my head around the idea of people actually enjoying the process of killing, or doing so for ‘sport’. Partly farm-raised, I hunted birds in my youth – a common enough coming-of-age ritual for many young boys in this country – but I was never able to experience the tingling flush of pride or excitement from the process that some of my peers seemed to. Instead, I found myself feeling mildly nauseous and wracked with guilt every time I held a warm, lifeless and bleeding body in my hands, and hoping this didn’t consign me to an eternal masculine pariahdom.

Our disparate selves

As individuals we seem able to happily accommodate these daily paradoxes, and incorporate them into our social landscape. For most there is no great cognitive dissonance – no crisis of conscience – and we seem never to see the need for personal reappraisal no matter how incongruous some of our perspectives might be in actuality.

So too is our relationship with animal welfare coloured by divergent belief systems, cultural precepts and class prejudices. Many times it is also informed by economic interests. In South Africa in recent years there have been numerous clashes between Animal Welfare Agencies and people indulging in ‘traditional’ cultural practices, ranging from backyard ceremonial slaughtering in suburbia, to ‘Ukweshwama’ (the ‘traditional’ Zulu Bull-killing ritual) and recently, the use of real leopard pelts by the followers of the ‘Shembe’ sect. Those issues have got a lot of enraged airtime and column inches in the media, determined focus from our better known welfare groups and a fair amount of tongue-clucking from many ‘animal lovers’. Less well documented has been the low-intensity war being waged between livestock farmers and indigenous predators like the leopard, caracal and jackal, which has been escalating over the years and is now a critical welfare issue. No mass outrage either about the recent legalisation of so-called “soft” gin-traps that farmers use quite recklessly, despite clear evidence of the untold suffering these barbaric devices can cause. And let’s be completely honest: the only reason that canned-hunting got the focus it did was because of unfavourable international press attention – otherwise it would probably have continued without any fuss.

Sow crating, battery chickens and feed-lot cattle pose serious welfare questions, as do some of the dog training methods and equipment being widely used, especially for working ‘guard dogs’ and their domestic offshoot. Baboons are constantly being poisoned and shot at in the Southern Cape Peninsula, and permissive firework bylaws cause untold misery to animals and birdlife elsewhere. And more and more agricultural land is being turned over to ‘hunting tourism’ throughout our country.

What of domestic-types?

This is the very contradictory and subjective framework within which any discussion of free-roaming dogs and semi-feral cats around this country must be situated, and should form part of our animal welfare perspective. Relationships between people and pets are different in different contexts, both cultural and economic, and just because an animal is not permanently restrained within a built perimeter and lives at least part of their lives roaming on the streets, doesn’t mean that people don’t care for it or about it.

The prevailing notion of pet ownership is a suburban idyll, one which situates animals as lifestyle accessories for people. But this is not how most dogs or cats around the world live, and the very concept of the word ‘pet’ is a loaded one that has many shades and meanings, depending on environments and norms. And then there are those many animals that are not ‘pets’ at all, although they may receive some care-giving from the local community, they are the true ‘Neighbourhood Dogs’ the WHO describes. If they belong to anyone, it is a community, a street or even a settlement rather than any individual or family.

Most of these animals don’t need to be ‘rescued’; they may require urgent veterinary intervention or some other welfare provision, but removing them from the environment they grew up in and know is not just potentially foolhardy, it is often cruel. I’m sure I’m not the only behaviourist that has been summoned to a fancy home in some leafy suburb to help coax some luckless township-sourced mongrel from under a bush in the immaculately manicured garden, and asked to help incorporate it into the luxurious home. It’s most often a forlorn enterprise – except for the most patient and dedicated adopter – an animal whose primary socialization is to a free-roaming and garbage-scavenging lifestyle makes for a very poor suburban pet… that is unless they’re young enough to resocialise, and the new owners are prepared for a project rather than a pet.

But we cannot just resign ourselves to a gutless moral relativism either. Cruelty and abuse of animals is a fundamental social concern, not simply because of the suffering it causes the creatures involved and the stain it places on a society, but because of the clear link we know exists between the way people treat animals and human violence and cruelty.

The take-home message

In this primer on the substance of social values and our very diverse relationships with the various animal populations, I’m suggesting that it really is time a very frank, in-depth and comprehensive dialogue be entered into between the wide array of perspectives and cultural ambassadors about what we, as South Africans, are prepared to tolerate in this country. It cannot simply be the imposition of middle-class and quasi-European ethics that flow from the history of the Animal Welfare movement, but neither can it legitimize patently cruel and unsustainable indigenous cultural practices.

We must have a clear understanding of where we erect the boundaries of legitimate human behaviour, whether active or in terms of neglect, and ensure that this becomes a unitary set of guidelines that from which no ‘special claim’ – cultural, economic or otherwise – can supersede. This dialogue needs to be respectful and accepting of our diversity, but it also needs to be resolute. It must craft a clear and unambiguous template for the protection of animals, and adequate sanctions for their flouting.

It is now way beyond time for the antiquated Animal Protection Act (Act 71 of 1962), as well as the Performing Animal Protection Act (Act 24 of 1935) to be revisited and comprehensively rewritten.