Issues in Society: The Dichotomy of Animal Rights Using animals for our gain is no new prospect; although we’ve elaborated it and made it far more complex throughout our millennia in this, “our” world. Yet, we’ve become delusional, the relationships have only been beneficial for us, and we’ve led ourselves to believe that we are the ‘crème de la crème’ of our little rock floating in space. We forget that animals have been ruling this Earth for hundreds of millions of years, and we are the intruders, albeit the only ones who can make a difference on this planet, for better or worse. It does seem, however, that we’ve opted for the latter, and we’ve enslaved those who share the world with us. It becomes necessary today that we stand for them. …show more content…
Aside from the welfare of domestic animals, another key issue in animal rights is the increase in illegal poaching. Poaching is an ever-present business found globally, and few practices are more harmful for the ecosystem than this. Poaching has seen to the destruction of entire species, and subsequently, the decimation of entire ecosystems. Africa, for example, has become very famous for its extremely active poaching rings. The criminals tend to hack off rhinoceros tusks to sell in the Asian black market as a “virility enhancer”, and saw off the tusks of the majestic African elephant for usage in ivory sculpting for the rich. Elephants and rhinoceros have certainly become key victims in the battle against poaching, but other animals such as: leatherback sea turtles, the infamous tiger, leopards and even lemurs, to name a few, have been sold as pets, food and clothing in the criminal underground as well. It sickens me to think that in an age of such scientific advances as the synthetization of furs, people still opt to engage in the exchange of such a primitive form of clothing, for mere status. Humanity must cut off its obsession with using animals and their body parts as symbols of wealth, as toys, as meat to be exploited to exhaustion; if we are to evolve into what we must be, the saviors of the world our forefathers and even those today have been leading to its untimely