Bees oppressed with lasers

Animal privacy rights sorely neglected

Signy Holmes Staff

There is a great injustice in this world, a discrimination so insidious that no rights group will ever come asking for donations to battle it, no protesters will storm corporate headquarters in its name, and none of its many victims will ever speak up. The issue, naturally, is animal privacy rights.

Well, why not? People have privacy rights, at least nominally, and it’s not too hard to find groups insisting we treat animals as ethically as possible. If some tout polygamy as the logical extension of gay marriage, then perhaps animal privacy rights aren’t such a leap either.

If you remain unconvinced, let me take you on a tour of the seedy world of the beekeeping industry. Bees have their own social issues to deal with, having been the model for many a literary dystopia. If we cannot imagine living the crowded, slavish, mindless existence of a bee, then how dare we reduce their freedom further by tracking their every move?

The wretched truth is that bees are being oppressed with lasers. With reports of laser scanners mounted over the entrance of their hives, of labels attached to each bee after it is cruelly gassed, and of people attempting to use bees and lasers together to track down landmines that, through no fault of any bee, litter the landscape, it seems that human innovation and technology will be accompanied by a reduction in bee privacy.

Even in my daily life, I have observed people standing menacingly over their dogs, who simply want to be left in peace to “do their business,” as my Grandma would say. I have seen children lying on the grass and watching every move of ants and others of our insect friends. If a child were to stare so rudely at a human stranger, the parents would be sure to intervene. If a child were to begin poking a human stranger with a stick or burning them with a magnifying glass, then a stern talking-to would be in order. But when a child does this to an animal, the parents will simply chuckle indulgently at how their youngster is learning about the natural world.

But that learning comes at a cost. Shockingly, no studies have been done to measure the increase in rates of depression among animals lacking privacy, but anecdotal evidence is high. Why, only yesterday, when I was talking to a dairy cow, I was informed that discomfort with the “open cubicle” format of the pens was growing among livestock.

Unless we want a revolution on our hands, I suggest we take action to afford animals the privacy rights they so deserve. No government will ever deal with this issue on its own — especially not in Canada, where voter apathy among animals is so high that most of them don’t even know they’re not allowed to vote.

If we are to change for the better, we must ban zoos, where we leer at pandas engaging in strange and wondrous courtship rituals, tigers drooling slightly as they look back at us in frustration and monkeys violently flinging their own feces.

We must stop the cruel practice of implanting ID chips into our pets, hoping to track them down and drag them home on the day they decide to leave the nest. You and your brother may leave and go to university or get a job, but Muffy will forever be stuck at home, growing fat from table scraps and despair.

Next time you see a documentary on TV, ask yourself whether the mighty lion shredding that gazelle signed a release form, and how the gazelle’s family would feel about their relative’s demise being shown on national television for anyone at all to gape at.

To free the downtrodden masses from their Orwellian existence, we will have to act, and act now. So why not write a letter to your member of Parliament insisting that the issue of animal privacy rights be brought to the table?

That will make them take the youth voters seriously.