Dear John,
Can you imagine trying to pass a bill that protects an instrument used to inflict pain instead of the living beings the instrument is used on? This might sound absurd, but it’s exactly what happened in Oklahoma recently with legislation that would have exempted bullhooks from being considered a form of animal cruelty.
A bullhook is a sharp, hooked tool that is dug into elephants’ highly sensitive skin in order to control them. In recognition of the physical and psychological harm that bullhooks cause, many US states have rightly banned them, and most zoos have stopped using them.
Please help us combat future bills like this one, pass animal rights bills, and bring an end to human tyranny over elephants by making a donation today!
The NhRP was closely monitoring this bill and ready to call upon our Oklahoma supporters to help us defeat it. Fortunately, it did not pass out of committee.
Laws like this one, which are all about ensuring businesses can continue to exploit nonhuman animals, are exactly why we fight for nonhuman animal rights.
Without rights, animals will continue to suffer because of the countless “exemptions” to animal cruelty laws, which are already insufficient and poorly enforced. Under such laws an elephant actually has the same legal status as a bullhook: both are legal “things” with no rights. This might also sound absurd, but it’s the current legal reality–for now.
The traveling circus that continues to hold our client Minnie in captivity is another entity that tried to legally protect their use of the bullhook back in 2007. We’re not surprised that those who have a vested interest in making money from using animals are alarmed to see the world changing around them–including judges beginning to stand up for nonhuman beings, as the two dissenting judges did in Happy’s case. Now they’re desperately trying to hang onto their oppressive business models. Let’s not let them.
Please make a donation today to help us to devote more resources to our legislative efforts: preventing backwards legislation like the Oklahoma bill from being passed and working with elected officials to introduce animal rights bills that are, that must be, the way of the future.
