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Just a single daily click on The Animal Rescue Site provides funds to feed lost or abandoned animals in shelters, while they wait before someone can find a home for them. Every click gives 0.6 bowls of food for rescued animales. Such a quick and easy way to support helpless beings. You can add this website to your bookmarks, or set is as your home page, so you do not forget to click daily.

Respect for animals, as sensitive beings that deserve not to continue being treated as simple products that we consume, or useful providers of raw materials, is just mandatory and urgent fact. If we want to live our lives in a true balance between ourselves and the world we live in, sharing the room and resources with other living sensitive creatures we must stop abusing of our priviledge position, provided by our great "practical" inteligence. However other creatures are not so inteligent, they are absolutly able to have feelings like, fear, pain, happines, peace, etc.

This is why I am so surprised, and at the same time outraged to find the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights, a text from 1978 that loudly proclaims that the rest of animals, all those non-human animals, have a set of minimum rights that we must respect and preserve, a rights that, since human beings acquired the concience and technical capacity to really be able to truly respect them, have been in return ridden roughshod over with such a lack of decency that have degraded our humanity so much. Instead of developing this rights, the level of exploitation and degradation over the animals that surround us has reached an infamous technical and moral perfection.

TEXT OF THE DECLARATION

Considering that Life is one, all living beings having a common origin and having diversified in the course of the evolution of the species, - Considering that all living beings possess natural rights, and that any animal with a nervous system has specific rights,

Considering that the contempt for, and even the simple ignorance of, these natural rights, cause serious damage to Nature and lead men to commit crimes against animals,

Considering that the coexistence of species implies a recognition by the human species of the right of other animal species to live,

Considering that the respect of animals by humans is inseparable from the respect of men for each other,

It is hereby proclaimed that:

Article 1

All animals have equal rights to exist within the context of biological equilibrium. This equality of rights does not overshadow the diversity of species and of individuals.

Article 2

All animal life has the right to be respected.

Article 3

1°- Animals must not be subjected to bad treatments or to cruel acts.

2°- If it is necessary to kill an animal, it must be instantaneous, painless and cause no apprehension.

3°- A dead animal must be treated with decency.

Article 4

1°- Wild animals have the right to live and to reproduce in freedom in their own natural environment.

2°- The prolonged deprivation of the freedom of wild animals, hunting and fishing practised as a pastime, as well as any use of wild animals for reasons that are not vital, are contrary to this fundamental right.

Article 5

1°- Any animal which is dependent on man has the right to proper sustenance and care.

2°- It must under no circumstances be abandoned or killed unjustifiably.

3°- All forms of breeding and uses of the animal must respect the physiology and behaviour specific to the species.

4°- Exhibitions, shows and films involving animals must also respect their dignity and must not include any violence whatsoever.

Article 6

1°- Experiments on animals entailing physical or psychological suffering violate the rights of animals.

2°-Replacement methods must be developed and systematically implemented.

Article 7

Any act unnecessary involving the death of an animal, and any decision leading to such an act, constitute a crime against life.

Article 8

1°- Any act compromising the survival of a wild species and any decision leading to such an act are tantamount to genocide, that is to say, a crime against the species.

2°- The massacre of wild animals, and the pollution and destruction of biotopes are acts of genocide.

Article 9

1°- The specific legal status of animals and their rights must be recognised by law.

2°- The protection and safety of animals must be represented at the level of Governmental organizations.

Article 10

Educational and schooling authorities must ensure that citizens learn from childhood to observe, understand and respect animals.

The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights was solemnly proclaimed in Paris on 15 October 1978 at the UNESCO headquarters.

The text, revised by the International League of Animal Rights in 1989, was submitted to the UNESCO Director General in 1990 and made public that same year.

¿How is it possible that this Declaration has been forgotten and buried on every political action, as well as from colective conscience and opinion? It is clear that the education we have received generation after generation, besides the anthropocentrism supported by greatest religions, together with terrific economic forces strongly established, all of them have been able to make us ignore or forget the consequences of a great part of many of our daily actions, preventing us from knowing there is an alternative for them.

We have been grown from traditions, customs more or less deeply-rooted. However, human beings are flexible not only to be able to change their environment, but to change and redefine ourselves, evolving to superior states of conscience and thinking. This permanent seach keeps us constantly changing (it is supposed that our quest flooks for an improvement, or at least exploring the unkown). Why can’t we change are current animal exploitation habits and eradicate them of our existence? If someone told us that another worls is possible, and more respectful one, and world with less suffering caused by us, what would we do? Wouldn’t we try to contribute, or at least stop supporting a harmful way of life? Would’t we try to reconsider our certaintites about our feeding, our education and the consequences of such habitual and normalized acts that nobody would ever think much about them?

What would we think if we were said that there are alternatives for feeding ourselves with animals, dress you up using animals, have fun on animals, experiment with animals? What if one day someone told us that it is possible to feed ourselves tastily and healthily with no animal products, if we were said that we can dress with siynthetic  fabrics without having to exploit other innocent animals, what it we were said that having fun  of a  caged animal, of a forced animal, is just have fun thanks to the humilliation of suffering of  sensitive beings that wish freedom over anything else? What if someone told us that we can supress animal experiments thanks to cell farming and computer models…and if we met people on our way that knew and practice all this truths for decades, would we honestly believe it, would we understand it and not prejudge it?

Since the first phases of our education, we are taught the necessary principles in order  to later on normalize animal massive exploitation and death feeling no conflict in our conscience. After  that process, the most horrifying and touching aspects and details of  our daily habits are hidden, snatched so we can not  be socked, or just think about them.

Knowledge is power, so if we are denied any aspect of reality, we are being deprived of the possibility to choose, we are becoming "slaves" of a partial reality that only favors specific interests based on exploitation and death of other that cannot defend themselves, preventing us from being aware of our acts’ consequences.

Lucky that many people and organizations are not willing to accept this situation and try to make us aware that  there are other truths and many things we don’t know about our feeding or dressing habits. I think that one cannot not feel free unless his is properly informed in order to make a decision:

EARTHLINGS, is a documentary movie narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix, that exposes in a calm and accurate way many of the truths we are denied (or on which we perhaps close our eyes no to face them), about our  relation with non-human animals now days. Everybody has the right to choose his own values and principles, but to do it accurately, it is mandatory to have enough information about the world we live in. From that point on, we can choose between closing our eyes and continue as usual, or try to go into facts in depth.

Anyway, whatever our moral values we choose and wherever we decide to do on our relationship with the world, it is not a matter of opinion that:

Any moral position that, providing well-being for someone, at the same time respects as much as possible the rest of sensitive creatures, always choosing the alternatives that less harm other sensitive and aware creatures, that moral position will allways be superior to any other moral option: Showing no sensibility at the terrifying destiny of millions of creatures, with just no argument but our own pleasure, or just ignorance or laziness does not make humans deserve the power and inteligence they wave abusing of it.

Thanks Bichín, thanks for making our lives more joyful, for making us become better people, for teaching us that it is possible to love until feeling exhausted a creature of hardly half a kilo weight. Thanks for showing us that love for animals can be as big or more than the one we profess for human beings (animals as well at the end).

Bicho was a 4 years old ferret. With less than a year, he caught a "queratitis"  in one eye, probably due to the many bumps during his frequent play times. Ferrets have not very good sight, they live in burrows, so loosing the sight in one eye was never a big problem for him.

When he was 2 years old, he had a very serious health problem that made him stop feeding himself, reaching a point in which we became afraid for his life.

Despite all our efforts and of the veterinarians, this unknown illness did not completely heal. Even so, Bicho recovered almost completely, but he stopped feeding by himself as usually.

For more than a year we fed him with raw egg using a syringe several times a day, and he regain a great part of his vitality. He continued giving us adorable moments, always willing to "ferret" by every corner, have a walk in the country, or hide a piece of food. But watermelon, he never lost the occasion for a pice, even until his last breathe he found the strenght to have a mouthful of some watermelon pieces, he took with himself a tasty and refreshing sensation with him.

He left us yesterday. He left in peace, almosth without being aware, although he was trying to tell us that somehow he knew the end was near, without understanding what was happening to him and why. We took him to the veterinarian a week ago, and told us that his condition was seriously worrying. He had some red spots all around his small body (bad coagulation due to lack of platelets), caused by a terrible anemia, and he had lost some hair in his tail and part of the body. However, he  proudly kept great part of his vitality, diminished since a few years ago. His old sickness seemed to be reemerging with atrocious voracity, devouring his sweet little body. The day before, we took him for a blood transfussion of another ferret (many people offered their ferrets as blood donors, we will never be able to thank them enough for it), with the uncertain hope that bicho could recover part of his health and keep on fighting, while the veterinarians tried to find out the cause of his inexorable deterioration.

The day after the transfusion he started to deteriorate dramatically fast, he could hardly stand up to take care of his basic necesities, almost unable to do his bussiness by himself. The transfusion did not have the expected effect, he was so weak that it has speed up the course of events.

Already with almost no hope, we continued giving him his medication. Her partner, practically mother, Raquel, the one who brought him to my life (never able to thank her enough for it), was with him every moment, helping him to do his basic necessities as he hardly could do them himself, washing him and caring him with no end, until at 4:00 AM Bicho decided, it was enough. He was always very bright, and stubborn, and because of it, and despite of it he did not wanted to make us suffer any more, and so he left with his last breath. Tears flooded over his precious body, already calm, in peace. We would have given anything to have him among us a little bit longer, an infinite instant, but he made the most wise decision.

We buried him surrounded by flowers and that he liked most, currants and a few piceces of watermelon. Currently other flowers grow over him, who generous offers himself to them so they grow splendid.

Our loved Bicho has not left without course, but his is on his way to the rainbow, where all ferrets find shelter after they leave us, so they can be completely themselves, do everything their own way and bite lovingly one another as they like, as we show them not to do with us. Wherever you see  the rainbow, Bicho will be there. We will not hear again your jingle bell,  that was always a happy announcement of you kindly asking for a little bit of attention, and maybe a piece of fruit, and  pampering, tons of pampering. How loving you were, you had a heart greater that all your body.

Thanks Bicho for showing us a priceless lesson, the lesson of  love to other animals, the joy of giving everything for a creatures so similar to us, although some refuse to admit it. Inteligent creatures,  grateful, that give us so much demanding almost nothing, but the more we give them, the more they give us in return, multiplied by 100.

How will we be able to thank you for showing us the value of sacrifice made with great joy, for giving us a reason to carry on, destroying our egoism. Thansk for making us more human, and better people, for teaching us that happiness is inside us, but needs to go outside and impregnate other creatures in order to grow and develope, for showing us that it is possible to love all non human animals far beyond what is measurable or rational. We wish wherever your are there are big watermelons estensions and chocolate houses, that you can  eat with no care. You don’t already need us, you have been happy through adversity, we know it because you made us so happy as well.

We will remember you for ever.

Abel and Raquel