In 1821, well-known activist and Member of Parliament Colonel Richard Martin (King George IV called him Humanity Dick) accused fruit and vegetable peddler Bill Burns of being cruel to his donkey. Animal welfare influencer Martin shocked everyone when he had attendants bring the badly abused animal into the courthouse so all could see the wounds for themselves. Martin won and the court fined Burns.
Sometimes known as Martin’s Act, The Act to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle was passed by Parliament the very next years. Two years later, Colonel Martin and 21 others founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, established as a reaction to the abuse of working animals, animal fights to the death, and conditions in slaughterhouses.*
It was such a phenomenon that it quickly achieved royal status, becoming the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Today, the RSPCA looks after all animals, mostly pets, farm animals, research animals, and wildlife.
Those who advocated respectful treatment of animals usually came from the upper classes, as did Colonel Martin. History Today says they viewed animal cruelty as “a moral failure of the poor alone, akin to drunkenness and prostitution.” Some argued that a bill prohibiting cruelty to “animals with a clear agricultural use” would fine farmers who beat their donkeys on the way to market but turn a blind eye to aristocrats who whipped their horses.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded one year after the Civil War ended
Some suggest a kinder attitude towards abused animals was in part a response to 750,000 soldiers killed in the Civil War. The ASPCA was established as a non-profit organization with the mission “To provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.”
Things animal welfare societies hate to see
Cruelty to work animals. In the late 1800s, there were 200,000 horses in New York City, leaving millions pounds of manure and 100,000 gallons of urine in the streets every day, day after day for years. Everywhere, horses were beaten in public until they fell to the street and then beaten some more. When horses died from cruelty and overwork, their owners left them rotting in the streets with the mountains of manure.
Blood sports. There are several categories of animal competitions that involve bloodshed. All kinds of animal fights could be found all over London as early as the 1600s. Back then, they were perceived by most people as entertainment and as contests for gamblers to wager on.
Bear baiting. First you get a bear (or a horse, lion or bull). Then you chain it to a stake and watch as a pack of ferocious dogs rips it apart. When the British Parliament outlawed all baiting activities in 1835, the transition to dog fighting was easy because it was legal, and cheaper, too.
Cockfighting. Fights to the death between roosters have been popular around the world for centuries. Long before B.C. turned into A.D., the Greeks and Romans bred their roosters for aggression, strength, and reflexes. Depending upon where you are, cockfighting may be regulated, forbidden, or a mainstream entertainment choice. Cockfighting is a crime in the United States and legal in Southeast Asia, parts of Latin America, Spain, and France.
The World Slasher Cup is an Invitational 9-Cock Derby. It bills itself as the “Olympics of Cockfighting.” This year, it was held at the San Pedro Coliseum in Laguna Province, Philippines. The week-long festival bills itself as The Biggest Cockfight Event in the World.
Slaughterhouses. These are the places farm animals are taken and killed for food production.The Goodmen Project says slaughterhouse processes make it evident that inhumane treatment goes mostly undiscovered by the federal government.
The idea is for slaughterhouses to kill animals as quickly and efficiently as possible, and most agree it’s a rough, noisy, and gory business
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data show Georgia kills more chickens than any other state, Nebraska kills the most cows, Iowa kills the most hogs, and Colorado kills the most sheep and lambs. There are thousands of slaughterhouse videos online.
Laboratory animals. Humane World says companies use tens of thousands of dogs each year. They test drugs, medical devices, weed killers, insect repellents, and rat poisons. Dogs are also used in many types of biomedical experiments. They may be specially bred to be born with fatal diseases. In other cases, healthy dogs are operated on to give them symptoms of serious conditions like heart disease and to remove or damage some of their organs.
Dogs are typically killed after the experiment is over.
Beagles are the dog of choice because they are small, have short coats, even tempers, and are easy to train and handle. They’re also relatively inexpensive to feed and able to deliver a litter of pups in only six weeks.
Puppy mills. Barbaric and unethical are the words most people use to describe puppy mills, high-volume commercial dog breeding operations. Their goal is to produce large numbers of puppies as quickly as they can. To keep costs down, their poorly-maintained facilities are overcrowded, with deplorable unsanitary conditions. At puppy mills, the infants (that’s what they’re called in the humane business) go without medical attention and are forced to live in their own waste.
To speed things up, puppy mills keep bitches and their pups in windowless breeding boxes. Then they wean the puppies too quickly, dooming them to suffer from nutritional and immune system problems. Fair warning: most of the puppies in pet stores come from puppy mills.
Monkey hate. In 2023 the BBC exposed the barbaric world of a global monkey torture ring. Customers pay to watch videos of owners abusing baby monkeys by grabbing their tails and slamming them against a wall, drowning them in ice water, and pulverizing them in large blenders. One customer offered owners $5,000 to watch them sawing a baby monkey in half, vertically.
The Independent reported that baby macaques are the choice of monkey abusers because of “perceived close similarities to human babies.” One case investigator said he believes that sexual sadists use the monkeys as proxies for children.
There is an established link between animal abuse and child abuse
The New York Times reported that “the FBI has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appears in its computer records of serial rapists and murderers.” History Today says that as early as the 1600s, cruelty to animals was seen to be the first step on the path to greater crimes, a thought that still holds true 400 years later.
Animal shelter stats
- Animal shelters (they used to be called dog pounds) are collection areas for found strays, abused animals, and pets abandoned or surrendered by their owners.
- Shelters and rescue organizations take in more than 3 million dogs and 3 million cats per year.
- Each year 2 million dogs and 2 million cats are adopted from shelters. Rescuing animals has become popular and even fashionable in some circles.
- Each year, 400,000 shelter dogs and 500,000 shelter cats are killed humanely.**
A short list of some of the largest animal welfare and humane societies
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals works to rescue abused animals, pass humane laws, and share resources with shelters across the country.
The American Humane Society claims to have rescued, fed, and sheltered 85,000 animals while protecting 500,000 animals at zoos and aquaria and one billion farm animals in 2024.
The Humane Society of the United States settled a major racketeering lawsuit in 2014 for more than $10 million. It now calls itself the Humane World for Animals. Its focus is on humane slaughter, cruelty prevention, animal welfare, and humane education affecting pets, farm animals, laboratory animals, and wildlife.
The Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) calls itself an international nonprofit advocacy organization for animal rights, veganism, and taking meat off menus.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a strictly-vegan awareness group that promotes animal rights.
There are tens of thousands more animal rescue and welfare organizations in the U.S.
Here are a few favorites I found: the Bitty Kitty Brigade for Neonatal Kittens, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, the House Rabbit Society, the Retired Greyhound Trust,*** and the Wah Yan College Cats.
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* I wrote about slaughterhouses and muckrakers in my June 10, 2019 article, Why Is So Much Market Research Like 100-year-old Sausage?
** Observant readers noticed there are a million dogs and cats that are neither adopted nor euthanized each year. Online students submit possible explanations for extra credit.
*** More than 10,000 racing greyhounds are killed each year because they lose too often. Want to know more about greyhounds? Read May 16, 2022’s Thank God and Greyhound You’re Gone.
Bonus
Like all companies, not-for-profit companies have overhead expenses. All charities also spend money to raise funds and money to deliver their services. Consumer Reports says the best thing we can do before donating to any not-for-profit or charity is to check with watchdogs Charity Navigator, CharityWatch, and the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. Each rates charities several ways, including how much is spent on fundraising and how much money goes to serving those in need.
Top-rated organizations spend no more than 25% of the donations they receive on overhead, meaning for every dollar we give them, 75 cents goes to support the reasons we donated. Outstanding organizations spend no more than 15% on overhead. Be very careful with all organizations because many names are made to deliberately mislead you into thinking they’re affiliiated with legitimate organizations.
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