Does America Care Less Than Other Countries About Animals?

In at least half a dozen categories, Canadians and Brits favored animal welfare reforms more strongly than Americans. The online nature magazine, Zoe, recently published the results from an Angus Reid Poll on attitudes toward animals among these three countries.

When it came to hunting, animals in medical research, product testing on animals, circuses and zoos, more Canadians opposed these practices than Americans. The British poll results outranked both North American countries (most notably in attitudes about hunting and circus animals).

Everyone almost unanimously agreed that dog fighting and cockfighting were cruel, though again, Americans were a few percentage points behind. Remember the British woman who was caught on video dumping a cat into a trash bin? Most people agreed that was animal cruelty, but only 77 percent of Americans, compared to 86 and 87 percent of Canadians and Brits, respectively.

In some cases, there was a reflection of national politics. For instance, more Americans thought fur farms should be banned, and that killing animals for fur is cruel, than Canadians did. The Canadian Fur Council works hard to give the fur industry, and particularly the annual seal hunt, a positive spin in their home country.

Of course, poll responses only mean so much, especially when the question about whether eating animals was cruel turned out to be the one area where America, known for its meat-loving ways, ranked higher than both other countries.

There's also a question of whether some of these responses reflected attitudes about animals or attitudes about personal choice. We often hear from people who wouldn't personally choose to hunt or go see circus elephants, but feel others have the right to do so. Animal rights are often challenged, particularly in the U.S., by this notion that people have the "freedom" to do whatever they want, no matter who is hurt along the way.

The reality is that there are good and bad attitudes about animal welfare in every country. People in the U.S. (as well as the U.K. and Canada) are often outraged at the lack of animal protection in other parts of the world, like Asian and Balkan nations, while we continue to treat animals like commodities in factory farms, fur farms and puppy mills.

On Change.org, we pay attention to injustices happening around the world, and we should. Someone needs to be the animals' voice. But change also needs to start with our own choices, and in our own backyards.

Last week, Suffolk County, NY, established the nation's first animal abuser registry. The registry will not only help keep families and pets safe, but it also recognizes the link between animal abuse and other violent crimes. The Animal Legal Defense Fund believes this isn't just the first registry in the U.S., but in the entire world. Just think of the domino effect that something like this could have in stopping abusers and changing attitudes about animal cruelty if more cities, counties and states implemented registries.

Cities and countries without animal welfare laws look to those who do have them for models. It starts one person, one town at a time. So, to steal an adage from the environmental movement: Think globally, act locally.

Photo credit: dbking