Sometimes watching a news item just gets categorized as "FYI". A coyote strolled into a coffee bar in a large American city. All the people run out, probably scared of getting rabies from the scruffy old beast. The camera films the animal sniffing in the baked goods section of the coffee shop, we all like a taste of that, we can relate to the poor rambler. Later the superheroes of the animal rescue come in, remove the stray wildling and carry it off in their van. The reporter fills us in on the fact that the coyote had a broken leg. The animal rescue crew operated and succesfully mended it and set the animal of in the wild, where it belongs. Not shocking news, but also not offending.
Sometimes things are seen with more clarity when put in a different perspective. The next morning NPR brings forth a fact that undermines the lightness of the news item from the night before. In the US more than 2.000.000 dogs are put to death each year. Each year! I wonder how much it must have cost to get that scurvy (see? first it was scruffy, but scurvy is now starting to sound better) coyote operated upon and put back into the wild... Where it belongs. I still agree with this. Every animal deserves to live. So how come we are putting 2.000.000 to death each year? Why do they not have a right to live? How many dogs could we have saved with the money that was spend on this creature that would not have survived without our intervention. Or is it not a question of money? Is it a question of our needs? We need positive news to feel good about ourselves every once in a while. So we gladly donate money to animal rescue to save poor stray wild animals from a horrible death to give us good news and we grudginly pay our tax money that is being used to rid us of animals that we have no place for.
If anyone can put this in perspective without being a cold hearted, factual gestapo administrator, please do, I am all ears...
