Animal Rights: the Radical View

Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro already stopped bullfighting in Bogotá's city-owned plaza. 

Animal rights advocates also marched today, some of them taking quite radical positions comparing human possession of animals to human slavery. But my dog Parchita doesn't seem to feel particularly oppressed. 

As usual, the marchers' main cry was against bullfighting, even tho that's already seems to be ended in Bogotá, at least as long as Gustavo Petro is mayor. On the other hand, practices like factory farming, corraleja, cock-fighting and , which is also legal, never seem to get criticized. Perhaps that's because bullfighting is seen as an elitist activity, associated with the traditional land-owning class. 

I asked these people, who are holding up a newspaper called 'Animal Voices,' why the animal rights movement didn't address animal welfare on factory farms. They told me to send an e-mail to the address in the newspaper - as tho concern for farm animals were an original idea.

'Animals, slaves of other animals.'

Some protesters, like these hooded guys, take very radical positions. 

But animal welfare, like most issues, is complex. Altho I didn't see it addressed, I've no doubt that the demonstrators would denounce hunting. But many hunters are important advocates for environmental conservation, which benefits all sorts of animals. 

And, we harm animals and the environment (and people) every day in many ways, by burning fossil fuels and thru consumerism. But that all happens far away and less dramatically. 

Police talk to cat woman in the bullfighting plaza. More commonly, they'd be yelling and throwing things at each other. 

'No turning back' says a banner hanging on the bullfighting stadium, where bullfights are no longer allowed. 

'You love some animals and eat others.' 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours