27 animals die during Hobbit filming

[ecthelion]

To tell you the truth I think most people are a little too sensitive. I will say that the deaths of two horses is rather unacceptable but out of the 27 animals I read that most of them were chickens and that the reason they died is because a dog got to them and killed them. It is a shame that this happened but stuff happens. That is life. PETA is ridiculous as usual with threats of protest. Protest over what? The movie did not kill the animals, unfortunate accidents and a few careless caretakers killed them. People just need to learn how to forgive and learn from mistakes. Sorry if I come off a little angry but I just need to put in my two cents.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by ecthelion

To tell you the truth I think most people are a little too sensitive. . . . Sorry if I come off a little angry but I just need to put in my two cents.

Everyone is allowed their two cents. However, I don't think the issue is simply one where people are oversensitive. Here are a few quotations from philosophers, leaders, thinkers, writers, about the relationship between human and non-human life forms.

"Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human life". ~ Albert Schweitzer

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated" ~Gandhi

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ' Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." ~Albert Einstein

"Animals have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is" ~Dr. Tom Regan, Animal Rights Philosopher

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanuel Kant

"The question is not Can they reason? Nor Can they talk? But Can they Suffer" ~ Jeremy Bentham, Philosopher

"To educate our people, and especially our children, to humane attitudes and actions toward living things is to preserve and strengthen our national heritage and the moral values we champion in the world". ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other ... And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals ..."~Barack Obama

"If all the beasts were gone, man would die from loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beast, happens to the man." ~Chief Seattle

"A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast." ~Proverbs 12:10

"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
~Abraham Lincoln

"...we sacrifice other species to our own not because our own has any objective metaphysical privilege over others, but simply because it is ours. It may be very natural to have this loyalty to our own species, but let us hear no more from the naturalists about the "sentimentality" of anti-vivisectionists. If loyalty to our own species--preference for man simply because we are men--is not sentiment, then what is?" ~C.S. Lewis

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature, and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
~Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novelist)

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
~Thomas Edison (inventor)

"There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two wings, but they are people like unto you."
~The Koran

"Even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is Vanity." ~Ecclesiastes 3:19

"It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else."
~Maimonides (physician and philosopher)

"Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission--to be of service to them whenever they require it... If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
~Saint Francis of Assisi (mystic and preacher)

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
~Pythagoras (philosopher and mathematician)

"Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man." ~Arthur Schopenhauer (philosopher)

“Life is as dear to the mute creature as it is to a man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not to die, so do other creatures." ~The Dalai Lama

“Today more than ever before life must be characterized by a sense of Universal Responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.” ~The Dalai Lama

“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal.” ~Proverbs 12:10

“I will make a covenant on behalf of Israel with the wild beasts, the birds of the air, and the things that creep on the hearths that all living creatures may lie down without living in fear.” ~Hosea 2:18

“Whatever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do it unto me."
~Matthew 25:40

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.” ~Luke 12:6

And this last one in particular reference to our skwerls:

"The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest."
~Henry David Thoreau (essayist and poet)


Note, I'm not saying the production company is the great uncaring Satan of animal neglect and abuse. I am saying that maybe, just maybe, the film industry could look more widely at the conditions their animals face not only on the set but in how they are kept and treated while under the duration of the time they are used in films because we have an obligation towards all sentient creatures.

[ecthelion]

Those are all good quotes. And I hope that people can learn from them. I also hope that Peter Jackson is telling the truth and that all the facts right now are over exaggerations.