adverts about saving animals
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I am going to be really unpopular for saying this but these charities to sponsor a polar bear, tiger etc for £3 a month really annoy me.
Last year for a Christmas present my sister bought our elderly father part of a donkey to help pay for it's keep in a donkey retirement home.
OK dad donates about £3000 pounds to his many chosen charities every year, so he could be seen as a sucker.
Father's response? can I eat it? He was utterly bemused as to why my sister thought of doing that. So he is now expected to keep paying for the beast.
If she wants to give money to an animal charity then she should do so, but these "gifts" are a mean way of screwing money out of people who may like to give to other charities.
What do you think guys?
Last year for a Christmas present my sister bought our elderly father part of a donkey to help pay for it's keep in a donkey retirement home.
OK dad donates about £3000 pounds to his many chosen charities every year, so he could be seen as a sucker.
Father's response? can I eat it? He was utterly bemused as to why my sister thought of doing that. So he is now expected to keep paying for the beast.
If she wants to give money to an animal charity then she should do so, but these "gifts" are a mean way of screwing money out of people who may like to give to other charities.
What do you think guys?
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Whilst the intention is good, I can't help thinking that it's going to take more than money to save animals like polar bears and tigers, like a change of attitude from governments and local people. My first thought when watching these ads is whether someones money really will make a difference and sadly, I don't think it will. The polar bear is mostly at risk from the destruction of its environment by modern humans and global warming.
I'll never complain about charities such as the RSPCA needing donations because the cruelty is happening on our very own doorstep and because we're entirely responsible for how domestic animals are treated,- we've created 'human dependant' animals, who'd probably die within days of being released into the wild.
They all make big, well publicised stories out of one case, and keep very quiet about the over 99% they can't or won't help.
The RSPCA shelter I did work experience in several years ago was far from super. It was run down and b******y cold in the winter, especially in the dog section.
And since then, they've had to close the dog section, they only take in cats and small animals now.
We've really got our priorities completely screwed up in this country.
So the RSPCA shouldn't try to prosecute someone who thought it was ok to kick a puppies skull in?
It died of course.
Funnily enough, the countries with the best animal welfare laws, often have amongst the best human rights laws - the UK for one.
"We have to pay this sort of money to get the right people" the usual excuse for such extravagance.
Nor can I see the sense in sending money for "famine relief" where the recipient country have a space programme, like India.
Far better to support local charities where a much higher precentage of your donation will actually go to the cause.
And if plastic bags are such a "no no" why is one shoved through my letterbox four or five times a week from firms wanting me to donate "the old clothes I'm wearing?"
Where did I say that?
I do get sick of posters who twist others words to fuel their own agenda.
They're actually one of the biggest squanderers of money on bureaucracy and one of the smallest spenders on animal care. A couple of years ago, they obtained greater powers to remove animals from a place of threat or discomfort - before that the cruelty had to have actually taken place for them to be able to act - but when it comes to perfectly rescuable animals with injuries or illnesses that most vets would consider insignificant or perfectly treatable, their policy still appears to be too much one of put down rather than treat.
Your first statement is a sweeping one. The world has many people in it that I wouldn't put before a flea on a mangey weasel's back.
How are our priorities screwed up? I think you'll find most people put people first. It's human nature to do so and human nature is pretty selfish.
I couldn't agree more.
You said that people in the UK get their proirities wrong when it comes to animal welfare vs human welfare and yet the UK is one of the best countries in the world for both human rights and animal rights - don't you think the two are connected?
China has some of the worst animal welfare in the world AND some of the worst human rights - again, is there a connection?
We don't get our priorities wrong at all, otherwise many teenage mothers would be on the steets, with their children taken away from them.
These operations are first and foremost in business - they have staff to pay, advertisements to finance and occasionally some animals to look after. Their success depends on their abilities to extract money from people to keep themselves going.
A certain very high profile animal charity springs to mind when reading your post. I don't think people realise the half of it tbh.
Agree with all of this.
There are some charity ads that are often shown twice in one ad slot. Surely that must have cost them a fair bit.
And as much as I feel for orphans in India or wherever, charity, to me, begins at home.
I agree, but that is a totally separate issue.
Indeed. This is a charity I would never donate to. Oh and I am a big animal lover.
That also bugs me.
The first time they did it (with the warning at the top of the call to inform me - as they're legally obliged to do - that they were a salaried representative of said charity), I agreed to up my donation. The second time they tried this about three months later, I cancelled the subscription there and then, and let them know that it was because of their cold calling that I was doing this. So in effect the phone call had the opposite effect. I told them that they were, in my opinion, devaluing my original donation, and that as a paid company rep surely they should be cold calling those who don't already donate rather than going for the easy option and hassling those who already do.
He actually agreed with me.
That money now goes to a different charity.
I agree with that, it breaks my heart when I watch those poor beautiful animals.
Actually, if you look at the Charity Commission website, there's no such charity as the rspca any more. This is because all charities have to lodge accounts with the commission, showing such things as financial reserves, and these are available to the public. To hide their hundreds of millions of cash, the rspca has now registered each branch as a separate charity - about 240 of them.
I have no idea of the truth of this, but when I was a civil servant with MAFF (as it was then) I heard the following story from a number of sources. During WW2, after the French surrender to Germany, the Gestapo inspected various farms in Vichy France. They reported that the conditions in which the animals were kept amounted to extreme cruelty.