“I don’t know why I’m a prisoner. I committed no crime. I see only bars and hear desperate, confused chatter of prisoners around me. I cry out to my family; not knowing where I am, they cannot answer.
“Each time I’m injected with poison I fight my captors; each day I’m a little weaker in their hands. The prisoner next to me can’t breathe, eyes glazed with pain. I am dying from their needles too.”
Colorado State University conducts this torture right now.
Is it really for West Nile Virus when there has been no evidence it’s helped prevent or treat WNV in humans or birds after 13 years?
This is not merely an expensive tax-paid experiment ($2.3 million) without evidence of benefit that hurts and kills masses of crows, robins and other birds.
It’s systematic desensitization of the next generation to institutionalized abuse.
How much easier to ignore human victims of a bad criminal justice system or inhumane refugee camps when we practice our apathy on innocent animals first?
Ethically humane and necessary research is understood. This is not.
When do we rise in moral leadership to show our youth that money does not justify abuse, and desired ends never absolve cruel means? If you hear a crow’s cry, or a robin’s sunset song, will you, like me, wonder if it calls to a stolen mate. Birdwatchers and compassionate humans: what’s your answer? Do you consent by your silence, or speak for those who cannot, human and animal?
Rebekah Shardy
Loveland