As the title suggests, does modern day society (in first worlds) care more about the life of an animal then a human being?

These two recent stories here got me thinking.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2014/02/20140204-101507.html, is about a man's wife who when brain dead while carrying their unborn baby. In about a month, they raised 75,000 dollars to help out the family with their medical bills and whatnot.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Animal+lovers+rally+masse+tougher+critter+abuse+laws/9430813/story.html, is from the city I live in and what happened is that a dead dog and cat were found in a field with their muzzles taped shut. The humane society offered 5000 dollar reward to anyone with information leading to the conviction of whoever did this. Without asking for money, random people donated to the cause and in about a week, they raised 70000 dollars, plus the 5000 they originally were offering.

The worst part about this one, is that the humane society capped the reward at 20,000 dollars, and are straight up going to pocket the rest (they say it's for programs to train prosecuting lawyers on how to convict someone that killed an animal - which is ridiculous, because how is that any different then being trained to convict a man who murdered someone) and their reason is that apparently they want the reward capped to discourage people giving misleading information in a scam to get the money (which again, is ridiculous, the exact wording they use is for information leading to the conviction of the person responsible, which - if it was false information, then it wouldnt lead to the conviction of anybody).

Also, the second story had WAY more coverage, i heard it on every radio, every news station, on facebook, everywhere. The first story, i just found out about today, and nobody is covering it anywhere, i dont hear it on any radio stations or whatever.

To me, it seems that people in the first world are so desensitized to human death and whatnot, but are mortified by animals (as long as they are cute, their arent too many activists trying to save cow and chicken cruelty - while at the same time, there's huge groups of people with torches and pitchforks over the seal hunt here in canada, which is an old canadian tradition that predates canada itself, and not to mention what the iriquous survived on, but i digress).

I remember when i was in grade 9, we were watching a WW2 movie, that of course had people dying left and right throughout the entire movie. Then at one point, a Nazi for no apparent reason turns his gun on a dog, and shoots it in the face in the middle of the battlefield. In that instant, EVERY girl in the class at the same time went "AWWWWWWWEEEE!" really loudly, though all the thousands of deaths beforehand did nothing to affect these girls emotions.

So I ask you guys, do you think that modern day people in the first world care more about the lives of animals then humans, and do you agree or not? Share any experiences related to this if you like.

I think it's a mixed bag, there's people who care more about animals then they do other people, then there's people who treat animals like they're nothing and treat them extremely horribly. It just depends on the person.

Companion Animals give us so much and ask for so little in return, that it is easy to become their champion. There is something inside of us that wants to help those who can't help themselves.

I prefer humans over animals any day just because I myself, am Human.

HOWEVER, It is my belief that as the top race on the planet, We humans have a responsibility to take care of animals/the planet in general.

So for me it's Humans first, animals second.

Probably because animals have no real choice what a human does to it.

Humans tend to not be as cute as animals.

Not even close, of corse they don't. Even those who think they do. Would elaborate more but saying those who think they're helping animals really out to not mess with the balance of the Eco system. See hawaii's mongoose problem.

The thing about being at the top of the Food Chain, if you don't take care of the Bottom of the Food Chain, then pretty soon there is no Food Chain to be on top of.

I do, because I generally give humans credit for being able to care for themselves...and generally they are responsible for their problems anyway, where animals are usually just bearing the brunt of human stupidity at best or cruelty more often.

Animals don't typically hurt your feelings or judge you or break your heart or anything like that. I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets to my cats and they'll just purr and rub up against me.

I don't think we care more about animals than humans--we all realize how important humans are to each other--but we sympathize with animals more because they're typically more "innocent" than humans.

For me, I care more for animals. I'm not one of those Vegany hippie types, but I abhor anyone willing to hurt or kill animals on a whim for 'minor annoyance' or laughs. It takes a depraved person to do things like enjoy and condone dog fighting rings or feed smaller dogs to bigger dogs to make them more vicious. It's when people are cruel to animals that I can't stand. It's sick to me when people think there's nothing wrong treating animals of all walks of life like dirt. Especially companion animals who aren't hostile unless the owner makes it that way.

I'm a little jaded to human woe, but I still care, but animals are less capable of defending themselves than a person. I could go on and on, but yes, I love and sympathise for animals far easier than people.

I feel more hatred when I hear about tortured animals than tortured humans. I wouldn't say people care more about animals than humans, but there is something about their companionship and cuteness that makes them awesome.

It's not right to assume humans are the primary source of every animals' problems. A typical animal's only concerns are to eat and deal with mundane problems like staying away from the bear and hoping that leg wound stops hurting so they can run again. They certainly don't have any big-picture concept that paints them a victim of human oppression.

The fact is that the world itself has been affecting the things that live in it long before we ever started dropping bombs on it. It's true that we have gained the ability to make a greater impact on the earth than any one animal ever has especially over the last few centuries, but "responsibility" for things that we've done is a human notion that we shouldn't be unrealistic or fanciful about. I'm not arguing that people should stop being mindful and just do anything they like with the earth but its not evil to make occasionally drastic changes to it either.

I wholeheartedly care more about animals than humans. Given the choice between animal charity and human charity I'll donate to animals every time. The reason being, humans can take care of them-damn-selves. [Domesticated] Animals have come to rely on us almost entirely for their survival and more often than not we take that for granted and treat animals like garbage without a second thought.

On the topic of it only being cute animals, that's pretty much [censored].

http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/belly-beast-meat-factory-farms-animal-activists

If you pay attention there is a pretty large movement against the cruelty of food animals.

Personally, I care more about animals than I do people, except for family of course.
Some animals have no choice what other disgusting human beings put them through.

I've never had a bad experience with animals.

Plenty with people though.

Won't lie, if it came between saving my dog or some stranger... it would be a difficult choice to say the least. But a random dog vs a stranger, obviously I'll pick the human.

I agree with this. Did you know that about 95% (or more) of the animals that have ever existed on earth are now already extinct (the number could be higher, as we still dont know how many animal species there was). That was long before human intervention. Animals have "genocided" each other many times over, or just got screwed over by nature (ice age, or whatever killed the dinosaurs - meteor or volcanoes).

Though, i do agree that humans have gained the capability to affect the animal kingdom and environment more so then any animal has thus far, animals can also impact each other, or themselves. Take pandas for example, endangered species, and despite our best efforts to put males and females together, they for the most part are too lazy or uninterested in breeding themselves. That, to me, makes me think that the extinction of the panda is inevitable, no matter what. Yeah sure, humans probably sped it up by hunting down pandas (which doesnt happen anymore, or at least, very, very rarely), but if their survival instincts were really that bad, then they were eventually going to die out anyway - we just helped speed up the process.

Animals, or at least the ones that are still around and survived, can take care of themselves better then humans can, at least in my opinion. Take any baby animal, they have natural instincts to save themselves from basic threats. A baby human can literally choke itself in a bag, or on something small - something even a baby animal would have the instincts not to do. Most humans, if we were thrown out in the middle of the woods with no tools, will probably die because we dont have the survival skills that we used to when we were more in turn with nature.

I'm not trying to say any animal abuse is good in any way, or even that extinction of a species is good either. But perhaps, sometimes the extinction of an animal is the natural order of things (like it has been in the past, before humans did anything). Just like im sure that one day, humans will eventually go extinct (unless we come up with the technology to terraform other planets, but that's quite a ways off) and the world and universe wouldn't blink an eye.

My point is that the majority of animal activists are for cute animals. Yeah, theres peta and whatnot that are against ALL animal domestication (peta doesnt even agree with having animals as pets either), but most activists for animals who have pets of their own, dont really care too much for animals like cows and chickens as opposed to seals, whales, cats and dogs. There is a much bigger group of activists (or just ask random people on the street) that are against the seal hunt for example, but care nothing for the cows being butchered in slaughterhouses.

I know lots of vegetarians that dont eat most meat (and claim to be animal lovers), but will eat chicken and fish from time to time. Of course, chicken and fish arent cute, so they dont count.

Go out to polar bear country and walk around. Maybe you havent had bad experiences because you live in a city (im just assuming here that you live in a city, most of us do) and you dont get run ins with animals very often.

If you lived out in the woods like tarzan or some crazy mountain man (or an animal, as we are technically animals as well), it wouldnt take long to find out how many animals will give you bad experiences. Go and hug a moose, and tell me how that turns out.

This is somewhat how I think it is.

But if I was in a room with a dog, or some other animal suffering and a human suffering I would feel more sorry for the dog/ other animal and try to help them over the human. I know I'm a heartless person, sorry.

You aren't heartless. The suffering human is a human. A representative of the dominant species on the planet. Evolved to be the most dangerous chunk of flesh walking. If they aren't taking care of themselves, that's on them.

Well I could then also walk around a maximum security prison or gang territory. I'll find plenty of bad experience's there too.

The type of animal charities you see are incredibly region specific. Rural America has shelters that are almost completely dominated by farm animals, city's are more toward pets. Wild animals are a different matter, they will "give you a hard time" because it's survival to them, just like a stray dog will. Humans on the other hand will give you a "hard time" cause they or nothing better to do.

I do and I'll proudly admit to it. Most animals are loyal and practically never filled with hatred. Getting harder and harder to find trustworthy humans however, and most of our history has been acted out either because of ignorance or hatred.

That made me feel better, like I'm not a complete heartless monster, thanks.