All creatures great and small
24th July, 2007
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About now they usually start setting up for the Ekka. Even well into adulthood, the first sighting of the bones of the big ferris wheel can raise the pulse rate of those of us reared in Brisbane. A well-loved institution, a family tradition, a daggy rite of passage, a cultural touchstone: the Ekka is so deeply branded into our psyches it's hard to imagine a sunny August day without a handful of dust-filled fast food and an earache from the westerly whipping across Sideshow Alley.
But if you do go this year, think about this: The Ekka can be a cruel and horrible time for hundreds of animals. Large crowds and cramped conditions and lots of noise and bewildering smells (and not just their own) add up to the sort of thing that should have been left behind years ago. Sure, it's good that city kids get to see big cows and clever dogs and to run their hands through the greasy coats of unshorn sheep. But there are few moments of rural purity at the Ekka. (Maybe there aren't any in rural Australia, either.) For every small child wondering at a big bull, there are 50 people noisily trampling a few feet away from a labouring cow. For every excited working dog gleefully going through its paces, there are hundreds of people poking their fingers at horses and goats in the livestock pavilions. And for every wholesome greasy-woolled sheep, there is a flock of confused ovines clattering around on concrete trying to evade overtired, overly boisterous, under-supervised children pawing at their coats. And what about the birds in the hugely popular shed (Who gave these places the lofty title of "pavilions"? They're just sheds.) where they are stacked cage to cage? As in the case of battery hens, distress, confusion, fright and protracted disinterest come to mind. There's an argument that the people who show these animals must care for them, if only as a financial investment. But there is no argument to justify offering the unwanted ones as cheap prizes in raffles. It's been deemed unacceptable for years to offer plastic-bagged goldfish as prizes in Sideshow Alley, so why is it somehow permissible to offer budgies or cockatiels as prizes in the bird pavilion (sorry, shed)? I saw a cage of birds being raffled on the last day of the Ekka last year. How does anyone know where these birds will end up? For several years now, one of the prize exhibits - a prime piece of so-called entertainment in this otherwise basically humane city - has been a procession of piglets prodded off a high beam into a tub of water. Pigs don't volitionally jump, climb or swim, as a rule. They've been known to fly, but only under extreme duress. The RSPCA lists 12 basic principles for ensuring the well-being of animals and sums up its charter with a simple statement: "Man has an obligation to protect the interests of animals at all times. He should be encouraged to willingly accept this obligation. But, if he does not do so, then the force of the law should be used to ensure that all animals are treated humanely." I'd argue that animals deserve more than just humane treatment - they deserve the dignity of being treated like intelligent creatures with emotional as well as physical needs. The day the RNA recognises that, by all means take your kids back and embrace the tradition. Until then, shun the place like the vile cesspool of exploitation it has become. |
