YOU couldn’t make it up. A British nature photographer set up some camera gear in Indonesia tempting crested macaque monkeys to take photographs of themselves. A picture of a grinning monkey known as “Naruto” staring into the lens with a big grin went viral on the internet and was used in a book by the photographer David Slater. An animal rights charity People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) went to a US court arguing that the monkey owned the copyright of this “selfie”. A lower court threw out the case on the basis that a wild animal could not own the rights to the picture. The charity went to an appeal court but before judgment could be given, Slater settled agreeing that he would give a quarter of his earnings from the monkey selfie photographs to animal causes.
The absurdity of this case points up the sentimental nonsense that is overtaking charities that once pursued an honorable role in seeking to protect wild life in the inevitable conflict with humans. In medieval Europe, it was not unheard of for animals to be put on trial for “crimes”. In a landmark judgment in England where a cow was tried for damaging a wall separating two properties, the court ruled that animals did not have “scienter”, a knowledge of right and wrong, and could not therefore be guilty of any crime. The responsibility rested with the animal’s owner.
Since those days the study of animal behavior has advanced considerably. Scientists have identified group behavior, not simply in great apes but even in the octopus which suggests social skills and sensible cooperation. But the plain fact remains that these are wild animals, who may display fascinating intelligence but who nevertheless do not have bank accounts and cannot benefit from earnings arising from photographs that they may be lured in to taking of themselves.
PETA and similar animal rights charities are pushing a false and fluffy vision of the animal kingdom which resonates powerfully among the comfortable middle classes in the prosperous West. Those who give so willingly to support campaigns to protect wild animals, continue to buy their meat from supermarket chill counters to be used in international recipes gleaned from the mass of cookbooks that now crowd bookshops. Supermarkets are careful to package and present the meat in such a way that there will be no involuntary shudder by the purchaser at the thought that these are bits of flesh from a once-living animal. Guts and other unappealing parts of the beast are not on display. They go into processed meats where they cannot be identified.
For most Westerners, the idea of killing and butchering their own meat is absolutely unthinkable. The trend toward vegetarianism and even the more extreme vegan diet is said to be based on “ethical” standards but another description might be “squeamish”.
What the monkey selfie court case demonstrates is that a common sense approach to food and the way it is farmed is collapsing in the face of ludicrous special pleading by charities that have lost their focus. Of course animals should be raised and made ready for the slaughterhouse in decent conditions. But the animal rights demonstrate their mania by the word they have persuaded the Western public to adopt in their concern for animal welfare, which is “humane”, just one letter more than “human”.
