The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Reform Group was founded in 1970 by members of the British RSPCA who were frustrated by the organization's inability, as they saw it, to deal effectively with the issues raised by factory farming, animal testing, and hunting. The group was particularly concerned that pro-hunting members were attempting to prevent the society from expressing opposition to bloodsports; several of them had said they would lobby to have the RSPCA's charitable status removed if it campaigned against hunting.[1]
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This approach can be contrasted with field studies in which animals are observed in their natural environments or habitats. Experimental research with animals is usually conducted in universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, defense establishments and commercial facilities that provide animal-testing services to industry. The focus of animal testing varies on a continuum from pure research, focusing on developing fundamental knowledge of an organism, to applied research, which may focus on answering some question of great practical importance, such as finding a cure for a disease. Examples of applied research include testing disease treatments, breeding, defense research and toxicology, including cosmetics testing. In education, animal testing is sometimes a component of biology or psychology courses. The practice is regulated to varying degrees in different countries.
Hunting is a practice in which a certain type of animal is killed in a certain way: the animal must be wild, it must be able to flee, the killing requires violence, and that violence must be premeditated. The violence must also be at the hunter's initiative. Hunting wildlife or feral animals is most commonly done by humans for food, recreation, to remove predators that can be dangerous to humans or domestic animals, or for trade. Lawful hunting is distinguished from poaching, which is the illegal killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species. The species that are hunted are referred to as game or prey and are usually mammals and birds.
The Reform Group was led by Brian Seager, John Bryant, and Stanley Cover, and the aim was to secure the election to the 46-member RSPCA Council of Bryant, Seager, and other supporters of the group's more radical agenda, including Andrew Linzey, the Oxford theologian, and Richard D. Ryder, the Oxford psychologist who coined the term speciesism.[2]
Andrew Linzey is an English Anglican priest, theologian, and prominent figure in Christian vegetarianism. He is a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford, and held the world's first academic post in Ethics, Theology and Animal Welfare, the Bede Jarret Senior Research Fellowship at Blackfriars Hall.
Richard Hood Jack Dudley Ryder is an English writer, psychologist, and animal rights advocate.
Speciesism is a form of discrimination based on species membership. It involves treating members of one species as morally more important than members of other species even when their interests are equivalent. More precisely, speciesism is the failure to consider interests of equal strength to an equal extent because of the species of which the individuals have been classified as belonging to.
Ryder writes that, from then until 1978, the Reform Group succeeded in changing the RSPCA from an organization that had come to focus mostly on companion animals – despite its own radical 19th-century roots – to one that opposed bloodsports, developed comprehensive animal welfare policies, and focused more on farming, animal testing, and wildlife. Ryder became vice-chairman of the RSPCA Council in 1976, then chairman from 1977 to 1979.[2]
Notes
↑ Ryder, Richard Dudley. Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Toward Speciesism. Berg, 2000, p. 172ff.
1 2 Ryder, Richard. 2009. "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Reform Group"] in Marc Bekoff (ed.). Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. Greenwood, pp. 307–308.
A humane society is a group that aims to stop animal suffering due to cruelty or other reasons. In many countries, the term is used mostly for societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA). In the United Kingdom, it may also be a society that provides a waterways rescue, prevention, and recovery service, or that gives awards for the saving of human life.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales that promotes animal welfare. In 2017, the RSPCA investigated 141,760 cruelty complaints and secured 1,492 convictions. The charity also rescued and collected 114,584 animals, carried out 222,664 microchippings and rehomed 44,611 animals. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest animal welfare organisation in the world and is one of the largest charities in the UK. The organisation also does international outreach work across Europe, Africa and Asia.
A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is a common name for non-profit animal welfare organizations around the world. The oldest SPCA organization is the RSPCA, which was founded in England in 1824. SPCA organizations operate independently of each other and campaign for animal welfare, assist in the prevention of cruelty to animals cases, rehabilitation and finding homes for maltreated and unwanted animals that can be reestablished into new homes. Policies regarding animal euthanasia, handling feral cats, and similar issues vary by organization. Canadian (Ontario) SPCA do euthanize healthy dogs as seen when they put down a series of dogs due to a treatable outbreak of ringworm.
The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a charity to promote animal welfare in Scotland.
The animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal liberation movement, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries.
RSPCA Australia is an Australian peak organisation established in 1981 to promote animal welfare. Each state and territory of Australia has an RSPCA organisation that predates and is affiliated with RSPCA Australia.
The Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) is an animal charity based and operating in Northern Ireland. The other SPCA societies operating in the United Kingdom are the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA).
Zimbabwe Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing the abuse of animals.
Donald Maurice Broom is an English biologist and emeritus professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University.
Caroline Earle White (1833–1916) was an American philanthropist and anti-vivisection activist. She co-founded the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) in 1867, founded its women's branch (WPSPCA) in 1869, and founded the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) in 1883.
The Five Freedoms outline five aspects of animal welfare under human control. They were developed in response to a 1965 UK Government report on livestock husbandry, and were formalized in 1979 press statement by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council. The Five Freedoms have been adopted by professional groups including veterinarians, and organizations including the World Organisation for Animal Health, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans (1971) is a collection of essays on animal rights, edited by Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, both from Canada, and John Harris from the UK. The editors were members of the Oxford Group, a group of postgraduate philosophy students and others based at the University of Oxford from 1968, who began raising the idea of animal rights in seminars and campaigning locally against factory farming and otter hunting.
The Oxford Group or the Oxford Vegetarians consisted of a group of intellectuals in England in the late 1960s and early 1970s associated with the University of Oxford, who met and corresponded to discuss the emerging concept of animal rights, or animal liberation.
RSPCA NSW is a not-for-profit charity operating in New South Wales, Australia that promotes animal welfare.
RSPCA Tasmania is a charity and law enforcement organisation in Tasmania, Australia. It runs and maintains three shelters for the rehoming of animals, a dog boarding service as well as several other programs. It is also responsible for the enforcement of animal welfare laws in Tasmania.
This article is about the treatment of and laws concerning non-human animals in Australia. Australia has moderate animal protections by international standards.
Reverend Arthur Broome was one of a group of creators of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1824. Broome was appointed as the original society's first Secretary, a post he held until 1828. He held posts at various churches in London, Essex, and Kent, and supported an appeal for earthquake relief in Syria. He wrote about animal theology and also about two 17th-century English clergy. He was guarantor for the RSPCA's debts, which led to his financial ruin and in April 1826 he was sent to a debtors' prison.
Ernest Bell was a British author, animal rights activist, humanitarian, and vegetarian.
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