Thread: Arrested for eating rats.

Originally Posted by Sdigit

it's a rat ffs.

a vertebrate animal, that has a brain, neural cord and can feel pain.

^^You're probably right LT, but what a lot of nonsense over sodding rat eh

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Originally Posted by Sdigit

it's a rat ffs.

a vertebrate animal, that has a brain, neural cord and can feel pain.

I don't know too much about rats or their neural system but didn't they kill quickly?
We all got to eat and maybe people are too sensitive about the meat they do eat, many people need to realise that meat don't magically appear in a food hall neatly wrapped and packaged

I quite like a toasted rat now and again.But only the fat, brown field ones.

Bar-b-q is better, the tail is always nice to munch on

^^^ I was killed for the entertainment of a TV audience. Thats the crux of the matter. Killing animals for entertainment. The guys in the show were actors. It was a stunt designed to shock and get ratings.

If someone genuinely wanted to raise rats for slaughter as food and killed them humanely there wouldn't be a problem with RSPCA. Plenty of people raise chooks and ducks for slaughter as food. So long as they do the killing humanely its acceptable. Its not the mode of killing the animal thats in question, its the fact that it was done solely for entertainment and commercial gain.

Originally Posted by Panda

^^^ I was killed for the entertainment of a TV audience. Thats the crux of the matter. Killing animals for entertainment. The guys in the show were actors. It was a stunt designed to shock and get ratings.

If someone genuinely wanted to raise rats for slaughter as food and killed them humanely there wouldn't be a problem with RSPCA. Plenty of people raise chooks and ducks for slaughter as food. So long as they do the killing humanely its acceptable. Its not the mode of killing the animal thats in question, its the fact that it was done solely for entertainment and commercial gain.

They ate cockroaches too, so where do you draw the line?

I still say it's a sodding rat, not like they were killing a endangered species or a puppy is it

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Originally Posted by Sdigit

it's a rat ffs.

a vertebrate animal, that has a brain, neural cord and can feel pain.

All animals are capable of feeling pain. An ant or a snail react to painful stimuli in the same way as vertebrate animals. The fact is that we as a species eat other animals. Eating other animals weather it be ants, snails or cute little kittens isn't the point of contention. Its the fact that a TV show stooped to killing a living, breathing creature purely for entertainment purposes, and of course to shock the audience and increase their revenue.

Originally Posted by Sdigit

Originally Posted by Panda

^^^ I was killed for the entertainment of a TV audience. Thats the crux of the matter. Killing animals for entertainment. The guys in the show were actors. It was a stunt designed to shock and get ratings.

If someone genuinely wanted to raise rats for slaughter as food and killed them humanely there wouldn't be a problem with RSPCA. Plenty of people raise chooks and ducks for slaughter as food. So long as they do the killing humanely its acceptable. Its not the mode of killing the animal thats in question, its the fact that it was done solely for entertainment and commercial gain.

They ate cockroaches too, so where do you draw the line?

I still say it's a sodding rat, not like they were killing a endangered species or a puppy is it

Why would it be different if they ate a puppy?

No difference for me but I can understand that it would be harder to pull that one off, people being all soppy and goo eyed for puppies that is

Originally Posted by Panda

An ant or a snail react to painful stimuli in the same way as vertebrate animals.

no they dont.

Originally Posted by sabang

But kill a rat (which is not a native species to Oz)

The Rattus Lutreolus or Swamp Rat is a native Australian species I believe. It was hunted for food by the Abos before European settlers arrived.

The brown and black rat were introduced by early European settlers.

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Originally Posted by Panda

An ant or a snail react to painful stimuli in the same way as vertebrate animals.

no they dont.

yes they do.

Your call now.

LONDON (AFP) - The British TV channel behind hit show "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!" apologised Monday for the death of a rat during filming in Australia, as the stars who killed it faced police charges.
Celebrity chef Gino D'Acampo and soap star Stuart Manning were charged at the weekend for alleged animal cruelty after they killed and ate a rat during a jungle endurance test, an RSPCA official in Australia told AFP.
A spokesman for ITV, which makes the programme, said it had no idea that killing a rat was an offence, and apologised.
"The production was asked if a rat could be caught and eaten by the celebrities in exile camp to supplement the basic rations they had been provided with for their evening meal," the spokesman said.
"Having sought health and safety advice, the go-ahead was given purely on this basis, when it became clear that there would not be any harmful effects of eating a properly prepared and cooked rat.
ADVERTISEMENT

"The production was unaware that killing a rat could be an offence, criminal or otherwise, in New South Wales and accepts that further inquiries should have been made -- this was an oversight.
"ITV apologises for this error, and to the celebrities concerned, and will put in place procedures for next year's series to ensure that this cannot happen again."

Next year look forward to more exciting episodes... such as "Celebrities drink unchilled white wine", and the suspenseful "I survived without a driver for one whole day".

Originally Posted by Plan B

"I survived without a driver for one whole day".

Thats the title of KW's new book

Originally Posted by Panda

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Originally Posted by Panda

An ant or a snail react to painful stimuli in the same way as vertebrate animals.

no they dont.

yes they do.

Your call now.

The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Do Invertebrates Feel Pain?

Invertebrates are classically defined as animals, which lack a’ backbone’ or dorsal nerve cord1, such as insects, crustacea (e.g. shrimp, lobster and crab), and molluscs (e.g. clams, snails, and squid). Traditionally, these animals have not been included in legislation concerning cruelty to animals2.
Pain is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage”3. The subjective, emotional component of pain is considered its important aspect, not the activation of pain sensors (nociceptors) in the body. The IASP makes this clear “Activity induced in the nociceptive pathways by a noxious stimulus is not pain, which is always a psychological state, even though we may appreciate that pain most often has a proximate physical cause”3. In other words, the only animals capable of feeling pain are those that can feel fear, anxiety, distress and terror, similar to what humans feel when we receive noxious stimuli.
Almost all organisms, including bacteria, will attempt to escape from an aversive stimulus4. Because bacteria are not thought to be capable of feeling pain (e.g. they lack a nervous system), possessing an escape response to an aversive stimulus is not enough evidence to demonstrate that a species is capable of feeling pain. To infer that a non-human vertebrate (mammals, birds and reptiles) is in pain, researchers rely on the vocalizations and physiological responses (e.g. the release of stress hormones) that an animal produces when faced with an aversive stimulus2. Because these responses are similar to our own when we are in pain, researchers argue that, by analogy, animals showing these responses are also in pain2. This technique cannot be used with invertebrates. Invertebrate physiology is different from our own1. The invertebrates diverged from that of vertebrates hundreds of millions of years ago1.
Scientists have used three lines of reasoning to assess the likelihood that invertebrates are capable of feeling pain5.

• The evolutionary function of pain
• The neural capacity of invertebrates
• The behaviour of invertebrates

1. The evolutionary function of pain.
In vertebrates pain is thought to be an important educational tool6. Vertebrates are relatively long-lived creatures and learning shapes much of their behaviour. Learning from pain (and pleasure) plays a vital role in the development of their behaviour6.
Almost all invertebrates are short-lived and their behaviour is thought to be largely genetically determined7. Therefore, there is less evolutionary pressure selecting for the evolution of pain in this group of animals6.

2. The neural capacity of invertebrates.
Except for the cephalopods, invertebrates have small nervous systems, consisting of many small brains (ganglia). Because of the small number of neurons and the distributed organization of their nervous systems, invertebrates are thought to have limited cognitive capacity6. High cognitive capacity is thought to be a prerequisite for the development of an emotional response6.

3. The behaviour of invertebrates
Invertebrates show few, if any, of the behaviours that we would recognize as evidence of emotion6. Many invertebrates are cannibalistic, and many eat their young when given the chance. Most have no social behaviour. Although they can respond vigorously to noxious stimuli, even this response is inconsistent. Insects, for example, will continue with normal activity even after severe injury. An insect walking with a crushed tarsus (lower leg) will continue applying it to the ground with undiminished force. Locusts will writhe when sprayed with DDT. However, they will also continue feeding while being eaten by a praying mantid6.

Cephalopods

Cephalopods are sometimes given special status by animal care committees (e.g. CCAC) because they have a large, vertebrate-like central nervous system, which is about the same size as that of a fish8. In the United Kingdom these animals have some legal protection, however in the United States they do not.
Although they have large brains, all the coleoid cephalopods (squid, octopus and cuttlefish) have short lifespans8. Most live less than one year. There is no parental care8. The absence of parental care suggests that most of their behaviour is genetically determined (i.e. they must be able to hunt, hide from predators, communicate etc. without instruction by others of their species). They are capable of learning, but their abilities are sometimes greater, sometimes less than that of fish8,9. Most are highly cannibalistic, even the schooling squid. We know nothing about their hormonal response to stress, and therefore we cannot determine whether they have a physiological response that resembles ours when confronted by aversive stimuli. We understand very little about their visual communication system and, therefore, we do not know whether they make any ‘pain-specific’ signals. Given our three criteria above, we have very little evidence that these animals feel pain. Nevertheless, it is possible that as we learn more about them, we may find evidence suggesting that they are capable of feeling pain.

Conclusions

Although it is impossible to know the subjective experience of another animal with certainty, the balance of the evidence suggests that most invertebrates do not feel pain. The evidence is most robust for insects, and, for these animals, the consensus is that they do not feel pain6.
References
1. Brusca R and Brusca G. 2002. The Invertebrates. 2nd edition. Sinauer.
2. Animal Behaviour Society, 2003. Anim. Behav. 65: 649-655
3. International Association for the Study of Pain. International Association for the Study of Pain | Welcome to IASP
4. Berg, H 1975. Nature. 254: 389-392
5. Sherwin, C 2001. Anim. Welfare. 10: S103-S118
6. Eisemann C et al. 1984. Experientia 40: 164-167
7. Drickamer L et al. 2001. Animal Behavior: Mechanisms, Ecology and Evolution. 5th edition. McGraw-Hill.
8. Hanlon R and Messenger J 1996. Cephalopod Behaviour, Cambridge Univ. Press.
9. Boal J et al. 2000. Behav. Processes. 52: 141-153

Do Invertebrates Feel Pain?

Originally Posted by blackgang

It is because it is not PC to kill and eat stuff anymore.
Fucking world has gone crazy..

Got that right! Fucking lawyers are running the world!

The whole killing for entertainment issue is a complete RSPCA crock of shit. They killed the rat to eat it, which they did.

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Conclusions

Although it is impossible to know the subjective experience of another animal with certainty, the balance of the evidence suggests that most invertebrates do not feel pain. The evidence is most robust for insects, and, for these animals, the consensus is that they do not feel pain6.

Do Invertebrates Feel Pain?

Point conceded. Good research.

Now I dont feel so bad about burning ants with a magnifying glass when I was a kid.

Saw bull v bull on Thai TV last night, some bloke with a big stick urging them on to do each other in. I said it was cruel, mrs said no because some of them bulls are worth a million baht! Thais sometimes have more in common with the ancient Romans than modern mankind.

Originally Posted by Panda

If someone genuinely wanted to raise rats for slaughter as food and killed them humanely there wouldn't be a problem with RSPCA. Plenty of people raise chooks and ducks for slaughter as food. So long as they do the killing humanely its acceptable. Its not the mode of killing the animal thats in question,

What about the Rats that are raised and sold in Pet shops and people buy them and take home on a weelky basis to feed LIVE to their pet Pythons?
Do they belong in jail for feeding them to a snake??

Originally Posted by blackgang

Originally Posted by Panda

If someone genuinely wanted to raise rats for slaughter as food and killed them humanely there wouldn't be a problem with RSPCA. Plenty of people raise chooks and ducks for slaughter as food. So long as they do the killing humanely its acceptable. Its not the mode of killing the animal thats in question,

What about the Rats that are raised and sold in Pet shops and people buy them and take home on a weelky basis to feed LIVE to their pet Pythons?
Do they belong in jail for feeding them to a snake??

You tell me old fella.

Originally Posted by Panda

You tell me old fella.

Damned if I know, you brought it up, not I.

Originally Posted by blackgang

Originally Posted by Panda

You tell me old fella.

Damned if I know, you brought it up, not I.

Arrr... feeding live rats to pet snakes? I think you will find you were the one who brought up that aspect of the discussion if you want to go back a couple of posts there old fella. Memory lapse there I suppose.

But anyway, since you have chosen to digress along these lines, -- let me ask you if you feel it would be appropriate to feed live chickens to your dogs?