Animal Activism (Essay Sample)

Animal Activism: Name: Institution:
Introduction
Animal rights activism is the ideology that seeks to protect the animal life by fighting for their rights to life and provision of basic needs. These groups consider that an animal should be given equal rights as a human being. Some of the rights they campaign for are the rights to non-subjection of the animal to inhumane treatment. There are different forms of animal activism. This paper discusses the nature of animal activism, by pointing out its various forms (Hawthorne, 2008).
There are four primary examples of animal rights activism that may be undertaken. Firstly, it may be expressed through personal actions. Some individual actions that an animal activist, may take in solidarity with the movement are; gaining more knowledge on the issue of animal cruelty through learning or studying, becoming a staunch vegetarian, by totally avoiding any form of fashion wear that promotes animal cruelty, investing companies that are not cruel to animals, practicing animal friendly habits like no use of pesticides or detergents (Thayer, 2013).
The second form of animal activism is proselytizing. It implies taking an active role in the sensitization process of the public. Examples of how to do this is by; telling family about your stand on animal cruelty, creating documentary films advocating for animal rights, write letters to media centres, writing books that advocate for animal protection, giving lectures on the subject at institutions of learning, joining animal review committees that supervise the research on animal and organizing campaigns to fight against animal exploitation (Thayer, 2013).
The third form of animal activism is civil disobedience. These are acts that are committed to demonstrating utter disapproval to how animals are being treated. An activist may choose to take this route to express their opinion and to fight for the welfare of the animals. Some of the examples, of where force may be applied, in the push for the animal rights include; the harassment of individuals as they go about their animal cruelty endeavours, sit-ins, occupations, destruction of property that is used for the exploitation of animals, sabotaging the production process of the firms, raids against the companies that research on the animal with the main agenda of liberating them and spying on companies that are notorious for animal cruelty so as to publish the evidence (Hawthorne, 2008).
The other method of animal activism is pushing for policies that help protect the animal’s welfare. The activists may collaborate with policy makers in the state and think of ways to better protect the animals. These methods are quite useful, as once the policy is passed into law then, the law enforcement agencies get involved in the fight to keep animals safe, which will in retrospect mean that more animals will be protected. This method goes as far as involving famous public figures in the campaigns. These may be politicians or celeb...