Earlier this week I posted about the poor woman who was prosecuted for giving paracetamol to her cat. Well, now the RSPCA has turned its attention to butterflies.
Apparently Damien Hirst's latest opus involves a room filled with 9000 butterflies. Setting aside the "art" aspect, apparently the insects are provided with food, so that's ok. But wait a minute. Some of them have been brushed off clothing, or trodden on, and have succumbed, and the RSPCA (bless them) are very upset.
This begs two questions. Firstly, have the RSPCA really got nothing better to do? And secondly, would they be so bothered if this involved, say, slugs or wasps? My grandchildren were particularly thrilled at the sight of wasps crawling into a wasp trap at a National Trust site this summer. Where were the RSPCA then, as the wasps slowly drowned in syrup? Or what about flea powder? That probably hurts (if you're a flea), slug pellets (ditto), and those revolting fly papers?
Ah. But butterflies are pretty, aren't they? So that's it!
Silly me.
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And what about all those teeny weeny little spiders that fall out of your hair and get squashed away? Or ants, that occasionally creep through the cracks in the patio doors and start marching across the floor to eat something the grandchildren have dropped? And do moths have the same gravitas as butterflies? I think not.
ReplyDeleteGood point(s), Maggie!
DeleteYou hit the nail on the head when you said that butterflies are pretty - something that I have never seen a slug described as.
ReplyDeleteIt's like the hymn "all things bright and beautiful"; it leaves out the ugly bits!
DeleteI think that the next lines probably cover the ugly ducklings of the world, Frances, though I do take your point.
DeleteWhich next lines, GB??
Delete'All creatures great and small'
DeleteSuddenly had a vision of little old ladies being pursued down the street by RSPCA officials because there was a whiff of mothballs as they passed .
ReplyDeleteOh yes! Mothballs! Terribly cruel.
DeleteI've only had one encounter with the RSPCA. I called them about a dog who had no fur and had been tied up for weeks. They weren't interested. Apparently as long as it had water it was OK.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Damien should have begun with caterpillars. No-one likes them.
I complained to them about a similar dog, Lynne, and got nowhere. And I'm sure you're right about the caterpillars!
DeleteOne dog per case = no publicity = no increase in funding from the incident.
DeleteWe have had an ingress of mice and I have set traps. Should I be awaiting the sinister knock on the door at midnight?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I 'invented' a song for my grandchildren about it:
'We're going off to buy a mouse trap
We're going to catch him if we can
And we'll put him in a box
With a change of mousie socks
And send him packing off to Mousie Land'
So if I sing that through the letter box they might let me off, do you think?
I doubt it, Dr.T. You'll have to do better than that.
DeleteI just went back to see what comment I'd made on your last post on this topic and despite all the thoughts I had I didn't leave a comment. Obviously a severe case of ARADD again. I was so sure!
ReplyDeleteIt's publicity Frances. If you adopt a high profile objection to something like Damien Hirst then you know that you are onto a Good Thing. Anything that raises your profile like that potentially increases the awareness of what you do and your donations.
I love butterflies and moths and praying mantises and.... the list is huge. I love mice. I still put down traps so that they don't infest my garden shed as they did one year when I was in New Zealand. I burn out wasps nests so that I don't have to share my space with them. Your logic is impeccable in that there is no reason why one creature should be treated differently to another.
Ah, but wait a minute. Were the butterflies being harmed to gratify our senses? Were they, like wasps and rats, threatening us? Perhaps there is a difference. The question in my mind is whether the difference justifies different treatment by the RSPCA.
You do raise some interesting points Frances.
I think it's all to do with the appearance of the creature in question, GB. And while I was never much of an RSPCA supporter (we tend to support other charities), I shall now strike it off the list. While we continue to allow live animals to be transported abroad in trucks, crowded and frightened, and while we still keep chickens in crowded sheds etc etc I cannot see that the RSPCA is using donations as the donors would wish.
DeleteThere. I feel better now!