[Skybird]

Shark finning.

Sometimes I am ashamed to admit I am part of this human species.

This man fought against it, and compromised a whole industry in the region. Which earned him plenty of hostility from those profiteering from selling shark fins to Asia.

I am not nbeutral on this case, and I do not hide it. Japanese whalers doing scientific research. Shark finning. Food factories where animals get brutalised needlessly. Truck drivers electroshocking gentials of cattle with broken legs to get them crawling off the truck in panic and agony. Slaughtering dolphins once a year due to precious cultural traditions.

There are occasions when I prefer spilling the blood of humans to spilling that of weaker creatures. Cruel we call a deed that is choosen to be that. Not many species on this planet have the cognitive ability to make such higher choices for or against, most are more or less following instincts and do not know about good and evil, deadened senses and insensitivity. While we have the choice, we allow cruelty, and decide for formality and bureaucracy, money and culture - against the weaker creature, against the easing of it's unimaginable suffering. We are the only species on this planet able to decide to care for other species, or not.

And look what we make of this our potential. This our choice.

Certainly not a compliment for us.

One of the most telling indices of the civilizational standard of a society is how it treats the weaker, the depending, the helpless. That is with regard to other humans. But also with regard to other species.