Animals are here with us, not for us: A shift in perspective

May Safely Graze contributor Danette Wereta is the General Secretary of the Animal Justice Party Aotearoa New Zealand, an experienced senior leader, and co-founder of a newly established animal charity. She is currently studying animal law and ethics and spends time rescuing injured wildlife.

 

 

 

I find it so very hard to believe that we don’t all agree that animals are not here for us, they are here with us. They are not resources or tools; they are individuals with lives of their own.

Tom Regan says it clearly in The Case for Animal Rights “The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us, to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money.” That is the heart of it. The suffering animals endure is beyond terrible and constant, and the problem is the worldview, the belief that animals exist for human use. That belief underpins farming, testing, hunting, and even conservation policies that treat killing as a solution.

I spend some of my days on the front line, rescuing injured wildlife. I see their fear, their pain, their sheer determination to live. This work is a calling, but it brings a pain I don’t think I even have words for. And I also know I must go upstream. Dan Heath describes it well in Upstream: imagine hearing a child drowning and you and your mate jump in to save them, but then hearing another, and another. At some point, you climb out and your mate says where are you going? You reply, to stop the person throwing children in. That is how I feel about animals. I must be there to help them, for example when they are hit on the road, but I also have to fight against the mindset that causes it in the first place.

When I help an injured bird struck on the road, I need to not just treat wounds, but confront a deeper truth upstream. Was the bird hit because the driver believed they had the right of way, that their journey mattered more than the bird’s life? But what if we shifted that thinking? What if drivers understood “I live here, with these birds. They have every right to be here. This road crosses right through their home, so I should be considerate.” If you can swerve for a pothole, you can look out for wildlife.

I feel a duty not just to rescue animals, but to try and rescue people from the belief that animals are things. That is why I struggle so much with our New Zealand Department of Conservation. DOC was set up to protect our natural world, yet its approach, and might I add, its only approach, relies on killing, including methods such as aerial poison drops and hunting competitions.

DOC’s duty is to protect biodiversity, but there is no legal duty to protect individual animals from suffering. It breaks my heart, because I know that every possum, goat, rat or wallaby is not a “pest.” They are animals, just like the animals DOC says they are protecting.

If we shifted our mindset to “animals as individuals,” DOC would be forced to invest in alternatives instead of defaulting to killing. This utilitarian logic, that we can cause suffering to some animals to protect others, is flawed. And when your only conservation strategy is killing, you never innovate beyond killing. Whenever I post via the Animal Justice Party (AJP) saying killing isn’t the lever to pull, people always write smart-ass comments and demand a list of solutions. Here’s the thing,  the answer is changing the mindset and investing in looking at different solutions. I don’t have all the solutions, that’s exactly the problem. These solutions don’t exist in any meaningful, funded way because of the mindset. When you believe animals are just resources, why would you invest in developing humane alternatives? But alternatives do exist, they are just not explored in New Zealand. There is fertility control, habitat modification, and species-specific deterrents. The innovation happens when we stop defaulting to violence.

Hunting competitions, which DOC runs, take everything that’s wrong about how we see animals and shove it in your face. They don’t just promote killing, they glorify it. They turn death into sport, entertainment, something to cheer about. They teach communities and even children to see animals not as living beings with their own lives, but as targets, trophies, “pests” to be eliminated. Research by Emily Major shows how possums are framed by media as villains, and “the only good possum is a dead possum.” This framing makes violence seem acceptable, even patriotic or funny.

People let themselves feel okay about it by saying it’s for conservation. But how can people who eat animals or farm them really claim to care about conservation? It’s like saying, ‘I care about the ocean, so I won’t use plastic straws,’ while eating fish. It’s ridiculous.

Justice for Animals matters. It’s not just about reducing suffering here and there. It’s about shifting how humans think about and relate to animals. It’s about considering animals so their lives are not endlessly negotiable. I may not have all the answers, but I can contribute my hands, my heart, and my voice to that shift.

Globally, animals are almost invisible in the frameworks that guide our future. Sustainable development, the world’s blueprint for a good future, talks about protecting species and ecosystems, but not about how individual animals live, suffer, or thrive. How we treat animals is tied to environmental health, social justice, and economic stability. We cannot build a sustainable future if we ignore the lives and wellbeing of animals.

There is hope. Hope drives the work of shifting beliefs and building laws. That is why I do this work. That is why I will keep going until animals are no longer invisible in our laws, our policies, and our vision of a fair future.

When I help that injured bird struck on the road, I know I also have a duty to shift the view of my fellow humans. Only then will that bird, and all animals, finally be seen for who they are. Because that bird has every right to be there, and it’s our duty to be considerate and not kill or injure them with our cars. The road to justice isn’t just about healing the wounded, it’s about stopping the wounding in the first place. It starts with seeing animals not as things in our way, but as sentient beings sharing our world.