‘I have been picked on,’ says cavy breeder
Friday 2nd July 2010, 2:29PM BST.
A LOCAL breeder of guinea pigs has rejected suggestions she mistreated her animals.
Astrid Allen (pictured) says that she has been unfairly targeted by animal welfare campaigner Sue Vidamour.
New group Promoting Animal Welfare has issued leaflets that include photographs which Mrs Vidamour says are of animals in unnecessary distress.
The Guernsey Press has published several of the pictures, including ones which Mrs Allen says are of her animals.
Police took the images in 2006, when it was alleged that Mrs Allen had mistreated 139 guinea pigs. In court she denied causing unnecessary suffering by keeping them in squalid conditions.
The charges were withdrawn and the animals were later returned to her after she signed a police caution.
Mrs Vidamour said yesterday that the police would not have told the charity to remove the animals if there had not been a problem.
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The problem with the emotional hot potato of animal welfare is that there is always a certain degree of subjectivity. Although there are obvious cases of cruelty, many (this case for example) are less clear cut and one person’s definition of good husbandry is another’s cruelty.
Some people think that keeping a rabbit or cavy in a cage full stop is cruelty whereas others think it is fine. Then there are the living conditions: one person may think that the conditions his/her animals are being kept in are acceptable, another may not.
Any animal welfare legislation must therefore include provision for independent expert arbritration to assess each case (two experienced vets for example) as in order for the law to be effective and fair the emotive reactions we so often see from both sides of the debate need to be replaced by some degree of objectivity.
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