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NAIA represents a broad spectrum of animal owners and endorses the development
and advancement of high standards of care for pets, livestock, lab animals,
and animals used in sport, recreation, and education. NAIA also promotes
scientifically-based wildlife management, sustainable development and use
of resources, and agricultural practices that consider humans and livestock
as an integral part of the environment.
NAIA opposes animal cruelty, abuse and other practices associated with
irresponsible animal ownership and use. NAIA is a moderate organization
that supports the rule of law and opposes illegal acts whether committed
by animal abusers or animal rights extremists. NAIA also opposes so-called
educational campaigns that use "consciousness-raising" exercises that depend
on sensationalism or misrepresentation of facts about animal issues. Such
misrepresentations cause widespread misunderstandings of critical issues
that ultimately harm people, animals and society.
NAIA draws a distinction between animal
welfare and animal rights and presents these policy statements to make
our position clear: we exist and operate to acknowledge the human-animal
bond and to support the humane and responsible care and treatment of animals
in the settings where they are kept, raised and responsibly used. NAIA supports
reasonable legal protections for animals, not legal rights for animals.
- promotes stewardship of species and individual animals.
- embraces a human connection to the Earth and animals that recognizes
humans as part of nature.
- supports raising and using animals humanely and responsibly for food,
fiber, labor, and research; managing animal populations by hunting; keeping
animals in zoos and other educational venues; and enjoying animal sports
and animals in movies, circuses, and on stage.
- requires humane treatment and responsible use of animals on farms,
ranches, circuses, rodeos, homes, kennels, catteries, laboratories, and
wherever else animals are maintained.
- endorses a scientific approach to commercial use and management of wild
animal populations and a quick death when death is inevitable.
- celebrates human/animal interactions and works to improve animal well-being.
- rejoices in the bond between animals and humans.
- opposes all animal use and most traditional relationships with animals,
including eating meat, wearing leather or wool, biomedical research, owning
pets, breeding dogs and cats, circuses, zoos, hunting, trapping, ranching,
fishing, and learning about animals by hands-on experience.
- manufactures crises about animal care based on distortions about animal
husbandry and extreme cases of mismanagement and abuse, then uses these
misrepresentations to vilify animal owners and related interests and industries
in an attempt to achieve a world in which man and animals are separated.
- raises funds using crises that it has manufactured, distorted or sensationalized.
- manipulates the political process to spin concern for animals into laws
and regulations that deprive private citizens of the right to make ethical
determinations about their relationships with animals
- attempts to transfer power and authority over animal ownership, husbandry,
and use to the government and the courts.
- plays on the sympathies of animal lovers to raise money for campaigns,
which if successful would deprive them of their ability to interact with
animals.
- condones, incites or indulges in criminal activity against those who
raise and keep animals.
- attempts to separate the destiny of man from the destiny of animals.
- works for the day when people will view animals from afar.
- As an animal welfare organization, NAIA respects the rights of citizens
to own, use and care for animals within a broad range of parameters that
provide for animal health and well-being.
The animal rights movement campaigns against animal ownership by private
citizens and gives the government a stake in pet ownership by inserting
"guardianship" into laws, a campaign that has been successful in several
cities and the State of Rhode Island. Ownership gives citizens the right
to make decisions on behalf of their animals; guardianship transfers that
right to the government.
- As an animal welfare organization, NAIA supports the rights of farmers,
ranchers, and other landowners to economic success based on good stewardship
of real property, livestock, and wildlife.
Animal rights activists support expansion of the Endangered Species Act,
a law that originated as a simple edict to protect rare and endangered
animals, to a broad-based attack on private property rights that undermines
the foundation of our laws and society.
- As an animal welfare organization, NAIA recognizes and supports the
contributions that responsible dog and cat breeders make to the welfare
of animals and to society and supports efforts to close substandard kennels
and catteries.
Animal rights activists oppose the deliberate breeding of dogs and cats
and use substandard facilities as a vehicle to indict all who produce
puppies and kittens as pets or for work or competition no matter how responsible
or humane.
- As an animal welfare organization, NAIA applauds the great advances
in human and animal health achieved through animal-based research conducted
in accordance with the Animal Welfare Act and guidelines of the National
Institutes of Health and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation
of Laboratory Animal Care.
Animal rights activists oppose all animal research, no matter how humane
or how responsibly conducted, and thus jeopardize the continuing development
of life-saving vaccines, pain medications, surgical procedures, diagnostic
tests, therapeutic drugs, and improved treatments for debilitating, incurable
and emerging diseases.
Be sure to see these additional NAIA policy statements
Introduction / Pet Ownership / Dogs / Pets and the Community / Guardianship
Animals in Entertainment / Animal husbandry / Agriculture / Research / Wildlife
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