David Attenborough today named the ten endangered species he would take onto a modern ark. He overlooked the well known endangered animals – tigers, polar bears, gorillas – for lesser known but equally spectacular ones. Two that strike me as quite amazing are the Olm Salamander and the Darwin frog. Like a creature drawn from… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Animal Ethics
The Remarkable Frillfin Goby
The Frillfin Goby is an ugly little fish, 10-15 centimeters long, that lives in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. You find them in rock pools. See a goby and you’re not likely to give it much thought. It’s not pretty like so many tropical species, nor is it impressive in size, nor is… Continue Reading
On Turtles and Joy
Two days ago Sandy & I found ourselves travelling by speedboat to Selingan Island, a tiny island off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, famed for its turtles. We had just come from a night in Sandakan’s rainforest. There it was beautiful but I felt like an outsider. Here on the open water, with the buzz… Continue Reading
Killing Nemo. On the Ethics of Fishing & Eating Fish
I’ve just finished reading “Do Fish Feel Pain?” by fish biologist Victoria Braithwaite (Oxford Uni, 2010). Braithwaite is one of the few people in the world who has conducted research on fish pain. Her conclusion? Fish do feel pain and there are significant ethical implications. As someone who loves fishing I think I need to… Continue Reading
How We Treat Animals Matters. Christian Faith And The Ethical Treatment of Animals
Chapter 5 from my book on ethical consumption. A few years ago I was guest speaker at a youth camp set on the shores of a beautiful lake on the north coast of NSW. One afternoon I saw a group of adolescent campers knee deep in the water herding puffer fish into seaweed. I watched… Continue Reading
Review: Creatures of the Same God.
A proper regard for animals is arguably a significant blind spot in contemporary Christian thinking. It is a blind spot Rev Dr Andrew Linzey, a member of the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, has spent his life trying to correct.
Linzey has written twenty books and over one hundred articles on the ethical treatment of animals. Creatures of the Same God is a collection of nine of Linzey’s essays, each substantially revised for this volume. The collection is somewhat eclectic, covering topics including resources for animal theology in world religions, animal theology from a Christian perspective, conflicts between animal theology and ecotheology, traditions in early Mediterranean and Chinese Christianity that emphasised the importance of animals, and animal inclusive liturgies. What emerges is a strong case that the Christian Church should re-engsge with biblical teaching on animal wellbeing, recognising that Christian theology and church history provide rich veins to mine.… Continue Reading