General Assembly Resolution #498 “Ban on Forced Blood Sports” (Category: Moral Decency; Strength: Mild) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.
Noting that, with the full ban on blood sports involving animals imposed by Articles 1-3 of GA#498, the keepers of animal blood sport participants (ABSPs) can choose either to release them, keep them captive, or put them down,
Upset, however, that Article 4a simply requires that “if an [ABSP] does not have a significant risk of harming itself of others, it must be given its freedom” without either:
- requiring it to be released into its natural habitat (enabling ABSP keepers to release them into unsuitable, dangerous or assuredly fatal environments - contrary to the resolution’s spirit of preventing animal cruelty - without risk of punishment), or
- permitting screening to instead ensure that ABSPs need only be released if they neither endanger themselves nor other living things in its natural habitat (incentivising keepers to invoke Article 4b when ABSPs they keep attack them, even if their species is not native to those ABSPs’ natural habitats, or even if their training means they can only pose a “significant risk” of harm to other sentients while in dedicated blood sport environments),
Recognising that ABSPs not covered by Article 4a are described either by Article 4b (where they do not exhibit “abnormal behaviour” - relative to their “wild counterparts” - which causes them to pose “a significant danger to [themselves], any animals, or sapients in that habitat”) or Article 4c (if they do exhibit such behaviour),
Concerned that Article 4b’s requirement for ABSPs to be released into their natural habitat may only be waived where their behaviour leads them to endanger its living beings without regards for the harm they may cause to its flora and fauna, precluding animals not covered by the waiver purely due to the threat they pose to plant life from being kept in suitable and dignified environments where they cannot harm their natural habitat’s biodiversity instead (as is permitted where Article 4c applies),
Objecting to GA#498’s blanket authorisation for any ABSP described by Article 4c to “be euthanised humanely” as a potential alternative to their being kept “in a secure and safe rehabilitative environment” until Article 4b describes them instead, not only because of the lack of any explicit requirement that the release of ABSPs likewise be humane in the first place, but also because it tacitly encourages keepers to immediately put down ABSPs for patterns of aggressive behaviour that may be readily unlearned instead of putting in the effort to wait until Article 4b applies to them, and
Concluding that GA#498 is flawed to the extent it allows some ABSPs to be released into habitats where they may not survive, permits others to be released into habitats where they could harm flora and fauna simply because those environments are their natural habitats, and promotes the use of euthanisation of others still as an immediate last resort - and ought to be replaced with a clearer, more effective WA-wide prohibition of blood sports when the opportunity arises…
The General Assembly hereby repeals GA#498 “Ban on Forced Blood Sports.”