The Yukon Quest is built on the exploitation and killing of dogs and is inhumane! Is this an “event” to be proud of? No, it’s an event that should be shut down, abolished!
Being a mediated world, the media continues to show preference to stories demonstrating human supremacy over animals by the exploitation and killing of nonhumans.
At least the papers allow opinions/concerns with respect to nonhumans and how they are treated/exploited.
Take, for example, CBC’s on-going promotion of the Yukon Quest. Just this morning the New Day host was encouraging the public to go meet and cheer for the mushers. What are they? Heroes and heroines? Shall we go and kiss their feet, perhaps? As a taxpayer and a concerned citizen that sees the Quest as very exploitative by using dogs as “sled dogs,” I do not believe the media should be cheering on the inhumane use of dogs.
Why don’t you ask some questions like:
How, in good conscience, can you celebrate and promote what I see as a cruel treatment of dogs (man’s best friend?).
It has been well documented that many dogs used as sled dogs spend most of their lives on chains and are killed or discarded when they no longer have entertainment value. Why does the Yukon Quest have no policy regarding how mushers care for and dispose of their dogs outside of the race time?
Is this an event that volunteers, media and sponsors truly want to support? Can they keep turning a blind eye to the inherent cruelty that is the dirty secret behind the Yukon Quest?
Would tourism in the Yukon truly suffer without the labour of the dogs?
Is it true that some of the dogs that finished pulling their “masters” to Whitehorse were/are very thin? I heard the comparison between them and dogs recently rescued by the humane society; they were similar (very thin and malnourished-looking).
Why doesn’t the CBC follow the complete process required to build the perfect “dog team” (slavery, as I call it)? You know: the breeding/producing; the killing of dogs that are of no use to the mushers; their lives spent on chains in what I view as miserable-looking dog yards (gulag?).
Why don’t you, CBC, ask some tough questions for a change, instead of paying mindless tributes to the Yukon Quest every year?
Pull your own sleds for a change as this would make history!
For the dogs à that are exploited and killed by humans.
Mike Grieco
Whitehorse