Rats in the Wall Street Journal


No, I'm not talking about the editorial board, silly!

My family's very first pet was a white rat named Judy. We only probably had her until I was 7 or so, but I remember her pretty well. Including when she died of cancer :(

Most people seem pretty shocked by the idea of pet rats, but really they're not that different form a guinea pig, gerbil or hamster (all of which we cared for in my family, at one point or another.) Judy seemed like a perfectly reasonable pet to me.

Most rats, however, don't have the life Judy had. Apparently 90% of the animals being used in vivisection are rats. It may be more heart-tugging to show you the monkeys or bunnies, but it's mostly rats.

I know this because last week the Wall Street Journal actually featured a story on activists trying to help lab rats on its front page!

Any my favorite animal rights blogger, Stephanie Ernst, was quoted to kick the article off. She shares a little more about it here.

The article doesn't dig very deep at all, it's true, and if I were you, I'd heed the advice of Stephanie's commenters telling you to only read the comments on the article if you feel like being depressed about humanity. I read about the first 10 and moved on with my life. Life is too short to give my attention to people who think the best response is to talk about how they kill rats or that rats are probably tasty.

So, skimming the surface of the issue aside, I do think that at the very least the article didn't summarily dismiss Stephanie and the others. It gave serious credence to the former animal experimenter now working for PCRM, and I would have expected a lot less from the WSJ, so you know. baby steps.

Posted: Fri - May 22, 2009 at 06:59 PM       EmailFeedback

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