Students gather for first animal rights meeting

It’s time to change your meat-ing.

The Student Collective for Animal Rights held their first meeting at Towson University on Thursday, February 25 at 5:30 p.m. in which two members discussed the group’s focus and description.

SCAR is a group of vegans and vegetarians, as well as everyone else interested in the group, which focuses on the animal rights, human rights and “liberty and equality for all”. Their mission is to spread awareness about animal rights and make changes for vegans, vegetarians and those who care about animal rights on campus. They do a lot of events focused on raising awareness for animal rights on campus and occasionally off campus as well such as panels, round tables and chef night events at dining halls.

“A lot of our stuff is about changing people’s preconceived notions about animal rights and veganism,” Sophomore theatre studies major and member Maddie Hicks said.

The collective was not affiliated with the Student Government because they did not have an executive board. “We want to stay as a collective,” Hicks said. “We don’t believe that any one person should have any more responsibility or power than anyone else in the group. All of our decisions are made as a collective.”

Other methods of getting awareness have worked in the past by using posters, chalk on the sidewalk, word of mouth and online. And as a result, people seemed to be interested. “We may not have the blessing of the SGA, but we still seem to get by,” Hicks said.

One of the most successful events was the screening and discussion of the documentary Earthlings in Linthicum Hall. The documentary is narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix and it shows the exploitation of animals in all kinds of industries including food, science, as pets and entertainment.

Sophomore accounting major Phuong Phan has been a vegetarian for six months and it all started when her friend showed her that same documentary. “It’s a very, very shocking video,” she said. “Anyone who’s seen it or even seen parts of it actually changes how they think about animals or even changed how they eat or hopefully changed their mindset.”

Last semester, there was a situation with the stray feral cats on campus and the school administration wanted to put all the cats down instead of trapping and releasing them. As a result, the collective took action. “We took initiative, along with some professors on campus, to try to propose to them of other ways to handle the situation that didn’t involve euthanasia,” Hicks said.

But history and secondary education major Charles Miller, who does his own hunting and butchering, had very different views on animals and euthanasia. “It’s a humane way to do it,” he said. “What’s the difference between euthanizing an animal and euthanizing a pet that is dying? Ultimately, you’re still killing an animal.”

And in regards to killing an animal for food? “God created the humans to rule over the plant and animal kingdom,” he continued. “In that regard, if you eat an animal or meat in this case, you’re following the natural food chain. Does a wolf care that what it’s eating was alive a couple minutes before it started eating it? No. So, why should it affect what I eat?”