Unwitting Cruelty

Cruelty to sheep can be unwitting, in that the cruelty results from absence of questioning, comes from closed-mindedness, stems from ignorance. Or cruelty can be deliberate. Here, unwitting cruelty will be looked at.

Sheep farmers and their associates in the sheep farming industry, people who come into contact with sheep, the general populace – they all need to be cognisant of what constitutes cruelty towards sheep and to act towards sheep in accordance with that knowledge.

Unwitting cruelty to sheep derives from these among others:

seeing sheep as of no importance or value; 

regarding sheep as not worth treating well; 

perceiving sheep as items for humans’ use, and purpose (economic, usually); 

not realising or recognising that sheep are sentient, that they have feelings of pain, fear, stress etc;

staying with accepted practices in regards to sheep and not questioning those practices;

not keeping up-to-date on what represents cruelty towards sheep;

not checking sheep, and their needs, adequately and frequently enough;

failing to appreciate that sheep are prey animals (and so not ensuring that predators are constrained and are kept well away from sheep).

Examples of unwitting maltreatment of sheep are:

not giving them sufficient or appropriate care, sustenance and facilities, eg food and nutrition, fresh drinking water, a place of shelter, healthcare;

failing to take into account weather and climate conditions and outcomes; 

handling that is causing pain, harm, stress, fear;

putting them in environments, contexts, and circumstances that are ‘against their nature’ and preference.

Interesting to consider is the documentary film The Shepherds of Berneray (1981), made in 1978-79 by ethnographic filmmakers Jack Shea and Allen Moore from Harvard University. In it are displayed instances of what now would be seen as cruelty - sheep being hit, roped to each other via their horns, held by their horns, thrown from a boat to swim ashore, dropped into dip - sometimes upside down. Those who were doing these things to sheep in the film seem unwitting that they are treating the sheep cruelly. It could be that the humans did know that their treatment of the sheep was cruel; there is no indication that they did. 

Cruelty is cruelty, whether unwitting or deliberate.