Outline For Animal Rights Research Paper

Research Proposal
Animals: Beaten and Helpless Behind and Off Cameras It has been quite a long time since animals were first introduced in the entertainment fraternity. Since then, there have been a growing number of audiences to watch these ‘exotic animals’ perform at live circuses worldwide. But then how do we know what really happens behind those innovative and fun-filled acts? We watch the animals doing all sorts of tricks, but no one thinks what they actually have to go through to do things right when performing. The same applies to the other entertainment mediums: TV, movies and zoos. These animals are daily beaten by a cruel selection of tools, not fed according to their dietary needs and are accommodated in worse conditions, even
though there have been a number of animal rights and acts that consider this behavior illegal. This research is important because this issue regarding animal abuse has been overshadowed by other researches in the past few years – issues regarding global warming, stem cell research, the Internet and technology are given more importance in today’s world. However, researches that are based on animals are only to do with them being used as controls and tested for pharmaceutical drugs, cosmetic products and other scientific phenomena. Not just because of these reasons, but I want to go into the depth of this issue to find out what in reality happens to the animals that are forced into doing things by the human power. Regarding the resources, the e-books that I have found are – Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, Bekoff, Marc A.
Meaney, Carren Goodall, Jane (1998). This book lists all the animal rights from A to Z in detail. Animal Welfare and Human Values, Preece, R. and Chamberlain, L. (1993). This one talks about animals used for different kinds of means, such as experiments, in farms, in sports and entertainment and also about the philosophy of animal rights and protection. Confronting Cruelty: Moral Orthodoxy and the Challenge of the Animal Rights Movement, Munro, L. (2004). This book addresses on animal abuse viewed as a social problem, practicing animal activism and mobilizing emotions of animals and discusses the cruelty in a decent society and ways of diagnosing it. Articles likely to be in my research: Circus Animals: Abused and Dangerous, Smith, R. (2007), discusses about the history of the rising of animal circuses and in addition giving a short overview about animal abuse, the escapes and attacks the bans and the new trends of circuses. Another article, the Three-ring debate, Anonymous (2000), talks about the controversy of whether animals should be banned from performing in circuses because they are not being treated well. It shows both sides of the argument, interviewing people and asking them their opinion about this issue. From the Gale database, I will use three articles - “Entertainment Animals.” Animal Rights. Evans, Kim M. (2009). It highlights all the animal rights related to the entertainment business and the history of how certain acts came into consideration. “Groups urge against trip to circus, claim abuse.” San Francisco Chronicle. Cabanatuan, M. (2007) – the writer reports about people being told not to attend circuses as many animal welfare activists and SPCA official have recorded footages of the animals being treated badly by circuses and also that societies have informed about this similar behavior in many of the famous circuses.
“Why not go to the circus.” Victoria Advocate. Bozick, T. (2008), reports the similar issue of beating and torturing, but it only focuses on elephants. This research is going to be based all on secondary resources - because of the limited resources in the library, there were no books to be found related to my topic. Fortunately, there is a wide collection of e-books in the ‘ebrary’ section of the library, and I will use a maximum of four e-books as major references for this topic. Also, there are many articles that will be the key to this research - but there are not any particular journal(s) I have found on this topic to place into my reference list. The research will also refer to documentaries and videos which show the mistreatment of animals. For the primary research, if I find reliable animal welfare organizations, I would interview them, and place a reference of that as well. At the end of this research, my topic will give a detailed overview of the use and treatment of animals in one major field, which is the entertainment business. The research would hopefully give me more information on this topic, which can be implemented for later uses, and I would be more knowledgeable and confident about what I speak of this topic. Although circuses mostly happen in America, Canada, Europe and many other countries, other nations should know to not do the same, as it’s not for the animals and for their will that they are being treated brutally – entertainment animals are only used for human purposes, and there should be a stronger ban towards the mistreatment of animals.