Dear Queenie,
Last Sunday we were driving towards French Quarter, when in the vicinity of Belvedere a group of cows crossed the road. One of the calves was a bit slow in crossing and the French bakery van in front of us just ran into the animal.
I was shocked! How can anybody deliberately try to hurt an innocent animal?
Fortunately, the calf got up and seemed not to be badly hurt. I did not dare to get out of the car, though, because a person with such a callous attitude will probably not think twice before starting to get on at you.
Queenie, do you think there is any chance of eradicating this fiendish attitude towards animals from our “friendly” island?—Shocked animal lover
Dear Shocked animal lover,
I would like to believe that the driver was not trying to run the calf down, but merely to push it out of the way, and misjudged the force with which he struck it. Unfortunately, however, as you say, too many people on both sides of this island have a very callous attitude toward animals.
Even more unfortunately, many of them seem to have a similarly callous attitude toward other people as well.
It would take a massive education campaign to change this attitude. It would have to start in the schools, with the children, and sad to say, our education system seems to be as deficient in this area as it is in too many others.
There is some hope, however, as St. Maarten Animal Welfare Foundation and several animal rights groups are conducting such campaigns aimed at adults and especially at children. There is also some hope that the children will take home what they have learned and their parents will learn from it as well.
