Introduction

We chose to do research about cruelty to animals because it seemed interesting and we think it is mean. We wanted to see if other people thought the same but we didn’t want to force people to think the same as us. We wanted to find out why people started being cruel and why they won’t stop. These are our research questions.

* Why did humans start being cruel to wild animals? * Why are people cruel to wild animals? * Why don’t people stop being cruel to wild animals? * Why do humans want their skin? * Why do people kill sharks to eat their fins?

Methodology

We chose questionnaires because they were simple to do and phone interviews because we couldn’t send anything to the animal charities because we wouldn’t have time to send it out and get it back. We wanted to ask two animal charities and eight children from Class 5 about our questions. We piloted our questionnaire and found out that three of our questions weren’t very clear so we improved them. We asked people if they wanted to fill in our questionnaires. We had to keep what they said anonymous. One animal charity could not answer our questions because they are a habitat conservation charity not one that tries to stop cruelty to animals. One of our teachers interviewed someone from an animal charity over the phone for us. We gave out questionnaires to four boys and four girls in Class 5. Unfortunately we only got two questionnaires back so we asked six adults in school to fill in some more for us.

Findings

We got two questionnaires back from girls, one from a child’s parent, four questionnaires back from adults and a phone interview with an animal charity.

1. Why did humans start being cruel to wild animals?

The animal charity said it was for food and because humans didn’t use their power over animals properly. The adults said it was for food, clothes, money and to use the animals to do hard work for them.  The girls said it was for fur and fun. The letter from the parent asked us what we meant by cruelty.  They told us the dictionary said cruelty meant enjoying causing unnecessary pain to animals. Our group and Group 4 had a discussion about if it was cruel to hurt animals if people need food or if dangerous pests need controlling.

2.  Why are people cruel to wild animals?

The animal charity said it was for food and because humans didn’t use their power over animals properly. The girls said it was because people were too lazy to look after their pets or they wanted to sell things. The adults said it was because other food, materials or machines were not available or they didn’t care about hurting animals. Some adults said it was because they were unkind or selfish or did it for fun or to sell animal skins.

3.  Why don’t people stop being cruel to wild animals?

The animal charity said that some people enjoy being cruel and think animals can’t feel pain or don’t matter. The girls said because it’s fun. Some adults said for fun, money or because they don’t think animals are important.

4.  Why do humans want their skin?

The animal charity said for clothes or to show off wealth. The girls said to be fashionable. The adults said for clothes and accessories, to keep warm, shelters, to make money or show off.

5.   Why do people kill sharks to eat their fins?

The animal charity said that some countries eat different animals. The girls said for soup and to be fashionable. The adults said because people think the meat is special or a treat, it can cure illness, bring good luck or make money.

Discussion

We were a bit unhappy about not getting all our replies back the first time because we spent a lot of time thinking about our subject and getting things ready. We thought that we would get the same results from our real questionnaire as we did in our pilot. We didn’t expect one animal charity not to reply because they are not to do with cruelty to animals. 

We noticed that the girls’ answers were similar. One of our questionnaires was not filled in by a child. Their parent discussed our questionnaire with their child and wrote a letter to our teacher. The letter was really good because the parent told us about the good and bad bits about our questions and so if we did it again we’d know how to explain the questions better so that they know what we mean by cruelty. The whole group felt really good because when somebody replies it’s nice because you feel proud because of all the hard work you’ve done. It was good to have more data than the pilot. We thought it was good to have the older people’s opinions and not just the children’s.

We answered our question. Doing this research has taught us that other people have different opinions.

Conclusion

If we could do our research all over again we would improve it by describing our questions more deeply. Some of us would like to find out more about the work of animal charities. We would also know not to get too excited about getting our questionnaires back and have a back-up plan. We could do more research into the difference between cruelty and pest control.