The irony in this story is so complex it makes one's head swim.

There's captive birds, trained to kill other birds and creatures, used to make money for owners.

There's captive lions used to make money for owners.

There's the media making money be swarming all over the latest trendy way to use and abuse animals - raptor training.

Googling 'raptor training' gets 3 million hits. If this animal-use industry has its way, one day everyone will have a raptor in their home... or garage, or in a pen in under a porch, or in the basement, or in a closet... shackled to a perch.

Why are there still millions of people who can so ignorantly delight in using captive animals? Why isn't it as socially unacceptable in Canada to keep captive animals as it is to keep captive women and female children?

The animal welfare industry, the big players as well as the small players, which never upsets animal-loving donors by saying the only way to prevent cruelty to animals is to abolish the captivity of animals, has a lot to answer for.

In over 200 years of animal rights education, animal rights is seldom or never mentioned by almost every group that benefits from animal welfare. Why do animal welfare groups still educate on the best ways to keep captive animals? Why are these big organizations especially, the ones with millions of dollars and p.r. staff with ties to big media, still teaching children that it is acceptable to keep creatures in cages as long as you keep the cage clean and let the creature out every so often? Could it be that animal rights leads to abolition and animal welfare leads to money. The dots are not hard to connect.