To: letters@globeandmail.com
Subject: April 26th "Caught On Camera" feature

Dear Editor,

For your April 26th "Caught On Camera" feature you chose a photo of a chained monkey performing tricks for a crowd. The other photos, which must have been viewed by the photo desk editor, show training methods that are so cruel that it is very hard to look at the images. I have attached just two of them.

In mainstream Canada, depicting the terrible suffering of a sentient being without critical comment should no longer be acceptable. It's unlikely you would print a picture of a child being trained this way without comment. One of the first SPCAs was also a child protection society, because 150 years ago compassionate adults knew both children and animals were equally helpless to protect themselves from cruelty and exploitation. The photo the Globe and Mail printed gives the appearance that the Globe and Mail, as far as animal cruelty is concerned, is stuck in the 19th century, which I know from daily reading of your paper is not true. But less constant readers may not know that, or may even think that the photo is "cute". But cruelty is never cute, nor is cruelty ever art. Again: if the photo was of a child being forced to perform tricks, you would not excuse it by calling it art.

Photos like the one you printed are lucrative. Those who made money from this cruelty: the owner of the monkeys; the photographer; and the Globe and Mail.

Judith Stone
Animal Advocates Society of BC
North Vancouver, BC