One of the most talked about issues today in the field of environmental science is one that involves the rights of animals. As we all aware of it, animals should be left the way they are. We must not attempt to artificially change their genetic properties just to produce higher breeds of animals. Today, issues about crossbreeding has reverted the eyes of people who stands as advocate to the animal rights. But it will surely and greatly help us if we first know what is this process all about and let us try to find out why some people go against this one process which is dubbed by some of us as “one of the major advancements made by the use of technology.”

As wikipedia defines it, Crossbreeding refers to the process of breeding such an animal, often with the intention to create offspring that share the traits of both parent lineages, or producing an animal with hybrid vigor. While crossbreeding is used to maintain health and viability of animals, irresponsible crossbreeding can also produce animals of inferior quality or dilute a purebred gene pool to the point of extinction of a given breed of animal.

The term is also is used at times to refer to a domestic animal of unknown ancestry where the breed status of only one parent or grandparent is known, though the term “mixed breeding” is technically more accurate. The term outcross is used to describe a type of crossbreeding used within a purebred breed to increase the genetic diversity within the breed, particularly when there is a need to avoid inbreeding.

As the definition is given, we can say that there is a benefit that we can get from this process and that is to maintain the health and viability of animals. However, its negative effect says that it can lead to serious extinction of a certain breed or specie of an animal if not to produce inferior breeds. Here in the Philippines, the birth of a “hebra”, that is the combination of a horse and a zebra, in the Manila Zoo, brought delight to many people but not into the eyes of some agencies such as PETA or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The “hebra” came from a female zebra and a male horse. PETA said that with this condition, the “hebra” will have to hide behind the bars will never ever earn the chance to run free in the wild-a freedom that has been taken away from it because of the condition it got from the process of crossbreeding. PETA believes that zoos just continue their crossbreeding process in order to increase their profit as this process provides them with endless “cute animal babies” and will draw crowds and that would mean more income for the zoo. Although the administration of the zoo already said their defense, that since it is the last zebra they have in the zoo, they have decided to let it mingle with horses because they don’t want it to be lonely, PETA just seems not to buy it.

Animals have rights too, right? If that is true, then it be just great if we let them live the way they should be. We should not be involving them in any process that alters the way they are. Crossbreeding, as a process of maintaining health and viability of animals can, more or less, lead to the extinction of some of the animal species that we have today. That is a fact we must keep in mind before we say that it is entirely good for the welfare of animals.

The video details just how horribly KFC treats chickens—birds are so crippled that they can’t even walk, live birds are forced into tanks of scalding-hot water while completely conscious and able to feel pain, and in Moorefield, West Virginia slaughterhouse workers kill birds by slamming them against the wall and stomping on them!

Pamela is calling on consumers to “Kick the Bucket” and boycott KFC until the company agrees to make some simple improvements in the way it treats animals.

If you believe with her advocacy you can  sign the petition form and join her and other compassionate consumers everywhere in taking the coarse business elsewhere until the company agrees to take animal welfare seriously.

Of course, the best thing that you can do to help animals is to stop eating them, so please consider trying a vegetarian diet—just like me. And if you don’t think animal cruelty is a strong enough argument for vegetarianism you might want to at least read up on how eating meat causes impotence and slows the flow of blood to all the organs, not just to the heart, if you catch my drift.