ANIMAL rights campaigners yesterday called for a ban on school pets.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), the pressure group, launched National Rabbit Week by calling on government ministers to introduce a ban on all creatures in classrooms.
Although the Scottish SPCA said only a handful of institutions continued to adopt the traditional practice, Peta is to write to Hugh Henry, the Education Minister, urging him to ban keeping small animals in the classroom.
Peta claimed that besides not having a proper diet, classroom pets such as rabbits, birds and mice were often neglected for long periods such as weekends and holidays and could be mistreated by pupils.
Poorva Joshipura, its director, said: "Keeping animals in the classroom teaches children all the wrong lessons - that animals are disposable learning tools' or props' which can be abandoned and forgotten about over long weekends or school breaks. A discussion on animal ethical issues, viewing a wildlife video or a visit to a local sanctuary can have positive results without negative consequences for the animals involved."
The Scottish SPCA, the animal charity, last night stopped short of echoing the call for an outright ban. Natalie Smart, its spokeswoman, said: "We wouldn't call for an outright ban because there are some social and educational benefits from having animals in schools. However, we stand very firm on strong guidelines being adhered to and closely monitored."
Ms Smart added that education officers from the charity visit those few schools north of the border which continue to keep animals.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article