Animals in war zones

One of those things that come to you out of the blue.

What is the casualty rate of animals in a war zone?

How is it calculated? What medical assistance is available to injured animals?

Who provides it?

Are there any records of how many animals were killed in major wars like WWI and WWII?

Also do armies deliberately target feed animals as targets to destriy food supplies?

source:

ISRAEL-OPT: Food insecurity increasing after war

 

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Geez, doesn't anyone care about animals in war zones?

 

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I think people just don't care too much, sadly. Any help to animals would have to come from individuals.

 

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That just sucks, frankly

 

I does. To be perfectly honest, I often feel more for the animals than for the people. They are just left to die.

 

ANIMALS IN WAR - The unseen casualties
At the time of going to press, the most intense fighting of the war in the Gulf had come to an end, though there were still numerous casualties. Yet while there is at least some effort to set up aid for the innocent human victims, there remains one group of blameless casualties who scarcely merit a mention on the 24 hour saturation news reports. This war, like all others, has been steeped in animal misery and there is no international humanitarian movement to ease the suffering.
ARTICLE: http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/NEWS/news_other/ALL/913//

 

Here is an article about how horses and mules were treated in WWI:

"They were with the BEF from the very start. They were with the BEF at the very end. They served at the Front, in the rear and in the support lines. They stumbled through the hell of no-man's land, closely following every British and Commonwealth push. In the mud, rain and terror of the trenches they supplied their comrades with food, water and ammunition, even though they themselves were starved, sodden and spent. They died in their thousands."

On the Western Front over 256,000 horses and mules had died.
ARTICLE: http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/forgottenarmy.htm

 

"In 1914, for example, the head of the Belgian Pigeon Service burnt 2,500 pigeons alive, rather than risk them being captured and used by the enemy."

"..in the Second World War, the British deliberately bombed elephants who were being used by the Japanese to transport packs."
ARTICLE: http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/NEWS/news_experiments/ALL/1268//

 

You never know what purpose they might serve...

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generally, society doesn't give a crap about animals outside of war zones, unless they're a pet, so why would they inside of war zones? in regards to war, people don't even give a crap about innocent human civilians...

 

Iraq now has a problem with packs of stray dogs running around. Municipal workers round them up and shoot them, over 10,000 in one year.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/fe...l/2009/03/in-iraq-touh-tactics-on-strays.html

 

What do you mean 'even'?

 

ummm, no, I don't care about them anymore than I do in peace time I suppose.

Its hard to care about zoo animals being eaten by starving people.

 

Zoo animals? Who's talking about zoo animals..? :shrug:

 

I am. :bugeye:
Do you honestly think during the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII (which the OP mentions) the zoo didn't get wiped out? Those rare exotic caged animals, lion/tiger cubs, lizards, flamingos, giraffes, etc. All eaten

I bet the zoos in Bosnia and Herzegovina had to be restocked within the past few decades as well.

Baghdad's zoo used to have over 600 animlas and according to this article in 2006, it had 6

 

I thought we were talking about animals in general as victims of war, not just zoo animals.

 

We had a thread on this, didn't we?

Domestic and wild animals often fare differently. War destroys commercial exploitation, which is usually the major threat to wild animals and the major source of support for domestic ones. In many regions, buffer zones between warring tribes serve ecologically as refuges, repopulating the hunted out regions. Some pros have speculated that that has been an important anthropological function of war, preventing humans from hunting game to extinction over large areas.

Anyway, the wars in Vietnam also (in addition to destroying much habitat and reducing human social controls on hunting etc) provided a refuge for many wild animals, large tracts where farming and hunting were too dangerous - they functioned like parks of a kind. New species of muntjac, many others, are being found as biologists take modern gear into wilderness regions not safe for research for fifty years or more.

The loss of draft animals in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia was severe - the US appears to have bomb-targeted them in some regions, to clear out civilians, and of course the mines still take their toll. There have been counts of this.

The slaughter of the bison on the Great Plains was deliberate, to starve the Reds off the land and into the reservations. They were almost extinguished - survivors in Canada repopulated south. The Woodland Bison of the east was extinguished, for other reasons.

The greatest wartime animal loss in Iraq was probably when Saddam dried that big swamp at the mouth of the major river.

The wars in Africa have severely hurt the wild animal populations in some regions, as bushmeat hunters and crazy soldiers take to the wilds with automatic weapons and no social controls, and as minefields spread, but the spread of farming is as damaging.

After WWII, groups of Americans did a lot to repopulate the domestic stock of Europe, which had been eaten or starved itself - operations like the Heifer Project were really important.

 

Nice post, Ice. So what would you final conclusion be?

 

war is hell?:shrug:

 

So if you don't believe in god you go to war after you die?

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