Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 577

534 | Sports and Animals Waldau, Paul, and Patton, Kimberley 2006 A communion of subjects: Animals in religion, science and ethics New York: Columbia University Press Paul Waldau SPORTS AND ANIMALS Sports may be best understood as a quest for entertainment and excitement, whether experienced personally as an active participant, or vicariously as a spectator Sports are about competition, tension, and resolution, and serve as outlets for some socially acceptable forms of violence The greatest satisfaction is achieved when one side wins and the other loses How animals figure into sports? Animals may be used as a source of entertainment themselves, or as a tool to increase people’s excitement during sporting competitions The incorporation of animals and sport can take any of three different forms: animals competing against other animals for the entertainment of humans, humans competing against animals, and humans competing with animals against some other arbitrary measure, such as time In some cases, more than one of these may apply For example, sport hunting with dogs involves dogs cooperating with humans against other animals Additionally, animal sports such as hunting, bull-fighting, pit sports can be considered consumptive if a participant dies, thereby removing it from the gene pool/ecosystem Non-consumptive sports, where everyone usually lives to compete again, include racing, catch-and-release fishing, rodeo, and many dog sports The pursuit of excitement that plays such a large part in sport applies in especially large measure to those events considered blood sports, where the object of the game is the death of a participant These activities surface in man’s earliest writings, and feature animals on sometimes grand scales Hunting, as one of the earliest blood sports, did not originate as a sport at all, but instead as a means of procuring necessary food Hunting wild animals for entertainment appeared in ancient art and literature after the advent of agriculture, and described the beginnings of a perceived gap between man and the natural world Ancient Greek writings portrayed hunting as a confrontation between culture and nature, a war by humanity against the wilderness Hunting was seen as cultivating manly virtues necessary in combat, and since the lives of prey animals were assumed to have no intrinsic worth, and therefore warranted no concern, no thought was given to their suffering The kill was the end goal, and the anticipation and effort required to arrive at this result were merely added benefits Hunting inspired great excitement and satisfaction, not only for participants, but also for spectators The public delighted in bloody staged hunts (venationes) conducted by the ancient Romans for the entertainment of the assembled masses Gladiatorial battles fought on colossal scales featured scores of animals pitted against human soldiers, slaves, or other animals Even as some classical writers lamented the gruesome spectacles as the source of man’s inhumanity to man, wealthy rulers continued to keep, exhibit, and hunt exotic animals for pleasure (Cartmill, 1993, p 44) Objections centered not on the brutality of the sport toward the creatures involved, but on how the violent behavior demonstrated by human sponsors and participants could extend to further violence against people