In “The Pain of Animals,” (originally published in 1989) David Suzuki’s subject is the pain humans inflict on animals by using them in scientific experiments, hunting them, and keeping them in zoos. Suzuki’s thesis is that we use animals for these purposes because their bodies, nervous systems, and responses are much like ours. This similarity between humans and animals means, however, that animals feel fear and pain just as we do. Suzuki’s main purpose is to convince us that it is immoral to inflict pain on animals. Suzuki develops this argument first by telling a story about his own changing attitudes towards animals. The “piercing shriek of terror and anguish” (p. 269) of the squirrel he hit with a slingshot convinced him as a teenager that animals feel pain just as we do. His experiences with fishing made him realize that humans, as predators, use animals without thinking of their pain. He began to question our right to use animals without considering their “pain and fear” (p. 270). Suzuki then gives a series of examples of how we inflict pain on animals in zoos and in scientific experiments the most controversial of these involves the treatment of animals that that are most like us: the chimpanzees. He cites from the experience of Jane Goodall and other experts on primates, to suggest that humans seem to think these animals are expendable: that they can be sacrificed for our selfish goals. The details about a film on the suffering endured by chimpanzees provide the strongest evidence for his argument that the similarities between chimpanzees and humans ought to make us more compassionate, not more exploitive, in our treatment of them.

Reference
Suzuki, D. (2004). The pain of animals. In A. Valleau & J. Finnbogason, Nelson introduction to literature (pp. 269-272). Markham, ON: Penguin Books