Leader of the pack for care of animals

In 1873, biologist Richard Spruce wrote a letter to a friend.

He said of the species he was studying at the time: “If men cannot torture them to his uses or abuses, they are infinitely useful where God has placed them, and they are, at the least, useful to, and beautiful to themselves — surely the primary motive for every individual existence.”

I was reminded of his deeply humane observation when I visited the Skibbereen Animal Refuge recently, a place where all its inhabitants are recognised as being “useful and beautiful to themselves”.