THE SUCCESS of the animal rights activists in closing the Darley Oaks guinea-pig farm has attracted a huge amount of fuss and condemnation. All this is fair enough: the pity of it is that it obscures one important matter. That is, that animals have rights. Alas, to make that claim at once lines me up with the dangerous nutters in balaclavas.

The notion that animals have rights has been regarded as absurd for centuries: but then so have such matters as the rights of peasants, slaves, Catholics, Muslims, blacks and women. However, in recent times our notion of rights has expanded hugely. We see the world in a very different way from our great-grandfathers. It is reasonable to accept that this expansion is still going on: and therefore the idea that animals have rights is no longer by definition absurd.

I think that animals do have rights. These are not the same thing as human rights. I am by no means convinced that dogs have a right to vote, or that mares have a right to send their foals to university. But I do think that animals have a right — as opposed to something that is granted as a mere favour — to a decent existence.

Let us not take this to the point of nonsense: I am not advocating open house for rats, or free play to anopheles mosquitos and the smallpox bacillus. But I think we should respect the right of animals to decent treatment. Domestic animals — creatures that humans “own” — have a right to a decent life and a decent death.

Wild animals also have rights: the right, in the main, to exist. To exist, at the very least, at the species level. Habitat destruction, persecution, pollution: all these routine causes of extinction contravene those rights. Animal rights is not a matter exclusive to those addicted to trouble-making. Animal rights concern us all: assuming, that is, that we all wish for decent lives ourselves, lives that take place on a decent planet.

• IF A DECENT life is seen as a basic human right, then we have a right to, as well as a need for, green places. The RSPB, backed by the Faculty of Public Health, has demonstrated that contact with nature improves all-round wellbeing. They show us that a walk in the park — or any other green space — significantly improves health problems as well as reducing the risk of suffering in the first place.

  The splendidly named Dr William Bird said: “Exercise in green spaces can significantly contribute to reducing or even preventing obesity. The countryside is a huge outpatient department, available for free, yet its therapeutic value is being ignored.”

  Or to put it another way, most people think gyms are nasty and being out in the park is nice. Therefore, it makes sense, in terms of public money (not to mention human and animal rights) to provide plenty of nice green places that people can get to.

  The two organisations are calling for investment to give us all easy access to our green bits: and importantly, in providing more green bits where they are lacking. No land is a pleasant land unless it is also a green land. We need our green bits if we have ambitions to stay healthy and sane.

• HERE BE monsters. Words that once gave a thrill of despair to humankind: now words that fill us with hope. That is how much our attitude to the natural world has changed. So, in order to fill you with hope rather than despair, I will tell you about half a dozen monsters that have been sighted in this country. Seriously enormous animals: in fact, the second-largest living creatures on the planet. And they were sighted here a few days ago.

  Fin whale. That’s a just a size smaller than the blue whale, the largest creature that has ever existed. They are around 20m long, and a pod of six was spotted off the Pembrokeshire coast. This was a family group with full adults, young adults and calves. It happened in National Whale and Dolphin Watch week, organised by Sea Watch Foundation. Nine species of whale and dolphin were sighted all around the country, including Atlantic white-sided dolphin, white-beaked dolphin and killer whales. Just think: all these monsters in British waters, living their watery lives.

  Once, the presence of huge and wild animals was an indication that the world was dangerously out of our control. These days, the notion that vast creatures still exist is deeply reassuring: telling us that the world is not yet beyond saving.

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