There is a new social awakening,  animal lovers are coming to  new and wiser understanding of animals and their well-being. The rights of animals are not the same as the rights of people, they are different, more complex, and in some ways, more urgent. People are not in immediate danger of extinction, animals are, the are disappearing from nature and from the everyday lives of people.

This week, authorities in New York announced an investigation into the political fund-raising activities of NYClass, the strident civic group that spearheaded the effort to ban the New York Carriage Horses. The group, founded by a millionaire real estate developer says it loves animals but mostly seems to hate people.

In 2010 NYClass gave $100,000 to the mayor Bill deBlasio’s campaign and more than a million dollars to help defeat his primary opponent.

The mayor, who had never mentioned the carriage horses in his long and very public political career, suddenly declared that the carriage trade was immoral and that the horses needed to be banned from the city, he said it was his most urgent priority and vowed the horses would be gone on “day one” of his tenure.

Several years into his tenure, the horses are still in the city and he is facing several investigations into the connections between the money he received from NYClass and his obsessive and disastrously unsuccessful campaign against the carriage trade. Best not to mess with the horses, I think, they are not done with him yet.

The war against the carriage horses has turned out be significant, a landmark in the evolution of the way we see domesticated and other animals.  New York is our biggest stage, and what happens there ripples across the rest of the country. It turns out the horses are not suffering, are not being abused, are safe and content in the city and need to remain there. Although the mayor has ignored them, people in the city overwhelmingly support the horses and want them to stay.

The excesses of the animal rights movement are creating whole new kinds of communities in support of the right of animals to work, stay among people, remain in our populated urban and suburban centers. Everywhere, the media and animal lovers are fighting back against this arrogant movement, taking a closer look at the fund-raising of animal rights groups, who sometimes seem much more interested in collecting money and giving it to politicians than they are in saving animals or pursuing their rights. People are also rushing to support the growing numbers of victims of a movement that claims it speaks for the rights of animals, but does not.

I have seen the future of animal rights and for me, it is at places like Blue Star Equiculture in Palmer, Mass, where you can see the new idea of animal rights. Blue Star is an organic farming center and the retirement home of the carriage horses and other work horses. It is a place where horses are rescued, and rehabilitated, where the ancient working bond between people and animals is celebrated and preserved and where people and animals alike are treated with dignity and respect. If you wish to join this new community, this new social awakening triggered by the carriage horses, consider helping Blue Star and it’s wonderful work.

The most elemental right of domesticated animals like draft horses, ponies, elephants and others is to survive, to stay among people and work with them and help heal us and mother earth. The primary goal of the contemporary animal rights movements seems to be to “liberate” animals from us and confine them in animal ghettos and private preserves, where they languish and fade from human consciousness and routine. There is no surer way to kill animals in our time than that. Animals deserve at least as much consideration on our earth as cars, trucks, and real estate developers.

You can also consider helping farmers like the Benners Farm in Long Island, under assault for raising a beef cow to feed their family. Or Joshua Rockwood, a young farmer unjustly accused of animal cruelty because his water tanks froze in -27 winter weather. Rockwood’s three horses were impounded for no demonstrable reason, he had to pay thousands of dollars to get them back.

There are all sorts of ways to help people who live with animals and love them and are under almost continuous attack. People are throwing up petitions, sending money, offering moral and material support, contacting public officials.

Supporting animals does not mean persecuting innocent people or driving animals out of our lives and into extinction. The animal rights movement, founded with the best of intentions, has become an arrogant and angry militia in too many cases, more akin to a series of hate groups than an advocacy movement for animals.

We need a new understanding of animals in our world, we are beginning to achieve this by learning what abuse is and what abuse isn’t, by re-connecting with animals and their real needs, and by supporting people who love and work with animals, not persecuting them.