Last week, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals celebrated when Alaska Airlines pulled its sponsorship from the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Alaska’s most famous sporting event involves a team of sled dogs pulling a human over ice and snow for 1,000 miles and I’ll admit it — the first time I went to Greenland and saw dogs living outside in solo houses on chains, it was a shock. It was freezing outside, and they were sitting alone in their wooden houses.

“When dogs used in the Iditarod aren’t being forced to run until their paws bleed and their bodies break down, they’re chained alone in the bitter cold,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement.

But here’s the thing about sled dogs: They are not normal, fully-domesticated, cuddly house pets.

According to the American Kennel Club: “Generations of breeding for racing and hauling have created a dog with legendary endurance, speed, and hardiness” and the dogs have a “desire to run and work in harness is equally crucial for a team’s success.” And Hetta Huskies, a breeding site for sled dogs, says: “Traditional husky breeds are capable of withstanding temperatures as cold as -40 degrees Celsius … When attached to the chains, the dogs live in individual kennels and have a large personal running area so they actually have even more freedom of movement than the dogs in the cages.”

Locals in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and other arctic areas rely on these dogs for food and transportation (hence the term “working dogs”) and have done so for thousands of years. The Iditarod is a celebration of the culture and the dogs themselves (Central Park even has a statue devoted to Balto the sled dog who delivered life-saving diptheria antitoxin medicine to snowed-in Nome when modern transport could not.)

This is not the first time over-excited naturists have shamed and attacked Inuits or other cultures for their lifestyle.

Almost three years ago, Chris Apassingok, age 16, caught a bowhead whale off the Siberian Yupik village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, in a 2,000 year-old hunting tradition. He was celebrated by the community — as the whale would feed them all in an area where, without subsistence hunting, people would starve. A story in the Alaska Dispatch News lauded the teen: “Gambell Teenager Leads Successful Whale Hunt, Brings Home 57-Foot Bowhead.”

But the story also caught the eye of Paul Watson, an early Greenpeace activist and founder of Sea Shepherd, an environmental organization based in Washington. An infuriated Watson wrote on his Facebook page: “WTF, You 16-Year Old Murdering Little Bastard!… some 16-year old kid is a frigging ‘hero’ for snuffing out the life of this unique self-aware, intelligent, social, sentient being, but hey, it’s okay because murdering whales is a part of his culture, part of his tradition. … I don’t give a damn for the bullshit politically correct attitude that certain groups of people have a ‘right’ to murder a whale.”

Watson, who looks like he’s never missed a meal in his life, started an avalanche of hate mail and death threats toward Apassingok, and his family were devastated by the attack. According to High Country News, his mother Susan said six weeks after the hunt, her son stopped going to school, barely spoke and his mood darkened.

“I can’t get anything out of him,” Susan told HCN. “We struggle to buy gas, food, they risk their lives out there to feed us, while this Paul Watson will never have to suffer a day in his life. Why is he going after a child such as my son?”

And this is the problem — many animal rights activists can’t see plankton from the ocean in front of them. They also are, in the majority, wealthy white people who never have to subsistence hunt or use sled dogs for a living. For them, these activities are seen as recreational. For people living in these communities, it’s not.

Last week I visited the Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp and Resort outside of Chiang Rai in Thailand. The reaction I got from some of my fellow travelers was … unenthusiastic.

When I told my friend I was going to a camp where they rescue former elephants and provide housing for their mahouts, she responded, “Oh noooo — all those places are bad. Elephants should be free.”

But animals born into captivity don’t know how to take care of themselves. All efforts to return these elephants to the wild have been met with disaster.

This came a week after someone full heartedly told me all zoos — including the award-winning one in my hometown of Cincinnati — should be shut and the animals set “free” despite the fact that zoos and places like the elephant camps are educational, look after animals born into captivity, and spark interest in children who will hopefully grow up and want to conserve them.

Do I promote animal abuse in any way? Absolutely not. Have I seen instances where I cringe, feel nauseous and deeply sad? Yes. But in most of those instances, the abuse of animals arises out of deep poverty and a loss of identity. The surest way to protect animals is to protect the humans around them. If you take away someone’s culture, livelihood, home or actual food (in the case of whales), that is when the humans and animals will really suffer.

Recently on Twitter someone called me out for wearing fur: “Paula Froelich has fur and she’s been photographed wearing it!” You’re damn right I have fur — and I wear it proudly. It’s warm, it’s weather-repellant, and it’s a hell of a lot more eco-friendly than that coat from Patagonia-North Face-REI you’re wearing. I know where my fur comes from — it was either from an animal, whose meat fed people and whose bones were used to make tools, or it’s vintage. If I throw it away tomorrow, there will be no trace of it in three months because it will disintegrate. The same can’t be said of the poly/plastic synthetic blends which in all likelihood will still be flopping around some landfill in 500 years or end up in a sea creature’s stomach.

Here is a subtle distinction many animal activists don’t seem to get. Just because I am pro-fur, subsistence hunting, the Iditarod, elephant retirement homes and culling animals like out-of-control deer in places like Long Island where they run amok, does not mean I support trophy hunting, dog fighting, circus animals or inhumane treatment (For the record: I absolutely do not).

I am for the ethical treatment of animals — including humans. We must find a logical balance where can be as compassionate as possible toward the environment without stripping indigenous peoples of their culture.

Paula Froelich is the founder and editor of the online travel magazine for women, A Broad Abroad. Instagram @pfro.