I'll have to disagree. Calling this animal cruelty is really just mirror imaging our sentiments into the mind of the donkey. In reality, we can know nothing of what the donkey is thinking. People assume that because it is more commonplace, loading a donkey up with a couple hundred pounds of cargo and forcing it to travel long distances with it is somehow less cruel than flying it through the air for a couple of minutes. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but the mentality of 'this isn't normal, therefore it is cruel' is absurd.

There are plenty of dogs that get noticeably uncomfortable in cars. One could say they get motion sickness, and so putting them in a car would be cruel. Other dogs, however, clearly enjoy the experience, and even stick their heads out the window to get the most out of it. Why should we expect it to be different for donkeys? Perhaps this donkey was fearing for its life, but perhaps it was having the time of its life. You can't really know either way. I understand the mentality of 'well, if we can't tell, it's better safe than sorry,' but that's different from classifying it as animal cruelty. Calling it animal cruelty is just as wrong as calling it the donkey's dream come true. We just can't really tell.