Act Now to Protect Great Apes

Tell Congress: Pass bill to ban invasive primate experimentation

"It's about the money. There's big bucks in this research, especially chimp research. We're talking millions. Millions of dollars."

– Narriman Fakier, former employee of New Iberia Research Center turned whistleblower


In March of last year, ABC's Nightline, World News Tonight, and Good Morning America shows aired disturbing video footage captured by an undercover investigator from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which depicts the severe abuse of primates at New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana, where new medical and pharmaceutical treatments designed for humans are tested on more than 6,000 monkeys and chimpanzees. The exposé documents what the HSUS investigator saw during his nine-month stint posing as a lab tech, using hidden cameras to bring Big Science's dirty little secret to light: that researchers routinely violate basic animal welfare laws, and only suffer consequences when the public demands justice.

The United States is one among only four nations in the world where research on chimpanzees is still legal. Meanwhile, countries like Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK have banned invasive experiments on all great apes (i.e., chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos — and homo sapiens) because the immorality inherent in such studies cannot be ethically justified on the basis of saving human lives. Seriously, torturing and killing our closest biological cousins is not the only (or even best) way to understand our own medical maladies, and yet it continues, funded by our taxes: why?

One reason is that animal research is extremely profitable. Between 2000 and 2009, the National Institutes of Health, a Federal agency, granted NIRC more than $17 million in public funds to conduct research on chimpanzees — money they used to viciously persecute primates, both within and beyond the law and often for decades on end. In this case, the government took appropriate action against NIRC, with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack ordering an investigation of their operations and pledging to punish anyone found guilty of violating the Animal Welfare Act. But while NIRC is one of the nation's larger primate research centers, it's trespasses still only represent the relatively small tip of vivisection's animal cruelty iceberg — what remains buried beneath the depths of deception is perhaps even worse, and even during the best of economic times, the U.S. government clearly wouldn't have the means to police every facility all the time.

Emptying the Cages

Thankfully, inspired by HSUS's repulsive revelations, Congress is now considering a pragmatic and compassionate solution: the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). This bipartisan bill would phase out invasive research on great apes, ban the breeding of these primates for experimentation, and permanently retire hundreds of chimpanzees to sanctuaries where they would be lovingly cared for instead of callously exploited for profit. Passage of this bill would greatly accelerate our country's ethical evolution towards respect for other life forms and advance our moral standing among nations, but there is still one extremely powerful force standing in the way of our potential progress: the numerous medical research institutions that would lose hundreds of millions in revenue if H.R. 1326 becomes law.

The highly-influential Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is just one of the many scientific associations that cunningly cultivates an oh-so-purely-altruistic image but is terrified of having their inalienable American "right" to torment animals for a living restricted in any way. Recently, this illustrious organization bombarded its members with a "Call to Action" urging them to tell their Federal Representatives to oppose the Great Ape Protection Act because "(it) would inhibit medical advances and researchers' pursuit of new vaccines and treatments to prevent disease" (hepatitis C in particular). In their sample letter to members of Congress, SfN even pretends to give a crap about non-human species by emphasizing the "number of protections in place to ensure the welfare and well-being of these animals" — conspicuously ignoring the fact that existing laws are not being obeyed or enforced, as the video evidence from inside New Iberia and other primate research labs makes so painfully clear.

While SfN boasts a membership of more than 40,000 scientists and physicians, only a miniscule minority of these are actively engaged in primate research. So why, then, did they disseminate this action alert to their entire constituency? Certainly, they fear no longer having great apes to sacrifice on the altar of empirical knowledge, but they're even more afraid of being drawn inexorably down the slippery slope. That is, if the government outlaws invasive primate experimentation today, what horrors will tomorrow bring — rights of personhood for genetically-engineered lab rats?!

Sadly, SfN officials and other dogmatists of domination are mentally enslaved by the antediluvian ideology that all of Earth's millions of species exist merely to serve human needs — an historically corrupt doctrine in which animals' interests are dismissed as utterly irrelevant. Fortunately, their outmoded attitude is not shared by the majority of society: an online survey being conducted by WashingtonWatch.com, for instance, currently indicates that nearly two-thirds of respondents support the Great Ape Protection Act. Nevertheless, it’s not We the People who will ultimately decide whether to pass this bill, but our democratically-elected Representatives in Washington, D.C., and animal research institutions' pockets are obviously deep enough to peddle political influence — so please make sure your Representative knows where you stand on this issue.





Use HSUS's "Humane Alert" to call and email your Federal Representative urging him or her to co-sponsor and vote YES on the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). Then check out the other ways you can help primates, and forward the alert to your family and friends around the country.

Living On Burrowed Time

Help stop the impending eviction of Antioch's owls

When I worked at the University of California, Davis (circa 1998-99), burrowing owls occupied underground nests around my workplace, the Carlson Health Sciences Library, which lies on the relatively remote outskirts of the UC system's largest campus. I loved watching them peek their little heads up through holes in the earth, and would stand awed as they unselfconsciously stared back at me with an intensely palpable awareness and fierce dignity. So, because burrowing owls are such an integral part of my personal natural history (not to mention the Dead Milkmen's timeless post-punk epic "Stuart"), I feel a strong emotional connection with these downy-feathered cutie-pies — and a commensurate outrage that government agents paid with our tax dollars to protect wildlife are continually bending over for business interests that don't give a flying hoot about owls.

This time, an established community of these unique birds is slated for expulsion from their habitat in the East Bay town of Antioch, California because the state's Dept. of Fish & Game is allowing real estate prospector Kiper Homes to proceed with construction of the Blue Ridge housing development. Workers have already started placing one-way eviction doors (that allow residents to leave but not return) over many of the burrows' tunnel openings, a job that by law must be completed by next month (before the owls' breeding season begins). Then Kiper will complete the foreclosure by caving the den in so the birds can't come back, and exterminators will proceed with gassing the remaining ground squirrels to death as a mere formality.

It is estimated that there are probably fewer than 10,000 burrowing owl breeding pairs left in the U.S., and yet 11 members of this native species are being forced out of their habitat in the middle of winter just before they are about to reproduce. Perhaps, being unable to quickly find safe, secure and suitable shelter, some or all will die from exposure to the winter elements or predation. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has officially identified burrowing owls as a "candidate species" for either “threatened” or “endangered” status, and California considers them a "Species of Special Concern" under the state's Endangered Species Act because their population has declined by about 50 percent in the last 10-15 years. The number one jeopardizer of their existence: real estate development.

People vs. Owls

Surely the anthropocentric will protest, “Hey, they're just owls — and people need places to live more than they do!” But why do we have to build on land already occupied by members of a species whose numbers are rapidly dwindling? There are over 300 million humans in the U.S., and only a few thousand burrowing owls: is spreading suburban sprawl really such a boon to our society that it justifies risking the irreversible eradication of a species?

And yes, all kinds of creatures are summarily displaced and killed whenever houses and neighborhoods are built, and even we animal activists take this so much for granted that it usually passes without mention — until the animal under the bulldozer is both adorable and potentially threatened or endangered. In this case, for instance, we may feel bad for the owls, but (if we really think about it) even worse for the squirrels. So, in the long view, we need to radically reinvent construction practices to minimize our destructive impact on the environment and those already living in it.

Realistically, anyplace we build will be home to some form of fauna or flora, and animal and environmental advocates can't save them all. So we have to start somewhere, and it makes pragmatic sense to focus first on the most ecologically vulnerable. Then again, these are not actually separate issues, because by stopping the development of this particular housing complex (and others like it in the future), we can save both the owls and the squirrels.

• Local grassroots group Friends of East Bay Owls encourages concerned citizens to write letters (based on provided samples) to California Attorney General Jerry Brown, Fish & Game Director John McCammon, and state senators asking them to revise current owl eviction policies. They are also looking for volunteers to help install artificial burrows at Antioch's Prewett Ranch Family Park on Saturday, January 23rd.

• Urban wildlife rehabilitation center Wild Care Bay Area, meanwhile, is urging people to contact the Antioch City Council — as well as Ed Hobaugh, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Kiper Development, Inc., at (925) 648-8888 ext. 13 or ehobaugh@kiperinc.com. Their alert includes a sample letter tailored for City Council members, but only talking points for Mr. Hobaugh emphasizing the fact that Kiper never performed an Environmental Impact Report for the proposed housing site. If you do speak with Mr. Hobaugh, I suggest that you kindly ask him to explain why he thinks his company's profits are more important than the fate of the burrowing owl community. I'd do it myself, but I just moved cross-country last week back to the Bay Area, and the stress of displacement would leave me more susceptible to losing my cool when he says, in so many words, that it's just business.

“The Simpsons” – Top 10 Animal-Friendly Episodes

A best-of list spanning two-plus decades of humane humor

Encompassing 21 seasons and 450 episodes, “The Simpsons” is the longest-running sitcom in television history, and this January 10th, Fox will culminate its year-long celebration of the classic cartoon's 20th anniversary with a documentary special by Super Size Me director and star Morgan Spurlock. Diehard fans already know that “The Simpsons” pioneered a subversive style of animal rights comedy never before seen on the small screen. So, at the dawn of a new decade deluged with Top 10 lists, I decided to pay the prime-time program homage by showcasing the 10 best animal-centric “Simpsons” episodes (so far, in chronological order).

1. Episode 1: “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” – In the series premiere, Homer loses the family's Christmas money betting at the dog track, but then brings home the best present ever — a rescued racing greyhound named Santa's Little Helper. Laugh Line (Homer to Bart, who wants to adopt the abandoned dog his father bet on): “But he's a loser. He's pathetic! He's...a Simpson.”

2. Episode 29: “Bart's Dog Gets an F” – The family's misbehaving canine attends obedience school, where Bart refuses to implement the draconian instructor's pain-based training methods. Laugh Line (Bart): “Now...Sit! I said, Sit! Um, take a walk. Sniff that other dog's butt. See? He does exactly what I tell him.”

3. Episode 43: “Lisa's Pony” – Homer finally grants his 8-year-old daughter's wish for a pony, but she relinquishes her beloved horse after learning that dad must work nights to pay for expensive stabling. Laugh Line (Homer): “Marge, with today's gasoline prices, we can't afford not to buy a pony!”

4. Episode 54: “Dog of Death” – After Santa's Little Helper runs away from home, villainous billionaire tyrant Mr. Burns plucks him from the pound and turns him into a vicious attack hound — but his love for Bart ultimately overcomes his killer conditioning. Laugh Line (Ben Caseyesque veterinarian): “I love animals. I spend my life saving them, and they can't thank me. Well, the parrots can.”

5. Episode 79: “Whacking Day” – Each May, the town of Springfield observes a traditional holiday that entails beating snakes to a pulp with clubs, but Bart and Lisa save the serpents' lives with the help of soul crooner Barry White's earth-shaking basso profundo. Laugh Line (“Whacking Day” song sung by children's choir): “Oh Whacking Day, oh Whacking Day! Our hallowed snake-skull cracking day! We'll break their backs, gouge out their eyes; their evil hearts we'll pulverize! Oh Whacking Day, oh Whacking Day! May God bestow His grace on thee!”

6. Episode 98: “Bart Gets an Elephant” – Bart wins a real live pachyderm from a radio call-in show, but “Stampy” proves a neighborhood hazard, so Bart and Lisa must persuade Homer to send his colossal pal to a sanctuary instead of selling him to an ivory dealer. Laugh Line (Homer): “Lisa, a guy who's got lots of ivory is less likely to hurt Stampy than a guy whose ivory supplies are low.”

7. Episode 133: “Lisa the Vegetarian” – Lisa gives up eating meat, but almost cracks under constant ridicule at home and school — until a pep talk by Paul and Linda McCartney puts her back on the righteous path. Laugh Line ("Actor" Troy McClure, in an “educational” filmstrip): “Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If that cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about!”

8. Episode 249: “Treehouse of Horror XI” – In a Free Willy parody, Lisa emancipates a captive bottlenose dolphin named Snorky from an exploitive marine park — but the deposed “King of the Dolphins” then enslaves humanity for banishing his kind to the sea eons ago. Laugh Line (Snorky): “They made me do tricks like a common seal!”

9. Episode 252: “Lisa the Tree Hugger” – Trying to win the affections of über-activist Jessie Grass, Lisa (channelling Julia Butterfly) refuses to disembark from an ancient redwood until it is spared from logging. Laugh Line (Jessie): “I'm a level-five vegan — I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.”

10. Episode 417: “Apocalypse Cow” – Bart joins 4H to drive cool combine harvesters, but winds up having to save the calf he raised from butchery — with a cow-costumed Homer nearly being killed in a fully-automated slaughterhouse. Laugh Line (Bart): “Sorry, Lis, I can't be a vegetarian — I love the taste of death!”

Hope you enjoy these amazingly amusing episodes — and learn more about “The Simpsons” at thesimpsons.com!

Minestrone Is Murder?

Maybe so — but carnivores still kill many more plants than vegans do

Day after day, meat eaters try to discredit ethical veganism with an astonishing array of pseudo-philosophical protests, but the recurring assertion that “Plants have feelings, too” is particularly vexing — mainly because it’s so transparently insincere. Think about it: Why are meat eaters so remarkably resistant to recognizing the horrific suffering of “food” animals, yet simultaneously eager to anthropomorphize faceless fruits and vegetables that utterly lack the brains, central nervous systems, and sense organs (like eyes and ears) generally associated with sentience? When carnivores insist that plants’ feelings matter, it seems to me that they disingenuously want to appear genuinely concerned about hurting innocent herbs, when in fact the sneaky subtext peeking out from underneath the edge of this compassionate facade is a self-serving accusation that we vegans are as guilty of murder as the most unrepentant flesh-obsessed gourmand.

The latest example of this perennially weed-like phenomenon sprouted up yesterday in Natalie Angier’s New York Times article “Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too” — a title which insinuates, baselessly, that plants’ faculty for feeling somehow negates the moral authenticity at the core of animal rights. Now, please understand, I am by no means criticizing Angier for promoting the hypothesis that all living organisms are imbued with some form of consciousness: actually, I find the eminent behavioral botanist’s quotation touting plants’ capacity for “sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals” quite compelling. What I do object to, strenuously, is that any carnivore (much less a mainstream science journalist) would have the unmitigated chutzpah to charge that it’s hypocritical for us vegans to shout “meat is murder” while allegedly committing mass herbicide — especially because meat eaters kill so many more plants than we do in the course of daily dining!

Need proof? Then check out these stunning statistics:

• To yield a single pound of edible meat, a chicken must consume about 2 pounds of grain*, a pig must consume about 4 pounds, and a cow must consume 10 to 16 pounds. So, every time someone eats meat, they kill 2 to 16 times as many plants than they would by eating vegan.

• Slaughtering approximately 65 billion animals worldwide for meat each year requires that one-third of humanity’s grain harvest be fed to livestock. This calculation accounts for 80% of U.S. corn crops and about 99% of U.S.-produced soy meal, but not the vast fields of grass and other naturally-growing plants upon which free-range cows, sheep and goats graze.

• According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock production occupies 70% of all the land used for agricultural purposes, and nearly one-third of the Earth’s entire landmass. This boundless terrain was once unspoiled habitat for billions of native plants and animals who were either displaced or eradicated — some to the point of extinction. The beef industry, for instance, is the driving force behind the destruction of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, one of the planet’s most diversity-dense regions, with nearly 80% of deforested land being used for ranching.

Strictly speaking, it’s impossible for us to physically survive without consuming other living entities — just as billions of microbial creatures subsist on the proteins in our bodies. But contrary to the misleading myths of popular belief, veganism isn’t about achieving perfection, purity or sainthood (or, for that matter, smugly proving our superiority or political correctness). Rather, the point is to consciously make pragmatic lifestyle choices that significantly reduce the amount of pain, agony and death suffered by others as a result of our privileged existence, and persuade people to do the same in the name of non-violence.

So, the next time some smart-ass carnivore tries to excuse their lethal fauna-filled diet by feigning sympathy for faultless flora, just look them right in the eye and tell them straight out: If you really, truly care about the plight of exploited plant beings, then go vegan now!


* I originally cited a website claiming (inaccurately, it seems) that the grain-to-meat conversion ratio for chickens is 6:1. Tip of the hat to Erik Marcus for pointing out the error.

Nightmare of the Nurse Mare Foals

Thoroughbred horseracing's invisible victims

For decades, the thoroughbred racehorse industry has practiced a shockingly cruel breeding method that activists have only recently brought to light. The result of this compulsory procreative procedure are nurse mare foals — the unwanted offspring of female horses used as nursing surrogates for thoroughbred ponies. Every year, tens of thousands of these horses are killed or orphaned simply because they are useless to a multi-million dollar enterprise that thrives on equine exploitation.

Here's how it works: in order to get thoroughbred mares to produce as many potential racehorse champions as possible, breeders push their biological limits to extremes by forcing them to reproduce once a year. Maximizing productivity requires breeders to have the mares reimpregnated right after giving birth, which precludes them from nursing their own babies. The newborns are therefore taken away from their mothers within days of delivery, and nursed by surrogate mares (of “inferior” breeds) who have just given birth to their own offspring — the “by-products” of this process known as nurse mare foals.

Permanently separating thoroughbred babies from their mothers is tragic enough, but most nurse mare foals face a far worse fate than either racehorses or surrogates. While some are killed soon after being born or starved to death, others are sold (as young as one day old) to the tanning industry which slaughters them and turns their skin into handbags, belts, and other high-grade leather products. The lucky ones are rescued by horse advocacy groups, which, just like the tanners, must pay the going rate of $200 to $400 apiece — and then spend several hundred more dollars feeding and raising each horse for months before they are ready for adoption.

Rescuers nourish nurse mare foals by bottle-feeding them milk replacer, which could theoretically be used to feed thoroughbred foals as well, thus eliminating this exceedingly inhumane breeding practice altogether. There are two main reasons that they don't do this: formula is expensive, and horse breeders maintain that thoroughbreds need to drink real (albeit surrogate) mother's milk from the source to achieve peak athletic performance. Plus, the larger nurse mare farms (concentrated in New York, Kentucky and Tennessee) produce 50 to 100 foals a year, and it is more operationally efficient to make the surrogate mothers do all the work rather than paying human caretakers to feed the foals by hand.

Another possible solution to the problem of unwanted foals is a new domperidone-based drug protocol that induces non-pregnant mares who have given birth before to lactate. Though chemically manipulating horses' hormones poses ethical dilemmas in the context of animal rights philosophy, in practical terms it would prevent tens of thousands of unwanted foals from being born into a life of suffering and untimely death. It could also dramatically reduce the number of surrogate nurse mares by enabling thoroughbreds who are too old for breeding to nurse foals.

There are many ways to help relieve the suffering of nurse mares and their orphaned foals, from urging elected legislators to pass humane laws to financially supporting horse advocacy organizations or adopting a rescued foal. Learn more about how to take action at lastchancecorral.org.

Preposterous: The Presidential Turkey Pardon

The perverse absurdity of a reverse animal sacrifice

Every Thanksgiving, at a White House ceremony punctuated by much media fanfare, the President of the United States symbolically “pardons” a single turkey — just one day before he joins the rest of America in devouring 45 million others. Legend has it that Abraham Lincoln started the custom one Thanksgiving day in the 1860s by sparing his son Tad’s “pet” turkey from the axe, but the pardon only became an official American tradition in the late 1980s when George H.W. Bush* occupied the Oval Office. Lincoln’s gesture of historical kindness has since evolved into a bizarre ritual in which the country lightheartedly hails saving the life of one turkey in order to displace the unconscious collective guilt for killing millions more.

This year, the farce of this reverse animal sacrifice reached new heights of ridiculousness with White House videographer Arun Chaudhary’s YouTube video parody preview. In this short spoof (of what exactly, I’m not sure), this year’s chosen turkey (named Courage) “does the slow walk right through the gates outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, past ‘Pebble Beach’ where reporters do stand-up television shots, through the West Wing and Oval Office into the Rose Garden.” So rather than solemnly acknowledging all the millions of birds who are summarily slaughtered for this bloated holiday buffet, we treat their deaths like a big joke — ha ha, industrialized mass murder is just so inherently hilarious, right?!

In an attempt to further salve society’s buried remorse for all the many tons of bird blood spilled throughout November at friendly neighborhood abattoirs, Courage gets to live out the rest of his natural days at Disneyland. But animal advocacy organization Farm Sanctuary** says the “Frontierland” exhibit of this Southern California theme park is not the “The Happiest Place on Earth” for turkeys, and that courage and his alternate*** should be moved to one of their shelters for safekeeping. In a press release, the group charged that “The Walt Disney Company…has shown that it lacks the ability to provide (adequate) care” because they feed the birds “a high-calorie, high-fat diet formulated for rapid weight gain, a likely cause of (their) premature deaths.” The way we treat our “rescued” Thanksgiving turkeys is a representation of what this holiday means to us, and begs a necessary question: Is dying young from obesity-related causes at the world’s most corporatized amusement park really the kind of freedom our pilgrim forebears had in mind when they shared their first harvest meal with the local natives?

A Real “Indian” Pre-Thanksgiving

Just yesterday, the Obamas held their first official state dinner at the White House honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a vegetarian world leader. While (contrary to media reports) not all the food served was strictly vegetarian****, the menu showed some small awareness on the President’s part that meat doesn’t have to be the centerpiece of a fulfilling meal — or our diets. And yet, come tomorrow, he and the rest of the First Family will be digesting a customary turkey flesh feast, so I guess Obama really didn’t learn all that much from Mr. Singh’s ethical example.

Now, I’m just an average guy, nothing particularly special or extraordinary about me (for instance, I haven’t won a Nobel Peace Prize). Even so, I’ll be non-violently “pardoning” a turkey for real this Thanksgiving***** by not eating one — just the same way I’ve been pardoning turkeys every day of my life for the last 14½ years. Meanwhile, President Obama (like other U.S. Commander in Chiefs before him) is making a public show of offering amnesty to one turkey while simultaneously ordering another to be killed for his table — a behavioral contradiction that seems rather shallow and hypocritical. I mean, it’s not like either of these turkeys deserved to die, and yet one is given the full celebrity treatment while the other is condemned like a convicted criminal on Death Row, forever nameless, along with millions of his kind.

The penitentiary metaphor is perfectly apt here, for turkeys are indeed incarcerated for their entire lives on factory farms, helplessly awaiting execution in their dark, dirty prisons — despite the fact that they have committed no crimes (unless being born a member of their particular avian species can be considered a punishable offense). Ironically, humankind has complicitly committed unspeakably unnatural atrocities against turkeys for generations in government-certified factory farms and slaughterhouses. But we wouldn’t want to bring any of that up, because it might ruin someone’s appetite for slow-roasted wings, breasts and “drumsticks”!

Turkeys are affectionate, intelligent animals who deserve compassion, not torture. They are innocent victims who love life and deserve to live as much as anyone else. In that sense, a supposed “pardon” granted by our nation’s leader to a single turkey appears not as an act of mercy, but rather a disingenuous attempt to officially sanctify senseless slaughter in the name of commercialized gluttony.


* I originally wrote that John F. Kennedy was the first President to pardon a turkey for Thanksgiving, but later found out that Bush Sr. was the first to officially perform the pardoning ceremony, a custom which all subsequent Presidents have followed.
** In the interest of full disclosure, Farm Sanctuary was my employer from 2008-2009.
*** A Vice Turkey has also been appointed to take command should Courage for some reason be rendered unable to perform the duties associated with his post.
**** Along with a wide selection of both vegetarian and vegan options, the executive chefs prepared Green Curry Prawns for guests.
***** For the first time in many a year, I’ll be the sole vegetarian dining with an extended family of committed carnivores.

Go Figure! The Mathematics of Dietary Death

Computing the cost of plant vs. flesh food production in animals’ lives

Anyone who’s been vegan for any length of time has heard the dizzying array of specious arguments for why people are supposedly meant to eat meat, dairy and eggs. These reasons range from the nutritional (“we need animal protein to live”) to the Biblical (“God gave humanity dominion over all the Earth’s creatures”) to the ethical. Yep, that’s right: some omnivores have the cajones to claim that vegans are responsible for killing more animals than flesh eaters!

Oregon State University professor of animal science Steven Davis, for one, contends that people who eat beef from cattle fed on grazing pasture spare more animals’ lives than vegans because of all the death supposedly caused by harvesting crops. While Davis’ research has appeared in such prestigious periodicals as TIME magazine and the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, apparently no one bothered to peer-review or fact-check his methodology before publication. That is, a new analysis of the professor’s claim reveals that (surprise, surprise!) his numbers don’t quite add up.

Artist and graphic designer Mark Middleton recently calculated the true impact of food production on two categories of animals: domestic species specifically slaughtered for human consumption, and wild species killed as a consequence of agricultural harvesting. What’s more, he translated his findings into an easy-to-read graph* that enables comparison of how different diets (i.e., plant vs. flesh foods) impact animals’ lives — both by the numbers and as an interactive (filterable) visual representation of these otherwise abstract values:



Extrapolating from this diagram, we find that:

• Eating chicken flesh takes about 100 times the number of animals’ lives as eating the equivalent caloric content of vegetables.

• Subsisting on only grains for an entire year would likely cost fewer than two animals (e.g., field mice) their lives.

• Contrary to Davis’ central assertion, the number of wild animals who die as a result of beef production is much greater than occurs in the harvesting of all plant food varieties combined.

Middleton arrived at his revised conclusion by incorporating into his formula some criticisms of Davis’ work by researchers Gaverick Matheny and Andy Larney which, upon even cursory consideration, seem so basic that it’s amazing they even had to bring them up. I mean, it doesn’t take a mathematician to know that we can feed more people per acre by using land to raise crops rather than cattle, as Matheny opined, or to understand Larner’s contention that counting animals killed by predators (in addition to, say, chemical pesticides and mechanical threshers) skews the end results. So Middleton’s new presentation begs an obvious question: why did Davis’ claims go so completely unchallenged by the mainstream media and the scientific establishment when he made them?

Opinion makers’ unquestioning acceptance and promotion of Professor Davis’ flawed theory says more about meat eaters’ desperate psychological need to justify their violent destructiveness than anything else: apparently, people want to continue eating animal flesh so badly that they will even unconsciously create and cite conspicuously inaccurate data to make the case that omnivores are ethically superior to vegans. Once again, we vegans have the truth on our side, but there remain some lingering doubts about its persuasive value, because people basically believe what they want to believe. If history is any guide, many omnivores will continue to invent and propagate ways of salving their guilt by convincing themselves that meat is not murder but mercy — no matter how much incontrovertible evidence we vegans present to the contrary.

Related Reading:

- My 8-page VegNews magazine feature article “The Road to Vegetopia: (Re)Imagining the Future of Food” (illustrated by Mark Middleton)

- My blog post about Middleton’s “Virtual Battery Cage”

* For interested techies, Middleton built this interactive graphic in Adobe Flash using a data visualization library called Flare. Click the URL underneath the graph for a full explanation of the analysis and mathematical proofs.