Cheap Thrills: The Pleasures of Wildlife Voyeurism

Can’t afford cable TV? No problem: just tune in to the real nature channel!

Attempting to console weary souls unmoored by the financial system’s grand collapse, the New York Times is publishing a series of personal essays called “Happy Days” about “the search for contentment in its many forms — economic, emotional, physical, spiritual — and the stories of those striving to come to terms with the lives they lead.” Today’s piece, by award-winning nature writer Richard Conniff, is entitled “The Consolation of Animals” and encourages readers to enjoy the lively inter-species entertainment being enacted right in their own backyards. (Spoiler alert: Readers may be disturbed by Conniff’s focus on his “exhilaration at the close connection to the hunt,” and his admission that he actually killed and ate one of the animals he eyed.)

As a field journalist, Conniff has traveled to the most distant lands (and waters) to write about exotic animals in their native habitats, but he notes that you can find adventure right in your very own neighborhood: in fact, it’s often waiting just outside your door. Even the most common species of urban wildlife — like rodents, birds and insects — are mesmerizing to observe, especially in interaction with each another. Not only is this simple pleasure completely free of charge, but (more importantly) it reconnects us with the solid ground of human existence, planting our metaphysical feet firmly back on Planet Earth.

Animals live very elementally, immersed in a world that is in many ways a more authentic and immediate reality than the media-saturated technocracy most of us modern humans inhabit. That helps explain why communing with other species is considered weird and even antisocial in polite society. “People who do dumb stuff like racing red-throated loons down a beach in the dead of winter are liable to get a reputation for being a little nuts,” Conniff writes, referring to the social stigma attached to his profession. “But I prefer to think of it as what makes me almost sane.”

Diagnosis: Mass Delusion

This remark also holds true for my own values, which is why I’m still perturbed (even after more than seven years as a vegan) that about 99 percent of the U.S. adult population continues to eat animal products — and that most people still think we vegans are the crazy ones! But I ask, in all seriousness, who’s really disconnected from reality here: us peaceful “gatherers” who follow a philosophy of ethical eating, or the “hunters” who stuff their mouths with the fried corpses and reproductive secretions of other species and then stick their fingers in their metaphorical ears whenever someone reminds them who they’re eating?

Personally, my greatest disappointment as a vegan and animal rights advocate has been the realization that most people are unwilling or unable to look at the world from the animals’ perspective. If they tried, and caught even the briefest glimpse of just how vast and horrendous the atrocities we commit against other species are, such an insight might be enough to spark the beginning of a transformation. Sadly, most people seem afflicted by a form of moral blindness that is perpetually reinforced by a lifetime of indoctrination — from the “four food groups” poster on the classroom wall, to the litany of fast food commercials continually inundating the airwaves.

It seems that, as children, we are instinctively enthralled with the similarities and differences between us and other species, but our attitudes about animals are shaped (and usually distorted) by what adults tell us. Remember, people are taught to fish and hunt — even if we use shopping carts rather than hooks or guns to entrap our helpless prey. We learn that in the “natural order” of the world (defined by us humans), our kind occupies the very top of the food chain, and that we must kill to survive. We are told that it is humanity’s God-given right – nay, sacred duty – to subdue all other creatures, to keep them in check and under our control lest they overturn our divinely-dispensed domination.

Incidentally, this anthropocentric arrogance has already caused the extinction of countless species — and will almost certainly bring about our own destruction someday if we don't stop it. Therefore, at this stage in evolutionary history, I believe that appreciating the complexity and intelligence of animals is not only intrinsic to the ongoing process of our becoming fully human, but the key to our very survival. Fortunately, each of us can (and must) do something concrete to bring about this paradigm shift — starting (as always) with ourselves.

Prescription: Animal Therapy

From time immemorial, ancient shamanic traditions from around the world have incorporated animal archetypes into their spiritual teachings and practices, which psychotherapy pioneer Carl Jung drew on for inspiration in formulating his own revolutionary theories of the mind. Later in the 20th century, an ecopsychology subspecialty known as wilderness therapy emerged that maintains watching wildlife is just what the doctor ordered. Today, an array of studies tout the effectiveness of a thriving psychotherapeutic treatment called animal assisted therapy (AAT), which links “therapy animals” (mostly dogs) with people suffering from mental/emotional maladies for the purpose of human healing.

The point of all these examples is that humans have always looked to animals as a way of figuring out who we are and how to live, and becoming more familiar with the ways of animals has proven an invaluable method of mending the rift we’ve created between ourselves and nature, the symptoms of which manifest in both the wounded environment and the alienated human psyche. But one need not hire a counselor or medicine man to benefit from “the consolation of animals” — just go anyplace there are critters living free (like your backyard, a neighborhood park, a wilderness preserve, or a marine ecosystem), and have at it. You may want to bring a camera to capture all the action!

And, if you can, visit a farm animal sanctuary, where you can meet animals who were raised as “livestock” for slaughter but rescued from abuse, suffering and a horrific death. Ultimately, animal advocates’ best hope for changing the world may be to provide people with unique opportunities to unlearn speciesist beliefs and embrace new values based on our original fascination with all of creation’s creatures. So be sure to bring along a friend (or your sweetheart, if you have one) to share this special experience!

Vegan Vulcan: "Live Long and Prosper – Go Veg!"

A tribute to TV's first vegan character, Star Trek's Mr. Spock

Listen to this as a podcast episode 

With the much-hyped Star Trek prequel set for an international summer blockbuster premiere in theaters this weekend, I figured this would be a good time to honor television's first vegan character — Mr. Spock from the original Star Trek series, which aired from 1966 to 1969. As an imaginary avatar from a more peaceful, enlightened world (that I'd still like to think is not unthinkable), Spock inspired legions of unrepentant nerds (myself not least among them) to re-envision humanity's present plight in light of a more promising future.

Illustration by Mark Middleton

For those unfamiliar with classic Star Trek lore, Mr. Spock (portrayed by vegetarian actor Leonard Nimoy) was the Science Officer aboard the United Federation of Planets' starship Enterprise in the 23rd century. He was born to a human mother and a father who was Vulcan (i.e., a race of pointy-eared humanoid extraterrestrials dedicated to living strictly by the laws of logic). The Vulcan way of life also incorporates an ideal towards non-violence: as succinctly expressed in the words of The Master himself, “It is illogical to kill without reason.” As such, a central tenet of Vulcan philosophy includes commitment to veganism (though hardcore Trekkers will surely protest that some Vulcans were pescetarians).

As a Vulcan serving aboard the Enterprise, Spock was second in command only to Captain James Tiberius Kirk, and superior in physical strength, as well as mental acuity, to his human shipmates. Spock also possessed uncanny psychic powers that allowed him to “mind meld” with others, giving him direct access to people's thoughts, memories and experiences. Notably, this unique ability parallels the characteristic empathy that many vegans display in their choice not to eat their fellow planetarians. To quote Spock yet again (from the novel Spock's World), "I would remind you, though, that the word for 'decide' is descended from older words meaning to kill; options and opportunities die when decisions are made. Be careful what you kill."

Several years ago in an article examining the potential sociological implications of lab-grown meat, I wrote that, “As a literary genre, science fiction often attempts to envision realities before (or as) they come into being. While most of these futuristic visions remain in the realm of pure fantasy, some prove eerily prescient.” Similarly, veganism has often been presented in the universe of Utopian science fiction as the preferred diet of the most advanced species and societies, whether human or alien (with Star Trek being perhaps the most well-known example of this). So, fellow vegan travelers, take heart in knowing that many of the world's most forward-looking sages have foreseen an animal-friendly future — and I'm not just talking about science fiction writers, but some of the most influential figures in all of human history.

For example, over twenty-five hundred years ago, Pythagoras (who was the first philosopher and vegetarian in the recorded history of Western Civilization) said, “For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” Centuries later, the quintessential Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci, was famous even in his own day for being far ahead of his time — and for refusing to eat meat on ethical grounds. With such an auspicious lineage, we vegans today are the inheritors of a long and proud tradition that stretches back many generations into the past — and, perhaps, into the distant future, with Mr. Spock guiding us toward a bold new frontier of compassion for all species.

Explore Farm Sanctuary's Virtual Experience

Tour shelters & investigate slaughterhouses from your computer

For over a year now, I've been working as a writer/editor for Farm Sanctuary, North America's first and still largest rescue and shelter organization for “food” animals. In fact, about two weeks ago, I relocated from San Francisco to New York so I could be present at the organization's headquarters in Watkins Glen and get personally acquainted with some of the hundreds of rescued farm animals who reside there. Though I don't actually have a place to live yet and I'm currently lodging with my folks on Long Island, I'm hoping that this enhanced proximity will add new layers of depth to my writing — and perhaps make me a better person, too.*

I chose to make my move in April not only for weather-related reasons, but also because springtime marks the beginning of Farm Sanctuary's annual tour season. Every year from May to October, thousands of people from around the globe visit the non-profit's shelters in upstate New York and northern California to meet & greet rescued farm animals face-to-face. It's not hype or hyperbole to say that these lucky cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and rabbits live in a pastoral paradise that may be about as close to Utopia as farm animals can get on this mortal coil.

Virtually Veg

Farm Sanctuary's 2009 tour season is even more special than it would be during an average year because we recently launched an innovative new project called the Virtual Experience that allows anyone to visit the organization's shelters (as well as different kinds of factory farms and slaughterhouses) online anytime. In this synthesized electronic environment, you'll find photos and videos of some of the animals who live at Farm Sanctuary, along with text (written by Yours Truly) that conveys heartwarming rescue stories, details about animals' individual personalities, and fascinating facts concerning each species' unique habits and abilities. You'll also see vividly-rendered versions of the barns, pastures and ponds that comprise Farm Sanctuary's gorgeous grounds.

Graphic artist Sephanie Gelish – who has studied everything from video game design and 3D modeling to digital photography – built the Virtual Experience in Adobe Flash, an exceptionally versatile software suite that enables programmers to integrate interactive animation with embedded audiovisual elements for enhanced realism. Others who contributed to the project include Farm Sanctuary Video Coordinator Erin Howard, who gathered all of the photos and video, and Communications Manager Natalie Bowman, who edited and guided the whole enterprise to fruition. With an enthusiastic avatar always ready at the click of a mouse to snap photos of animals on 14 distinct levels representing different sections of Farm Sanctuary's shelters, the Virtual Experience is a place where you can go to learn, explore...and just have fun! Be sure to encourage your friends to pay the animals a visit as well!

The Dark Side

The fortunate few rescued animals living at Farm Sanctuary account for only an infinitesimal fraction of the tens of billions who are callously killed for food each year around the globe. As such, these individuals act as ambassadors whose gentleness and affection awakens compassion, transforms consciousness, and inspires people to make more humane dietary choices. While you'll meet these beloved animals on the first leg of the Virtual Experience, those inhabiting the second are condemned to lifelong torture and pain that ends in violent death well before their natural time.

The factory farm section of the Virtual Experience exposes the disturbingly harsh reality that animals raised for beef, pork, poultry, dairy, veal, and foie gras are subjected to for their entire lives. Here you become an intrepid investigator witnessing the routine cruelty perpetrated behind a curtain of deception, and see actual photos and videos from more than two decades of Farm Sanctuary investigations documenting standardized animal abuse in the agribusiness industry. Incidentally, I wrote the text for this part of the Virtual Experience as well, so I hope you'll find it informative and engaging.

Between Heaven and Hell

It's normal to be revolted by the horrors taking place every day in stockyards, factory farms and slaughterhouses: if seeing these atrocities makes you feel frightened, anxious or outraged, then rest assured that you have a healthy conscience which identifies with others who are suffering, and recognizes how wrong it is to inflict pain and death on innocents. It is this empathic impetus that drives all of us at Farm Sanctuary to imagine a future (perhaps many generations hence) when humanity stops murdering members of other species to please our palates. A visit to one of Farm Sanctuary's facilities, or a spin around the shelter segment of the Virtual Experience, can provide an enlightening glimpse of what such a world might be like.

Yet, if animal advocates are to have any hope of realizing the vision of peace and harmony that burns within our hearts, we must look both to the candle flame that Farm Sanctuary and others have tended as a beacon of illumination and also at the repugnant abominations that most people instinctively turn away from in disgust. Directly facing our fears empowers us to overcome them, and in the case of farm animals, billions upon billions of lives literally depend on our courage to take action. The Virtual Experience adds another side to Farm Sanctuary's already multifaceted efforts to end the exploitation of intelligent, emotionally-complex living beings, and will greatly increase the number of people who are able to “visit” and befriend the amazing animals who call their shelters home.


* Farm Sanctuary laid me off from this job in October 2009, and I moved back to San Francisco in January 2010: whether this cross-cross-country move has made me a better person or not is still a matter of some debate within my own mind.

White Housebroken

First Family finally adopts a First Dog

More than five months after being elected President of the United States, Barack Obama has finally delivered on one of his most highly-publicized campaign promises: to get a dog for daughters Sasha and Malia.

Bo is an adorable six-month-old Portuguese water dog with both a purebred bloodline and a dynastic pedigree: that is, his original guardian was Senator Ted Kennedy, whose professional animal trainers had provided etiquette lessons “at a secret, undisclosed location outside Washington.” All this canine charm schooling paid off when Bo met the Obama girls at the executive mansion, where he reportedly followed them around, didn’t chew on any furniture, and avoided any potty faux pas.

The announcement has already rankled animal rescue advocates who wanted the Obamas to choose a mixed-breed dog from a shelter, maintaining that this would have set a positive example for the nation and the world that would ultimately save millions of homeless animals’ lives. President Obama had expressed interest in adopting a mutt last year, and an Associated Press poll conducted in January showed that more than two-thirds of Americans wanted the First Dog to be a mutt. However, in the end the Obamas decided to go with a porty because 10-year-old Malia is allergic to dogs, and this particular breed has been genetically selected to be hypoallergenic.

Purebred puppy proponents, on the other hand, maintain that the choice of a porty reflects the Obama family’s needs, and that they should be commended for doing the research necessary to ensuring their daughter’s health. “It's long past time to stop apologizing for owning purebred dogs,” wrote a dog trainer called Gaelen on her blog, Life Out Loud! “Dog ownership advocates, let's help the Obamas by supporting their choice. Let's put animal rights activists – who do little for the welfare of domesticated animals, and are primarily focused on their own anti-pet-owning agendas* – on notice: owning purebred dogs is a choice of which the Obamas, and everyone else who owns a purbred (sic) dog, can be proud.”

Symbolism and squabbling aside, here’s hoping the First Family is happy with their newest four-legged member. Neither Barack nor Michelle Obama have ever had dogs, and this will be Sasha and Malia’s first companion animal, so the experience may well open them all to a new way of relating to non-human species. Now that the doggy decision has been made, perhaps the nation will move on to weightier matters…although Bo is so cute, he may wind up stealing some of the President’s spotlight for many years to come!

* Click on the "Comments" below to read my response to this false accusation.

Congress Ponders Livestock Antibiotic Ban

Bill to preserve human health would also elevate animal welfare

Thanks to antibiotics, you are 20 times less likely to die from a simple infection in 2009 than you would have been if you had lived before the discovery of antibiotics less than a century ago. Penicillin was the first antibiotic to be discovered, and was not even known to be medically useful until World War II. Since then, this revolutionary "miracle drug" has saved millions upon millions of lives. But now, reckless agribusiness policies could render penicillin and other antibiotics all but useless if we don't stop them.

Today, doctors can prescribe hundreds of different types of antibiotics to treat everything from skin infections and food poisoning to tonsillitis and STDs. But you know what happens when we use antibiotics when we don't really need them? Bacterial organisms evolve and become resistant to antibiotics, effectively neutralizing medicine's power to fight disease. And today, because of the irresponsible overuse and misuse of antibiotics, we face a crisis of epidemic proportions with the development of mutant superbugs — extremely hazardous bacterial strains that, through natural selection, have survived and grown so powerful that they cannot be stopped using conventional antibiotics.

Phactory Pharming

Shockingly, most antibiotics in the U.S. are not given to sick people, but to animals on factory farms. It is estimated that 70% of all antimicrobials administered in this country (about 25 million pounds a year) are fed to livestock who are then eaten by people, making the population at large more vulnerable to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and less responsive to treatment. And it's not just meat eaters whose health and safety are compromised by the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in agriculture — vegans are vulnerable too, because pathogens and pharmaceutically-active compounds can be transmitted to us through animal feces that winds up in our food and water.

Why are farmers feeding antibiotics to herds and flocks of ostensibly healthy animals raised for meat, milk and eggs anyway? Well, because farm animals who start out healthy when they are born tend to get sick after spending some time densely packed together in dark, sunless cages or sheds wallowing in their own feces. Many farm animals are not born healthy because their genetic codes have been modified to give them physical characteristics that are market-friendly but inherently debilitating. These include chickens whose bodies grow so fast that their legs break underneath the weight; "designer" cows with massive swelling udders who produce ten times as much milk as their unmodified sisters; and humongous "double-muscled" cattle who look like they've been taking steroids. Factory farmers also administer antibiotics as a preventive measure against disease caused by farm animals' unnatural diet of pesticide-ridden corn and soy. 

So farmers force animals to live in sickening conditions to increase profitability, and put antibiotics in their feed for two reasons: to accelerate their growth, and prevent them from simply dying of the infectious bacterial diseases that profligate in these darkened dens of feculence. And then, of course, when animals really do get sick, antibiotics no longer work properly because they've been taking them for so long that their bodies have developed an immunity.

Over time, factory farms become virtually perfect laboratories for the creation of new antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains: ideal breeding grounds where microbes can adapt and become totally new and more potent forms. One of the most deadly permutations brewed so far on the factory farm is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a disease transmitted from pigs to humans which now claims more lives in the U.S. — approximately 18,000 victims a year — than the AIDS virus. Symptoms of MRSA include massive pimples (that most commonly sprout on the face, under the arms, behind the knees, and on the butt), as well as fatal heart failure.

Ban the Insanity

To address the myriad problems described above, U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter introduced a bill last week called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009 (PAMTA for short). If passed, it would prohibit the sub-therapeutic use of seven classes of antibiotics on farm animals by amending the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In addition to making antibiotics more effective in the treatment of human disease, decreasing the frequency and duration of hospital visits, and perhaps preventing a future superbug from causing the next Black Plague, PAMTA would save the U.S. an estimated $4 to $5 billion a year on healthcare costs.

Plus, it would force factory farms to treat their animals somewhat better, because without the convenient crutch of antibiotics to lean on, producers will have to improve living conditions for livestock just to get them to market. Like other industries, the meat-dairy-egg consortium has calculated "acceptable losses" into their financial equations. That is, it's much cheaper to crowd animals together and have a certain percentage of them die from stress, injuries and diseases than it is to make their environment more humane. Currently, 8.6% of farm animals die before slaughter: downed cows, pigs killed by swine flu, chickens dead from heart failure because their bodies grew too fast, so on and so on. That's 875 million animals a year.
 
If it were economical for factory farmers to lower that number, they would. And if they could make even more money by crowding even more animals together in smaller spaces and feeding them even more antibiotics, they would do that too. However, agriculture accountants know that there is a point of diminishing financial returns because, when too many animals die, it eats into profits. 

Studies have proven that simply providing animals with a more sanitary environment does at least as much to prevent bacterial infection as the routine administration of non-therapeutic antibiotics. But if sub-therapeutic antibiotics were banned in agriculture and factory farms didn't improve animal welfare, many more of their "livestock" would die before slaughter. The industry will therefore have to provide animals, for all practical purposes, with healthier food and better living conditions based purely on fiscal considerations.





Use this Pew Charitable Trusts alert to urge your congressional representative to co-sponsor and support PAMTA. To have the most impact, customize the sample letter using your own words, and follow up with a quick phone call or letter to your legislator.

Lab-Grown "Shmeat" on The Colbert Report

"Is inescapable future of humanity," says commie scientist

Like so many other Americans, I keep up with current events by watching satirical news shows such as The Colbert Report. On last night's program, in a new segment called "Stephen Colbert's World of Nahlej," the popular parodic pundit explored the topic of lab-grown meat with predictably comic effect:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
World of Nahlej - Shmeat
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

After marveling that South Korean researchers have actually invented glow-in-the-dark fluorescent cats, Colbert hailed "commie" scientist Dr. Vladimir Mironov as a pioneer in the emerging technology of creating edible meat from animal tissue cultures. According to Mironov, cultured meat "Is inescapable future of humanity," and when it will hit the marketplace is primarily a matter of "when if you have all necessary money." That's where PETA president (and "total drama queen") Ingrid Newkirk comes in: the animal rights group is famously offering a $1 million reward "to the first team of scientists that can develop a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro (lab-grown) chicken meat."

One new factoid I learned tonight: some people now refer to lab-grown meat as "shmeat" — which, as Dr. Mironov explained, stands for "combination of shit and meat." Ironically, in meatro is grown in sterile environments and therefore contains no feces, whereas the same certainly cannot be said for meat from animals raised on factory farms and butchered in slaughterhouses!

Learn more by reading my feature article iMeat: How Lab-Grown Meat Could Revolutionize Vegetarianism and the World from the May 2007 issue of VegNews magazine.

President Obama Announces Downed Cattle Ban

Decision is a milestone victory for animal welfare and food safety

Today, President Barack Obama announced in his weekly video address that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will finally ban the slaughter of all downed cows for food. This is a major win for animal protection and consumer health advocates that has been in the making since the early 1990s, when organizations like Farm Sanctuary and HSUS started pushing the government to pass legislation prohibiting producers from dragging sick, crippled cattle to the killing floor for processing. Significantly, Obama took action on this important issue only 54 days into his still-young presidency, sending the message that he takes food safety and animal welfare seriously.

Elected and appointed officials must (or should) know by now that downed animals are far more likely than their ambulatory counterparts to carry diseases such as mad cow and bacteria like E. coli that can be fatal to humans who eat their meat. During one of the eight congressional hearings held last year following the largest beef recall in U.S. history, many of them would have also seen HSUS’s undercover video exposé showing workers at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Company packing plant in Chino, California abusing downed cows by ramming them with forklifts and shocking them with electric prods. Nevertheless, the USDA has allowed producers to process cattle who become downed after reaching the slaughterhouse since 2007. The ban Obama announced today will close this legal loophole by permanently prohibiting the slaughter of all downed cattle for food, no matter when they become disabled.

Animals typically become downers because of the way they are raised on factory farms: genetically bred for fast growth, crowded together or confined in cages or crates, mutilated without anesthetic, and fed garbage, the only reason that any factory farmed animals can actually walk to their own deaths is that they are routinely pumped up with non-therapeutic antibiotics. Because downed animals are already suffering greatly when they get to the slaughterhouse, current laws must be reformed to require timely euthanization of cattle deemed unfit for human consumption in order for the ban to actually prevent animals from lingering in pain. I assume that such a provision will be put in place (but cannot presently find any corroborating details), and that some kind of enforcement mechanisms will be implemented.

Political Prognostications and Appointees

In September 2008, I wrote a blog post analyzing Obama’s record on animal issues, concluding that he would be far more likely to support and promote animal causes than his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, based on their respective legislative histories. In January, I wrote my monthly column for The Animal World magazine about Tom Vilsack, Obama’s appointee to Secretary of Agriculture, examining his public service career and speculating as to whether he would challenge Big Ag's mistreatment of animals. Well, it seems like the administration is on the right track so far: here’s hoping they keep up the momentum and accomplish even more for animals in the coming four years.

Secretary Vilsack called the downed cow ban "a step forward for both food safety and the standards for humane treatment of animals," which is a brave statement for someone in his position, given that most previous Secretaries of Agriculture have been unwilling to even acknowledge farm animal welfare as a legitimate concern for fear of blowback from powerful agribusiness interests. For his own part, President Obama also made some bold assertions in his video address. For example, after qualifying that "the United States is one of the safest places in the world to buy groceries at a supermarket," he called the nation’s food safety inspection system a "hazard to public health," noting that the annual number of contaminated food outbreaks in the U.S. today is more than triple what it was just 15 years ago.

Alerting viewers to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been so underfunded that it can only inspect about 5% of the nation’s food processing facilities every year, President Obama promised that his new pick for FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, will change all that — and start by hiring more inspectors. "Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity," Obama said, "but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure." There’s absolutely no question about it, Hamburg's résumé is impressive, so it’s not surprising that both public health advocates and food industry groups are praising the pick. According to Obama, the work of Hamburg and her Deputy Commissioner at the FDA, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, "will be part of a larger effort taken up by a new Food Safety Working Group" that will advise the president "on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century; foster coordination throughout government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them."

Pigs: The Other Downed Animals

The downed animal ban announced by President Obama applies only to cattle, leaving downed pigs, sheep, goats, and other farm animals to suffer the cruelty inherent in dragging, pushing or otherwise coercing large animals onto the kill floor. Pigs are also known to carry transmissible diseases from which humans have died and approximately 100,000 downed pigs go to market each year, yet for the foreseeable future, these animals will continue to suffer cruelty while the pork-eating public remains at risk. And don’t forget that salmonella poisoning kills about 1,500 humans every year, and that approximately 15% of chickens sold in the U.S. are contaminated with salmonella.

People who eat meat must understand that as long as agribusiness corporations insist on treating animals like interchangeable biomachines instead of individual living creatures, meat will be swarming with bacteria from feces and other unsanitary substances that are part and parcel of the assembly-line factory farming system. That is, improvements in animal welfare and food safety are intimately connected — and you can’t have one without the other. So please, urge your legislators and President Obama to expand the downed animal ban so that it protects all farm animal species.

Anarchy in the UC

Four California activists arrested under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

I am an antichrist
I am an anarchist
Don't know what I want
But I know how to get it
I wanna destroy passerby
'Cause I wanna be Anarchy

- The Sex Pistols, from "Anarchy in the UK"


The FBI recently made the first arrests for violations of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) by charging four animal rights activists with using threats and physical force to intimidate University of California (UC) biomedical researchers into abandoning their animal experimentation careers. Here are the basic allegations against the accused:

- Holding protests with other activists outside the homes of UC Berkeley and Santa Cruz vivisectors, where they marched and chanted slogans.

- Trying to force their way inside a researcher’s house and throwing an unidentified "object" at him while shouting verbal threats.

- Producing and distributing fliers with the names, addresses and phone numbers of UC animal experimenters. The FBI found the fliers right before the homes of two UC Santa Cruz researchers were firebombed.

Note that the four arrested activists have not been charged with the firebombing, nor for physically injuring anyone, but mainly for actions that could potentially provoke someone to commit acts of violence. While these actions fall within Americans' First Amendment rights, each defendant could spend up to five years behind bars if convicted. Now, if you think the prospective punishment for these crimes seems harsh, it is, relatively speaking: consider, for example, that under California state law, assault and battery is punishable by a stint in jail "not exceeding six months," and the average prison sentence served by a child molester in the U.S. is about three years.

Perhaps sentencing under the AETA is more severe because it is the only law of its kind, in that it applies exclusively to the animal exploitation industry. That is to say, if you used these activists’ exact tactics against, say, the executives of a logging company that was clear-cutting an ancient forest, you would not be penalized as strongly as you would be if your target was a fur farm. No other industry enjoys such legal protection and privilege.

What Happens at UC, Stays at UC

The ktvu.com news article from which I first learned of the activists’ arrest reads like a self-congratulatory FBI press release, and conspicuously fails to mention any of the animal experiments taking place at UC Berkeley/Santa Cruz that so enraged the accused. Referring, for example, to the activists as "extremists" three times in the text is just biased journalism. Sadly, such selectively partisan coverage is typical of the mainstream media, which just loves sensationalistic story arcs with clear-cut heroes, villains and victims (cops, criminals & upstanding citizens), but is consequently incapable of treating this subject in an objective, balanced manner.

Apparently, the mainstream media mentality holds that merely questioning the ethics and efficacy of biomedical research on animals amounts to rewarding those who took illegal action against it — then, supposedly, the "terrorists win" in some way. That kind of moral blindness misrepresents reality by omission of a crucial perspective. That is to say, even if the vast majority of the populace is disgusted by how the "extremists" expressed themselves, that does not make the cause they speak for any less just or crucial, and yet the media is shirking its responsibility to inform the public about the legally-sanctioned cruelty being perpetrated at public institutions of higher learning under the guise of scientific progress.

To fill in some of the missing facts, here’s a brief overview of UC Berkeley’s animal research program. About 40,000 animals are used in experiments at the school’s Northwest Animal Facility every year. These largely taxpayer-funded projects include, for example, such "medical advances" as implanting electrodes and other devices in the brains of captive and clinically-controlled primates, cats and songbirds. Meanwhile, Berkeley is in the process of building a new $266­-million Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences (complete with an expanded underground vivisection lab) that will more than double the current facility’s size. And remember, Berkeley is only one of ten UC campuses, and hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in research every year throughout the UC system.

Helpless Despair

As an animal advocate, I identify with the arrested activists’ frustrations and motivations, but disagree with their alleged approach because, on a psychological level, actual or perceived threats only galvanize sentiment for those targeted by intimidation while reinforcing existing negative prejudices against the animal advocacy movement. I subscribe to Carol Adams' view that intimidation tactics are driven by traumatic knowledge of the vast scale of animal suffering caused by humanity, and that projecting our subsequent rage onto others is counterproductive and generally unhealthy for everyone involved. I strongly believe that coercion rarely (if ever) brings about a positive outcome, but violence is so ingrained in our society that some people feel making threats is the only way they can effect change in the world.

Yet media bias paradoxically bolsters the "extremist" position by holding a tight spotlight on a small fraction of "outlaw" activists while blacking out the much larger community of law-abiding activists who perform the groundwork of public outreach and education. Mainstream news stories about animal rights "violence" against vivisectors are common, but reporters are nowhere to be found when people gather legally and peacefully at demos against UC’s use of animals. So apparently, animal advocates are only worth paying attention to when we break the law.

Still, it was heartening to see more commendable media coverage last year of other major animal stories, including the Proposition 2 victory in California, the Chino slaughterhouse scandal, and Michael Vick’s conviction for dog fighting. The common thread between these three stories is that they all centered on either enforcing the law or creating new ones. So, in pragmatic terms, working the law rather than breaking it seems to be having a better actual impact on how animals are viewed and treated by humans, especially over the long term.

Deepening Awareness

So we don’t need to threaten or intimidate others to have a real and sustained impact for animals. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is an excellent exemplar of holistic and peaceful social activism, and right now I’m reading one of his many books, which is entitled Healing Anger: The power of patience from a Buddhist perspective. His teachings about the need to cultivate a disciplined temperament and channel anger appropriately in the face of adversity are based on the Bodhisattva vow, which means dedicating one's life toward the welfare of others. As an example, here is one excerpt that explains our responsibilities to our "enemies" (say, those practicing vivisection):

"One of the reasons there is a need to adopt a strong countermeasure against someone who (causes harm) is that if you let it pass, there is a danger of that person becoming habituated to extremely negative actions, which in the long run will cause that person’s own downfall and is very destructive for the individual himself or herself. Therefore, a strong countermeasure, taken out of compassion or a sense of concern for the other, is necessary. When you are motivated by that realization, then there is a sense of concern as part of your motive for taking that strong measure."

As a Bodhisattva-wannabe, I want to save as many animals as I can and "enlighten" as many people as possible about the need to respect all forms of life. That entails emotionally engaging the anger, outrage and despair I feel over humanity’s crimes against animals, and hopefully taking "strong countermeasures" grounded in kindness that will ultimately (in Buddhist terms) benefit all beings. Basically, in order to stop demonizing people who know not what they do to animals and themselves, I must first reconcile with my own demons, for only universal compassion has the power to transform consciousness.





If you live in the Bay Area and want to join an established grass-roots effort against animal research, check out Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy (BOAA) online or attend one of their weekly Wednesday evening meetings.