The Associated Press (by way of Forbes) neglects to tell readers that the EU's newly-banned cat and dog fur is morally indistinguishable from fur torn from the backs of other animals in EU Douses Cat and Dog Fur Trade.
Also from AP, this time by way of The Boston Globe, an Alaska man pleads guilty to illegally selling seal parts. The man, who once agreed to help "conserve" the "depleted" northern fur seals, if you can believe that, faces up to one year in prison and a $20,000 fine for illegally selling "more than 100 seal penises to a Korean gift shop in Anchorage, where they were to be resold for about $100 apiece in the traditional Chinese medicine trade."
Bernard Matthews, the British poultry processor that last year claimed it was committed to the "highest standards" of animal welfare, is back in the news for animal cruelty at one of its plants (Daily Mail: Bernard Matthews worker caught playing football with turkeys), further demonstrating that animals' welfare will never be assured so long as they are commodified. The story includes the damning photos and video.
From MSNBC.com: Japan kicks off whaling season along coast (WARNING: Disturbing photo of a dead whale being flensed at the top of the page). Japanese whalers, who at this year's International Whaling Commission conference found themselves under pressure for their continued whaling under the guise of science, make clear the attitude toward whales, saying that they should be managed like any other natural resource, rejecting anti-whaling arguments that the animals should be protected. This anthropocentric view of animals as natural resources must be countered prominently with the fact that these are sentient individuals suffering at the hands of the whalers, not "resources." If we are to live by our own humanitarian ethics, all sentient beings ought to be protected from such so-called harvesting.
A more positive article I dug up, from DentalPlans.com of all places, is called Taking Animals Out Of Laboratory Research. It originally appeared in Science Daily, which itself adapted a press release from the University of Nottingham, but it still bears reporting. While the piece does suggest that the immediate abolition of animal testing is not possible overnight--a self-perpetuating perspective I find particularly frustrating--it does bring with that message the good news that FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) will be officially opening its new Alternatives Laboratory on July 6th:
Pioneering work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research — and ultimately remove them from laboratories altogether — has received a major boost at The University of Nottingham.While I'm encouraged to see efforts to end animal research, that day can't come soon enough for the nonhuman animals who shouldn't be kept in cages and experimented on for our own specious purposes in the first place.
A laboratory devoted to finding effective alternatives to animal testing has been expanded and completely remodelled in a £240,000 overhaul designed to hasten the development of effective non-animal techniques.
Scientists hope that by developing the use of cell and tissue cultures, computer modelling, cell and molecular biology, epidemiology and other methods, they will one day be able to completely remove animals from medical research — while still maintaining crucial work to defeat diseases that affect millions of people.
Labels: animal experimentation, animal testing, companion animals, fur, pets, poultry, turkeys, whales, whaling, wildlife, wildlife trade
