California's Proposition 2 has stirred up plenty of controversy, both between the animal exploitation industries and the animal protection industry, and between animal advocates.
Proposition 2, a ballot initiative that will be voted on this November, is intended to eliminate certain confinement practices used by animal agribusiness, albeit with some exemptions. Basically it would require that, for the majority of each day, calves, egg-laying hens, and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that would allow them to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs, and turn around freely. In other words, it doesn't eliminate confinement systems; it merely modifies some of them to be slightly less restrictive (in the case of California, this mainly affects egg production). Exceptions are built in for seven-days prior to a pregnant pig's expected date of delivery, and for 4-H programs, rodeos, fairs, research, veterinary purposes, slaughter, and transportation. Violations of the regulations would be misdemeanors, restricting the potential fine to $1,000 and/or imprisonment up to 180 days.
Recognizing the disagreement between different types of animal advocates over Proposition 2, Doris Lin, the host of About.com's new animal rights topic, is hosting a debate on Proposition 2. Professor Gary L. Francione, author and abolitionist animal rights proponent, represents the con argument, while the the pro argument is offered by animal welfare proponent Paul Shapiro, the Senior Director of the Humane Society of the United States' Factory Farming Campaign. Shapiro calls the ballot measure Making History for Animals, while Francione calls it A Losing Proposition. Of course, it's a strange debate because there's no real back and forth between the two debaters, not to mention the fact that HSUS's mission is modifying animal use, not abolishing it.
While you're off reading online debates, you might be interested in some other topics hosted by Opposing Views. The site asks a lot of controversial questions, not just animal-related issues, and it seems to be fairly well designed and easy to navigate. In addition to calling on "experts" (mostly special interest groups) to debate the subject, Opposing Views invites your comments, involving you directly in the debate. The issue of "pet" ownership finds Francione and HSUS in opposition once again. You can also read their arguments and the arguments of other "experts" on a variety of related topics, including using animals in research, keeping animals in zoos, and "meat"-eating. There's no debate on Proposition 2 over there as of yet, but they do take suggestions for topics, and maybe Opposing Views would provide a better format for that debate than the statements offered at About.com, seeing as how it allows for counterpoint and objections.
Back to Proposition 2, of course the animal exploiting industries are totally opposed. They don't want animal advocates making any inroads on regulating how they use animals. They see the measure potentially leading to other regulatory reforms around the country, so they have more or less united in their opposition to it.
Seems intuitive how an animal-friendly person might vote, right? Well, consider that this measure does not come close to questioning animal use; it merely modifies how animals are used in such a way as to make it seem somewhat less objectionable. Also consider the following:
1. Veal crates and gestation crates (for pigs) have already been phased out or are being phased out by the industries in California as this debate goes on. At this time, there is no indication that doing so is harming the industries or reducing consumption of flesh products from calves and pigs.
2. Proposition 2's regulations apply only to producers in California. It is not a ban on products produced using these methods. Stores seeking less expensive eggs to sell their customers may buy them from out-of-state producers, and egg companies that don't want to follow the new regulations can move their operations out of state.
3. Proposition 2 does not end the confinement and torture of animals from their artificially-induced births to their untimely killings. If successful, sustained, followed, and enforced, Prop 2 will only allow certain animals a bit more space to move and adjust their position while they are being confined, and for only part of the day. Even then, all bets are off during transport and slaughter. It does not address the myriad other harms caused to animals throughout the production process.
4. Egg production systems in Europe have gone cage-free, and the barn systems they are using there have even received a seal of approval from the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, which leads consumers to believe that the animals' welfare is being given top priority. The video below shows that there are plenty of problems inherent in cage-free systems.
What do you make of all this debate over Prop 2? What do you make of the proposition itself? Share your comments below
Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below, and consider making a small donation to support this site and my work. Thanks!
Though this widely-reported news is nearly two weeks old now, I haven't yet written about the Spanish parliamentary resolution to grant great apes the right to life and freedom. This is due in part to my posting schedule, but mainly I wanted to see how this all shook out. Then last week I heard about a piece by William Saletan at Slate that I wanted to read, which I finally remembered to do this morning when it reappeared at Philly.com (via my news alerts) as an opinion piece.
Time to get to this one, I suppose.
The good news: It seems very likely that Spain will be the first national legislature to grant any animals the legal right to life and freedom.
The Great Ape Project, co-founded by philosopher Peter Singer, has been pursuing this goal for about 14 years now. Singer rejects the validity of moral rights (he's an act--and presumably occasionally a rule--utilitarian) but he believes that certain animals should have legal rights in order to protect them from harm. At the GAP website, a news release states that, "Under most government structures, legal rights are the only way to insure that non-human great apes are free from torture, unnecessary death and capture."
Of course, Spain is not about to turn loose the 315 great apes kept in its zoos, though evidently the law's specifications would require dramatically improving conditions at 70 percent of them. Keeping apes for use in entertainment will be forbidden, backed by Spain's penal code. As of now, there don't appear to be any great apes being used for vivisection in Spain, but there are no laws to prevent that from happening, so the government will update the legal code to outlaw "harmful" experiments on apes in Spain. I haven't been able to turn up the text of this resolution with a quick skim of Google results, but I think that last bit about "harmful" experiments is a some cause for concern. It seems to leave open the option to use great apes for non-invasive/non-"harmful" experiments (behavioral research?). So, with one caveat already noted, this is the good angle on the news.
The bad news: This leaves the vast majority of nonhuman animals completely in the lurch, still waiting at square one. Do we protect humans from torture, death, and restriction of liberty based on cognitive capacity? No, we legally protect all sentient humans with rights. Of course, this protection is generally exclusive to our own species, an arbitrary distinction when it comes to determining which beings merit legal protection for their moral rights. We don't legally give some humans preferential protection from torture, death, and the restriction of liberty on the basis of race or sex, but for some reason we think it makes sense to discriminate against nonhumans simply because they are not human, even though they have the same interests we do in not being tortured, confined, or killed. GAP and others discriminate based on cognitive characteristics.
So, supposedly species membership would no longer be the key criterion for inclusion in the moral community, but GAP's stance and Spain's resolution still advance a hierarchy based on criteria unique to certain species, and which go well beyond the criteria necessary for moral consideration, i.e., sentience. As Saletan notably remarks, "the arguments GAP has deployed in Spain don't advance the idea of equality among animals. They destroy it." GAP and others claim that this is the point of a spear that has broken the species barrier, making it easier for other species to eventually be included within the sphere of legal rights protection. But how can far can this go if we base such rights on how similar animals' cognitive capacities are to humans?
Modern conceptions of rights are generally egalitarian. We have extended fundamental legal rights to all humans, regardless of race, sex, or cognitive capacity. Notions of egalitarianism play directly into animal rights theory, which looks at the reasons for excluding nonhumans from legal rights protection and finds that there are some arbitrary distinctions that lead to grave inconsistencies.
When Tom Regan pioneered actual animal rights theory in The Case for Animal Rights, he focused on equality based on the inherent value of animals who are "subjects-of-a-life," or that they have value in themselves unrelated to how they might be valued by others. If all animals have inherent value (humans and nonhumans alike), then they all have it equally, according to Regan, and they have the moral right not to be treated merely as a means to the end of others.
However, he did stop short of a totally egalitarian approach, requiring animals to meet certain cognitive criteria in order to reasonably be considered a rightholder. His subject-of-a-life requirement is not all that dissimilar from Singer's notion that some animals value their lives more than others. Regan also believes that death is a greater harm for humans than for nonhumans. Both philosophers appear to accept that the more like humans nonhumans are, at least in terms of cognition, the more likely that the nonhumans in question are to qualify for protection for his or her interests. GAP perpetuates discrimination, according to Saletan:
GAP's mission statement says great apes are entitled to rights based on their "morally significant characteristics." It says they enjoy a rich emotional and cultural existence in which they experience emotions such as fear, anxiety and happiness. They share the intellectual capacity to create and use tools, learn and teach other languages. They remember their past and plan for their future. It is in recognition of these and other morally significant qualities that the Great Ape Project was founded.
Morally significant qualities. Morally significant characteristics. These are appeals to discrimination, not universal equality. Most animals don't have a rich cultural life. They can't make tools. They don't teach languages.
Animal activists often take approaches like GAP to be tactical means to the end of extending rights to all animals some day (as points of spears and such), but this kind of thinking misses the mark. We don't need to extend the hierarchy, we need to erase that hierarchy entirely. I'll let Saletan's conclusion, eloquent as it is, serve as my own:
George Orwell wrote the cruel finale to this tale 63 years ago in Animal Farm: "All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others." That wasn't how the egalitarian uprising in the book was supposed to turn out. It wasn't how the animal rights movement was supposed to turn out, either.
FYI, I will publish my next AR101 post this week. In it, I discuss the concept of animal rights in more detail.
I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.
Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below, and consider making a small donation to support this site and my work. Thanks!
The last of the United States horse slaughter facilities has finally been shut down, but our country is still exporting this nasty business south of the border:
Now, horse slaughter is no worse or no better than the slaughter of any other animal, but it's a practice that has been found contemptible by a wide variety people in the U.S., regardless of their stand on animal rights and veganism, and so we must act on this broad consensus and move forward to make it impossible to circumvent this very clear mandate against killing at least this one species of animal for food.
The simplest tool for making sure your legislators are supporting this bill can be found here. Use the links on that page to be sure your House and Senate members aren't already co-sponsors before filling out the form you'll find there and sending it off. If they have already co-sponsored the bill, visit this page instead to applaud them for their support of this act.
The other page is solely for people whose representatives have not yet co-sponsored H.R. 503/S. 311, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which would both end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption and prohibit their export for slaughter in other countries. Surely that's worth taking a couple of minutes to support.
California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, long a legislative friend to animals, has given up the fight on AB 1634 this morning, first trying a last-minute amendment to keep the bill alive, then--after a frosty reception from Senate Local Government Committee--choosing not to bring the California Healthy Pets Act to a vote. He asked opponents to work with him to find a solution to the pet overpopulation problem. The bill would have required California cats and dogs to be spayed or neutered by the time they reach 6 months of age. When I think how much time just went down the drain, and how much the bill was compromised in order to get it this far, I have to wonder whether we're barking up the wrong tree.
I want to see an end to the breeding of companion animals for commercial gain, and I want to see an end to the deaths of millions of dogs and cats in shelters across the U.S. every year. I had some small hope that this might be a way in to that, but it is apparent from this failure that society is not quite ready to consider restrictions on what people are allowed to do with the animals considered to be their property.
This tells me that our work ahead must be to transform society's attitude toward animals, not to change industries or laws, but to change minds. Only then will our industries and laws change to reflect our animal-friendly values.
UPDATE: Underscoring the need for rapid communication from campaigns comes this email (sent about half an hour ago) from Judie Mancuso, Sponsor/Campaign Director for AB 1634:
Dear Supporters:
Today’s Senate Local Government Committee Hearing was an important step forward for AB 1634, despite what you may have heard in some incorrect early press statements or from the opposition. Here is what you really need to know...
The bill is VERY much ALIVE and WELL!!!! The Senators on the committee acknowledged there is a pet overpopulation problem that must be addressed (this is huge), and indicated that they are willing to work with us to get the bill through their committee. The Senators were engaged, compassionate and we thank them for their open-minded approach to this important issue. Assembly Member Levine and our witnesses were incredible and reinforced how large the overpopulation problem really is. I cannot answer all your emails, I have over 1,000. So, please visit our site later tonight or tomorrow for the latest information.
Sincerely yours,
Judie
p.s. thank you all again for your incredible dedication to our pets and shelter workers.
Obviously Judie was very, very busy today, but this information would have been nice to receive before all the stories hit the media. Communication in the digital era is so vital. As Judie requested, please visit the CA Healthy Pets site later tonight or tomorrow to find out what's a cookin'.
California's controversial mandatory spay/neuter bill (AB 1634) continues to garner major media attention as it comes up for a vote in the Senate tomorrow: Los Angeles Times
The Senate Local Government Committee, which takes up the proposal Wednesday, has received nearly 20,000 letters, faxes and other communications from animal control experts and thousands of pet owners, with slightly more of them supporting the bill, said Elvia Diaz, a staffer for the panel who said she had never seen so much response to a piece of legislation.
Unfortunately, despite massive public support for the bill, the poll on this page is overwhelmingly tilted against it at the moment, so please click through and vote.
Whenever some time is being spent on animal-related legislation, there's always someone who says, "Don't legislators have more important things to do?" What's clear from this situation is that animal issues are more important to voters than some are willing to admit.
The CA Healthy Pets Act has been amended to address a variety of concerns opponents have raised--including an increase in the maximum age before spaying or neutering from 4 months to 6 months--so you'd think the opposition would turn around and support the bill now, but of course those individual stipulations were never their reason for opposing the bill, despite campaign literature to the contrary. But the only remotely viable concern remaining is over government "intrusion," which we permit in thousands of aspects of our lives and, in many cases, we ask for it. We want our government to carry out our will.
On that note, The California Healthy Pets Act will be heard in the Local Government Committee tomorrow, July 11th at 8:00am. If the act does not pass out of this committee, it is dead, so please take a moment to call all these committee members right now and urge their support of the bill:
Members: Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod (Chair) 916-651-4032 Senator Dave Cox (Vice Chair) 916-651-4001 Senator Tom Harman 916-651-4035 Senator Christine Kehoe 916-651-4039 Senator Michael Machado 916-651-4005
The Oregonianwrites today that the legal tussle between Primarily Primates Inc. and Chimps Inc. over the fate of two chimpanzees, Emma and Jackson, hinges less on property rights (the two orgs are non-profit sanctuaries), and more on the interests of the animals themselves, which could set a meaningful precedent for animal rights. According to Pamela Frasch, adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and vice president of legal affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, "This case is very interesting because it could develop that area of law where the courts are considering the best interests of the animals when considering where those animals may be placed."
This has been an ongoing saga, with Friends of Animals taking control of the rundown Primarily Primates to bring it up to some sort of humane standards, and PETA and other animal advocates bringing suit against the sanctuary in the first place. I don't have the time to get into all the politics and history on this issue (see the links in this paragraph to PETA's and FOA's sites), but it is noteworthy that a custody battle between animal advocates could bolster the growing case law that takes animals interests' into consideration, just as the courts do with children in custody suits.
The Louisiana Senate unanimously banned cockfighting, while Rep. Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas), who has a number of cockfighters and venues in his district, was the sole holdout in the House. Though the Senate preferred an immediate ban but, once both chambers assented to a year-long "phase-out" period, the ban sailed through the legislature, and is now on its way to Gov. Kathleen Blanco for signature, which she has previously said she would offer.
By way of background, the August 2008 deadline was incorporated to mollify cockfighters who allegedly want time to sell off their animals and equipment, though my understanding is that doing so would violate a federal law that took effect earlier this year. The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act provides felony penalties for interstate commerce, import and export related to animal fighting activities, including commerce in cockfighting weapons, so I think someone needs to explain to me how these Louisiana cockfighters are going to avoid prosecution under federal law. Each violation of the AFPEA can bring up to three years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000.
While I'm displeased that cockfighters get a whole year to continue abusing animals, the reality is that an approved "companion" ban barring gambling at cockfights could scuttle the practice even sooner, as it will take effect this summer.
Regardless of what happens over the course of the next year, cockfighting will finally be illegal in all 50 U.S. states in August 2008. Shameful that it should take so long, and further proof that animal advocates need to work harder to shatter society's basic, anthropocentric assumptions, which make animal exploitation possible in the first place.
A federal judge has largely thrown out a lawsuit against downtown Portland anti-fur protesters.
The civil rights suit by Schumacher Furs & Outerwear accused demonstrators and animal rights groups of using illegal protests to put the company out of business.
But U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman on Monday ruled that the protesters sued by Schumacher were engaging in constitutionally protected free speech.
AB 1634--the California Healthy Pets bill that would make it mandatory to spay or neuter your animal companion by the age of 4 months--has cleared a major hurdle in passing the Assembly Floor at 10:30pm Wednesday night!
According to Judie Mancuso, "An animal-friendly bill of this scope has never before passed the Assembly floor."
Assemblymember Levine and his staff were relentless in their work to get this bill through and we commend them. You can hear the floor debate, and the final vote, on www.cahealthypets.com.
She goes on to address the animal-lovers that have worked so hard to see this through:
And, thanks to all of you for your tireless efforts, calling, faxing, writing and lobbying the Assembly. This could never have happened without every one of you, and that's the truth. Some Assembly members who were leaning towards opposing the bill were forced to rethink their position when faced with the absolutely giant outpouring of public support for AB 1634.
Please take a deep breath, celebrate and enjoy the fruits of your labor. And in a few days, come back down to Earth, and get ready to do it all over again, because we’re moving to the Senate.
Congratulations!
Indeed. I'd like to join Judie in thanking everyone who turned up the volume to make sure the animals' voices were heard over the breeders and other exploiters who would rather see animals suffer for their own gain than to see a reduction in the unnecessary euthanization of unwanted animals.
Now if we could only stop breeding altogether... Then we wouldn't find ourselves in the predicament of messing with animals' reproductive systems in the first place.
Louisiana's Senate Judiciary C Committee unanimously cleared a ban that would commence on August 15, rather than 18 months from now, the target approved by a similar committee in Louisiana's House. SB39, sponsored by Sen. Art Lentini (R-Metairie), also calls for a repeal on a section of state law that allows cockfighting by declaring that chickens are not animals, which would be about time. As of now, chickens are not protected by state law that criminalizes cruelty to animals. Crazy, isn't it?
Lentini argued that postponing the ban until next year would merely intensify cockfighting for the duration. Cockfighters, Lentini said, would simply fight the birds repeatedly, to kill the animals off. This was confirmed by Chris Daughdrill, head of the Louisiana Gamefowl Breeders Association, who said he would fight all 800 of the birds he currently owns until they are killed. It would be a bloodbath.
There will likely be delays now as the House and Senate sort out the legislation so it will clear both chambers and be sent to Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who is expected to sign the bill.
I had a fairly busy animal-friendly weekend, including a fundraising brunch with Dennis Kucinich at Madeleine Bistro in Tarzana, CA, along with readying my home to receive some out-of-town guests coming to visit this week, so I had time to sift through stories, but not enough time to post. Lots of stories I wanted to highlight, and I have little time, so this will be yet another overview. Hopefully I can find the time to write about Dennis and the brunch this week.
In the meantime, check out his stance on the issues, and send him $50. If a million citizens who care about getting corporate money out of politics contribute at least that much, Dennis will be able to compete with those candidates beholden to their big-ticket sponsors.
I'll let Kinship Circle kick things off with an important alert:
5/2/07, from National Horse Protection Coalition -- Following the passage of Illinois HB 1711 by the Illinois House of Representatives on April 18, 2007, the bill now moves forward for consideration by the Illinois State Senate.
HB 1711 has been assigned to the Illinois Senate Committee on Public Health and a public hearing on the bill is scheduled for May 8, 2007. It is now more important than ever following a ruling by the DC Court of Appeals granting Cavel's emergency stay motion. The two judges in the majority issued no opinion on their ruling while the lone dissenting judge wrote a detailed opinion agreeing with the humane community and district court judge who earlier rejected their request. This ruling allows Cavel to begin killing horses immediately.
Please contact all members of the Illinois Senate asking them to vote "YES" on HB 1711. The order of priority for calls and faxes is as follows:
1) Public Health Committee Members. 2) Senators who are "new" and/or "did not vote" on the previous IL bill. 3) Senators who voted "yes" on the previous bill. Please ask them to continue their support. 4) Senators who voted "no" on the previous bill.
EVERYONE CAN COMMENT: CONTACT INFO for Senate Public Health Committee members. CONTACT INFO for members of ILLINOIS SENATE.
For further background, the Star-Telegram has this story from the Chicago Tribune. (Illinois horse-meat plant gets reprieve)
In related news, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey has proven quite adept at generating publicity for himself in the UK by stirring up controversy. This time he is encouraging Britons to take up the consumption of horse flesh, provoking mixed responses, though mostly revulsion. Fortunately, many people are seeing the hypocrisy of not eating one animal while finding others to be perfectly acceptable. The Daily Mail is a bit annoying in how it veers back and forth between strongly considering the merits of Ramsay's exhortation and genuine disgust for the notion (mainly because of the charismatic horse's exhalted status among humans), but there are plenty of choice quotes, like this one:
I ate horse last year, in Kazakhstan. And while it was perhaps not at its gourmet best (served in huge boiled chunks in a lukewarm greasy stew with a sheep's head perched on top) the thought of what I was eating - and I'm not talking about the sheep's head - was a thousand times worse than the nasty taste.
But why is that? After all, we happily eat cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks and even deer on a regular basis. Over recent years, we've embraced all manner of faddy meats - ostrich, emu, even kangaroo and crocodile. But a nice juicy horse steak? Never.
There's a Borat gag in there, but I'll leave it alone. The main thing to note is that the line between the species we eat and those we don't is incredibly arbitrary. The more we highlight that, the clearer it becomes that we shouldn't be eating any animals. You can send letters to the Daily Mail and the Sunday Telegraph. Don't forget to keep them short, to the point, and to include your location and contact information for publication.
On to other animals most people arbitrarily wouldn't consider eating...
This story from Pennsylvania's Tribune-Democrat drives home the need to ban the commercial sale of animals:
“I’ve had pet stores approach me and say, ‘How can I find quality puppies?’ I say, ‘You’re not going to.’ ”
This from a county Humane Society Officer, though she also suggests those interested in buying animals do so from a "reputable" breeder. This, as opposed to purchasing from pet stores that seem to be getting a lot of unhealthy animals from Amish puppy mills in the Lancaster and (now) Somerset County areas of Pennsylvania. It's sad that she'd suggest buying animals at all, rather than taking the opportunity to recommend adopting needy animal companions. But at least she paints a vivid picture that will hopefully keep people out of pet stores:
“The tragedy is with females who live their lives in cages, and their value is measured in how many puppies they can breed,” Gower said. “When they can’t breed anymore, they’re excess dogs.”
While I'd like to see commercialized breeding banned entirely, I'm not too thrilled with breed-specific bans, or any legislation singling out a single breed of dog, as frequently happens with pit bulls. Some Massachusetts legislators are planning a hearing next week to consider crackdowns on certain breeds of dogs, including the possible outlaw of breeds linked most frequently to attacks. I'll sum this nonsense up with a quote that mirrors my own thoughts on the issue:
"It's prejudiced to put a ban on a breed," said Milford Animal Control Officer Rochelle Thomson. "It's all about the individual animal - each one should be judged themselves."
All that said, if we didn't breed animals for our own ends in the first place, this wouldn't even be an issue.
On to some more positive legislation, Indian Gov. Mitch Daniels signed an animal cruelty bill on Friday that would make it a "Class D felony, punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine, to kill an animal with the intent of threatening, intimidating, coercing or terrorizing a household family member." "Deviate sexual conduct" with an animal is now also a Class D felony. I can only say "finally," to that. Isn't all sexual conduct with animals deviate? Despite Peter Singer's assurance that sexual relations with other species is not transgressive if no cruelty is involved, I don't see how you can make an honest case for mutual consent. Besides, if animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, or any other self-serving purpose, why on earth would it be okay to have sex with them?
Oh, the Google hits that will bring up this post now...
Next up is a rather lengthy op-ed condemning the trial in Vienna over granting a chimp named Hiasl certain rights previously granted only to humans. Now, this trial has been controversial for numerous reasons, including the complaint that all animals should be granted the right to life, liberty and happiness.
But this piece is rather specious in its straw man set-up, pitting this trial against the neglect of deprived humans around the world, as if one cannot simultaneously move forward in various areas of ethical consideration. One need not neglect animals to aid humans, and vice versa. The authors don't even seem to understand what rights are!
I wish I had more time to deconstruct this piece, because it is a grievous wrong to attack any justice movement solely to raise awareness of the plight of others. There are more constructive ways to make a case for compassion.
A big thumbs-up to Colorado State University's Tissue Engineering Laboratory for working to reduce the use of animals in research.
"As a researcher, I want to understand tissue cellular responses and develop a greater capacity to mitigate or prevent damage," said Dr. Tom Eurell, veterinarian and expert in toxicology and immunology and director of the laboratory. "As a veterinarian, I want to minimize or eliminate painful experiments in animals. Tissue engineering allows me to do both
It's nice to see movement forward in this area. The article tells readers that "recent developments in soft tissue research, including corneas, skin and muscle, can greatly reduce the number of animals used to test compounds and research tissue repair after trauma." While it would be preferable to end animal experimentation based on their right not to be used as a lab tool, I'm sleep just fine if it can be ended even sooner through replacement technologies. In effect, the race to find these replacements is a tacit acknowledgment that animals have a right to not be used this way; we're just not willing as a society to state it openly until it serves our interests to do so.
Source: High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal: CSU engineers tissues to reduce use of animals in research
It's a pretty short, straightforward article, with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals restating its "strong opposition to rodeos" ahead of last weekend's State of Origin international rodeo in Melbourne. The RSPCA's president, Dr. Hugh Wirth, said the government should go further than regulating rodeos, arguing that they should be banned altogether:
"What we're saying is that it is morally wrong to make horses buck and for humans to be riding cattle just for human entertainment, its shades of the Roman Colosseum."
Here's a bright, organic carrot of encouragement to Dr. Wirth!
On that note, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus officials have cried foul about pending legislation in Connecticut to ban the use of common elephant-herding tools, saying that it would end their appearances in the state. Cry me a river.
Oh, wait. This is about money. Silly me.
Circus officials said the economic impact if it cancels annual runs in Hartford and Bridgeport would be about $2.6 million, including $200,000 in state and local taxes and $400,000 in locally purchased supplies.
Gotta love it. The circus is going to boycott Connecticut if they ban bullhooks. Is it just me, or is that the essence of what this is all about? Not delighting audiences, and it's certainly not appreciating and respecting animals. No, as always, it's about greed, pure and simple.
If you're looking for a juicy quote from this piece, I'm happy to oblige you:
...for them to say they won't come to Connecticut is like saying 'we won't bring our corporation into the state unless we can beat up our employees.'
(part-time activist Karen Laski)
But let's not forget something very important. The real issue here is about the use of elephants in the first place, not just the tools used in their abuse. Priscilla Feral, president of the Connecticut-based Friends of Animals puts the issue into sharp relief:
"I really see it as nonsensical, because it purports to regulate the treatment of animals," Feral said. "Whether the bullhook is banned or not, you have to deprive the animal of its freedom. They're hoping to regulate the circus to make it palatable. We're saying animal acts have to go because depriving animals of their freedom is the mistreatment."
I hope this collection of top animal stories from around the world will tide you over until I am free to post again. As always, comments are welcome, but not required!
HSUS: The President Signs Landmark Animal Fighting Legislation
This is the kind of news I like to see from The Humane Society of the United States! On top of the other good news I've been reporting today, the president signed the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act into law, putting it into effect immediately.
Louisiana may phase out cockfighting, but the federal law penalizes interstate commerce, import and export related to animal fighting, and commerce in cockfighting weapons, so those last remaining legal cockfighters will be restricted to transactions within their own state throughout the transition period, if that is how the law ultimately passes in Louisiana. Dog fighting will be equally restricted, preventing kennels from transporting dogs across state lines to fight. Each violation of the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act could bring up to three years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine.
Thank you to HSUS and all the other organizations and individuals like you who made sure Congress and the president knew where Americans stand on this issue. If we can see these types of victories against cockfighting, then surely rodeos, circuses, and other acts of animal exploitation are within our reach. Keep at it!
It's a parade of good news today! Of course, with HB 108, the Louisiana House Agriculture Committee moved forward an 18-month phase-out of cockfighting, rather than the immediate ban called for by the Humane Society of the United States and the Louisiana ASPCA, but cockfighters were so thrilled with the grace period they received in compromise that they actually supported the bill to ban their "sport." HSUS and the Louisiana ASPCA had also lobbied to reverse a state law that says chickens are exempt from the state animal cruelty law and to increase the penalty.
As of now, the bill would impose a maximum $1,000 fine and six-month jail term on anyone who organizes or conducts “any commercial or private cockfight wherein there is a display of combat or fighting among one or more domestic or feral chickens and in which it is intended or reasonably foreseeable that the chickens would be injured, maimed, mutilated, or killed.” I wonder how big a loophole that second requirement will prove to be.
The bill could still be amended by the full House or Senate.
I don't intend to blog every time a city bans animal circuses, but I did happen to catch this one, and it is encouraging to see these bans happening, so I thought it would be nice to put up some good news today:
City council voted 6-1 this week to go ahead with a bylaw banning such shows from city limits in answer to a campaign spearheaded by local B.C. SPCA representative Kathi Travers.
Travers, who also writes a weekly animals column for The Citizen, contends the animals are forced to do things they wouldn't normally do in the wild.
"Taking an animal and asking a tiger to jump through a fiery hoop, what's natural about that? It's almost like the olden days when Ringling used to have the sideshows where they had people disabilities and we'd go and say that's entertainment.," she said in an interview Tuesday.
"How can we say an animal being degraded is entertaining?"
Travers, who used to inspect zoos and circuses before she moved to Prince George from the U.S., also said circuses treat their animals poorly.
Travers said the move means Prince George has joined the ranks of 20 other B.C. communities who've banned the shows.
On Wednesday, the United States Senate's Commerce Committee approved a bill that would outlaw horse slaughter nationally. The following day, much earlier today, the House of Representatives voted for the third time to prevent the federal government from selling to slaughterhouses wild horses and burros that roam public lands in the West:
The 277-137 vote would restore a 1971 law preventing the Bureau of Land Management from selling the animals for commercial processing.
Protection for the animals was removed in 2004 when Republican former Sen. Conrad Burns slipped a measure in a spending bill to allow their sale.
"These animals were earmarked for death," said Rep. Nick Rahall, Democratic chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and the bill's sponsor.
Supporters said the wild animals that roam vast expanses of the western United States are American icons that are ending up on the dinner plates of diners in France and Japan. The House voted last year and in 2005 to end the sales, but the Senate never took up the issue.
The article also highlights some facts and figures on "management" numbers and the BLM's cost of caring for the thousands of wild horses and burros removed from public lands each year. I have to ask, what gives us the right to take over every nook and cranny of this planet with over six billion people and squeeze the population of every wild animal species down to the low thousands?
The California Healthy Pet Act cleared the state assembly committee yesterday by a vote of 7 to 2, a healthy margin. If AB1634 goes the distance, Californians would be required to sterilize their animal companions by the time they're 4 months old.
Many people with a vested interest in exploiting animals are, of course, strongly opposing the legislation. Most of the opposition websites I found with a Google search on the bill are dedicated to breeding and showing dogs, and are playing on fear tactics to leverage the public's distaste for government regulation. These same breeders and clubs are also trying to tie the bill to HSUS and PETA, arguing that those organizations are pushing AB1634 as a step toward ending animal ownership altogether. What they fail to mention is that this bill was developed and is sponsored by the California Animal Control Directors Association, CVMA (the California Veterinary Medical Association), L.A. Animal Services and the State Humane Association of California. So, despite the letters of support received from animal protection organizations, this fear tactic is really about obfuscating the truth: They don't want the government cutting into profits.
Regardless of widespread efforts to shoot down the legislation, the bill appears to have slightly more public support. If lawmakers receiving this bill out of committee do the right thing and pass it, the annual holocaust in California's "shelters" could be drastically curtailed. Where the governator stands on this issue, I can't tell.
While I don't much like the idea of fiddling around with the reproductive systems of others, and I'd prefer it if people were responsible enough to care for animals without legislation, I'm firmly in favor of reducing the number of discarded animals winding up killed by local governments.
The bill addresses pet over-population. More than one million dogs and cats end up in shelters every year - roughly half are euthanized. That isn't cheap. In fact, it costs an estimated $250 million dollars. The bill requires pet owners to fix their pets by four months or pay a $500 dollar fine. It's a bill many say will help reduce a growing problem.
Funds from fines would be used to fund no- or low-cost spay/neuter programs.
The United States Senate passed the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act with a voice vote last night, sending the bill to the president for ratification. Upon signature, the bill would amend the Animal Welfare Act and title 18 of the United States Code, strengthening prohibitions against animal fighting. It would, for instance, become a federal felony to move "fighting animals" or cockfighting "implements" across state lines or foreign borders, though prison time is capped at three years.
An article in the Los Angeles Times considering the aftermath of the massive pet food recall asks: A dog's life: What's it worth?. Of course, the story focuses on cats, too, but the point is, with the threat of lawsuits somewhat negated by the property status of animals, this incident provides the most thought-provoking examination of our relationship with domesticated animals since Hurricane Katrina.
Animals are more a part of our lives than ever, and many people are making closer connections with their companions than some skeptics imagine to be possible. One elderly couple in Hyderabad, India even went so far as to commit suicide after losing their "only child," their dog companion whose death they apparently could not overcome. While this may be a particularly alarming example of devotion to one's non-human companions, it's not uncommon for U.S. citizens to consider dogs and cats (rabbits, ferrets and others, too) part of their family.
Unfortunately, when an animal is killed, the law treats animals as personal property, hardly different from the laptop computer upon which I am currently typing. It seems almost insane that this is still the case, when it is readily apparent that animals are autonomous sentient beings rather than merely objects, yet it takes major incidents like the food recall to force this conversation to the table and to get The Los Angeles Times to publish articles that deliberate the issue seriously, noting that pet "owners" seem more and more to expect damages for emotional distress in lawsuits against those who harm their companions. [Jon] Katz calls this "a seismic shift in humans' relationship to pets that has occurred in recent decades."
Unfortunately, the story's writers quote this author and others critical of this shift liberally in the closing paragraphs, ending the article on a rather negative note:
As far as Katz is concerned, those human-pet bonds can be too intense. He's troubled by people who consider their pets "fur children" or insist that losing a pet is similar to losing a child.
"As the father of a child and a dog lover, I know it's not the same thing," he said.
Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn., a Greenwich, Conn.-based trade group, calls the pets-as-people trend "nonsense." Vetere, a dog owner himself, said, "That guardianship stuff drives me crazy because there's so much confusion that will result."
For Barry Baum, a West Los Angeles veterinarian, the worry is that the legal changes regarding animals' status could translate into higher malpractice insurance premiums. "More insidious," he added, "will be the need to practice more defensively." That may mean doing more tests on a pet and hiking the owner's bill.
Giving animals a human-like legal identity might lead to higher liability awards if, for instance, a dog chokes on a chew toy, an airline misroutes a cat or an animal dies in a car accident, said law instructor Calnan. He also worries that "parties who want to represent the rights of pets could step in and object to euthanasia."
Said Katz, "I don't think people have thought through the consequences here."
I can think of a number of people who might disagree and, in fact, the writers point to a 2004 survey in which half of North American pet "owners" responded that, if they were stranded on a desert island, they would pick a dog or cat as their sole companion rather than a person. I imagine most if not all of those people are single, or simply aren't as happily married as I am, but I can certainly see where they are coming from!
Whenever I do these round-ups, I almost feel like I should just be podcasting again. Then I remember how long it takes to record, output, compress and upload the podcast, all in addition to writing up show notes. I could probably write full blog entries for each of these before I would have time to do all that.
So, in the interests of getting these links out while they're still relatively fresh, here goes another batch of news updates. I really do want to comment on them, as there is much to say. To that end, I have included very brief notes after each link, along with a sample quote from each article, but I don't have the time (a real problem lately) to dissect any of these thoroughly. I hope that my faithful readers will easily see the many issues with some of these pieces, including the first headline:
Retailers clearly see advantages in appealing to the demographic of kinder and gentler meat-eaters, according to Ron Paul, president of Technomic, a Chicago-based research and consulting firm for food suppliers. “There is a growing realization that the humane movement is a long-term movement,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.”
NOTE - Fair warning: The above quote is one of the least aggravating to be found in the article.Letters to the editor
Dairy, meat and poultry producers are urged to form a food industry "force" before activists distort even more benefits of modern production practices.
NOTE - I'm always interested to read industry newsletters and websites. It's clear from this and other recent industry reading that large-scale animal exploiters are reeling from the heightened scrutiny over their practices these past few years--including the announcements of this past week or so--putting them on the defense. It appears there is a concerted effort by some in the world of animal exploitation to stir up well-financed and unified campaigns to subvert activist campaigns with more misleading feel-good imagery. "Happy cows," anyone?
A few outlying countries continue commercial or dubiously scientific whale hunts, notably Japan, which clings to its whaling ways long past the expiration of any defensible reasons for doing so.
NOTE - The above quote is the most "vocal" criticism voiced in this New York Times editorial, which is the official (and in this case, seemingly rather guarded) opinion of the paper. I had noted not long ago that it seemed NYT was providing fairly animal-friendly coverage these days, but that it was trying to "balance" that out more lately, which the previously-linked "bacon" article would seem to corroborate.Letters to the editor
'It's untenable to talk of dividing humans and humanoid apes because there are no clear-cut criteria - neither biological, nor mental, nor social.'
NOTE - It seems just a little strange to me to give a chimp human rights, when what we ought to be doing is securing fundamental animal rights for all species, but I will be very curious indeed to see the outcome of this case. I will certainly be pleased to see rights recognized for at least one species, even as I rue the speciesist mentality that bars other animals from basic rights consideration.
Animal tests at least give a broad sense of the effects of a drug. In one famous early example, a pancreatic extract successfully tested in diabetic dogs in 1921 helped to illuminate how insulin would help people with the disease. And many experimental medications are eliminated after very serious side effects show up.
Many times, however, subtle results in animals are unclear and scientists just don't know what to make of them. In the case of the new Novartis drug Galvus, James Shannon, the company's global head of pharmaceutical development, told investors that Novartis researchers "do not understand -- do not know -- the mechanism of the skin findings" in monkeys. They do know that "humans appear to react to Galvus in a very different way."
NOTE - Yup, you read that right. This was published in The Wall Street Journal. Of course, the focus here isn't at all the rights of animals not to be treated as non-consenting experimental subjects. But, while the article falls far, far short of condemning all animal testing--in fact it ultimately concludes that we need to develop better translations (models?) to make animal research more effective--it does add a rather conservative voice to the scientifically-grounded criticisms of animal experimentation.
[Hooved Animal Humane Society] Executive Director Barbara Geittmann, who said she was disappointed Cavel sent the 200 horses back to suppliers, cheered that so many in the horse community had volunteered to help.
"I'm glad I don't have a face for those [horses] because that would make it harder for me, it would make them individuals," Geittmann said. "But it doesn't stop us. It makes us want to try harder."
NOTE - Focuses on the fall-out from the federal decision to uphold a total ban on horse slaughter in the U.S., including a note that some horses would likely be shipped to Canada for slaughter (until a federal ban on transporting horses for slaughter is passed). I can't help but remark that this would be a non-issue if horses weren't bred or "broken" for human purposes in the first place.
If the lack of recent posts hasn't tipped you off, I've been pretty busy this week. So, for those of you emailing me about certain current events (Wolfgang Puck, Burger King, et al), I apologize that I haven't had time to come up with anything original to add beyond what I've seen at SuperVegan.com (here and here), Taste Better (Vegan Pr0n), AnimalPerson, and here. All those entries should give you plenty to think about, and they are all blogs you should be subscribed to in addition to AAFL.
In the meantime, before I get some much-needed sleep, I'm basically going to post in full a press release that went out today. No time for insightful analysis dissecting the moral schizophrenia in America that allows us to ban horse slaughter and to keep right on slaughtering cows, pigs and chickens, but I figure you'd want the information:
Washington, D.C. (March 28, 2007) - In a 51-page opinion issued just hours ago, United States District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly held that the slaughter of horses in America violates federal law. In her opinion, issued in response to a lawsuit filed in February 2006 by the Society for Animal Protective Legislation (SAPL) and other humane organizations and individuals, Judge Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to conduct an environmental impact review of its decision to allow the continuation of horse slaughter.
“Tonight, after years of legislation and litigation, America’s three horse slaughterhouses can no longer kill horses for human consumption,” states Chris Heyde, deputy legislative director for the Society for Animal Protective Legislation. “We call on Illinois-based Cavel International to work with the humane and rescue communities to find permanent safe homes for the hundreds of horses who were slated for slaughter, to give them a second chance at life.”
The rule that was vacated by the court, was promulgated by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to create a fee-for-service inspection process for horses slaughtered for human consumption. The rule circumvented a Congressionally approved amendment to the FY 2006 Agricultural Appropriations Act that cut federal funding for the required inspections. Because of continuing resolutions approved by Congress to fund the government, today's ruling is effective immediately.
There are three horse slaughterhouses in America, one in Illinois and two in Texas. Though the Texas plants were recently forced to stop slaughtering horses for human consumption when an appellate court upheld a Texas law making it illegal to sell, possess and transport horsemeat for sale for human consumption, the Illinois plant has been killing approximately 1,000 horses per week.
“The American public has overwhelmingly opposed the slaughter of America’s horses for human consumption and now the courts have declared horse slaughter to be illegal,” adds Heyde. “While horses will no longer be butchered in the U.S. they can be hauled under appalling conditions to a similarly brutal death in plants across the U.S. border. Congress must pass federal legislation to extend the protections to all horses and to send a clear message to those few who profit from this barbaric trade."
Currently pending in Congress are H.R. 503 and its Senate companion measure, S. 311, which would ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption and prohibit the transport of horses outside of the United States for slaughter.
The Society for Animal Protective Legislation, the Animal Welfare Institute's legislative arm, is the unsurpassed leader in obtaining laws to benefit animals in need, including the protection of domestic and wild horses. More information is available at www.saplonline.org/horses.htm.
H.R. 137, the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act, has been approved by a rather large margin of 329 votes in the United States House of Representatives. It now proceeds to the Senate for a vote, where similar legislation has been passed three times.
Should this act pass there and be signed by the president, it will amend the Animal Welfare Act and title 18 of the United States Code, strengthening prohibitions against animal fighting. It will, for instance, become a federal felony to move "fighting animals" or cockfighting "implements" across state lines or foreign borders, though prison time is capped at three years.
New Mexico governor Bill Richardson signed into law today a ban on cockfighting in his state, which is good news in and of itself. But then Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco indicated via her press office that she now supports a similar ban in Louisiana, which would finally end legal cockfights in the United States. Hopefully this will encourage legislators in her state to give a similar bill another chance, after years of being thwarted by opponents.
Of course, inveterate cockfighters will likely go underground, making the issue one of enforcement, much like dogfighting. But at least we are on a path to see the bloodsport totally outlawed, which contributes ever so slightly toward shifting our society's stated values as to the acceptable use of animals. In the article on New Mexico's bill, opponents feared the slippery slope, and I sure hope their fears are founded. In response to State Sen. Phil Griego, a Democrat who opposed the ban, yes, let's move next to ban rodeos, then hunting and fishing. Same difference, ultimately.
You can see why the Humane Society of the United States is salivating over this development. It fits in with their strategy of incrementally chipping away at society's cruelty to animals, and allows them to claim precedent when going after other horrendous traditions. But how HSUS head Wayne Pacelle can call this the highest priority the organization has is beyond me. Millions of unwanted companion animals die in pounds every year, and surely that's an even higher priority than cockfighting. And don't even get me started about factory farming... But I realize HSUS picks the battles that go over well with their constituency, which brings me back to the companion animal issue... With all of their millions, it sure would be nice to see HSUS supporting no-kill shelters, trap-neuter-release programs, and working to end commercial pet breeding altogether.
Still, as long as Americans see animals as a means to our own ends, we will encounter great resistance to bans on more socially accepted uses of non-humans, such as for companionship, clothing, food, and entertainment.
Many thought the momentum was there to make animal torture a felony in Utah, but SB190, after passing 15-11 in the Senate, died when foes of the bill in the House tacked on amendments at the last minute, which didn't give Senators time to go back and reapprove the bill with the changes, despite overwhelming approval for the bill in the House.
Is it just me, or is it ridiculous that a law like this, which had enough support to pass both the House and the Senate, was killed because of a time issue? What is this, Jeopardy?
A bill to make animal torture a felony has finally passed Utah's Senate, which had previously blocked legislation from the House. It was a fairly close vote at 15-11, and opponents were certainly going overboard in their attempts to shoot down the bill:
“It almost establishes animal rights, which is a chilling idea under our Constitution,” said Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper.
I have no idea what this dimwit was talking about. How does making animal torture a felony affect our constitution? I can't fathom his concern. For that matter, how does protecting the rights of animals not to be treated as property affect our constitution? I don't see the connection. There's nothing chilling about this, other than Sen. Stephenson's ignorance. Sure the bill provides greater punishment for harming animals, and I'm happy with that, but it has nothing to do with actual animal rights.
This same scaremonger goes on to suggest that Utah is mirroring the sci-fi film “Minority Report,” in which police arrest people before crimes are committed.
“What this bill seems to establish is a pre-cog indictment of anybody who has ever been cruel to an animal that they are going to commit further crimes against people, and I reject that notion,” he said. “This is a dangerous, dangerous step.”
He must be responding to the evidence that activists have used to push this bill forward, that people who abuse animals go on to harm humans. Fortunately, Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, has more sense:
“I don’t think the analogy is quite right. Here’s why: This bill does not find an animal torturer and predict this person will move on and harm and torture human beings and punish them in advance,” McCoy said. “Let’s not confuse this. This bill is punishing behavior that must be proven to have happened.”
Senate Bill 190 defines torture as intentionally or knowingly inflicting on an animal extreme physical pain or serious bodily injury and doing so with extreme cruelty or depravity.
Utah is one of eight states where torturing an animal is not a felony. Animal cruelty charged as a class A misdemeanor holds a maximum penalty of only one year in jail, but cases are often charged as lower class B or C misdemeanors and jail time is rare. However, a third-degree felony is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The bill needs one more formal reading before heading to the House, where it has a strong chance of passing.
Wow. Mississippi's legislators don't appear to care about animals or their constituents that want to protect them. Not to slam on Mississippi, but talk about being backward:
Rep. John Reed said nine versions of a bill making extreme acts animal cruelty a felony died before the House and the Senate.
Animal cruelty became a strong focus in Mississippi last July when Buddy, a 16-week-old Labrador was found in Gautier tortured with PVC pipe glue and left for dead. The puppy was later euthanized by a local veterinarian.
Mississippi has one of the weakest animal cruelty laws in the country, and is one of only eight states with no felony provision for extreme acts of cruelty.
"I would have really like to have seen a change," Reed said.
A campaign to change the animal cruelty law was launched as animal lovers and animal rights activist across the country spoke out in support of a revision to the Mississippi law that has been in place since 1972.
House Bill 1538 would have enforced a misdemeanor for acts of simple animal cruelty, such as neglect and abandonment, and a felony for malicious abuse and torture towards animals. Three conviction of simple animal cruelty would execute a felony as well.
Senate Bill 2097 also made similar distinctions between misdemeanor and felony charges for animal cruelty.
Both bills, as well as the seven others, died before the Agriculture and Judiciary B committees on Jan. 30.
It's amazing to me that a legislature would actually vote against tougher animal cruelty laws in this day and age. The article gives no indication what reasons there might have been for killing these bills. Were the legislators afraid they themselves would be accused of animal cruelty? Do they not care about animals? Do they not care that animal abuse tends to lead to human abuse, and worse? Mind-boggling.
Interestingly, I spotted this news at NOLA.com, which is fitting, I suppose, considering Louisiana is the only other state where cockfighting remains legal. The 31-11 vote sends the ban to the House, where it has passed before. With Governor Bill Richardson's vocal support of the bill, it's pretty much a done deal. Finally.
Several groups, led by animal-rights activists, have been trying to get a ban passed in the state for more than two decades. The latest development adds momentum for a movement that even the cockfighters acknowledge is showing no signs of slowing.
"Politically, it's over with," said Ronald Barron of Artesia, president of the New Mexico Gamefowl Breeders Association. "But we'll file lawsuits. We've got a lot of money to do it."
Well, if you don't spend it on a last-ditch effort to save your pastime, I don't know what you are going to spend it on, since cockfighting's going to be illegal soon. It's a shame, though. All that money could be spent for a much better cause.
It's been informative watching the bill get watered down in order to assure its passage. Politics at work:
Penalties were reduced, so a first offense would be a petty misdemeanor, a second offense a misdemeanor, and a third or subsequent offense a fourth-degree felony.
It would be illegal under the bill to organize or participate in a cockfight. Spectators would not be subject to prosecution under an amendment that was adopted during the debate.
Opposition to the bill included concerns over a slippery slope on animal legislation, including worries "that rodeos and farm practices like branding, calf roping and castration could be the next targets for animal-rights groups." One can only hope...
Controversial bill SB10 passed what was expected by some to be its toughest test yesterday when it was endorsed by the Senate Conservation Committee, which killed the bill two years ago. It still has to pass through the Judiciary Committee before heading to the Senate floor and then the House.
What made the hearing different this time was the sheer amount of turnout. The hearing had to be
moved from the normal committee room to the Senate chambers to accommodate the hundreds of people who came to Santa Fe to be heard on the bill. It was standing-room-only in the Senate gallery, with people lined up two and three deep behind the final row of chairs.
Debate was limited to 30 minutes for both supporters and opponents. Committee Chair-man Phil Griego, D-San Jose, explained that lawmakers have heard the debate several times in the past few years.
While the arguments this time were similar to those made in the past, Garcia had additional support for her bill this year, with Gov. Bill Richardson and the New Mexico Catholic Conference both joining the fight for the first time. She said there were also hundreds of phone calls made to lawmakers in support of the bill.
New Mexico and Louisiana are the only two states that allow cockfighting, though it is illegal in 13 New Mexico counties. The bill would add cockfighting to legislation outlawing dog fights, making both activities a fourth-degree felony.
With support from Governor Richardson, we know the bill would be signed into law should it pass both the Senate and the House. If you live in New Mexico, now's the time to make sure your representatives know you are against animal cruelty.
The cockfighting bill cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, 7-3, but not before decreasing the penalty for a first offense.
Before voting on the bill, the committee added an amendment making a first offense a misdemeanor for those who “cause, sponsor, arrange, hold, or participate” in a cockfight “for monetary gain or entertainment.”
Second and subsequent offenses would be considered fourth-degree felonies. Under state law, misdemeanors carry a maximum jail sentence of 364 days. Those convicted of a fourth-degree felony, the least-severe felony category, can serve as much as 18 months in prison.
[Sen. Mary Jane Garcia, D-Doña Ana] agreed to the amendment but noted that 33 of the 48 states that ban cockfighting make it a felony for first offenses.
The bill now goes on to the full Senate. Garcia said a final vote could take place by the end of the week. Look for a new entry at AAFL if and when that occurs.
Having cleared the committee, the bill will be brought Wednesday to the Knesset plenum for a preliminary reading:
The bill, introduced by MK Gideon Sa'ar (Likud), is intended to bring Israel in line with states in the European Union, which three years ago passed a law banning all animal testing for cosmetic purposes by 2009.
The wording of the bill indicates that the experiments "cause enormous suffering to animals and are conducted without painkillers," despite the option of alternative methods for determining the effectiveness and poison levels of cosmetics that do not cause pain to animals.
According to the bill, 2,000-3,000 animals are currently used in these experiments every year.
First of all, kudos to The Washington Post's Bill Turque for referring to modern hog-rearing facilities as factory farms. Nice to see that term used so matter-of-factly here.
It's also nice to see another high profile look at the line between the animals we call pets, and those we call food. A Virginia law may actually support a woman's right to keep her potbellied pig as a companion animal, despite a letter from Herndon officials that determined she was illegally keeping livestock on her property. Turns out that the law exempts her ironically-named pig. Since Bacon, a pig rescued from death at an exotic animal farm by Bridgette Suder a couple of years ago, is not destined to ever wind up on the table as a meal or otherwise sold for profit, she qualifies as a companion animal.
Of course, the real irony here is that Bacon's definition changes solely based on human interest in her, with zero legal regard for her own desires. It looks like Suder may win her case and not have to move, but the victory won't do anything to change the schism in most people's minds when it comes to our view of animals. Despite being charmed by Bacon, I'm sure many of Suder's neighbors still enjoy pig flesh now and again.
Despite these gripes, it's a sweet enough article, and opens the door for letters to the editor regarding the status of animals in our society.
Follow the link above to help curb organized animal fighting:
On the first day of the 110th Congress, a bill designed to help law enforcement crack down on animal fighting was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD). U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), John Ensign (R-NV), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a parallel bill in the Senate the following week.
The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act (H.R. 137 & S. 261) would make it a felony to transport an animal across state or international borders for animal fighting. It would prohibit the interstate and foreign commerce in knives and gaffs designed for use in cockfighting.
Animals in staged fights are pumped full of drugs and forced to keep fighting even after suffering severe injuries such as gouged eyes and pierced lungs. Authorities recognize that animal fighting is an interstate industry — often associated with other crimes such as illegal gambling, drug trafficking, and acts of human violence, as well as public health threats like bird flu — that requires the federal government's help to curb.
The Humane Society of the United States has made your job as easy as visiting that link, filling out your info, and sending off a letter in support of the legislation. Please take a moment to do so today! They also provide a link for you to look up your representatives' info so you can call, if you like. Phone calls provide more immediate contact when you can get through.
India has a strange relationship with animals. On one hand, an Indian high court has ruled that an elephant is a “living creature equivalent to a human being.” On the other hand, the £6,850 in compensation for her death by automobile was awarded to the Indian that owned Babli the elephant and used her to support his family by providing scenic tours through Jaipur to as a professional mahout.
Note that, unlike most U.S. stories about animals, nowhere in the article is Babli referred to as "it."
While this settlement won't end the use of chimps in entertainment anytime soon, at least this trio is finally getting to retireescape far away from their exploiter, thanks to Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF). I just wish stories like these turned consumers off of supporting the use of animals in entertainment altogether. Wild animals deserve not to be treated like wind-up toys.
Sable, Cody and Angel, who have appeared in numerous TV shows, commercials and movies including "That '70s Show" and "The Craig Kilborn Show," were named in a federal lawsuit alleging cruelty by their California trainer Sid Yost, whose stage name is Ranger Rick.
The lawsuit, filed in November 2005 by the Animal Legal Defence Fund, accused Yost of violating the endangered species act and the California anti-cruelty statute by subjecting the chimps to extreme pain and suffering.
Yost denied the cruelty allegations. His lawyer declined comment on the settlement.
The group brought the case after an undercover primatologist worked with Yost for a year at his southern California facility for chimps. She reported seeing him punching the chimps with his fists, repeatedly beating them with sticks and broom handles, and kicking them in the head to make them obedient.
"Animals should not be kept sick and dying to appease the palates of a few gourmands," Carter Dillard, director of farm animal litigation for The Humane Society, said in a statement announcing the suit.
"The Department of Agriculture and Markets needs to follow its own law and put an end to this cruel and inhumane practice."
*snip*
The animal rights groups asked the department in June to stop the production and sale of foie gras, saying a state law makes it illegal to produce food from diseased animals.
I'm not much for regulating how nice we are to the animals, making it somehow less guiltifying to consume eggs or such, but I don't mind banning certain practices entirely. It's like chipping away at an institution until there's nothing left. So it's great to see that the voters of Arizona passed Proposition 204 - banning veal crates and gestation crates for pregnant pigs - with 62 percent of the vote. That's a very solid and supportive number.
That number was even higher in Michigan, where 69 percent of voters shot down Proposal 3, which would have opened the first target shooting season on the mourning dove, which has been a protected species since 1905. Ironically, hunting groups like the National Rifle Association (headquartered in Virginia), the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance (Ohio) and the Safari Club International (Arizona), all of which poured money into supporting the proposal, were attempting to legalize killing the state's official bird of peace. Voters in all 83 counties rejected that proposal, telling the bloodthirsty what they can do with their guns. In fact, Prop 3 received more votes than any statewide candidate!
Thank you to all the animal-friendly voters out there who went on record yesterday to oppose violence toward both human and non-human animals, as this election clearly demonstrated.
Sadly, and quite disturbingly, animal cruelty is a daily occurrence around the developed world, and that's not even accounting for the vast amount of cruelty inherent in factoryfarming. I decline to report on the many domestic animal cruelty stories I see every day. I figure no one really wants to be barraged on a daily basis with knowledge that animal X was found dead from animal cruelty, or that person Y was arrested for said cruelty. After all, numbing you won't make the problem go away. Suffice it to say, it's a big problem, and it needs solutions that take the issue seriously.
With that in mind, we look at this story on a proposed law that would finally make animal cruelty a felony in Utah. While this looks like good news on the surface, it is a bit of a mixed bag.
Utah is one of only eight states where animal cruelty is only a misdemeanor, so it's high time that it become a felony. But, while the penalty for cruelty to companion animals would increase, the law would strengthen exemptions for such "traditional" animal exploitations as hunting, farming, and ranching, despite the inherent cruelty typically involved in their most standard practices, like the slaughter process.
Defending the bill from opponents in the Senate, Rep. Scott Wyatt, R-Logan said ''It's an animal cruelty bill, and they assume that it's an animal rights bill and it's not that." Note the distancing from animal rights in order to give even such a limited bid for compassion any shot at passing.
Ironically, it may be better for animals if this bill doesn't pass, in order that it might not institutionalize cruelty to some animals so that others might be avenged more fully in order to curtail the transfer of violence to humans some day. After all, making animal cruelty a felony is less likely to decrease these sorts of crimes of passion by someone that doesn't come from a paradigm of respecting life in the first place. The abuser will not likely think to himself, "Gee, if I slice open my wife's cat, I could end up with a harsher sentence. I guess I ought to calm down and get some counseling." Sure, a stiffer penalty would feel nice for those who care about animals, but we should bear in mind that the system sees this more as a domestic violence issue than as an animal cruelty issue, despite the Congressman's quote above. To wit:
The link between animal cruelty and domestic violence is becoming increasingly clear. Last April, Maine was the first state to adopt a law including pets in domestic protective orders.
''It means that the courts are acknowledging that [the abuser] may stop abusing the wife and the children, but he'll still scare everyone to death by abusing the pets in the home,'' said Frank Ascione, a psychology professor at Utah State University.
It is important to remember that many animal cruelty cases do occur outside of these types of relationships, though, whether wayward teens commit cruelty to ferals or outdoor pets, and so on. Again, this is leaving aside the billions of cases of cruelty committed annually in the world of intensive agriculture.
Then again, we shouldn't be leaving that aside. The point of living an animal-friendly life is, of course, to be friendly to all animals. No one animal deserves special merit over others, simply because of tradition, including ourselves. This bill presents a dichotomy that is rarely discussed publicly, and perhaps ought to be pursued in the editorial pages of The Salt Lake Tribune.
While I do support making animal cruelty a felony, I'd like to see public criticisms regarding the exclusion of wild and farmed animals, which deserve the same consideration as companion animals, for reasons you may want to share with readers, seeing as how pigs and cows are just as feeling as dogs and cats. By codifying cruelty to farmed animals while making cruelty to pets a felony, this bill actually widens a cruel schism in the human heart and mind that ought to be shrinking instead, for own good as well as the animals.
From the editors:
E-mail letters lacking full name, postal address and daytime telephone number and those sent to other e-mail boxes will be deleted.
E-mail with attachments will be deleted. The letter must submitted as a plain text in the body of the message.
Or, fax to (801)257-8950
When submitting letters to the Public Forum, please include your full name, signature, address and daytime telephone numbers. Information other than your name and the city in which you live are kept confidential.
Keep them to 250 words or less. Concise letters developing a single theme are more likely to be published.
For hard copy submissions, please type and double space throughout.
Letters are condensed and edited.
Because of the volume of mail received, not all submissions are published.
A unanimous vote in the German Parliament has banned the import of seal products, eliminating the commercial seal market in that country. Morever, many German lawmakers are now seeking a complete ban on seal products and have drafted a proposal for an EU-wide ban. Germany will preside over the EU presidency in the first half of 2007, giving it a leadership role on a number of issues.
German firms currently import thousands of seal furs annually.
I've been informed of a wonderful editorial from the editors of The Arizona Republic, taking a strong stand in favor of Arizona's Prop. 204, which would ban gestation and veal crates as part of a less inhumane approach to farming animals for food. The support of the paper for this ban is a big slam against the corporate powers fighting this proposition as election day comes in about two and a half weeks. One representative excerpt:
Opponents of this measure say it is being run by animal-rights extremists from outside the state. In reality, it is championed by local and national branches of the Humane Society, hardly a radical group. You don't have to be a raging vegan to support humane treatment of animals.
Opponents of the measure say their hogs are well cared for. But Arizona's large hog farm has refused to let reporters in to see for themselves. Operators do not deny that sows are kept in crates too small to allow them to turn around.
Imposing new regulations on an existing industry is a serious step. But it is appropriate to restrict business practices that fall below a level of basic human decency. This is one of those times.
There's much more to it than that, but I want to encourage you to visit the page, and to write a letter of support to the editors for their stance on this vote.
While the most humane treatment of animals is not to breed them for food in the first place, it is encouraging to note the growing agreement that even animals considered by mainstream America to be meant for food are also meant to be treated with vastly greater consideration than they are currently granted, and that is a form of progress that gives me hope for a future where we respect animals enough not to eat them when it isn't necessary for our survival.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger finally signed Senate Bill 1578, making it illegal to tether a dog to a stationary object for more than three hours.
In a press release, the governor called such tethering "inhumane." The offense will be punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 per dog and/or up to 6 months in a county jail.
The bill joins two other animal-friendly laws recently signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, one that will make it an actual crime for pet owners to leave animals unattended in vehicles on hot days and/or other dangerous conditions, and another that increases the penalty for causing any animal to fight with another animal to one year or less in the county jail or up to a $5,000 fine, or both. Second offenses could result in prison time, a $25,000 fine, or both.
Two new animal protection bills have been signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. S.B. 1806 makes it a crime to endanger a pet by leaving him or her unattended in a vehicle without adequate ventiliation, food or water, or other circumstances that could reasonably be expected to cause suffering or death. The bill also allows a peace officer or animal control officer to remove a pet from a vehicle that poses dangerous conditions.
S.B. 1349 stiffens the penalty for intentional causing any animal to fight with another. First offense nets you one year or less in county jail or up to a $5,000 fine, or both. The second offense could increase prison time and the fine, to the tune of $25,000.
We're still waiting on S.B. 1578, Governor. Get those tethered dogs off their chains!
If you feel anything at all for animals, it's hard to watch this video and not be outraged by the corporate liars who have the gall to complain that they're being harassed (perhaps a bid to get Farm Sanctuary considered terrorists by our government). Frustrating as well are the legal machinations in California that have made it difficult, if not impossible, for people and organizations to file a lawsuit that would force Corcpork, Inc to follow California law and allow pigs room to exercise. According to Farm Sanctuary:
Section 597t [of California’s animal anti-cruelty law] mandates that “every person who keeps an animal confined in an enclosed area shall provide it with an adequate exercise area.” Farm Sanctuary has alleged that Corcpork’s intensive confinement of pregnant pigs in gestation crates without access to any exercise area at all, let alone the ability to turn around, violates section 597t and is an unlawful business practice that must be stopped. This is a unique case because it is the first time that California’s anti-cruelty law has been used to challenge a common farming practice.
Proposition 64, passed in 2005, created restrictions on filing a lawsuit, prompting the Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss Farm Sanctuary's case. Farm Sanctuary filed an appeal, arguing that an animal protection organization has standing to bring a lawsuit to protect the interests of animals.
I'm not sure how well that tactic will work and, frankly this is the sort of thing that has me wondering whether -- if one day the use of aniamls in factory farms is outlawed altogether -- how on earth anyone is going to be held accountable.
But huge points to Gene and the rest for pushing the issue, and to KNBC-4 Los Angeles for interviewing Gene and showing the footage from inside the pig factories that Corcpork denies are theirs.
Yesterday the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) and two private citizens had their lawsuit against the city of Seattle and a local zoo dismissed by King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector.
The suit accused Woodland Park Zoo of violating the federal Endangered Species Act and the State Environmental Policy Act with its treatment of elephants at the facility.
Judge Spector stated that none of the claims against the city, the zoo, its directors and staff had merit, except for the claim filed under the Endangered Species Act, which the judge ruled falls under the jurisdiction of federal court.
As two of these four articles demonstrate, at least some people are talking about this issue from an ethical standpoint (though neither of them come out in favor of the ban). The same can't be said for Chicago's Mayor Daley, who disparages the ban as "silly," demonstrating either a lack of intelligence, a lack of thoughtfulness, or a lack of compassion. Also, the 3rd piece is a letter from Michael Hacker, a lobbyist who has previously represented Tyson, and is now repping foie gras producers through the pastorally-named Artisan Farmers Alliance. I'll provide pictures throughout this post to play counterpoint to his letter.
While not everyone's ready for the discussion yet, it's good that many people are thinking more about where their food comes from and what's acceptable. For instance, though in his article for Men's Vogue Jeffrey Steingarten ultimately comes down on the side of continuing to eat it, he also says that the type of production he feels is defensible amounts to less than 20 percent of French foie gras (where it is a historic specialty), and an "indeterminate amount of foie gras in America." One gets the impression that it's not a remarkable number. Overall, he comes down rather hard on industrialized food production, on grounds of both cruelty and quality, remarking that the meat spead on pizza and burger buns is not worthy of all that cruelty, and that the finer foods require a higher standard of care. Being a high-falutin' foodie and all, it's worth it to him, and fair enough that these types of animal products cost so much more money.
He's one of those who, in categorizing three types of eaters, thinks extreme those who shun all animal products on the basis that their exploitation is immoral, while simultaneously holding a completely fallacious view of how "milking a cow or taking honey from a hive" is such a modest activity. That said, he is surprised by those that feel any amount of animal suffering is fine, because we're at the top of the food chain (as if it hasn't been entirely subverted for years now).
Steingarten comes down somewhere in the middle, toward the welfare end of the spectrum, and is suspicious of "welfare groups" trying to outlaw foie gras, because he knows their ultimate goal is abolition of all animal exploitation. Much like Omnivore's Dilemma author, Michael Pollan, Steingarten believes
When we buy the flesh of a mammal, bird, or fish in a restaurant or food shop, we are an agent in the slaughter of another living thing. We are taking life. This is a serious act, not a casual one. But our purpose is not survival or even sustenance; most of us can live comfortably without eating meat. No, our goal is pleasure, pure sensory pleasure. We chew on the succulent muscle of a steer, crunch through the crackling skin of a pig or turkey, suck out the marrow from the shin of a calf. If we are willing to kill for our pleasure, shouldn't we also be willing to force-feed ducks for our pleasure? It all depends on how much pain and distress we cause.
Although they neglected to nominate me for sainthood in the last go-around, I do try to follow a few modest practices. I don't eat animals that were raised or slaughtered chemically or inhumanely, preferring animals that grew up in pastures and fields, were cared for individually and by hand, and were not given growth hormones or unnecessary antibiotics. I don't eat veal from anemic calves confined in the darkness of a crate that keeps their meat desirably pale. I haven't eaten supermarket pork for the past ten years, except at important Southern BBQ events. Or eggs laid by battery hens. Or chickens on growth hormones raised by the thousands on the floors of barns covered with several weeks of their own waste—except when they have been fried by an incontestable master. I don't eat meat that doesn't matter—crumbled onto a pizza or scattered over a slimy salad or cooked to cardboard grayness and wedged between two buns. Meat and fowl of the highest quality are extremely expensive, and so I can't afford a great quantity of them. This cuts down on the volume of slaughter for which I'm responsible, as does my attempt not to waste animal flesh. That is how I've made my peace with slaughter.
Despite what you or I might think, even this level of respect toward animals is rare, though a growing phenomenon. The idea that everyone would move their diets in this direction is currently about as plausible as everyone going vegetarian, much less vegan, so it's better than where we're at. The problem is that this view still supports the notion that, as long as we avoid egregious, institutionalized cruelty, we can still do what we want with animals, which is a very oppressive point of view.
All the same, I welcome the outspoken voices of omnivorous eaters like Steingarten, Pollan and others. They join the chorus of voices raising awareness of our food and where it comes from, and imploring eaters to avoid industrialized foods, which is a huge step in many ways, despite the fact that animals are still reared and slaughtered in the process. While not everyone is going to go veg after hearing all these cries, no one will be able to claim ignorance at this rate, and everyone will have to make an informed decision about what they choose to eat.
If the foie gras ban is repealed, the greatest thing to have come out of this is a national awareness of the cruelty inherent in the modern diet, and an alteration in people's food choices. The greatest irony would be if foie gras consumption goes down anyway, along with other animal foods, as people demand less inhumane animal products, eat fewer of them, and maybe even decide to vote with their dollars and withdraw all support for industries that traffic in the lives of sentient, feeling creatures.
From Pennsylvania (at one time called the Puppy Mill Capital of the East) comes more proof that we have a long way to go when it comes to protecting animals, and in this case we're talking about our companions.
Tammy S. Grimes, founder of Dogs Deserve Better, was arrested on Monday for freeing a sick chained dog in East Freedom, PA, after a couple of neighbors' repeated calls for assistance to Central Pennsylvania Humane Society went unheeded after two days.
Grimes, after giving the CPHS time to come out on Monday (the office was no doubt closed over the weekend), responded to those neighbors' calls due to concern for Doogie's health. As you can see in the photo below, it didn't look so good:
Grimes photographed and videotaped Doogie upon arrival, determined his owners were not home and, while their neighbor (Kim Eicher, who has agreed to testify) came over and cried about his condition, they assessed his condition and Grimes decided that he needed to see a vet. I'm no professional, but I was tipped off to this story by a DVM, and I've known many a dog. It doesn't take a vet to see that there's something amiss with Doogie in this video:
But, of course, only a vet can diagnose and treat. According to Grimes,
The vet documented [Doogie's] general negligent condition, low weight, sores, missing fur, and took xrays of his back and hips. He determined that he has very bad back spurs that are causing him a lot of pain and are most likely responsible for his inability to walk. He also saw an undetermined mass near his hip on the xray. He gave him a shot for pain plus some B vitamins for energy, so that perhaps he could have even one good day or a few good hours. He wrote a letter stating his condition.
The story continues with Grimes bumping into the CPHS Humane Officer Grimes at the vet, of all coincidences, and supposedly the officer was just out on the way to respond to the neighbors' calls and visit Doogie.
It's understandable that the officer would be concerned that Grimes took the law into her own hands, as the law is pretty clear about animals being property, and with her not being Humane Officer, she basically did commit theft. This goes right to the problem of considering animals property, as if a table needed fresh water frequently, or a TV needed to be fed.
As evidenced by Doogie, chained dogs typically lack adequate veterinary care, food, water, and often even shelter. They are rarely exercised or socialized with other dogs or people and suffer from neglect. Even if they do receive adequate care, they lead what amounts to an unhappy, frustrating existence for such social animals. Dogs on chains suffer intense boredom, anxiety, even neuroses; their lives are very sad and lonely.
It's inexcusable that a compassionate individual who rescues a dog in an egregiously bad situation is arrested out of hand and treated like a genuine criminal. Didn't we treat all those that rescued abandoned animals in the wake of Katrina as heroes, and rightly so? Anyone that rescues an animal from potential starvation should be considered a hero. According to Grimes, none of the law enforcement involved with this case, including CPHS and the police department asked to see any of her evidence, as they were more concerned about her breaking the law than the crimes against Doogie.
If anything, criminal charges should be filed for leaving Doogie chained without food and obviously needed medical attention. Unfortunately, only California is anywhere close to an anti-tethering bill, with S.B. 1578 having recently passed out of the legislature and on to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk, where it awaits signature. If that bill passes, it will be an infraction or a misdemeanor to would to tether, fasten, chain, tie, or restrain a dog to a dog house, tree, fence, or other stationary object for longer than 3 hours.
Some states do have cruelty laws that penalize owners for leaving animals without access to food, but you shouldn't have to be an officer to do something about an urgent situation unless you're going to have those officers on the streets 24/7, just as we do for people. I realize that we can't just have people picking up animals whenever they feel like it. There's obviously a need for professionals on the job, but Grimes documented her rescue and was very responsible about it. She clearly tried to do the right thing.
But instead of being praised for her heroic measures, Grimes was arrested by no less than four police units that descended on her home, charged with theft, receiving stolen property, criminal mischief, and criminal trespass. She was later released on a $50,000 unsecured bond and ordered to appear at a preliminary hearing September 21, 2006. If good-hearted people think they will be arrested and possibly jailed and fined beyond their means, they may not take the opportunity to help those in need, risking death to countless innocent animals.
Don't wait. Call today to insist that the charges against Tammy S. Grimes are dropped, and that animal cruelty charges are instead filed against the Arnolds of East Freedom, Pennsylvania:
PA Governor Edward G. Rendell is very sensitive to his state's reputation for insensitivity toward animals, and has recently cracked down on puppy mills. If he gets enough calls on this issue, and it gets enough media attention, he may become interested in this case as well:
Governor Edward G. Rendell's Office 225 Main Capitol Building Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120 (717) 787-2500
The D.A.s office at Blair County District Attorney David Gorman, Esq.:
(814) 693-3010
The Altoona Mirror, whose front page story was evidently biased, not showing any photos Grimes took of Doogie, nor did they interview the neighbor that brought Doogie to Grimes's attention:
WJAC-TV 6, on the other hand, did interview her. Thank them for their willingness to hear the story:
(814) 255-7600
You can learn more about this situation, and what you can do to help Grimes and Doogie, by visiting the page DDB set up to get the word out.
And if you're a California voter, call or write Gov. Schwarzenegger immediately as well to politely request he signs the bill for the sake of our furry friends:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633 e-mail the Governor
The HSUS also has a handy webform you can fill out to take action on this bill.
Special thanks to Armaiti May for getting the word out on this injustice.
The Illinois Restaurant Association and a few Chicago chefs, who are proponents of the foie gras industry, are fighting the humane ordinance to prohibit the sale of foie gras. This humane legislation passed on April 26, 2006 and went into effect Tuesday, August 22, 2006. The opposition efforts have been reported in newspapers around the country.
However, a group of chefs has initiated a campaign to repeal this humane ordinance. Opponents assert that serving the cruelly produced appetizer should be their “choice." Two Chicago Aldermen have introduced an ordinance seeking to repeal Chicago’s foie gras sale ban, denigrating the council’s compassionate stance and calling it “silly."
"Trivializing" the stance is more like it. It's not surprising that meat-eaters would respond this way, whether they want to eat foie gras or not. After all, it goes to the root of all animal liberation. The mayor himself has gone on record as saying:
"Why would they pick this and not anything else?" Daley asked. "How about veal? How about chicken? How about steak? Beef? How about fish?"
If a foie gras ban is OK, Daley said, "all of a sudden, you can question any type, basically, anything that can be served in a restaurant. The poor snails and the mussels and the shrimp. I could go on and on. The lobsters."
Yup. I laugh nearly every time I see this. Wake up, Daley. Wake up, Chicago. Wake up, world! Look at who you're eating! The main concern I have is that when people do wake up and see that foie gras and other campaigns go to the heart of all animal consumption, they could well back down and start allowing all food cruelty. The idea that foie gras is egregiously cruel compared to, say, egg production comes only from the notion that foie gras is a foodie delicacy rather than a daily staple of the average American, thus making it more vulnerable.
But, if the backlash succeeds in over-turning the ban, we could see all food cruelty allowed simply because the issue continues to be seen as a food choice rather than a humanitarian imperative. As Farm Sanctuary points out,
It is critical that [Chicago's City Council] hear from us. Chicago’s foie gras sale ban is humane and upholds societal values. It restricts cruel and unacceptable behavior. We cannot allow the abuse of children or animals to be a “choice." Foie gras is a product of extreme cruelty, and selling it should not be a “choice."
City Hall Office: 121 N. La Salle Room 209, Office 20 Chicago, IL 60602 City Hall Phone: 312-744-6855; 312-744-6106 Fax : 312-744-2328
2. Alderman Burton F. Natarus, Ward 42
Ward Office: 121 N. LaSalle St. Room 306 Chicago, IL 60602 bnatarus@cityofchicago.org Phone: 312-744-3062; 312-744-3065 Fax : 312-744-3062
Chicago residents, it is critical for animal advocates to weigh in on this discussion immediately! Please express your support to the other Chicago City Council members for voting for this humane legislation by contacting your local media outlets. Explain why you believe it was important for the Chicago City Council to take this compassionate stand and why you are proud to live in a City that is willing to address humane animal issues. The Council is taking a hit from the Chicago media as a result of their actions, even though they work for a wide variety of social issues.
Some things you may want to say are:
-Force feeding birds to make foie gras is cruel and should not be accepted in our society.
-We, as a nation, should not support animal cruelty.
-The Chicago City Council acted appropriately and Chicago should be proud.
-Certain acts involving harm are not a choice and abusing animals is not an option.
-Chicago chefs are selling themselves short by worrying about the foie gras sale ban. They should consider this an opportunity to utilize their creative culinary skills to produce a delicious and humane alternative.
Chicago residents, please Click here to contact your Alderman to express gratitude for their compassionate and principled vote. It is just as important for the Aldermen to hear from constituents post-vote as it was pre-vote. Click here for a sample letter. If you do not know which Ward you live in or need to find your Alderman's phone number and fax number, please call the City of Chicago's information line at 311 or 312-744-5000. Give the operator your home address and he/she will be able to connect you directly to your Alderman's office.
Visit Farm Sanctuary's foie gras campaign page for the full update, action items, and links.
In light of the House's much-contested permanent ban on horse slaughter in the U.S., it seems more important than ever that we look at the rich beauty of wild horses, many of whom are rounded up by our own government to satisfy livestock owners, with a number of them ending up in slaughterhouses, of all places.
When you read items like this you have to wonder whether, if they had their way, Big Ag would turn our entire country into one efficient, factory farm free of all wildlife. As it is, the paucity of wild animals in the U.S. is something of which we should all be deeply ashamed.
This is so exciting that I'm a bit teary-eyed. I don't mean to get sentimental on you all, but a 263-146 House vote to pass H.R. 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, could lead to a permanent ban on slaughtering horses in the U.S.... That's a huge victory.
In the days leading up to the vote, the opposition stepped up efforts to defend the slaughter industry, but two amendments that would have gutted the bill were defeated in votes, and the day went to horses, lauded as an icon and symbol of American heritage.
If and when this bill passes, it will be important for all of us and HSUS -- which was strongly involved in this campaign -- to ensure the welfare of horses that will not be slaughtered in years to come, in part by ending the demand for sports that involve horses, as well as preserving wildlands from use for livestock.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has handed a defeat to the USDA, allowing HSUS, East Bay Animal Advocates, and other lawyers representing reindeer, bison and other species to proceed with a lawsuit against the federal government to seek humane slaughtering methods. An attempt to include the animals as plaintiffs was, less surprisingly, tossed out. As usual, the judge ruled that animals do not have standing to sue.
Mark tomorrow (Sept. 6, 2006) on your calendars as National Call-In Day for Horses:
Congress is expected on Thursday to vote on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (HR 503), which could lead to the ban of slaughtering horses for human consumption.
Contact your U.S. representative in advance of the House's vote on horse slaughter, and make it known that you expect him or her to support H.R. 503 without amendments that the assembly added to the bill. If you're not sure how to phrase it, HSUS has provided the following guide:
"I am a constituent and I am calling to ask that the Representative please protect American horses from slaughter and support H.R. 503, the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. I also urge you to oppose any amendments to H.R. 503. I am very concerned about American horses and I don't want them slaughtered."
Calls tend to be more effective than e-mails and even letters, so if a large number of people deluge their representatives with overwhelming support for H.R. 503 without the amendments, we may see the bill succeed. But it needs your help. There are very wealthy and powerful people trying to keep the $40 billion industry in business in the U.S. Don't let money win all.
More background on the topic of horse slaughter, from the point of view of the locals.
Before adjourning for the August recess, The U.S. Senate approved the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act, requiring local and state disaster plans to include provisions for household pets and service animals in the event of a major disaster or emergency, with only 24 no votes.
The Senate also approved the Pension Reform Act, passed last week by the House of Representatives, which closes a loophole in the tax code exploited by trophy hunters to allowed them to deduct the costs of their hunting excursions across the globe. The HSUS brought this scheme to the attention of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who shepherded the key provision through to final passage of the bill.
The president is expected to sign the Pension Protection Act, which is expected to help protect wildlife around the world and save American taxpayers an estimated $49 million over the next decade.
With the help of Peninsula Humane Society and a couple of farm sanctuaries, 32 turkey chicks that survived a July 13 Northwest Airlines flight, during which more than 9,000 other chicks perished, have found a new home, not on someone's plate.
I'm happy the survivors can live out their lives without fear of becoming dinner, but I can't be more sanguine about this good news. Saving 32 chicks is not going to end the shipment of nonhuman animals as if they are cargo.
(hat-tip to story-finder extraordinaire Joellen Secondo, as usual)
Scare tactics from the Ag committee on the H.R. 503 show how desperate they're getting that the bill is moving forward. Their language also points out the importance of focusing activism on the ownership of animals. If you can't own an animal, you can't decide to send it to a slaughterhouse if it's of no further use to you.
Also, more on former Rep. Charles Stenholm, a democrat who now works as a lobbyist for the horse slaughter industry. The Ag committee is heavily on his side with this 37-3 unfavorable recommendation. Go figure.
It's hard not to enjoy the complaints of those in Congress who tried to sabotage legislation meant to protect horses from slaughter in America.
While the bill, which emerged amendment-free from committee this week, does not actually ban horse slaughter outright, it does ban shipping, transporting, delivering, receiving, buying, selling or donating horses for slaughter for human consumption. Of course, the italics are mine... These key words make me wonder how much the horse content in various products like pet food are going to go up, despite protestations that H.R. 503 would require $162 million to "care" for an estimated 90,000 "unwanted" horses). The bill also prohibits sending horses from the U.S. to Canada or Mexico to be slaughtered.
What was particularly interesting to read was all the squirming over what certain congressional representatives think this means for animal consumption in the U.S. in the future:
Opponents said the bill would eventually lead to bans on the slaughter of cows, pigs, chickens and other livestock.
"This bill is part of a larger agenda for the animal rights activists, an agenda against all of agriculture," said Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., asked whether because of the bill he as a meat lover will have to become a vegetarian.
Well, I somehow doubt it. At least for now, but at least you're thinking about it.
Today's House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection hearing on horse slaughter turned out to be rather crowded, dramatic, and full of odd coalitions and wild statements, like the following:
"PETA and the Humane Society argue that we shouldn't sell this meat to people in other countries to eat," said Mr. Koehler. "Isn't it presumptuous of vegetarians in the U.S. to pass judgment on the culinary practices of other countries? How would Americans react if Hindus told us to stop eating beef because the cow is sacred?"
The hearing on the bill lasted over three hours and was moved to a larger room to accommodate the interested parties.
Virginia Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chair of the House Agriculture Committee that previously refused to hold a hearing on related legislation (forcing this end-run to the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the first place), said, "This legislation is woefully inadequate, emotionally misguided and fails to serve the best interest of the American horse and horse owner."
The full Energy and Commerce Committee's vote on the bill is scheduled for Wednesday. Presumably due to the controversy over the ECC's version of the bill, the House Agriculture Committee now plans to consider and vote on the legislation this Thursday.
The issue, though seemingly clear-cut, has been hotly contested and has caused a split among members of the same party, horse associations and veterinarians, and has created unusual alliances between the likes of Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and animal rights activists, who rightly consider horse slaughter a barbaric practice.
Today at 2pm EST, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection will debate H.R. 503, a bill "to amend the Horse Protection Act to prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption, and for other purposes."
You can also listen to the hearing here, starting approximately 10 minutes after the session begins.
UPDATE: The editors of The Washington Timesweigh in on the bipartisan support this bill is receiving:
...let us say that while we hardly align ourselves with the animal-rights lobby, what we've seen from the cattle ranchers and their legislators is nothing short of a perversion of democracy.
Whoa. Nice to see that last clause from guys like these. A big component of the animal rights lobby is stopping those ranchers and legislators from doing an end-run around democracy on a host of animal issues. Perhaps we can find more common ground here by uniting against enemies of democracy:
Whether one particularly cares about the slaughter of horses, every American should care deeply when lawmakers and agencies obstruct the lawmaking process or choose to ignore the law all together.
