All around the cathedral, the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares
Although you can't see it, you know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares
I was riveted last evening by the Broadway performance of Mary Poppins, and what's even better, I got to meet the incredible performer, Caroline Sheen, who plays Mary on the American tour! You never know the blessings that will come your way when you decide to follow your heart and show you care. I got to meet this wonderful actress and person because I volunteer at Big Cat Rescue, a sanctuary devoted to the care of abandoned, abused, neglected, and orphaned exotic cats. Most of the main cast had come out for a tour of Big Cat Rescue last week, and Caroline liked it so much she came out for a second tour, and I was fortunate enough to be there when she did. Amazingly, this talented cast seemed to be just as riveted by our cats and their stories as we all were by their awesome performances on the stage.
I found myself surprised at how emotional I became during some moments of the show. I told myself that it is because I recently lost my mother, and she is the one who really helped me appreciate Mary Poppins when I was a kid. The character has been one of my heroes ever since, so I supposed that I was just having an unexpected moment of grief. But I was not the only one who was moved. It was all I could do to keep from openly sobbing during the "Feed the Birds" number, and I noticed that my husband was sniffling, and so was the teenaged girl sitting on the other side of me. I suppose some would say that we are sappy and sentimental, and more than a few would accuse those of us who love this story, movie, and production of simply pandering to the common emotional manipulations of mass-marketed show tunes. No doubt with some popular movies and shows, this criticism would have some legitimacy.
But I think sometimes the masses are on to something. I think sometimes we flock to these performances because we recognize something truly worthy within them, some kind of beauty that we know is reflected in ourselves. "Feed the Birds" was my mother's favorite song from the film, and I don't think I have appreciated it until now. The simplicity of the message coupled with the grandeur of the cathedral and the ever watchful eyes of the saints and apostles stirs something deep within us. It's the kind of thing that brings tears to your eyes, not because you have just witnessed something heartbreaking or sad, but because it reminds you of some long forgotten truth, or of some place you once called home and only now you see just how far you have wandered from it. An old beggar woman begs for money not for herself, but for a flock of birds that some people cast off as pests, and it actually seems to make her happy. What a concept.
I remember once, years ago, meeting a woman who claimed to have had a near-death experience while undergoing plastic surgery on her nose. She was a very funny lady. I remember her saying, "Can you believe I paid for this nose and almost died for it? Before I looked like Jamie Farr, now I look like Bob Hope." Somewhere in her mid 50's, when I told her I was 25, she told me I was just a baby. I had to reach the age of 40 before I understood what she meant. There were a couple of things about her experience that stood out to me. I remember her talking about "them" or "they." She kept saying things like, "They love you, no matter what you do." She never told me who "they" were and the reader will probably find it very frustrating that I never thought to ask. Also, she said, "Little things, like being kind to animals, are really important." Having already begun a journey of deep concern over the way I had seen helpless creatures being treated, I was moved and inspired by this statement, just as I am moved and inspired by this song.
I can't always explain why I know it is so important to care for the helpless and speak for the voiceless, I just know that it is. I think there is a gentleness that lies within all of us, and I feel a sense of urgency to move towards healing when I witness someone betraying that gentleness by exploiting the most vulnerable beings under our collective wing. It is because I believe it is natural for people to care that I must do something when I see them behaving as if they don't. It is because I know that bestowing love upon creatures that seem insignificant can bring us great joy and satisfaction that I spend so much time trying to move other people towards expressions of that joy.
Life is simple. We are the ones who are making it complicated. While we may think the worst fate of all is to end up a beggar in the street, perhaps the bird woman is on to something. If she has the power to act on her best instincts, so do we all. "All it takes is tuppence from you."
Though her words are simple and few
Listen, listen, she's calling to you
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag
Sharyn Beach
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Go Monkey Go.....Where?
This morning's St. Pete Times featured a fascinating story about a rhesus macaque monkey that has been on the run in the Tampa Bay area for over a year. Eluding several attempts at capture, his neighborhood wanderings have made him somewhat of a local hero, spawning the battle cry "Go monkey go!"
While it is refreshing to see so many people on the side of the monkey's freedom, the article provides an excellent overview of why the animal may very well be suffering from a great loneliness. Experts on the species point out that what is keeping him on the lam is a futile search for members of his own kind. The article is extremely thoughtful and well-written, but there is one aspect of it that greatly disturbs me: it seems to suggest that once captured, the monkey should be placed in the hands of a private owner, and yet in the same breath points out the distinct possibility that the monkey is an escaped pet. Can't we see the connection here? The trade in exotic pets is exactly why he is so desperately looking for something he will never find. The only way to keep a trade like this going is to separate the animals from one another in the first place, particularly by separating the young from their mothers.
The only solution that really benefits the monkey is to place him in an accredited sanctuary. Accredited sanctuaries are the only places truly committed to giving disenfranchised animals a permanent home.
Below is the letter that I wrote both to the reporter and to the editor:
Dear Michael,
I wish to thank everyone involved in the story about the rhesus macaque monkey that has been on the run in Tampa Bay. By honestly outlining the animal's needs, you have helped to dispel some of the myths that humans have believed and even perpetuated about wild animals and especially about wild animals living in captivity. Recognizing their need for autonomy and social interaction with their own helps us to also recognize the ethical implications of separating family units, keeping them in isolation, and using them for our own purposes.
The only thing that disappointed me was that the article seemed to insinuate that the only solution for this monkey is to capture him and give him to one of the private owners who maintain licenses to keep such animals. Such a solution ignores the fact that the fallacy of private ownership may be the reason that the monkey is in this predicament to begin with. The article adeptly outlines the lack of foresight that caused someone to bring in a troop of macaques to entertain tourists without considering the needs and abilities of the animals, and as well points out that the monkey may be on the run precisely because it got loose from a license-bearing pet owner. Why do we assume that the solution is to put the animal right back into the hands of people who are contributing to a multi-billion dollar industry that willfully separates social animals from one another for the sole purpose of keeping them as pets?
I am surprised that the possibility of placing the animal in an accredited primate sanctuary, like Jungle Friends, was not even mentioned. Accredited sanctuaries are held to the standards of the accrediting body, The Association of Sanctuaries, and dedicate every resource they have to providing the animals with what they actually need, including the social interaction so important to primates. Additionally, the homes they give them are permanent. Private ownership is nothing more or less than buying, selling, and trading individual animals, which means that such individuals get moved from place to place with little regard for the toll it takes on them psychologically, no matter how much people involved in this trade shout that they trade them for the purposes of conservation.
If we really cared about conserving wild animals, we never would have taken them from their rightful homes to begin with. But we can make up for our past wrongs by focusing our considerable energy on placing unreleasable captive animals in accredited sanctuaries that operate according to the highest standards, and by talking to one another and our lawmakers about how we can preserve wild places and let the wild animals that we have left in this world live peacefully within them. It is time for the public to recognize squarely that private ownership is a business and not a part of any organized conservation effort, and is inherently unsustainable becaue it essentially treats living creatures like a commodity.
Thank you again for covering this story and for your attention to detail. I would love to see more
articles about this topic in the future, especially anything that outlines the very best things we can do for the welfare of the animals.
Sincerely,
Sharyn Beach
Tampa, FL
While it is refreshing to see so many people on the side of the monkey's freedom, the article provides an excellent overview of why the animal may very well be suffering from a great loneliness. Experts on the species point out that what is keeping him on the lam is a futile search for members of his own kind. The article is extremely thoughtful and well-written, but there is one aspect of it that greatly disturbs me: it seems to suggest that once captured, the monkey should be placed in the hands of a private owner, and yet in the same breath points out the distinct possibility that the monkey is an escaped pet. Can't we see the connection here? The trade in exotic pets is exactly why he is so desperately looking for something he will never find. The only way to keep a trade like this going is to separate the animals from one another in the first place, particularly by separating the young from their mothers.
The only solution that really benefits the monkey is to place him in an accredited sanctuary. Accredited sanctuaries are the only places truly committed to giving disenfranchised animals a permanent home.
Below is the letter that I wrote both to the reporter and to the editor:
Dear Michael,
I wish to thank everyone involved in the story about the rhesus macaque monkey that has been on the run in Tampa Bay. By honestly outlining the animal's needs, you have helped to dispel some of the myths that humans have believed and even perpetuated about wild animals and especially about wild animals living in captivity. Recognizing their need for autonomy and social interaction with their own helps us to also recognize the ethical implications of separating family units, keeping them in isolation, and using them for our own purposes.
The only thing that disappointed me was that the article seemed to insinuate that the only solution for this monkey is to capture him and give him to one of the private owners who maintain licenses to keep such animals. Such a solution ignores the fact that the fallacy of private ownership may be the reason that the monkey is in this predicament to begin with. The article adeptly outlines the lack of foresight that caused someone to bring in a troop of macaques to entertain tourists without considering the needs and abilities of the animals, and as well points out that the monkey may be on the run precisely because it got loose from a license-bearing pet owner. Why do we assume that the solution is to put the animal right back into the hands of people who are contributing to a multi-billion dollar industry that willfully separates social animals from one another for the sole purpose of keeping them as pets?
I am surprised that the possibility of placing the animal in an accredited primate sanctuary, like Jungle Friends, was not even mentioned. Accredited sanctuaries are held to the standards of the accrediting body, The Association of Sanctuaries, and dedicate every resource they have to providing the animals with what they actually need, including the social interaction so important to primates. Additionally, the homes they give them are permanent. Private ownership is nothing more or less than buying, selling, and trading individual animals, which means that such individuals get moved from place to place with little regard for the toll it takes on them psychologically, no matter how much people involved in this trade shout that they trade them for the purposes of conservation.
If we really cared about conserving wild animals, we never would have taken them from their rightful homes to begin with. But we can make up for our past wrongs by focusing our considerable energy on placing unreleasable captive animals in accredited sanctuaries that operate according to the highest standards, and by talking to one another and our lawmakers about how we can preserve wild places and let the wild animals that we have left in this world live peacefully within them. It is time for the public to recognize squarely that private ownership is a business and not a part of any organized conservation effort, and is inherently unsustainable becaue it essentially treats living creatures like a commodity.
Thank you again for covering this story and for your attention to detail. I would love to see more
articles about this topic in the future, especially anything that outlines the very best things we can do for the welfare of the animals.
Sincerely,
Sharyn Beach
Tampa, FL
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Mountaintop Removal
Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land
John Denver
I was a child when John Denver was at the height of his popularity, and whenever I heard this song, I could not understand this lyric. I remember thinking, "You can't tear down a mountain! That doesn't make any sense!"
Twenty-five years later, I was horrified to realize just how wrong I was. When I was in graduate school, I attended a conference at my alma mater, the University of Tennessee, about energy conservation. I decided to attend a session about mountaintop removal, a practice I had never heard about before. "How in the world," I wondered, "does one remove the top from a mountain?" The answer is simple of course - with lots and lots and lots of explosives. Apparently, digging into the mountains to extract the underlying coal became too cumbersome and expensive, so coal companies decided it was just easier to remove the mountains altogether by exploding the tops off of them.
As you may well imagine, this takes some doing, and the unfortunate people who live in these mountains can attest to the fact that the shelling goes on all day, every day, for months on end. One resident of West Virginia, named Maria, described the scene of her family's Christmas dinner as something akin to trying to celebrate in a war zone. The dishes were literally coming up off of the table. (Yes, they were shelling on Christmas day.) As you can also imagine, the constant shelling results in debris flying everywhere and destroys the natural beauty and wonder for which most people move to, visit, and write songs about mountains. For the residents of Appalachia, the very reason their ancestors moved to the mountains generations ago is being demolished before their very eyes. When Maria expressed her concerns to the coal company that was causing this damage, she was told that if she didn't like it she should just move away, as if she could sell her property to anyone after it had been filled up with the mud and debris from the havoc being wreaked all around her.
The domino effect that mountaintop removal has on ecosystems most certainly cannot be measured, but there is one immediate repercussion that claims lives and leaves many homeless - flooding. An important factor not considered by the coal companies and their government supporters is that the mountains, and the trees and shrubs calling them home, are holding water - lots and lots and lots of water. They are not just rearranging dirt out there; when they remove the tops from mountains, they are erasing hundreds of millions of years of quiet, constant, and patient development. This reality becomes painfully apparent with the first heavy rains that fall on a mountain that has been violently transformed into a plateau. The waters run right off of the top and proceed to flood the valleys and the homes of the people living in them, claiming history, property, and innocent lives.
As people witness their friends and neighbors dying or being driven out of their homes, fear becomes palpable. Maria's children sleep with their clothes on and their shoes right next to the bed every night so that they may run at a moment's notice, and are taking anti-anxiety medications just to sleep at all. Similar stories were shared by others who live in the mountains of West Virginia, and those people clearly perceive what so many of us do not want to recognize: "They can get away with doing this to us because we're poor." In other words, their opinions are considered invalid. I have repeatedly heard the argument that poor people should not enjoy the benefits of a government run on tax dollars because "they haven't paid." It appears to me that too many of them certainly do pay. They pay with their homes, their livelihoods, their communities, and their lives. They pay more dearly than most of the rest of us could ever imagine.
From a poignant short documentary film that was shown at the conference, one scene really stood out to me and has stuck with me for several years. A gentleman in his 60's, who had lived in Appalachia his entire life, stands on a lookout that once featured a spectacular view of mountains and foothills that boast the most biologically diverse temperate forests on the planet, and looks out over a plain of ruins, a desert of brown streaks where there once was a sea of green leaves and quiet mist. He explained that when he, too, protested the wholesale destruction of the mountain behind his home, he was asked the following impertinent, if not downright perverse, question, "Why don't you just take a picture of it?" With tears filling his eyes, he recounted his reply, "You don't take a picture of a mountain. It's always going to be there."
It is heartbreaking to witness how greed has so thoroughly wrenched the truth from this statement. It is maddening to listen to our own collective consciousness rationalize that such destruction is necessary while, as individuals, we would never allow this to go on in our own backyards.
Maria ended the session with this statement: "This is eco-terrorism, and it's making our lives a living hell, and we are asking for your help."
There are so many ways that we can help that cost us very little.
1. The first way is obvious: turn off the lights. Get into the habit of turning off electronics when you are not using them, and don't use them at all when they are unnecessary (pass on the electric hand-lotion warmer, please).
2. Call the EPA and tell them to support Clean Water legislation, which can prevent the dumping of debris and sludge into mountain streams, and as such effectively halt or dramatically slow mountaintop removal.
3. Support the development of alternative energies.
4. Visit www.appvoices.org to find out more about mountaintop removal.
5. Lastly, search yourself to find out what you truly value. I believe that the reason so many of us allow things like this to go on is that we too readily accept values that are imposed upon us, rather than reflecting on what we really want. In spite of our grandest platitudes, we are still taught that material wealth and the health of the economy are more important than the health of everything else. I think if we really search within ourselves, we will find that what we really value is the health of living things, and will plainly see that causing this much pain isn't worth a little more convenience for some and lots of money for others. I think we will see that we do feel a connection with other people and with other living things, and from that connection recognize the egregiousness of blowing them apart for the sake of cheaper energy.
We have the power to find another way. There are countless moments in our history when we have changed and overcome practices and institutions that we knew were hurting people, and we can change this practice as well. Please take the Mountain Pledge and do just one thing. Just one.
Sharyn Beach
I know I am only one little person and I can only do little things. But there are so many little things that need to be done.
Peace Pilgrim
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land
John Denver
I was a child when John Denver was at the height of his popularity, and whenever I heard this song, I could not understand this lyric. I remember thinking, "You can't tear down a mountain! That doesn't make any sense!"
Twenty-five years later, I was horrified to realize just how wrong I was. When I was in graduate school, I attended a conference at my alma mater, the University of Tennessee, about energy conservation. I decided to attend a session about mountaintop removal, a practice I had never heard about before. "How in the world," I wondered, "does one remove the top from a mountain?" The answer is simple of course - with lots and lots and lots of explosives. Apparently, digging into the mountains to extract the underlying coal became too cumbersome and expensive, so coal companies decided it was just easier to remove the mountains altogether by exploding the tops off of them.
As you may well imagine, this takes some doing, and the unfortunate people who live in these mountains can attest to the fact that the shelling goes on all day, every day, for months on end. One resident of West Virginia, named Maria, described the scene of her family's Christmas dinner as something akin to trying to celebrate in a war zone. The dishes were literally coming up off of the table. (Yes, they were shelling on Christmas day.) As you can also imagine, the constant shelling results in debris flying everywhere and destroys the natural beauty and wonder for which most people move to, visit, and write songs about mountains. For the residents of Appalachia, the very reason their ancestors moved to the mountains generations ago is being demolished before their very eyes. When Maria expressed her concerns to the coal company that was causing this damage, she was told that if she didn't like it she should just move away, as if she could sell her property to anyone after it had been filled up with the mud and debris from the havoc being wreaked all around her.
The domino effect that mountaintop removal has on ecosystems most certainly cannot be measured, but there is one immediate repercussion that claims lives and leaves many homeless - flooding. An important factor not considered by the coal companies and their government supporters is that the mountains, and the trees and shrubs calling them home, are holding water - lots and lots and lots of water. They are not just rearranging dirt out there; when they remove the tops from mountains, they are erasing hundreds of millions of years of quiet, constant, and patient development. This reality becomes painfully apparent with the first heavy rains that fall on a mountain that has been violently transformed into a plateau. The waters run right off of the top and proceed to flood the valleys and the homes of the people living in them, claiming history, property, and innocent lives.
As people witness their friends and neighbors dying or being driven out of their homes, fear becomes palpable. Maria's children sleep with their clothes on and their shoes right next to the bed every night so that they may run at a moment's notice, and are taking anti-anxiety medications just to sleep at all. Similar stories were shared by others who live in the mountains of West Virginia, and those people clearly perceive what so many of us do not want to recognize: "They can get away with doing this to us because we're poor." In other words, their opinions are considered invalid. I have repeatedly heard the argument that poor people should not enjoy the benefits of a government run on tax dollars because "they haven't paid." It appears to me that too many of them certainly do pay. They pay with their homes, their livelihoods, their communities, and their lives. They pay more dearly than most of the rest of us could ever imagine.
From a poignant short documentary film that was shown at the conference, one scene really stood out to me and has stuck with me for several years. A gentleman in his 60's, who had lived in Appalachia his entire life, stands on a lookout that once featured a spectacular view of mountains and foothills that boast the most biologically diverse temperate forests on the planet, and looks out over a plain of ruins, a desert of brown streaks where there once was a sea of green leaves and quiet mist. He explained that when he, too, protested the wholesale destruction of the mountain behind his home, he was asked the following impertinent, if not downright perverse, question, "Why don't you just take a picture of it?" With tears filling his eyes, he recounted his reply, "You don't take a picture of a mountain. It's always going to be there."
It is heartbreaking to witness how greed has so thoroughly wrenched the truth from this statement. It is maddening to listen to our own collective consciousness rationalize that such destruction is necessary while, as individuals, we would never allow this to go on in our own backyards.
Maria ended the session with this statement: "This is eco-terrorism, and it's making our lives a living hell, and we are asking for your help."
There are so many ways that we can help that cost us very little.
1. The first way is obvious: turn off the lights. Get into the habit of turning off electronics when you are not using them, and don't use them at all when they are unnecessary (pass on the electric hand-lotion warmer, please).
2. Call the EPA and tell them to support Clean Water legislation, which can prevent the dumping of debris and sludge into mountain streams, and as such effectively halt or dramatically slow mountaintop removal.
3. Support the development of alternative energies.
4. Visit www.appvoices.org to find out more about mountaintop removal.
5. Lastly, search yourself to find out what you truly value. I believe that the reason so many of us allow things like this to go on is that we too readily accept values that are imposed upon us, rather than reflecting on what we really want. In spite of our grandest platitudes, we are still taught that material wealth and the health of the economy are more important than the health of everything else. I think if we really search within ourselves, we will find that what we really value is the health of living things, and will plainly see that causing this much pain isn't worth a little more convenience for some and lots of money for others. I think we will see that we do feel a connection with other people and with other living things, and from that connection recognize the egregiousness of blowing them apart for the sake of cheaper energy.
We have the power to find another way. There are countless moments in our history when we have changed and overcome practices and institutions that we knew were hurting people, and we can change this practice as well. Please take the Mountain Pledge and do just one thing. Just one.
Sharyn Beach
I know I am only one little person and I can only do little things. But there are so many little things that need to be done.
Peace Pilgrim
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
White Tigers - Marketing a Fraud
Conservation. It is a word that we hear and throw around often. It is ubiquitous in the media and, in some of us, conjures up a warm feeling, particularly when it flows freely from those that we believe have everything under control, those that we believe will stem the tide of bad news that we repeatedly hear from the so-called wild. While the word conservation sounds pleasing, the concept of conservation is largely misunderstood. Unfortunately, most of us view conservation according only to individual species, and in so doing erringly conclude that as long as those individual species exist in sufficient number, then we may check conservation off of our collective to-do list. Upon a closer and more thorough inspection though, we see that this conclusion is fundamentally and dangerously flawed, and is not only NOT preventing endangerment and extinction, but is also leaving a trail of devastating suffering in its wake.
Perhaps no other single species embodies the issues of endangerment and extinction more than the tiger. Sleek and graceful, powerful and exotic, awe-inspiring and beautiful, the tiger is the very definition of "charismatic mega fauna." And if the bold and beautiful orange and black felines illicit such an intense response in the human animal, the mysterious and perhaps even mystical white tiger captures our attention even more acutely. With its ghostly white appearance and searing blue eyes, the white tiger is difficult to ignore. Furthermore, we humans engage in an ongoing fascination with anything that we consider to be rare; and so, like gold, we value the white tiger for its supposed rarity, and find a ready rationalization for perpetuating its breeding by simply engaging one, perhaps now meaningless, word: conservation. After all, they must be "saved." If the orange and white tigers are facing such a gloomy future in the wild, then surely the rare white tiger is the one in the most trouble, the pinnacle of the endangerment problem, the poster child for the wreckage that the reckless attitudes of human beings have left in what we used to call wild places.
Such is the conclusion that we often collectively come to when we view conservation as an issue that affects only individual species, especially the individual species that we happen to find the most charismatic. The problem with this reasoning is that it fails to consider the bigger picture. Specifically, it fails to include the environment, or habitat, in which these charismatic species live, depend upon for their survival, and in which they each make a significant contribution that belongs uniquely to them.
If the white tiger is the poster child for any issue, it is the poster child for this faulty reasoning. The headlines are all too familiar: this zoo or that performer or this wildlife center is breeding white tigers in order to save them from extinction and restore them to their native habitats. Both the media and the public adore these types of stories, but the heartwarming and short-lived nature of today's news belies the real story that will surface for the white tiger cubs tomorrow. The truth is simple, yet difficult for many people to accept. White tigers are not a species and do not have a native habitat. Tigers do not inhabit any section of the globe in which it would be advantageous for their survival to be white. This includes the Siberian Tiger, which is actually more properly called the Amur tiger, as its habitat is the Amur River Region between China and the Russian far east.
The real story behind white tigers is revealed by the subject that many of us dreaded in high school or collegiate biology: genetics. What we call the "Royal" White Tiger is in fact a genetic anomaly, caused by a double recessive gene occurring so rarely in nature that it is estimated only 1 in every 10,000 tigers born in the wild is white, and not likely to live for very long.* Born with a condition that we call "leucism," the pigment does not color the skin and the fur, and more importantly, robs the animal of one of the main tools for its survival - camouflage. Without the proper coloring, the ambush technique upon which tigers depend for catching food is seriously compromised. We do tigers no service at all by forcing more of them to be white. If anyone were foolish enough to attempt to release a white tiger into any habitat that tigers normally occupy, it would most likely starve to death. Dr. Dan Laughlin, DVM, PhD, who is widely recognized internationally for his expertise in the care and management of zoological animals, has an international consulting practice limited to zoological animals, and fully researched and documented the accurate genealogy and origin of the white tiger in the U.S., states it well (the bold is mine): "...when a deleterious recessive genetic mutation randomly occurs that is disadvantageous for the survival of the animal, such as white color in a tropical jungle environment, the animal does not survive to pass on that genetic mutation or disadvantageous characteristic to its offspring."* In other words, cruel as it may sound, nature is not providing a place for the white tiger.
If nature is designed in such a way as to prevent the survival of genetic mutations that are a danger to the survival of an entire species, then why do we see white tigers in shows, zoos, circuses, carnivals, and wildlife centers across America? Once again, we find our answer in genetics, and in this case, its uglier side. How do we circumvent the laws of nature to create more animals for which nature does not provide a home? We don't. We simply bend the laws of nature to our own wills. We engage in a practice with animals that we would never dream of doing purposely with humans. We inbreed them. Those of us that survived the genetics section of those dreaded biology courses know that genetic diversity is vital to the health of both individuals and entire populations of species. The most critically endangered feline species and subspecies, such as the South China Tiger and the Amur Leopard, are considered to be functionally extinct by some experts because with numbers as low as 20 or 30, inbreeding is inevitable. Yet in the case of the white tiger, the breeding of mothers to sons, brothers to sisters, and fathers to daughters and grand-daughters is commonplace.
According to Dr. Laughlin, in addition to the now famous and severely inbred line of white Bengal tigers that can be traced back to Mohan, a white tiger taken as a cub out of the wild in 1951 and bred back to his daughter and grand-daughters,
"there is a second and separate origin of the white tiger which occurred spontaneously in two separate private collections in this country, when both owners inbred brothers to sisters that were all offspring of two litters resulting from crossing a pure Siberian male and a Bengal female at a small zoo in South Dakota." In any case, inbreeding is a necessary ingredient of the recipe for white tigers, and there is a price to be paid for it.
White tigers endure a host of health problems about which the public is largely unaware. These include immune system deficiencies that cause many to live miserable and short lives, scoliosis of the spine, hip dysplasia, neurological disorders, cleft palates, and protruding, bulging eyes. Eighty percent of all white tigers are stillborn; many of the ones that survive are too deformed to put on display. Out of the ones that look pretty, according to some tiger trainers, only 1 in 30 will consistently perform.* White tigers are at the mercy of a double-edged sword; they are often preferred by trainers because, as fundamentally sick animals, they are very dependent upon humans. On the other hand, the relentless inbreeding takes its toll on their mental capacity, rendering them unreliable as performers. At this point someone must be faced with the question rarely asked by the reporters who happily recount the birth of the cubs: what now? What happens to the 29 out of 30 white tigers that were too dull and sick to perform? We know by the former discussion that they could not have been, and will never be, released into the wild. Tracing their fate is exceedingly difficult, but the paths in front of them are bleak to say the least. The lucky ones will find permanent homes in accredited sanctuaries, but the majority will either be killed or sold to traveling zoos, circuses, and wildlife centers, living lives in quarters that are often cramped, filthy, and rarely inspected.
There is yet another side to this sad story. What becomes of the orange and white cubs (by far the majority) born to parents who were specifically paired to render the desirable white coloring? As with the unwanted whites, their fate is difficult to trace, but will most likely include becoming victims of canned hunts, being sold into the exotic pet trade to live out their lives as breeding animals, or being killed, dismembered, and their parts shipped to be sold in Asian markets. Virtually none of them will join their wild counterparts for the purpose of re-populating their severely dwindling numbers. They will never see the wild lands from which their forebears were taken, and as such, will never really know what it is like to be tigers.
Meanwhile, healthy wild tigers, able to engage in the activities for which tigers were designed and assume their role in carefully balanced ecosystems that depend on them as much as any other life form within them, disappear at alarming rates. Just one hundred years ago, there were approximately 100,000 tigers living in the wild; some experts estimate that fewer than 3,500 individuals roam the forests of our world, from India to southeast Asia to the Amur River region, today. Three subspecies of tigers are gone forever, and the South China tiger is well on its way to joining their ranks.
If the relentless breeding of white tigers has nothing to do with conservation, and the resulting animals are sick and live lives in captivity at best and suffer small quarters and little veterinary care at worst, then why do people continue to breed them? The answer is simple. When the genetic line to which Dr. Laughlin refers was continued and promulgated by the Cincinnati Zoo, the resulting cubs fetched as much as $60,000 each, the beginning of many, many more thousands of dollars that have passed through countless hands and yet still do not lead the endangered tiger back to its rightful home. Countless thousands of dollars that do nothing to stop the poaching of wild tigers. Countless thousands of dollars that do nothing to stave off the destruction of wild tiger habitats. Countless thousands of dollars that only serve to keep wild, dignified creatures behind bars. Do we really value genetic mutations more than the habitat in which healthy wild tigers live and thrive?
Dr. Laughlin believes that "The genealogical misrepresentation, repeated inbreeding, exhibition and sale, for $60,000 each, of white tigers by the Cincinnati Zoo initiated the greatest conservation deception of the American public in history. That deception continues through today. In my view, exhibiting and breeding white tigers is the very antithesis of conservation, is dishonest and unethical and is tantamount to catering to the public's desire to see genetic aberrations rather than educating the public regarding the incredible process of natural selection, how the unbelievable diversity of life has evolved on our planet throughout the past 50 million years and the crucial need for us to preserve natural habitats and stop the destruction of our global ecosystem if we desire to save any threatened or endangered species from extinction."
The insidiousness of this deception is that the heartwarming stories of individual cubs being born again and again creates the illusion that we are doing something. It creates the illusion that the so-called experts are solving the problems that we create with our own complacency. It is time to face the issue squarely. There can be no conservation of species without conservation of habitats, and there can be no conservation of habitats without conservation of entire ecosystems; therefore we are accountable for how our actions affect those ecosystems, in every choice that we make. Conservation. It is not about the white tiger. It is about us.
Will our fascination with tigers give them back the dignified, free life that they had earned by surviving every hardship nature threw at them before we came along? Or will we be satisfied that we have done our job by having enough of them living in cages, performing tricks, and dazzling us with genetic deformities we would never dream of perpetuating in humans? If we choose the second option then there is one more reality that we must be willing to accept. If we pull the animals that we like out of the sinking ship that is their destroyed habitat and call it a day, every single solitary species that we did NOT find charismatic goes down with that ship, and with them the history of the natural world, and answers to questions that we perhaps no longer deem fundamental because we have so thoroughly removed ourselves from that world. It begs the question, if a tiger can't know who he or she really is, how can we know who we really are?
Sharyn Beach
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers_genetics.htm
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers_fraud.htm
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers.htm
Perhaps no other single species embodies the issues of endangerment and extinction more than the tiger. Sleek and graceful, powerful and exotic, awe-inspiring and beautiful, the tiger is the very definition of "charismatic mega fauna." And if the bold and beautiful orange and black felines illicit such an intense response in the human animal, the mysterious and perhaps even mystical white tiger captures our attention even more acutely. With its ghostly white appearance and searing blue eyes, the white tiger is difficult to ignore. Furthermore, we humans engage in an ongoing fascination with anything that we consider to be rare; and so, like gold, we value the white tiger for its supposed rarity, and find a ready rationalization for perpetuating its breeding by simply engaging one, perhaps now meaningless, word: conservation. After all, they must be "saved." If the orange and white tigers are facing such a gloomy future in the wild, then surely the rare white tiger is the one in the most trouble, the pinnacle of the endangerment problem, the poster child for the wreckage that the reckless attitudes of human beings have left in what we used to call wild places.
Such is the conclusion that we often collectively come to when we view conservation as an issue that affects only individual species, especially the individual species that we happen to find the most charismatic. The problem with this reasoning is that it fails to consider the bigger picture. Specifically, it fails to include the environment, or habitat, in which these charismatic species live, depend upon for their survival, and in which they each make a significant contribution that belongs uniquely to them.
If the white tiger is the poster child for any issue, it is the poster child for this faulty reasoning. The headlines are all too familiar: this zoo or that performer or this wildlife center is breeding white tigers in order to save them from extinction and restore them to their native habitats. Both the media and the public adore these types of stories, but the heartwarming and short-lived nature of today's news belies the real story that will surface for the white tiger cubs tomorrow. The truth is simple, yet difficult for many people to accept. White tigers are not a species and do not have a native habitat. Tigers do not inhabit any section of the globe in which it would be advantageous for their survival to be white. This includes the Siberian Tiger, which is actually more properly called the Amur tiger, as its habitat is the Amur River Region between China and the Russian far east.
The real story behind white tigers is revealed by the subject that many of us dreaded in high school or collegiate biology: genetics. What we call the "Royal" White Tiger is in fact a genetic anomaly, caused by a double recessive gene occurring so rarely in nature that it is estimated only 1 in every 10,000 tigers born in the wild is white, and not likely to live for very long.* Born with a condition that we call "leucism," the pigment does not color the skin and the fur, and more importantly, robs the animal of one of the main tools for its survival - camouflage. Without the proper coloring, the ambush technique upon which tigers depend for catching food is seriously compromised. We do tigers no service at all by forcing more of them to be white. If anyone were foolish enough to attempt to release a white tiger into any habitat that tigers normally occupy, it would most likely starve to death. Dr. Dan Laughlin, DVM, PhD, who is widely recognized internationally for his expertise in the care and management of zoological animals, has an international consulting practice limited to zoological animals, and fully researched and documented the accurate genealogy and origin of the white tiger in the U.S., states it well (the bold is mine): "...when a deleterious recessive genetic mutation randomly occurs that is disadvantageous for the survival of the animal, such as white color in a tropical jungle environment, the animal does not survive to pass on that genetic mutation or disadvantageous characteristic to its offspring."* In other words, cruel as it may sound, nature is not providing a place for the white tiger.
If nature is designed in such a way as to prevent the survival of genetic mutations that are a danger to the survival of an entire species, then why do we see white tigers in shows, zoos, circuses, carnivals, and wildlife centers across America? Once again, we find our answer in genetics, and in this case, its uglier side. How do we circumvent the laws of nature to create more animals for which nature does not provide a home? We don't. We simply bend the laws of nature to our own wills. We engage in a practice with animals that we would never dream of doing purposely with humans. We inbreed them. Those of us that survived the genetics section of those dreaded biology courses know that genetic diversity is vital to the health of both individuals and entire populations of species. The most critically endangered feline species and subspecies, such as the South China Tiger and the Amur Leopard, are considered to be functionally extinct by some experts because with numbers as low as 20 or 30, inbreeding is inevitable. Yet in the case of the white tiger, the breeding of mothers to sons, brothers to sisters, and fathers to daughters and grand-daughters is commonplace.
According to Dr. Laughlin, in addition to the now famous and severely inbred line of white Bengal tigers that can be traced back to Mohan, a white tiger taken as a cub out of the wild in 1951 and bred back to his daughter and grand-daughters,
"there is a second and separate origin of the white tiger which occurred spontaneously in two separate private collections in this country, when both owners inbred brothers to sisters that were all offspring of two litters resulting from crossing a pure Siberian male and a Bengal female at a small zoo in South Dakota." In any case, inbreeding is a necessary ingredient of the recipe for white tigers, and there is a price to be paid for it.
White tigers endure a host of health problems about which the public is largely unaware. These include immune system deficiencies that cause many to live miserable and short lives, scoliosis of the spine, hip dysplasia, neurological disorders, cleft palates, and protruding, bulging eyes. Eighty percent of all white tigers are stillborn; many of the ones that survive are too deformed to put on display. Out of the ones that look pretty, according to some tiger trainers, only 1 in 30 will consistently perform.* White tigers are at the mercy of a double-edged sword; they are often preferred by trainers because, as fundamentally sick animals, they are very dependent upon humans. On the other hand, the relentless inbreeding takes its toll on their mental capacity, rendering them unreliable as performers. At this point someone must be faced with the question rarely asked by the reporters who happily recount the birth of the cubs: what now? What happens to the 29 out of 30 white tigers that were too dull and sick to perform? We know by the former discussion that they could not have been, and will never be, released into the wild. Tracing their fate is exceedingly difficult, but the paths in front of them are bleak to say the least. The lucky ones will find permanent homes in accredited sanctuaries, but the majority will either be killed or sold to traveling zoos, circuses, and wildlife centers, living lives in quarters that are often cramped, filthy, and rarely inspected.
There is yet another side to this sad story. What becomes of the orange and white cubs (by far the majority) born to parents who were specifically paired to render the desirable white coloring? As with the unwanted whites, their fate is difficult to trace, but will most likely include becoming victims of canned hunts, being sold into the exotic pet trade to live out their lives as breeding animals, or being killed, dismembered, and their parts shipped to be sold in Asian markets. Virtually none of them will join their wild counterparts for the purpose of re-populating their severely dwindling numbers. They will never see the wild lands from which their forebears were taken, and as such, will never really know what it is like to be tigers.
Meanwhile, healthy wild tigers, able to engage in the activities for which tigers were designed and assume their role in carefully balanced ecosystems that depend on them as much as any other life form within them, disappear at alarming rates. Just one hundred years ago, there were approximately 100,000 tigers living in the wild; some experts estimate that fewer than 3,500 individuals roam the forests of our world, from India to southeast Asia to the Amur River region, today. Three subspecies of tigers are gone forever, and the South China tiger is well on its way to joining their ranks.
If the relentless breeding of white tigers has nothing to do with conservation, and the resulting animals are sick and live lives in captivity at best and suffer small quarters and little veterinary care at worst, then why do people continue to breed them? The answer is simple. When the genetic line to which Dr. Laughlin refers was continued and promulgated by the Cincinnati Zoo, the resulting cubs fetched as much as $60,000 each, the beginning of many, many more thousands of dollars that have passed through countless hands and yet still do not lead the endangered tiger back to its rightful home. Countless thousands of dollars that do nothing to stop the poaching of wild tigers. Countless thousands of dollars that do nothing to stave off the destruction of wild tiger habitats. Countless thousands of dollars that only serve to keep wild, dignified creatures behind bars. Do we really value genetic mutations more than the habitat in which healthy wild tigers live and thrive?
Dr. Laughlin believes that "The genealogical misrepresentation, repeated inbreeding, exhibition and sale, for $60,000 each, of white tigers by the Cincinnati Zoo initiated the greatest conservation deception of the American public in history. That deception continues through today. In my view, exhibiting and breeding white tigers is the very antithesis of conservation, is dishonest and unethical and is tantamount to catering to the public's desire to see genetic aberrations rather than educating the public regarding the incredible process of natural selection, how the unbelievable diversity of life has evolved on our planet throughout the past 50 million years and the crucial need for us to preserve natural habitats and stop the destruction of our global ecosystem if we desire to save any threatened or endangered species from extinction."
The insidiousness of this deception is that the heartwarming stories of individual cubs being born again and again creates the illusion that we are doing something. It creates the illusion that the so-called experts are solving the problems that we create with our own complacency. It is time to face the issue squarely. There can be no conservation of species without conservation of habitats, and there can be no conservation of habitats without conservation of entire ecosystems; therefore we are accountable for how our actions affect those ecosystems, in every choice that we make. Conservation. It is not about the white tiger. It is about us.
Will our fascination with tigers give them back the dignified, free life that they had earned by surviving every hardship nature threw at them before we came along? Or will we be satisfied that we have done our job by having enough of them living in cages, performing tricks, and dazzling us with genetic deformities we would never dream of perpetuating in humans? If we choose the second option then there is one more reality that we must be willing to accept. If we pull the animals that we like out of the sinking ship that is their destroyed habitat and call it a day, every single solitary species that we did NOT find charismatic goes down with that ship, and with them the history of the natural world, and answers to questions that we perhaps no longer deem fundamental because we have so thoroughly removed ourselves from that world. It begs the question, if a tiger can't know who he or she really is, how can we know who we really are?
Sharyn Beach
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers_genetics.htm
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers_fraud.htm
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers.htm
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Colleen Patrick Goudreau's Prayer
Today I would like to share "Prayer for Humans on Behalf of Animals" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, a dynamic writer, speaker, chef, and all-around beautiful person! I offer it up as a holiday prayer for all creatures, human and non-human alike, this holiday season.
A Prayer for Humans on Behalf of Animals
My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companions as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family of the geese, the adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people.
~Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
To find out more about Colleen and her work, visit CompassionateCooks.com
A Prayer for Humans on Behalf of Animals
My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companions as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family of the geese, the adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people.
~Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
To find out more about Colleen and her work, visit CompassionateCooks.com
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Courteously Deferential Apathy
“Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.”
Stanislaw J. Lec
When I was in the seventh grade, I did volunteer work for the Humane Society in order to fulfill service hours for my school. My job was to make phone calls about animals that had been left at the shelter, and my supervisor used to comment about how hard I worked. My mother was so proud. Garnering respect for rescuing cats and dogs is a “no-brainer.” Who could hate someone who cares for animals?
Twenty years ago, when I became a vegetarian, I realized the answer to that question. Family, friends, and acquaintances suddenly decided that I “had some ‘splainin’ to do.” Since then, I have encountered every argument and reaction from the lame to the ridiculous, with some arguments being so much so that I suppose I appeared to be surrendering because the “reasoning” I was offered was so ludicrous I didn’t even know where to begin.
I have also encountered the full range of emotional reactions. Some think veganism is interesting, but others become defensive and still others become angry. The anger usually takes the form of ridicule, as it so often does in so many situations. Ridicule is easy, accessible, and effective. Scorn is something that many will shun even more than they will bursts of rage, because scorn is insidious in its presentation and difficult to diffuse. Rage only makes the angry person seem more transparent, but ridicule makes perfectly serious, legitimate ideas seem trivial and frivolous. Scornful jokes succeed in distracting people from the real issue and belittling those who dared to bring up the issue in the first place.
After twenty years, I have become more and more adept at dealing with such reactions, perhaps in part because vegetarianism has become more widespread and in part because I am not as affected by negative reactions as I once was. I am especially amused by those who believe they are offering up an argument that I have never heard before. Oh no, I have NEVER heard the “people are starving in India because they can’t kill a cow” routine. But that is for another essay altogether.
At this point in my journey, I can handle most of the common rationalizations, except one. Now, the most infuriating, maddening, discouraging, and disheartening response is one that I will label “courteously deferential apathy.” It is not open scorn; it is not anger or defensiveness; nor is it ridicule. It is the quietly patronizing pat-on-the-head. “Isn’t it nice that you care about the little animals? Good luck with your cause. I am so glad that you found a project to fill up your time.” While scorn is difficult to recognize when doled out by those who have mastered it as a tool, it still amounts to a hatefulness that most of us can detect at least as an unnamed droning background noise lingering in the back of our minds. The insidiousness of courteously deferential apathy lies in its ability to make the scornful trivialization of important issues seem like a compliment. It is still, ultimately, a defense mechanism, one of the myriad ways in which we shield ourselves from the truth. It is tantamount to saying, “I think it’s sweet that you are concerned about these things, but don’t expect me to feel the same way.”
Such pleasant (and convenient) platitudes are missing the point. I have some news that some readers may find shocking. I DO expect you to feel the same way. I do not refer to the meaning of the word “expect” as “to demand something.” I refer to the meaning of “expect” as anticipating a certain event based on past experiences. Those past experiences include the pride that my family felt when I volunteered at the Humane Society, the rescued animals that so many of my friends and acquaintances have adopted, the stray cat that my family members took to the vet and spent more than $200 on, the frightened cat that one of my former roommates spent hours coaxing out of a tree, the dog that one of my friends brought home because he found it hanging around a gas station with a metal wire around its neck. The list goes on and on. It is what is commonly referred to as “the milk of human kindness” that causes us to respond to situations that we find unworkable or intolerable, especially situations in which we find others, human and non-human, abandoned or in pain.
So anyone out there who is considering using the “you can care about animals but I don’t” argument may as well drop it, because I’m not buying it. Herein lies the fundamental flaw of courteously deferential apathy; it assumes that those who speak out for animals have some special emotion, or some special access to emotions and sentiments that others just don’t have. The above examples are just a small sampling of evidence that this simply isn’t true. Let me illustrate with a story.
A few years ago, when my husband and I were walking from our apartment door to our car, we heard a dog whimpering. We searched for the source of the sound and finally realized it was coming from the swimming pool. A puppy had fallen into the freezing water (it was November) in the pool and could not get out because its back legs were still too short to clear the distance from the top step to the lip of the concrete around the pool. Its two front paws were out of the pool while the back half of its body was in the pool, and it was struggling to get out, to no avail. Because it was winter, the gate to the pool was locked. My husband climbed over the locked gate and got the shivering puppy out of the pool and we took it to the manager’s office, where the custodian, whom we had come to know, said he would take it home.
Are my husband, myself, and that custodian somehow “special?” Are we different than anyone else? How many people really would have ignored that puppy’s cry for help? No, I am not naïve enough to believe that there are not people who would have walked away, but I am speaking to the people reading this that I KNOW are caring, compassionate people. It is utterly natural to respond to calls for help that come from other people and also from non-human animals, which is why I expect that most people would (and do) respond. When we see people sick or injured, what do we do? We call 911. We try to relieve their pain. We do all we can for them, and we don’t need a reason. We do it without thinking, because we care. Period.
Yet, when the cry for help is faint and comes from a distant slaughterhouse that most people would never choose to visit or even read about, we find it very easy to ignore the call. Are the pleas for mercy that come from animals that will end up on someone’s dinner plate somehow less valid and less legitimate than the pleas of a cat or a dog? Why, precisely, do we choose NOT to respond in this situation?
The answer is simple – because it’s just too painful. You see, the puppy probably fell into the pool by accident. While it was suffering to some degree, it only suffered because it tripped over its own circumstances, not because someone purposely tried to hurt it. In such a case, it is easy to be the Good Samaritan.
Those distant cries coming from the slaughterhouse are another story entirely. They issue from the one thing that we fear the most – the darker side of humanity. The mysterious and scary side that motivates some people towards unspeakable abuses, including kicking, punching, stabbing, hanging, burning, scalding, and skinning animals alive. And the cries are not just coming from the animals; they are also coming from the people who have the unfortunate job of carrying out tasks that result in constant bloodshed, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It is a far, far more brutal life than most people imagine. In some of the larger “processing plants,” which is where 90% of animal food comes from, the “stickers” will slice the throats of between 900 and 1200 pigs every HOUR. They are literally covered in, and surrounded by, blood (among other bodily fluids) all day, every day.
Feeling a little lightheaded? I am. I know what some of you are thinking. “Stop being so melodramatic. It’s not THAT bad. Those people just get used to it.” That is precisely the problem. You think they leave the violence behind in the slaughterhouse? NOW who is being naïve? It is extremely difficult to keep one’s cool when one is being screamed at and berated all day, and then being given free range to take out one’s aggressions on defenseless animals. Is violence something we are supposed to just get used to? There is only one way to get used to it, and that is to cut oneself off from one’s own feelings, to cut oneself off from that connection that makes us respond to cries for help without a thought for our own welfare.
This is why I simply cannot buy the “it’s OK for you to care but don’t expect me to” argument. Sorry, but you cannot get off the hook that easily. I expect people to care. I expect them to care because I know that they DO care, whether they want to admit it or not. I do not speak for animals because it is “my special thing,” or because it is fun, or to make a fashion statement, or to ruin someone else’s day. I speak for animals because they called to me for help and their pain drove me into action. I speak for animals because the reckless abuse, neglect, and endangerment of them violates a fundamental, universal law of connection, the connection that causes us to cringe when we see others in pain and to rejoice when we see them flourish. We cannot keep ignoring their cries for mercy forever without injuring ourselves in the process. And we cannot deprive others of the dignity of meaningful work by asking them to commit acts on our behalf that few of us would be willing to do for ourselves.
It is time to open the doors of the slaughterhouse and look inside. It is time to face the stench and the bloody reality. It is time to, literally, wake up and smell what we are shoveling. We have to stop pushing it away into dark corners because we can’t bear to look at it. A plea for help that is muffled by thick, steel doors is still a plea for help, and if we are still human at all, we will respond. ALL of us.
Sharyn Beach
Stanislaw J. Lec
When I was in the seventh grade, I did volunteer work for the Humane Society in order to fulfill service hours for my school. My job was to make phone calls about animals that had been left at the shelter, and my supervisor used to comment about how hard I worked. My mother was so proud. Garnering respect for rescuing cats and dogs is a “no-brainer.” Who could hate someone who cares for animals?
Twenty years ago, when I became a vegetarian, I realized the answer to that question. Family, friends, and acquaintances suddenly decided that I “had some ‘splainin’ to do.” Since then, I have encountered every argument and reaction from the lame to the ridiculous, with some arguments being so much so that I suppose I appeared to be surrendering because the “reasoning” I was offered was so ludicrous I didn’t even know where to begin.
I have also encountered the full range of emotional reactions. Some think veganism is interesting, but others become defensive and still others become angry. The anger usually takes the form of ridicule, as it so often does in so many situations. Ridicule is easy, accessible, and effective. Scorn is something that many will shun even more than they will bursts of rage, because scorn is insidious in its presentation and difficult to diffuse. Rage only makes the angry person seem more transparent, but ridicule makes perfectly serious, legitimate ideas seem trivial and frivolous. Scornful jokes succeed in distracting people from the real issue and belittling those who dared to bring up the issue in the first place.
After twenty years, I have become more and more adept at dealing with such reactions, perhaps in part because vegetarianism has become more widespread and in part because I am not as affected by negative reactions as I once was. I am especially amused by those who believe they are offering up an argument that I have never heard before. Oh no, I have NEVER heard the “people are starving in India because they can’t kill a cow” routine. But that is for another essay altogether.
At this point in my journey, I can handle most of the common rationalizations, except one. Now, the most infuriating, maddening, discouraging, and disheartening response is one that I will label “courteously deferential apathy.” It is not open scorn; it is not anger or defensiveness; nor is it ridicule. It is the quietly patronizing pat-on-the-head. “Isn’t it nice that you care about the little animals? Good luck with your cause. I am so glad that you found a project to fill up your time.” While scorn is difficult to recognize when doled out by those who have mastered it as a tool, it still amounts to a hatefulness that most of us can detect at least as an unnamed droning background noise lingering in the back of our minds. The insidiousness of courteously deferential apathy lies in its ability to make the scornful trivialization of important issues seem like a compliment. It is still, ultimately, a defense mechanism, one of the myriad ways in which we shield ourselves from the truth. It is tantamount to saying, “I think it’s sweet that you are concerned about these things, but don’t expect me to feel the same way.”
Such pleasant (and convenient) platitudes are missing the point. I have some news that some readers may find shocking. I DO expect you to feel the same way. I do not refer to the meaning of the word “expect” as “to demand something.” I refer to the meaning of “expect” as anticipating a certain event based on past experiences. Those past experiences include the pride that my family felt when I volunteered at the Humane Society, the rescued animals that so many of my friends and acquaintances have adopted, the stray cat that my family members took to the vet and spent more than $200 on, the frightened cat that one of my former roommates spent hours coaxing out of a tree, the dog that one of my friends brought home because he found it hanging around a gas station with a metal wire around its neck. The list goes on and on. It is what is commonly referred to as “the milk of human kindness” that causes us to respond to situations that we find unworkable or intolerable, especially situations in which we find others, human and non-human, abandoned or in pain.
So anyone out there who is considering using the “you can care about animals but I don’t” argument may as well drop it, because I’m not buying it. Herein lies the fundamental flaw of courteously deferential apathy; it assumes that those who speak out for animals have some special emotion, or some special access to emotions and sentiments that others just don’t have. The above examples are just a small sampling of evidence that this simply isn’t true. Let me illustrate with a story.
A few years ago, when my husband and I were walking from our apartment door to our car, we heard a dog whimpering. We searched for the source of the sound and finally realized it was coming from the swimming pool. A puppy had fallen into the freezing water (it was November) in the pool and could not get out because its back legs were still too short to clear the distance from the top step to the lip of the concrete around the pool. Its two front paws were out of the pool while the back half of its body was in the pool, and it was struggling to get out, to no avail. Because it was winter, the gate to the pool was locked. My husband climbed over the locked gate and got the shivering puppy out of the pool and we took it to the manager’s office, where the custodian, whom we had come to know, said he would take it home.
Are my husband, myself, and that custodian somehow “special?” Are we different than anyone else? How many people really would have ignored that puppy’s cry for help? No, I am not naïve enough to believe that there are not people who would have walked away, but I am speaking to the people reading this that I KNOW are caring, compassionate people. It is utterly natural to respond to calls for help that come from other people and also from non-human animals, which is why I expect that most people would (and do) respond. When we see people sick or injured, what do we do? We call 911. We try to relieve their pain. We do all we can for them, and we don’t need a reason. We do it without thinking, because we care. Period.
Yet, when the cry for help is faint and comes from a distant slaughterhouse that most people would never choose to visit or even read about, we find it very easy to ignore the call. Are the pleas for mercy that come from animals that will end up on someone’s dinner plate somehow less valid and less legitimate than the pleas of a cat or a dog? Why, precisely, do we choose NOT to respond in this situation?
The answer is simple – because it’s just too painful. You see, the puppy probably fell into the pool by accident. While it was suffering to some degree, it only suffered because it tripped over its own circumstances, not because someone purposely tried to hurt it. In such a case, it is easy to be the Good Samaritan.
Those distant cries coming from the slaughterhouse are another story entirely. They issue from the one thing that we fear the most – the darker side of humanity. The mysterious and scary side that motivates some people towards unspeakable abuses, including kicking, punching, stabbing, hanging, burning, scalding, and skinning animals alive. And the cries are not just coming from the animals; they are also coming from the people who have the unfortunate job of carrying out tasks that result in constant bloodshed, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It is a far, far more brutal life than most people imagine. In some of the larger “processing plants,” which is where 90% of animal food comes from, the “stickers” will slice the throats of between 900 and 1200 pigs every HOUR. They are literally covered in, and surrounded by, blood (among other bodily fluids) all day, every day.
Feeling a little lightheaded? I am. I know what some of you are thinking. “Stop being so melodramatic. It’s not THAT bad. Those people just get used to it.” That is precisely the problem. You think they leave the violence behind in the slaughterhouse? NOW who is being naïve? It is extremely difficult to keep one’s cool when one is being screamed at and berated all day, and then being given free range to take out one’s aggressions on defenseless animals. Is violence something we are supposed to just get used to? There is only one way to get used to it, and that is to cut oneself off from one’s own feelings, to cut oneself off from that connection that makes us respond to cries for help without a thought for our own welfare.
This is why I simply cannot buy the “it’s OK for you to care but don’t expect me to” argument. Sorry, but you cannot get off the hook that easily. I expect people to care. I expect them to care because I know that they DO care, whether they want to admit it or not. I do not speak for animals because it is “my special thing,” or because it is fun, or to make a fashion statement, or to ruin someone else’s day. I speak for animals because they called to me for help and their pain drove me into action. I speak for animals because the reckless abuse, neglect, and endangerment of them violates a fundamental, universal law of connection, the connection that causes us to cringe when we see others in pain and to rejoice when we see them flourish. We cannot keep ignoring their cries for mercy forever without injuring ourselves in the process. And we cannot deprive others of the dignity of meaningful work by asking them to commit acts on our behalf that few of us would be willing to do for ourselves.
It is time to open the doors of the slaughterhouse and look inside. It is time to face the stench and the bloody reality. It is time to, literally, wake up and smell what we are shoveling. We have to stop pushing it away into dark corners because we can’t bear to look at it. A plea for help that is muffled by thick, steel doors is still a plea for help, and if we are still human at all, we will respond. ALL of us.
Sharyn Beach
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Prairie Dogs in the Great Plains
Here is a letter I wrote to my lawmakers about the EPA's recent efforts to approve poisons that will kill prairie dogs in the Great Plains by causing them to slowly and painfully bleed to death. It's time we started caring.....
The first paragraph and last line were composed by Defenders of Wildlife, the rest is mine:
As someone who cares about wildlife and environmental health, I'm writing to strongly oppose the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to register Kaput-D for use in eradicating prairie dogs in ten states across the Great Plains. The Environmental Protection Agency should not approve Kaput-D, and should immediately rescind its May 2009 approval of Rozol, a similar poison used to kill prairie dogs.
I remember feeding prairie dogs on a trip to the Great Plains many years ago; they were a major draw for visitors in the Badlands, and, like the bison, are a part of the landscape. That experience stands out to me as one of the great experiences of my life, and a moment when I felt humble and grateful to live in this land. I cannot imagine supporting anything that would so ruthlessly and carelessly destroy these animals, and I cannot imagine the Great Plains without prairie dogs.
It's time we stopped believing that we can poison our way out of our problems. It's time we stopped thinking that we can continue to engage in the destructive habits that we engage in and then simply apply a chemical to repair the damage. And it's time we stopped looking upon every other living thing in this world as a nuisance that is in our way and needs to be destroyed.
How long can this go on? Seriously. How many species do we have to obliterate before we are comfortable enough? How much violence will we heap upon other creatures before we realize that we cannot harm them without also harming ourselves?
We are subject to natural laws that are unchanging, and we are playing Russian roulette with things that we don't understand nearly as much as we think we do.
They are not just a bunch of stupid animals. They matter, and their fate is tied with ours, whether we recognize it or not.
Americans care about wildlife in America. We do not want to see them poisoned at all, and we especially do not want to see them subject to the slow and painful deaths associated with these chemicals.
Please withdraw the efforts to use these biocides on our prairie dogs.
Thank you for considering my views on this urgent matter. I look forward to your reply.
Sharyn Beach
The first paragraph and last line were composed by Defenders of Wildlife, the rest is mine:
As someone who cares about wildlife and environmental health, I'm writing to strongly oppose the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to register Kaput-D for use in eradicating prairie dogs in ten states across the Great Plains. The Environmental Protection Agency should not approve Kaput-D, and should immediately rescind its May 2009 approval of Rozol, a similar poison used to kill prairie dogs.
I remember feeding prairie dogs on a trip to the Great Plains many years ago; they were a major draw for visitors in the Badlands, and, like the bison, are a part of the landscape. That experience stands out to me as one of the great experiences of my life, and a moment when I felt humble and grateful to live in this land. I cannot imagine supporting anything that would so ruthlessly and carelessly destroy these animals, and I cannot imagine the Great Plains without prairie dogs.
It's time we stopped believing that we can poison our way out of our problems. It's time we stopped thinking that we can continue to engage in the destructive habits that we engage in and then simply apply a chemical to repair the damage. And it's time we stopped looking upon every other living thing in this world as a nuisance that is in our way and needs to be destroyed.
How long can this go on? Seriously. How many species do we have to obliterate before we are comfortable enough? How much violence will we heap upon other creatures before we realize that we cannot harm them without also harming ourselves?
We are subject to natural laws that are unchanging, and we are playing Russian roulette with things that we don't understand nearly as much as we think we do.
They are not just a bunch of stupid animals. They matter, and their fate is tied with ours, whether we recognize it or not.
Americans care about wildlife in America. We do not want to see them poisoned at all, and we especially do not want to see them subject to the slow and painful deaths associated with these chemicals.
Please withdraw the efforts to use these biocides on our prairie dogs.
Thank you for considering my views on this urgent matter. I look forward to your reply.
Sharyn Beach
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