Animal Writings

"Veal, by definition, is the product of a sick, anemic, deliberately malnourished calf, a newborn dragged away from his mother in the first hours of life. Veal calves are dealt the harshest of punishments for the least essential of meats. And if you think people can get too sentimental about animals, try listening sometime to chefs and gourmands going on about the 'velvety smooth succulence' of their favorite fare.

'Cost-saver' in industrial livestock agriculture may usually be taken to mean 'moral shortcut.' For all of its 'science-based' pretensions, factory farming is really just an elaborate, endless series of evasions from the most elementary duties of honest animal husbandry. Man, the rationalizing creature, can justify just about anything when there is money in sight. It's only easier when your victims are so completely out of sight and unable to speak for themselves."

...

"Industry lobbyist Jim Klinker, now director of the Arizona Farm Bureau and lead spokesman against the humane-farming initiative, started things off with a blunt reminder that farm animals aren't pets, and so our sympathy for them is misplaced. 'These people,' Klinker told Tucson Weekly, 'want these animals raised the same way we raise our dogs and cats. I think most people understand that's not how food is produced.'

When you want people to harden their hearts, however, it's probably not such a good idea to invite comparisons between farm animals and dogs or cats. How would your dog react if you stuffed her into a crate in which she could not even stretch or turn around, and never let her out? No human attention or companionship with other animals. No bedding, straw to lie on. No single moment outdoors, ever, to feel the breeze or the warmth of the sun.

Your dog, a being of intelligence and emotional capacities entirely comparable to those of a pig, would beg and wail and whimper and finally fall silent into a state of complete brokenness. And anyone who inflicted such tortures on that animal, no matter what excuses might be offered, would be guilty of a felony. If the creatures are comparable, and the conditions identical, and the suffering equal, how can the one be 'standard practice' and the other a crime?"

"Arizona voters will be asked this fall to weigh in on a ballot measure called the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act, which is now in the signature-gathering stage but, by November, is certain to be one of our livelier election-year debates.

The initiative, modeled on a reform passed by Florida voters, would prohibit the factory-farming practice of confining pigs and veal calves in crates so small that the animals cannot even turn around or extend their limbs."

Just this month the industry's allies in the Arizona Legislature proposed a constitutional amendment to bar the public from passing any laws promoting the humane treatment of farm animals, effective Jan. 1, 2006. Nice to have a fallback position: Even if the humane-farming initiative passes by vote of the people, as industry lobbyists apparently fear it will, they plan to nullify the law retroactively.

Hunting is a $21 billion-a-year business, and the number of hunters in America has been declining steadily for the past 30 years. Unless this trend can be reversed, the hunting industry, including the manufacturers and sellers of firearms and ammunition, is going to see its profits go into a tailspin.

The centerpiece of their campaign to put deer rifles - which can easily kill a human being a mile away - in the hands of small children is a legislative proposal that is being introduced in state capitals around the country. This hunting industry legislation would do away with any minimum hunting age for children.

The only requirement would be that a parent be within arm's length of the child. Cynically, the industry argues that parents know best when a child is mature enough to use a firearm, and the government has no business interfering in what should be a family matter.

This is rank insanity. In every state, a person has to be 21 before he or she can drink. No one argues that parents should decide when their children are old enough to drink because everyone knows that while some families would make responsible decisions, some would not and the potential consequences for the community are too great.

Nationwide, children have to be at least 15 and, in many cases, 16 before they can drive a car. No one would suggest that a child of 10 or 11 be allowed to drive as long as a parent was in the front passenger seat, within arm's length.

Hunters have to make snap decisions to shoot or not to shoot under conditions of extreme emotional pressure. When a deer breaks into a clearing or a bird flushes in a whir of wings, there is no time for a child to ask a parent what to do. There is no time for a parent to restrain a child who is unwittingly, in the heat of the moment, about to shoot a human being.

The Humane Society of the United States is opposed to all sport hunting because we believe that killing animals for fun has no place in a civilized and humane world. But this recent effort compounds animal exploitation with the exploitation of children.

Dear Editor,

Three comments on children who hunt ["For Young Hunters, Challenge to Tradition," Nov. 13].

Paul Peditto, director of the Maryland Department of of Natural Resources Wildlife and Heritage Service, seems to think that as long as minors of any age pass a safety test and are accompanied by an adult, it's no problem having them out in the woods with a loaded, high-powered rifle in their hands. Should we use the same criteria for driving a car?

Perhaps the young hunters—and all hunters—should pass a competency test, to reduce the number of animals who die slowly and in agony from their bullet wounds. Even pro-hunting groups acknowledge that up to 25 percent of animals shot by hunters do not die right away.

Excerpt from the last paragraph of the article: "A deafening gunshot blast pierced the air. The deer crumpled in its tracks. The son's face glowed with satisfaction, the father's with pride." Lovely. In this already-violent world, we're teaching children that it's fun to kill.

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Dear Editor,

Stephen Hunter's glorification of blood sport ["News of the Vice President's Misfire Hits a Fellow Bird Hunter Where It Hurts," Feb. 14], in which he uses words ike "beautiful," "elegant," and "art" to describe the killing of innocent creatures, is obscene. Taking pleasure in harming others is a psychological disorder. But it's promoted by the afflicted, and the organizations that make money off them, as "sport."

In his account of his own near-hunting accident, Mr. Hunter conveys the great care he took to avoid shooting his dog. Presumably he has sympathy for his dog and would feel terrible about hurting him or, God forbid, killing him. But the birds he shoots and kills also feel pain; they also suffer and feel terror. Science and countless observations suggest that birds are smart and emotional, and are capable of experiencing happiness and grief. But to Mr. Hunter, they're just things.

"He has pushed so hard in his campaign to assert autocratic powers for the White House that even his allies on Capitol Hill have begun pushing back. No wonder, given the way he treats them. On electronic spying, Cheney has essentially told Congress that if any members would like to discuss checks and balances, they're welcome to talk to the hand.

His uncompromising drill-and-guzzle position on energy makes a lot of oil industry executives look like tree-huggers. When the subject turns to measures that actually begin to lead this country toward energy independence, such as conservation and alternative fuels, Cheney begins checking his watch and barely tries to stifle his yawns. But let someone raise the prospect of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which couldn't even begin to slake America's energy thirst, and it's impossible not to think of Mr. Burns on 'The Simpsons.'

Conservation sounds like one of those sissified foreign ideas. Drilling, now that's what America is all about—at least the America that spends its weekends on a 50,000-acre ranch in south Texas with a bunch of fellow millionaires, shooting at quail.

Typically, Cheney's office didn't bother to tell anyone for more than 18 hours that the vice president of the United States had shot someone. A vice presidential shooting doesn't happen every day, and I, for one, would appreciate being informed whenever the man who's just a heartbeat away from the presidency peppers a 78-year old attorney with birdshot."

"Mistaking a 37-year old housewife for a white-tailed deer, [Donald] Rogerson shot and killed her...Karen Wood had only been out in her backyard for a minute, leaving her year-old twin girls in her house, when Rogerson shot her in the chest with a .30-06 rifle. Despite a 4X power scope and a distance of only 188 feet, Rogerson insisted that he mistook Wood for a deer he had seen -- though a game warden found no tracks or other evidence...Locals insisted that the victim (who had recently moved from Iowa) was to blame because she was wearing white mittens during deer season. And a Bangor, Maine, jury cleared him of manslaughter.

No one in authority is talking about charging Cheney with a crime. But Cheney and Rogerson share the ignoble distinction of succumbing to what hunters (and lawyers) call 'buck fever.' It is a phenomenon as old as hunting, defined by the Random House dictionary as the 'nervous excitement of an inexperienced hunter upon the approach of game.' Yet experienced hunters have also been known to cut down neighbors they have mistaken for bucks, ducks and other quarry.

Buck fever is a recognized defense for negligent hunters, particularly youths. When a teenager shot a local businessman dressed in orange during deer season, he was excused from civil liability because of buck fever, despite the absence of any known species of orange-colored deer."

"Hundreds of people are shot each year in 'mistaken for game' cases."

"Judy Moilanen was merely walking her dog in Ontonagon, Mich., when she was killed. Debra Kelly of Osseo, Wis., had her eye shot out by her 13-year-old nephew while she stood in front of her house."

Cheney's case reflects a troubling de facto immunity given to negligent hunters. Because of our tradition of hunting, we view people who make lethal use of a firearm as less culpable than those who make lethal use of objects like cars. Texas probably won't require that Cheney take safety classes or suspend his license. The local county sheriff's office has already declared the case closed. For his part, Cheney feels no compulsion to promise that the 'buck (fever) stops here' and give up hunting."

"At least Whittington knows who shot him. Frequently, the culprits in hunting manslaughter cases are never identified. With the expansion of suburbia, it is increasingly common for people to unwittingly enter a line of fire. In 1992, in Leeds, Ala., 22-month-old Ashley Ramage was shot and killed while simply riding between her parents in their truck."

"An average person, not traveling with extensive medical personnel, would have had to call 911, drawing the police immediately. The police would certainly have searched for alcohol or drugs. [Cheney, who said he had "a beer" at lunch, waited a day before submitting to an alcohol test.] Additionally, without medical personnel on the scene and far away from any hospital, Harry Whittington might have died, making the situation that much more serious."

"President Bush in 2000 ushered in the Era of Personal Responsibility. Yesterday ushered in the Era of Qualified Personal Responsibility.

In hours-long testimony before a Senate committee, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he took the blame for the department's failures responding to Hurricane Katrina. "I am responsible for the Department of Homeland Security," came the inevitable claim. 'I'm accountable and accept responsibility for the performance of the entire department.'

At the same time, Vice President Cheney, breaking four days of silence since accidentally shooting a man on Saturday, was scheduling a confessional on Fox News. 'You can't blame anybody else,' Cheney told Brit Hume. 'I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.'

But, try though they might, neither Chertoff nor Cheney could come up with much in the way of what he had done wrong.

'I have to say that the idea that this department and this administration and the president were somehow detached from Katrina is simply not correct,' Chertoff testified, contradicting a House committee report released yesterday that found the secretary exercised his responsibilities 'late, ineffectively, or not at all.'

Cheney, similarly, said the way he handled disclosure of the shooting -- leaving a private citizen to announce it to a local newspaper the next day -- was spot-on. 'I thought that was the right call,' he said. 'I still do.'

Since Bush won the presidency in 2000 with a promise to usher in a 'new era of personal responsibility,' a public acceptance of culpability is de rigueur when something goes wrong.

But admitting mistakes is an entirely different matter. That could convey weakness and, as such, is to be avoided entirely. Hours after branding the federal response to Katrina 'unacceptable,' for example, Bush qualified that by saying, 'I am satisfied with the response. I'm not satisfied with all the results.'

Cheney, speaking to Fox News yesterday, performed a similar routine. He offered a stark claim of responsibility. 'Well, ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry.'

But in the same interview, Cheney pointed out that 'there was a little bit of a gully there, so he was down a little ways before land level. . . . And the sun was directly behind him. That affected the vision, too, I'm sure.'

"There's something about this that I've been trying to connect: nobody in the Bush White House went to war in Vietnam or Korea or anywhere actually. They all got out of their service in some way. Yet, they've started two wars and now the Vice President has shot a man in the face.

There's something very strange to me about personally avoiding war...but then starting wars and sending other people to die, and participating in blood sports involving more or less the smallest creatures people hunt (who were raised in cages anyway). Something kinda sick and twisted about this to me."

"A quote from a 2004 animal agriculture textbook: 'For modern animal agriculture, the less the consumer knows about what’s happening before the meat hits the plate, the better.' They know that hundreds of millions of people would be against them if they only knew the truth. Everybody is against cruelty to animals. So the industry’s only chance is to marginalize our movement and distract the public from the real issue. And the real issue is the violence that goes on inside their factory farms, their labs, their slaughterhouses. Our secret weapon, therefore, is effective education."

...

"In our sheltered activist circles it’s easy to forget how effective the industry has been at concealing the ugly truth. People still simply don’t know what goes on in factory farms. Most people, for example, don’t even know that dairy cows are slaughtered. In the biggest study on transitioning towards vegetarianism to date involving thousands of high school seniors across 52 schools, only 29 percent of the young women and 17 percent of the men disagreed with the statement 'I think meat production is done humanely.' There is much educational work to be done."

"A few pipe bombs are not going to topple multi-billion dollar industries. What they may do, however, is play right into the opposition’s blood-stained hands and make our education efforts more difficult. It may plant a wedge and further distance society from being open to our message.

Who cares what they think, though? Why should we care about public opinion? Because unless we think there are enough vegans in this world, unless we think there are enough animal activists, unless we are content that we have reached some kind of revolutionary quorum, then it matters what society thinks because we need to grow. We need to be a movement that people want to join. We can go on and on about the victorious availability of soy milk everywhere now, but we’re losing. We’re losing more and more animals every single year. We need to become a mass movement.

The T-shirts of Animal Rights Hawaii quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: 'The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kinds of extremists we will be.' I think we should be nonviolent extremists for the animals.

"A now 20-year old Canadian Government strategy paper called Defence of the Fur Trade [there's an ugly title] and a similar strategy outline produced a year later by the American Medical Association both described the tactic of neutralizing animal advocacy by associating it with violence.

Simply answering that far more violence is done by trappers, vivisectors, et al misses the point.

Accepting terrorism of any sort invites infiltration and disruption, and ultimately retards the cause, no matter how much of a vicarious feel-good activists may get from a transiently successful 'direct action.'

Critical to remember, as both Defence of the Fur Trade and the AMA strategy pointed out, is that most of the public does not approve of cruelty to animals, when they recognize it."

...

"Animal advocates should be aware that seven years before any ALF or ELF suspect used a pipe bomb, a covert operator named Mary Lou Sappone, hired by former U.S. Surgical Corporation owner Leon Hirsch, in November 1988 set up a fringe activist to be caught in the act of planting a pipe bomb in the U.S. Surgical parking lot.

Why?

Because when the public sees purported animal advocates involved in violence, that violence becomes the story—not the violence going on outside in the woods, in the labs, and inside the slaughterhouses.

The best defense animal advocates have against such duplicitous tactics is to avoid any association with violence, so that agents provocateur become conspicuous.

Convincing the world to treat animals with moral consideration requires activists to keep the high ground, not from fear of arrest, but from the likelihood that appearing to be irrational or dangerous will obscure the message and lead to failure."

"On January 4, 2006 I was asked by In Defense of Animals (IDA) as well as Friends of Toni to visit the National Zoo and meet with John Berry, the zoo's new director concerning the condition of Toni, their 40 year old Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). There has been some growing concern over Toni's debilitating condition and IDA wanted my professional opinion and evaluation of her present physical state. I was chosen because of my thirty-six years experience with elephants and other animals, twenty-three years of which I have been a veterinarian, working in zoos, wildlife, and with domestic animals. IDA and Friends of Toni are asking the zoo to send Toni to The Elephant Sanctuary (TES) in Hohenwald, TN which I visited on January 3rd en route to Washington, D.C.

When I saw Toni on January 4th, 2006, I was appalled. I have never seen an elephant in such a debilitated condition. Toni is an elephant at least 2000 pounds underweight with an almost contorted posture. She moved carefully placing each foot with deliberation and consideration as to its position. Trying not to put much weight on each step...as if walking on eggs! All the while she was leaning back onto her rear quarters, obviously keeping weight off of her front legs. Her spine looked curved and her pelvis was twisted. The fact that I could see her spine, shoulder blades, and hip bones was beyond belief. I had expected her to be in poor shape; but this was more than I could have ever imagined.

After visiting Toni at her exhibit we, Joyce Poole, PHD and Petter Granli (both with Amboseli Elephant Research Project), Suzanne Roy (In Defense of Animals), Amy Mayers (Friends of Toni) and I met with John Berry, the director of the National Zoo. We all expressed our concern for Toni's condition. I told Mr. Berry that I believed Toni was suffering and if I were his veterinarian I would be discussing euthanasia with him to end her pain. We discussed the option of sending Toni to The Elephant Sanctuary (TES). I expressed my feeling that Toni may not be able to survive the move to Tennessee and the Sanctuary; but that Carol Buckley of TES would be the better judge of that due to her experience moving debilitated elephants. And if Carol felt after evaluating Toni that she could be moved, then I would support it. Mr. Berry assured all of us that Toni was receiving the best care possible at the National Zoo. He explained her condition was due to her old leg injury at Scranton Zoo and her weight loss was due to her being just a picky eater. In fact when I watched Toni in her exhibit she appeared to relish her bamboo, which was obviously placed in the yard to draw her out. He explained that the other elephants were thriving in the exhibit. I informed Mr. Berry that Ambika was also being treated with ibuprofen for arthritis according to the medical records. He was unaware of that. We ended the meeting with Mr. Berry assuring us that Toni was receiving excellent care. He articulated The National Zoo's commitment to continue to exhibit and breed elephants.


In December 2005 I was given access to Toni's medical records, as well as the records of the other elephants at the National Zoo. So I was painfully aware of her medical problems: her chronic arthritis in her left forelimb caused by an old injury at the Scranton Zoo in Pennsylvania; her chronic arthritis in her right forelimb caused by shifting her weight onto the 'good' leg attempting to alleviate the pain in the left limb; chronic infected tusk sulcus (socket); chronic weight loss and inability to regain weight; hematuria (blood in urine) due to renal papillary necrosis or pyelonephritis (kidney infection). The records run from January 2000 until early November 2005. There is a trend of a chronically declining health picture. 10 Dec 2000 she was noted to be thin and body weight of 5850 pounds, 'her lowest weight since 1996.' Her last weight that I have was on 7 Nov 2005 and was noted to be 5740.4 pounds. The average weight for an Asian elephant cow is 7000 to 8000 pounds.

Prior to Toni's episode of hematuria in March of 2001 she had been on ibuprofen daily since 1997. One would assume for arthritis pain in the left or right or both front legs. The records are not clear. What is clear is the use of ibuprofen. In fact ibuprofen is not commonly used in domestic animals at all due to its toxic effects. From examining the records I am convinced the hematuria seen and treated as a kidney infection was in fact ibuprofen toxicity. The animal health staff must have strongly suspected this at the time because they immediately discontinued the ibuprofen when blood was found in her urine."

...

The First North American Conference on Elephant Foot Care and Pathology was held in Beaverton, Oregon, March, 1998. The Elephant's Foot, Prevention and Care of Foot Conditions in Captive Asian and African Elephants, (Iowa State University Press, 2001) resulted from that meeting and states in the introduction:'Foot problems are seen in 50 percent of captive Asian and African elephants at some time in their lives. ...may result in serious disability and death.' They go on to state 'There is a general consensus that lack of exercise, long hours standing on hard substrates, and contamination resulting from standing in their own excreta are major contributors to elephant foot problems. All contributors (to the meeting) also agree that prevention of foot problems is preferable to treatment.' It is important to keep in mind that elephant 'foot problems' over time will lead to debilitating arthritis and degenerative joint disease, and vice versa.

Whenever possible we as veterinarians are trained to prevent pain and suffering, not just treat it. Why are the veterinarians at the National Zoo not preventing the painful degenerative arthritis in their elephants like Toni and Ambika?? They cannot!! Because the cause of the crippling degenerative joint disease is the exhibit itself: the concrete; the packed unyielding abrasive substrate inside and outside; the lack of exercise and normal use of the elephants feet and limbs — climbing, digging, walking, wading into streams, kicking logs, and foraging. Some zoo professionals gone on record saying elephants are basically lazy and if their food is placed in front of them they will not exercise. Sounds like the American Public, myself included. Nevertheless they evolved to travel miles each day on uneven natural substrate using their feet to find and apprehend food. To keep them healthy we must provide that opportunity as well. The zoo exhibit itself is the cause of the Degenerative Joint Disease. The zoo exhibit itself is killing her. And treating these elephants like Toni and Ambika with long term, high dose NSAID [non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug], in an effort to control their pain, is contributing to their agony, not alleviating it."

"Although I already knew that 39-year-old Toni had severe arthritis, I was not prepared for what I witnessed at the enclosure. In all my 30 years of observing wild elephants I have never seen an elephant as crippled as Toni."

Almost 20 years ago, at the Scranton Zoo, Toni suffered a broken left ankle. Years of standing on concrete floors and compacted sandy soil in a small enclosure, with little exercise have exacerbated this injury, for she is now almost unable to walk. Toni shuffles along, only centimeters at a step, with her weight shifted onto her hind legs."

...

"Over the years of compensation, the muscles on Toni's left side have atrophied, and the curvature of her spine and pelvis appear deformed. Toni is extremely thin and zoo records document that she continues to lose weight.


I have seen a substantial number of elephants with broken and/or withered legs in the wild, all able to move and keep up with their families, either by putting weight on the injured leg, and walking with a limp, or by hobbling along on three legs. One Amboseli female elephant, 43-year-old Xala, has lived with a left ankle break (similar to Toni's) since the first day she was seen on 5th December 1973. Xala is still a healthy, vigorous female, who is able to keep up with her family, reproduce and success-fully raise offspring.

Toni's state may be extreme, however, her debilitating condition is indicative of many of the problems experienced by captive elephants and she symbolizes the dismal consequences of long-term lack of space and movement. Toni is yet one more statistic in the overwhelming empirical evidence that (contrary to recent AZA [American Zoo Association] statements) elephants do need sufficient space and social and environmental enrichment to maintain agility and good physical health.

We can only speculate about the inner emotional trauma this elephant has experienced in her life, with severe pain on a daily basis being one.

The National Zoo's elephants are all Asian elephants, a species that inhabits forest and forest-edge habitats in its natural environment. The National Zoo's barren exhibit couldn't be further from tropical forest; rather the exhibit is stunning in its bleak desert-like condition. Ultimately the zoo and its exhibit cannot escape responsibility for Toni's condition.

The AZA is fond of claiming that the reason for keeping elephants in zoos is that they play an educational and conservation role. Surely, having Toni and the other three elephants in such an impoverished exhibit and claiming that they are receiving 'the best' is hardly educational."

Photos:

Amy Mayers, Friends of Toni (Toni)
Petter Granli, www.ElephantVoices.org (Xala, zoo elephant exhibit)

"And if The National Zoo cannot provide appropriate habitat for their other elephants, then they should not have elephants at all."