Tiny kitten who was attacked by a crow wears heart-melting crocheted costumes that – believe it or not – are aiding her recovery

By James Nye, Mail Online

kittenWounded001
The saga of Wasabi-chan

What could be cuter than a tiny, wee kitten dressed up as a button mushroom?

Nothing of course – and when you realize that this adorable creature isn’t just wearing the outfit for the ‘awww’ factor, but for her own good, it might just make you lose your cool.

Wasabi-chan, the adorable Japanese rescue kitten, was attacked and seriously injured by a crow who fractured her jaw and ripped her tongue in two.

kittenWoundedCute5

 

kittenWoundedCute

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2360017/Cute-button-Tiny-kitten-injured-crow-wears-heart-melting-crocheted-costumes-believe-aiding-recovery.html#ixzz2YrVIuONB




Animals in Dominionistic Religions: a Discussion

NO WISDOM in killing…
Prefatory Note: The following is a brief discussion between two dedicated animal liberationists, Kristal Parks and Ruth Eisenbud, on the intent of religious teachings in connection with animals. The exchange focuses on the doctrines of “dominionist religions” (i.e., the Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths), which consign animals to the whims of man.—PG

elepahnt-african

“It is the essential characteristic of a wise person that he/she does not kill any living being.
One should know that non-killing and equality of all living beings are the main principles of religion”
—Jain sutra

“I have always felt responsible to act on what I know.” —Kristal Parks

Dear Kristal,

It was noted in the Greanville Post item on your protest of chinese consumption of ivory that:
‘She credits her spiritual training that draws on “the wisdom traditions, East and West. I’m most drawn to the contemplative Christian tradition and Zen Buddhism.”

She spent time meditating at St. Benedict’s monastery in Snowmass before and after every action. And she studied extensively with exiled Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. “I used to say for however much time you spend in jail, you should spend an equal amount of time in a monastery, purifying your motives, taking down barriers that separate you from others.’

ALERT: Hunger strike to protest Chinese consumption of ivory

There is no doubt that you are a remarkable, courageous person, capable of understanding the implications of violence in its various forms to animals and humans. This is exactly why I was concerned to learn that you credit your spiritual training to “the wisdom traditions, East and West. I’m most drawn to the contemplative Christian tradition and Zen Buddhism.”

Cow murdered for religious celebration.  What did this animal do to deserve this fate? Only the dumbing down of our conscience through habit blinds us to this horror.

Cow murdered for religious celebration purposes. What did this animal do to deserve this fate? Only the dumbing down of our conscience through habit can blind us to this horror. ALL traditions must be examined, and probably most of them overthrown as they reflect backward stages of human consciousness.

Given that you understand that the suffering of animals is no different than the suffering of humans, how is it possible for you to reconcile your values with the belief system of the semitic religions: judaism, christianity and islam?  Dominion, the very foundation of this tradition is based on a hierarchy that subjugates animals to slaughter and exploitation in the name of human supremacy. This premise is endorsed by the St Benedictine Monastery, where you sought spiritual healing from exposure to the brutality of prison. The accepted diet for a St Benedictine Monastery includes:

FOOD AND DRINK AT A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY
Though the Rule of St. Benedict proscribes the eating of meat, fish is eaten at all Benedictine houses, and some inmates partake of lard and the flesh of birds as well. Child novices may be allowed the full range of meat dishes, and the head of a house may well have the flesh of pigs, deer, or other animals at his or her table. Obedientiaries frequently eat whatever they wish while travelling, and even when they are within the conventual walls, they may take their meals with the guests of the house and indulge in foods not found in the refectory [70].

Though their diets are more restricted, cloistered monks and nuns also enjoy a variety of dishes in many Benedictine communities. Quantities are often generous, and pittances are common additions to the daily meals. Feast days feature elaborate banquets, with ten or more courses served in the refectories of the wealthiest houses on important holidays. Ale is the usual beverage, or wine if the community can afford it. Meat may be served on special occasions [71]. The customary drink in the refectory in the afternoon during the summer and in the evening in winter sometimes includes light bread or cakes [72].http://www.aedificium.org/MonasticLife/BenedictineOrder.html

[pullquote] The lovely image of a shepherd guarding his sheep, fails to portray the reality. The shepherd is protecting his sheep from harm by other predators, so that the owner of the sheep may shear them and slit their throats for a feast. This is the intention and meaning of dominion. [/pullquote]

In other words, the higher one is in the religious hierarchy, the more likely one is to consume the flesh of many animals. While A Benedictine Monastery is likely in a scenic location, since most of the best land was appropriated from the peasantry, it is hardly a suitable venue for contemplating compassion, peace and justice for all.

Are you familiar with the Jain tradition of India. It is a religious- based community that has embraced the tenets of non-violence, known as ahimsa, for thousands of years by prohibiting meat, leather, fur and silk. Though a small percent of the population, jains have had significant influence on implementing compassion for animals. Jains were historically the first to set up shelters, where injured animals were treated and released, as confining animals violates their right to freedom. To this very day, Jains exert their influence on Indian animal law, which is broad-based, comprehensive and compassionate. If you are familiar with the writings and work of Mahatma Gandhi, then you have an idea of the influence of ahimsa on politics. Prior to embarking on the campaign to liberate India from British occupation, Gandhiji conferred with Jain scholar, Shrimad Rajchandra, to better understand Jain doctrine as a basis for protest.

To better understand the doctrine as a basis for animal compassion consider the following sutras:

“All things breathing, all things existing, all living beings whatever, whould not be slain or treated with violence, or insulted, or tortured or drven away. This is the pure unchanging eternal law, which the wise ones who know the world have proclaimed…” —Jain Acharanga Sutra

“If thinking to gain praise, honor or respect,…a man who sins against earth or causes or permits others to do so…he will not gain joy or wisdom…tyrany to the earth is like striking , cutting or maiming a blind man…Knowing this a man should not sin agaonst earth or cause or permit others to do so. He who understands the nature of sin against earth is called a Sage.” —Jain Acharanga Sutra

“All beings with two, three, four or five senses in fact, all creation know individually pleasure and displeasure, pain, terror and sorrow. ALL are full of fears which come from all directions. And yet there exist people who would cause greater pain to them…Some kill animals for sacrifice, some for their skin, flesh, blood, feathers, teeth or tusks;…Some kill them intentionally and some unintentionally. Some kill because they have been previously injured by them…and some because they expect to be injured. He who harms animals has not understood or renounced deeds of sin…He who understands the nature of sin against animals is called a Sage.”  —Jain Acharanga Sutra

If these sutras are consistent with your beliefs, then is it possible to state that the mandate of genesis is similar in intention? As you are well aware the ravages to animals seen daily in Judeo.Christian Muslim nations are a direct result of religious doctrine that excuses animal abuse as a right granted to man as follows:

“Genesis 9:1-3 is the most significant Biblical text supporting the Christian tradition of eating meat: “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.’ “

Having been born into one of the semtic religions, based on what I know of the cruelty of that tradition,  I opted out of dominon. All faiths are not equal.Acting on what I know  I left my birth religion of Judaism to free myself from the brutality of dominonist doctrine. If I were Christian I would do the same. Compassion for animals is not possible in a tradition that sanctifies their subjugation to man.

Living in a dominion-rooted culture takes its toll on one’s spirit. In an effort to undo this harm and heal from it, I have found spiritual peace as part of a Jain community, where I attend pujas and other observances, away from the violence of  the semitic religious tradition. To the best of my knowledge Jainism is the only religion that has maintained a successful effort to live free from violence to both animals and humans.

While it is not necessary to be a Jain to live by ahimsa, it is impossible to remain in or praise a semitic religion and then expect compassion for animals.

Respectfully,
Ruth Eisenbud

REPLY

Dear Ruth, 

Thank you for your email and for taking the time to send me the important information you have included in your several emails.
 
I agree with you, Ruth.  It is absolutely appalling what is done to animals [with the consent of]  the religious community.  It is total blasphemy and is a source of deep pain and agony for me.  
 
It seems  that followers of great spiritual leaders often desecrate the original teachings of those teachers.  But I will not allow those followers to pressure me to reject the teachers because of the heresy and hypocrisy of the followers.   Rather, I wish to represent another interpretation of those teachings through my life and actions.  So, I am a very vocal and loud voice for animals within those communities and I must say, Ruth, it is no easy task.  But I do it gladly for the sake of animals.
 
Best wishes to you.
Kristal
Kristal Parks, M.A.
Director, Pachyderm Power! Love in Action for Elephants
1-303-571-0801

 

COUNTER REPLY

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD

jesusShepherd

The Good Shepherd protects his sheep from harm, so that they
may be sheared and slaughtered by their master. The sheep are
being protected as property to be used or discarded at will.

The lovely image of a shepherd guarding his sheep, fails to portray the reality. The shepherd is protecting his sheep from harm by other predators, so that the owner of the sheep may shear them and slit their throats for a feast. This is the intention and meaning of dominion:

“The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.’” Genesis

Dear Kristal,

Thank you for responding to my concerns of characterizing dominion religions and even Buddhism as holders of the wisdom of compassion. The holiest of the holy, including the monks at the Benedictine Monastery where you sought refuge care little about your concern for animals, as they indulge in various meats with great piety. Even the dalai lama has been known to eat meat, although his indiscretion pales when compared to the meat orgies of semitic religious feasts.

It is irresponsible to promote the pillars of these religious institutions. They will take the opportunity to capitalize on your compassion and generosity of spirit as evidence that their blood drenched religions are enlightened. The semitic religions have no reason to change their view of animals while they receive support from individuals devoted to compassion (and respect and privileges from the state]. They will hold you up as proof that their cruel values are actually kind. They are anything but. Your praise of these religions insures that they will be able to preserve and perpetuate their cruel doctrine, along with a thin veneer of compassion. Gandhi understood the harm with such collaboration when he stated:


“As you do good, non-cooperation with evil is essential”  

While you portray christianity as potentially helpful for animals, you are aiding and abetting their view of animals which allows them to be slaughtered with ease. You are inadvertently cooperating with the evil of dominion. Please do not allow yourself to be exploited by those who would harm animals.

The dominion religions are quite clear, “the exploitation and slaughter of animals has been granted to man by divine intervention.”  Though sometimes cloaked in gentler language, the intention remains the same. Once this parameter is set into place, it is possible to quibble about the extent of exploitation or the type of slaughter, or which animal may be violated, which not, but it is never possible to end the violence. It is a sacred right.

You state:’ It seems  that followers of great spiritual leaders often desecrate the original teachings of those teachers.’

The doctrine which grants man dominion over animals is cruel by definition. There are some who use softer language and substitute the term stewardship for dominion. This is a clever manipulation of language designed to promote the same vision of animals. Stewardship implies management of one’s resources. This definition designates animals as human property. Once viewed as property it is possible to trivialize the value of their lives to allow for every manner of exploitation. In sum, it’s nothing but a euphemism. Politicians use it all the time; advertising is often built on euphemisms. The military uses it all the time, too, as when they speak blandly of, “collateral damage.”

The false imagery of dominion is as ruthless as its intention – the victimization of animals by their human masters. Dominion, aka stewardship, was never benevolent, nor is not now. as it sanctifies  violence to animals for human advantage.

While it is comforting to hold on to the illusions of the semitic religions we learned as children: that they represent love and are filled with compassion, for the sake of the animals we must let go of this deception. By promoting a Benedictine Monastery as a refuge from violence, you are supporting the very system and institutions that have caused you so much distress…

Better to speak the truth.…  
The dominion religions have resulted in ever escalating animal abuse, as they are based on a premise of tolerated violence to animals. Once such violence is sanctified, there is no going back. It is not possible to build compassion on a a foundation justifiable murder. It is not possible to reinterpret endorsed slaughter and exploitation as compassionate, for at the core this value is so intrinsically cruel it cannot be redeemed, even by dedicated and compassionate individuals such as you.

Your actions are not re-interpreting the teachings of the semitic religions. Dominion by its very nature must allow for slaughter and violence to animals. When you speak of reverence for life you are representing the viewpoint of a very different religious tradition.

When in need of refuge I do not seek out those who caused my distress with their cruel policies. Instead, I turn to those who have always understood that violence to animals is inexcusable. Are you familiar with the Jain tradition? These Jain sutras are a genuine expression of reverence for life.

"For there is nothing inaccessible for death.
All beings are fond of life, hate pain, like pleasure,
shun destruction, like life, long to live. To all life
is dear." Jain Acharanga Sutra.
"All things breathing, all things existing, all living beings whatever, would not be slain or treated with violence, or insulted, or tortured or driven away. This is the pure unchanging eternal law, which the wise ones who know the world have proclaimed..." 
Jain Acharanga Sutra.
"Whatever living beings may have had pain or torment caused by me:
...Whoever I may have separated from life and made lifeless; 
May all that be forgiven and may all the suffering I caused, knowingly or unknowingly, cease. May the ignorance in me that caused pain in other living beings come to an end, and may they all forgive me.
Jain Prayer of Atonement

These sutras are a far cry from Genesis. The monks at the Benedictine Monastery, or for that matter any other institutions of dominion religions, express entitlement not remorse for their meat laden diet.

Ahimsa
“Don’t kill any living beings. Don’t try to rule them.” —Mahavira (Jain Acaranga, 4/23)

In theory and in practice ahimsa has resulted in a greater protection for animals. Though Jains are a small minority in India, the concept of ahimsa has permeated the mainstream consciousness, so that the following  laws and protections for animals have been implemented. These same benefits are not possible for animals in dominion oriented cultures. In India:

  • ALL use of animals is banned for testing of cosmetic products.
  • It is always against the law to confine or harm a monkey
  • The capture and confinement of sea mammals for exhibition or performance is banned
  •   
In India where ahimsa is the foundation for compassion, broad based protective legislation is possible. This is not the case where the semitic religions reign supreme.

Ahimsa is quite explicit. It does not make deals for political power and wealth. It does not objectify victims as possessions to be submitted to the will of man. It is clear and direct and does not apologize for compassion. The intention is to elevate the human condition by encouraging non-violence for ALL who live.

—RE

 




OpEds: Are images of animal slaughter conducive to a reduction in meat consumption?

Special From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May/June 2013:

Editorial feature:
Ag-gag laws & changing frameworks of perception

Horse, throat slit.

Horse, throat slit.

The most deeply held conviction shared among U.S. meat industry executives and advocates of not eating meat may be the belief that if most people witnessed slaughter,   they would not eat meat.

For the U.S. meat industry,  this is a visceral fear,  associated with declining U.S. per capita meat consumption since 2007 and,  more significantly,  declining demand for meat relative to price.  As the web site www.countinganimals.com explained in November 2012,  with extensive supporting economic data,  “Nearly 70% of the decline in per capita consumption of beef since 2006 is likely due to a decline in demand.  More than 93% of the decline in per capita consumption of chicken is also likely due to a decline in demand.”

Aware of the economic realities,  which have come parallel to increasingly frequent video exposés of slaughter and other meat industry practices, agribusiness is pushing hard for the passage of ag-gag laws,  as even agribusiness spokespersons now call them,  in blunt admission that their purpose is to silence critics.
Written to criminalize any unauthorized undercover investigations of animal agriculture facilities,  ag-gag laws especially target investigators who produce visual images of either illegal forms of animal abuse,  or routine practices that much of the public quite rightly perceives as abusive.

Stunned hog awaiting evisceration.

Stunned hog awaiting evisceration.

Summarized Emily Meredith,  communications director for the Animal Agriculture Alliance,  in a recent edition of the meat industry trade journal Meatingplace:  “States including New Hampshire, Wyoming and Arkansas are the most recent in a slew of legislative battleground states where the animal agriculture industry,  and those that support it,  have faced off against the likes of the Humane Society of the U.S.,  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Mercy for Animals,  and American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  Why are these groups so interested in this legislation?  The answer is simple––this legislation would destroy any opportunities the above-referenced groups would have to film,  photograph or otherwise exploit farmers,  ranchers or processors.”

Seeking humane,  ethical,  and merciful treatment of animals,  including prevention of cruelty to animals,  thus argued Meredith,  “exploits” the industry that exploits more sentient,  suffering beings than all other industries combined.

A similar inversion of moral logic appeared in the language used by Michael Fielding of Meatingplace to describe the April 2013 failure of a proposed ag-gag bill in Indiana.  “The bill,”  wrote Fielding,  “would have criminalized the recording of photographs or videos on private property with the intent to expose alleged illegal or unethical practices.”
In other words,  alleged illegal or unethical practices could continue,  but attempting to expose them would have been interdicted.

The most insidious aspect of ag-gag laws may be the meat industry claim that they are meant to compel undercover investigators to turn over images of illegal abuse to law enforcement agencies within a matter of hours after they are captured on video or film.  This is presented to legislators and the public as an indication that the meat industry is serious about stopping illegal violence against animals on their way to slaughter.  Such violence has repeatedly been exposed by undercover video,  and has resulted in recent successful prosecutions of abusive workers in at least four U.S. states and the United Kingdom.

But,  as Mercy for Animals founder Nathan Runkle has pointed out,  having directed more undercover videography operations against the meat industry than all other animal advocacy groups combined,  undercover investigators have seen nominally illegal violence against animals within days,  if not hours,  at practically every facility they have infiltrated.  Immediately reporting such incidents would preclude documenting the extent to which they are a pervasive pattern,  ignored if not actually condoned or even encouraged by management.

In addition,  immediately reporting potentially illegal abuses would expose the identity of the undercover operatives––which is exactly what the meat industry wants:  to identify and exclude any employees who might expose not only overt abuses,  but also the routine abuse that is inherent in practices such as macerating alive the newly hatched males of egg-laying poultry breeds,  and castrating and clipping the teeth of piglets without anesthesia.

Idaho,  Kansas,  Missouri,  Montana,  North Dakota,  and  Utah now have ag-gag legislation.  Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam on May 13,  2013 vetoed an ag-gag bill passed by the state legislature.  At least seven other states considered ag-gag bills during spring 2013 legislative sessions.

The desperation of the U.S. meat industry to keep routine practices out of sight,  especially slaughter,  was demonstrated by the first known attempted prosecution for alleged violation of an ag-gag law.  Amy Meyer,  25,  was charged with an ag-gag violation on February 19,  2013 in Draper,  Utah,  eleven days after using her cell phone while standing on a public sidewalk to document conditions at the Dale T. Smith & Sons Meat Packing Company.  The Smith & Sons slaughterhouse is co-owned by Draper mayor Darrell H. Smith.  Defense attorney Stewart Gollan told Jim Dalrymple II of the Salt Lake Tribune that judges in the Draper Justice Court are appointed by the mayor with assent of the town council.

Wrote Meyer in an April 29,  2013 public statement,  “I visited the Smith Meat Packing slaughterhouse because I heard numerous reports that any bystander standing on the public thoroughfare could witness the horror of cows struggling for their lives as they were led to their violent deaths.  Cows being led inside the building struggled to turn around once they smelled and heard the misery that awaited them inside.  I also witnessed what I believe to be a clear act of cruelty to animals––a live cow who appeared to be sick or injured being carried away from the building in a tractor,  as though she were nothing more than rubble.  At all times while I documented this cruelty, I remained on public property. I never once crossed the barbed wire fence that exists to demarcate private and public property.”

A Smith & Sons employee called police,  claiming Meyer and another woman were seen on company property,  inside the fence.  But the police found only Meyer,  and found no evidence that she had climbed over or through the fence.

Pending for nine weeks,  the charge against Meyer was dropped on April 30,  2013,  just 24 hours after it was exposed by Green is the New Red blogger Will Potter and Jim Dalrymple II of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Keeping consumers in the dark

“Factory farms, like all homes and businesses,  are already protected by laws against trespassing,”  editorialized The New York Times on April 9,  2013.  “So-called ‘ag-gag’ laws have nothing to do with protecting property.  Their only purpose is to keep consumers in the dark,  to make sure we know as little as possible about the grim details of factory farming.”

“Close to 27 million land animals are killed each day in the U.S. by dispossessed humans laboring under horrific conditions,”  New York City political science professor Timothy Pachirat recently recited to HSUS president Wayne Pacelle,  “and yet this massive work of violence is completely normalized and,  for the most part,  completely hidden from the sight and consciousness of those who rely on its products.”

Researching his 2011 book Every Twelve Seconds:  Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight,  Pachirat worked for five months in a Nebraska slaughterhouse.
“I don’t think anyone sat down and said,  ‘Let’s design a slaughtering process that creates a maximal distance between each worker and the violence of killing and allows each worker to contribute to that work without having to confront the violence directly,’”

Shackled cows in assembly line.

Shackled cows in assembly line.

Pachirat told Pacelle.  “Most of the architectural elements of the kill floor,  including the extreme compartmentalization of the killing work,  is overtly motivated by efficiency and food safety logics.  But what is fascinating is that the effects of these organizations of space and labor are not just increased ‘efficiency’ or increased ‘food-safety,’  but also the distancing and concealment of violent processes,  even from those participating directly in them.”

Ted Conover,  author of a recent Harper’s magazine feature about slaughter work,  did his research by working for two months as a USDA meat inspector in a Cargill slaughterhouse.  Questioned by Meatingplace interviewer Rita Jane Gabbett about why he did not interview slaughterhouse designer Temple Grandin about whether cattle feel stress on their way to be killed,  Conover expressed skepticism of Grandin’s recent remark to a New York Times reporter that,  “When catttle go to the meat plant now, they just walk up the chute;  it’s no more stressful than going to the veterinary chute.”
Conover recalled what a Mexican wrangler told him while working at the slaughter ramp:

“Huele mal,  no?”  Meaning,  “It stinks, doesn’t it?”
The worker “held his nose against the ammoniac smell of urine.  The ramp really did stink,”  Conover continued.

“Why does it smell so bad?” Conover asked.
“They’re scared.  They don’t want to die,”  the worker replied.
Suggested Gabbett,   “Cattle sometimes urinate because they drink water,  not necessarily because they are scared.”

The meat industry would like everyone to accept that Grandin’s innovations have spared everyone involved in slaughtering from experiencing suffering, including the cattle,  because the fear and pain involved are no longer as obvious as when “knockers” felled cattle with sledgehammers in front of each other and pigs were shackled and hoisted to be bled to death on giant wheels dominating local skylines like amusement park rides tipped sideways.  But a wrangler and others with experience around cattle should know the difference in the mild odor of urine of cows who have only drunk water,  and the rank,  hormone-suffused odor of cows who are terrified.

There is as yet no efficient means for animal advocates to demonstrate that difference to the public,  even if the public could be persuaded to put meat industry claims to a smell test.  However,  the organization Farm Animal Rights Movement,  formerly called Farm Animal Reform Movement,  has since mid-2011 trucked a four-minute video depicting agribusiness practices to heavily visited locations and paid passers-by $1.00 each to watch the video.  FARM claims that more than half of the viewers agree afterward to reduce their meat consumption.

Whether the viewers actually do eat less meat would take extensive follow-up to confirm.

But among opponents of eating meat,  the influence of visual images of animal suffering in connection with meat production is an article of faith,  supported by more than 60 years of experience with exposing cruelty in visual media.  Almost every advance in the technology used to reproduce and distribute visual images,  from color printing to smart phones and social media,  has been promptly used by animal advocates to positive effect.

Reality,  though,  is that the psychological influences of witnessing slaughter and cruelty are neither ubiquitous nor uniform.  Until barely two generations ago in the western world,  and still today in much of the rest of the world,  slaughter was and is widely witnessed,  without producing a decline in the demand for meat.  Killing animals in classrooms became controversial in the U.S. and India in the mid-1980s,  by which time the animals killed were mostly amphibians, dissected in science classes;  but some of the mothers and many of the grandmothers of the students of the 1980s had learned to kill and butcher poultry, decades earlier,  in mandatory home economics classes.  Boys in those times were expected to learn the basics of slaughtering and butchery through joining the men of their families in killing pigs,  sheep,  and cattle,  and in sport hunting.

The lessons were reinforced by 4H Club activities and Scouting merit badges awarded for accomplishments related to animal husbandry,  slaughter,  and hunting.

Slaughter and butchery disappeared from school and after-school curriculums only after the advent of home refrigerators enabled most meat-eaters to buy animal remains already dead and frozen.

Despite frequent exposure to slaughter,  few of even the people most sensitized to animal suffering became vegetarians in the 19th and first four-fifths of the 20th centuries.

Among those who founded the Royal SPCA of Great Britain in 1824,  only the industrial inventor Lewis Gompertz (1779-1865) was a vegetarian––and he was drummed out of the RSPCA for it,  after saving the organization from bankruptcy.

American Anti-Vivisection Society founder Carolyn Earle White (1833-1916) was a vegetarian,  as was Henry Salt (1851-1939),  who authored Animals’ Rights in 1905.   Yet,  despite their influence,  and despite the prominence of vegetarianism among Buddhist,  Hindu,  and Jain animal advocates for more than 2,300 years, vegetarianism only emerged as a focal theme in western animal advocacy within the past few decades.

Indeed,  animal advocates in the western world moved toward vegetarianism only about a generation after slaughter disappeared from view of most Americans,  Canadians,  and western Europeans.  Perhaps this was long enough for video exposure to slaughter to have an enduring life-changing influence on the millions of young people who are now the first several generations in the west to voluntarily eat less meat than their immediate forebears.  On the other hand, people who are already animal advocates may be more attentive than others to video depictions of slaughter.

What is seen matters less than how

The paradoxical range of possible effects of witnessing slaughter may be observed in many an Indian marketplace.  Butchers,  traditionally Muslims in India, kill and cut apart animals at curbside in front of their shops,  in plain view of vegetarian Brahmins,  Marwathis,  Buddhists,  and Jains,  and meat-eating Viasya, Sudra,  “scheduled castes,”   “tribals,”  and Christians.  The influence of witnessing slaughter varies according to both acculturation and individual personality. Clearly the same sight does not have the same effect on all passers-by;  and most passers-by are not so moved by the suffering of the doomed animals,  market day after market day,  as to change their food habits.

A lesson to be inferred from this is that what a person sees matters less than how the person sees it.

The most widely witnessed public slaughter of animals,  and the slaughtering in which the most people participate,  by far,   is the annual massacre that marks the Feast of Atonement,  observed throughout the Islamic world.  Mohammed himself,  though he ate meat,  clearly recognized that slaughter could be performed in an unacceptably cruel manner,  and prescribed hallal slaughtering laws to try to minimize the suffering of animals as they were killed.  Mohammed also instructed against slaughtering more animals than those whose meat would actually be consumed or be distributed usefully to the poor,  for their consumption,  and allowed devotees to make other gifts to charity in lieu of killing animals.

Unfortunately,  the amateur slaughter practiced before the Feast of Atonement today frequently falls far short of hallal standards,  often leads to gross waste,  and further impoverishes poor people who believe they must kill animals they can barely afford to buy.  For many participants,  the Feast of Atonement is much less an observation of a requirement to perform charitable works than a demonstration of cultural identity,  undertaken in defiance of the disapproval of people of other cultures,  and growing numbers of people of their own religion and nation.  The killing must come to be perceived by the participants in a different light before it will end.  The killing continues not because it is not seen,  but because it is not recognized for what it is.  For influential people, especially clerics,  to perform other acts of charity at the Feast of Atonement in a visible way,  instead of slaughtering animals,  is likely to accomplish far more to end the killing than any amount of further exposing the mayhem.

The largest and most overtly cruel and wasteful public slaughter anywhere is the Gadhimai sacrificial orgy held every five years in honor of a local Hindu goddess at Bariyarpur,  a Nepalese village near the border of Bijar state,  India.  About a quarter of a million animals were killed at Bariyarpur in 2009,  40% of the total killed throughout Saudi Arabia at the Feast of Atonement,  and 12% of the estimated total killed worldwide.

“The history of this bloodthirsty event began when Bhagwan Chaudhary,  a feudal landlord,  was imprisoned about 260 years ago,”  wrote Anil Bhanot for The Guardian,  of London.  “He dreamed that all his problems would be solved if he made a blood sacrifice to Gadhimai.”  Bhagwan Chaudhary and a local faith healer conducted the sacrifice upon his release from prison.  It became a tradition,  but appeared to be fading out until the now-deposed Nepalese king Gyanendra and the Maoist-dominated elected government began competing for favor about a dozen years ago by sponsoring it.

Purchasing some animals for sacrifice to encourage participation,  the governmental factions reportedly profited by selling to private contractors the remains of animals brought by devotees at their own expense.  Two-thirds to three-quarters of those devotees come from Bijar,  making the Gadhimai massacre in effect a transfer of assets from the poor of India to some of the most affluent people in Nepal.

Historically,  some of the meat from Gadhimai sacrifices was distributed among the local dalits,  the poorest of the poor,  but––feeling exploited to justify the unjustifiable––in 2009 the local dalits reportedly refused to accept any of the meat.

The Gadhimai bloodbath is next scheduled to occur in fall 2014.  It is far from universally accepted among Nepalese people,  and among Hindus of either Nepal or India.  Pramada Shah,  president of Animal Welfare Network Nepal and ex-wife of Gyanendra’s nephew,  has campaigned globally against the Gadhimai sacrifice.

“I stopped animal sacrifice at my parents’ house when I was eight,”  Pramada Shad told the Times of India News Network in 2009.

When perception of the Gadhimai killing as a religious and cultural necessity wanes among the rural poor of Bijar and Nepal,  it will end;  but those in Bariyarpur to whom it is an economic boon are likely to defend it at least until it is no longer profitable.

Jedidiah Purdy,  who did an undercover slaughterhouse investigation in 1999 for The American Prospect,  in an April 2013 op-ed essay for The New York Times argued––much as Temple Grandin has––that the meat industry itself should “Open the slaughterhouses” by broadcasting what goes on inside them on live action webcams.

“At first,  transparency would mainly inform consumer choice.  The pictures might persuade some people to stop eating meat,  or to buy it from a more humane source,”  Purdy suggested.  “People who start out by changing how they eat might end up supporting laws for more humane treatment of farm animals…The images might still appeal to emotion and prompt visceral revulsion…But we are not going to decide how we should treat animals through cold reason alone…Emotional response is part of moral reasoning,”  Purdy reminded,   “and in this case we need more information,  not less.  The images…would motivate us to ask the right questions.”

Cross-cultural considerations

One of those questions,  for animal advocates,  must be whether campaign imagery is appropriate to the audience and purpose.  A memorable campaign against meat consumption in the U.S.,  for instance,  was begun circa 1996 by the late Henry Spira.  Spira asked in newspaper ads showing a cat and a piglet sniffing each other,  “Which do you pet and which do you eat?  Why?”  The Northwest Animal Rights Network redesigned the ads as bus placards and continued the campaign in Seattle for some time after Spira died in 1998.  The Spira and NARN campaigns succeeded in the U.S. by influencing some people who eat pigs to perceive them differently.

In the U.S.,  as of 1998,  27% of the human population had lived with pet cats,  according to the American Veterinary Medical Association U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook.  This was significantly fewer than the 36% of the populations of Beijing and Shanghai who had lived with pet cats,  according to surveys done for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in March 1998.

As ANIMAL PEOPLE detailed in a March 2000 cover feature entitled “Kindness:  where east meets west,”  more than 90% of the Beijing and Shanghai respondents agreed that animals can feel pain and can feel happy and sad,  and from a third to almost half perceived moral equivalency between eating “companion” species and eating livestock.  This was approximately twice the perception of moral equivalency displayed by Americans in public opinion surveys––and still is.

Yet the perception of moral equivalency can be double-edged.

In the U.S.,  where eating cats has never been socially acceptable,  the perception of eating pigs as morally equivalent to eating cats makes a persuasive argument to many people against eating either species.  In China,  growing numbers of activists are reviving an ancient vegetarian tradition with foundations in Taoist teachings about harmony with nature,  built upon by the introduction of vegetarian Buddhist teachings between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago,  and eventually reinforced by the ascent of the Buddhist ruler Liang Wu.  Like U.S. counterparts,  Chinese animal advocates sometimes raise the idea of moral equivalency among species as an argument against eating any animals,  but in China this can backfire,  especially in Guangdong,  where Marco Polo observed cat-eating with disgust circa 1350,  and where dogs and wildlife are also commonly eaten.  Defenders of cat,  dog,  and wildlife consumption on the Chinese social network Sina Weibo commonly counter pro-vegetarian arguments with comments to the effect that if there is moral equivalency among species,  then any animal may be eaten.

As in the examples of the Feast of Atonement slaughters and the Gadhimai sacrifice,  the challenge confronting animal advocates is not to show what is unseen,  but rather to change how what is already seen is interpreted.

Kim Bartlett & Merritt Clifton are publisher and editor in chief, respectively, of ANIMAL PEOPLE, the world’s leading independent publication on animal issues. 

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BOOKS—Unleashed: The Phenonena of Status Dogs and Weapon Dogs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May/June 2013 [Special to The Greanville Post]—

Unleashed-  The Phenonena of Status Dogs and Weapon DogsUnleashed:  The Phenonena of Status Dogs and Weapon Dogs  
by Simon Harding
The Policy Press,  U. of Bristol (c/o U. of Chicago Press,  
427 East 60th St.,  Chicago,  IL 60637),  2012.   
286 pages,  hardcover.  $100.60;  Kindle $23.72.

I first saw an American Staffordshire,  better known as a pit bull,  during a 1989 visit to Baltimore.  Three youths had stolen a cocker spaniel and were encouraging their three unleashed pit bulls to tear the spaniel apart alive.  The spaniel tried desperately to escape,  but was held on a short leash.  By the time I reached the scene,  the spaniel had collapsed,  possibly dead.  The youths kept kicking the remains,  and the AmStaffs kept attacking.  By the time the cops caught up with them,  they had disposed of the evidence.  They laughed in the cops’ faces:  “Man, you’ll never find that dead dog, and anyway we’re juvies––you can’t touch us.”

The attacking dogs’ behavior was so utterly abnormal,  so utterly unlike how I’d ever seen any dog behave, that I told various friends about it. “Oh,”  they all said, “those were pit bulls.  It’s what they do.  They are not like other dogs.’

The recorded history of the pit bull began in the Middle Ages.  Hundreds of years of selective breeding eventually produced dogs aggressive enough for use in baiting bears and bulls.  This mayhem had its heyday during the reigns of Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I.  After public opinion turned against both the torture of humans and the torture of animals as entertaining,  Britain in 1835 abolished bull-and bear-baiting. Breeders and gamblers then turned to pitting “bull” dogs against each other.  No longer did they need to obtain bulls or bears,  or maintain fighting pits big enough to hold a terrified bear.

Fighting dogs were soon introduced around the world by the soldiers and sailors of the British Empire.

Simon Harding,  author of Unleashed: The Phenomena of Status Dogs & Weapon Dogs,  worked in youth justice for 25 years.  He recently received a doctorate from the University of Bedfordshire.  He now presents himself as an expert on dog behavior.

Even in 1989,  when I discovered the existence of pit bulls,  I found a wealth of information about their history and behavior in one afternoon at my local public library.  Vastly more has been published since.  Yet Harding opens by alleging that the problem of “weapon and status dogs” is newly emergent,  little documented by academic literature and primary data.

There is no lack of relevant academic literature and primary data;  Harding just consistently ignores most of it.  For example, Harding somehow never found the unmatched statistical feat accomplished by ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton,  tracking fatal and disfiguring dog attacks by breed for more than thirty years.  (The fatality data has been retrospectively confirmed,  case by case,  by DogsBite.org founder Colleen Lynn.)

Harding does not consult the many pediatric medicine and surgical journals that discuss the relative seriousness of the wounds that pit bulls inflict.  He skips the data showing that pit bull bans not only dramatically decrease catastrophic dog attacks and shelter admissions,  but also coincide with reductions in gang crime of as much as 40%.  Since Harding ignores the work of Charles Darwin on natural and artificial selection,  it is no surprise that the work of geneticists and veterinary neurologists does not interest him either.

Instead, Harding leans for his history of the bull breeds almost exclusively on the work of longtime pit bull advocates Karen Delise,  a vet tech, and Diane Jessup,  a pit bull breeder.  Even there Harding is selective,  missing the publications in which Jessup acknowledges––or rather boasts––that the fighting and gripping behaviors of pit bulls are genetically determined,  and that it is a flaw in a pit bull if these traits are missing.  Harding instead simply states––with only Delise’s word for it––that pit bulls are like any other dog;  that they were never fighting dogs,  and rather were always and are still working farm dogs;  that they were peaceful family pets until some time in the 20th century when back yard breeders took over; that only bad owners and poor breeding make them a problem now;  that there has never been trouble with any purebred pit bull;  that German shepherds bite the most;  that pit bulls merely suffer from a media-created image problem.  On page 110 Harding repeats the “nanny dog” myth, which has recently been rejected even by the pit bull advocacy group BADRAP.

Harding seems equally ignorant of the history of his own country,  claiming that breeding dogs for fighting purposes is new.

I find myself wondering whether he has ever heard of Henry VIII,  Elizabeth I,  or Shakespeare,  whose Globe theater in London competed for audience share with the nearby Paris Gardens bear-baiting pits favored by Elizabeth.

Harding even ignores his own data.  Of 138 dangerous dog owners he approached,  76% of the interviews were not completed.  43% subjects refused to be interviewed;  8% asked for money.

Harding departed early from 5% of his attempted interviews,  fearing for his personal safety.  20% of the interviews were disrupted when the dangerous dog misbehaved. Only 33 interviews were successfully completed.

Harding’s interview subjects consistently acknowledged keeping pit bulls as weapons.  They agreed that crossing a pit bull with something else, usually a mastiff,  produces a bigger but equally aggressive dog.  They use the dogs to show their masculinity as they define it––as a resource of violence,  intimidation and aggression,  and as backup for controlling and oppressive behaviors in their dealings with women,  authority and their own peer group.

Harding admits that ordinary people are using public space differently because of the presence of dangerous dogs.  He cites statistics showing a year-upon-year doubling of British hospital admissions due to dog attacks since 2004,  paralleling the rise in “weapon dogs” seized by police.

Without questioning why most unemployed ethnic youth do not become involved in gang activity and with “weapon dogs,”  Harding tags those who keep these dogs as innocent social victims.  Worse,  he paints them,  despite their predatory behavior toward working class people,  as representatives of the working class.  He argues that what the public really fears is a new set of social values developing,  which we should learn to accept as a part of normal social change,  rather than rejecting these poor gang youths by rejecting their dogs.

Towards the end of Unleashed,  Harding reveals that his goal from the start was to support the repeal of breed bans.  Bully breeds are weapons,  Harding admits,  but rather than banning them we should allow everyone to have one.  We should educate criminal youths about how to be kind to animals,  and improve the image of pit bulls so we won’t be afraid any more,  and so that sociopathic youths won’t mistakenly think these dogs are dangerous.

Meanwhile,  Harding agrees there should be restrictions on ownership of bully breeds,  but only until we have educated these criminal youths. After that,  everyone will be safe with pit bulls at all times,  as long as they are of pure breeding.

As George Orwell wrote:  “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

––Alexandra Semyonova

[Alexandra Semyonova,  a dog behaviorist and former Dutch SPCA inspector,   is author of The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs (Hastings Press,  2009.)]




Animals Australia exposes Egyptian slaughterhouses again

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May/June 2013:
Exposing a bloody business—what will it take to stop these crimes once and for all? 

By Merritt Clifton, ANIMAL PEOPLE
CANBERRA––The latest Animals Australia undercover videos of slaughter at the two Egyptian slaughterhouses authorized to kill Australian cattle showed “outrageous cruelty” that “left me and my industry colleagues disgusted and horrified,”  Australian Livestock Exporters Council spokesperson Alison Penfold told media.


“We completely support and will assist the fullest possible investigations in both Egypt and Australia of how these events could be possible,  and how to stop a repeat of this behaviour,” Penfold pledged.

Raised to be sold to human primitives for abject rituals or unspeakable treatment. Such horrors exist here, too, in the heart of the :developed world."

Raised to be sold to human primitives for abject rituals or unspeakable treatment. Such horrors exist here, too, in the heart of the “developed world.”

Said the Australian Department of Agriculture,  Fisheries & Forestry in a prepared statement,  “Upon receiving allegations of animal mistreatment in Egyptian abattoirs on May 1,  DAFF urgently sought assurances about the proper handling of animals under the animal handling and slaughter Memorandum of Understanding with Egypt.  DAFF’s assessment of the footage presented is that the practices depicted were not compliant with international animal welfare standards.  There is currently a voluntary suspension of trade by exporters. There have been no consignments to Egypt since July 2012.”

The cattle were shipped to Egypt in July 2012,  Penfold said,  but were not slaughtered upon arrival.  Animals Australia collected some of the slaughter footage in October 2012,  and more in April 2013.  About 3,000 Australian cattle were still awaiting slaughter in Egypt when the Animals Australia videos were released.

[pullquote] “Time and again Australia has suspended live exports of animals to the nations whose slaughter industries have been exposed.   Time and again the Australian government and the government of an animal-importing nation have promised to reform livestock handling and slaughter procedures.” It will never work because the bottom line is that the slaughter of animals is permitted in human societies, for just about any reason imaginable, and under the most brutal conditions. Humane slaughter is an oxymoron. Its amelioration simply denies the impossibility of making the martyrdom of animals a morally-sanctioned practice.  [/pullquote]

Like video that Animals Australia obtained from the Bassetin slaughterhouse near Cairo in January 2006,  the new videos––including footage from both the Bassetin slaughterhouse and another at Ain Sokhna––show butchers gouging the eyes of cattle and slashing their leg tendons,  before crudely cutting their throats in a procedure falling far short of meeting the requirements for halal slaughter as prescribed by Islamic doctrine.

Australian and Egyptian government representatives affirmed some of the alleged violations at Ain Sokhna.  “The management of the facility is implementing corrective actions to meet required standards,”  said DAFF.

“Australian politicians and industry representatives have been quick to condemn the slashing of leg tendons,” acknowledged an Animals Australia statement.  “But they cannot express horror at tendon slashing and deem it unacceptable and not find equally unacceptable the slashing of a conscious animal’s throat.”

Animals Australia investigator Lyn White,  a former police officer,  has since 2003 repeatedly directed undercover video operations that have documented mistreatment of Australian sheep and cattle,  as well as other livestock,  at facilities in Egypt,  Kuwait, Bahrain,  Oman,  the United Arab Emirates,  Qatar,  Jordan,  and Indonesia.

Time and again Australia has suspended live exports of animals to the nations whose slaughter industries have been exposed.   Time and again the Australian government and the government of an animal-importing nation have promised to reform livestock handling and slaughter procedures.

Time and again Andrew Wilkie,  an independent member of the Australian Parliament from Denison riding,  Hobart, Tasmania,  has introduced legislation meant to stop exports of live animals.  Introduced on May 13,  2013,  the latest Wilkie bill appears to have no more chance of passage than any of the others.

But repeated failures by the Australian Department of Agriculture,  Fisheries & Forestry to ensure that exported sheep and cattle will be handled and killed according to international standards increasingly call into question whether past pledges of reform have been made in good faith,  and whether reform is even possible.

Animals Australia contends that the only effective reform would be to replace live exports entirely with exports of frozen carcasses.  A succession of Australian governments have resisted this suggestion to keep live export market share: Australia leads the world in live animal exports to the Middle East and the Islamic nations of Southeast Asia.

Historically,  nations which practice halal slaughter,  meaning slaughter as prescribed by Islamic law,  have insisted that only meat from animals slaughtered under supervision of their own imams would be culturally acceptable.  Frozen carcasses slaughtered according to halal rules in Australia would meet the religious requirements of Islam,  but animals have traditionally been slaughtered close to the time and place of consumption in most of the world,  not just the Islamic world,  due to lack of refrigeration.  Lack of refrigeration is still a problem in many of the nations to which Australia exports live animals,  but increasingly less so,  while frozen meat products have gained popularity.

The major political issue behind the live export controversy at present may be the desire of importing nations to keep jobs in the slaughter industry.

“The Australian government suspended trade with Egypt in 2006,”  recalled Dowling of the Melbourne Herald,  as result of White’s Bassetin slaughterhouse video, “and only lifted the ban after assurances from the Egyptian government that cattle would not be abused.”

Two years after the 2006 suspension,  livestock exports from Australia to Egypt were re-authorized in May 2008.   The Wellard Rural Export vessel MV Ocean Shearer in February 2010 arrived in Egypt with the first livestock sent from Australia since the 2006 suspension.  In October 2010 the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service confirmed that nearly 300 cattle out of 16,460 and 360 sheep out of 40,282 had died in transit.

How the animals were treated after arrival in Egypt was disputed.

White observed in November 2010,  however,  that Australian-introduced “reforms” in Kuwait were mostly ignored. “In the Shuwaikh abattoir,”  White recounted, “trussed and terrified Australian sheep were dragged up the ramp into the slaughterhouse right in front of a Ministry of Livestock Australia sign saying ‘don’t drag animals.’”

Sold for individual slaughter at the Eid,  “Australian sheep were bound with wire and shoved into car boots,”  White continued,  “whilst others were dragged terrified on their stomachs amongst the dead and dying to have their throats cut.”

White in March 2011 obtained video of abuses similar to those at Bassetin from eleven randomly selected halal slaughterhouses in Jakarta,  Bogor,   Bandar,  Lampung,  and Medan,  Indonesia.  Australian live cattle exports to those eleven slaughterhouses were suspended for 38 days,  and all Australian live exports were suspended for 30 days. Industry pressure to promptly resume exports to Indonesia was intense:  Indonesia purchases account for about 60% of the total Australian cattle export trade.

But the biggest recent losses to the Australian live export industry were not caused by an exposé of cruelty. Bahrain in August 2012 rejected a cargo of 22,000 Australian sheep on arrival,  purportedly due to scabby mouth disease, a stress-related affliction similar to a human cold sore,  which often develops among sheep on shipboard.

Leaving Bahrain,  the transporter sought unsuccessfully to unload the sheep in Kuwait,  but Kuwait would not accept them either.  After another failed attempt to leave the sheep in Bahrain,  the transporter left them in Karachi, Pakistan.  Having spent a month at sea,  the sheep were not released for sale in Pakistan,  either,  and were crudely massacred after six weeks of impoundment.

—Veteran journalist Merritt Clifton is editor in chief of ANIMAL PEOPLE, the world’s leading independent publication dedicated to animal issues. 

IMPORTANT LINKS: 
ANIMALS AUSTRALIA: Ban Live Exports