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PAN Discussion Group Wednesday May 25th  2005
Subject: Animal Rights

First an article from the man who coined the term 'Animal Liberation'

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16276

Animal Liberation at 30 By Peter Singer

1.

The phrase "Animal Liberation" appeared in the press for the first time on the April 5, 1973, cover of The New York Review of Books. Under that heading, I discussed Animals, Men and Morals, a collection of essays on our treatment of animals, which was edited by Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris. The article began with these words:

We are familiar with Black Liberation, Gay Liberation, and a variety of other movements. With Women's Liberation some thought we had come to the end of the road. Discrimination on the basis of sex, it has been said, is the last form of discrimination that is universally accepted and practiced without pretense, even in those liberal circles which have long prided themselves on their freedom from racial discrimination. But one should always be wary of talking of "the last remaining form of discrimination."

In the text that followed, I urged that despite obvious differences between humans and nonhuman animals, we share with them a capacity to suffer, and this means that they, like us, have interests. If we ignore or discount their interests, simply on the grounds that they are not members of our species, the logic of our position is similar to that of the most blatant racists or sexists who think that those who belong to their race or sex have superior moral status, simply in virtue of their race or sex, and irrespective of other characteristics or qualities. Although most humans may be superior in reasoning or in other intellectual capacities to nonhuman animals, that is not enough to justify the line we draw between humans and animals. Some humans-infants and those with severe intellectual disabilities-have intellectual capacities inferior to some animals, but we would, rightly, be shocked by anyone who proposed that we inflict slow, painful deaths on these intellectually inferior humans in order to test the safety of household products. Nor, of course, would we tolerate confining them in small cages and then slaughtering them in order to eat them. The fact that we are prepared to do these things to nonhuman animals is therefore a sign of "speciesism"-a prejudice that survives because it is convenient for the dominant group- in this case not whites or males, but all humans.

That essay and the book that grew out of it, also published by The New York Review, are often credited with starting off what has become known as the "animal rights movement"-although the ethical position on which the movement rests needs no reference to rights. Hence the essay's thirti-eth anniversary provides a convenient opportunity to take stock both of the current state of the debate over the moral status of animals and of how effective the movement has been in bringing about the practical changes it seeks in the way we treat animals.

2.

The most obvious difference between the current debate over the moral status of animals and that of thirty years ago is that in the early 1970s, to an extent barely credible today, scarcely anyone thought that the treatment of individual animals raised an ethical issue worth taking seriously. There were no animal rights or animal liberation organizations. Animal welfare was an issue for cat and dog lovers, best ignored by people with more important things to write about. (That's why I wrote to the editors of The New York Review with the suggestion that they might review Animals, Men and Morals, whose publication the British press had greeted a year earlier with total silence.)

Today the situation is very different. Issues about our treatment of animals are often in the news. Animal rights organizations are active in all the industrialized nations. The US animal rights group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has 750,000 members and supporters. A lively intellectual debate has sprung up. (The most comprehensive bibliography of writings on the moral status of animals lists only ninety-four works in the first 1970 years of the Christian era, and 240 works between 1970 and 1988, when the bibliography was completed. The tally now would probably be in the thousands.) Nor is this debate simply a Western phenomenon-leading works on animals and ethics have been translated into most of the world's major languages, including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

To assess the debate, it helps to distinguish two questions. First, can speciesism itself-the idea that it is justifiable to give preference to beings simply on the grounds that they are members of the species Homo sapiens -be defended? And secondly, if speciesism cannot be defended, are there other characteristics about human beings that justify them in placing far greater moral significance on what happens to them than on what happens to nonhuman animals?

The view that species is in itself a reason for treating some beings as morally more significant than others is often assumed but rarely defended. Some who write as if they are defending speciesism are in fact defending an affirmative answer to the second question, arguing that there are morally relevant differences between human beings and other animals that entitle us to give more weight to the interests of humans. The only argument I've come across that looks like a defense of speciesism itself is the claim that just as parents have a special obligation to care for their own children in preference to the children of strangers, so we have a special obligation to other members of our species in preference to members of other species

Advocates of this position usually pass in silence over the obvious case that lies between the family and the species. Lewis Petrinovich, professor emeritus at the University of California, Riverside, and an authority on ornithology and evolution, says that our biology turns certain boundaries into moral imperatives-and then lists "children, kin, neighbors, and species If the argument works for both the narrower circle of family and friends and the wider sphere of the species, it should also work for the middle case: race. But an argument that supported our preferring the interests of members of our own race over those of members of other races would be less persuasive than one that allowed priority only for kin, neighbors, and members of our species. Conversely, if the argument doesn't show race to be a morally relevant boundary, how can it show that species is?

The late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick argued that we can't infer much from the fact that we do not yet have a theory of the moral importance of species membership. "No one," he wrote, "has spent much time trying to formulate" such a theory, "because the issue hasn't seemed pressing. But now that nearly twenty years have passed since Nozick wrote those words, and many people have, during those years, spent quite a lot of time trying to defend the importance of species membership, Nozick's comment takes on a different weight. The continuing failure of philosophers to produce a plausible theory of the moral importance of species membership indicates, with increasing probability, that there can be no such thing.

That takes us to the second question. If species is not morally important in itself, is there something else that happens to coincide with the human species, on the basis of which we can justify the inferior consideration we give to nonhuman animals?

Peter Carruthers argues that it is the lack of a capacity to reciprocate. Ethics, he says, arises out of an agreement that if I do not harm you, you will not harm me. Since animals cannot take part in this social contract we have no direct duties to them The difficulty with this approach to ethics is that it also means we have no direct duties to small children, or to future generations yet unborn. If we produce radioactive waste that will be deadly for thousands of years, is it unethical to put it into a container that will last 150 years and drop it into a convenient lake? If it is, ethics cannot be based on reciprocity.

Many other ways of marking the special moral significance of human beings have been suggested: the ability to reason, self-awareness, possession of a sense of justice, language, autonomy, and so on. But the problem with all of these allegedly distinguishing marks is, as noted above, that some humans are entirely lacking in these characteristics and few want to consign them to the same moral category as nonhuman animals.

This argument has become known by the tactless label of "the argument from marginal cases," and has spawned an extensive literature of its own The attempt by the English philosopher and conservative columnist Roger Scruton to respond to it in Animal Rights and Wrongs illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of the argument. Scruton is aware that if we accept the prevailing moral rhetoric that asserts that all human beings have the same set of basic rights, irrespective of their intellectual level, the fact that some nonhuman animals are at least as rational, self-aware, and autonomous as some human beings looks like a firm basis for asserting that all animals have these basic rights. He points out, however, that this prevailing moral rhetoric is not in accord with our real attitudes, because we often regard "the killing of a human vegetable" as excusable. If human beings with profound intellectual disabilities do not have the same right to life as normal human beings, then there is no inconsistency in denying that right to nonhuman animals as well.

In referring to a "human vegetable," however, Scruton makes things too easy for himself, for that expression suggests a being that is not even conscious, and thus has no interests at all that need to be protected. He might be less comfortable making his point with respect to a human being who has as much awareness and ability to learn as the foxes he wants to continue being permitted to hunt. In any case, the argument from marginal cases is not limited to the question of what beings we can justifiably kill. In addition to killing animals, we inflict suffering on them, in a wide variety of ways. So the defenders of common practices involving animals owe us an explanation for their willingness to make animals suffer when they would not be willing to do the same to humans with similar intellectual capacities. (Scruton, to his credit, is opposed to the close confinement of modern animal raising, saying that "a true morality of animal welfare ought to begin from the premise that this way of treating animals is wrong.")

Scruton is in fact only half-willing to acknowledge that a "human vegetable" may be treated differently from other human beings. He muddies the waters by claiming that it is "part of human virtue to acknowledge human life as sacrosanct." In addition, he argues that because in normal conditions human beings are members of a moral community protected by rights, even deeply serious abnormality does not cancel membership of this community. Thus even though humans with profound intellectual disability do not really have the same claims on us as normal humans, we would do well, Scruton says, to treat them as if they did. But is this defensible? Certainly if any sentient being, human or nonhuman, can feel pain or distress, or conversely can enjoy life, we ought to give the interests of that being the same consideration as we give to the similar interests of normal human beings with unimpaired capacities. To say, however, that species alone is both necessary and sufficient for being a member of our moral community, and for having the basic rights granted to all members of that community, requires further justification. We return to the core question: Should all and only human beings be protected by rights, when some nonhuman animals are superior in their intellectual capacities, and have richer emotional lives, than some human beings?

One well-known argument for an affirmative answer to this question asserts that unless we can draw a clear boundary around the moral community, we will find ourselves on a slippery slope. We may start by denying rights to Scruton's "human vegetable," that is, to those who can be shown to be irreversibly unconscious, but then we may gradually extend the category of those without rights to others, perhaps to the intellectually disabled, or to the demented, or just to those whose care is a burden on their family and the community, until in the end we have reached a situation that none of us would have accepted if we had known we were heading there when we denied the irreversibly unconscious a right to life. This is one of several arguments critically examined by the Italian animal activist Paola Cavalieri in The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights, a rare contribution to the English-language debate by a writer from continental Europe. Cavalieri points to the ease with which slave-owning societies were able to draw lines between humans with rights and humans without rights.

That slaves were human beings was acknowledged both in ancient Greece and in the slaveholding states of the US-Aristotle explicitly says that barbarians are human beings who exist to serve the good of the more rational Greeks and Southern whites sought to save the souls of the Africans they enslaved by making them Christians. Yet the line between slaves and free people did not slip significantly, even when some barbarians and some Africans became free, or when slaves produced children of mixed race. So, Cavalieri suggests, there is no reason to doubt our ability to deny that some humans have rights, while keeping the rights of other humans as secure as ever. But she is certainly not advocating that we do this. Her concern is rather to undermine the argument for drawing the boundaries of the sphere of rights so as to include all and only humans.

Cavalieri also responds to the argument that all humans, including the irreversibly unconscious, are to be elevated above other animals because of the characteristics they "normally" possess, rather than those they actually have. This argument seems to appeal to a kind of unfairness in excluding those who "fortuitously" fail to have the required characteristics. Cavalieri replies that if the "fortuitousness" is merely statistical, it carries no moral relevance, and if it is intended to suggest that the lack of the required characteristics is not the fault of those with profound intellectual disability, then that is not a basis for separating such humans from nonhuman animals.

Cavalieri states her own position in terms of rights, and in particular the basic rights that constitute what, following Ronald Dworkin, she calls the "egalitarian plateau." We want, Cavalieri insists, to secure a basic form of equality for all human beings, including the "non-paradigmatic" ones (her term for "marginal cases.") If the egalitarian plateau is to have a defensible, nonarbitrary boundary that safeguards all humans from being pushed off the edge, we must select as a criterion for that boundary a standard that allows a large number of nonhuman animals inside the boundary as well. Hence we must allow onto the egalitarian plateau beings whose intellect and emotions are at a level that is shared by, at least, all birds and mammals.

Cavalieri does not argue that the rights of birds and mammals can be derived from self-evidently true moral premises. Her starting point, rather, is our prevailing belief in human rights. She seeks to show that all who accept this belief must also accept that similar rights apply to other animals. Following Dworkin, she sees human rights as part of the basic political framework of a decent society. They set limits to what the state may justifiably do to others. In particular, institutions like slavery or other invidious forms of racial discrimination that are based on violating the human rights of some of those over whom the state rules are, for that reason alone, illegitimate. Our acceptance of the idea of human rights therefore requires the abolition of all practices that routinely overlook the basic interests of rights-holders. Hence, if Cavalieri's argument is sound, our belief in rights commits us to an extension of rights beyond humans, and that in turn requires us to abolish all practices, like factory farming and the use of animals as subjects of painful and lethal research, that routinely overlook the basic interests of nonhuman rights-holders.

On the other hand, the rights for which Cavalieri argues are not supposed to resolve every situation in which there is a conflict of interests or of rights. Her notion of rights as part of the basic political framework of a decent society is compatible with specific restrictions of rights, as occurred for example when "Typhoid Mary" was compulsorily quarantined because she carried a lethal disease. A government may be entitled to restrict the movements of humans or animals who are a danger to the public, but it must still show them the concern and respect due to them as possessors of basic rights.

My own opposition to speciesism is based, as I have already mentioned, not on rights, but on the thought that a difference of species is not an ethically defensible ground for giving less consideration to the interests of a sentient being than we give to similar interests of a member of our own species. David DeGrazia skillfully defends equal consideration for all sentient beings in Taking Animals Seriously. Such a position need not rely on prior acceptance of our current view of human rights-a view that, though widespread, can be rejected, especially once its implications in regard to animals are drawn out as Cavalieri draws them out. While the principle of equal consideration of interests is therefore more solidly based than Cavalieri's argument, however, it must face the difficulties that follow from the fact that interests, not rights, are now the focus of attention. That requires us to estimate what the interests are in an endless variety of different circumstances.

To take one case of particular ethical significance: the interest a being has in continued life-and hence, on the interests view, the wrongness of taking that being's life-will depend in part on whether the being is aware of itself as existing over time, and is capable of forming future-directed desires that give it a particular kind of interest in continuing to live. To that extent Roger Scruton is right about our attitudes to the deaths of members of our own species who lack these characteristics. We see it as less of a tragedy than the death of a being who is future-oriented, and whose desires to do things in the medium- and long-term future will therefore be thwarted if he or she dies. But this is not a defense of speciesism, for it implies that killing a self-aware being like a chimpanzee causes a greater loss to the being killed than does killing a human being with an intellectual disability so severe as to preclude the capacity to form desires for the future.

We then need to ask what other beings may have this kind of interest in living into the future. DeGrazia combines philosophical insights and scientific research to help us answer such questions about specific species of animals, but there is often room for doubt, and the calculations required for applying the principle of equal consideration of interests can only be rough approximations, if they can be done at all. Perhaps, though, that is just the nature of our ethical situation, and rights-based views avoid such calculations at the cost of leaving out something relevant to what we ought to do.

The most recent addition to the literature of the animal movement has come from a surprising quarter, one deeply hostile to any discussion of the possibility of justifying the killing of human beings, no matter how severely disabled they may be. In Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy Matthew Scully, a conservative Christian, past literary editor of National Review and now speechwriter to President George W. Bush, has written an eloquent polemic against human abuse of animals, culminating with a devastating description of factory farming.

Since the animal movement has, for the past thirty years, generally been associated with the left, it is curious now to see Scully make a case for many of the same goals within the perspective of the Christian right, replete with references to God, interpretation of the scripture, and attacks on "moral relativism, self-centered materialism, license passing itself off as freedom, and the culture of death -but this time aimed at condemning not vic-timless crimes like homosexuality or physician-assisted suicide, but the needless suffering inflicted by factory farming and the modern slaughterhouse. Scully calls on all of us to show mercy toward animals and abandon ways of treating them that fail to respect their nature as animals. The result is a work that, although not philosophically rigorous, has had a remarkable amount of sympathetic publicity in the conservative press, which usually sneers at animal advocates.

3.

The history of the modern animal movement makes a nice counterexample to skepticism about the impact of moral argument on real life As James Jasper and Dorothy Nelkin observed in The Animal Rights Crusade: The Growth of a Moral Protest, "Philosophers served as midwives of the animal rights movement in the late 1970s. The first successful protest against animal experiments in the United States was the 1976-1977 campaign against experiments conducted at the American Museum of Natural History on the sexual behavior of mutilated cats. Henry Spira, who conceived and ran the campaign, had a background of working in the union and civil rights movements, and had not considered, until he read the 1973 New York Review article, that animals are also worth the attention of those concerned about the exploitation of the weak. Spira went on to take on larger targets, such as the testing of cosmetics on animals. His technique was to target a prominent corporation that used animals-in the cosmetics campaign, he started with Revlon-and ask them to take reasonable steps to find alternatives to the use of animals. Always willing to engage in dialogue, and never one to paint the abusers of animals as evil sadists, he was remarkably successful in stimulating interest in developing ways of testing products without using animals, or with using fewer animals in less painful ways.

 Partly as a result of his work, there has also been a sizable drop in the number of animals used in research. In Britain official statistics show that roughly half as many animals are now experimented upon as were used in 1970. Estimates for the United States -where no official statistics are kept -suggest a similar story. From the standpoint of a nonspeciesist ethic there is still a long way to go for animals used in research, but the changes the animal movement has brought about mean that every year millions fewer animals are forced to undergo painful procedures and slow deaths.

The animal movement has had other successes too. Despite "fur is back" claims by the industry, fur sales have still not recovered to their level in the 1980s, when the animal movement began to target it. Since 1973, while the number of dogs and cats owned has nearly doubled, the number of stray and unwanted animals killed in pounds and shelters has been cut by more than half.

These modest gains are dwarfed, however, by the huge increase in animals kept confined, some so tightly that they are unable to stretch their limbs or walk even a step or two, on America's factory farms. This is by far the greatest source of human-inflicted suffering on animals, simply because the numbers are so great. Animals used in experiments are numbered in the tens of millions annually, but last year ten billion birds and mammals were raised and killed for food in the United States alone. The increase over the previous year is, at around 400 million animals, more than the total number of animals killed in the US by pounds and shelters, for research, and for fur combined. The overwhelming majority of these factory-reared animals now live their lives entirely indoors, never knowing fresh air, sunshine, or grass until they are trucked away to be slaughtered.

Against the confinement and slaughter of farm animals in America, the animal movement has, until quite recently, been impotent. Gail Eisnitz's 1997 book Slaughterhouse contains shocking, well-authenticated accounts of animals in major American slaughterhouses being skinned and dismembered while still conscious. If such incidents had been documented in Britain they would have led to major news stories and the national government would have been forced to do something about it. Here the book passed virtually unnoticed outside the animal movement.

The situation is very different in Europe. Americans have often looked down on some European nations, especially the Mediterranean countries, for tolerating cruelty to animals. Now the accusing glance goes in the opposite direction. Even in Spain, with its culture of bull-fighting, most animals are better cared for than in America. By 2012, European egg producers will be required to give their hens access to a perch and a nesting box to lay their eggs in, and to allow at least 750 square centimeters, or 120 square inches, per bird-dramatic changes that will transform the living conditions of more than two hundred million hens. United States egg producers haven't even started thinking about perches or nesting boxes, and typically give their fully grown hens just forty-eight square inches, or about half the area of a sheet of 81/2-x-11-inch letter paper per bird

In the US veal calves are deliberately kept anemic, deprived of straw for bedding, and confined in individual crates so narrow that they cannot even turn around. That system of keeping calves has been illegal in Britain for many years, and will become illegal throughout the European Union by 2007. Keeping pregnant sows in individual crates for their entire pregnancy, also the standard American practice, was banned in Britain in 1998, and is being phased out in Europe. These changes have wide support throughout the European Union, and the backing of leading European experts on the welfare of farm animals. They are a vindication of much that animal advocates have been saying for the past thirty years.

Are Americans simply less concerned with animal suffering than their European counterparts? Perhaps, but in Political Animals: Animal Protection Policies in Britain and the United States, Robert Garner explores several other possible explanations for the widening gap in animal welfare standards between the two nations. By comparison with Britain, the US political process is more corrupt. Elections are many times more costly-the entire 2001 British general election cost less than John Corzine spent to win a single Senate seat in 2000. With money playing a greater role, American candidates are more beholden to their donors. Moreover, fund raising in Europe is largely done by the political parties, not by individual candidates, which makes it more open to public scrutiny and more likely to produce an electoral backlash for the entire party if it is seen to be in the pocket of a particular industry. These differences allow the agribusiness industry far greater control over Congress than it can hope to have over the political processes in Europe.

Consistent with that explanation, the most successful American campaigns-like Spira's campaign against the use of animals to test cosmetics- have concentrated on corporations rather than on the legislature or the government. Recently a ray of hope has come from an unlikely vehicle for change. After protracted discussions with animal advocates, started by Henry Spira before his death and then taken up by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, McDonald's agreed to set and enforce higher standards for the slaughterhouses that supply it with meat, and then announced that it would require its egg suppliers to provide each hen with a minimum of seventy-two square inches of living space-a 50 percent improvement for most American hens, but still only enough to bring these producers up to a level that is already on its way out in Europe. Burger King and Wendy's followed suit. These steps were the first hopeful signs for American farm animals since the modern animal movement began.

An even greater triumph was achieved last November by using another route around the legislative roadblock: the citizen-initiated referendum. With support from a number of national animal organizations, a group of animal activists in Florida succeeded in gathering 690,000 signatures to put on the ballot a proposal to change the constitution of Florida so as to ban the keeping of pregnant sows in crates so narrow that they cannot even turn around. Changing the constitution is the only way citizens can get a direct vote on a measure in Florida. Opponents of the measure, obviously unwilling to argue that pigs don't need to be able to turn around or walk, instead tried to persuade Florida voters that the confinement of pigs was not an appropriate subject for the state constitution. But by a margin of 55 to 45 percent, voters said no to sow crates, thus making Florida the first jurisdiction in the United States to ban a major form of farm-animal confinement. Though Florida has only a small number of intensive piggeries, the vote supports the idea that it is not hard hearts or lack of sympathy for animals but a failure of democracy that causes America to lag so far behind Europe in abolishing the worst features of factory farming.

4.

My original article in The New York Review ended with a paragraph that saw the challenge of the animal movement as a test of human nature:

Can a purely moral demand of this kind succeed? The odds are certainly against it. The book [Animals, Men and Morals] holds out no inducements. It does not tell us that we will become healthier, or enjoy life more, if we cease exploiting animals. Animal Liberation will require greater altruism on the part of mankind than any other liberation movement, since animals are incapable of demanding it for themselves, or of protesting against their exploitation by votes, demonstrations, or bombs. Is man capable of such genuine altruism? Who knows? If this book does have a significant effect, however, it will be a vindication of all those who have believed that man has within himself the potential for more than cruelty and selfishness.

So how have we done? Both the optimists and the cynics about human nature could see the results as confirming their views. Significant changes have occurred, in animal testing and other forms of animal abuse. In Europe, entire industries are being transformed because of the concern of the public for the welfare of farm animals. Perhaps most encouraging for the optimists is the fact that millions of activists have freely given up their time and money to support the animal movement, many of them changing their diet and lifestyle to avoid supporting the abuse of animals. Vegetarianism and even veganism (avoiding all animal products) are far more widespread in North America and Europe than they were thirty years ago, and although it is difficult to know how much of this relates to concern for animals, undoubtedly some of it does.

On the other hand, despite the generally favorable course of the philosophical debate about the moral status of animals, popular views on that topic are still very far from adopting the basic idea that the interests of all beings should be given equal consideration irrespective of their species. Most people still eat meat, and buy what is cheapest, oblivious to the suffering of the animal from which the meat comes. The number of animals being consumed is much greater today than it was thirty years ago, and increasing prosperity in East Asia is creating a demand for meat that threatens to boost that number far higher still.

Meanwhile the rules of the World Trade Organization threaten advances in animal welfare by making it doubtful that Europe will be able to keep out imports from countries with lower standards. In short, the outcome so far indicates that as a species we are capable of altruistic concern for other beings; but imperfect information, powerful interests, and a desire not to know disturbing facts have limited the gains made by the animal movement.

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Of course not everyone things PETA et al are on the right track..

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0701animalrights.htm

There are no animal rights By Tom DeWeese

web posted July 9, 2001

If the FBI really wanted to try to find and arrest animal-rights terrorists, it wouldn't have been too hard for them because, from June 30th through July 5th, most of these enemies of humanity were meeting in a conference called "Animal Rights 2001," held in suburban Washington, D.C. Speakers included movie stars like Linda Blair (Exorcist) and James Cromwell (Babe), alongside genuine eco-terrorists like Alex Pacheco, who has called animal rights arson, burglary, and destruction of property "acceptable crimes."

Pacheco

Pacheco is a veteran of animal rights terrorism, getting his start aboard the Sea Shepherd, famous for ramming whaling vessels on the high seas. Pacheco improved his skills and moved on to the Hunt Saboteurs Association where he specialized in vandalizing hunters' vehicles, slashing tires and smashing windshields. Incidentally, the use of violence to promote the animal- rights agenda was on the schedule for the event.

People love animals. Animals help with our labors, comfort us, entertain us, clothe us, feed us, and provide valuable medical research information to help cure killer diseases. Animal-rights activists use our concern for animal welfare as a propaganda tool to promote their anti-human agenda. "Rights" are a human concept. Rights are the rules that protect us against aggression by those who reject the codes of civilized society.

Animal-rights activists prey on our fondness of animals. They use graphic descriptions of the meat industry to make us squirm. They depict hunters as murderers. They perform acts of violence against restaurants and fur solons to intimidate people from using those establishments. A major target of animal-rights activists are research laboratories that utilize animals-most specially bred white mice--to find cures for diseases that disable and kill humans.

Most Americans would be surprised to find that no animal-rights organization runs shelters or animal rescue services. The animal rights movement is not interested in protecting animals or preserving species. They hold the human race in utter contempt. They make no distinction between a rat and a human. Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) said, "I don't believe human beings have the 'right to life.' That's a supremacist perversion. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."

PeTA believes that pet ownership is the moral equivalent of slavery. Elliot Katz, President of In Defense of Animals, said, "It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept of animal ownership. The first step in this long, but just, road, would be ending the concept of pet ownership."

Animal-rights propaganda opposes all traditional relationships with animals, from eating meat and wearing leather and wool, to biomedical research, hunting, trapping, ranching, fishing, zoos, circuses, and species breeding.

Animal-rights advocates work for the day when there will be no interaction with animals. Tom Regan, an animal rights leader said, "we don't want cleaner cages, we want empty cages."

Paul Watson, director of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and a founder of Greenpeace said, "I reject the idea that humans are superior to other life forms...Man is just an ape with an overly developed sense of superiority." Sydney Singer, director of an animal rights group called the Good Shepherd Foundation, has established a new religion--the All Beings Are Created Equal (ABACE) Church. He writes, "Human reproduction is like evil perpetuating evil, sickness breeding sickness."

Animal-rights philosopher Peter Singer asserts "it can no longer be maintained by anyone but a religious fanatic that man is the special darling of the whole universe, or that other animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have a divine authority over them and divine permission to kill them." In the 1990's, Singer published a book entitled "A Declaration of War: Killing People To Save Animals and the Environment," in which the author, using the pseudonym "Screaming Wolf," urges activists to "hunt hunters, trap trappers, butchers," and so on.

Animals-rights activists are well known for their attacks on research laboratories where animals are freed in the dead of night. In such cases million of dollars of medical research has been lost. Laboratories are burned. Researchers are threatened. Violence replaces public debate. How far are these terrorists prepared to go?  Following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in England, PeTA's Ingrid Newkirk let it be known she hoped the disease would sweep the U.S. as well. Her justification was that destruction of US livestock would "wake up" consumers and only bring economic harm to "those who raised animals in farm-style concentration camps." Newkirk reportedly told the Environmental News Network that FMD would be "good for animals, good for human health, and good for the environment."

The list of companies and other enterprises targeted for animal-rights violence literally encompasses whole industries that include international restaurant chains, pharmaceuticals, the fur industry, ranching, farming and many more as animal rights and environmental terrorism is on the rise.

Congressman George Nethercutt (R-Wash.) has introduced the Agro-terrorism Prevention Act, aimed at "environmental extremists who use violence, often against agricultural research centers, to gain publicity for their 'hands-off-nature; point of view.'"

Nethercutt said, "I serve as co-chairman of the House Diabetes Caucus and have a daughter with the disease. I hope someday soon that the 16 million Americans who suffer from diabetes will be cured, but I know that if our scientific community is frightened away from promising research by threats of vandalism and bombing, that day will be more distant." Nethercutt's bill would add agro-terrorism crimes to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Law (RICO). That law is widely credited with giving the FBI the teeth it had needed for decades to bring organized crime to its knees. Now, perhaps it will work as well against the formerly untouchable eco-terrorists.

The animal-rights movement is not about saving furry little animals in the wild or rescuing abused pets in captivity. It's not even about so-called animal "rights." It is an attack on humanity, the ultimate target of the entire environmental/animal rights movement. It is "the human cancer" they want to eliminate in order to "save the earth."

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Is the question of just which animals we find acceptable to eat purely a cultural one?

http://www.foodreference.com/html/artdogmeat.html

Dog Meat: Cultural Bias & Food Choices

I received the following email from a Korean student, and published it along with my response in the weekly newsletter. Below my response are two contrasting emails I received from subscribers.

I felt that all of this might be of interest to others.

QUESTION: Hello, I'm a student that I love my country, korea. So I have a question about our culture. Getting to the point, it's our dogmeat culture that is being issued these days.

Dogs are specially bred to be eaten in South Korea, notably in poshintang, literally 'body preservation stew,' which advocates say is good for your health and is considered a delicacy by some.

What causes particular alarm abroad and among animal rights activists in South Korea is the illegal way some dogs are killed to make the meat more tender -- by beating, burning or hanging. Seoul has also vowed to stamp out those practices.

In my opinion , however, Eating dog meat is a Korean custom, and doing so is our choice to make. The fact that our culture is unlike those of other countries does not make it wrong or inferior, that I thought. And what do you think of it? Please answer me logically, in detail. so I appreciate you.

ANSWER: I am in total agreement with you. Eating dogs is neither wrong nor inferior.

There is no difference with raising dogs, cows, kangaroos, cats, camels, rats, horses, or any other animal for food purposes.

Different cultures have different animals they have traditionally raised for food.

Misunderstanding arises because most cultures have settled on cattle, pigs, and sheep as their primary source of meat. Add to this the fact that most cultures view the dog as a 'pet', and many people take the totally incorrect view that eating dog meat is wrong.

Most western cultures also take the same view today about eating horse meat, although not that long ago, this was considered acceptable.

There are cultures that draw and drink blood from their horses as a primary nutrition source. This is also different, but not wrong or inferior.

People who view the raising and eating of animals such as dogs, horses, camels, cats, rats, kangaroos, etc. as wrong, are reacting emotionally from their own cultural bias.

Unfortunately, because of the status of dogs as household pets in many cultures, most people in these cultures will continue to view the practice as wrong.

I personally would not like to see the practice discontinued, because this would diminish the cultural diversity in the world. And when this happens, we all lose.

(I vehemently condemn all inhumane treatment of any animal being raised for food - such as the practice of beating, burning or hanging the animals - whether they are dogs, cows or any other animal. Some of the practices of the veal (and poultry) industry in the United States are also inhumane, and I condemn them also.)

Chef James

First subscriber response: James, thank you for your sound and rational reply to the Korean student asking about the cultural practice of eating dogs. I lived in Korea 1984 and 1985 and in other countries as well (I have a 'portable' profession; I am qualified to teach English as a foreign language), and have learned to condemn nothing that is eaten, only to sorrow when the animals to be eaten suffer first, and like you, I deplore how veal calves (and chickens, too) are treated in the US. I'd far rather eat humanely hunted (shot and killed quickly after a life in the wild) deer (venison) than a chicken that spent its life crammed in a tiny prison cell and force fed.

Mind you, I also know the sound of a dog howling all night while being beaten to death for the sake of tenderness, and wish they'd slit its throat first and then beat it when it'd dead. That, then, would be no different from pounding flank steak with a meat mallet.

Do you know that horse meat is still loved in France?  I have thoroughly enjoyed rabbit in North Carolina and Spain, and a good jugged hare is a delicacy in England.

I wish more people were as open to appreciating other cultures' choices!

Cheers,  Dorine

Second subscriber response: Hi James,  I must say you surprised me with your comment on dog meat. I think that is what seperates the 3rd world from civilzed nations. How repulsive! Bugs, dogs, cats, PLEEEEAZE!

Linda

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Back home we have the recent resignation of KFCs animal welfare consultant

A case study of animal activism:  the PETA Chicks versus KFC

Item 1:  The Company Line [note the bolded experts][ at http://www.kfc.com/about/animalwelfare.htm ]

Animal Welfare Program

Yum! Brands, parent company of KFC, is committed to the humane treatment of animals. Yum! Brands is the owner of restaurant companies and, as such, does not own, raise, or transport animals. However, as a major purchaser of food products, we have the opportunity, and responsibility, to influence the way animals supplied to us are treated. We take that responsibility very seriously, and we are monitoring our suppliers on an ongoing basis to determine whether our suppliers are using humane procedures for caring for and handling animals they supply to us. As a consequence, it is our goal to only deal with suppliers who promise to maintain our high standards and share our commitment to animal welfare.

To assist us in that effort, Yum! Brands formed the Yum! Brands Animal Welfare Advisory Council, which consists of highly regarded experts in the field. The Council provides us with information and advice based on relevant data and scientific research. The Animal Welfare Advisory Council has been a key factor in formulating Yum! Brands' animal welfare program.

Members of our Council include:

* Dr. Temple Grandin, Colorado State University

* Dr. Ian Duncan, Dept. of Animal & Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Ontario

* Dr. Bruce Webster, The University of Georgia

* Dr. Claire Weeks, Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol

* Dr. Kellye Pfalzgraf, Director of Animal Well-Being, Tyson Foods

* Bill Potter, Director of Quality Assurance and Technical Services, George's, Inc.

In consultation with our Council, Yum! Brands has developed guidelines and audit programs for our suppliers in the broiler industry. We are also a prominent player in the joint effort currently underway by the National Council of Chain Restaurants and the Food Marketing Institute to develop comprehensive guidelines for all species of farm animals.

Item 2:  And what do KFC's top two animal welfare experts think today?

[ at http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=30700 ]

Animal Experts Quit KFC Over Confidentiality Pact

LOS ANGELES - Two animal welfare experts said they resigned as advisors to fast-food chain KFC after the company asked them to sign an agreement preventing them from speaking publicly about its policies on such issues as animal slaughter.

Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University and Dr. Ian Duncan of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, said they stepped down from KFC parent Yum Brands Inc.'s animal welfare committee this week after being sent the agreement, which Grandin said would have required them to refer all media inquiries to KFC's corporate headquarters.

"I resigned because there is a document that I can't sign," Grandin said in an interview Thursday. "I feel very strongly that I can talk freely to the press about how the program's working, what's been going on with the program."

Grandin, who has also worked with chains such as McDonald's Corp., Wendy's International Inc., and Burger King Corp., said she is used to preserving confidentiality with respect to suppliers and pricing information. But, she said, no other company, including KFC, has ever asked her to sign an agreement asking her to refrain from speaking to the press.

"Certain things are confidential ... I will not give out pricing information or information about who is supplying chicken where," Grandin said. "That type of confidentiality agreement I sign all the time."

KFC spokeswoman Bonnie Warschauer said the contract was no different from previous confidentiality agreements members of the animal welfare committee, including Grandin and Duncan, have signed.

"It's just the same confidentiality agreement they've always had. We're just asking everybody to re-sign it," Warschauer said.

She did not specify why the company was asking committee members to sign the agreement again, and added that she did not know whether other members of the committee had signed it.

"I don't see why they wouldn't," Warschauer said.

Warschauer said that Grandin, Duncan and another animal welfare expert gave KFC a list of recommendations on animal welfare in March. Warschauer said the company has a "plan of action" for each one of the steps on the list.

Duncan, who along with Grandin has served on the committee for about three years, said he, too, would have felt curtailed by the agreement.

"The way that I read it, it wouldn't allow me to talk in general terms about animal welfare," Duncan said in an interview on Wednesday. "If someone phoned me up and said 'You are on the KFC animal welfare committee,' I was bound to say 'No comment."'

KFC has been criticized by animal rights activists, who claim the chain has not done enough to make sure the chickens it uses are cared for and slaughtered humanely.

Last year, the issue reached a boiling point when a video made public by animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) showed workers at a West Virginia chicken processing plant that supplies KFC ripping off birds' beaks, spitting tobacco into their mouths and eyes, and stomping and kicking them.

Duncan said KFC still "has some way to go" in improving its animal welfare standards.

"I've not been happy with the progress that's been made in setting standards," he said.

Grandin agreed that KFC "needs to be strengthening some things," but said the company had made progress.

"Change happens slowly and they have been making some improvements," she said.

A call to KFC for a response to these comments was not immediately returned.

KFC is working on a new agreement with both Grandin and Duncan under which they would serve as "technical advisors" to the company, Warschauer said. She said the company would be adding members to its animal welfare advisory board.

Grandin said the company had contacted her in an effort to work out an agreement and said she would be willing to continue working with KFC so long as the confidentiality agreement was scrapped.

Story by Nichola Groom

Story Date: 6/5/2005

Item 3:  So, why have so many feathers been ruffled?  Well, in 1999, PETA began waging a campaign to get fast food retailers to require more humane treatment of the animals that the companies sell as BigMacs, Whoppers, Wendy's Singles, etc.  In 2000 & 2001, the campaign successfully forced changes at McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's, but PETA's fight continues against KFC.  In brief, here's what PETA is trying to get out of KFC:

Q: What is the bare minimum that KFC must do to end PETA's campaign against it?

A: Click here to read a letter that addresses precisely this question. In a nutshell, KFC would have to, at a minimum, implement the following four-point plan for improving animal welfare at the factory farms and slaughterhouse that supply chickens for its restaurants:

* Adopt the "Animal Care Standards" program. This program creates guidelines to protect chickens on factory farms and covers issues such as ammonia concentration, lighting conditions, and living space in chicken sheds; intentional starvation of breeding birds; and mental and physical stimulation for the animals.

* Replace electrical stunning and throat cutting with controlled-atmosphere killing. Experts agree that controlled-atmosphere killing causes much less suffering than KFC's present method of snapping chickens' legs into metal shackles and cutting their throats open, often while they are still conscious.

* Switch to humane mechanized chicken gathering. Studies have shown that using manual methods results in four times as many broken legs, more than eight times as much bruising, and increased stress.

* Breed for health rather than forcing rapid growth, and stop feeding drugs to chickens. Breed leaner, healthier, less aggressive birds instead of breeding the biggest, fattest birds possible, and stop feeding chickens antibiotics and other drugs for nontherapeutic purposes.

For a comprehensive detail of KFC's assertions and PETA's responses, check out: http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/kfcsays.asp

Item 4:  Hungry for more?  For a lengthy chronology of PETA's efforts to get KFC to require more humane processing of the chickens that end up in its buckets, see:  http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/petakfc.asp

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Even closer to home some more depth on the recent happenings at Lincoln Park zoo that had PETA up in arms:

Lincoln Park Zoo - A chronology, from the activist perspective, of the apparent recent surge in animal deaths (with a special treat for you X-Files fans)

http://www.savewildelephants.com/gillian.asp

Update: May 13, 2005

More Careless Animal Deaths at Lincoln Park Zoo: Three Monkeys Are the Latest Casualties

Three Francois langurs have died at Lincoln Park Zoo, the latest in a string of deaths that includes beloved elephants Tatima, Peaches, and Wankie, at least two gorillas, and a camel.

Whistleblowers tell PETA of other mysterious animal deaths that the zoo has kept quiet, including a newborn marmoset who allegedly drowned when an inexperienced keeper failed to drain a pool to ensure the safety of the animals.

Evidence suggests that negligence on the part of zoo staff, as well as poor management, has contributed to the deaths of several animals at the zoo. The zoo has a responsibility, as well as a legal obligation, to provide its animals with humane living conditions, adequate veterinary care, appropriate shelter from inclement weather, and an environment free of hazards. The zoo has repeatedly failed to provide these fundamental necessities to its animals.

May 2005

Update: May 1, 2005

Wankie Dies After Collapsing en Route to Hogle Zoo

Lincoln Park Zoo's last surviving elephant, Wankie, was destroyed on May 1 after arriving at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. Wankie reportedly collapsed in Nebraska during transport from Chicago. The zoo moved her before waiting to hear the verdict of the upcoming May 12 Chicago City Council's Parks & Recreation Committee hearing. Council members were set to vote on a well-supported resolution calling for Wankie to go to a sanctuary and for the zoo to permanently close its elephant exhibit. PETA suspects that a rushed exit strategy did not allow for adjustment to the travel crate. A stressed Wankie may have been tranquilized for the 1,400-mile journey, which could have contributed to her collapse and breathing problems about halfway through the trip. When elephants go down, they must be helped upright within an hour or two or their weight crushes their internal organs. In this case, a decision was made to keep on driving with Wankie down.

PETA is calling on zoo director Kevin Bell to resign and to publicly release Wankie's medical records and necropsy reports (something he has refused to do for her two late companions, Peaches and Tatima) and on the USDA to investigate and pursue charges against the zoo for failure to provide adequate care in transit if negligence played a role in her death.

April 2005

Update: April 2005

The Lincoln Park Zoo plans to shuffle Wankie off to more of the same problems at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City in a matter of weeks and to eventually bring in more elephants. The Hogle Zoo has a disturbing record of animal care and, like all zoos, lacks sufficient space for elephants. The Hogle Zoo has a long history of failing to meet the minimal standards established in the federal Animal Welfare Act, among other problems. The Hogle Zoo paid a $25,000 fine to settle charges alleging repeated and willful violations of the AWA. Numerous animals have escaped, and several have died from unsafe conditions, including two chimpanzees who were shot after they escaped and mauled a keeper. Elephants at the Hogle Zoo have died from arthritis, twisted intestines, suspected vitamin deficiency, and other conditions. Following a recent audit, the zoo was accused by the Utah Legislature of selling bighorn sheep to a game ranch for trophy hunting.

More than half of the 37 elephants who died at AZA-accredited facilities since 2000 never reached their 40th birthday, dying far short of their 70-year life expectancy. At age 35, Wankie still has a chance to live a full and enriching life at a sanctuary.

March 2005

Update: March 2005

On March 9, the Chicago City Council referred a resolution proposed by PETA to the Committee on Parks and Recreation, recommending that Wankie, the surviving elephant, be retired to a sanctuary immediately, rather than shipped to another zoo, and that the Lincoln Park Zoo permanently close its elephant exhibit.

The resolution was referred for consideration two months after the premature death of a second elephant at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

January 2005

Update: January 2005

Tragically, a second female African elephant has died at the Lincoln Park Zoo. On Monday, January 17, 2005, the zoo euthanized 55-year-old Peaches, just three short months after the death of Tatima. Peaches' death means that Wankie is now left to suffer in solitary confinement, bereft of the only companions she has ever known.

There is no doubt that Wankie is grieving and confused by her relocation to an environment so hostile that it has claimed her only two friends, and if not relocated to a sanctuary soon, she could face the same deadly fate. At 35, Wankie still has a chance to live a full and enriching life, roaming freely on hundreds of acres in the company of other African elephants, at either The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee or the Performing Animal Welfare Society in California, where she could make new friends to fill the void left by the deaths of Tatima and Peaches.

On January 21, 2005, protesters held a wake at the zoo for Peaches, which also demonstrated the increasing public support for retiring Wankie to a sanctuary.

November 2004

Gillian Anderson Pleads With Chicago City Council to Help Peaches and Wankie

Following Tatima's death, Chicago native and Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning X-Files star Gillian Anderson sent letters to 50 Chicago City Council members and Mayor Daley, urging them to help the surviving elephants by passing a resolution recommending that Peaches and Wankie be sent to a sanctuary. Anderson's mailing includes a video with disturbing footage of Tatima just weeks before she died.

Anderson writes, "As you can see, Tatima lost so much weight at the Lincoln Park Zoo that she was skin and bones. It's obvious from this tape why zoo officials rarely let her outdoors: They did not want the public to see their emaciated elephant limping around the exhibit."

Anderson is appealing to the Chicago City Council to help send the zoo's two remaining elephants to a sanctuary where they would have free access to hundreds of acres in a warm climate and other elephant friends to help them cope with the recent loss of their companion.

Anderson writes, "As it currently stands, Peaches and Wankie have nothing but cold, lonely days to look forward to. Now is the time to do the right thing by retiring them to a sanctuary and ending their suffering before it is too late for them as well."

In December 2003, Anderson first appealed to Lincoln Park Zoo Director Kevin Bell to retire all three elephants to a sanctuary.  See letter below.

October 2004

Tatima Dies Suddenly

Tatima was discovered dead in her stall on Saturday, October 16. She reportedly died from tuberculosis (TB).

PETA is deeply saddened-but not surprised-by the loss of Tatima. As we feared, not only was moving the San Diego Wild Animal Park's elephants to the Lincoln Park Zoo a cruel decision, it apparently proved deadly for Tatima. The stress of the move along with the zoo's substandard elephant exhibit likely weakened Tatima's immune system, causing her to become sick with TB, a disease that has become prevalent in captive elephants. In addition, long hours standing on hard indoor surfaces likely worsened the crippling leg injury that she sustained last year.

At age 35, Tatima died far short of her expected lifespan and might have lived well into her 70s with proper treatment at a state-of-the-art sanctuary if the zoo industry had not stubbornly denied her the chance. Her final days were cold, barren, and filled with pain and bitter loneliness.

As Tatima's decline and premature death clearly illustrate, the Lincoln Park Zoo is not a suitable facility for elephants. Peaches and Wankie will likely suffer a similar fate unless the zoo allows them to retire to a sanctuary in a warm climate where they can roam freely on hundreds of acres of land.

PETA has asked the USDA to conduct a full and thorough investigation into the causes and conditions surrounding Tatima's premature death.

PETA held a protest at the zoo on October 20, 2004. Protesters carried signs that read, "One Elephant Death and Still Counting ...," "Lincoln Park Zoo: Have a Heart. Retire Peaches and Wankie to a Sanctuary!" and, "A Cold, Concrete Pen Is Not a Retirement Home."

August 2004

PETA has confirmed that a second elephant, Wankie, has also sustained a crippling leg injury at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Tatima, who suffered a crippling leg injury last year, has shown no improvement. Wankie is unable to bend her rear, right leg and limps when she attempts to walk. Out of concern that the elephants at the zoo are not receiving adequate exercise that is both required by the Animal Welfare Act and necessary to ensure their health and well-being, PETA has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to launch an investigation.

In addition, there appear to be increasing compatibility problems between all three elephants, which may have precipitated the injuries to both elephants and may further compromise their already fragile conditions. The fact that Tatima is usually kept indoors, segregated from Peaches and Wankie, indicates social disharmony within the group. Observers have also noted that Tatima appears to be shunned by the other two elephants when they are all in the same enclosure, which places her in the solitary position as an outcast.

To raise public awareness in the community, PETA staged a protest on July 9, 2004, which coincided with the zoo's annual fundraiser. Led by an activist dressed in an elephant suit to represent the injured elephants, protesters carried signs that read, "Lincoln Park Zoo: Send Bored, Crippled Elephants to Sanctuary," and, "Dying to Be Free."

January 29, 2004

A former elephant keeper and a zoo employee are shocked by the declining condition of Peaches, Wankie, and Tatima at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

Ray Ryan, who worked with the elephants when they lived at the San Diego zoo prior to their banishment to Chicago in April 2003, says, "It is my firm belief that these elephants are dying in their new environment, and if not retired to a sanctuary soon, will not last more than a few years at Lincoln Park Zoo.

Compared to what they were used to in San Diego, these elephants are suffering from the shock of climate change, lack of space, depression, and boredom." According to Colleen Goldsmith, a former San Diego zoo employee, "It is distressing to see these innocent animals placed in dismal conditions that could potentially be life-threatening due, in part, to their inability to be of breeding stock."

December 16, 2003

PETA releases an action alert urging activists to ask Chicago's mayor, Lincoln Park's Zoo director, and the Chicago Park District to retire Peaches, Wankie, and Tatima to The Elephant Sanctuary.

December 8, 2003

X-Files Star Gillian Anderson Pleads for Lincoln Park Zoo Elephants

As PETA feared, three African elephants from the San Diego zoo, who were shipped amid controversy to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago in April, are in terrible shape. With Chicago's long, bitterly cold winters, the elephants, one of whom is 53 years old, will be kept in a small back room for half the year, making their chronic medical conditions even worse.

Chicago native Gillian Anderson has written a letter to the director of the Lincoln Park Zoo, pleading with him to send the three to a sanctuary in a warmer climate more appropriate for African elephants, who are accustomed to an equatorial climate.

The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning X-Files star writes, "I kindly ask that you give serious thought to letting these three elephants retire to a warmer climate where they will have lots of room to roam, forage, play, swim in a pond, or do anything else that comes naturally to them."

Anderson's letter to the Lincoln Park Zoo director follows.

December 8, 2003

Kevin Bell, Director

Lincoln Park Zoo

2001 N. Clark St.

Chicago, IL 60614-4757

Dear Mr. Bell:

I was horrified to learn from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) that three aging elephants from the San Diego Zoo, who had lived there since they were infants, were recently transferred to the Lincoln Park Zoo, where they are now getting their first taste of winter in one of the coldest regions of this country.

These elephants were accustomed to being outdoors year-round in San Diego's warm climate. Now, when the temperature dips below 40 or 50, they will be confined and isolated from one another in a small concrete back room. I understand that Peaches, one of the oldest African elephants in captivity, suffers from chronic lameness, colic, nail abscesses, and facial sores and recently broke off a tusk. Her long-time companions, Wanki and Tatima, reportedly suffer from recurring colic, and one has developed a serious limp since arriving at your zoo while the other shows signs of being angry and frustrated.

I kindly ask that you give serious thought to letting these three elephants retire to a warmer climate where they will have lots of room to roam, forage, play, swim in a pond, or do anything else that comes naturally to them. The Elephant Sanctuary, which operates on several thousand acres in the town of Hohenwald, Tennessee, has eagerly offered to take these elephants under its wing so that they can rest, recuperate, and live out the rest of their days in a more natural habitat with other African elephants. PETA would be happy to pay for transportation costs.

I hope you'll take the best interests of these elephants into thoughtful consideration and release them to a well-reputed sanctuary. I look forward to your reply. You can reach me through Debbie Leahy, PETA's director of captive animals and entertainment issues, at 630-393-9627.

Sincerely,

Gillian Anderson

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For the last piece, a change of format: for those with access something from the NPR Odyssey archives for April 2005. This program is on the history of our relationship with domestic animals.

You can find the link on this page:

http://www.wbez.org/audio_library/od_raapr05.asp

Odyssey-April 25, 2005

Originally broadcast December 8, 2004

Our Domestic Animals

Janet Davis-Chair, Department of American Studies; University of Texas, Austin

Susan Jones-Faculty Member, Department of History; University of Colorado, Boulder

Americans have a variety of relationships with animals, but the distinctions we draw among different animals haven't always been so clear. How have animals come to play their different roles in American life?

Historians Janet Davis and Susan Jones join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Davis is author of The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top. She's also working on a book about the history of the animal welfare movement in the United States. Jones is author of Animal Values: Veterinarians and Their Patients

That’s all folks!

Colin