5 Reasons to be Hopeful at the Start of 2013

With the start of a new year, there are ample reasons for animal rights advocates to be discouraged. Yet there are also reasons to be hopeful. Here are five:

1. As of midnight on January 1, 2013, Israel has banned the import and sale of all cosmetics and cleaning products that have been tested on animals. (Source)

2. Last month, firefighters in Boynton Beach, Florida, saved four rabbits from the inside of a burning house. One of the rabbits was suffering from smoke inhalation, so one of the heroic rescuers used an oxygen mask to help restore the animal's breathing. (See the image above.) (Source)

3. At the Barry Room, a popular restaurant serving the House of Lords in London, England, foie gras - the horrendously cruel delicacy made from the liver of force-fed ducks and geese - has been removed from the menu following protests by animal rights activists. (Source)

4. Here in Canada, the provincial environmental ministry in Ontario is launching a probe into mass animal burial sites near Marineland, which - along with the sustained protests against cruelty at that theme park over the past several months - will continue to shed negative light on the Niagara Falls tourist attraction. According to former Marineland staffers, the park has been burying huge numbers of animals - more than a thousand in four mass graves - without any public scrutiny. The graves are located close to the Welland River, which connects with the Niagara River. (Source)

5. Mexico City has strengthened its laws so that now people found guilty of animal cruelty will be made to serve up to two years in prison and a $500 fine if the animal is injured, or four years in prison and a $2000 fine if the animal is killed. These represent some of the strictest animal protection laws in this hemisphere. (Source)

The world presents us with ample evidence to be deeply pessimistic. Here are five reasons to keep fighting the good fight. It pays off. It may not seem like it, but it does.

Watching Omnivores Struggle

The slippery slope.

It's interesting to watch omnivores grappling with their food choices. I just finished reading an article in the Toronto Star defending meat eating. "Why Consuming Animals May Be the Right Thing to Do," said the headline.

Echoing a New York Times contest in March asking readers to defend meat consumption in 600 words or less (which, not surprisingly, the big food industry/factory farm shill Temple Grandin entered), the Star published a litany of familiar excuses justifying the act of killing animals and then devouring them.

Author and New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik led the charge: "All animals die. The choice for a pig is not between painful death and perpetual life, but between one death and some other. If we ate only animals that died naturally, then could there be any rational objection to our eating them - to eating their flesh in celebration of their life rather than burying it to rot or merely burning it?"

Toronto butcher Stephen Alexander, a big supporter of buying local, "humanely" raised meat, is clearly wrestling with the ethics of meat eating when he tells the Star: "You're killing them to live, you're killing them because you enjoy meat and it's good for you. But at the end of the day, there is the cold, hard truth that you're killing animals to eat their meat.... You have to justify it to yourself and that's all there is to it."

"Ethics are an individual choice," reasoned Heather Travis, who handles public relations for Canada Beef Inc., which represents 83,000 farming families here in Canada. Travis said her organization "strongly advocates beef as part of a balanced diet," and warned that staying healthy on a meat-free diet "can be trickier if you eliminate animal protein sources from your diet."

The temptation is great to pick apart these arguments one by one, and most intelligent vegans would be able to dance circles around these people in a debate.

But to me the most interesting element of all of these defenses of meat eating is the extent to which omnivores feel the need these days to justify the act. Five years ago, when I was an omnivore, I never felt any need to defend my choices. I liked meat. I ate it. End of story.

Today, five years later, more and more people are either going vegan, or feeling the need to justify and explain their food choices. I run into thoughtful omnivores all the time who are really - really - struggling with consuming animal products. Increasingly, it's getting so only an over-the-top fruit loop like Ted Nugent gives absolutely no thought whatsoever to chowing down on the flesh of sentient beings.

Famous food journalist Mark Bittman.

For the rest of us, it's a different story. I personally think the New York Times' challenge - which triggered an avalanche of responses from across the country - was a useful exercise in getting omnivores to think about why they do what they do.

A decade ago, the renowned and widely respected New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman gave little or no thought to the animals he was cooking (by his own admission). But in recent years, Bittman has developed profound misgivings about eating animals. These days, he believes that "20 or at most 50 years from now, those of us still alive will express incredulity at the way we once treated animals destined to become food." (Source)

Gordon Ramsay and friend. 

Bittman is not alone. Not long ago, famous TV chef Gordon Ramsay watched a hidden camera video of the inside of a factory farm (in this case, a pig facility). Seeing the male pigs being castrated without any anesthesia, sows chewing nervously on bars, and pigs shrieking in horror during the last days of their short lives, Ramsay was visibly shaken - and disgusted - by what he witnessed. Of course, Ramsay didn't go vegan. But the treatment of animals, an issue that for the longest time was never on his radar, has entered into his consciousness.

Bittman has been much more aggressive in moving away from cooking animal products than Ramsay. In fact, Bittman gained fame for his Vegan Until 6 diet, spotlighted in his book Food Matters, that advocated going vegan before dinnertime for improved health. Yet what began for Bittman as a health issue keeps coming back to the more significant matter of animals and their suffering. He can't get away from the issue. These days, in fact, he keeps bringing it up. It haunts him, just as it haunts any thoughtful omnivore. And this trend is working its way into corporate America. Burger King made headlines in late April when the chain announced it will switch to cage-free eggs and pork by 2017. Other fast food restaurants are likely follow.

Pigs in a factory farm. Many omnivores are troubled
by what's happening in the food industry. 

We vegans tend to be somewhat dismissive toward omnivores who are struggling with their food choices. But it's impossible to overemphasize the importance of this development, because it's a very new one. And it's becoming more and more widespread. Recently, I went on a local radio station to talk about these very issues on a program about farming and agriculture.  I could see the host, himself an omnivore and advocate of what he called "humane" livestock farming, was also grappling with these same issues. He and I shared a sense of uneasiness with the growth of big, corporate factory farms. A lot of omnivores, having watched documentaries like Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives, are experiencing these same feelings. I believe Bittman is absolutely correct, that  "20 or at most 50 years from now, those of us still alive will express incredulity at the way we once treated animals destined to become food." This is not a Pollyannaish notion. It's a reflection of the changing reality of our times.

A growing number of omnivores are troubled by their actions, and the increasing defensiveness of some is an outgrowth of a moment in history when the animal rights movement is gaining traction around the world. For those of us who feel passionately about animals and their rights, this shift may seem too slow and way overdue in coming. But it is happening, little by little, and it offers a glimmer of hope.

When the word "terrorist" loses all meaning...

For those of you who think that Canada is a much more open-minded place than its mighty neighbour to the south, think again.

From the Montreal Gazette:

OTTAWA — A government agency responsible for tracking financial transactions to ensure they aren't used for illicit purposes has identified animal rights activists and "environmental extremists" as terrorist groups on a website rife with references to al-Qaida.

The page is part of an online terrorism-financing tutorial hosted by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre.

The government established FINTRAC in 2000 to detect and prevent money laundering and other illegal financial transactions by terrorists and organized crime groups.

The story goes on to say that animal rights activists are "single issue" terrorists who resort to violence to achieve their goals, and they deserve to be lumped together with other extremists and zealots, including Al Qaeda.

If being horrified by the systematic murder of 59 billion land animals a year makes me a terrorist, then I'm a terrorist.

If hating the violence that goes into the commodification of living, sentient beings puts me in the same league as Osama Bin Laden, then scoot over Comrade Bin Laden. You've got a new sidekick.

If believing that sentient beings on land and in the sea have rights and that human beings have NO right to breed them, rip them apart from their loved ones, put them in dark places for their short lives and then sever their veins and eat their flesh and other excretions makes me a kindred spirit to the maniacs who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, then this blog has officially become a "Jihadist Zone."

I'm a terrorist because I hate mass murder. I'm a terrorist because the very thought of putting flesh in my mouth sickens me. I'm a terrorist because I can't look the other way when seals are clubbed, whales are harpooned, fish are gutted while they're still flopping, lobsters are thrown into boiling water alive.

I'm a terrorist because I lay awake at night, haunted by the thought that the average calf who is turned into veal has a shorter lifespan than a housefly.

Never mind the institutions and people that murder billions of sentient beings. They are simply fulfilling "demand" in the glorious "free market" system upon which our civilization is built.

A world where the murderers are the virtuous and the compassionate are terrorists is absolutely unthinkable. And, yet, here we are. We're in it. This is the reality we must confront.

I will let my lifelong hero Mario Savio have the last word in this case:

"There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop, And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all."

Remembering Animals in War

Kudos to 89-year-old Lloyd Swick of Ottawa, the capital of Canada, who is going around the city raising $100,000 to build a memorial to animals that have perished in past wars. After all of the money is raised and the memorial is complete, Ottawa's Confederation Park will boast one of the world's only monument to animals that perished in the seething cauldron of warfare.

To quote Swick:

"We need the monument because our casualty list of close to 60,000 in the First World War and some 48,000 in the Second World War would have been much higher had it not been for the support of our animals," he said. "The animals managed to bring the guns forward, the animals that managed to bring the provisions forward, the animals that evacuated our wounded. We owe a great debt to them." (Source)

Some additional information on Swick's crusade is worth highlighting here. Some key grafs:

The [monument] for animals in war will be connected to the existing Boer War monument, which commemorates the 1899-1902 South African battle where Canada sent some 50,000 horses to haul cannons, soldiers and ammunition.

Canada still uses animals in war -- specifically in Afghanistan where dogs are used to search for mine clusters as well as search and rescue operations.

Historically war animals have included glow worms for navigation and as reading lights, pack camels in India and Africa, elephants in the jungles of Burma, mine clearance dolphins in the Gulf War and an estimated eight million horses or mules which have been killed providing mobility to soldiers and equipment in the past century alone.

Swick deserves a salute and heartfelt thanks. Animals have made great sacrifices, not only for Canada, but for men and women around the world, in thousands of conflicts throughout history. Their deaths are largely forgotten, almost never acknowledged in monuments and rarely - if ever - getting a sentence in the history books.

What a blessing to us that this 89-years-young man has the courage and the wisdom to raise the money to build this memorial. We can only hope that his one-person crusade will lead to other, similar ones. Anything designed to help remember and honor the animals deserves our applause and heartfelt thanks.

My Column in the Waterloo Region Record

Hello Blog Pals,

Today my column on Animal Sanctuaries in Canada ran in The Record. I'm reposting it here. I hope you enjoy it!

Andrew

Christmas is a time to think of others, including animals

• By Andrew Hunt
• The Waterloo Region Record

Opinion columnists, including yours truly, often focus on the negative.

Wars overseas, battles over WikiLeaks, political strife, economic uncertainty and threats of terrorism have recently been among the topics of contention on editorial pages.

Occasionally, a column will appear that reminds us of the splendid work being done by Canadian volunteers. In this Christmas season, men and women have donated generously to charities or worked long hours to help make life a little better for those less fortunate. In a few cases, intrepid souls have even journeyed to trouble spots like Haiti to do what they can to help.

These Canadians deserve our praise and thanks. But it seems to me that of all the unsung heroes, the ones thanked the least are those helping animals. Whether they volunteer at shelters or adopt animals in need of homes, countless Canadians have shown — over and over — that ours is a society that cares about animals.

Some of the most remarkable work is happening in so-called animal sanctuaries, which provide safe havens where animals can live healthy and happy lives.

Animal sanctuaries are all over Canada. Each sanctuary has its own focus. For example, right here in our midst, the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada, located near Guelph, offers an idyllic atmosphere for donkeys.

Why donkeys? The sanctuary’s website explains: “Donkeys are often abused and neglected, and, once no longer wanted, placed into an equine auction. Then, if a buyer is not available at the moment of sale, the animal is sold to a slaughterhouse.”

The Donkey Sanctuary has been a success story, thanks to its founders, Sandra and David Pady, as well as the kind folks who volunteer or agree to sponsor donkeys through contributions. The donkeys are not only given a second chance, but they get to meet the many visitors to the farm – men, women and especially children who go to the sanctuary on a regular basis.

This is but one example. There are so many others. Here in Ontario alone, we have the Ferret Aid Society, bird sanctuaries (Freedom Flights, Cherished Wings, Parrot Adopt and Second Flight), Rabbit Rescue of Ontario and Trails End Rabbit Refuge and various wildlife sanctuaries, not to mention safe havens for dogs, cats and other companion animals.

Right in our own community, there is an organization dedicated to sheltering turtles (Turtle Haven) and we are blessed with the extraordinary Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory (formerly known as Wings of Paradise).

Support is essential to the survival of these sanctuaries. Donations are especially welcome, though some may also need volunteers.

Up in the Arthur/Mount Forest area, the Ruby Ranch Pig Sanctuary, situated on 12 acres of land, is home to some lively personalities. Seeing these pigs in action is to witness these amazing animals as they are meant to live. They frolic outdoors, make friends with other pigs and humans, and most importantly, they live healthy lives, full of love.

Compare this to the millions of pigs born into dark and cold enclosed spaces, mutilated by having their tails cut and castrated if they’re males, and living short lives, packed together by the thousands before meeting a violent end.

Places like Ruby Ranch, and all of the other animal sanctuaries across Canada, provide us with hopeful stories that have happy endings. They give us a glimpse of how animals and human beings are meant to interact. The people who run them do so with few resources and rarely do they get praised or thanked. Doing whatever you can to help them is a wonderful way of giving back.

Andrew Hunt is an associate professor of history at the University of Waterloo.

A Few Thoughts on the Old Fur vs. Leather Issue

The debate over fur gets very intense. And it always gets me wondering why anti-fur militants do not respond in a like fashion to people wearing leather. Oh sure, we have to pick and choose our struggles. Each person fighting in the trenches for an end to animal exploitation is a welcome comrade. But you can't deny that fur causes an emotional reaction among those who dislike it that is far more visceral than other types of animal-related clothing.

Pictured here is MP Justin Trudeau, son of the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and now a Member of Parliament from Quebec. He is seen here with his wife and children, posing for their annual Christmas card and wearing furs.

The card sparked a heated protest, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) leading the charge. I don't have the same problems with PETA that some other abolitionist vegans do. I know that any organization that fights on as many fronts as PETA does is bound to take some really shitty stands, but for every one of these they take, they also adopt some damn good positions and reach out to a hell of a lot of people. Many people have been moved to embrace veganism by the powerful PETA video, narrated by Alec Baldwin, that tells omnivores where their meat comes from. I paid dues to PETA last year, I'll pay them again this year. Despite my differences with the organization, I realize that ours is a huge battle, on a big front, and when we begin turning on each other, this movement will begin writing its own obituary.

That said, singling out fur over the production of other types of animal products has always been something I've never understood. It seems to place a higher priority on one type of animal over another. I do not mind people protesting Justin Trudeau. That doesn't bother me. In fact, the question arises: What if this Christmas card went public and nobody spoke out?

Still, it is impossible to ignore that fur causes a far more passionate outcry than leather or other types of clothing made out of animals, and for no good reason at all. The English stand-up comic Alexei Sayle had a funny and very cynical explanation for this: "People are more violently opposed to fur than to leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs."

Of course, I don't buy Sayle's point - humorously though it may've been made. And I am a firm believer in fighting struggles on a very broad front and putting aside differences (as long as we all agree to zero violence). This is exactly what conservatives in the United States have done - put aside petty sectarian squabbling - and look at how successful they have been. When we turn on those in the movement we don't think are perfect, instead of keeping the focus on the institutions and ways of thinking that abuse and exploit animals, we begin to fight a doomed battle. But that doesn't mean we can't wonder, aloud, why some animals seem provoke a more emotional outcry than others. Any animal being exploited for any reason deserves equal sympathy - not only by this movement as a whole, but by us as individuals.

My Latest Column on Factory Farm Fires in Canada

I write a regular column for the Waterloo Region Record and this week's column is on a rash of disturbing factory farm fires here in Canada. Click here to read the article. In it, I discuss the sizable number of animals who have died the most horrific deaths imaginable in barn blazes. Borrowing figures from the wonderful folks at Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals (CETFA), I point out that just since January of this year, 78,466 animals have died in Canadian barn fires.

Those numbers are appalling. And each one represents a living, breathing, sentient being - a pig, a chicken, a cow, sometimes other farm animals - who died in the most horrifying way imaginable, burning alive. The image I use above on this Blog Entry is of sows who burned to death in gestation crates in a factory farm fire. This is an issue that should be causing outrage. Hopefully, it will also prompt some Canadians - and other people - to reconsider their omnivore diets. Eating animals simply is not worth the devastating toll and the excruciating pain it causes these beautiful creatures. A vegan diet is much more consistent with a nonviolent political philosophy.

The King Kong of Cruel Food Production: Foie Gras, Canadian Style

You might not have the stomach to watch this video about the production of Foie Gras. Foie Gras means "fatty liver" - it is a "delicacy" made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been forcefully fattened just for this occasion. It is known as a rich and buttery food and is on the menu at many upscale restaurants.

And the making of Foie Gras is as violent, cruel and inhumane as food production gets.

Please watch this video of the making of Foie Gras in Canada.

It is one of the most painful documentaries on animal abuse that I've viewed, and I have watched a lot of these types of videos.

Good people have been resisting the production of Foie Gras for years. This includes a number of celebrities, including former 007 James Bond star Roger Moore. Recently, Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet has joined in on the anti-Foie Gras Movement.

This video shows - very explicitly - just how cruel the production of Foie Gras is. Female ducklings are thrown into garbage bags and then gassed with carbon monoxide, but many of them survive (as this video shows). Male ducks are force fed and the small ones are picked out and brutally murdered. This is pure heartlessness at its worst.

Human rights without animal rights is utterly meaningless. Either you stand for the rights of all sentient beings or none at all. This video is the greatest argument for going vegan. It is also a warning bell calling on all decent people to demand a halt to the production of Foie Gras.

A Decent Showing in Atlanta...

In Atlanta, Georgia, activists staged a protest against the seal hunt in front of the Canadian consulate downtown. There weren't many of them - only about 12 - but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in principles and integrity. The protest included gruesome undercover video scenes of the seal hunt and passing out literature. Activists urged passersby to protest the seal hunt in various ways. It wasn't a huge event, by any means, but it got the word out and showed that there are good, nonviolent ways to protest against the violent madness that is the seal hunt.

Seal Hunt Quotas on the Rise...

After that last Blog Entry, I don't want to get accused of picking on misguided militants more than those carrying out widespread systematic violence toward animals. So...

Here's the latest news on the Canadian seal hunt from AFP:

OTTAWA — Canada's fisheries minister on Monday hiked the total number of seals that hunters would be allowed to slaughter during an annual Atlantic coast hunt set to begin later this month.

The total allowable catch for harp seals this season will rise to 330,000, from 280,000 last year, while quotas for grey and hooded seals will remain unchanged at 50,000 and 8,200 animals, respectively.

The reason cited by officials for the increased quota is a growing seal population in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in waters east of Newfoundland.

"This government is united in its support of the thousands of coastal Canadian sealers who rely on the seal hunt for their livelihood," Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said in a statement.

"The seal hunt is a sustainable activity based on sound conservation principles."

The estimated populations of the grey and hooded seal herds are over 300,000 and 600,000 respectively and "continue to grow every year."

The harp seal population, meanwhile, is estimated at 6.9 million "or more than triple what it was in the 1970s."

Around 6,000 Canadians take part in seal hunting each year along the Atlantic coast, and 25 percent of their sales came from exporting products to Europe.

The 27 European Union states in July 2009 adopted a ban on seal products, ruling the goods could not be marketed from 2010.

Canada and Greenland account for more than 50 percent of the 900,000 seals slain in the world each year. Other seal-hunting countries include Norway, Namibia, Iceland, Russia and the United States.

I hear Canadians say, over and over again, that it's wrong to oppose the seal hunt because people rely on it for their livelihood. OK, point well taken.

But far, far more whites in the American South relied on slavery for their livelihood in the 19th Century. They made the same arguments: Abolish it and the result will be a disaster for the poor souls (in this case, poor white souls) whose well-being and survival depend on it.

Similarly, today, if the cocaine trade were wiped out, numerous villages in Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador that survive on the cocaine economy would be decimated economically. Same thing with villages in Afghanistan if heroin and opium were suddenly stamped out. A lot of struggling Afghans who rely on the heroin and opium trades would be hurt. But that doesn't legitimize those trades; it merely shows that when you get rid of some sort of lucrative economic resource, the results can be very painful and difficult for ordinary people. But the alternative of maintaining immoral industries is deeply troubling.

I am sympathetic to the people who rely on seal hunting for a living. There is no denying, however, that the practice itself is ghastly and brutal.

The seal hunt rivals factory farming in its barbarism. I don't advocate throwing pies at Gail Shea or blood at people who wear fur, and I certainly think many of the anti-seal hunt types - who traipse into Canada to protest and traipse out again - have been insensitive to the plight of the seal hunters. But I agree - 100 percent - with those who believe that this is a cruel practice.

That said, it's no crueler than manufacturing leather products. It all comes from the same place.

When I think of these things, I'm reminded of a Wisconsin serial killer named Ed Gein (1906 - 1984), who made all kinds of crafts out of the remains of the people he butchered. When police finally caught him, they found lampshades made of skin, human skulls on bedposts, scalps sewn together to make slipcovers, and various objects made of human bones.

Such discoveries shocked the world. Maybe the day will come when the way we currently use animals will prove equally shocking to future generations.

Then again, maybe not. I don't always have a hell of a lot of faith in human beings.