The Animal Manifesto (22 page)

“ ‘In today’s hard times, one must question the economic sense of keeping Jenny at the Dallas Zoo, when she could retire at no cost to the city to the peace and safety of the sanctuary,’ Tomlin wrote. . . . ’It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to just maintain a single elephant in a zoo. The City of Dallas plans to spend$30 million alone to build a controversial elephant exhibit to house up to five elephants. . . . And, all the while, thousands of people in Dallas are losing their jobs and homes.’”

“The unwanted horses seemed destined for death. The wheels had been set in motion to put down about 2,000 healthy mustangs, those in a federally maintained herd of wild horses and burros that no one wanted to adopt.

“The Bureau of Land Management knew that euthanasia was a legal alternative, but officials were proceeding slowly, afraid
of an intense public outcry. . . . Then. . . Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, made known her intentions to adopt not just the doomed wild horses but most or all of the 30,000 horses and burros kept in federal holding pens. Lifelong animal lovers, the Pickenses just a few years ago led the fight to close the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States.”

“Spain’s parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans. Parliament’s environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

“ ‘This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity,’ said the Spanish director of the Great Apes Project.

“Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain’s penal code.”

“Born Free USA. . .today congratulated the US House of Representatives for its swift passage of the Captive Primate Safety

Act (H.R.80) by an overwhelming vote of 323-95. The bill, sponsored by Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Mark Kirk (R-IL). . . , prohibits interstate and international movement of nonhuman primates if they are to be kept as ‘pets.’

“‘The primate trade involves enormous animal suffering and threats to human safety,’ says. . . Born Free USA. ‘These innocent animals may be confined in small cages or have their teeth or fingernails removed. We can’t allow animals to be mutilated in the name of companionship. There is simply no excuse for keeping primates as pets and the trade must stop. Wildlife belongs in the wild.’

“Each year, there are numerous incidents of privately-held primates harming people. Just this month, in an incident that has garnered international attention, a woman was critically mauled by a ‘pet’ chimpanzee in Stamford, Connecticut. . . .

“ ‘Primates are highly social and intelligent creatures who shouldn’t be shipped around the country just to languish in people’s bedrooms, basements, or backyards,’ added the Executive Vice President of HSUS.”

“The government of Cameroon has created a new national park aimed at protecting the critically endangered Cross River gorilla, the world’s rarest. The total population of the subspecies is thought to be less than 300.

“The news comes as governments of 10 gorilla range states gather in Rome for the first meeting of a new partnership aimed at protecting the primates. The Gorilla Agreement was
finalised in June, and brings together all the countries where the various species and subspecies are found.

“The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) helped establish the Takamanda park, and believes it will help curb the hunting and forest destruction that have brought Cross River numbers to such a minuscule level.

“ ‘By forming this national park, Cameroon sends a powerful message about the importance of conservation,’[said the WCS president].

“Gorillas should be able to move freely between the Takamanda reserve and Nigeria’s Cross River National Park just across the border, helping to repair the fragmentation of habitat which can isolate tiny wildlife populations.”

“The European Commission on Wednesday proposed a ban on seal products obtained by inhumane methods from entering or being produced within the European Union. ‘Seal products coming from countries that practice cruel hunting methods must not be allowed to enter the EU,’ said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas unveiling the proposal, which also covers sealing within the EU. ‘The EU is committed to upholding high standards of animal welfare.’

“The regulation aims to ensure that the killing and skinning of seals during a hunt does not cause ‘pain, distress or suffering.’ Trade in seal products would in future be allowed only where a certification scheme, coupled possibly with a product label, could guarantee the product as coming from a country meeting strict animal welfare conditions.”

To improve the lives of the animals in our care, we must appeal to the people who care for them. We must convince the people who run our zoos, research centers, and farms that animals think and feel, and that they suffer from many of today’s common practices. I know from experience that it’s possible to change people’s minds and attitudes, but this is always most successful when we appeal to a person’s natural compassion, to their innate sense of kindness.

In October 2008 I visited the Chengdu Zoo in China with Jill Robinson and other people from the Moon Bear Rescue Centre. I’m always saddened when visiting these sorts of places, and I was warned that conditions at the zoo were terrible, but I knew I had to see what the zoo was like before I could complain. The visit truly was a mixed blessing — bored and lonely elephants, bears, and monkeys, simply horrible conditions for the chimpanzees sitting alone in totally barren cages, and lone tigers in empty concrete cells. I asked my colleagues whether I should write to the director of the zoo, and while they thought it was a good idea, they thought it unlikely that I would receive a letter back.

As an unwavering optimist and dreamer, I wrote a very strong letter criticizing zoo conditions in as gentle a manner as I could. I know not to fight fire with fire; a lesson that I’ve learned from Jethro and other animals is that getting in someone’s face doesn’t get you what you want. Compassion begets compassion, and you often do receive what you give. In the letter, I said that I knew the director and his coworkers really cared for the animals, but that the conditions themselves were horrible and I knew they could do better. I was not expecting
a reply, but about ten days later I received a lovely letter from the director himself agreeing that they could and would do more. He thanked me for writing and wanted me, as a field biologist, to know that he would do more. And they are. Since then, they’ve been working with Jill and others to enrich the lives of the animals at the zoo, in part because they realize that they simply have to treat the animals with more respect and dignity and in part because they know people all over the world are scrutinizing them. For example, I’ve recently learned that the zoo is completing a new and more naturalistic primate facility where the chimpanzees and orangutans will live more enriched and better lives. Once again, we see that it really is true that “cruelty can’t stand the spotlight.” Time and again, calling attention to cruelty has resulted in people changing their ways, even though it often takes a good deal of time for them to do so.

In my travels to countries around the world, I’ve learned that there is a deeply shared commitment to work for animals who need our help. I’ve also learned that there are many diverse cultural attitudes and beliefs, and if we want to convince people in cultures different from our own to work for the betterment of animals, we need to be sensitive to these differences. For example, when I was in Taipei a few years ago, I met a woman who wanted to study biology and ultimately to help enrich the lives of captive animals. The woman’s professor said she was required to dissect animals to complete his course, but she didn’t want to do this. The student was in a deep dilemma and experiencing a lot of conflict; the situation seemed irresolvable. After we spoke, the woman asked if I would talk to her professor. I did, emphasizing all the nonanimal alternatives that would satisfy the professor’s goals. The professor hadn’t
realized these alternatives existed, and he agreed that if she could learn the material using them, it would be all right if she didn’t perform the dissections. Since then, the woman passed the course, and I like to believe that this professor will now grant similar requests not to dissect animals in his course. The key in this situation was that the professor didn’t lose face; he was allowed to change his mind without it being seen as giving in to pressure. I’ve known other students who didn’t want to dissect animals and directly confronted some of my colleagues, demanding not to do so. Because the professors felt pressured and cornered, they rarely yielded to the request.

We should, in other words, treat other people with the same dignity and respect we are asking them to extend to animals. Another story that exemplifies this was told to me by Leanne Deschenes, an intern with Green Mountain Animal Defenders in Burlington, Vermont. One day, Leanne became incredulous that some of her friends thought that it was just fine to kill a small bug who had walked across their picnic table. By talking to her friends gently, Leanne explained that the bug was here before they were and that being outdoors meant there would be bugs around. But equally important, as Leanne wrote: “Arguments and dialogues are sometimes necessary, oftentimes stimulating, and here and there discouraging, but we must demonstrate compassion to every person in every moment for them to see and feel the benefits. It is this way in which compassion is taught; our actions flow into the actions of others and become their own. If we practice compassion toward people repeatedly, we will open their eyes, ultimately saving the life of a quirky little bug on a beautiful-day picnic table somewhere.”

How right she is. We must remember that this is their turf, too, be it land, water, air, or picnic table.

Of course, personal conversations and letters are not always effective or appropriate. Different circumstances require different actions. In the late 1990s, I was concerned with the way a state program run by the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) to reintroduce the Canadian lynx into Southwestern Colorado was being handled, so I did something very simple: I organized protests and wrote letters to the local papers to call public attention to the project. I had serious ethical questions about this program. And it wasn’t just me. Opposition was broad-based and involved people who rarely talked with one another, field and conservation biologists, animal rights activists, ranchers and woolgrowers; we all had shared concerns about the political, social, economic, and biological aspects of the project.

The reasoning behind the translocation seemed to indicate an effort that was either ill-conceived or not what it seemed. For instance, we were told a death rate of 50 percent was expected and acceptable because “they’ll die up there anyway”; in Canada, the lynx were being trapped for their pelts. However, the area where they were to be moved in Colorado wasn’t likely to have enough food to support them, as shown by a survey of the area by a CDOW employee, who was later removed from the project. At one point, Mr. S, who oversaw the project, referred to the lynx release as “an experiment of sorts” and admitted the project was rushed. I was offended at the cavalier attitude of the CDOW and felt their “dump and pray” strategy was a perfect example of irresponsible biology and was ethically indefensible, especially for people who supposedly love animals.

No public opinion survey concerning the lynx project was done. In addition, we learned that a ski resort company, Vail Associates, had given$200,000 to the project, which would allow its ski resort to expand into suitable lynx habitat, and that no lynx surveys had been conducted around Vail after their expansion was approved in 1994. Sometimes, reintroductions of species have been done simply to avoid having a species declared endangered, at which point the federal government steps in with its own restrictions. Was that going on here? I subsequently wrote an essay titled “Jinxed Lynx” and organized three protests.

As planned, however, the Canadian lynx were translocated to Colorado on February 3,1999. As each lynx starved to death because of the predictable lack of food, others and I voiced our concerns. Our worries were ignored or categorically dismissed, but apparently raising public awareness had an effect. The response just became more personal than I expected.

I was teaching at the University of Colorado, and I learned that in March 1999, Mr. S wrote a letter to the president of the university that was an attempt to intimidate and coerce him into censuring me. Mr. S wrote that “my current will leaves 14% of my estate to the school of Environmental Studies at CU. Dr. Bekoff has seriously made me consider changing my will.” He also indicated that, because of my efforts, he was considering diverting a$30,000 study grant from the University of Colorado to Colorado State University.

Rather than give in to this pressure, the president forwarded the letter to me, the Chancellor of the Boulder Campus, and other campus officials, and the university unequivocally supported me. Money, in this case, didn’t talk. Yet in his letter, Mr. S made an interesting comment: “Animal rights is a difficult
subject to teach since it involves core values and would probably be better dealt with in one’s quest for answers to spiritual questions. Is Dr. Bekoff paid to teach animal rights? There is considerable difference between animal behavior and animal rights.”