Human Befriends Bird--And the Story Continues
In 2011 a retired Brazilian named João rescued this penguin, who
was coated with oil and near death. He cleaned “Din-Din” up, fed
him fish until he was fully recovered, and released him. But
Din-Din wouldn’t go! He stayed for several months before finally
swimming away--but he wasn’t about to forget Joâo’s --
--lovingkindness. For the rest of this remarkable --
--story, see Friendship
Editor’s Corner Guest Review-Article: from Voices for Animal
Liberation
Reviewed by Karen Davis
Voices for Animal Liberation: Inspirational Accounts by Animal
Rights Activists. Brittany Michelson, ed., with Foreword by
Ingrid Newkirk. NY, New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2020. xix +
236 pp. $17.99 ppb.
This book includes color photos and bios of each contributor,
including color photos of animals by story contributor Jo-Anne
McArthur, founder of We Animals Media.
Anyone familiar with the obstacles to obtaining and maintaining
justice for marginalized human groups in mainstream society cannot
be surprised at the difficulty of obtaining justice for other
animal species. Contributors to this anthology recall moments of
awakening to the reality of animals’ lives that immediately or
eventually turned them into animal rights activists. Such moments
range from coming face to face with a suffering, terrified dairy
cow so intense that “at that moment I decided I had to do
something,” to future activist Zafir Molina being told
sarcastically by her father that she was eating the baby goat she
had spent time with the day before. “Yet I continued to eat the
flesh.”
Voices For Animal Liberation presents autobiographical stories of
how personal trauma, depression, distress, dysfunction, and in
some cases food and drug addictions, foster insight into the
trauma of animals trapped in human systems of abuse. Actor and
filmmaker Chase Avior writes, for example: “Having been subjected
to bullying, I know the feeling of being scared and defenseless,
and I see the same terror in the eyes of every animal headed to
the slaughterhouse.”
Army veteran Jasmine Afshar describes how the desperation of
trapped pigs she observed “to seek safety reminded me of some
traumatic moments in my own past.”
Whether animal liberation is “on the horizon” or an ever-elusive
aspiration fortified by shaky victories, the takeaway is that the
liberation of oneself and of animals is a work in progress for
activists determined to exemplify and deliver our “fragile message
to the masses.” Many, including your friends, will dismiss you no
matter how you speak about animals and veganism. They will
accuse you, says JaneUnchained News journalist Dani Rukin, of
“flaunting your lifestyle.” Olympic medalist Dotsie Bausch,
founder of Switch4Good, is taunted by her cyclist coaches for her
“plant-based BS.” She tells them: “I don’t care if I fade away on
this diet . . . and for once in my life I am going to stand up for
what’s right.”
Promoting the Vegan Message
Contributors proclaim the vegan message with respect to food and
more broadly as an all-encompassing philosophy of compassion for
all forms of sentient life. Veganism is no longer considered, as
was once commonly claimed, a mere “personal choice.” In Rukin’s
words: “it’s never just a personal choice when there’s a victim.”
Still, being vegan does not suffice for activists like Natasha &
Luca, who come to understand that, in addition to diet, “The
victim would want us to actively intervene.”
At the same time, we need to understand our audience. Vegan
activist Gwenna Hunter reminds us that people of color, for
example, may resist our starting out cold with “animals are
suffering.” White people have told them “you’re lower than
animals,” and as one man challenges Hunter at a vegan lifestyle
event, “Sister, you’re out here telling people not to eat animals,
but what are you doing for our black community? Black men are
being shot in the streets.” This is why, she says, “when speaking
with communities of color, I always start my conversations with
health and self-love.” She reminds us that for some people, and
especially for those who are struggling, “eating is the only
simple pleasure they have in life.” We cannot come across as if we
are telling them, “I don’t want you to have this
pleasure.”. . . .
Bearing Witness
In keeping with this view, Anita Krajnc, founder of the Save
Movement and armed with the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s call to
bear witness, defines her strategy as “the moral duty and
obligation of society to collectively bear witness and recognize
the individuality of every animal, their desire and right to live
a natural life, and our corresponding duty to help them. . . . The
concept of bearing witness creates the opportunity to get closest
to the animal standpoint, which generates the most empathy,
compassion, and action. We absorb a small fraction of the animals’
pain and learn a tiny bit of their story, which we share with
others to help them wake up to this reality.”
In my own contribution to the book, I describe how back in the
1970s I responded to Tolstoy’s concept of nonviolence in his essay
“The First Step” by not wanting to continue eating meat, a
practice I hadn’t thought about before. But it was Tolstoy’s
piteous description of cows and lambs in the Moscow slaughterhouse
he visited that caused me to stop eating animals immediately,
confronted with the reality of what “meat” really meant.
Life-changing encounters with specific animals include pledges to
them to fight for them from that moment on. Such pledges are made
in moments of misery, as Jill Robinson, founder of Animals Asia,
describes her encounter with a female moon bear she named Hong in
a cellar of hell at a bile-extraction farm in China. These moments
will affect some readers more deeply than conceptual analysis
alone can do, although empathy and analysis reinforce each other
and enrich this book. Amy Jean Davis, founder of Los Angeles
Animal Save, writes:
I still remember the moment I first looked inside a transport
truck full of baby pigs. Their skin was colored so softly and
delicately, and they were looking at me with wide, terrified blue
eyes. They looked like big pink dogs, crammed on top of one
another, scared and confused. It felt like lightning hitting the
center of my chest, as if my heart might burst from the sadness
and helplessness I felt all at once. . . . To be free to walk back
to my vehicle and drive home to a soft, cool bed without someone
dragging me to a gas chamber. It’s a moment I will never forget.
Alex Bez of Amazing Vegan Outreach recalls his moment of meeting
cows who were about to die: “As the truck rolled to a stop, I
tentatively approached the side. Peering through the small holes
in the metal walls, I saw gentle, furry giants staring back at
me. Each of their breaths pushed small clouds of vapor out of
their nostrils into the cold air. Their heads swayed back and
forth, trying to see what was happening outside.”
Former investigator of farms and slaughterhouses, Matthew Braun,
describes an incident in a chicken slaughterhouse. “I watched as
the first chicken to reach the conveyor stood up, spread her
wings, and ran. . . . She did not look scared like you might
expect. In fact, she looked happy as she ran toward me. Maybe she
thought that she was finally going to be free. Her happiness was
short-lived, because I had to reach out, grab her by the leg, and
hang her upside down in a shackle. I think about her often, and
sometimes it brings me to tears. When people eat animals around
me, I am reminded that somebody ate her, too.”
Dealing With Demons
“Considering a baby’s experience – just wanting her mother, but
getting the rough hands of workers taking her to her death instead
– how can this be the world I live in?” – Amy Jean Davis, founder
of Los Angeles Animal Save
“If our destruction of the natural world, the animals, and each
other persists, then obviously we are dealing with a very
unsympathetic entity – ourselves.” – Shaun Monson, documentary
filmmaker of Earthlings and Unity
The apathy of human society toward animals and nature, while it
may be lessening, is an omnipresent reality that requires a daily
renewal of commitment and a constant battle against despair. A
unifying theme among the 25 voices presented in this book is the
personal stamina that being part of a global animal activist
community brings. In her riveting account of an open rescue of
caged hens in 2015 sponsored by Direct Action Everywhere, Zoe
Rosenberg, founder of Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary, describes
stepping out of a battery-cage building where “We had no idea what
would be waiting for us outside.” Then, “I looked up and saw
hundreds of activists gathered by the other entrance.”
This experience can stand as a metaphor for the strengthening
sense of purpose, relief, and gratitude that the camaraderie of
our shared commitment to animals and animal liberation
provides. We help each other and the animals by holding strong
together. Inside each of us, a river of sadness runs; a perceptual
conflict seethes. Teacher and writer Brittany Michelson, who
created this powerful book, conveys our shared experience: “When I
see someone excited over pizza or ice cream, I think of the calves
stuck in those hutches, peering out with wide eyes, and the long
low moaning reverberating across the farm. It is visuals like
these that haunt me and anger me, yet also ignite my activism to
greater heights.”
Voices for Animal Liberation simultaneously comforts and inspires
us with the knowledge that we are not alone with our demons. As
individuals we can contribute to the growing power of animal
liberation activism around the world. Saengduean Lek Chailert,
founder of Save Elephant Foundation in Southeast Asia, writes: “I
am asked why I rescue the old elephant. The images of suffering
should speak for themselves, yet my answer is quite simple. It is
about respect. To protect them is a high calling. By doing so, we
also protect and strengthen our own hearts. . . . We rescue in
order to honor them, to offer a moment of respect in a tragic
life.” The rescue of a solitary animal does not solve the
overwhelming problems, she admits, but to the one being rescued
and the rescuer, it “means everything.”
Karen Davis, Ph.D., is founder and president of United Poultry
Concerns.
(Note: In my copy of this book, the front matter and introduction
are repeated near the end.)
NewsNotes
Farm System Reform Act
Last December, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) proposed the Farm System
Reform Act, a measure intended to break the monopolistic power of
a handful of animal flesh processing firms, especially Smithfield,
Tyson, and JBS. In May, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined as
co-sponsor, and Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) proposed a
companion bill in the House. The measures are intended to be the
beginning of the end of factory farming. See Breakthrough
(For Mr. Booker’s Pilgrimage account, see PT 134 )
Letters: A. J. Morey
Dear friends: I enjoyed reading the review of Inside Animal
Hearts and Minds, and was struck by this thought: Human beings are
also capable of great kindness, not to mention heroism, as we are
seeing in local communities during this pandemic. But we are also
seeing some appalling selfish and destructive behavior as well.
When populations are under stress, we see the best and the worst,
just as we would in the animal world. This isn't a thought that
has anywhere to go. . . . just reflecting on what I've read.
I loved the photo of the otters and the orangutan!
Unset Gems
“Please don’t eat the animals. They don’t like it.”
--Elizabeth Farians, Ph.D.
“The world is full of magical things, waiting for our wits to
sharpen.”
--Eden Philpotts
Book Review: Mama’s Last Hug
De Waal, Frans. Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They
Tell Us About Ourselves. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Co.,
2019. 352 pp. incl. notes and bibliography. $16.95 ppb, $27.95
hb.
This book has both stories and science about experiences and
research on animal minds (including humans) showing the growing
knowledge about feelings and emotions in various species. It
begins with the story of a 40 year recurring relationship between
Jan van Hooff (rhymes with “both”), a research biologist and
professor who had known and studied a female matriarch chimpanzee
named "Mama" many times over 40 years. Then van Hooff, now age 80
and living across the Atlantic, received notice that Mama, now at
age 59 was close to death. Jan van Hooff visited her in her night
cage on the large forested chimpanzee island at the zoo, where the
aging Mama recognized him with a big smile, and gave him a hug and
gentle pats on the neck.
De Waal summarizes research on primates who laugh and smile in
their social situations, showing abilities in empathy and
sympathy, He compares the emotions that we humans share with
other primates: shame, guilt, jealousy, etc, and the parallels of
their social structures to our own politics and power hierarchies,
citing studies documenting sentience and emotional intelligence of
chimpanzees in their interactions with each other and with
humans. Some chimps have been taught over 100 sign-language
signals to communicate with each other and the human
researchers. Twenty two photographs in the book illustrate these
feelings being acted out in the society of chimpanzees.
In Chapter Five, de Waal turns to human society for comparison.
Politics and various public interactions of social leaders are
very similar to those in chimpanzee groups. (Mama's Last Hug was
published in 2019, so you are likely familiar with the parallel
examples from public figures in our own human society
demonstrating parallel feelings, including political actions and
tantrums, and male versus female power structures in both
chimpanzee groupings and in humans.) Chapter Six explores recent
research on how emotions are used in human lives, as our emotions
interact and influence the contents of our
intelligence. Experiments have demonstrated that chimpanzees and
humans react similarly to the fairness and unfairness we observe
in 3rd party transactions. Primates, both humans and chimpanzees,
have a measurable brain reaction called "mirror neurons" wherein
we react emotionally to observing third parties in a situation we
can identify with, and we feel much the same reaction as when we
are personally in those situations. Many other animals including
dogs, birds, and elephants demonstrate these same reactions in
behavior and brain scans. This has demonstrated that we share
feelings of empathy.
These observations have brought science to a point closer to
recognizing animal consciousness and emotional feelings, rather
than denying them as philosopher Rene Descartes had proclaimed in
the 1600s. This book examines the progress in understanding that
there is consciousness and feeling in animals down to and
including fish. Chapter 7 examines the struggle over time to
recognize evidence of animal consciousness and feeling, and covers
the controversy today in challenging the treatment of animals in
the meat processing industry, concluding that it is time for us to
squarely face the degree to which ALL animals experience life,
feelings, and emotions much as we do.
--Steve Willey
Steve Willey is a longtime member of the Sandpoint, Idaho, Friends
Meeting, where he has taken leadership in raising Friends
consciousness regarding animals.
Pioneer: Cleveland Amory, 1917 - 1998
Cleveland Amory (1917-1998) was an American writer, journalist,
and animal activist. In the last capacity, which was his primary
concern in the last three decades or so of his life, he served on
the boards of the Humane Society of the United States, the New
England Anti-Vivisection Society, and the Fund for Animals, which
he founded in 1967. He also was involved in the founding of People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1981, and donated
the first ocean-going ship used by the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, among other animal-related works. Above all he is
celebrated for creating Black Beauty Ranch, the famous sanctuary
sheltering abused animals and the subject of his last book, Ranch
of Dreams (reviewed in PT 80 ). So important was Amory's animal
work that an executive director of the HSUS called him "the
founding father of the modern animal protection movement."
Amory was born and raised in a prominent Boston family. After
attending Harvard, where he served as editor of the Harvard
Crimson, and service in World War II, he drew from his background
to write a series of three bestselling books on Society (capital
S), The Proper Bostonians, The Last Resorts, and Who Killed
Society?, all replete with entertaining but always good-natured
anecdotes about persons and families considered out of the top
drawer. These works led to his employment as a regular
society/gossip columnist in several widely-circulated magazines,
and as a light-hearted social commentator on the then-new medium
of television. including the Today show.
Then, in 1963, unexpectedly to most who knew him, another side of
Cleveland Amory appeared. He learned that an American Legion post
in North Carolina was sponsoring a "canned" rabbit killing
contest. Amory traveled to the site, debated with the organizers
about the idea of slaughtering animals for "sport," and when he
returned presented a hard-hitting attack on Today, including the
proposal that it would make as much sense to kill the hunters in
cold blood and so humanely reduce overpopulation. This advocacy,
typical of the cutting-edge language the otherwise mild-mannered
socialite was occasionally capable of using with regard to animal
issues, received overwhelmingly negative response from viewers and
led to his being reprimanded by NBC. When, a few months later,
Amory belabored the evils of vivisection on the show, he was
abruptly dismissed.
Nothing daunted, he went on to biting criticism of hunting in TV
Guide magazine, where he was a television critic, and in a new
book, Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife (1974). Then, as
though to reflect his ongoing transition to another stage of life,
he later published another set of three popular books, these on
his beloved cat Polar Bear: The Cat Who Came for Christmas (1987;
twelve weeks as #1 on the New York Times bestseller list), The Cat
and the Curmudgeon (1990) and The Best Cat Ever (1993).
In 1967 Amory founded the previously-mentioned Fund for Animals,
using on their behalf a good share of the generous royalties his
list of bestsellers had generated as well as other money he had
raised. This work first attracted wide-eyed public attention in
1979 when it sponsored the removal, by land and helicopter, of 580
burros in the Grand Canyon otherwise to be killed by the National
Park Service as an Polar Bear and Friend
invasive species. To provide a refuge for these and other rescued
creatures, Amory bought and developed Black Beauty Ranch, 1,460
acres in northeast Texas, where once-abused animals could run free
and unfettered.
The Fund received further publicity, and the Ranch more
inhabitants, in 1985 when it rescued some 7500 goats and pigs from
San Clemente Island off the coast of southern California, where
they were to be killed as, again, an invasive species. The island
was then under the control of the Navy, which showed little
sympathy for Amory's plan. But the Bostonian was able to use his
elite background to win over then-Secretary of Defense Casper
Weinberger, who had been a classmate of Amory's at Harvard and,
furthermore, his predecessor as editor of the Crimson. The
well-placed old friend ordered the admirals to stand down and
allow the activist to carry out his plan, hare-brained as it might
seem to some.
The list of Amory's animal activism activities could go on and on;
but perhaps it would be well to end with his final book, Ranch of
Dreams (1997) and the Black Beauty Ranch, now called the Cleveland
Amory Black Beauty Ranch, where his ashes were scattered after his
death only the following year. Amory always insisted that the
Ranch was not a zoo and the animals in no way showcased for the
benefit of humans, but rather a place where they could run free
and live their own lives in their own way. A very limited number
of pre-arranged tours can be scheduled, and capable, reliable
volunteers are always welcome. But generally speaking this is one
ranch that is for the animals, not the human owners. Many readers
will recognize that the name is from Anna Sewell's famous 1877
novel Black Beauty, with its unforgettable advocacy of kindness to
horses and other animals. The last lines of Sewell's novel are on
a sign at the entry to the Ranch, as though reflecting the
thoughts of the many beasts who enter through that gate to leave
behind a life of abuse, and to find both home and freedom:
"I have nothing to fear, and here my story ends. My
troubles are all over, and I am at home."
--Robert Ellwood
Recipe: Quick Chocolate Cake
1 ½ C. flour
3 T. cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1 C. sugar
½ tsp salt
¼ C plus 1 T. oil
1 T. vinegar
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 C. water
Mix dry ingredients, then mix in wet ingredients. Pour batter
into a greased 7” x 7” x 2” pan. Bake at 350 degrees for half an
hour.
The total prep time from beginning to end is about 45 minutes.
--Betsy Griscom
From The Peaceable Kitchen, by Sandpoint, Idaho Friends
Mint Buttercream Frosting
½ C. softened vegan butter
2 C. powdered sugar
1 ½ tsp. plant-based milk (more if needed)
¼ tsp. peppermint extract
Sift powdered sugar if lumpy. Cream together with vegan butter on
low speed until product is smooth and homogeneous, adding the
powdered sugar ½ cup at a time and beating at medium-high speed.
Add milk and peppermint extract and continue to blend. If the
frosting is too runny, add more powdered sugar; if it’s too stiff,
add more plant milk. Taste frosting to make sure proportions are
right. Spread with rubber spatula or butter knife.
--Two Sisters (veganized)
Note: I realize that treats of this sort are not good for health,
especially if they take the place of nature’s desserts, that is,
fruit. But what’s a chocoholic to do? For me, it’s limiting
refined sweets to one day a week plus special events, and having
my three or four fruit servings every day without fail.--Editor
Poetry for Children: Eugene Field, 1850 - 1895
The Duel
The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
‘’Twas half past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Not one nor t’ other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
(I wasn’t there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate.)
The gingham dog went “Bow-wow-wow!”
And the calico cat replied “Mee-ow!
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
(Now mind, I’m only telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)
The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, “Oh, dear! What shall we do?
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
Employing every tooth and claw
In the awfulest way you ever saw--
(Don’t fancy I exaggerate--
I got my news from the Chinese plate!)
Next morning, where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat:
And some folks think until this day
That burglars stole that pair away.
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that?
(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.)
This poem is not featured to tell us anyth about the nature of
dogs and cats (or any other animal species), obviously, but about
human assumptions regarding their essential nature. I find it
rather chilling.--Editor