Quote of the Week

..we sacrifice other species to our own not because our own has any objective metaphysical privilege over others, but simply because it is ours. It may be very natural to have this loyalty to our own species, but let us hear no more from the naturalists about the "sentimentality" of anti-vivisectionists. If loyalty to our own species--preference for man simply because we are men--is not sentiment, then what is?

-CS Lewis

Police Shooting of 15 lb Mountain Lion Cub Ruled Unjustified

Wow, bet that must have been a short hearing. A 15 lb cub and they were so freaked out they shot it.

Said Larry Nichols, a weapons and tactics specialist with the Burbank Police Department, who wrote the review: "The actions taken by the officers [were] not appropriate and outside of the department policy. No person was placed in immediate jeopardy."

Morons.

Military Used Pigs in Brain Injury Research

Lovely.

Military researchers have dressed live pigs in body armor and strapped them into Humvee simulators that were then blown up with explosives to study the link between roadside bomb blasts and brain injury.

For an 11-month period that ended in December, researchers subjected pigs and rats to about 200 blasts, according to Pentagon documents and interviews. The explosions have ranged in intensity, wounding some of the pigs and killing others. Roadside bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Did you know this?

U.S. car companies used live animals, including pigs, for crash tests until the early 1990s. They stopped after protests from animal rights groups, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

April is Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month

Here's a web page on the ASPCA's site with some activities. They are also doing the talk shows.

New Research Shows Crabs Feel Pain

I was afraid of this.

If you've ever wondered why I have a clinical view of the meat industry, it's because I worked for three years in the accounting department of a very large shrimp importer that also sold finfish, shellfish and value-added products (ie. frozen seafoods with sauces, etc.) While the vast majority of this company's products were shrimp, the majority of its revenue was earned from crab sales.

Factory farming does not only happen on land. It happens on the sea too. And it is just as wasteful. Overfishing, poor resource management, the view of life as a product for sale, and pure greed is crashing fisheries and destroying beautiful ecosystems. Now, it looks like we may be contributing to individual suffering as well.

Last Monkey Recaptured by Primate Center

I don't know how I feel about this. These are not subject monkeys, but they are part of the breeding colony. Breeding for what?

The last of nine monkeys that escaped from the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Hillsboro was found at 2 p.m. Sunday, officials said.

Nine Japanese macaque monkeys got loose Friday after their keeper left the cage unlocked and they figured out how to open the door. Workers baiting cages with apples recaptured eight animals Friday and Saturday.

The last monkey was found on the primate center campus. All the monkeys are healthy juvenile males and not involved in health research, officials said. They are part of the center's breeding colony.

Hillsboro police helped find the final monkey.

Center director Nancy Haigwood said the perimeter fence will be improved to make it more difficult for an animal to leave the property.

"We will be investigating the cause of this incident to try and prevent additional releases," she said.

I'm so glad that the Center will do a better job of incarcerating its prisoners (insert sarcasm heavily here). Isn't it ironic how these animals show their clear intelligence by learning how to open a door at the same time their fellow species members are being sacrificed to science?

Horse Slaughterhouses Face Hurdles in Montana

Looks like Montana's state government is heading towards the approval of horse slaughterhouses, but there are hurdles at the federal level. The only real markets for horsemeat are overseas and product must be inspected by the USDA before it can be shipped outside the US. However, the USDA is currently barred from such inspections.

Here's an article on the situation.

Canada Threatens WTO Action on Seal Ban

If Europe bans seal products, Canada may go to the WTO (World Trade Organization) and appeal.

Raccoon 1, Drunk Man 0

This is a what happens when you mix alcohol, sex and a raccoon. Don't worry, the raccoon is just fine...

British Center Working On Animal Replacement in Research?

We'll see. I just signed up for the e-newsletter. The group is called NC3E (National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research).

The NC3Rs brings together stakeholders in the 3Rs in academia, industry, government and animal welfare organisations to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas, and the translation of research findings into practice that will benefit both animals and science.

The Centre funds high-quality 3Rs research, organises workshops and symposia to disseminate and advance the 3Rs, and develops 3Rs information resources and guidelines.

The NC3Rs is an independent organisation, reporting to the Science Minister and stakeholders through the publication of an annual report, and is funded by the following organisations - MRC, BBSRC, Home Office, Wellcome Trust, ABPI, GSK, AstraZeneca, Unilever, The Dow Chemical Company, SC Johnson, Syngenta.

Growing Number of Scientists Question Animal Research

They're not necessarily questioning the ethics, but the efficacy.

This is an excellent article that appeared in the Boston Globe last week.

The feud between animal rights activists and researchers is among the bitterest in science. But many researchers - although adamant that animal research remains critical to finding cures and expanding medical knowledge - have come to concede that using creatures as human stand-ins is unnecessary for many procedures. Indeed, it often isn't even the best science: New drugs that show great promise in mice, for example, often confer zero benefit to humans, or even prove harmful. Plus, animals are messy, require feeding and constant care, draw protests, and, yes, can be a bit smelly.

This is an important issue. Many animal supporters get caught up in fighting the food industry, but animal testing is as ugly and fundamental an issue. Even if you become 100 percent vegan, how much of the drugs you take, the makeup you wear and the cleaning products you use have been tested on an animal? We as a movement cannot compartamentalize. We need to be versatile and advocate on multiple fronts.

Happy Friday

Quote of the Week

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

-John Muir

Government Grants for Animal Research

If you really want to ruin your day, visit this web page with a list of government grants involving animal research. It has a list of grant applications, researchers and details on the actual studies.

Not pretty.

Are Farm Animals Usually Killed in a Humane Manner?

Andrew from Good Honest Dollar had an excellent question. He asked whether cows, chickens, sheep and some of the other animals that we eat are usually treated and killed in a humane manner. It's a thoughtful question I wish more people would ask.

The meat industry will say yes, of course, all animals are treated and killed humanely. Here is my opinion. (It's a deceptively simple question that could spawn a monster-long response. But I’ll try to keep my answer as short as possible.)

In my opinion, the crux of the question touches on what is “humane.” Different people have different interpretations of that word depending on a number of factors. For some people, it is inhumane to eat meat in any situation, no matter how well the animal is treated prior to and during slaughter. For other people, “humane” means it is okay to eat the animal as long as the following conditions are met:

1. The animal is well-treated during its life in terms of having space to roam, living free of fear and abuse, and being well-fed in clean conditions. In other words, the proverbial happy farm animal.

AND

2. The eventual kill is quick, clean, and painless.

In my opinion, and I am a vegetarian, the second definition of humane is the MINIMAL that we should expect. However, the factory farm system we have in any country does not lend itself to either of the two criteria. There is an abundance of information on the web about undercover investigations, livestock conditions, slaughter procedures, etc. There are many gruesome pictures too. And if you ever drive around an egg farm, hog farm, slaughterhouse, feeding lot, etc., you can probably get a lot of first-hand information too. The first step is to gather that information and then make the decision as to what your own personal definition and expectations are of the word"humane."

Here are my main issues (again, there is a ton of information out there. I highly recommend Farm Sanctuary's issue page...short and to the point.)

1. There are probably no happy animals in factory farming (ie. big corporate agribusiness.) It’s not cost-effective. Animals are raw materials to process for product. You cram as many as you can into the holding pens and keep your maintenance costs as low as possible in order to increase profit. High care standards eat into that profit. They are no good to you alive. You are not processing their wellbeing, but their carcasses for meat.

2. Factory farms are unlikely to be properly and regularly inspected by the USDA. Livestock don’t contribute to campaigns, but agribusiness does. So who’s to say that even the minimum standards of care are being implemented on a daily basis?

3. Factory animals are voiceless victims. Undercover investigative pieces have shown that some unhinged workers take out their frustrations on the farm animals. These are low-paying, menial, unpleasant, stressful jobs that are likely to bring out the worst in people. There have been several high-profile cases of severe abuse that only require a search on the web (examples include turkeys being used as punching bags while alive and paint being sprayed into hogs’ eyes for “fun.")

4. Factory farming is not conducive to quick, clean, and painless kills. This is mass production. Shove them in, shove them out. There are horror stories of animals not completely dead before they are being processed. One of my closest friends worked as an accountant for IBP (formerly Iowa Beef Producers, now Tyson’s) and, he won’t speak of it, but there were some bad things that happened there. In fact, I wish these animals' deaths were quick, clean and painless. It would make up for the miserable lives they are likely to have led prior to those deaths.

(As a side note, it’s important to remember that there were terrible abuses during and after the industrial revolution committed against human workers. They were simply factors of production at that time too. It’s the nature of the beast of mass production. It's not conducive to humane anything.)