ANIMALS AND MORALS

Kudos to New Scientist, the periodical that routinely takes up provocative scientific controversies, for its "Animals and Us" special section. Even non-subscribers can get a good taste from this intro, which, while a little sloppily written, lays the issues right out on the plate:

What's wrong with the way we interact with animals at the moment? Nothing, if you don't accept that animals have their own feelings and emotions, or accept it but still don't care. But if you do care, then you will realise that the moral relationship we have with animals is deeply troubled. It becomes impossible to maintain moral blindness to the way we treat them.

Sounds a little like Gary Francione's "moral schizophrenia," doesn't it? Well, he's here to represent on that, along with perspectives from Frans de Waal, Simon Blackburn and, heh, Temple Grandin. Only Jane Goodall gets to parade in front of the "subscribe" curtain, though. This might be an occasion where it's worth buying the magazine.

MORE MAD COW MYSTERY

Steve Mitchell continues to shine a spotlight on the strange behavior of U.S. officials regarding the testing of American brains for Mad Cow, now reporting that they "have delayed sending brain samples from a deceased California man to France to be screened for human mad cow disease, leading the man's family and his neurologist to question the reasons for the holdup."

In a March 31 letter, Ronele Hicks, Patrick's wife, requested that NPDPSC send samples of Patrick's brain to Dr. Jean-Jacques Hauw at Laboratoire De Neuropathologie at the Groupe Hospitalier Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris. Hauw had agreed to conduct further tests that could help provide a more conclusive diagnosis. "It sounds like they didn't send the tissue and I don't know why," a distraught Ronele told United Press International.

The ordeal over sending Patrick's sample to France has rendered both Bailey and Ronele skeptical about whether they will obtain a conclusive diagnosis of his illness, and Ronele said she now wonders if NPDPSC will send the correct tissue sample to France. "That's been a concern all along," she said. "How do we know it's not some other person's tissue instead of Pat's?"

MORE SCRUTINY ON ZOOS

It's time to admit it: Humans don't know enough about ensuring the health and safety of wild animals, and should stop penning them immediately. As people begin to take notice of animals sickening and dying in zoos (incidents previously swept under the PR rug), it's inevitable that they begin to wonder about this.

Lions have starved to death at a zoo in China that's gone bankrupt: "Zoos have sprung up across China in the past decade to meet a growing appetite for entertainment among increasingly affluent Chinese, but many provide wretched conditions, inept management and cannot draw enough visitors to cover their costs." One wolf, two deer and two camels had also died in the past 17 months, it said. "Because we don't have the necessary maintenance techniques, experience and funds, we can only sit by and watch all these animals die," the zoo owner was quoted as saying. A candid statement of something that, in China, is only a moderate exaggeration of the situation here.

A polar bear being housed in St. Louis died during a two-hour surgery to remove an obstruction from his stomach. Whether or not the surgery itself was botched, the cause became clear: A piece of cloth and bits of plastic trash bag - items not found in the bear's natural habitat - had obstructed the stomach. So how'd they get there? "We have not seen anyone throw anything to our bears," Miller said. "While we think we've got the best behaved visitors in the nation, it takes just one careless mistake to jeopardize the health of our animals." How succinct: Zoos put wild animals into situations where one careless mistake can kill them.

And the list goes on: "Tinkerbell the porcupine wasn't performing well during educational shows at the Phoenix Zoo three years ago, and keepers decided to reduce her diet. They didn't want to hurt the little pincushion - just give her some incentive. But Tinkerbell died of starvation, and her death has become part of a dispute over the care of animals at the 125-acre exhibition." Aw, the porcupine wasn't being entertaining enough, so they starved her to death. Of course death was not the goal, but that's the point. This quote from the AZA sums up the disconnect: "I don't know of a single case where someone intentionally harmed an animal in an accredited zoo." No one has alleged that zoos are "intentionally" harming animals - that's a classic straw man - it's simply that animals don't belong in zoos, and keeping them there will manifest this fact in ways that inevitably harm them.

Meanwhile, too many of this variety of article are coming out for me to keep track of - covering the national elephant debate with local anecdotes, and as usual, parroting zoo officials' excuses and speculation without researching them, balancing them only with PETA. At least there's some discussion going on, and we can hope the quality of the debate will also improve.

ANIMAL EXPLOITER CHARGED WITH ANIMAL ABUSE

This is one of a story trend I just wanted to take a moment to note. "A Loyalton cattle rancher who starved at least five calves to death in December 2001 was found guilty of animal cruelty this week by a Sierra County jury. Silas Craig McHenry, 54, faces up to three years in prison and up to $45,000 in fines, as well as restrictions on animal ownership, [Truckee Animal Control Supervisor Dan] Olsen said. He was convicted on five counts of animal cruelty. 'It really sends a strong message that you just can't do this,' Olsen said." Not all that remarkable until you remind yourself that this is happening in an industry predicated on treating animals like objects. Of course it's at a ridiculous oxymoronic level right now, but the direction of the trend is at least encouraging.

LOW-FAT DIET KEEPS CANCER AT BAY

"A low-fat diet can decrease the risk of breast cancer recurrence by more than 40 percent in patients with a form of the cancer that is not sensitive to the hormone estrogen, researchers said Monday. Those patients account for a third of all breast cancer cases." And here's the sun-rises-in-the-east part: "Some researchers hailed the findings as the first evidence that lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of developing cancer." Ya think?

VEGGIE OPTIONS AT BALLPARK

If you're in Philadelphia and you haven't yet signed up with Club Veg to go to the Phillies game on June 12, get on it! Here's Scott Geiger's message:

This season is the first ever in Phillies history that veggie burgers (vegan) will be offered at the Phillies ballpark. And, vegan cheeseless veggie pizzas will be available for this game. After working with the Park for several years, Club Veg was finally able to get them to carry a vegan burger on a vegan sesame seed bun. To celebrate, we are having Club Veg day at the Phillies! Even if you aren't a baseball fan, we encourage you to come out to support the vegetarian food options.

Contact Scott at your earliest opportunity at scottg@clubveg.org.

FIGHTING CANCER: PLANT FOODS YES, ANIMAL PRODUCTS NO

These are really quite unrelated, except that they emerged on the same day and can be easily encapsulated by the above headine. "In men with recurrent prostate cancer, drinking 8 ounces per day of pomegranate juice significantly increases the time it takes for prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels to rise," says Reuters, while "[t]reatment with a shark cartilage product does not prolong life in patients with advanced cancer, nor does it improve quality of life, new research indicates."

THE ANIMALS WE DON'T WANT SMART

Here's a fun article that scratches at the surface of a fascinating conundrum in the "animal intelligence" field - it's easy for our culture to accept smart apes, cats and dogs, but we don't want to think of the animals we're eating as having any smarts whatsoever. Unfortunately, coming from ABC News, it skims and then darts away rather than probing this sore spot, but at least the issue is raised. "Was Your Meat Smarter Than Your Pet?" begins, "Testing the IQ of a sheep may seem laughable. But at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England, they know better. One sheep who got a reward every time she recognized a human face correctly on a video screen scored a perfect 50 out of 50. 'If it was a monkey, no one would have any problems, possibly even if it was a dog,' said Keith Kendrick, a neurologist at Babraham. 'They would say, 'Yeah, yeah, that's expected.' But a sheep, no one really believes.'"

Intentionally or not, the article manages to show the paucity of argument on the "dumb animal" side of the equation: "John Redmore, who runs an organic farm in England, disagrees. 'We've been eating meat since we've managed to stand on hind legs,' he said. 'A natural part of being human is to eat meat.' It's natural to eat animals even if they're smart, he added. 'Yeah, they'd eat us,' Redmore said." Well, sure, the smartness has nothing to do with the "naturalness," but as usual that last term is being used speciously. Are you really saying sheep and cows would eat people, farmer John? Uh huh... now who, exactly, is smarter here?

"THAT'S PIG WATER"

Yep, but now that raw sewage is drinkable - with just a few hours of processing. "Don Lloyd dipped his empty bottle into a tank of water that six hours earlier had been flushed out of three nearby pens filled with thousands of hogs. "There, that's pig water," Lloyd proclaimed as he held up the bottle and tipped it back for a thirst-quenching chug. Lloyd's demonstration was to show just how confident he is in his system to purify the kind of putrid, waste-filled water dumped into hog waste lagoons across North Carolina." Mmmmmmm, sounds delicious and perfectly safe - just like that mad-cow free hamburger the British Agriculture Minister so confidently fed his daughter on live TV. Me, I think I'll pass on drinking "purified" hog waste-water, for as long as possible, anyway.

ANOTHER WIN FOR PLANT FOODS

In "Vitamin E cuts Parkinson's risk," the BBC informs us that research has found that "A diet rich in vitamin E could protect against Parkinson's disease." They go on to dutifully inform us where we can get it: "Good sources of vitamin E include green leafy vegetables, nuts and vegetable oils." Yep, plants again.

VEGAN OF THE MONTH

She's always been a sidebar to the story of her boyfriend Morgan Spurlock, the 'Super Size Me' star/provocateur, but here we get a more in-depth look at Alexandra Jamieson, the vegan chef and nutrition planner who rescued the documentarian's health after he spent the month eating only fast food.

IT'S OFFICIAL: NO MORE EXOTIC ANIMAL ACTS FOR COLE BROS.

"It's been a tradition every year -- we've had elephants and tigers. But times have changed, and we're hoping to bring more action," [Cole Bros. senior marketing director Ron] West said. "All the animal rights people -- I hate to say this -- but they've won the war." But Cole Bros., which is celebrating its 121st year, says by no means can it be considered a loser. This year, the circus sold about $7,600 in advanced ticket sales for the four evening performances that end tonight at U-Sell Flea Market on South Delsea Drive. That figure is the highest in the past five years that the traveling circus has set up shop there, West said.

Of course ending animal-abuse entertainment is a win-win. But though the so-called 'war' isn't won yet, the trend lines are obvious to all but the most thick-headed. Within five years, elephants and tigers in circuses will be a thing of the past.

CATCHING UP

OK, here's a bunch of stuff that's been piling up while I've been busy being lazy...

We'll start with the inevitable update on the bird flu: "China has sealed off nature reserves and rushed more than 3 million doses of bird flu vaccine to a remote western province after migratory birds were found dead from the H5N1 strain, which can be fatal to humans. The WHO said last week the spate of human bird flu cases in Vietnam this year suggested the deadly form of the virus may be mutating in ways that are making it more capable of being passed between humans."

If only there were something we could do to stop it... you know, I mean something that wasn't inconvenient.

LIGHT POSTING

In case you didn't notice. Back with more Meat Facts goodness in a trice...

VEGAN MEALS FOR PRISONERS

British Columbia is ahead of the United States so far in one fundamental issue: offering vegan meals for prisoners who do not eat animal products. Notably, it was a human-rights complaint that resulted in this change. If only we had a country that gave a damn about human rights...

BACK TO CHICAGO

"The group that accredits U.S. zoos and had been reviewing elephant care at the Lincoln Park Zoo expanded its investigation to the entire facility Thursday after learning three monkeys had died this week," according to the Washington Post. "A camel and two gorillas also have died at the zoo since October. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also investigating, department spokeswoman Amy Spillman said. The zoo and its president, Kevin Bell, have come under intense scrutiny by animal rights groups after a 36-year-old African elephant was euthanized May 1 shortly after being moved to Salt Lake City." The article adds that "Bell offered his resignation Thursday," but it sounds as though it's not expected he'll be taken up on the offer.

UPDATE 5/16: The story of the "troubled" Lincoln Park Zoo is gaining steam, as the zoo only saved a gibbon from death by amputating its arm after the ape broke it reaching through an ill-designed mesh barrier, and hundreds of people continue to protest at the zoo. Meanwhile, this has inspired a predictable "think piece," Have zoos outlived their usefulness? which at least presents the anti-captivity argument via someone other than PETA (as well as PETA). But once again we get this:

"Zoos are essential for the public," said Eric Peters, an associate professor of ecology and environmental sciences at Chicago State University. "When well-designed and well-executed zoos allow the public to see these animals up close in as natural an environment as possible, that makes people care more about protecting the animals' original environments," he said.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Show me the stats on this. What studies have been done? I've been looking for them and haven't found one study to support this claim. If you know of one, please feel free to send it in. In the meantime, I will continue to maintain that seeing animals in cages reinforces the culture's view that animals are expendable objects put here for our pleasure or diversion. After all, there are zoos all over the place now, and animal habitats are disappearing faster than ever. Man, just imagine how bad it would be if we didn't have zoos to make people care so much!

ZOO INCOMPETENCE KILLS MORE ANIMALS

The spotlight has been on the Lincoln Park Zoo and its elephant woes lately, but it's worth repeating that the problems of captive animals are not related to specific zoos, but to the insitution itself: Time and again the most highly-trained and qualified people are found to be at a loss in maintaining the health of wild animals that are forced into a cruel, unnatural lifestyle - it is "incompetence" in the strict sense, only because competency in keeping caged wild animals happy and healthy is virtually impossible.

The latest example is at the Phoenix zoo, which has launched a probe into whether recent mistakes led to "a series of deaths and health problems with animals." The Arizona Republic reports: "Kris Nelson, a veterinarian whose complaints prompted the review, says dozens of exotic animals died or suffered in recent years due to neglect and misjudgments by managers and caretakers. Nelson compiled a list of more than 30 specimens that purportedly died or fell ill due to improper care and conditions, mostly in the past year. Among her allegations: Baby monkeys died because of negligence, disease killed gazelles due to quarantine failures, and many animals suffered as a result of treatment delays. Nelson, who has been on the Animal Health Committee for four years, said alarms should have gone off seven years ago when a series of blunders killed Ruby, an elephant famous for artworks." It all comes back to the elephants, after all... lest we forget.

SLIPPERY LISTERIA

This one slipped by me a few days ago, and doubtless did with a lot of people who needed to see it - Field Packing Company recalled 29,000 pounds of ham products for suspected Listeria contamination. The ham was distributed to California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Minnesota, and Tennessee. You may not have heard about this because once again the recall was announced on... wait for it... a Friday.

MAMMAL MEANS CARING

It's a pity not all the members of our species can act on the basic mammalian initiative shown by a stray dog in Kenya: "A newborn baby abandoned in a Kenyan forest was saved by a stray dog who apparently carried her across a busy road and through a barbed wire fence to a shed where the infant was discovered nestled with a litter of puppies, witnesses said Monday." While the meat-eating world depends on clear-line distinctions between humans and animals, the ability to care for others is built into the mammal brain, and the similarity is brought out by this "happy ending" quote from the hospital where the child wound up: "She is now fine. She is warm. She is in a separate room ... with a lady who is also nursing a baby admitted in hospital for treatment. The lady is looking after her as if she is her own child."

USDA + FRIDAY + "MAD COW" = SUSPICIOUS

In another Friday release that mysteriously got swept under the news rug, the USDA has admitted that the "BSE Firewall" does not exist. "There is still a risk, though slight, of mad cow disease in the United States, and it is greatest in the three Northwestern states bordering Canada." Remember when the risk was so small it amounted to "no risk?" How'd we get to particular states with "greatest risk?" Well... "Investigators tracked the animals born in the same herd within a year of the [BSE-]infected cows or born to them, and of those, 29 were shipped to the United States. Investigators were unable to find 11 of those animals; 18 were slaughtered for their meat or killed for other reasons." Interesting that this is coming out now. Are we being softened up for another "discovery?"

UPDATE: Don't know if this answers the previous question, but it's certainly an interesting coincidence: 5/6: Feds probing claims of mad cow violations. Plenty of provovative tidbits, as usual, in this Steve Mitchell story. Some excerpts:

Investigators with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector General's office are looking into allegations that cow brains and other risky materials that could carry mad cow disease might be entering the human food supply in violation of agency policy, United Press International has learned.

Stanley Painter, chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals... said he had been informed other USDA meat inspectors were aware of cases where employees of meatpacking plants failed to ensure specified risk materials or SRMs -- such as brains and spinal cords -- from cows over 30 months old did not enter the nation's food supply.

Painter said OIG investigators told him in March they did not have the non-compliance reports and also were having difficulty obtaining them.

OIG officials have informed Hinchey's [Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.] office they interviewed Painter and also are investigating how the USDA handled his complaints, the aide said, and added Hinchey plans to follow up on this matter.

Painter said the agency officials asked him questions that suggested they did not understand USDA policies and implied he should have handled the reports of alleged violations by doing things that would have been a breach of official agency procedures.

Painter said the violations continue to happen and noted he just recently learned of another one. "The potential is there for it to happen all across the country," he said. "It's not just in one location, it's not isolated, because the policy is the same nationwide."