AnimalRights.Net

In 1996,
Washington state voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 655 which banned
the use of hounds to Hunt Cougars in the state. Two years later many people
are having second thoughts about the wisdom of the law, and the state
legislature may override the initiative.

Those who supported
the initiative used the standard arguments – using dogs to hunt cougars
was cruel and unsporting. But, above all, the dogs were extremely effective.
In 1995 hunters in Washington killed 283 cougars using hounds, but by
1997 only 132 cougars were killed, which some people believe is the crux
of the problem.

Since
the passage of the initiative the number of cougars in Washington has
soared, as has the number of reports of human-cougar contact. The cougar
population rose to about 2,500 and the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife reported cougar-human incidents rose from 495 in 1996 to 927
in 1998.

Such
contact has the potential for tragedy. In August 1998, a 5-year-old girl
was ambushed and severely wounded by a cougar near the campsite she was
visiting. In another incident, two cougars became trapped in a school
playground.

Opponents
of Initiative 655 claim the ban on dogs caused the cougar population to
increase dramatically, and they suspect the big cats are drawn to suburban
areas to prey on domestic animals and livestock. Supporters claim the
cougar population had been increasing even before the passage of the initiative
and the increased reports of human-cougar contact are more likely the
result of increased awareness and press coverage of the issue during and
after the vote on the initiative.

The
cause of the increase in cougar incidents may be up for debate, but the
ban on using dogs highlights an odd aspect of animal rights philosophy
– namely that it simultaneously seeks to place all sentient beings on
the same moral plane but does not apply morality consistently among all
sentient beings.

Consider the animal
rights objection to the use of hunting dogs. I take the claim to be that
(a) cougars are sentient, (b) using carnivorous predators to hunt down sentient
beings is cruel, (c) sentient beings should not be subjected to cruelty,
so (d) predators (dogs) should not be used to hunt down cougars.

To avoid
turning this into an argument against all predation by sentient beings
(leaving Ingrid Newkirk’s fantasies aside for the moment), animal rights
activists must perform the logical leap of maintaining that of all sentient
beings, only for homo sapiens is predation forbidden on
moral grounds. Furthermore, that moral edict extends to any sort
of interaction which may assist any act of predation.

If a
pack of wolves decide to attack a cougar, this presumably is simply part
of the natural world. If a human being takes a pack of dogs to hunt a
cougar, somehow the act is transformed into an immoral one simply by the
presence of the homo sapiens. To paraphrase George Orwell, all sentient
beings are equal, but some are less equal than others.

Source:

Bills would send hounds after cougars. Deidre Silva, The Spokane Spokesman-Review, January 21, 1999.

A recent book on human evolution suggests humans began Hunting
with domesticated wolves 135,000 years ago – right after our species began
migrating out of Africa. According to evolutionary biologist John Allman,
the domestication of wolves may have played a key role in Homo Sapiens
successful competition with other species, including the Neanderthals.

In Allman’s book,
Evolving Brains, he argues that domesticated wolves “would
have been a huge selective advantage for whatever human population did
that because it would have allowed modern humans to move into areas that
were previously inhospitable.”

Interesting hypothesis,
but is there any evidence for it? Allman believes DNA evidence and observations
of contemporary humans, wolves and dogs support his claim.

DNA evidence of humans
suggests homo sapiens began migrating out of Africa into Asia about 140,000
years ago. Analysis of canine DNA suggests domestication of wolves began
about 135,000 years ago.

Source:

Human hunting skills linked to domestication of wolves. Minerva Canto, Associated Press, January 19, 1999.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has made its usual share of media appearances in
the last few weeks. Among the various news stories:

• While protesting proposed payments to pig farmers to compensate for
  low pork prices, twelve PETA members were arrested on the steps of the
  U.S. capitol after they set fire to several bales of hay they stacked
  on the steps. PETA outlined its position on pork in a press release,
  saying pig farmers “should be prosecuted, not rewarded.”

• Singer Melissa Etheridge, who appeared in one of PETA’s “I’d rather
  go naked than wear fur” ads several years ago, continued to distance
  herself from PETA over the animal testing issue. Canada’s Halifax Daily
  News asked Etheridge about PETA’s campaign featuring Linda Blair speaking
  out against animal research. Etheridge, who lost her father to cancer
  several years ago, told the paper “if there is a chance that human
  lives can be saved by performing experiments on animals, then there is
  no way I could be against that.”

[Thanks to Americans for Medical Progress for its excellent monitoring of PETA's activities.]

Source:

Etheridge confronts PETA on anti-research campaign. Americans for Medical Progress, Newsletter, January 19, 1999.

PETA-philes set fire at U.S. Capitol. Americans for Medical Progress, Newsletter, January 15, 1999.

It seems Ted Nugent
recently became angered at Ontario, Canada, for canceling its spring bear
hunt. Nugent quickly proclaimed he and his fans were boycotting tourism
to Canada until Ontario lifts its ban. The only problem is a couple days
later Nugent confirmed he would be traveling to Canada in March to speak
at Canada’s Music Week. Announcing a boycott and then confirming you’re
going to break it a couple days later is the sort of bone headed move
one would expect from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Besides, the boycott
itself seems like an almost certain failure. Living only a few miles from
the Nuge here in Michigan, I can certainly attest to his popularity in
this part of the country, and he does get a lot of support for his pro-gun
and anti-animal rights message, but does Nugent really think he can get
his fans to boycott visiting Canada? This would be like telling people
to simply stop visiting Indiana or Ohio if those states enacted a ban
on hunting — it is just not going to happen. To make boycotts like that
even begin to be effective requires convincing large corporations and
others to take convention and other business elsewhere.

The most likely result
of Nugent’s “boycott” will be to strengthen the resolve of the opponents
of the bear hunt in Ontario who will certainly point to yet more meddling
in their affairs by their neighbors to the south.

There are better
approaches to getting the bear hunt resumed than an ineffective impromptu
boycott that even its chief organizer can’t abide.

Source:

Rocker won’t abide own boycott. Betsy Powell, Toronto Star, January 1999.

Sometime this year,
the March of Dimes’ Walk America event will reach an incredible milestone
— it will have raised over $1 billion since its inception in 1970. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine could not pass up this opportunity and
is seeking activists to leaflet at upcoming Walk America events to “shine
a spotlight on the dark side of the March of Dimes” (has Neal Barnard
seen Star Wars once too often?)

According to PCRM,
not only has March of Dimes-funded research produced no progress in preventing
birth defects, but in fact the charity has intentionally ignored the
best solutions to solving birth defects (which, of course, do not require
using animals).

This is just the
sort of ridiculous distortion that led the American Medical Association to condemn PCRM in 1991 for “misrepresenting the critical role animals play in research.” Apparently Barnard and company still haven’t figured
it out.

Source:

PCRM needs volunteers. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Press Release, January 1999.

Stung by revelations that
some of its fur-trimmed parkas were made with dog fur, Burlington Coat Factory announced in December it was giving $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States. to help that group lobby for a federal ban on the
commercial sale of cat and dog fur.

What is Burlington Coat Factory
thinking?

Certainly the companyÂ’s anger
is understandable; most of the coats were made in China and the company
had no idea dog fur was being used. Burlington did the right thing in
offering to take back the coats from customers who were misled. But to
donate $100,000 to a group dedicated to making sure no animal products
are used in the production of clothes makes no sense, except as a crass
publicity maneuver.

And one that will certainly
backfire, as executives may already be finding out. As numerous animal
rights activists have pointed out, BurlingtonÂ’s support of a ban on cat
and dog fur is extremely hypocritical. If it is wrong to use cat and dog
fur on coats, isnÂ’t it wrong to use fur from other animals as well? Why
isnÂ’t Burlington lobbying for a ban on leather coats if it is suddenly
so committed to the rights of animals?

Those who deal with animals
canÂ’t have it both ways. Researchers canÂ’t claim itÂ’s okay for them
to experiment on and eventually kill animals for the important medical
knowledge such activities provide, but it is wrong for others to eat animals
or use them for clothing. Hunters canÂ’t go on at length about the mystical
experiences they have in the wilderness, but turn around and argue what
medical researchers do is completely different (so long as, in both examples,
the guidelines for treating the animals are similar – one need not argue
that in order to be consistent an animal researcher or hunter must approve
of the individuals who harm animals solely for the sadistic pleasure of
doing so).

Adrian Morrison, president
of the National Animal Interest Alliance
has coined the term “muddled middle” to describe such positions.
As Morrison wrote in a recent NAIA newsletter:

Those opposing animal use and those questioning the quality of animal
use (traditional animal welfarists) blended into a new grouping, the
animal protection community. And with that came the call to seek a common
ground, to abandon polemics for the sake of the animals. And so was
created (conveniently) a muddled middle, inhabited by those who do not
see that a middle ground between use and non-use of animals is a logical
impossibility . . . The muddled middle does not have a clear understanding
of how a variety of uses fit into a coherent whole: the necessary participation
of humans, and most especially modern humans, in the intricacies of
Nature. At the same time, we who choose to use animals for pleasure
and those who do so out of necessity must do so responsibly.

Ironically, this is a small area of agreement with the animal rights
activists . . . the use of animals in human society either stands or falls
as a whole in this writerÂ’s opinion. If fur is an abomination, certainly
leather is as well. If using animals in circuses (provided they are treated
responsibly) is wrong, I donÂ’t see how seeing eye dogs for the blind become
defensible except through some incredibly complex utilitarian calculus
that few people would find coherent, much less workable.

The 1998 award for poorly timed
press releases goes to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which
had strangely disjointed press releases on successive days at the end
of December.

In a December 29 press release,
PETA announced it was donating fur coats to homeless people in Chicago.
PETA received the furs as donations from celebrities and others who converted
to the animal rights cause and no longer wanted to wear fur. PETA president
Ingrid Newkirk summed up the groupÂ’s motivation in giving away the coats
by saying, “only people struggling to survive have any excuse for
wearing fur.” Newkirk didnÂ’t address why, if struggling to survive
allows one to use animals, medical researchers canÂ’t use animals to try
to find treatments for terminally ill patients “struggling to survive.”

In any event, on December
30 PETA released yet another press release on fur announcing that “only
cave people wear fur.” So are homeless people “struggling to
survive” or are they stone aged Neanderthals? You be the judge, but
PETA did announce an anti-fur demonstration that would include “members
of PETA and Animal Action wielding clubs and draped in animal skins.”

The image of PETA members
dressed up as Fred Flintstone is certainly a compelling one, but at least
PETA did everyone a favor by highlighting how long animal use has been
a central part of human societies.

• In November, Russian surgeon Vladimir Demikhov, who conducted the
  worldÂ’s first animal heart and lung transplants, died at the age of
  82. Demikrov also conducted the worldÂ’s first coronary bypass in a dog
  in 1952.

• Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently
  announced they found a sequence of amino acids that reduces the level
  of kidney damage caused by lupus in mice. Lupus afflicts more than 1
  million Americans, and about 5 percent of those with lupus suffer from
  potentially fatal kidney damage. In the trials those mice left untreated
  died, on average, after only 35 weeks, while 80 percent of those treated
  with the amino acid were still alive after 60 weeks and most showed
  no kidney damage. Development of a similar treatment for human beings
  is years away from the testing phase.

• The Swedish branch of the Animal Liberation Front is threatening to
  attack the web sites of two Swedish laboratories as well as the Swedish
  Department of Agriculture on January 15 from 3 p.m. GMT to 6 p.m. GMT
  “as a protest against vivisection and in memory of all the animals
  imprisoned, tortured and murdered in the labs.”

In mid-December, Science
announced that the millimeter-long worm Caenorhadditis elegans
became the first animal to have its entire genetic structure sequenced.
Coming in at 97 million bases and over 19,000 different genes, C. elegans
might be the first animal to be completely sequenced, but it is unlikely
to be the last (about a dozen bacterial genomes have also been sequenced
as well as the genetic structure of yeast).

Already the sequencing effort
is providing important information. For example, evolutionary biologists
and geneticists long suspected that all life shared many key genes in
common. Comparing C. elegans to yeast, the two species share about
3,600 genes indicating that evolution at the genetic level is largely an
additive process (i.e. natural selection tends to cause additional genes
to build on existing genes rather than displace or reengineer existing
genes).

Analysis of the wormÂ’s genes
also yielded important information about how multi-cellular creatures
switch genes on and off to develop cellular structures that can communicate
and coordinate their activities.