AnimalRights.Net

Belgian railways company NMBS recently refused to allow Belgium’s Global Action in the Interest of Animals to take out these anti-foie gras ads,

An NMBS spokesman said that the railway refuses all political advertisements regardless of viewpoint.

On the one hand, this is a very clever ad. On the other hand, I’m not sure it would persuade many people one way or the other since it is a bit too clever — it leaves the viewer thinking “that’s a very clever ad” not “I wonder if foie gras is cruel?”

And Duval Guillaume, the agency that came up with the ad, certainly has an odd intent for it. According to Duval Guillaume’s Matthias Dubois,

Foie gras – or “fatty liver” – is still a very popular Christmas and year end dinner dish in Belgium. Because most people donÂ’t know itÂ’s made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of ducks and geese, the result of force-feeding.

I am extremely skeptical of that claim. I suspect most people who eat foie gras understand exactly what it is.

Sources:

Refused anti-Foie gras ads — too shockings ays railway company. Adland, December 12, 2005.

Interview: Inside the Foie Gras. The Spunker, December 2005.

As New Jersey’s bear hunt finally got underway after two years of controversy and efforts by animal rights activists to stop it permanently, four animal rights activists were charged with interfering with the hunt and one was additionally charged with making terroristic threats (and a bizarre threat at that).

Two members of the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance — Angela Metler, 49 and Theresa Fritzges, 57 — were arrested on disorderly persons charges. Metler is the director of the NJARA, and Fritzges is the organization’s legislative coordinator. Both have played a key role in past efforts to prevent a bear hunt from going forward.

Arrested with them were Janet Piszar, 52, who was also charged with disorderly conduct, and Albert Kazemian, 49, who was charged with disorderly conduct and with making terroristic threats.

According to his arrest record, Kazemian allegedly told hunters and a state park officer,

I’ll get my Arab friends and hunt you down; see how you like it

Making a terroristic threat is a third-degree offense in New Jersey. Obstructing legal hunting is a misdemeanor punishable by fines from $100 to $500.

All four arrested activists are members of the Bear Education and Resource Group.

Almost 300 bears black beras were killed in the six-day hunting season that extended from Dec. 5 through Dec. 10. It was only the second bear hunt in 35 years in New Jersey (a similar hunt in 2003 claimed 328 bears).

Source:

Four arrested, 216 bears taken, in N.J. hunt. Douglas Crouse, The Daily Record, December 11, 2005.

N.J. Hunters Killed At Least 297 Bears During Hunt. Associated Press, December 11, 2005.

The UK’s Home Office released a report earlier this month noting a slight increase of 2.3 percent in the total number of animals experiments country. But at just 2.85 million laboratory procedures involving animals, the number of procedures requiring animals in 2004 was almost half of what it was in the mid-1970s indicating the success of the effort to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in medical research.

Research involving genetically modified animals continued to increase. Thirty-two percent of all animal experiments in the UK in 2004 involved genetically modified animals compared to 27 percent in 2003.

The number of research involving non-human primates, however, declined significantly, with only 4,208 experiments involving such animals in 2004 — a 12 percent decline from 2003.

There were a total of 2.78 million laboratory animals used in research in the UK in 2004, a 2.1 percent increase over 2003.

Source:

GM animal tests continue to rise. Paul Rincon, BBC, December 8, 2005.

The Boston Globe reported that about 15 members of Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition showed up at the Braintree, Mass., municipal golf course to protest a decision by that city’s Board of Selectman allowing the shooting of Canadian geese to reduce the number that try to make the golf course home.

According to the Globe, the activists carried signs reading, “Stop the Slaughter” and “No Blood for Golf.” MARC member Jordan Gallagher told the Globe (emphasis added),

I love the geese. I know they go to the bathroom here and there, but there are other ways of removing them. When man has a problem today, whether it’s wolves, bears, or birds, the first thing they do is kill.

Maybe Gallagher’s got a point — perhaps instead of killing first, “man” should dispatch Gallagher to open diplomatic negotiations with the wolves and bears.

But lets consider his point about the geese going to the bathroom here and there. According to the Globe, as many as 100 to 400 geese show up on the golf course. Each of these geese, again according to the Globe, can produce anywhere from 1 to 3 pounds of feces each day.

Studies have shown that feces from Canadian geese pose a serious risk to human health. A 2002 study (PDF) of samples of Canadian geese fecal matter found that overall 25 percent of such samples contained pathogenic e. coli.

In the case of the Braintree golf course, the issue of diseases carried by the hundreds of pounds of geese feces is amplified because the golf course is part of a larger athletic field which regularly hosts sports programs for children.

As Charles Kokoros, chairman of the Braintree Board of Selectman, told the Globe,

It’s just way too many feces. It’s impossible to clean up and they spread disease. There are kids out there rolling in it, tackling in it. It isn’t healthy.

Which is why the Board has annually allowed the shooting of the geese annually since 1995.

But, in the typical animal rights formulation, to the activists this is an example of how human beings should put aside disease concerns in favor of the animals. MARC member Steve Rayshick told the Globe,

I think we need to recognize that these are wildlife and this is their habitat.

No, the golf course and athletic field are part of the human habitat; the animal rights activist just need to recognize that and accept the need to minimize the risk of disease in that habitat.

Sources:

Prevalence of Escherichia coli serogroups and human virulence factors in faeces of urban Canada geese (Branta canadenses). (PDF) Kullas, H., et al, International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 12, 153-162 (2002).

Avian Diseases: Carriage of Bacterial Pathogens by Canada Geese and Blackbirds. USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Services, Accessed: December 11, 2005.

In Braintree, activists protest goose hunt on golf course. Tracy Jan, Boston Globe, December 11, 2005.

Typically, it is opponents of animal rights activist who charge that it is popular culture’s anthropomorphization of animals in animated fare like “Bambi” that turns people into animal rights activists. I’ve seen numerous people say they’d never let their kids what “Bambi” or “The Rats of NIMH” for precisely this reason (for the record, I think such concerns are largely absurd).

But along comes Paul McCartney who recently told the UK press that it was movies like “Bambi” and stories like “Dumbo” that turned him into an animal rights activist.

The Press Association quoted McCartney as saying,

If you think of Bambi, its mum gets killed by a hunter, and I think that made me grow-up thinking hunting isn’t cool. It always gave me that idea.

You look through a lot of these great stories. Dumbo, his mum is quite badly treated. A lot of these classic stories, through their efforts, kids, as I once was, have grown up feeling it’s a bad idea to be cruel to animals.

First, if I remember correctly, the animals in all these books also speak remarkably good English. I hope the reporter asked a follow-up question about whether or not McCartney also believes that deer and rabbits speak English to each other when human beings aren’t around.

Second, there is a qualitative difference in opposing animal cruelty and opposing almost every conceivable animal/human interaction as the group that McCartney shills for, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, does. (Except, of course, McCartney and his late wife Linda opposed things like animal research until she needed the fruits of that research to fight her breast cancer — then, well, screw the animals, that was a matter of life and death).

Source:

‘Bambi’ turned McCartney vegetarian. The Press Association, December 13, 2005.

The UK’s Vivisection Information Network recently issued a press release making a number of claims about botulinum, which is used to treat cerebral palsy in addition to its more famous role as the anti-wrinkle treatment Botox.

Each batch of botulinum is of different toxicity, so in order to ensure safety the potency of each batch is measured using the LD50 test, in which mice are given samples for the batch until a dose is reached that kills 50 percent of the animals.

The Vivisection Information Network claims that the test is unnecessary because a non-animal alternative is just as good. According to its press release,

A non-animal alternative testing method exists and is in use at a government appointed laboratory for the testing of Botox (Botulinum) (The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control). This test is called the SNAP-25.

. . .

[The press release urges people to call write letters to government officials and] Ask why the SNAP-25 is good enough for a Government appointed lab but not good enough for the pharmaceutical industry.

Fortunately, another UK animal rights groups, Animal Aid, has already provided the answer — the SNAP-25 test has not yet been validated to replace the safety tests that the LD50 test is currently used for.

As Animal Aid’s Andre Menache noted in the abstract for a lecture he gave in July,

The European Pharmacopoeia has set the regulatory framework for non-animal testing of botulinum toxin type A for injection (No. 2113; 5th edition EP). A non-animal immunoassay — the SNAP-25 endopeptidase assay – has shown excellent results with respect to the estimation of the potency of type A toxin in therapeutic preparations (ATLA 31, 381-391, 2003). Similarly, two rapid, non-animal assays have also been developed for botulinum toxin type B.

The only remaining obstacle to regulatory approval of these non-animal methods would appear to be the validation process. There is a moral imperative to give priority to the validation process with respect to these particular non-animal methods in view of the fact that this test requires over 80,000 mice in the UK alone every year.

Menache is referring to a January 2005 European Pharmacopoeia monograph that said,

After validation with respect to the LD 50 assay (reference method), the product may also be assayed by other methods that are preferable in terms of animal welfare, including 1 of the following: 1. endopeptidase assay in vitro; 2. ex vivo assay using the mouse phrenic nerve diaphragm; 3. mouse bioassay using paralysis as the end-point.

So why isn’t the SNAP-25 test used today? Because it hasn’t been validated yet. Companies making Botulinum couldn’t use the SNAP-25 test even if they wanted to, until it is validated. End of story.

Sources:

Don’t stand for Wickham lies. Press Release, Vivisection Information Network, December 11, 2005.

Botulinum testing — time to kill the LD. Andrew Menache, Animal Aid, July 2005.

LD50 Timeline. Humane Society of the United States, Accessed: December 12, 2005.