Tag Archives: In Defense of Animals

Bloomington, Indiana, Adopts Pet "Guardian" Language

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According to a report by the Associated Press, Bloomington, Indiana became the 14th municipality to adopt language referring to pet owners as guardians. The city’s codes relating to pets refer to the animals’ “owner/guardian.”

The change was pushed by animal rights activist Karen Smith and In Defense of Animals. Smith likened the change to the ending of offensive racist language,

We’ve changed the ways we talk about racial references; (this is) another linguistic change along those lines.

In a press release, In Defense of Animals president Elliot Katz said,

I am delighted that the citizens and city council of Bloomington have recognized the value of the term guardian. Because so much animal abuse and neglect stems from viewing animals as disposable property, this is an important step in changing people’s consciousness and respect towards the animals with whom we share our lives.

Source:

Bloomington, Indiana Recognizes Animal “Guardians”. Press release, In Defense of Animals, December 28, 2005.

Good Point, Holly, Except Lincoln Never Said It

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Ohio University junior Holly Jensen, treasurer of the Athens Animal Rights Coalition, recently penned a letter to student newspaper The Post Online. Jensen wrote to complain that The Post Online had unfairly panned People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ habit of comparing animal agriculture with the Holocaust or slavery.

Jensen complained that numerous humanitarians supported animal rights, including Abraham Lincoln who said,

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

Of course this quote might actually be a bit more persuasive if Lincoln had ever actually said it. It doesn’t appear in any of his articles, speeches, written correspondence or other utterances. Its very language speaks of a 20th century sensibility rather than mid-19th century.

Although it appears on literally hundreds of animal rights web sites, not one includes a link to a reference where Lincoln is supposed to have said this and none of them seem to think “hmmm, maybe we might want to know if this awfully contemporary sounding sentence couplet really came from the mouth of a 19th century president.”

The worst culprit is In Defense of Animals which for years has sold a t-shirt with the bogus quote on it.

But then this is the animal rights movement we are talking about — it is not like accuracy and truth telling have ever been major priorities.

Source:

Humanitarians back PETA’s message. Holly Jensen, The Post Online, October 3, 2005.

In Defense of Animals Asks Judge to Reconsider Feral Pig Slaughter Ruling

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In Defense of Animals in August asked a judge to reconsider a July decision that rejected its efforts to stop the National Park Service’s plan to eradicate wild pigs on Santa Cruz island in California.

Pigs were first introduced to the island in the mid-19th century. Ever since, according to the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy, they have been eroding the soil and damaging native plants and animals.

To put an end to the problem once and for all, the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy plan to hire a New Zealand firm, Prohunt, to eradicate the pigs. The firm will only receive its $3.9 million fee once there are no more pigs left on the island. Prohunt began killing pigs on Santa Cruz in April 2005.

In Defense of Animals has so far unsuccessfully attempted to challenge the plan in court. Their objections to the slaughter of the animals provides an interesting look at how animal rights ideology conflicts with environmental protection efforts.

The major claim made by the park service is that the presence of the pigs indirectly threatens the Santa Cruz Island fox. According to the park service, golden eagles are attracted to the island to feed on pigs, and while they’re there they also feed on the foxes to the point where there are believed to be only about 150 foxes left on the island.

Nature Conservancy spokeswoman Julie Benson told the Los Angeles Times that the choice was clear — wild pigs exist in large numbers throughout the world, whereas this particular fox only inhabits this island. Killing the pigs to save the foxes is, to Benson, the obvious choice.

Not so to IDA president Elliott Katz who told the Los Angeles Times that trying to make this sort of decision is attempting to foist human morality on to nature (emphasis added),

Northern California veterinarian Elliot Katz said that allowing the deaths of thousands of pigs for the benefit of a few foxes
doesn’t seem to be a fair balance of nature. Katz, founder and president of In Defense of Animals, a nonprofit animal rights
organization based in the Bay Area city of Mill Valley, supports halting the pig slaughter and says he intends to contact
Feldman about lending his support for the lawsuit.

“Our position is to take a step back and not to be killing animals for man’s belief of what’s right and wrong,” Katz said.
“Allowing an injunction will permit everyone to step back and rethink this thing and also to further evaluate whether it’s
necessary to remove each and every pig from the island.”

Presumably since relying on human standards of morality is not possible, Katz will be channeling supernatural powers to guide human interaction with the environment.

Sources:

Suit Filed to Halt Pig Eradication on Santa Cruz Island. Gregory W. Griggs, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2005.

Why Activist Alfredo Kubra Gets Butterflies

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Knight Ridder recently reported on a protest by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Action for Animals, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States against California Rodeo Salinas.

The story included only one quote from an activist at the event, one Alfredo Kuba who had this to say of participating in an animal rights protest,

I always get butterflies before I do something like this. Any time you express opinions that are different from the status quo, you have a little bit of fear. You can’t help but be concerned how people might react.

Kuba’s “nervous little activist” routine seems a bit thin given the things he’s said over the years. Kuba has been active in the California animal rights scene for more than a decade, and shows up in dozens of articles on Google and Lexis-Nexis.

What sort of things does Kuba believe that are different from the status quo? In a December 31, 2004 letter to the editor of the Mountain View (California) Voice, Kuba offered his views of hunting,

. . . Hunters are animal terrorists. Hunters make absurd claims of why murdering other beings is their “right” as if animals have no right to exist.

Hunting is a human wrong, just like slavery or the concentration camps. In the slavery era, whites felt they had the right to have slaves and slaves had no rights. In Nazi Germany, white supremacists believed they were the superior race under “God” thus rationalizing the extermination of Jews and other races “inferior” to them.

Hunters likewise rationalize to persecute, stalk, terrorize, maim and murder other living beings under the guise of superiority and difference of species. Hunters invade other species’ homes with the sole purpose of ending their existence.

Hunting is cold-blooded murder. Who made hunters God and gave them the power to decide who lives and who dies? The sickening aspect of hunters is that they find pleasure in the destruction of “God’s creation.”

Kuba despises hunting enough that he forces a vegan diet on his feline companion — and Kuba’s own dietary choices might hint at another explanation for those “butterflies.” In a 2004 AlterNet story on vegan pet diets, Kuba was quoted as saying (emphasis added),

You’re saving animals by not feeding your cat meat. It makes you feel good to feed your kitty something this good. Sometimes I even try some myself when I’m cooking.

Kuba’s not so concerned about the possibility of other cats having meat-oriented snacks. In May 2004, a mountain lion was spotted near Palo Alto, California. The lion was sleeping in a tree about 20 feet above a police car. Police initially planned to tranquilize the animal, but it woke up first, and the decision was made to kill the animal. Police said that since the timing of the incident made killing the animal necessary,

Because of the environment that it was in, school is about to be let out, the only safe thing to do to protect the community was to dispatch the animal. One shot was fired, the animal was felled.

Kuba disagreed, telling CBS5,

I think it’s absolutely atrocious the way the police behaved. Obviously the animal was not posing a threat to anyone. It was in a tree.

Kuba is also an expert on circuses. At a 2003 protest against Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Kuba told the San Mateo Daily Journal that,

Daily beatings are a part of everyday life for animals in circuses.

Kuba recently started petition to ask KPFA 94.1FM to add an animal rights-themed show to its lineup. The petition reads,

Please sign petition asking KPFA 94.1FM to include an animal rights program on a regular basis. Animal rights is a topic of interest, often demoniced [sic] by the corporate propagandist media and not given a voice. Animals are voiceless and KPFA can provide that much desperately needed voice.

Surely purely by coincidence Kuba would host this new animal rights show on KPFA.

Those must be some strange butterflies.

Sources:

Rodeo draws animal rights protesters. Dennis Taylor, Knight Ridder, July 26, 2005.

Hunters destroy ‘God’s creation’. Alfredo Kuba, Letter to the Editor, Mountain Valley Voice, December 31, 2004.

Mountain lion killed in Palo Alto. Len Ramirez, CBS 5, May 17, 2004.

Circus defends animal treatment. San Mateo Daily Journal, August 28, 2003.

Animal Rights Radio. Petition, 2005.

The Cat That Ate Tofu. Michael Rosen-Molina, Alternet, May 23, 2004.

Judge Dismissed Cruelty Charges Against Charles River Laboratories

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In March, a New Mexico judge dismissed three misdemeanor animal cruelty charges against employees of Charles River Laboratories.

The charges stemmed from the 2002 deaths of two chimpanzees and the near death of a third chimpanzee at a Charles River Laboratories primate facility in Alamogordo , New Mexico.

In all three cases, veterinarians looked after the animals and then left the facility, instructing security guards to monitor the animals’ condition overnight. The security guards had no veterinary training.

The misdemeanor charges alleged that this constituted animal cruelty, but State District Judge Jerry Ritter ruled that since the deaths of the animals occurred in the practice of veterinary medicine, the animal cruelty statutes did not apply.

In Defense of Animals complained that this was a “technicality” although it seems exactly the sort of situation the veterinary medicine exemption was intended to avoid — clogging up the courts with claims of animal cruelty based on differing opinions about appropriate veterinary care procedures would be a serious misallocation of law enforcement resources.

IDA’s Elliott Katz said in a press release,

We now know that for Charles River and the NIH, the ‘practice of veterinary medicine’ constitutes intentional and repeated abandonment of critically ill chimpanzees to once-per-hour observation by security guards.

Source:

New Mexico Judge Dismisses Animal Cruelty Charges Against NIH Chimp Lab Operator on Legal Technicality. Press Release, In Defense of Animals, March 30, 2005.

Animal Cruelty Charges Dropped. Rene Romo, Albuquerque Journal, March 29, 2005.

Cruelty charges dropped against Charles River Labs. Christopher Rowland, The Boston Globe, March 29, 2005.

California Activist Groups Form State Association

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A number of animal rights groups in California have banded into a new statewide coalition, the California Animal Association, to “represent the interest of animals at the [California] state capitol.”

A press release sent out by the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights announcing the formation of the group said,

After more than a year of planning, CAA was formed to bring a stronger and more cohesive voice for animal protection to Sacramento. Many of the animal welfare and animal rights groups involved in CAA have individually or in small groups worked on legislation to strengthen animal protection laws or to defeat legislation that weakens protections for animals with California.

The members of the coalition include: American Anti-Vivisection Society, Animal Legislative Action Network, Animal Place, Animal Protection Institute, Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, California Animal Defense and Anti-Vivisection League, California Lobby for Animal Welfare, Doctors for Kindness to Animals, Farm Sanctuary, In Defense of Animals, Last Chance for Animals, Orange County People for Animals, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, The Paw Project, United Animal Nations, United Poultry Concerns and Viva! USA.

Source:

Animals gain strong and unprecedented voice in Sacramento. Teri Barnato, Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, Press Release, January 12, 2005.

In Defense of Animals Can't Count to Two

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In January, In Defense of Animals released a list of what it called the “10 Worst Zoos for Elephants.” Among those zoos listed was the Cameron Park Zoo, in Texas. IDA complained that,

Even though companionship is essential to elephants’ psychological health, this Texas zoo displays and keeps a single elephant.

In fact, the Cameron Park Zoo has had two African elephants since its elephant exhibit opened in 1993, except for a brief period in 1996 after an aging elephant died.

IDA says it got the information from the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s database of zoo animals, but didn’t bother to call the zoos it listed as the “10 Worst” to verify that information. IDA’s Catherine Doyle told the Waco Herald-Tribune,

It wasn’t meant to be a scientific study. It was an opinion piece. . . . The most important thing is that the public be educated about issues with elephants in zoos. These animals are suffering in zoos and dying in zoos because of captivity-induced conditions.

Certainly one should never expect to receive anything scientific from IDA, just as you shouldn’t expect anything historic from the t-shirt they sell with a bogus quote from Abraham Lincoln.

Its the activism that counts — screw the accuracy.

Source:

Animal rights group wrongly harangues Cameron Park Zoo. J.B. Smith, Waco Herald-Tribune, January 11, 2005.

Portland Restaurants Surrender to Foie Gras Opponents

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The Portland Tribune reported earlier this month that two restaurants in Portland decided to remove foie gras from their menu following protests and harassment by animal rights activists.

Hurley’s restaurant and the Heathman Restaurant were both targeted by animal rights activists for serving foie gras, and both decided to remove it from their menu after holding out for several weeks of protests.

According to the Portland Tribune, activists protested at Hurley’s every Friday and Saturday night, and showed up at the lunch hour at Heathman. The activists were part of In Defense of Animals, according to the Tribune.

Many of the protests were perfectly legal, if a bit goofy. According to the Tribune,

Protester Diane Luck was wearing a duck costume. She kneeled on the sidewalk, clutching her throat, while another protester mimicked force-feeding by pouring grain into the mouth of her mask.

Other parts of the protests involved clearly illegal activities,

[Hurley's owner Tom] Hurley also said he lost thousands of dollars from fake phone reservations placed by opponents of foie gras. In Defense of Animals denies any direct responsibility for the calls.

Source:

Foie gras protests successful. Anne Marie Distefano, The Portland Tribune, November 19, 2004.

USDA Files Complaint Against University of California at San Francisco Over Treatment of Animals

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U.S. Department of Agriculture filed a complaint against the University of California at San Francisco in late August, charging the university with at least 60 violations of the Animal Welfare Act between 2001 and 2003.

In its 18 page complaint, the USDA charges ranged from failing to provide post-operative anesthesia to failing to properly clean cages. A UCSF spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle that the complaint appeared to be a compilation of citations the university had received during its biannual USDA inspections.

The UCSF filed a response to the complaint in October denying almost all of the charges made by the USDA. In a press release, the UCSF said,

The University questions the timing of the Complaint, which is a compilation of citations issued by a local USDA inspector during inspections at UCSF between May 2001 and February 2003 — nearly two, to three-and-a-half-years, ago. All of the allegations were addressed by UCSF at the time and, where appropriate, remedial measures were implemented. Corrective actions were reported back to the USDA or verified by the USDA at its subsequent inspection. The USDA has so far failed to explain why it has issued an aggregate Complaint at this time.

The University notes that the number of allegations contained in the USDA Complaint is misleading. The local inspector reported 26 citations for the May 2001-Feb. 2003 period. However, the Complaint, issued from Washington, DC, was structured in such a way that most of the citations were restated multiple times, under different categories, raising the total number of allegations to 61.

In its report on the legal action, The San Francisco Chronicle, repeated a false claim by In Defense of Animals that the USDA charged UCSF with performing a craniotomy on a primate without using anesthesia. In fact, the complaint alleges that the primates were not given post-operative analgesics. The UCSF responded to that particular complaint by claiming that post-operative analgesics were only withheld for clinical reasons.

The full complaint by the USDA can be read here (PDF).

Sources:

U.S. agency cites UCSF for abuses of animals. Julian Guthrie, San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 2004.

USDA files animal welfare charges against leading research facility. Press Release, In Defense of Animals, September 15, 2004.

IDA and PETA Protest Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo

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In Defense of Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals both sent letters this month demanding a stop to the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo.

For 64 years the prison rodeo has featured inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary competing in the world’s only prison rodeo.

In a letter to Pittsburgh County Court Clerk Linda Price Williams, In Defense of Animals’ Kristie Phelps wrote,

I am writing on behalf of the 80,000 members of In Defense of Animals to urge you to end the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo. We support measures by inmate Michael C. Washington to stop the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo, but for different reasons altogether. Certainly no one would disagree that violent criminals should be prohibited from inflicting any sort of suffering. However by having inmates take part in a rodeo, the State of Oklahoma is encouraging it. The event gives inmates-40 percent of whom are imprisoned for violent crimes-the right to torment and abuse frightened animals in front of a cheering audience.

Experts, including Federal Bureau of Investigation profiler Robert K. Ressler, have proved that a high percentage of violent criminals have records of abusing animals. It is reckless to foster this violence, especially since many inmates will one day be released back into society.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ Christy Griffin told the McAlester News Capital & Democrat that rather than using animals the Department of Corrections should create a weightlifting or basketball competition.

Despite the protests, the rodeo went on as scheduled over the Labor Day weekend.

Sources:

Animal rights groups pounce on OSP rodeo. Doug Russell, McAlester News Capital & Democrat, August 28, 2004.

Prison rodeo protested. Carrie Coppernoll, The Oklahoman, September 5, 2004.

IDA Supports Inmate’s Request for Cancellation of Prison Rodeo. Press Release, In Defense of Animals, August 26, 2004.