Category: Uncategorized

AMP on Animal Rights 2003

Compared to the last couple years, there was very little national media coverage of the Animal Rights 2003 convention in Washington, DC this year. According to a summary report of the event by Americans for Medical Progress, AR2003 appeared to have lower attendance and a different focus than previous such events,

It’s evident that this year’s conference is not meant for longtime participants of animal rights campaigns, but is primarily to inculcate a much younger crowd of new initiates who have been recently drawn to the animal rights philosophy. Nearly half the program is filled with workshops on lifestyle matters such as choosing a career, how to avoid burnout, and setting personal priorities. . . .

. . .

This week’s convention may be made most notable not by its speakers, but by those in the movement’s national leadership who are not there. There is no trace of PETA, which had been a major sponsor of previous conventions and whose founder, Ingrid Newkirk, gave the keynote speech at last year’s convention. Neal Barnard, president of PETA’s sister organization, the oxymoronically-named Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, had been listed as a speaker, but opted for remaining on tour promoting his latest book, instead. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which also fielded a great number of experts at past conventions, was not represented. The HSUS has also dropped its traditional role as organizer of the activists’ day of congressional lobbying. Many of the workshops previously handled by PETA, PCRM and HSUS staff are being run this year by the staff of the chief sponsor, Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM).

The organizers have not released information about the number of registrants, but it appears to observers that the numbers of activists attending are far lower than those of previous years.

As AMP noted, though, that may be due to the decision to split the convention into two separate East and West Coast events.

Nonetheless AMP found a few interesting things to report on, with their summary of remarks by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’s Kevin Jonas being especially interesting,

Of special interest to those in the research community is that Jonas has backed away from the claim of SHAC’s victory over Huntingdon Life Sciences, which he made at last year’s meeting.

Now, he talks more of the sacrifices involved in his campaign, telling the audience about the raid on his home by federal authorities and jail time he and other activists have endured. As for closing HLS, he demurred. It may take three weeks, three months, three years or thirty years, he noted, saying simply that ‘an example’ was going to be made of the company.

He said of SHAC: “Our campaign comes with an attitude that we noted was missing from the animal rights movement and one that we know the media would bite onto, that of a very aggressive, unapologetic, uncompromising ‘militant’ campaign . . . and, sure enough, it worked.” He talked of the media attention SHAC has been able to obtain. “We need to have some PT Barnum in us; we need to know how to market, how to put our propaganda out there so that people will pay attention. We spent a long time fine tuning and tinkering with our image and it has paid off.” Jonas told the activists, “The tactics we use here can be used against any other company to tear them apart.”

“We want our opposition and the public to know . . . that there is a large and growing segment among us who say enough is enough,” Jonas said. “We aren’t interested in sitting down and having coffee with an animal abuser and asking them to be compassionate . . . we are going to be the force . . . that punches back. Enough is enough.”

Source:

AMP News Service Special Report: At the AR 2003 Convention – Part I. Americans for Medical Progress, July 2003.

Karen Davis on Chicken Catching

In June, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about hand vs. machine catching of chickens. On July 2, 2003, the Journal published a letter-to-the-editor from United Poultry Concerns’ Karen Davis (emphasis added),

Chicken catching, whether by hand or by machine, is completely violent. And bruised and wounded birds do not always conveniently go out of sight into livestock feed. They are processed into nuggets and other unwholesome products like sausages and patties.

For the chickens, hand catching versus machine catching is terrorism either way, just one more part of their totally miserable lives.

Source:

Totally miserable lives. Karen Davis, Letter, Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2003.

Man Acquitted of Aiding Rats

A man charged with attempting to thwart rat eradication efforts on an island off the coast of California was acquitted in July of the charge against him.

Bob Puddicombe, 52, stood accused of scattering an antidote to rat poison on Anacapa Island. National Park Service officials spread rat poison on the island in an effort to eradicate black rats. The rats are a nonnative species to the island and were threatening native species.

U.S. Magistrate Willard McEwen Jr. acquitted Puddicombe, finding that federal prosecutors had not provided sufficient evidence to convict Puddicombe.

The Associated Press quoted Puddicombe as saying, “I only wish the animals on Anacapa could have gotten the same fair trial I did.”

Source:

Calif. magistrate clears rat supporter. Associated Press, July 11, 2003.

Number of Vegetarians Declines in UK

At the height of the mad cow disaster in Great Britain, vegetarian groups in the United Kingdom and elsewhere trumpeted the millions of people who were embracing vegetarianism. But a recent Gallup survey of eating habits in the UK suggests that those same people are now abandoning vegetarianism as the BSE risk has turned out to be far lower than initially believed.

Gallup has conducted its Realeat Survey in the UK since 1984. In 1997, a year after the connection between Mad Cow Disease and vCJD was confirmed, the number of people who told Gallup that they were vegetarians peaked at an all time high of 3.25 million.

Gallup’s latest survey, however, shows only 2.24 million people in the UK are vegetarians — the lowest number since 1990.

A Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom spokesman told The Daily Telegraph,

There was a false high in the total number of committed vegetarians because of the reaction to BSE and FMD.

When you take out that peak, we have returned to pre-BSE levels, which fits well within a pattern of gradual, steady growth over the past 25 years, from 2.1 per cent in 1984 to four per cent now.

Some animal rights groups, notably Vegetarians International Voice for the Animals, tried to dismiss the numbers, noting that a) these numbers were first released last year, and b) the trendline for vegetarianism in the United Kingdom is still positive.

There are two problems with that line, however. First, since this survey asks people whether they self-define themselves as vegetarians, whether or not these people are really vegetarians is debatable, and the number of vegetarians in the UK is likely significantly less than even the 2.24 million the survey arrives at.

Second, despite the Mad Cow disease scare, per capita red meat consumption in the United Kingdom is at its highest level since 1985.

Sources:

Daily Telegraph Publishes Year-Old News Story. Vegetarians International Voice for the Animals, Media Release, July 10, 2003.

Vegetarians rediscover the taste of red meat. Robert Uhlig, Daily Telegraph (London), July 9, 2003.

Have Whales Been Dramatically Undercounted?

The debate over whether or not commercial whaling should resume turns in large measure on the extent to which whale stocks have recovered. Japan, Iceland and other countries argue that the number of whales has recovered enough to resume whaling, while many other countries argue that whale stocks still are not large enough to warrant a resumption of commercial whaling.

In the midst of that, two American researchers used DNA analysis of whales to argue that North Atlantic whales have been drastically undercounted historically. The researchers looked at the genetic variation among hundreds of specimens of whales and from there estimated what the whale population would have had to have been to support the level of genetic variation they saw.

Here’s a table showing the International Whaling Commission’s estimates of the pre-hunting stocks of several whale species compared to new estimates put forth by Stanford’s Stephen Palumbi and Harvard’s Joe Roman,

Species
IWC Estimate
Palumbi/Roman Estimate
Fin 40,000 360,000
Humpbacks 20,000 240,000
Minke 130,000 265,000

The researchers recognize that their claims could have an enormous impact on the decision of whether/when to resume whaling. Palumbi told The Globe and Mail,

Humpback whales, for example, were thought to have numbered about 20,000 in the North Atlantic, and we’re up to about 10,000 now, so at that rate, the IWC could allow countries to start killing humpbacks within the next decade. But if the historic population was really 240,000, as the genetics suggests, then we wouldn’t be able to start whaling for another 70 to 100 years.

Not surprisingly, these numbers came under quite a bit of criticism, the main one being that it seems difficult to account for the extraordinarily high level of killing of whales that would be required if their numbers were actually two to 10 times higher than previously believed (not to mention exactly what apparently millions of whales worldwide were eating that remained in abundance).

Whale biologist Robert Brownell pointed out that one possibility in reconciling the population based on genetic variation with whaling logs and other estimates of actual whales killed is that both numbers may in fact be correct. As Palumbi himself conceded, the technique he and Roman used is not able to estimate what the population of whales was before human hunting began, but rather what the whale population likely was tens of thousands of years ago. As Brownell told The Mercury News, “The main issue is that these estimates may be true, but we don’t know what time period they actually cover.”

As Brownell pointed out, there have been numerous climate and other changes in the last 10,000 years or so that may have drastically reduced whale populations long before human beings began intensively hunting them.

Palumbi, however, says that the technique should be to look at whales and give reliable estimates of their population just 1,000 years ago which would be useful to compare the IWC and other estimates with for accuracy.

Source:

New study revises estimate of early whale population. Glennda Chui, The Mercury News, July 29, 2003.

Gene Study Undermines Whaling Plans. Peter Lavelle, ABC Science Online, July 25, 2003.

Whales once numbered in millions. Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail, July 24, 2003.

Whale count wrong, DNA study reveals. Tim Radford, The Guardian (UK), July 25, 2003.

Earth Liberation Front Activists Vandalize Connecticut Home

A newly-constructed home in South Windsor, Connecticut, was vandalized by Earth Liberation Front extremists who spay-painted slogans such as “ELF” and “No Sprawl” on the house.

A relatively minor event, except as an illustration of just how little local law enforcement understands the dynamics of such groups. Here’s The Hartford Courant’s quote from the local police chief,

Town Police Chief Gary K. Tyler dismissed the possibility of a link to the organization [ELF].

“It wouldn’t surprise me if some kids saw [the group] on the Internet or hear it from their parents,” Tyler said.

Sgt. Matthew D. Reed, police spokesman, said there was no reason to belive that an organized group was responsible for the vandalism. “But anything is possible,” he added.

Police seem unable to grasp with the concept of an un-organized group, such as ELF, and as long as they are unable to understand that none of these acts are committed by some sort of organized group of activists, extremists who carry out these crimes will be at a distinct advantage.

Source:

Group implicated in vandalism. Dan Uhlinger, Hartford Courant, July 3, 2003.