Category: Editorials

Editorial: Biological xenophobia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1996:

Our friend Bob Plumb, of the Promoting Animal Welfare Society, in Paradise,
California, recently became aware of a feral cat problem at a park in nearby Chico. A large
colony was accused of killing songbirds, and slated for destruction by animal control.
Plumb, a retired physics teacher, combines his longtime philanthropic interest in
humane work with applied math skills. He especially likes to solve problems through modeling,
projecting the outcome of various strategies based on known statistical parameters
––and over the years, he’s become rather good at it.
When Plumb worked out the numbers pertaining to the park in Chico, he found
that the popular approach, trying to catch and kill all the cats, wouldn’t work. Catch-andkill
capture efficiency, in that habitat, stood little chance of exceeding the reproduction
rate. In effect, using catch-and-kill would amount to farming cats, sending each season’s
“crop” off to slaughter just in time to open hunting territory to the next round of kittens.
The benefit to birds would be nil.
Plumb also modeled neuter/release, which he calls TTAVR, short for trap/treat
(for treatable medical conditions)/alter/vaccinate/release, to cover all steps. Adoptable cats
would be put up for adoption; seriously ill or injured cats would be euthanized.
The first-year costs, he found, would be far greater, since neutering a cat costs
about five times as much as killing the cat and disposing of the remains. Over a three-year
period, however, the costs would be the same, as the neutered park cats ceased breeding.

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Editorial: Culture and cruelty

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

“Caged birds have been outlawed by Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers,”
Christopher Thomas reported in the October 8 edition of the London Times. “Pet canaries
flutter hungrily about Kabul, the capital, waiting to die in the fast-approaching winter.
Mynah birds bred in captivity sit bewildered and starving in the trees. Women have been
beaten on the street for simply being there, regardless of whether they are veiled, because
of a rule confining them to the home except when shopping.”
The Taliban shocked other leading Islamic fundamentalists as much as anyone.
As many hastened to argue, the stated intent of Mohammedan law circumscribing female
freedom of dress and movement was to protect women from male predation. Though obviously
reinforcing patriarchal customs now widely recognized as abusive in themselves,
Mohammed plainly did not intend his laws to increase violent abuse. Likewise, as some
scholars pointed out, Mohammed opposed keeping caged birds because he opposed the
cruel capture of wild birds; his decree was not meant to incite cruelty.
Indeed, the Kabul bird release coincided with World Wildlife Fund distribution of
Islamic journalist Abrar Ahmed’s expose of the capture for sale of more than a million live
birds a year in India, just so they can be released as a display of faith by Hindus, Jains,
Parsis, and Sindhis, as well as Moslems, whose teachings on the subject are parallel.

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Editorial: Country perspective

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

An agriculture student recently wrote to ask if we’d ever set foot on a farm––and
suggested that if we had, we wouldn’t oppose meat-eating, hunting, and trapping.
The student was undoubtedly surprised to learn that we hold the views we do, as
strongly as we do, precisely because we do have farming background. Until our recent
relocation from upstate New York to rural Washington, where we’re still not far from
farms, ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett had lived either on or beside working
farms for a decade. For nearly 20 years, ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton not
only lived either on or beside farms, but also covered agriculture for various media, and
for more than a dozen years did hay work and other chores on both dairy and sheep farms in
trade for rent. Most of our regular freelance contributors likewise have farming experience,
are longtime rural residents, and honed their skills with rural media.
We have seen exactly what nine billion farm animals per year suffer on their way
to slaughter, not just during special investigations but as a matter of daily routine. We have
also seen the unhappiness of farmers who, through economic pressure, are obliged to treat
animals less and less as the farmers themselves feel animals ought to be treated, already
somewhat short of humane ideals, and more and more as insensate units of production.

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Editorial: Who got the March money?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Observers of the June 23 March for the Animals in Washington D.C. and the preceding
World Animal Awareness Week may be reminded of The Producers, the 1968 Zero
Mostel/Gene Wilder film about two schemers who persuade an outlandish number of
investors to fund a deliberate Broadway flop. The idea is to fail so miserably that all
investors assume their money is lost, and don’t ask embarrassing questions. Mostel and
Wilder stage the most tasteless musical script they can find, called Springtime for
Hitler––only to have it succeed as a farce, sending them to Sing-Sing when the investors
ask for their promised cuts of the gate, adding up to far more than 100%.
But the March was no surprise success. And it might embarrass the cause of animal
protection less if it was in fact a fraud instead of just a public failure.

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Editorial: Westward ho!

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

You may have noticed that this edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE is dated simply
“July.” Traditionally we’ve published a combined July/August edition, but we’ve varied the
routine this year to facilitate our forthcoming relocation, from a 160-year-old rambling
farmhouse almost on top of the New York/Vermont border to a compact home/office in
Clinton, Washington. Because our new location won’t be ready until we’d normally be
starting in on our September edition, and because moving 22 cats, three dogs, and a whole
newspaper cross-country and setting up again will of necessity take several weeks, we’ll be
issuing an August/September combined edition from here, to be mailed in late July, just
before we hit the road. While the post office delivers it, we’ll roll west in a convoy of rented
trucks, the traveling menagerie in an air-conditioned van with double doors to prevent
escapes, and the office in a separate van because cats, dogs, files, and computers barely
get along even without the stress of travel. (It’s not the animals who object––it’s the equipment.)
By the time you’ve received the August/September edition, we hope, we’ll be
unpacking and able to answer your calls, faxes, and e-mailed information requests.

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Editorial: Politics and the unity myth

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

“United we stand; divided we fall,” Martin Luther King proclaimed in his “I had
a dream” speech to the participants in the 1964 civil rights march on Washington, D.C.
Activists have quoted King out of context ever since. Borrowing an early motto of
the 13 Colonies, King spoke of the power of voting blocks, and the influence they might
have to purge Congress of racists. He asked his audience to stand up as Americans, part of
the United States, and claim their right to vote. He most certainly did not tell the marchers
to stand united with those who either used or espoused violent tactics, which he forthrightly
opposed all his life; nor with the politically corrupt who looted the cause, even if they
espoused similar rhetoric; nor did King have any more use for black separatism than he had
for white separatism. Martin Luther King made plain where he stood, welcoming everyone
who chose to stand with him, but he didn’t welcome purported allies whose actions
tended to undermine, pollute, or dilute his message of multiracial Americanism.
King, who earned part of his early reputation by desegregating bowling alleys,
certainly knew the limited applicability of “United we stand, divided we fall” as a
metaphor. In bowling, pins near the ones struck go down too. One need only pick up a
newspaper to find examples of political figures and causes neutralized or discredited not by
their own deeds, but by those of their associates.

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Editorial: Peace talk

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

One of our cover stories this month deals with the ongoing process of strategic disengagement,
on both sides, from the 200-year-old battle over animal use in laboratory
research––not as a matter of either side abandoning goals, but as a matter of recognizing
that common goals may be achieved more readily if the conflict is less intense.
ANIMAL PEOPLE over the past year has advanced 10 suggestions for strategic
disengagement in a manner which would simultaneously meet the major practical demands
of the animal rights community and the major needs of biomedical research. They are based
largely on inclinations already evident among both activists and researchers.
ANIMAL PEOPLE does not pretend that these suggestions can resolve the
inescapable conflict over the rightness or wrongness of animal use per se. But they might
form a mutually acceptable protocol for progress.

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EDITORIAL: Peace talk

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 1996:


One of our cover stories this month deals with the ongoing process of strategic disengagement, on both sides, from the 200-year-old battle over animal use in laboratory research ­­not as a matter of either side abandoning goals, but as a matter of recognizing that common goals may be achieved more readily if the conflict is less intense.

ANIMAL PEOPLE over the past year has advanced 10 suggestions for strategic disengagement in a manner which would simultaneously meet the major practical demands of the animal rights community and the major needs of biomedical research. They are based largely on inclinations already evident among both activists and researchers. Read more

Editorial: Animal rights, Republicans, and Original Sin

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

“Four new trends will greatly affect the course of environmental politics in the
1990s,” writes Competitive Enterprise Institute director of environmental studies Jonathan
Adler in his recently published opus, Environmentalism at the Crossroads. “They are: the
growing influence of deep ecology and its radical preservationist policy prescriptions; the
environmental ‘backlash,’ as represented by the property rights and wise use movements;
the emergence of the environmental justice movement and the tensions it has created within
organized environmentalism (as members of racial and ethnic minorities demand representation);
[and] the challenge to conventional environmental policies by free market environ –
mentalism.”

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