In an odd way, however, this is good news for the cause of animal protection, because it means that human innovation is our ally. We don’t just have human conscience working for us, though that will always take the lead. We have all the resourcefulness of the human mind—the boundless capacity of this nation and others to change, to question, to improve, and to shake off old ways. The cause of animal protection speaks not only to the conscience of America. It speaks as well to the ingenuity of America. And that is always a force you want on your side.
Every so often you come across one story that captures the big picture in animal welfare. And I found one not long ago about a whale who was killed by native hunters off the Alaskan coast a few years back. These self-described subsistence hunters hauled in a bowhead whale only to find that they were not the first to hunt that particular creature. Embedded in the flesh of the whale were the fragments of a bomb lance, traceable to a type of shoulder gun last used before 1890.
Only in recent years have we learned how long whales live, and this creature killed in the year 2007 was at least 130 years old. The lance carried a small metal cylinder fitted with a time-delay fuse, but it had failed to kill the whale, and he survived the span of the entire twentieth century without further harm. When Edison was working on the phonograph, this whale was feeding on plankton and diving in Arctic waters. Before Theodore Roosevelt was president, before he had even charged up San Juan Hill, this whale was learning his migration routes.
He lived all that time, dodging the orcas that are the only natural predators he would have to face, only to be slaughtered by men with harpoons. But the hopeful side of the story is how much the world can change, in a hundred years, even in the life of a whale. It was a century that began with the old economy of hunting and killing whales and ended with a new economy of appreciating whales and watching whales. It was a century that began with a lonely few animal-welfare groups, a scarcity of laws to constrain human greed, and a worldview that animals were there for the taking. But by the end of that century, there were hundreds of new groups, thousands of new laws to shield animals from cruelty and abuse, and a deeper understanding that we are custodians of the other creatures—called to defend them and to be their voice. A lot can happen in a hundred years, or in much less time. The life and fate of this single creature tells us that change for the better is not just a matter of chance. It is, in the way of all great causes, a matter of choice, and it begins with each one of us.
Fifty Ways to Help Animals
THE CAUSE OF ANIMAL protection cannot succeed without you. Here’s a list of fifty potential action items for you and others who want to become more involved and to help animals in practical ways.
Personal Behavior
Follow the 3 Rs of eating: reducing your consumption of meat and other animal-based foods, refining your diet by avoiding animal products derived from factory farming, and replacing meat and other animal-based foods with vegetarian foods as you are comfortable doing so.
Purchase cruelty-free cosmetics and household products. Look for labels and messaging on the products that indicate that the product came to the market without animal testing.
Avoid wearing fur. HSUS maintains a list of fur-free retailers, designers, and brands and our guide on how to tell real fur from fake.
Adopt a friend for life from a local animal shelter or foster an animal waiting for a home. Support your local shelter.
Learn about nonlethal methods of managing urban wildlife and about creating sanctuary for wildlife around your home.
Microchip your pet and place I.D. tags on your animals and encourage others to do the same. And keep your cats safe indoors.
Provide for your animals’ future in case you can’t care for them by creating a pet trust. Many states have specific laws to allow for these trust instruments.
Prepare a disaster kit for your animals, in case of a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or other natural disaster.
Sponsor a “Stop Puppy Mills” billboard in your community.
Ask your local restaurants and grocery stores to switch to cage-free eggs. It’s an easy way for retailers to help combat one of the most extreme confinement methods in industrial agriculture.
Join us in applauding pet stores that have taken a stand against puppy mills by joining our Puppy Friendly Pet Stores initiative. Encourage local stores that do sell puppies to stop, and to work with local humane organizations to adopt out homeless animals, as PETCO and PetSmart do.
Help spread the word about animal protection efforts on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and other online networks.
Add an HSUS video (humanesociety.org/video) to your website, blog, or social networking page.
Download HumaneTV, the HSUS’s video app for the iPhone and iPod touch, for an easy way to keep up to date on the organization’s far-reaching work to protect all animals.
In Your Community
Write letters to the editor on animal protection issues and encourage radio and television talk shows to present animal issues (humanesociety.org is a great resource for information).
Ask your local radio and television stations to air the Shelter Pet Project PSAs, an unprecedented media campaign aimed at boosting pet adoptions nationwide.
Distribute animal welfare literature at events and stores.
Work to engage your church or place of worship with animal-protection issues. The HSUS’s Faith Outreach program offers many resources.
Encourage your office to implement dog-friendly policies. Our book Dogs at Work: A Practical Guide to Creating Dog-Friendly Workplaces provides step-by-step advice.
Help feral cats in your neighborhood with our Trap-Neuter-Return resources.
Get Training—Get Activated
Participate in Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) training and sign up to be an HSUS disaster responder. Crises strike all parts of the nation, and our volunteers are a critical component in a successful response.
Attend or help organize an HSUS Lobby 101 training program in your community, in order to build a more effective grassroots movement to help animals.
Train to become a humane educator, develop outreach programs in your community.
Attend the HSUS’s Animal Care Expo (location varies), Taking Action for Animals conference (Washington, D.C.), or the Genesis Awards (Los Angeles).
Take a workshop or online course through Humane Society University.
Organize a Spay Day USA event in your community.
Volunteer to Help Animals
Volunteer to monitor property with the HSUS’s Wildlife Land Trust.
Volunteer for egg addling or other humane wildlife control programs for Canada geese or other species targeted for killing by government officials.
Volunteer time and skills with your local animal shelter or rescue group.
Explore volunteer opportunities with our Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association Field Services program.
Civic Activities
Determine which elected officials represent you at local, state, and federal levels.
Contact your federal and state legislators about animal protection issues. There is a raft of pending legislation before Congress.
Sign up for free HSUS e-mail alerts at humanesociety.org/join to get involved in helping to pass state and federal legislation and to have existing laws enforced.
Study our legislative priorities and attend lawmakers’ town meetings to urge them to support these issues.
Work for the passage of local ordinances in your community, for example to protect chained dogs or improve the lives of dogs in puppy mills.
Register to vote.
Gather signatures for and help pass animal protection ballot initiatives in your state.
Work with Local Schools
Sponsor a local classroom and give the gift of KIND News, our award-winning newspaper for children in grades K–6, to elementary students or a young animal lover you may know.
Engage kids, tweens, and
teens with humane education activities and lesson plans.
Help students start animal clubs at schools.
Work to get your local universities or your children’s schools to join our “Cage-Free Campus” campaign or to add vegetarian options to their menu.
Book and sponsor animal-friendly staff for lectures at schools and universities.
Shopping
Shop at Humane Domain (humanesociety.org/humane domain)—the HSUS’s online store—for pet products, Cause Gear that supports our campaigns and programs, and unique gifts for animal lovers.
Purchase pet health insurance from Petplan and receive a 5 percent discount. Use code SPD20002.
Shop with HSUS Corporate Supporters at humanesociety.org/shop and help animals with every purchase—magazine subscriptions, personal checks, coffee, flowers, wine, jewelry, skins for electronic devices, custom gifts including stamps and cards, and more.
Fund-Raising and Networking
Make a personal annual gift to the HSUS or sign up for an automatic monthly pledge, make a memorial gift in honor of a friend or animal companion, or give gift memberships to friends or family members. Members receive All Animals magazine.
Arrange coffee or lunch dates to introduce the HSUS and our programs to people who care about animals or host a house party through the HSUS’s philanthropy department, and have one of our executives or subject experts speak at the event.
Ensure that the HSUS is eligible for giving programs at your workplace.
Donate your used vehicle to benefit the HSUS, and include the HSUS as a beneficiary in your will.
Support other animal-welfare charities you care about.
NOTES
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Preface
In the famous phrase of Edmund Burke: Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France (London: Penguin Classics, 1986), 135.
I came across a story by Kate Murphy: Murphy, Kate, “Birdhouses Designed for Repeat Visitors,” New York Times, August 11, 2010.
Abby Sewell of the Los Angeles Times: Sewell, Abby, “Rehabbers’ Perform a Grueling Labor of Love,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 2010.
Introduction: Sanctuary
Babe’s entire family was killed: Olson, Deborah, North American Region Stud Book for the African Elephant, Indianapolis Zoo, 2008, p. 19; The Fund for Animals, “Statement About Babe,” July 5, 2006, http://www.fundforanimals.org/
ranch/residents/babe_statement.html.
the price tag just for day-to-day operations: Moxley, Angela, “Animals Find Quiet Refuge at the Ranch,” August 28, 2009, http://www.blackbeautyranch.org/about/animals-find-quiet-refuge-at.html.
Nim had bounced around various research facilities: Terrace, Herb S., Nim: A Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Hess, Elizabeth, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human (New York: Bantam Press, 2008).
he learned 125 American Sign Language (ASL) signs: Terrace, H. S. “A Report to an Academy, 1980,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (1981): 98.
with the lead researcher, Dr. Terrace, concluding: Terrace, H. S., L. A. Petitto, R. J. Sanders, and T. G. Bever, “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” Science 206 (1979): 891–902; Terrace, H. S., “A Report,” 94–114.
scientists have decoded the genome: National Institutes of Health; “New Genome Comparison Finds Chimps, Humans Very Similar at the DNA Level,” August 31, 2005, http://www.genome.gov/15515096; The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, “Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome and Comparison with the Human Genome,” Nature 437 (2005): 69–87.
exposing in March 2009 the abuses: Alpert, Bruce, “New Iberia Research Center Routinely Mistreats Chimps, Humane Society Says,” New Orleans Times Picayune, March 4, 2009; ABC News, “EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Employees Claim ‘Horrific’ Treatment of Primates at Lab,” March 4, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=6997869&page=1.
About a thousand chimps: Humane Society of the United States, “Frequently Asked Questions about Chimpanzees in Research,” http://www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/
chimps_deserve_better/chimpanzees_in_research_fact.html, January 27, 2009.
he and his hired cowboys: Hoffman Marshall, Julie, Making Burros Fly: Cleveland Amory, Animal Rescue Pioneer (Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 2006), 65.
“to induce kindness, sympathy,…”: Merriam-Webster, “Black Beauty,” Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1995).
exotic deer from Africa and Asia: The Fund for Animals; “Blue Boy’s Broken Horn Is Pitch Perfect,” August 31, 2005, http://www.fundforanimals.org/
ranch/residents/blue_boy.html.
twenty-one prairie dogs, who faced gassing: The Fund4r Animals; “Groups Sue Federal Government Over Massive Prairie Dog Poisoning at Colorado Prison,” November 24, 1999, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Groups+Sue+Federal+Government+Over+Massive+Prairie+Dog+Poisoning+At…-a057790510.
boom in raising ostriches: The Fund for Animals, “Rescued Ostriches Find Life and Love at the Ranch,” September 25, 2007, http://www.fundforanimals.org/ranch/residents/
ostriches_donjuan_yvette_yolanda_yesenia.html.
kangaroo named Roo-Roo: The Fund for Animals; “All Boxed Out: Roo-Roo’s Injury Results in Retirement from Performing,” October 6, 2006, http://www.fundforanimals.org/ranch/residents/rooroo.html.
made famous in three of his best-selling books: Amory, Cleveland, Cleveland Amory’s Compleat Cat: Three Volumes in One (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1995).
Omar the dromedary camel: The Fund for Animals, “Over the Fence and Through the Barn: Babe Overcomes the Species Barrier,” July 5, 2006, http://www.fundforanimals.org/
ranch/whats_going_on/babe_omar_friendly_scar.html.
Mari and Josie were on the slaughterhouse floor: The Fund for Animals, “The Long Road from DeKalb to Murchison: Horses Spared from Slaughterhouse Floor,” April 18, 2007, http://www.fundforanimals.org/ranch/
whats_going_on/miracle_horses.html.
a federal judge ordered the plant: Humane Soc. of the U.S. v. Johanns, 2007 WL 1201610 (D.D.C., March 28, 2007).
often acts as an agent of agribusiness: American Horse Defense Fund, “USDA Defies Congressional Ban on Horse Slaughter,” February 11, 2006, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/USDA+Defies+Congressional+Ban+on+Horse+Slaughter.-a0141936481.
“animals constitute more than…”: Steven Kellert is paraphrased in Olmert, Meg Daley, Made for Each Other: The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond (Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 2009), 10.
I also learned as an adult: Lonati, Staci, “Animal Shows Charged with Fakery (‘Wild America’ and ‘Wild Kingdom’ Under Attack for Alleged Cruelty to Animals),” St. Louis Journalism Review 26 (1996): 7. For a recent work on this problem, see Chris Palmer, Shooting in the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2010).
Some 170 million: “U.S. Pet Ownership Statistics,” December 30, 2009, http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/
pet_overpopulation/facts/pet_ownership_statistics.html.
The pet product and services industry: American Pet Products Association, “Industry Statistics and Trends,” accessed May 6, 2010, http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp.
Chapter One—The Ties That Bond
a conditioned fear of snakes: Öhman, Arne, and Susan Mineka, “The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a Prototypical Stimulus for an Evolved Module of Fear,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 12 (2003): 5–9.
by age five or so: Olmert, Made for Each Other, 95.
Primates react much as we do: King, G. E., “The Attentional Basis for the Primate Response to Snakes” (paper presented at the Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists, San Diego, CA, June 1997).
Like
ly the greatest pandemic ever: Anitei, Stefan, “Top 10 Infectious Diseases That Have Killed Millions of People,” Softpedia.com, November 13, 2007, http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top–10-Infectious-Diseases-That-Have-Killed-Most-People–70741.shtml.
Oxytocin is a neuropeptide: Strathearn, Lane, Peter Fonagy, Janet Amico, and P. Read Montague, “Adult Attachment Predicts Maternal Brain and Oxytocin Response in Infant Cues,” Neuropsychopharmacology 34 (2009): 2655–2666.
Olmert argues that oxytocin: Olmert, Made for Each Other.
trigger a mother’s protective aggression: MacDonald, Kai, and Tina Marie MacDonald, “The Peptide t at Binds: A Systematic Review of Oxytocin and Its Prosocial Effects in Humans,” Harvard Review Psychiatry 18 (2010): 1.
it has a broader prosocial: Olmert, Made for Each Other.
It is a social recognition hormone: MacDonald and MacDonald, “The Peptide That Binds,” 16.
administering oxytocin to people: Reyes, Teófilo L., and Jill M. Mateo, “Oxytocin and Cooperation: Cooperation with Non-kin Associated with Mechanisms for Affiliation,” Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology 2 (2008): 234–246.
The Bond Page 37