It has been a pretty bad week for animals. I would like to highlight some of these disturbing incidents and findings, one of which is receiving widespread media traction, the others are sort of flying under the radar.
We all know about what happened to the race horse Eight Belles after her second place finish at the Kentucky Derby. Also making national news were the illegal shooting deaths of a 3 elephant seals in San Simeon, California and 6 Sea Lions laying in government approved open traps on the Columbia River at the border of Washington and Oregon. Finally, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service found humane handling violations of cattle at some of the nations largest meat processing plants during a review of slaughterhouses providing meat to the National School Lunch Program.
First, I want to add my own thoughts on the tragedy of Eight Belles injury and subsequent euthanization on the track at the Kentucky Derby. The news of it has been pretty widely covered. There were several flatly stupid diaries here that tried to score a political point out of the tragedy. Thankfully most comments correctly cried foul to this callous attempt to make light of a tragedy for cheap political gain. What I think has been lost to many in this issue, and flatly denied by others, is the inherent cruelty of horse racing in general. It is simply unethical.
I know there are many who disagree, but horse racing is an unnatural stress on horses. They are bred, trained and prized for their speed at the expense of other considerations. They are asked to run at all out break neck speeds that are dangerous for any animal. They are whipped relentlessly during the entire race to ensure they give their all. Not one bit of this serves the horses best interest. While there are undoubtedly true horse lovers who participate in horse racing, I believe their love of this sport is terribly misguided. And it cannot be denied that this sport, especially at the level of the Triple Crown and other high profile events, is driven by huge financial considerations.
Many have said something to the effect that horses love to run and it is natural to them. While on the surface this may sound good, it is specious. There is nothing natural about any animal running at absolute top speed in front of thousands of screaming fans, while being driven by a jocky. If you want the horses to run, give them open space and the freedom to do so at their own pace. I assure you the result would be very different.
Others have said that this was an isolated incident. Well, aside from the recent memory of high profile deaths such as Barbaro and Eight Belles, statistics released by the Jockey Club (the breed registry for Thoroughbred horses in the US) as well as the Grayson-Jockey Club (a non profit that does research into horse health and injuries), show the following numbers for horse fatalities at participating tracks.
1.47 fatalities per 1,000 starts for synthetic surfaces and 2.03 fatalities per 1,000 starts for dirt tracks.
These numbers are just fatalities reported from an innovative on track reporting system in use since June 2007 on participating tracks. They do not include non life threatening injuries or fatality from non-participating tracks.
And in response to this, PETA is once again coming out with half measures in response to an animal tragedy, suggesting enhanced guidelines for the safety of the horses, when the tough but ethical necessity is to end all horse racing completely.
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Next up we had more disturbing stories about inhumane conditions at meat processing plants.
After inspecting 18 meat processors who supply meat to the school lunch program, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service found:
humane handling violations during a government review of meat providers to the National School Lunch Program, records show.
This inspection was in response to the controversy, meat recall, and eventual closure of the Westland Meat processing plantearlier this year.
This most recent inspection specifically showed:
Overall, the audits of 18 slaughterhouses found that some cattle were not being stunned properly on the first try, others were subject to overcrowding, and others had to be electrically prodded to get them to move.
There has been some backpedaling by the FSIS, as it accepted the appeal of Cargill, issuing a letter of concern instead.
On Monday, after AP raised questions about Cargill's violations, FSIS officials notified the company that it was granting its appeal of the noncompliance determination and would instead issue a "letter of concern" to the plant.
"The merits of their appeal were acceptable," FSIS spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said, while declining to provide any specifics. Cargill spokesman Mark Klein also declined to discuss why the noncompliance record was rescinded.
The other company cited, National Beef Packing Co., is also appealing it's ruling.
What we have to remember is that the rules that these companies have to follow are hardly humane to begin with. It is merely a matter of technicalities, such as whether their were 49 or 53 animals held in a pen, whether the animals were stunned and made insensitive to pain on the first try or the second, etc.
It is also reported that:
In addition to Cargill and National Beef, the FOIA shows that the FSIS temporarily shut down Martin's Abattoir and Wholesale Meats in Godwin, N.C., for insufficiently stunning animals, failing to make them insensible to pain on the first attempt; and issued a noncompliance order to Dakota Premium Foods in South St. Paul, Minn., for excessive bunching up of cattle going into the stunning area. Martin's Abattoir declined to comment, and Dakota Premium did not return telephone messages.
I strongly believe that there is simply no part of the meat processing industry that can be called humane by any definition of the term. The vast majority of factory farmed animals are raised in incredibly inhumane, deplorable, and unnatural conditions.
We have tried to console ourselves with claims of grass fed, antibiotic free, free range, and organic meat, but many of these claims are either wholly without merit due to a total lack of oversight and guidelines, or are simply openly flouted by the industries they are supposed to regulate, as proved by the federal appeal court ruling involving Tyson Foods false advertising campaign claiming their very popular anti-biotic free chickens are antibiotic free, when in fact they are not.
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Finally, we have the incredibly disturbing news of not one but two incidents of protected marine mammals being shot. Three northern elephant seals were shot in the back of their heads at a central California rookery, and six sea lions were shot while being held in open cages used by government officials in a controversial program to remove sea lions from below the Bonneville dam on the Columbia river in a misguided effort to protect endangered salmon.
The shootings at the rookery are simply unimaginable. I can offer no original commentary, except to say it is a terrible tragedy. The shootings at the Bonneville Dam are another matter. This is the latest in a long battle between animal advocacy groups such as the Humane Society of the United States and government and fishing groups over the fates of these sea lions that feed on salmon at the Bonneville Dam.
Here is part of a press release by the Humane Society of the United States:
The shooting took place inside closed traps set out by Oregon and Washington agents — giving the sea lions no chance to escape the guns of trespassers — as part of a controversial program to remove sea lions. The HSUS has challenged that program in court as being irrational in light of other much higher sources of salmon mortality, like fishing and dams. Last week, a federal appeals court issued an order preventing any killing of sea lions. However, the court has allowed trapping and live relocation to continue until the case is resolved.
All of this comes after a sea lion died while being prepared for transported as part of the ruling by the appeals court.
It is remarkable to me that we blame sea lions for damaging the salmon population, when the dam itself, fishing, and habitat destruction are the clear culprits for Salmon depletion. But it is a much more politically expedient answer to blame the sea lions. No one wants to take on the larger issues that are causing the real harm to salmon populations. What politician wants to go on record for opposing the fishing industry when there is such an easy out.
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In each of these incidents, I challenge folks to try to understand the underlying assumptions that allow these animals to be treated the way they are.
Imagine for one second that a beloved companion animal, )for most of us a dog or a cat most likely), were whipped to run at top speed until they broke their ankles and had to be euthanized, or were put through one of these meat processing plants, or were left in open cages to be shot.
Seem extreme? Why? Why do we have different standards for different animals based on the uses we come up with for them? There is one standard for companion animals at home, another for racing animals, a third for food animals, and a fourth for marine mammals.
What I believe we must come to realize is that all animals are sentient beings, with intrinsic value and worth totally independent of uses we can dream up for them, and they are all deserving of total and complete respect and protection under the law. Their should be no difference in how we treat a beloved family dog and how we treat a food animal. We should stop using animals for food, research and entertainment purposes that are truly unnecessary and clearly not in the animals best interest.
Update: I found this today, which just starts to tell the real story of how unethical horse racing really is. It reports that 15 horses did not finish a race that had been started out of 39 tracks reporting just on Saturday last.
We all marvel at the high profile injuries and deaths, but horses are getting injured or worse all the time under the radar. If you can still defend this sport in light of these kinds of numbers, I am sorry, but I cannot believe you have the horses best interest in mind.