A n i m a l W r i t
e s © sm
The
official ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Publisher ~ EnglandGal@aol.com
Issue #
12/12/01
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Journalists ~ Park StRanger@aol.com
~
MichelleRivera1@aol.com
~ sbest1@elp.rr.com
THE SEVEN ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1 ~ Buffalo Update
2 ~ "Free Kittuns"
3 ~ Animals Teach Us Spirituality
4 ~ Three Holiday Menus
5 ~ Hunter Shoots Escaped Reindeer
6 ~ Compassion
7 ~ Memorable Quote
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~1~
Buffalo Update
From buffalo@wildrockies.org
My eyes leak all too often this year...
Todays news: two more brother buffalo are on their way to slaughter as I write
this update. One of them we have known since the beginning of Buffalo
Field Campaign's existence. He had a very short tail and we playfully
nicknamed him Stubby. For years now, I have been a friend of this
beautiful buffalo. Many days I have sat with him and learned from his
knowledge. He has taught me well and has always treated me like a member
of his family.
After last week's violations of our First Amendment rights to document that
slaughter - this week, a friend and I decided to take a different
approach. Climbing above the field where Stubby grazed, we hid in the
trees on our national forest land and were positioned to document. As the
morning sun tried to warm us, a blizzard descended on its warmth. We
stood silent, motionless and cold. We were looking over our brother
Stubby with the video camera ready.
The first to arrive on the scene were two highway patrol officers and a
sheriff. They sat in their cars, engines running, eyeing the buffalo and
waiting for the buffalo killers to arrive. An hour later, the
"calvary" arrived: 4 snowmobiles, 3 ATV's and 3 horse's - all for the
mighty Stubby. They all sat around for another hour trying to figure out
where we were up on the hill. When you are ashamed of what you are doing - you
go to great lengths to hide your actions.
Our people on the ground informed us that they had spotted us and planned on
arresting us. At this point, I thought of Stubby and the many lessons he
had taught me in the past. Then, the "army" started to move
toward Stubby, except one snowmobile that was coming for us. We knew that
the ground support could cover documenting whatever happened to Stubby, so our
focus became escape.
Many times, in many years, I have watched Stubby outsmart the DOL. His
favorite trick on losing snowmobiles was running straight up the
mountain. I have often cured my sorrows by laughing at the snowmobiles
gettin' stuck trying to follow him up this same mountain. Like he had
taught me many times before, we ran up the mountain to safety. With the
extra buffalo magic surrounding us, the snowmobile in our pursuit not only got
stuck, but they blew their clutch. We got away and are forever indebted
to Stubby.
I know now that Stubby is about to be shot in the head and butchered and will
no longer grace my days out on patrol. He may be gone from this earth but
his presence will never leave. His knowledge is passed on to the
herd. But, anytime a buffalo is killed - it is removing great knowledge
from all of us. There are no cows here and there is no logic in
place. When an agency like the DOL is in charge, with no wildlife
education and such a strong conflict of interest, bad and unjust things will
always happen. When law officers violate our constitutional rights for
the benefit of injustice - can there be justice?
Know that these are America's last wild, free ranging buffalo and it is our
duty to speak in their behalf. Voice your outrage and get involved
because it is going to take all of us to make a change. Stubby and his
family must not die in vain. The head of the Director of the Montana
Department of Livestock is Marc Bridges - he can be reached at mailto:bridgesm@state.mt.us
I walk around our cabin and see all the tearful faces and I know that Stubby
will never be forgotten.
With the Buffalo,
The Funky Duck
Buffalo Field Campaign
(formerly Buffalo Nations)
PO Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070 phone
406-646-0071 fax
buffalo@wildrockies.org
www.wildrockies.org/buffalo
Intolerance
for Last Wild Buffalo Results in Two Deaths
12/06/01
Media
Contact: Mike Mease 406.646.0070; mailto:buffalo@wildrockies.org
Two beloved buffalo were sent to the slaughterhouse this morning after testing
positive for antibodies to brucellosis. According to the State of
Montana, the bison were tested with three field tests that all detect the
presence of antibodies, not an infection! APHIS, the agency in charge of
managing the Brucella abortis organism admits that the tests used are not 100%
effective, and that bulls pose little or no threat of transmitting the disease.
Six Montana Department of Livestock (MDOL) agents called on three Sheriffs, two
Highway Patrolmen, a Fish Wildlife and Parks agent and National Park Service
rangers to assist them in the capture/hazing operation. They used ATVs,
snowmobiles and horses for the round up. During the hazing, they jackknifed
their trucks, posed public safety threats and temporarily blocked access to a
housing division. Because of severe weather conditions - seven other
buffalo were saved from the same plight.
One of the Bison captured was less than a mile from the Park boundary. The
other was a bull on National Forest land whom the DOL refer to as Bob-short for
bobtail because he has the distinguishing mark of no tail. This bull was
captured and tested negative for brucellosis repeatedly in the past three
years. Head of MDOL operations, Rob Tierney, expressed awareness of this
fact but chose to capture him anyway. It is hard to believe that this
bull has "caught" the disease since the last time he was
tested. One cause listed by the Montana Department of Livestock for a
seroconversion is stress. This could be caused when the buffalo leave the
invisible Yellowstone Park boundaries on traditional migration routes in search
of food and are repeatedly chased by the Montana Department of Livestock.
These actions are definitely a stress on these animals that they do not need.
Brucellosis, a reproductive disease, is transmitted through afterbirth or an
aborted fetus. To contract brucellosis, a cow would have to eat infected
afterbirth or contaminated grass. Besides the fact that there are no
cattle present, the bison slaughtered today were bulls - unable to transmit the
disease.
The level of intolerance towards bison is rapidly beginning to mirror what it
was five years ago when 1,083 bison were killed in one winter. During
that killing season, tissue analysis revealed that a large percentage of
Yellowstone buffalo slaughtered actually did not have the disease and were
needlessly killed. That year, lab results from the Ames, Iowa Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service confirmed, through a battery of tissue tests, that
many of the slaughtered buffalo were actually "culture negative."
The new annual budget for bison "management" allotted to MDOL, alone,
is over one million in taxpayer dollars (source: http://www.liv.state.mt.us/BISON/FY2002BUDGET.HTM)
. "The operation today not only reflects flagrant intolerance for
the bison and disrespect for the entire ecosystem, but a tremendous waste of
resources," states BFC volunteer, Meghan Gill.
The Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) is the only grassroots group working in the
field, everyday, to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone's wild buffalo.
Volunteers defend the buffalo on their traditional winter habitat and advocate
for their protection. Our daily patrols stand with the buffalo on the ground
they choose to be on and document
every move made against them.
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~2~
"Free Kittuns"
Copyright Jim Willis 2001
tiergarten@onebox.com
http://jimwillis0.tripod.com/tiergarten/
The
sign on the mailbox post was hand-lettered on cardboard and read "FREE
KITTUNS." It appeared there two or three times a year, sometimes spelled
this way, sometimes that, but the message was always the same.
In a corner of the farmhouse back porch was a cardboard box with a dirty towel
inside, on which huddled a bouquet of kittens of different colors, mewing and
blinking and waiting for their mama to return from hunting in the fields. The
mother cat managed to show them enough interest for the first several weeks,
but after having two or three litters per year, she was worn out and her milk
barely lasted long enough for her babies to survive.
One by one, people showed up over the next several days and each took a kitten.
Before they left the woman who lived there always said the same thing,
"You make sure you give that one a good home - I've become very attached
to that one."
One by one the kittens and their new people drove down the long driveway and
past the sign on the mailbox post, "FREE KITTUNS."
The ginger girl kitten was the first to be picked. Her four-year-old owner
loved her very much, but the little girl accidentally injured the kitten's
shoulder by picking her up the wrong way. She couldn't be blamed really - no
adult had shown her the proper way to handle a kitten. She had named the kitten
"Ginger" and was very sad a few weeks later when her older brother
and his friends were playing in the living room and someone sat on the kitten.
The solid white boy kitten with blue eyes was the next to leave with a couple
who announced even before they went down the porch steps that his name would be
"Snowy." Unfortunately, he never learned his name and everyone had
paid so little attention to him that nobody realized he was deaf. On his first
excursion outside he was run over in the driveway by a mail truck.
The pretty gray and white girl kitten went to live on a nearby farm as a
"mouser." Her people called her "the cat," and like her
mother and grandmother before her she had many, many "free kittuns,"
but they sapped her energy. She became ill and died before her current litter
of kittens was weaned.
Another brother was a beautiful red tabby. His owner loved him so much that she
took him around to meet everyone in the family and her friends, and their cats,
and everyone agreed that "Erik" was a handsome boy. Except his
owner didn't bother to have him vaccinated. It took all the money in her bank
account to pay a veterinarian to treat him when he became sick, but the doctor
just shook his head one day and said "I'm sorry."
The solid black boy kitten grew up to be a fine example of a tomcat. The man
who adopted him moved shortly thereafter and left "Tommy" where he
was, roaming the neighborhood, defending his territory, and fathering many kittens
until a bully of a dog cornered him.
The black and white girl kitten got a wonderful home. She was named
"Pyewacket." She got the best of food, the best of care until she was
nearly five years old. Then her owner met a man who didn't like cats, but she
married him anyway. Pyewacket was taken to an animal shelter where there were
already a hundred cats. Then one day, there were none.
A pretty woman driving a van took the last two kittens, a gray boy and a brown
tiger-striped girl. She promised they would always stay together. She
sold them for fifteen dollars each to a laboratory. To this day, they are still
together...in a jar of alcohol.
For whatever reason - because Heaven is in a different time zone, or because
not even cat souls can be trusted to travel in a straight line without
meandering - all the young-again kittens arrived at Heaven's gate
simultaneously. They batted and licked each other in glee, romped for awhile,
and then solemnly marched through the gate, right past a sign lettered in gold:
"YOU ARE FINALLY FREE, KITTENS."
<><><><><>
Author's note: Please feel free to print out this story or request it as a Word
document (tiergarten@onebox.com). Whenever you see "free kittens"
advertised, place a copy in the mailbox or where it can be read, along with a
polite note asking the "culprit" to spay/neuter their pets and to
contact their local humane society for information on low-cost spay/neuter
programs and advice on how to properly place kittens in responsible
homes. For a complete guide to feline health and resources, see:
http://cats.about.com
"Free Kittuns" is one of the stories included in an upcoming book of
collected writings by Jim Willis; publication is scheduled for February 2002.
See the author's website for details: http://jimwillis0.tripod.com/tiergarten/
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~3~
Animals Teach Us Spirituality
by Mary Lou Randour
http://www.innerself.com/Miscellaneous/animals.htm
Animals
have been the spiritual companions of humans since the beginning of recorded
time. The earliest indication of the spiritual significance of the human-animal
relationship can be found in the 20,000-year-old cave wall paintings of
Cro-Magnon people. In many if not most cultures, animals have served a variety
of spiritual functions: They have been linked with supernatural forces, acted
as guardians and shamans, and appeared in images of an afterlife. They have
even been worshipped as agents of gods and goddesses. Many ancient
creation myths, for example, depict God with a dog. These stories do not
explain the existence of the dog; like God, the dog is assumed to have existed
from the beginning. In this assumption, these primordial people revealed their intense
attachment to their animal companions.
That animals touch us in a deep, central place is not a modern-day phenomenon,
but one that pervades the history of the human-animal relationship. We sense
that we can benefit spiritually in our relationship with animals, and we are
right. They offer us something fundamental: a direct and immediate sense of
both the joy and wonder of creation. We recognize that animals seem to feel
more intensely and purely than we do. Perhaps we yearn to express
ourselves with such abandon and integrity. Animals fully reveal to us
what we already glimpse: it is feeling -- and the organization of feeling
-- that forms the core of self. We also sennse that through our relationship to
animals we can recover that which is true within us and, through the discovery
of that truth, find our spiritual direction. Quite simply, animals teach us
about love: how to love, how to enjoy being loved, how loving itself is an
activity that generates more love, radiating out and encompassing an ever larger
circle of others. Animals propel us into an "economy of
abundance."
They teach us the language of the spirit. Through our contact with animals we
can learn to overcome the limits imposed by difference; we can reach beyond the
walls we have erected between the mundane and the sacred. They can even
help us stretch ourselves to discover new frontiers of consciousness. Animals
cannot "talk" to us, but they can communicate with us and commune
with us in a language that does not require words. They help us
understand that words might even stand in the way.
Lois Crisler did not use human words to achieve a spiritual connection with
animals. Instead, she used their language. Sitting in a tent with her
husband one twilight morning in Alaska, she heard a sound she had never heard
before -- the howl of a wolf. Thrilled, she stepped outside the tent and
impulsively howled in return, "pouring out my wilderness
loneliness." She was answered by a chorus of wolves' voices,
yodeling in a range of low, medium, and high notes. Other wolves joined in,
each at a different pitch. "The wild deep medley of chords," she
recalls, "...the absence of treble, made a strange, savage, heart-stirring
uproar." It was the "roar of nature," a roar that brings us back
to an essential place we have known but lost. It returns us to nature and to
creation, not intellectually but viscerally. We recollect in the cells of
our bodies, not in our heads. If we open to it, we can make out the image of
our animal kin by our side.
Fulfilling our longing for the wild, our primordial desire to hear "the
roar of nature" within ourselves, does not require that we camp out in
Alaska, or even encounter an animal in its natural habitat. Spiritual
contact with an animal can happen under quite ordinary circumstances.
I once took a yoga class while visiting my sister in Sarasota, Florida, in a
beautiful studio with floor-to-ceiling windows. As the class was engaged in
exercise, we noticed a dog standing outside the window, innocently looking in.
The dog seemed curious, and wagged his tail in a relaxed motion. Soon, he was
joined by another dog, who also watched us through the window. Occasionally one
or the other would bark -- not a loud bark, but a "here I am" kind of
bark. For the entire hour-and-a-half session they stood there, noses to the
glass, looking in with interest. They seemed calm, but intensely attentive, and
clearly interested in joining us. One could assign any number of explanations
to their absorbed interest. I think, as did others in the class, that
they picked up on some kind of "positive energy" generated by our
collective yoga practice.
I put quotes around "positive energy" because I don't have precise
language to describe what I think the dogs sensed. And that is the point.
They were able to perceive, and experience, something some of us are dimly
aware of and would like to understand, but cannot find words to describe.
Animals can teach us to live outside of words, to listen to other forms of
consciousness, to tune into other rhythms.
It was the rhythm of music that one musician, Jim Nollman, used to communicate
with whales. Along with several other musicians, he recorded hours of
human-orca music in an underwater studio every summer for twelve years.
Positioning their boat so that the whales would approach them, the group
transmitted their music through the water. Most of the time the orcas made the
same sounds, regardless of whether the music was played or not. But not all the
time. For a few minutes every year, a "sparkling communication
occurred. In one instance, the sound of an electric guitar note elicited
responses from several whales. In another, an orca joined with
the musicians, 'initiat[ing] a melody and rhythm over a blues progression,
emphasizing the chord changes."'
An uncanny meeting with a whale proved a decisive spiritual moment for another
person, a retired female teacher who I have enjoyed hiking with in northern
California. While hiking along the ocean, she decided to rest on a large, flat
rock jutting out over the depths. She lay there, relaxed, listening to the
sound of the water and the sensation of the breeze on her body when, she
reports, she felt a presence: "The hairs on the back of my neck went up; I
was compelled to sit up." Sitting up, she saw a whale, resting
perpendicular on her fluke. As her eyes met the whale's, time stopped. As
they gazed at each other, the woman entered an eternal stillness, feeling an
unmatched intensity. Difference dissolved; words were irrelevant. She felt a
deep sense of connection with all of life. No longer restricted by the
categories of "them" and "us," she felt herself flow into a
seamless web of existence in which all of life is one. In complete harmony with
the whale, this retired teacher felt that she inhabited a web of relations some
call "God." She had encountered God in, and through, the eyes of a
whale.
Cross-species communication may be so extraordinary because we cannot rely on
identifying with the creature the way we identify with human beings for connection.
Our human relationships are often based on relating to a being like ourselves:
We can identify and empathize with each other because we share similar
experiences. Of course, there is
nothing wrong with this. The ability to identify with others forms the basis
for personal relationships, social bonds, and social justice.
Animals, however, offer us a unique opportunity to transcend the boundaries of
our human perspectives, they allow us to stretch our consciousness toward
understanding what it is like to be different. This stretching enables us
to grow beyond our narrow viewpoint. It allows us, I believe, to gain a
spiritual advantage. How can we
possibly appreciate and move toward spiritual wholeness if we cannot see beyond
our own species? How can we come to know God, or grasp the
interconnectedness of all life, if we limit ourselves to knowing only our own
kind? The goal of compassion is not to care because someone is like us but to
care because they are themselves.
Any spiritual discipline, in any tradition, invites us to open our hearts and
minds. This invitation represents an ongoing exercise; the desire and attempt
to open to others in our midst are the essence of the spiritual process.
Animals can lead us spiritually in a variety of ways. They can teach us about
death, participate in our social and moral development, enhance our physical
and psychological well-being, and heighten our capacity to love and to
experience joy.
This article is excerpted from the book Animal Grace by Mary Lou Randour.
©1999. Reprinted with permission of the publisher New World Library,
Novato, CA 94949. www.nwlib.com 800-972-6657, Ext. 52
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~4~
Three Holiday Menus
Offering American, English, and Italian holiday
fare, this website has great vegetarian recipes with which to amaze your
guests:
Christmas Recipes!
http://www.vegsource.com/christmas.htm
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~5~
Hunter Shoots Escaped Reindeer
Mistaken For Whitetail Deer
By Dominick DiRienzo - mailto:ddirienzo@tribweb.com
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/news/s_7375.html
Saturday, December 8, 2001
Blitzen's
overnight flight of freedom ended tragically Friday. The reindeer that had
dashed away from a holiday display in Franklin Park was shot and killed by a
hunter who mistook it for a whitetail deer. Matt Hough, law enforcement
supervisor for the southwest regional office of the Pennsylvania Game
Commission, said Blitzen - named after one of the reindeer said to pull Santa's
sleigh - was shot in a thicket of brush about a half-mile from the garden
center. Hough would not identify the hunter, but said no charges are pending.
"This is pretty rare," he said. "But it does happen." Hough
said he had not seen the animal but that it weighed about 125 pounds and could
"easily be mistaken for a whitetail." Reindeer average 34 to 55
inches at the shoulder and have a brown coat similar to a whitetail deer.
Jennifer Smith, who co-owns Tee Pees Garden Center where Blitzen was displayed,
initially thought Blitzen had been recovered unhurt, but a game commission
official later broke the bad news. "We're all absolutely heartbroken.
We have grown so attached to these animals. We have had them for the last few
years and taken care of them," Smith said. "I don't want little kids
to get upset - hearing something like this." Two other reindeer, Donner
and Jingles, and a llama, Abraham, also were part of the display. Blitzen
escaped at 5:30 p.m. Thursday when a worker entered the pen to feed the
animals.
Donner also escaped, but several workers and some passers-by were able to
corral Donner. Smith said she did not know if Tee Pees would continue the
holiday display. "We are just nervous now that (the animals) know they can
get out. We don't want it to happen again." The regular deer-hunting
season ends today.
Dominick DiRienzo can be reached at ddirienzo@tribweb.com or (724) 779-7124.
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~6~
Compassion
By Donna Anderson - donna1994@delphi.com
The cry of a cow being slaughtered
The whimper of a hunted deer
A squeal of a pig being branded
And the torture a veal calf will feel
The fear in a lab animal's eyes
The boredom of animals in zoos
An animal in slavery for entertainment
The fright of animals on fur farms, too.
Though they do not speak our language
Or understand our ways
Animals do have rights in this world
They, too, know how to love, weep, and play.
We believe humans are intelligent
The smartest of all species
Then why is it we use our friends
And treat them as assembly line pieces?
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~7~
Memorable Quote
"The
existence of organized cruelty - that is, cruelty practiced as a matter of social
principle or public policy, and presented to the community as a means of a
higher goal - is the most obscene and decadent phenomenon of any
civilization."
~ Clare Booth Luce
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
P O Box 7053
Tampa, Fl 33673-7053
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/
-=Animal Rights Online=-
&
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not-for-profit publisher of The Animals' Agenda Magazine
http://www.animalsagenda.org/
The Animals' Agenda Magazine: WebEdition
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