A n i m
a l W r i t e s © sm
The
official ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Established 1997
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Issue # 07/04/04
Publisher ~ Susan
Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Journalists ~ Greg Lawson -
ParkStRanger@aol.com
~ Michelle Rivera - MichelleRivera1@aol.com
Webmasters ~ Randy Atlas - ranatlas@earthlink.net
~ Trevor Chin - tmchin@yahoo.com
Staff
~ Alfred Griffith - agriffith@igc.org
~ Denise Higgins - Demnymets@aol.com
~ Andy Glick - andy@meatfreezone.org
~ Sheridan Porter - Pad4Paws21@aol.com
~ Bill Bobo -
RunRun@aol.com
~ Katie Vann - Vann167@aol.com
THE ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1 ~ The Chimpanzee Collaboratory
2 ~ Eternal Treblinka
3 ~ Ruby
4 ~ Four Feet In Heaven
5 ~ Memorable Quote
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~1~
The Chimpanzee Collaboratory
http://www.chimpcollaboratory.org/news/testimony.asp
by Sarah Baeckler
From a speech delivered October 14, 2003 in Los
Angeles, California at a briefing co-hosted by the Chimpanzee Collaboratory and
the Environmental Media Association
My name is Sarah Baeckler, and for a little more than a year – from June 2002
to July 2003 – I worked as a volunteer at Amazing Animal Actors, a chimpanzee
training compound that supplies performers for film and television productions,
possibly including some of yours. There are about five major chimpanzee
training facilities supplying the industry, and Amazing Animal Actors is one of
them. The director of Amazing Animal Actors has been in this business for
over 30 years. Over the course of my 14 months working there, I spent
approximately 1000 hours at the training compound. The events I witnessed
horrified me. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I saw sickening
acts of emotional, psychological, and physical abuse every single day on the
job.
Before I tell you exactly what I saw, I want to share a little of my background
so you can understand the experience I brought to this assignment. I hold
undergraduate degrees in Primate Behavior and Anthropology and a Master’s
degree in Primatology. Chimpanzees are my specialty. Prior to my work at the
Amazing Animals compound, I spent five years working with captive chimpanzees
in zoo and sanctuary settings. My graduate research focused on studying
the interactions between chimpanzees and their caregivers. In short, I have a
very solid scientific understanding of both chimpanzee behavior and the nature
of chimpanzee - human relationships. When something is wrong with a chimpanzee,
I can see it, even while casual observers may note nothing unusual. And from
the first moment I set foot inside the Amazing Animal Actors compound, I knew a
lot of things had gone wrong.
The compound is located in north Malibu and hosts an assortment of exotic
animals including 5 chimpanzees, a Harris hawk, a Bengal tiger, and a
lion. The larger ranch on which the compound sits is also home to horses,
goats, alpacas, long horn steer, and a buffalo, and I worked with all of
these animals during my time there. Inside the compound, the chimpanzees are
housed in two groups, each group living in a fenced-in cage roughly 10 feet
square and 8 feet tall. One group consists of the three younger
chimpanzees, Cody, Sable, and Teá, all of whom are three years old. The other
group consists of the two older chimpanzees: Angel, a six-year-old female, and
Apollo, a four-year-old male. The trainers physically abuse the
chimpanzees for various reasons, but often for no reason at all. If the
chimpanzees try to run away from a trainer, they are beaten. If they bite
someone, they are beaten. If they don’t pay attention, they are beaten.
Sometimes they are beaten without any provocation or for things that are
completely out of their control.
I never abused any of the chimpanzees myself, but I was specifically instructed
to hit or kick them at the first sign of any aggression or misbehavior.
Since I wanted to learn how severe the abuse could get, I asked for advice on
how hard the chimpanzees should be hit or kicked, and I got answers like these
– and what you’re about to hear are verbatim quotes. One trainer told me,
quote, “Hard enough that they know you mean business but not so hard that you
do permanent damage.” Another said, “Aim for her head because it’s really
sturdy.” And I heard the director of the compound say, “Kick her in the face as
hard as you can. You can’t hurt her.” When I expressed nervousness one
day about being bitten, a trainer handed me a hammer and said, “If you need to
hit her, use this,” and he pointed to the handle end of the hammer.
As you just heard from Dr. Goodall, normal, healthy, young chimpanzees are playful,
curious, energetic, and mischievous, but these traits don’t serve them well
when training begins, so one of the things that chimpanzees in the
entertainment industry have to endure is an initial ‘breaking of the spirit.’
In other words, they have to learn how NOT to act like normal chimpanzees. On
my first visit to Amazing Animal Actors, I met Teá, one of the three younger
chimpanzees and a fiery independent spirit. She was the most recent arrival and
hadn’t fully adjusted to her new surroundings. At only two years old, an age
when she would still be riding on her mother’s back in the wild, she refused to
allow anyone to pick her up or hold her. She played fairly roughly with me but
stopped short of hurting me. If I put my hands anywhere near her armpits or
waist, however, she would run away, clearly thinking that I was going to try to
pick her up.
For most of my second day at the compound, Teá wasn’t there. One of the
trainers said that he and the others had recently had a day-long “battle” with
her, and that they were now able to pick her up. Part of this battle involved
Teá “hitting her head,” he said, which resulted in a big gash that required
stitches. So I presumed that Teá was missing because she was receiving care for
her injuries.
When I saw Teá again shortly after this, I was shocked. I felt like I was
looking at a completely different chimpanzee. A large swatch of the hair around
her left eyebrow had been shaved off and a cut from the so-called “battle” was
visible. I believe she had been beaten, and there was no spark at all in
her eyes – no evidence of her previous high spirits. Seeing her reminded me of
Jessica Lange’s character in “Frances” or Jack Nicholson’s in “One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest”. That’s how different Teá was.
Her eyes darted around checking out everything that was going on, but from my
training I was able to recognize this activity not as healthy curiosity, but
fear. When the head trainer returned from lunch, Teá instantly became rigid and
alert and started howling at him – “threat barking” is the technical term, but
I think you get the picture. Today, over a year later, Teá is still reserved
and untrusting.
Sable is another of the younger chimpanzees. She is very inquisitive and is
always watching what you are doing, taking it all in. I was warned that she
would not hesitate to bite me if she thought she could get away with it, and
that I should feel free to “clock” her if she did. I played with Sable fairly
easily inside the cage and didn’t have any major problems with her, but when I
took her out to change her diaper, I had very little control over her. One day
in August 2002, a female trainer who was watching me said, “Don’t be afraid to
just hit her.” I hesitated, so the trainer demonstrated for me: she made
a fist and punched Sable in the head with her right hand, just above her left
eye. Sable screamed and jumped tighter into my arms, no longer squirming. The
trainer had to wave her hand like this to shake off the pain – she had hit
Sable that hard.
Because Sable has such a curious nature, she continued to test her limits, and
she continued to suffer for it. Over several months between September 2002 and
June 2003, I witnessed trainers punching her in the back, kicking her in the
head, and throwing objects at her including a rock, a mallet, and a sawed-off
broom handle.
Cody, the third of the young chimpanzees, is much more timid than his two cage
mates. While Teá was determined not to let anyone hold her or pick her
up, Cody is the opposite. He is very clingy and is always seeking out
someone to pick him up. If he is put down inside his enclosure and he thinks
you are going to leave, he becomes extremely upset, screaming loudly and
nervously seeking reassurance from both his cage mates and any humans in the
vicinity. Scientifically speaking, he is an anxious, fearful individual, and
his insecurity probably stems from the trauma he has experienced so far in his
three years of life. On several occasions, I saw Cody abused for no
reason at all.
In September 2002, I saw a volunteer ask the compound director how to get Cody
to stand up, and the director grabbed Cody’s ear and forced him to stand by
pulling his ear sharply until Cody screamed in pain. A month later, when
another volunteer was trying to change Cody’s diaper, she asked the director
how to get Cody to lie down. This time the director grabbed Cody by his lower
lip, pulled him forward, and then pushed him down until he was lying on his
back. Again, Cody screamed and whimpered in response. I saw volunteers
and trainers hit Cody on the head with a lock, take a full windup and punch him
in the back, kick him in the head, and hit him with a blunt instrument known as
“the ugly stick.” None of this is necessary.
The two older chimpanzees, Apollo and Angel, are four and six years old,
respectively. Because they are older, bigger, and stronger than the others, the
trainers react much more strenuously to any behavior they consider aggressive
or out-of-line, which means, in plain English, that Apollo and Angel receive
the worst beatings of all the chimpanzees within the compound.
From the interactions that I had with Apollo, I can tell you that he is
definitely a mischievous fellow. When he greets his human friends he
likes to pull their shirts up and explore what’s underneath. He tries to
get people’s attention by throwing pieces of food at them through the bars of
his cage. He loves to be tickled and chased. All this is entirely
normal for a young male chimpanzee. He does seem to test his limits with
the people around him, but he was never anything other than playful and
friendly with me. Nevertheless, I watched him suffer brutal beatings at the
hands of the other trainers. On one occasion, I watched as the compound
director started punching Apollo repeatedly with all his strength, throwing his
whole body into each punch.
On another day, a trainer punched Apollo in the face and then pinned him
against the fence with his knee. What was Apollo’s offense, you may be
wondering? Apparently, he had reached out to try and touch Angel, his
cage-mate, as she passed by. In the wild, this kind of touching would simply be
a greeting, but I guess the trainer chose that moment to assert his dominance
and remind Apollo to whom he should be paying complete attention.
And on a third occasion, the director hit Apollo three times with a broom
handle, first winding up and hitting him with something akin to a baseball
swing, and then whacking Apollo twice at close range and really hard.
Finally, once, when I was unpacking a bag that had gone with Apollo on a
television commercial shoot, I found an electric cattle prod inside.
By now you are probably wondering how this type of abuse can go on. Isn’t
it illegal? Unfortunately, while there are laws strict enough to prohibit
this type of abuse in California, they are hard to enforce. California’s state
penal code prohibits “cruelly beating” an animal, but law enforcement agencies
are usually reluctant to pursue these charges. Also, most of this abuse goes on
behind closed doors where no witnesses can see it, making it even harder to
prosecute. The reality is that very few offenders are ever prosecuted,
and even fewer actually serve time for their crimes.
You may also be wondering if what I observed at Amazing Animal Actors is simply
an exception – that the problem there is really just a few “bad apple”
trainers, while their counterparts at other training facilities are working in
a much more humane fashion. I don’t think so. While I have not worked at
other facilities, I did visit another and heard about several more. At
the facility I visited, I saw the same kinds of signs that were evident at
Amazing Animal Actors. The older chimpanzees watched the trainers very
carefully as they went by, signaling that they knew to keep their attention on
them. I heard threat barks oriented toward the trainers. The younger
chimpanzees were timid and hesitant with their trainers and appeared
traumatized and fearful of what was going to happen next. I even saw one of the
trainers start to hit one of the young chimpanzees and then stop because she
realized that a number of people were watching.
Finally, a confidential source described her experiences at another chimpanzee
training facility in California. She said that the trainers there commonly
“thumped” the chimpanzees to keep them in line, and also “flicked” them in the
ears or face. Interestingly, at Moorpark College, where I took courses in
Exotic Animal Training and Management, a professor once told me that they would
never consider having chimpanzees in the college’s zoo because they were, and I
quote, “not willing to inflict the kind and amount of punishment required to
train them.” This professor, who had worked for yet another chimpanzee
trainer in the industry, said that “people beat them with baseball bats to
control them.” He also said “some trainers will whack a chimp if it doesn’t do
a small behavior, like a smile, because later the chimp might think it can get
away with more.” In short, abuse and physical violence are seemingly
commonplace in this industry, and it’s not even a secret. In fact, it’s taught
in a training school that is currently producing many future animal trainers
and zoo workers.
And as you’ll read in the reports you’ve just received, it is naïve to assume
that chimpanzees can be compelled to perform complex tricks with simple
positive reinforcement such as a jellybean or other treat. As a primatologist,
I agree. The tricks are just too complex, and the rewards are just too
small to hold their interest. The plain truth is this: the only thing that will
make them stop behaving like curious, rambunctious chimpanzees and, instead,
routinely perform mundane tasks over and over again on cue is abject fear of
physical pain.
Three months ago, I left Amazing Animal Actors. As I drove away after my last
day there, I was relieved that I would not have to witness such horrendous
abuse anymore, but at the same time I had a sickening feeling, knowing that
these chimpanzees I had spent over a year getting to know would still be there
tomorrow, and for a long time to come, enduring the kind of abuse I saw there
every day. I can only hope that some day in the not too distant future, perhaps
with the help of this campaign, these individuals up here, and your help as
well, the chimpanzees at Amazing Animal Actors and all the others like them in
the industry can retire to good, safe, loving sanctuaries. If the market
for chimpanzees in entertainment no longer exists, these chimpanzees will have
a chance at living out the rest of their lives in peace. And those yet to be
born will never know the pain and suffering endured by those who came before
them.
Thank you. I hope you’ll choose to help us.
<><><><><>
For information on what you can do to help, go to:
www.chimpcollaboratory.org/you/index.asp
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~2~
Eternal Treblinka
American
Animal Protection Book
Attracting International Attention
ETERNAL TREBLINKA: Our
Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust
by Charles Patterson, Ph.D.
Lantern Books, New York, 2002
ISBN: 1-930051-99-9
http://www.EternalTreblinka.com
FOREIGN TRANSLATIONS--
Italy:
Un'eterna Treblinka
Editori Riuniti, Rome, 2003
Poland:
Wieczna Treblinka
"Vega!POL" Publishing House, Opole, Poland, 2003
Czech Republic
Vecna Treblinka
Publishing House Prah, Prague, Czech Republic, 2003
Germany:
Für die Tiere ist jeden Tag Treblinka
Zweitausendeins Versand Dienst GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, August 2004
Croatia:
Vjecna Treblinka
Genesis, Zagreb
Publication scheduled for early 2005
India:
Hindi edition of Eternal Treblinka
Prabhat Prakashan, New Delhi
Publication scheduled for early 2005
Publishers in Israel, Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Greece,
Romania, and Russia are reviewing the book for possible publication.
REVIEW EXCERPTS
Major Israeli newspapers:
* "A thorough and thought-provoking book"--Ha'aretz
* "The moral challenge posed by Eternal Treblinka turns it into a must for
anyone who seeks to delve into the universal lesson of the Holocaust."--Maariv
The Freethinker (United Kingdom):
* "Eternal Treblinka disturbs us because (inevitably though tactfully) it
holds up to us, its readers, a clear mirror to look at ourselves anew...It
grips like a thriller."
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING--
"I urge you to read Eternal Treblinka and think deeply about its important
message." --Dr. Jane Goodall
"Compelling, controversial, iconoclastic...strongly recommended ...a
unique contribution." --Midwest Book Review
"There are good books...entertaining, useful, informative; great
books...whose message reveals a fundamental truth previously unknown or
overlooked; and important books... that can save lives and ameliorate
suffering: Eternal Treblinka is all three." --Satya Magazine, New York
City
"Important and timely...written with great sensitivity and compassion...I
hope that Eternal Treblinka will be widely read." --Martyrdom and
Resistance (Holocaust publication)
"Every so often a book is written that has the potential to make an
incredible difference. Eternal Treblinka is one such book." --N. Glenn
Perrett
"Hard to read--but a must read!--how mistreatment of animals leads to the
dehumanization and extermination of people as 'mere animals.' Well-written and
respectful of both Judaism and the Holocaust."
--Rabbi Yonassan Gershom
"It is seldom that such a comprehensive work of scholarship springs from a
heart of compassion in the service of a noble and necessary idea. All the
ingredients of your thesis--that the oppression of animals serves as the model
for all other forms of oppression--have been available to thinking people for
generations, but it remained for you to pull them together." --Helen
Weaver, author of The Daisy Sutra
"Eternal Treblinka should be on every list of essential reading for an
informed citizenry...for the compelling comprehensiveness of the life-and-death
story it tells."
--National Jewish Post & Opinion
>
"...promises to be one of the most influential books of the 21st
century." --Dr. Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns
"Powerful, moving, gut-wrenching, brilliant--destined to be a
classic" --Aviva Cantor, journalist and author
"This book is going to change the world." --Albert Kaplan, Albert
Kaplan & Co., Johns Island, SC
<><><><><>
To request a review copy for a print publication, contact the author at
eternaltr@earthlink.net
Interviews with the author can be found at
http://www.powerfulbook.com/interview.html,
http://www.geradts.com/~anil/br/vol_002_no_001/reviews/f_books/interview.html
, and http://www.booksandauthors.net/Interviews/CPatterson.html
The story behind the book can be found at
http://www.independentpublisher.com/index.lasso?-database=18news.fp3&-lay
out=iparticle&-response=art.lasso&-recordID=38927&-search
Dr. Patterson is also the author of The Oxford 50th Anniversary Book of the
United Nations; The Civil Rights Movement; Anti-Semitism: The Road to the
Holocaust and Beyond; Marian Anderson (winner of the Carter G. Woodson Book
Award); and From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall (co-author with Mr. Marian Filar).
*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`³¤³´`*:»³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`´`*:»«:*³¤³´`³¤³´`
~3~
Ruby
RUBY THE ELEPHANT COULD HAVE
WORSE PROBLEMS THAN BEING ALONE
Elephant Trainer with Tarnished Past Brought to Knoxville Zoo to
"Assist"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
CONTACT: Jane Garrison 843-343-8887
Knoxville, TN the elephant (who was torn from her companion of 16 years at the
Los Angeles Zoo and sent to the Knoxville Zoo where she has been isolated from
the other elephants), a trainer with a history of using corporal punishment has
been brought to the zoo to "assist" with the long overdue integration
process.
The elephant trainer, Alan Roocroft, became known to the public and the animal
protection community more than 10 years ago when he used harsh
"discipline" on an African elephant named Dunda at the San Diego Wild
Animal Park. Keepers conceded they "chained Dunda by all 4 legs, pulled
her to the ground and struck her head with ax handles." This beating went
on for an extended period of time. Roocroft appears to support such abusive
behavior toward elephants as cited in his book Managing Elephants. Roocroft
states, "When corporal punishment is administered to an elephant, it has
to be fairly forceful 'one might need to strike the elephant' a solid blow with
a fairly heavy implement. The handling of problem elephants requires a
well-drilled team - a crew of at least eight, preferably ten, in order to
insure sufficient 'muscle'."
Jane Garrison, a well respected Elephant Specialist states, "I fear now
more than ever for Ruby¹s physical and emotional well-being and urge the zoo to
sever all ties with Alan Roocroft immediately. Ruby is not the problem - she is
the victim of a bad decision by the Los Angeles Zoo. It is time that the
Knoxville and Los Angeles Zoos admit that transferring Ruby was a mistake and
allow Ruby to retire to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee where she can roam
thousands of acres with other retired elephants."
Background: Ruby the elephant was transferred to the Knoxville Zoo from the Los
Angeles Zoo May 2003 despite protests from the public that it was cruel to
separate Ruby from her long time companion Gita. A taxpayer lawsuit followed
and is still pending.
For more info about the lawsuit and Ruby, visit Save Ruby,
http://www.SaveRuby.org.
For more info about The Elephant Sanctuary, visit http://www.Elephants.com
<><><><><>
There is no justification for employing someone like Alan Roocroft.
Please write to the contacts below and tell them it is obviously time for the
L.A. and Knoxville zoos to finally admit that Ruby's integration has failed.
They must not try to beat her into compliance. At this point, for the sake of
Ruby's physical and mental well-being, she must be moved out of the Knoxville
Zoo. After 40 years of public service, Ruby deserves to be retired to The
Elephant Sanctuary, about a four-hour drive from the Knoxville Zoo.
For more information on Ruby, please visit http://www.saveruby.org
PLEASE WRITE TO:
Jim Vlna, Director
Knoxville Zoo
3500 Knoxville Zoo Drive
Knoxville, Tennessee 37914
Phone: (865) 637-5331
Fax: (865) 637-1943
Email: Jvlna@knoxville-zoo.org
Knoxville News - Letters to the Editor
letters@knews.com
John Lewis, Director
Los Angeles Zoo
5333 Zoo Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90027-1498
Phone: (323) 644-4200
Fax: (323) 662-9786
Email: jlewis@zoo.lacity.org
Mayor James Hahn
200 North Spring Street, Room 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone: (213) 978-0600
Fax: (213) 978-0656
E-mail: mayorhahn@mayor.lacity.org or jhahn@mayor.lacity.org
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~4~
Four Feet In Heaven
by Alice E. Chase
Your favorite chair is vacant now...
No eager purrs to greet me
No softly padded paws to run
ecstatically to meet me
No coaxing rubs, no plaintive cry
Will say it's time for feeding
I've put away your bowl,
And all the things you won't be needing.
But I will miss you little friend,
For I could never measure
the happiness you brought me,
the comfort and the pleasure.
And since God put you here to share
in earthly joy and sorrow
I'm sure there'll be a place for you
in Heaven's bright tomorrow...
*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`³¤³´`*:»³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`´`*:»«:*³¤³´`³¤³´`
~5~
Memorable Quote
"If you can't conceive of beating an animal,
you shouldn't conceive of eating an animal."
~ Natalie Merchant
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/
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«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
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