Telling our Story: NAIA conference highlights human rights and animal welfare
By Norma Bennett Woolf
"Regardless of our backgrounds, we are all challenged by the rampant corruption
present in today's animal protection movement. Misinformation campaigns, eco-terrorism
and legislative assaults that undermine the democratic process are all symptoms
of that corruption. They arise from an animal protection movement that at its
worst encourages criminal acts and at its best is more proficient at fundraising
than at promoting the welfare of animals or sound public policy."
With these words, NAIA president Patti Strand opened the organization's ninth
animal welfare conference in Portland, Oregon, on March 4. Strand said that
NAIA is committed to reclaiming the animal protection movement for the people
who actually care about animals.
Conference speakers told of regulatory impact on animal enterprises; crimes
committed in the name of animal protection; emotional appeals based on misinformation;
and victories achieved in court, in the voting booth, and in the public arena.
They urged participants to tell the story of responsible animal use to the public,
and to work together to preserve human rights and animal welfare.
"Don't wait to be targeted by misinformation, harassment, or attempts to legislate
or regulate your animal interest," the message went; "tell everyone, including
the media, that your relationship with animals is wholesome and humane, that
YOU are the people for the ethical treatment of animals."
The law and animal protection Strand's welcoming remarks were followed by an
overview of the current state of the animal protection movement from conference
moderator Jerrold Tannenbaum JD, professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine,
University of California, Davis. Tannenbaum gave an overview of the movement
to grant "personhood" to animals through use of the courts. Comparing the current
state of the animal protection movement to Ayn Rand's oak tree that rotted from
within, he outlined the philosophy and contentions used by various groups to
achieve their goals:
- Animals and humans are of equal value.
- Animals should be persons, not property.
- Animals should have the right to sue.
Tannenbaum urged conferees to read Animal Liberation, Peter Singer's book that
jump-started the modern animal activist movement, and The Case for Animal Rights,
by Tom Regan because these books lay out the philosophy by which activists justify
their campaigns. They denigrate religion and consider that only individuals
(not species) are relevant, that moral value is not limited to humans, and that
chimpanzees should have the same rights we grant to human babies and terminally-ill
or mentally-ill adults.
The current drive to get "personhood" for animals is aimed at the great apes
gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees, Tannenbaum noted. The Great Ape Project
is being used as a wedge to crack open the system and gain legal standing for
animals, with the effort to change animals from property to persons taking place
in the court room, not the legislatures, because "most people don't want human-and-animal
equality and so must be forced to have it by courts that can override the will
of the public." With arguments equating the keeping of animals to the civil
rights and women's movements, activist attorneys are seeking standing to sue
on behalf of animals, and "Once they have standing, they'll sue and they'll
sue, so put your lawyers on retainer."
Tannenbaum urged conferees to understand how the law deals with animals; know
what changes animal rights advocates want to make; and publicize the basic philosophical
and ethical contentions underlying the philosophy in order to take back leadership
in animal issues.
Federal government regulation
Congressman Richard Pombo (R-California), a rancher who champions individual
rights and sustainable use of resources, was the luncheon speaker on Saturday.
Pombo talked about the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, a law that prohibits
importation of marine mammal products in violation of both international trade
agreements and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species,
and various federal laws that negatively impact private property rights. He
said that those who favor laws that restrict property rights and human contact
with animals are being heard in Congress and in international forums, resulting
in ever-tightening restrictions on reasonable, sustainable human use of natural
resources.
When he noted that the MMPA is up for reauthorization this year, Pombo set
the stage for a key outcome of the conference: an effort to promote amendment
of the MMPA to eliminate sanctions against native people who wish to trade with
the US.
Nowhere are the conflicts between unsound public policy and fundraising campaigns
on one side and human interrelationships with animals on the other more clearly
defined than in the story of indigenous peoples prohibited from participating
in international trade by the outdated US Marine Mammal Protection Act. A delegation
of Inuit to the conference told their tale.
"We looked at life as a miracle and we treated it with care," Teresie Tungilik
said. "Our wildlife provides us with all the nutrition our bodies need. We started
to hear that our way of life was wrong, but we didn't know how to live any other
way."
Tungilik lives in Rankin Inlet, a community on the western shore of Hudson's
Bay in Canada's Nunavut Territory. She and other Inuit told of the devastation
to their communities caused by provisions of the MMPA that outlaw US importation
of products from marine mammals, even species that are neither threatened nor
endangered. As a result, native people who depend on seal hunting for their
livelihoods are unable to sell sealskin clothing, crafts, or seal meat to US
consumers, and unemployment and suicide rates are high.
The Inuit experience with ill-conceived legislation and regulation is repeated
across many animal interests. Conference speaker Linda Collins Cork DVM, PhD,
chairman of the comparative medicine department at Stanford University and an
advocate of animal welfare standards for research animals, described the federal
laws and regulations that impact the maintenance and use of animals in biomedical
research.
Although research use of animals is already heavily regulated and monitored
and researchers refine their use and reduce the numbers of animals in their
protocols, she said, animal protectionists constantly seek new restrictions
through Congress and government agencies. The latest attempt is a drive to get
the US Department of Agriculture to regulate the use of rodents and birds under
the Animal Welfare Act. The campaign claims that these animals are not currently
covered under any animal welfare laws, but Cork said that rodents used in research
are protected by the US Public Health Service of the National Institutes of
Health and by federally-required Institutional Care and Use Committees that
examine research protocols and answer complaints about animal use. However,
transferring coverage to USDA will serve a political goal - to increase the
amount of paperwork necessary to use these animals and to thus place more pressure
on scientists.
On the agricultural front, cattleman John Hays noted that animal and environmental
protection groups use laws such as the Endangered Species Act, the Wild and
Scenic Rivers Act, and the Clean Water Act to pressure livestock ranchers and
farmers and that the government is placing more and more land under restrictions
in the name of clean water and endangered species conservation.
And in the wildlife conservation arena, Jim Beers, former career biologist
with the US FWS, and international conservation expert Eugene LaPointe gave
some insight into the use of national and international law to control interests
in wildlife. Beers told of the "radicalization" of federal agencies through
changes in federal hiring practices brought about by the elimination of the
Civil Service Commission, along with promotion and placement policies adopted
to implement affirmative action directives. Over time, these factors have allowed
agencies to become permeated employees who "are indifferent or hostile to sustainable
use of wildlife." For example, he said, two assistant directors in the USFWS
agency are from PeTA and a scientific manager is a former employee of the Humane
Society of the US, an organization opposed to sustainable use of wildlife.
Beers also noted that even though ownership of fish and game belongs to the
states, the federal government controls more and more land and species through
various laws and regulations and gives the public a false picture of animal
and environmental issues.
Americans must also be concerned about the impact of international treaties
on environment and animal issues, said LaPointe, the former secretary general
of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the international
treaty that covers trade in endangered species and thus impacts the lives of
people who depend on various species for their livelihoods.
CITES has 140 member countries and covers 40,000 species, LaPointe said. The
US Fish and Wildlife Service administers CITES rules in the US and (along with
the other convention member nations) can petition to add various species to
the list of threatened or endangered species. Such listing limits or prohibits
trade and can also interfere with management of animal populations that grow
beyond the carrying capacity of their environment.
Animal and environmental protection groups attend the biennial CITES conferences
as non-government organizations that lobby the delegates to vote for or against
various proposals. Many groups use such issues to raise money and generate letters
of support in the weeks and months leading up to the conference, and they wield
much power. The battle today is between these groups and the proponents of sustainable
use of resources, a plan that allows people to interact with animals and the
environment to the benefit of both.
Terrorism and infiltration
Edward Taub PhD was an early victim of infiltration by People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, a fledgling organization in 1981. Taub told of his devastating
encounter with activists who used the law and the media to shut down his work
to help stroke patients regain movement in their limbs. The soft-spoken Taub
was a target because his work involved monkeys; the attack on his lab has been
used as a blueprint for raids by PeTA on research facilities and other businesses
since.
Taub's laboratory was infiltrated by a student who offered to work for no pay
as an animal caretaker, a modus operandi that has been repeated over and over
by PeTA since that time. Staged photos, a prosecutor with connections to the
animal protection movement, and a media alerted to accusations of cruelty greeted
Taub when he returned from vacation. The scientist was ultimately exonerated
of all charges that he abused the animals, but he had been vilified so thoroughly
by PeTA that he now works only with people in his research. Ironically, he said,
"The web of regulations referred to by Dr. Cork for animals is more complex
than regulations for working with people."
Teresa Platt, executive director of the Fur Commission USA and an NAIA board
member, told the audience about mink releases on farms, about being burned in
effigy, and about finding her picture on a terrorist website for people who
target animal interests.
"Fur is a spectacular front-line arena," said Platt, adding that fur farmers
have instituted a "neighborhood watch" program to keep tabs on activists who
harass their operations and release animals.
Activists "don't just demonstrate, they wear masks," she said. "Do you know
how frightening it is to be confronted by people with masks?"
Noting that "We pay government agents to chase criminals that use non-profit
status to pursue terrorism," Platt repeated NAIA's call for Congressional hearings
into animal terrorism and for investigation into the non-profit status of groups
that support or indulge in criminal activities.
Linda Roberson, a member of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association and
the Elephant Managers Association, also had tales of masked demonstrators on
circus lots and firebombing of two circus trucks. She said that one masked marauder
confronted a circus boss and asked if his life insurance was paid up.
Impact of ignorance on animal issues
Several speakers told of the distortions and emotional appeals that help corrupt
groups raise money and chip away at public perception of animal use. Master
of foxhounds Dennis Foster talked about the attempts to ban foxhunting in Great
Britain, an attempt that pits countryside residents against city-dwellers and
ignites complaints about "rich people in red coats riding horses."
The foxes of nature shows and paintings are not the foxes of England, Foster
said; the former are beautiful and evoke concern for nature, and the latter
are often killers, raiding hen houses and decimating bird populations. Animal
rights groups have had great success in capitalizing on class envy against those
red-coated horsemen in attempts to push Parliament into banning hunting with
hounds. So far, they have been thwarted by a strong Countryside Alliance, but
Prime Minister Tony Blair is on the side of the activists, perhaps, Foster said,
because Blair depends on the International Fund for Animal Welfare for financial
support.
Foster suggested that animal interests need a "master plan" to educate the
public and to appeal to emotions so that people will see through the campaigns
designed to end all use of animals. "Emotion will win over facts at any time,"
he said.
Successes and plans
Animal welfare advocates are beginning to experience success in the courts
and voting booths
Ranchers have had some victories i.e., the Ninth Circuit Court ruled against
the plaintiffs in an environmental lawsuit that claimed cattle were a point
source of pollution in Oregon streams - but the attacks keep coming. As a result
of several anti-ranching actions by Oregon's governor, John Hays, president
of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association and a director of the National Cattlemen's
Beef Association, reported that the Oregon Cattlemen's Association has started
a recall petition to get him out of office.
Steve Boynton, a conservation attorney, told about successful efforts to block
anti-hunting and anti-trapping bills in the last national election and the use
of courts to overturn regulations established through campaigns against animal
interests.
Teresa Platt reported that residents of Beverly Hills, California, overwhelmingly
defeated an attempt to place labels in fur garments that described possible
methods of killing animals.
Lawyers Thomas Pitaro and Harold Gewerter described the court case they won
on behalf of entertainer Bobby Berosini, who sued PeTA for defamation when members
of the organization accused him of abusing his orangutans. Berosini was never
charged with cruelty because inspectors found no evidence that the animals had
been abused in any way. Berosini sued and won a unanimous jury verdict at the
trial court level in August, 1990. (Subsequent to Pitaro and Gewerter's involvement,
the case was appealed by PeTA and still remains embattled in the court system
nearly 10 years later.)
Oregon lawmakers Representative Lane Shetterly and Bob Jenson and the state
attorney general Hardy Meyers talked about a new bill in the state legislature
that will increase penalties for eco-terrorism by charging defendants with violations
of racketeering law.
We are the "people for the ethical treatment of animals"
At lunch on Sunday, Joe Bieltizki DVM, chief veterinarian for the National
Aeronautics and Space Agency and an NAIA board member, reminded conference participants
that those who work for humane treatment of animals are the ones who deserve
the description "people for the ethical treatment of animals."
Bielitzki reviewed the history of the animal protection movement through philosophical
references and quotes from various sources, and concluded that humane treatment
of animals is the responsibility of ethical humans and that such treatment does
not preclude the use of animals for ultimate animal and human benefit.
The conference ended with a recognition of human rights: the immediate need
to help the Inuit and other indigenous peoples to improve their economy and
retain their cultural traditions through resumption of trade in seal products
with the US. The opportunity to do so is at hand; the MMPA is due for Congressional
reauthorization this year. Conference participants overwhelmingly supported
a resolution asking Congress to help native people become self-sufficient by
bringing the act into compliance with various national laws and international
treaties that have been signed since the MMPA was enacted in 1972, including
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the US Endangered
Species Act, and the World Trade Association Uruguay agreements.
In addition to the resolution for amendments to the MMPA, participants agreed
that the IRS tax benefits granted to groups that use or support terrorism should
be examined, so the NAIA ad hoc committee reviewing the charitable tax exempt
status of certain animal extremist groups will continue its work.
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