The Animal Manifesto (23 page)

First, what I was being paid to teach wasn’t the issue; the lynx were the issue. And understanding the lynx was essential to evaluating whether their translocation made practical and ethical sense. Is it right to move animals if the only result will be they die of starvation in one place rather than by human hands in another? Many people, including policy makers, make decisions about animal use and animal well-being based on their behavior, based on what we know of their capacities to experience pain and suffering. In fact, there are tight links between animal behavior and animal protection (or rights).

What began as an inquiry as to why the Colorado Division of Wildlife was conducting this project went full circle to a personal attack. But in the end activism paid off, at least partially: in response to our efforts, changes were made in the ways in which lynx were transported and released that reduced the mortality rate. We couldn’t stop the project, but we made it better for the lynx.

As I mention above, we need to respect cultural differences as we work for animal rights; this is an integral part of expanding our compassion footprint. I’d surely like to see the entire world become vegan and drive less and pedal their bicycles more, but

I’m enough of a realist to know that this will not happen, even among people who would like to do so if they were able. We must resist judging others, and remember that improving the lives of animals frequently goes hand in hand with improving the lives of people.

A friend of mine told me that when she first went to South Africa she was incredibly naive about what life was like for many people there. She gave a well-received paper on ecofeminism and food, and she admonished people for eating animals. After her talk a mild-mannered woman approached her and said she really liked what she said, but that she needed to be more sensitive to cultural variations and poverty. The South African woman said she would love to be more of a vegetarian, but she simply didn’t have access to the food she needed to keep healthy; her ability to help animals was hampered by her circumstances. In 2009, I read a very disturbing story about how soldiers in Zimbabwe are being fed elephant meat for their rations. This is terrible for the elephants, but it does no good to blame the soldiers, who are unable to even withdraw their salaries from banks as the country’s economy collapses. We who are privileged need to work with fine-tuned humility with people of all sectors of society. Sometimes, we need to help other people before those people can help the animals with whom we share the Earth. Compassion begets compassion.

Sometimes poverty is a barrier. Sometimes it is cultural attitudes about animals. Only some people are intentionally cruel; many times, people just do not know or believe that when they harm animals they are slaughtering sentience. Even their understandings about what sentience is can be different. We need to educate people and raise consciousness, but be respectful of their point of view and circumstances. Some might
ask who am I to make proclamations from the mountains of Colorado about how the people in other lands should treat the animals with whom they compete for space and resources. Indeed, in poorer countries, sometimes people do compete for resources, such as land, with wild animals; if animals are given preference, human welfare suffers. I’m very sensitive to these concerns and the fact that, as an American, I enjoy a very privileged lifestyle. I don’t compete directly with the animals who share the land around my home. When people have their own essential needs met, it is far easier for them to extend kindness to others, whether human or animal. We must work to understand why people do what they do, and not fall into the trap of simply telling people what to do. To expand our compassion footprint on behalf of animals, we must respect the cultural pluralism of the diverse world in which we live.

Here is another excellent story that appeared in
Time
magazine that illustrates how, by helping people, we can help wildlife:

If you want to protect wildlife in developing countries, the conventional wisdom has long been that you put the animals in a well-run reserve and safeguard it like it were a prison, keeping the wildlife separate from the people who actually live there. The locals, in this case, are the threat because they’re the ones who poach endangered wildlife, whether for the ivory or skin trade, or just for meat. But, so far, this conventional wisdom hasn’t led to much progress. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s annual report, nearly 40% of surveyed species are currently threatened, and their numbers are growing.

Dale Lewis has a different theory of conservation: Instead of helping the animals that are being hunted, help the people who are doing the hunting. In the West African country of Zambia, where he has lived and worked for nearly 30 years, Lewis has helped launch an innovative new program that seeks to save wildlife by improving the livelihoods of local people, giving them an economic incentive to give up poaching. The program is called Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), and it may help change the way wildlife is protected. “I realized I could have told you all the vital statistics of an elephant, but not the vital statistics of the people who lived with an elephant,” says Lewis, whose work is sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Once you really begin to know what they’re up against, you can really begin to understand[their behavior].”And once you understand that behavior, Lewis continues, you can change it.

In
Born to Be Good,
psychologist Dacher Keltner notes that Charles Darwin believed that sympathy was our strongest passion and that our positive emotions such as joy, compassion, sympathy, and gratitude “were the basis for our moral instinct and capacity for good.” Darwin also believed that communities of sympathetic individuals were more successful in raising offspring. I found this to be true in studies I conducted with my students, in which we discovered that, among wild coyotes at least, there is a premium to playing fairly: individual coyotes who didn’t were more likely to leave their group of their own
accord because they were avoided or their invitations to play were ignored, and thus they suffered higher mortality rates than those who played fairly and remained with their group.

Recall that Keltner uses the Confucian concept of jen, which refers to “kindness, humanity, and reverence” to discuss our “good nature” and offers the concept of
the jen
ratio to “look at the relative balance of good and uplifting versus bad and cynical in life.” I liken the
jen
ratio to the way we can consider the balance between our own compassion and cruelty. If we try to bring forth our innate compassion with every being we meet, whether they are human, animal, or plant, we will always be making progress and expanding our compassion footprint.

Author and filmmaker Michael Tobias often wonders how my Jain attitude toward animals can play out in the real world. As an eternal optimist, I don’t worry about it all that much, for there are so many good people around the world working hard to make the lives of animals better, to restore respect, appreciation, and dignity to beings who we have abused for far too long. Everybody works in their own ways, within the confines of their own circumstances, but we can all accumulate compassion credits; compassion comes naturally if we let it. We can all wear smaller shoes and share Earth with all other beings. Socially responsible science, compassion, heart, and love can be blended into a productive recipe to learn more about the lives of other animals and the world where each one of us lives. Thomas Berry stresses we should strive for a “benign presence” in nature. Native Americans are proud to claim that “animals are all our relations.” Animals and inanimate landscapes also speak for themselves, and it is up to us to listen to their messages very carefully. Trees and rocks need respect and love, too.

Every individual can make positive changes for all living beings by weaving compassion, empathy, respect, dignity, peace, and love into their lives. For instance, did you know that animal compassion has a gender gap? In a review of attitudes toward animals written for the
Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare,
Jennifer Jackman notes that the renowned Yale University researcher and social ecologist Stephen Kellert and his colleague Joyce Berry concluded that gender is “among the most important demographic factors in determining attitudes about animals in our society.” Jackman goes on to note that women are more likely than men to support animal welfare positions and to express concerns about the moral treatment of animals, and women are less likely to support animal use. While women and men share similar levels of concern about conservation, women are more supportive of strengthening the Endangered Species Act. Women also are more likely to oppose lethal wildlife management.

First and foremost, being more compassionate with animals is about our everyday choices: it’s about what we eat and wear, how we educate students and conduct research, how we entertain ourselves. Political activism is also important, but if we only focused on changing our own lives, we would still influence the world.

For instance, as we discussed in chapter 4, factory-farmed meat is a significant factor in global warming. Factory farming is a global industry that’s intricately tied into many national economies. How can individuals influence that? Simply by changing what we choose to put into our mouth. As Mike Tidwell points out in his essay “The Low-Carbon Diet,” although he loves to eat meat, he’s now a dedicated vegetarian because “I have an 11-year-old son whose future — like yours
and mine — is rapidly unraveling due to global warming. And what we put on our plates can directly accelerate or decelerate the heating trend.” Furthermore, Tidwell notes, “Simply put, raising beef, pigs, sheep, chicken, and eggs is very, very energy intensive. More than half of all the grains grown in America actually go to feed animals, not people, says the World Resources Institute. That means a huge fraction of the petroleum-based herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers applied to grains, plus staggering percentages of all agricultural land and water use, are put in the service of livestock. Stop eating animals and you use dramatically less fossil fuels, as much as 250 gallons less oil per year for vegans, says Cornell University’s David Pimentel, and 160 gallons less for egg-andcheese-eating vegetarians.”

Clearly, we can expand our compassion footprint simply by what we eat and the effects those choices have on everyone else. If we make ethical choices, we can change the way business is done. After all, money talks.

“In the relations of humans with the animals, with the flowers, with the objects of creation, there is a whole great ethic scarcely seen as yet, but which will eventually break through into the light and be the corollary and the complement to human ethics. . . . Doubtless it was first of all necessary to civilize man in relation to his fellow men. With this one must begin and the various lawmakers of the human spirit have been right to neglect every other care for this one. But it is also necessary to civilize humans in relation to nature. There, everything remains to be done.”

— Victor Hugo

While there are many small, easy actions we can take to help animals, two things that are no longer acceptable are inaction and indifference. We’ve reached the point where enough is enough, or really, enough is simply too much — we cause far too much unnecessary suffering and pain in the world. There are canaries in coal mines around the world telling us that something is profoundly wrong.

Nobel laureate and peace activist Elie Wiesel encourages us: “Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Silence is deadly for animals. There is a sense of urgency — time is not on our side. Indifference is far too costly. We need to act now with compassion and love for this magnificent world.

Naturally, we shouldn’t let anger guide us. We need to remain compassionate activists at all times. This is what gives us real clout to influence others, but it also helps ourselves. Being kind makes us feel good; it is a profound and even spiritual experience to spread compassion, kindness, and love. It’s also contagious. We need to be kind and empathic and cooperate with one another, so that we can define and work toward common goals, even when we disagree on the exact path. We can never be too kind, nor is anyone perfect. Humility and the way forward is recognizing our own imperfections even as we seek change in the actions of others. We should question a person’s position and not attack people themselves.

Every day, we should look for opportunities to do something for animals, and create opportunities for others to do so. As we do, we need to be patient, for as long as we are moving in the right direction, things will get better for animals and Earth. As we ‘ve seen, there are costs to activism — such as harassment, intimidation, and frustration — but these are the
price of putting one’s beliefs on the line to prevent cruelty and save lives. Activism also takes a lot of time, but it’s well worth it. Protest gently but forcefully; change actions as well as minds and hearts. Changes that are imposed on others are usually short-lived and make little difference.

Often it takes numerous efforts to accumulate the momentum needed to produce the deep changes in attitude and heart that truly make a difference. It’s important to listen to all views. This is important to help find and solve the root causes of problems, but it is also smart tactics. We must master our opponents’ arguments. Only by knowing your opponents’ tactics and arguments can you mount a successful offense.

Sometimes activists get depressed and discouraged from working on so many heart-breaking problems, so it’s also important to remember to have fun. Stay connected to joy. In his wonderful and bold book,
A World of Wounds,
renowned biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote: “Many of the students who have crossed my path in the last decade or so have wanted to do much, much more. They were drawn to ecology because they were brought up in a ‘world of wounds,’ and want to help heal it. But the current structure of ecology tends to dissuade them.” When we become dissuaded, we are not as effective, and we become inclined to give up. But having fun, being sentimental, and doing solid science are not mutually exclusive activities. Once again, to quote Ehrlich, “In my view, no area of science can be successful (or much fun!) without a mutually supportive interaction between theory and empiricism. . . . So let’s stop arguing about theory versus empiricism and worrying about the end of our science. Instead, let’s cooperate more, change some of our priorities, and have fun while we ‘re trying to save the world.”