Feb 25 2011
Nine Lives and Humane Paradoxes
If you don’t read Wayne Pacelle’s blog, you’re not missing much. It’s good if you want a primer on PR “spin” (see: Michael Vick doing “a good job as a pet owner”) or tips on shameless self-promotion. But that’s about it.
Every now and then, however, there’s something worth commenting on. We had to go back to December for this one, but it’s worth a discussion.
Here’s the setup: A University of Nebraska report concluded that feral cats should largely be eradicated, and recommended how to do it— even including gunshots as one possible option. Why kill the local cluster of wild kitty-cats?
Feral cats … cause significant losses to populations of native birds, small mammals, reptiles, and amphibians; can transmit several diseases such as rabies and toxoplasmosis; and may be a general nuisance.
We’ll leave for another day the substantive debate about what to do with feral cat colonies, and the (fully justified) outrage at the idea of shooting cats in the head. There’s no end of opinions on that topic.
But Pacelle’s reaction is what interests us most. He writes:
The issues some people have with cats are nothing new. For more than a hundred years there have been periodic calls for the eradication of cats, emanating largely from those who are passionate about protecting wild birds.
The HSUS mission includes protecting both cats and birds, and the challenges in balancing such goals are not trivial.
Here’s our question: How can you protect both cats and birds—or both orcas and seals—or both sharks and fish?
Is this a new kind of “humane paradox”? Is there institutional arrogance in any claim to protect (as HSUS’s membership magazine’s title promises) “All Animals”? Or is Mother Nature just toying with Pacelle?
An honest look at the world around us requires accepting that Nature can be downright brutal. It’s natural for some animals to violently kill and eat other animals. It’s also natural for the most ordinary predator/prey relationships to wipe out entire species.
So how do you protect “all animals,” anyway?
HSUS’s lobbyists might be able to convince unsuspecting bureaucrats to make it harder for communities to protect themselves against feral cats (or coyotes and wolves), but animal activists are ultimately powerless to regulate the behavior of wild animals in their natural environments.
How can HSUS possibly protect a seal from being devoured by a shark? Or a shark from being gobbled-up by a whale? And what about when another shark comes back to take his revenge?
Despite the food chain’s harsh realities, HSUS apparently wants us to buy into taming the natural killer instincts of great white sharks so they’ll refrain from eating seals. Pacelle brushes this off by claiming that “the challenges in balancing such goals are not trivial.” But in fact, the word “trivial” defines man’s practically nonexistent capacity to prevent species-on-species animal attacks. We just don’t have that kind of power.
HSUS might argue that its job is simply to protect animals from humans. But aren’t we also a part of nature? Homo erectus didn’t evolve in New Haven, after all.
People have always played a part in animals’ lives, including domesticating them and eating them. If having a steak constitutes cruelty, as some vegan evangelists preach, what response do they have when a hungry lion feasts on a crocodile? Is it only that the lion doesn’t know any better, but that we should?
Ironically, arguing that only wild animals—and not humans—are supposed to follow their natural eating instincts makes you, literally, a “speciesist.” (Or, more precisely in this case, a misanthrope.)
But back to our examples of Mother Nature’s endless buffet spread. Eventually, one species in a given series of regional encounters—whether it’s the shark or the orca—has to “win.” Pretending that it’s even possible to protect “all animals” brings to mind an endless broadcast of Tom & Jerry and Road Runner cartoons, where the animals always have to come back, unharmed, for the next episode.
After all, half of the HSUS’s motto is “celebrating animals,” and it produces plenty of imagery showing birds and squirrels frolicking in nature. Has HSUS ever celebrated an anaconda eating a hippopotamus? (Or an indigenous subsistence hunt?)
Sometimes the polar bear eats the walrus. And sometimes the hawk dines on the baby duckling. HSUS likes to posture as the official referee for human-animal relationships, but that’s just so it can throw the flag on Farmer John who raises his cattle inside fences, and let the coyotes stalking prairie dogs off without a penalty.
Posted on 02/25/2011 at 11:07 AM by the HumaneWatch Team
The Best of HumaneWatch • Pets • Wildlife • (8) CommentsComments
I’ve been following your blog, and website for quite some time and I applaud you heartily for being the watchdog to H$U$. I must admit you have been a major influence in me convincing people to stop donating money to the H$U$. I just show them your blogs and the usual blogs that turn them away from H$U$ is the Micheal Vick ones. They are usually horrified and leave with a new understanding of this ‘helpful’ organization.
This blog is well written and pokes quite a few holes into their so called protection for all animals. I remember one incident in particular when I brought this exact argument up. They told me they would basically castrate and make all the predators sterile and then let them die out. My response:
“If the prey has the choice to live, then the predators certainly have a choice to live as well. You cannot eradicate an animal to save an animal because that goes against your principles. ALL animals have the right to live freely according to you, phasing out predators isn’t letting them live freely. That is you taking away their rights to live without human interaction. You cannot protect all animals because you cannot protect the predator and the prey at the same time.”
At that point they usually go back to the beginning of the argument with a confused face, which means they are just parroting ideals. Or they stop and change the subject, or even suggest they can make the predators herbivores, which usually make me want to bash my head into a brick wall.
Keep up the good work and know you have my full support. *thumbs up*
fivestrand, near as I can tell, Wayne thinks HE is God himself.
Game wardens in my state tell people if cats are 1/4 of a mile from a farm they consider them feral and eradicate them, and they tell the public to do the same thing. It makes sense.
Life preys upon life.
I have a vegetarian co worker who leaves copies of “All Animals” in the break room magazine rack. Her cube is filled with images of kittens and puppies. She has told me flat out that she detests nature and the natural food chain. She doesn’t even like pit bulls! This is the kind of soft headed ignorant “animal lover” that Wayne P. is relying on to fund HSUS. I love nature and evolutionary biology and study scientific texts to learn more about wild animals. I’ve even been to Africa several times to see wildlife on its own terms and came home with a much deeper respect for animals - something these sentimental “animal lovers” who only feel sorry for the weak and helpless big-eyed puppies and kittens can never understand.
@Responsible Dog Owner,
You think she’s crazy? Get a load of this.
They’re not out to lunch they’re way deep into La La Land.
Feral cats have a right to live. Many of them aren’t even really feral. I feed several ferals and plan to start trapping them and getting them neutered and then return them to their area (near my home). The local animal shelter that I support takes care of two feral cat colonies. They moved one of those colonies to keep the cats from being killed by the state. The truth is that many cats appear to be feral when they are frightened. Untold frightened cats have been slaughtered by so-called animal shelters because the people who manage the “shelters” are too ignorant to know the difference between a feral cat and a frightened cat. Far too many people expect cats to act like dogs, and that isn’t going to happen. One of my seven adopted cats was a feral kitten. My daughter invested the time and patience necessary to gain Jasmine’s trust, and now she is a lap cat but still doesn’t like to be picked up. That’s one of the things I love about cats: They are independent in their attitudes.
Personally, I think feral cats do us all a great service by killing rodents who are destructive creatures. Please remember: In the Middle Ages, people thought cats were demonic because their eyes glowed in the dark. So they killed the cats that were keeping the mouse and rat population in check. The cat killers were then rewarded with the bubonic plague, or black death, which they caught from flea bites. The fleas were living on all those rats and mice whose populations boomed after the cruel and unnecessary killing of the felines.
Comments are moderated, and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. Extremely lengthy comments and those that contain obscenities may be edited before they are posted.
Add a comment:
Apparently, Wayne is unfamiliar with the food chain put in place by GOD himself.