Thanking the Monkey

What does that tell us about the elephants’ histories? Neither a mother elephant, nor any of the protective herd, will willingly part with a baby, so the best way to acquire elephant calves is to slaughter an entire herd. African and Asian govenments sometimes talk about the need to cull their herds, but that need is driven by Western purchase of the babies; it makes the culling lucrative. In the year 2000, hunters in Africa killed sixty-three elephants so that their babies could be collected and sold to the entertainment industry.

The ABCDs of Animal Entertainment

In the various fields of animal entertainment explored below, we see similar problems. I call them the ABCDs of the animal entertainment industry:

Acquisition

Animals do not give themselves up willingly for our entertainment. They must be ripped away from their families.

Brutality

Unlike domesticated animals who would respond to positive reinforcement and affection, wild animals trained for entertainment are dominated and intimidated into submitting to human will.

Confinement

While their natural environment might offer them whole jungles or oceans to roam, captive animals are confined forever in cages, in tanks, in pens, or with chains, for our viewing pleasure.

Disposal

When they have outlived their economic usefulness, animals used for entertainment are disposed of in shocking ways.

Many large hotel chains, aware of the human-animal bond, now allow guests of varied species. Sadly, those organizations on which we rely, not when on vacation but in life-or-death circumstances, are not up with the times.

The pets pulled from people’s arms would not have taken seats meant for humans. There is no reasonable explanation for abandoning them. They were the last vestiges of sweetness, in some cases the only living family, of those who had nothing left. But the police officers were just following orders—orders that reflect an official policy inconsistent with how people feel about their animals

If animals were not legal property, they could not be bought and sold but would have to be adopted. As with the adoption of children, prospective adopters would be expected to meet requirements. Paritney wouldn’t have a hope until she’d spent at least a year in rehab, and we would all have to demonstrate the ability to care for the animals over the full length of a lifetime, providing the animals not just with food and shelter but also with companionship and stimulation. Just as child services would prosecute parents who locked up a child alone all day every day, if our world had a truly evolved view of animals, animal services would prosecute similarly for that abuse. If one were unable to continue to care for an adopted animal, one could choose to give up that animal to an adoption agency, as one can with a child, but abandonment would be illegal. And anybody who had given up an animal without very good cause would not be allowed to adopt again.

At Red Cross shelters there are families that have lost their homes and all of their possessions but are thanking God that they are all safe. Others are frantic, unable to think of anything besides the slow death of beloved companion animals they were forced to leave on rooftops or at bus boarding points. One woman, with no other possessions left, offered her rescuer the wedding ring off her finger to save her dog, to no avail.

The Menu pet food crisis might have played out differently if animals had significant legal status. On the San Francisco Gate site, Pet Connection editor Christie Keith has presented a disturbing time line:

Although there have been some media reports that Menu Foods started getting complaints as early as December 2006, FDA records state the company received their first report of a food-related pet death on February 20.

One week later, on February 27, Menu started testing the suspect foods. Three days later, on March 3, the first cat in the trial died of acute kidney failure. Three days after that, Menu switched wheat gluten suppliers, and ten days later, on March 16, recalled the ninety-one products that contained gluten from their previous source.

Nearly one month passed from the date Menu got its first report of a death to the date it issued the recall. During that time, no veterinarians were warned to be on the lookout for unusual numbers of kidney failure in their patients. No pet owners were warned to watch their pets for its symptoms. And thousands and thousands of pet owners kept buying those foods and giving them to their dogs and cats.

At that point, Menu had seen a 35 percent death rate in their test-lab cats, with another 45 percent suffering kidney damage.28

During that time, animals were taken to vets with kidney failure, then taken home and given the same food. And though the recall wasn’t issued till March 16, the Washington Post does tell us that the chief financial officer of Menu Foods sold about half of his stake in the company on February 26 and 27—three weeks before the widespread pet food recall.29

In chapter 5 we will see that culpable companies also perform poorly when human food is tainted, but the tardiness of the pet food recall was in a class of its own.

One of the most common reasons people cite for relinquishing animals to shelters is that they have been forced to move—often because of a change of job or a change in financial circumstance—and they have not been able to find pet-friendly housing. If society acknowledges pets as beings rather than as objects, and as members of our family, then excluding them from housing could bring discrimination suits.

A few in the animal rights movement might call for the phasing out of pets, the idea being that it would be better to let other animals live freely beside us, in harmony with us, than under our control in human society.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, thousands of people refused to evacuate. Members of a frustrated rescue team simplified it for a Dateline news crew: They said people were refusing to be evacuated simply because “they won’t leave their pets.”27 The rescuers were referring to those people still alive. Some people had died trying to weather the storm rather than going to Red Cross shelters, which refused pets. Public policy that refused to acknowledge nonhumans as family members killed people in New Orleans.