The Oklahoma Connection

The post on July 22, 2010 mentioned an Oklahoma connection associated with the beagle rescue.  In addition to the beagles, 55 macaque monkeys were taken from the animal exploiting laboratory.  A primate rescue/shelter here in central Oklahoma, Mindy's Memory, has become the home for 8 of the rescued animals.  You can follow their progress by visiting the Mindy's Memory website.

Midnight is the individual wearing black.

Earlier this month, Heartland Rabbit Rescue had some visitors from Austin.  The photograph of the visitors shows them with the resident Rabbit Rescue pony, Midnight.  There are several hooved folks that live there, including 2 donkeys (Judy and Molly).

The girls (Judy and Molly) are very diligent in sounding the alarm if marauding dogs or coyotes approach their home although their skills at detecting hungry hawks still need development. 

Below is a photograph showing a young visitor from Norman along with Molly and Judy.

Molly has a white forehead, Judy has a gray forehead and the visitor wears a red football shirt.

Christina, over at the Rabid Tidbits blog has posted some current photographs of the baby bunnies recently born at Heartland Rabbit Rescue.  It is astonishing how fast they are growing.

Most of us who live in cities are rather limited in the variation of animal species that we have the opportunity to interact with. One of the many benefits of volunteering at a sanctuary or rescue facility is the chance to get to know different kinds of animal folks and different individuals.  Each rabbit is unique with her or his own likes and dislikes, behaviors and moods.  Just as is each donkey, each pony, each dog, cat or human.  We humans tend to lump other species all together and presume that we then know about them.  This is no more true for human animals than it is for rabbit animals (or others).

Volunteering, especially for young humans, offers them the opportunity to become more sophisticated in their knowledge about the other Earthlings they share this planet with.  Once you become friends with a living being, it becomes more problematic to then see that being (or others like her or him) as a "thing" to be exploited or abused or killed.  For most of us, anyway.....there are exceptions.

1,000 Canadian Rabbits to move to Texas

I ran across this story in the Victoria and Vancouver Island newspaper about feral rabbits overrunning the University of Victoria campus.  These bunnies were going to be killed unless placement could be found for them.  Voila, apparently a rescue shelter in East Texas is going to take 1,000 of the rabbits.  Wild Rose Rescue Ranch is going to provide them with a sheltered, protected area after they are trapped, spayed and neutered and then transported to Texas.  The link to Wild Rose will take you to a story on their website about Noah the one-legged pigeon that nurtures baby bunnies (among other species).

An organization called Fur-Bearer Defenders is donating $50,000 to help pay for the spaying and neutering.  Their mission is to end all forms of trapping used by the commercial fur industry.

Excellent........

Kiara being groomed.

Closer to home, back at Heartland Rabbit Rescue a couple of  hard-working young volunteers spent some time grooming Kiara and Sophie.

Sophie at the outdoor spa.

 

 

Rabbits like bananas.

Mother bunny, enjoying her banana treat.  After she finished, she took off to visit the other Heartland Rabbit Rescue shelter residents.

Synchronicity......?

In a curious instance of....sychronicity?..this post appeared over at Change.org about 6 days after my previous post.  The writer referenced a study carried out at a university in England showing that meat eating appeared to be associated with the use of denial as a mechanism to reduce intrapsychic conflict.  Someone once said that psychology was the area of study devoted to proving what everybody already knows.  Sometimes that seems to be the case.

For something totally unrelated and interesting, go here and learn how to catch a mouse without a mousetrap and without harming the mouse.....also the mouse is nicely ready to be relocated to a more suitable living place.  Finally, read about 120 beagles rescued from a laboratory situation and their apparent happy outcome.  Update: here is a link to the "Digging Through the Dirt" blog with a video of the beagles and a mention of an Oklahoma connection.

There, at last, a post with only interesting or happy content.

Domestic vs Wild.......

Domestic rabbits are not native to the western hemisphere, they are all descended from European wild rabbits.  Hence, the stories one might hear regarding domestic rabbits being released to the wild and then having offspring as a result of breeding with native American wild species of rabbit are likely untrue.  I say likely because it seems to be the case that domestic and wild rabbits will have sex, but if pregnancy results..the offspring are born dead.  I wouldn't rule out offspring surviving, but this probably would result in a situation similar to that of the breeding of horses with donkeys where the offspring (mules) are sterile.  More information can be found here or here.

Domestic rabbits, like non-Native Americans, did not originate in North America.  European humans arrived here in numbers large enough to be significant a little over 500 years ago, domestic rabbits are more recent Europeans, arriving here in the 19th century.

Therefore, the not unusual situation where a unwanted rabbit "pet" is released into the wild in the United States usually results in a short miserable life and the former "pet" becomes the victim of starvation, lack of shelter or a predator.  Their often striking fur colors make them easily visible to predators.

Domestic rabbits are not adapted to living here, they have not been raised in the wild, they have not been  taught how to survive by their parents and thinking they will magically acquire such skills and adaptive behaviors is almost criminally ignorant.  Their European origin is one reason that domestic rabbits are so susceptible to heat-stroke.  Any temperature above 85 degrees puts them at risk, hence Oklahoma summers are potentially deadly for domestic rabbits.

The mere existence of domestic rabbits exemplifies human interference with and exploitation of other animals.  Rabbits were manipulated (in their choice of breeding partners) by humans so they could be eaten or for fur, or because we thought they were amusing, or pretty or interesting or useful.

The mother rabbit and her babies highlighted in the previous post are appealing and sweet and a pleasure to interact with.  The fact is though, that she and her children are doomed to being dependent on humans for any sort of reasonable, comfortable (to whatever degree possible) life.  The mere existence of "domesticated" (substitute human-dependent for domesticated) species of any kind exemplifies human arrogance, insensitivity and exploitation.

What is difficult to understand about the notion that a living being has a right to live her or his own life....however they might choose to live, to have sex with whomever they wish, to choose their own friends, raise their own children, live wherever they find suitable?  The majority of humans would wish for autonomy in their own lives but most appear to find the idea of according such to our fellow Earthlings an astonishing thought.

It is phenomenal when you think about it, choosing to live your life in a way wherein one avoids, wherever possible, exploiting or doing violence to other living beings is considered peculiar, strange, unusual, weird.  There is even a specific name for it (vegan) where there is not a specific designation (although Melanie Joy's recent book takes a stab at naming this type of living) for conducting a life where it is routine to do violence and killing and controlling of other sentient beings or to pay someone to do these things.

The incongruousness involved in someone saying they care about or "love" animals while eating a hamburger, or eggs or cheese is profound, tragic and sad.  Perhaps a child could make such a statement innocently, but for most such a contradiction can be maintained only through the assiduous exercise of denial and avoidance.

Cultures are powerful vehicles for managing human thought and behavior, there can be few greater examples of that power than believing that behaving violently or paying for violence to be done is a normal, good and desirable way of living.....and that ignoring this reality makes it not exist.

The power of the propaganda and thought distortions that are foisted upon us from birth are potent and effective, I fault no one for succumbing to them (myself included), however, one of the primary responsibilities of adulthood is to give up believing in fairy tales and to begin to see the world and ourselves as it is and as we are, not as we want it to be. This, however, is difficult and scary and sometimes painful, hence, many do not progress far on the journey.  The problem with not doing taking this journey is that we then condone, albeit silently, the lies, distortions, suffering and violence.

So, I absolutely and totally enjoy the presence and company of momma bunny and her babies, but, if I had the power, she would not exist....not in her current manifestation...there would be no "domestic" beings, no need for Heartland Rabbit Rescue or other shelters.  Momma bunny and her children would be living their life in their own manner of choosing (in Denmark or somewhere) and would be highly unlikely to want anything to do with me or any other human.....or maybe not (see the post "It ought to be like that").

If we humans can ever grow up and quit acting like spoiled 2 year old children who believe everything revolves around us, if we can begin to interact with and respect other earthlings and our planet like we ourselves wish to be dealt with....then maybe momma rabbit or one of the children might not mind hanging out with me for a bit....until they had rabbit doings to take care of.

A real sweetie........

Recently the folks at Heartland Rabbit Rescue were able to provide shelter for a bunny rescued by some kind people.  The bunny was spotted running across their lawn being chased by a cat.  The rescuers were able to shoo the cat away and corral this girl.   She is one of the most unusual looking domestic rabbits that I have ever seen because of her resemblance to her wild relatives.

She was quite thin when she arrived and proceeded to become thinner by giving birth to two babies as soon as she had settled in at the shelter.

The photograph is poor (my apologies) but you can still see that the children have nicely rounded tummies, mom appears to have been channeling nourishment to them, leaving little for herself.  

Mom may look like her wild relations, but she is very familiar with humans and enjoys being stroked and petted.

Thanks to the kind and thoughtful rescuers and to Heartland for providing a safe haven for bunnies.

Now for the downside, each of these three rescued require food, shelter and medical care.  When the time is right, spaying and/or neutering will be necessary to ensure that more homeless bunnies don't appear.  You can help by volunteering, fostering, adopting and donating.  Heartland is at their limits in terms of how many bunnies they can shelter.  They were able to squeeze in mom (before they knew she was going to be mom) and now they have two more rabbits that need care. 

While Heartland does what they can, magnificently I might add, each of the bunnies there would be much better off in a suitable home  (with their own human family).  Remember, the goal of each shelter of this type is to work themselves out of existence, to reach a time when all bunnies have homes and rescue organizations are unnecessary. 

Very good article...........

This article from the Washington Post addresses issues about animal rights, religion, and violence.  Take a few moments and read it.

It ought to be like that.........

Just finished "The Human Nature of Birds" by Theodore X. Barber, Ph.D.  It is an older book, written in 1993 (astonishing to reference anything from 1993 as "older") and well worth reading.  Barber, a psychologist, is one of the professionals to awaken from the silly notion that humans are the end all and be all in terms of living beings.

He writes with the enthusiasm of a new convert and the book is quite enjoyable.  Curiously, in his obituary (linked to above) there is no mention of this book, nor any mention in a Wikipedia (Deutschland) entry about him and his professional work.  Since this book would have been somewhat heretical at the time (and still is for many)....this is likely another example of how we human animals ignore and avoid knowledge that doesn't fit the dominant worldview.

What prompted the title of this post is a passage he quotes from another book "Birds as Individuals", this one written by Len Howard in 1952.  Len Howard is writing about the reaction of a workman who came to her cottage to do some repairs and observed wild birds flying down to perch on Ms Howard's head and shoulders....she writes:

....He had looked an ordinary man with a work-a-day expression until he saw these birds, then his whole countenance seemed to alter, his face glowed, his eyes shone and he kept murmuring: "How wonderful!"  Then he said: "But why shouldn't it be like that?  It ought to be like that."

We often forget that most animals in the wild avoid humans like the plague because for all intents and purposes....we are the plague, at least to them.   Fleeing or hiding from humans is exquisitely intelligent behavior on their part.

It does not, however, have to be that way.  Where wild animal people are not subjected to the cruelties, large and small, that are typically practiced by human people, then their behavior is quite different.  Several years ago I visited Bandelier National Park and was delighted to discover that the animals residing there have been unmolested by humans for enough generations that many have lost their fear....deer may simply ignore you and walk close enough to touch while browsing.  One cottontail was using the same path I was on and leisurely hopped right over my foot while on her/his journey.

The workman and I agree, it ought to be like that...........

What is more, we human animals have the ability to make it that way.......for all animals (including ourselves) and the planet, go vegan. The link associated with the "go vegan" phrase takes you to a video (no cruelty or repulsive photos) that is a little slick but not overwhelmingly so.  If you haven't seen it, do so, I sort of like its musical background (be advised it is about 12 minutes long) .

Why vegan?

Credit goes to Bea over at her Provoked blog for posting this interview with Ellen Degeneres about her decision to stop harming animals.  There is no depiction of the horrors associated with eating the "standard american diet", Ellen simply explains how she arrived at the realization that opting out of eating animals was required.....for many reasons.  Take the time to watch the interview, and then take the time to educate yourself about animals (and what humans do to them), the environment and your health.
Then, go vegan, please.....for the animals, for the environment, for your health.

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve outside Pawhuska Oklahoma........

If you enjoy minimal distractions from all the degradations that tend to be associated with "civilization", then by all means make a trip to The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve located just south of the Kansas border.  More than 60 square miles of land is protected by the Nature Conservancy resulting in a place where you can (sometimes) hear nothing but grasses and plants being moved by the breeze, insects buzzing and various birds singing.  It brought back memories of my childhood out in the country in southwestern Oklahoma.  It is not pristine since gravel covered county roads and oil wells exist on the land, but it is refreshing nevertheless.  Late fall will probably be my next visit, the plants will be full grown and browned out and should offer a totally different experience than late spring, early summer.

The Nature Conservancy deserves credit for establishing and overseeing the preserve even though their notion of "conservancy" includes condemning buffaloes to death when the numbers exceed the estimated carrying capacity of the area.  My enthusiasm for their organization is drastically dampened by their willingness to promote violence and/or carnism.

The preserve is a good day trip if you live in central Oklahoma, and well worth it.

Driving north on I-35 from Norman was depressing, the carnage along the roadways is appalling, the crushed bodies of armadillo people and bird people and raccoon people are bad, bad sights....always.

The drive also will expose you to fences out the kazoo......it is astonishing and discomfiting to realize  how much we human people have arranged the land to control animal people.  Somewhere I read a description of the U.S. as being just an extended concentration camp for the animal people.  Think of it, mile after mile after mile of fences of all kinds, primarily designed to prevent the movement of various non-human peoples.  Land of the free?

Possibly the greatest pleasure of the preserve.... places where no fences could be seen, no houses, no cars.....just planet earth, her hills and trees and flowers and grasses. Oh, and some buffalo calling cards populated with appreciative insects (see pic).

The Eastern Shore Sanctuary Blog summarizes beautifully........

The post over at the Eastern Shore Sanctuary Blog presents a very well written and concise synopsis of the historical precedents for the obscene (but sadly all too common and ubiquitous) notion that the lives of the cow people and the chicken people (and all the other non-human people) do not belong to themselves, rather that their lives are the property of human people.

The author is writing in reference to the recent revelations about abuse and torture at a dairy:

 Patriarchy must punish the most extreme public expressions of its violent nature so as to obscure the less extreme expressions taking place everywhere, at every moment, all around us.

Pastoralism employs the same tactics. If we punish the most egregious forms of animal abuse, then we won’t notice the twelve trillion other examples of it going on every second of every day all over the world. ALL OVER THE WORLD, in every nook and cranny of this pastoralist, patriarchal world.

 An insightful and revealing observation.  Go read the post, it is well worth your time and attention.  If it resonates as much with you as it does with me, take the time to give the author a salute in the comments.

Update: A post over at Vegan Feminist Agitator offers further elaboration about the sometimes contradictory nuances of outrage over an outing of particularly egregious cruelty.  A partial quote from the post:

I believe that our job as animal advocates is to supplement the important exposés with the message that taking what doesn't belong to us is an intrinsically exploitative practice, and that the threat of violence (again, beyond what is accepted as necessary) naturally accompanies such a mentality.

Sometimes, before sleeping......

Many nights before sleeping I think about the animals that are at that moment facing death in a slaughterhouse or about the cows standing in their own feces and breathing ammonia and dust in the feedlots.  I cringe inside at what we humans are doing in pursuit of such trivialities as taste and profit.

I imagine the anguish the mother cow is feeling at the dairy, where her child has been taken from her, after she was forcibly impregnated.  Her baby is taken so all the milk the mother cow produces can go into yogurt, butter, ice cream and profit.  The milk was for her baby not for humans.  I think about how she must feel, about how any parent feels when they cannot care for their child.  The pain and misery make the ice cream not so attractive.

I sometimes think of the chickens trapped in cages, with no room to turn or spread their wings and that have been there all the day long while I was going about my life.  I think about their having been there the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, sometimes for up to 2 years.  This is their whole life, then they are thrown into another cage, trucked to a slaughterhouse and brutally killed.  For an omelet, for an easter egg, for a "nugget", for money.

I do this and sometimes then cannot sleep.  It is not that I couldn't not do it, most of us have developed strategies to avoid thinking uncomfortable thoughts, I do it because I believe it to be respectful to do so.  To be abused, oppressed, tortured and then killed is horrific but for such a thing to occur and no one to think about it and feel bad about it is.....beyond words.

My thoughts are nothing to those beings enduring the obscene treatment being forced upon them by my species but for me to not think those thoughts, for me to push them away and not allow myself to feel pained and sorrowful...........then I too would somehow be a participant in the silent animal holocaust that continues every moment of every day.

It might be that if we humans would allow ourselves to think all the thoughts and feel all the feelings associated with what we do,  some of these horrors might not occur.  In any event what is being done is bad enough, I must not be complicit in it by ignoring my thoughts and avoiding the feelings these disgusting activities elicit.  Even if I sometimes can't sleep.
    

Confirmation: Vegans think differently........

While anyone that is vegan knows that their thinking differs from non-vegans, it is nice to see some empirical evidence backing up subjective experience.  Over at the Vegan Soapbox blog, Elaine Vigneault (who is a wonderful asset for animals and the ethical vegan cause) has written about a recently conducted brain scan study identifying the differing areas of brain activity occurring when omnivores, vegetarians and vegans are presented with the same stimuli. 

So, next time you (a vegan) are in a conversation with a non-vegan and you begin to wonder if they are from the same planet you are.......well, they might be from the same planet but their brain is not operating the same as yours and now there is empirical data supporting that fact.

Cat companions

Two cats live in my house, one was a shelter cat, both are sterile.  I am posting this because it is important to emphasize that those of us who have feline companions should keep them indoors--- always.  There are multiple reasons for doing so, some of these were not so true in the past.

The types and severity of diseases outdoor cats are exposed to have increased in number and intensity over the past 30 to 50 years, feline HIV and feline heartworm were unheard of when I was a child.  These changes are highlighted by the fact that the average lifespan of an outdoor cat is estimated to be 5 years and that of an indoor cat to be 12 years.  A significant difference.

In addition, outdoor cats will follow their nature and hunt, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of a myriad of living beings that make their homes outdoors.  Extending lives and saving lives is pretty much a good thing, eh?

One thing for sure.....

The single most significant thing that can be done for the environment, for the animals, for all that live on the earth is to reduce the number of humans on the planet. There are way more than twice as many people in the US than there were when I was born, and I assure you life is not twice as good. It has been going in the other direction. We would be wise to provide a tax credit for those that choose to remain childless, however I will not hold my breath waiting for wisdom to kick in. In fact, were we an honorable people, considering what we did and do to the folks that really own the country we would have no more children....none. And when a family died out, what they own would revert to the ancestors of the original inhabitants.....such would be the honorable thing to do, I will not hold my breath waiting for that either.