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280- The cost of biodiversity? 300,000 dead rodents
1 Playsin 8 hours
According to the Guardian this week, Lord Howe Island in the Pacific Ocean is now a biodiverse paradise for insects & other creepy crawlies. Hooray! And all it took was a 2019 programme mandating the killing of nearly a third of a million mice & rats. Sigh. Of course.
This week Carlos is back on the pod, discussing this news story as well as several others amongs the animal rights & vegan headlines from the last seven days.
Like what we do? Want to help it sound even better? Join our KoFi gang here: https://ko-fi.com/ENOUGHOFTHEFALAFEL
Thanks to Neil, Shane & Alex for their continued Ko-Fi support!
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Week podcast, we aim to keep listeners (& ourselves) informed & up-to-date with the latest developments that affect vegans & non-human animals; giving insight, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we look through news stories from the past 7 days in the world of veganism & animal rights.
If you spot any news stories that might catch our fancy, or have an idea for a discussion topic, get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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This week's stories:
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Ant & Carlos
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Transcript
Introduction to Vegan News
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone, it's Anthony here with Carlos bringing you the last week's vegan and animal rights news. If that's what you're after, stay with us. That's what we're going to cover. We're delighted you're with us. But that is enough of the falafel.
00:00:14
Speaker
It's time for vegan week. So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butter's used for. Brrr! Take your flour-grown meat elsewhere.
00:00:26
Speaker
We're not doing that in the state of Florida. Should I call the medium and say, hi, sorry. True education. younger generation are getting to know how brutal these practices are.
00:00:36
Speaker
That leaves a of pizza delivery companies in problems with things. What is this? What kind of movie is this? It's comedy gold, maybe. Any form of social injustice.
00:00:49
Speaker
As long as you don't get the wee brunions with the horns, you'll be all right. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:00:59
Speaker
I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. Hello, everyone. This is Carlos. And thank you so much for listening to our show. And we're so grateful to have you as our audience.
00:01:12
Speaker
Indeed we are, indeed we are. Today's show is gonna be ever so slightly different. Normally we manage to find the time to go through lots of stories, format the show, all of this, that and the other. And do you know what? This week it's just not conspired in our favor. However, me and Carlos have read through the news. We are here to talk it through with you. And ah you know what? If the show sounds a little rough around the edges, we hope you can bear with us. If that's not your jam, that's fine.
00:01:41
Speaker
well le We'll join you again next week. But yeah, we're going to talk through five of the week's biggest news stories. Yes. And remember, you can read the original news reports for all the stories we cover in the show this week. You just need to check the show notes in your podcast player and follow the links and there you'll find all the full stories of what we talked about.
00:02:06
Speaker
But that's enough of the falafel. Let's hear what's been going on this week.
Insect Revival on Lord Howe Island
00:02:10
Speaker
Okay, so our first story is coming from The Guardian, Lord Howe Island. I wonder if any of our listeners know where that is. I didn't. It's 600 kilometres off Australia's east coasts. It sounds idyllic. It sounds sunny and beachy and all of those things. It was formed by the seven million year old remains of a volcano. Goodness me. um And it's featured in The Guardian this week because lots of insect life is making a return. There was a program in 2019, an eradication program. This is where it starts to get a bit darker from an animal rights perspective. Certainly, there was a campaign to rid the island of about 300,000 rats and mice. And The Guardian article uses the adjective
00:03:06
Speaker
invasive to describe those sentient beings. They go on to say how, wow, there's now just a fantastic biodiversity, all these different bugs and creepy crawlies. There's a picture of um a Lord Howe Island stag beetle. um It's got a sort of iridescent green covering to it. It looks looks very fancy. And it's, they're talking about how they're using different techniques, traps, cockroach hotels. So it's a ways of trying to eradicate the rats and mice, but also encouraging the insect biodiversity and making things better for them.
00:03:49
Speaker
Like Carlos said, all of the articles are in the show notes, so you can read this one in a bit more detail. If we can, Carlos, we'll come to you now. There might be some more facts um from the story that we want to to cover. It's really difficult reading things where people are referring to invasive species, But that biodiversity, that could be seen as a really good thing, couldn't it? You know, just having rats, just having mice, sort of having the run of a place, that could be seen as a negative thing for an environment. What what are your gut feelings with this one?
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, on on it's it's very I feel very conflicted about stories like this. Like on one hand... it's I feel really hopeful to see you know entire communities of insects and small animals besides invertebrates kind of bouncing back you know when when there's this kind of humans or human activity kind of disrupting their habitat.
00:04:43
Speaker
On the other hand, you know that recovery has been brought through an eradication campaign. that deliberately killed an enormous amount of sentient animals. you know this Huge number, isn't it Huge number.
00:04:57
Speaker
Huge numbers. and And, you know, these animals only only ended up on that island. They were not native. of They would not swim to that island. There's no scenario in which they end up that on that island without human interference, or in this case, human carelessness, because...
00:05:11
Speaker
They were not imported directly, they just kind of came on the ships as stowaways, I guess. so So for me, kind of my ethical perspective is not so much at, um you know, look look at how clever and compassionate we humans are at fixing things, but I mean, the takeaway is more like, um look look how much avoidable harm we create. And you know in this case, the rodents are kind of killing all these populations of invertebrates. And you know how much avoidable harm we create. And also kind of how high the moral cost is when we then try to fix the harm we created. So we kind of damaging animals kind of both through carelessness and then trying to fix that carelessness.
00:05:54
Speaker
um so So to me, the kind of what this kind of raises is it just kind of points me towards kind of prevention of this type of scenario even existing in the first place, you know, kind of more biosecurity and kind of trying to end the movement the movement of global movement of animals as cargo, even even if it's not an unintentional cargo.
00:06:15
Speaker
But it's still our responsibility, even if it's unintentional and and kind of um you know, taking seriously the idea that the the the interests of wild animals matter even when they're labeled invasive because it's, it's it's you know, very easy to label pretty much any animal as invasive when you want to get rid of them ultimately. Well, I i mean, the language that's used in in terms of when describing the the rodents, ah Professor Nathan Lowe from ah the Molecular Ecology Evolution and phylogenomics laboratory at in the University of Sydney. They're talking about rodents not just affecting a few iconic species, they reshaped ecological relationships across the island. I mean, you could be describing humans there, couldn't you, in in terms of the impact that we have? And it's
00:07:13
Speaker
that That so often is missed when talking about invasive species. And I know we've said it on the podcast a few times, but it it really is worth stating the the fact that we're by far the most destructive invasive of all species.
00:07:28
Speaker
and And that has to be remembered. And you have got really caring, selfless people, I would argue, working in these projects, trying to improve things. But it's there's all sorts of contrary...
00:07:42
Speaker
logic going on, I think. Yeah. And, and, you know, just a reminder that, you know, rodent populations can be controlled through birth control, not just by killing them.
00:07:53
Speaker
So, so this could be like a longer campaign than instead of trying to kill 300,000 rodents as they've done, they could have just, you know, instead of baits, it could be bait with birth control, which is extremely efficient for most mammals much easier than trying to do birth control for other types of animals. But for mammals, it's a science that's been discovered and used and you know that we know works.
00:08:18
Speaker
And that that could be what's in the bait instead of poison. And that would have led to these 300,000 rodents whittling down to zero as well, but without actually killing any of them.
00:08:29
Speaker
And then nature could still take take its course and the environment could have readjusted and so on and so forth through you know through a method which effectively causes no harm. still and still allows the population to be removed and the other species to flourish.
00:08:44
Speaker
Many different options, many different options for sure. Yeah, let's go um to the next story
Controversial Bear Control in Alaska
00:08:49
Speaker
then. So the next story is set in Alaska, the United States, where a superior court ruling has allowed the state of Alaska to continue its Mulchatna bear control program, which authorizes the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game to kill an unlimited number of black and brown bears over about 40,000 square miles of southwest Alaska. So the program carried out partly by state employees shooting bears from helicopters, and I think we've all seen footage of this because it's very, it's been on the media before, is justified by officials as a way to boost the struggling Mulchatna caribou herds, even though conservation groups argue it lacks a sound scientific basis and adequate monitoring of bear populations.
00:09:35
Speaker
Court documents indicate that in 2023 and 2024, at least bears were killed. And in one 1,200 square mile calving area, the state killed every single bear they found.
00:09:49
Speaker
So what's going on in Alaska, Anthony? Yeah. Well, what's heartening to see is the pushback. I think when we, when we cover stories like this, um, whether it's, it's rewilding, whether it's, uh, culling, whether it's whatever, you really get the feeling that there are trigger happy people out there masquerading as people who care about the environment. And, you know, we just want to restore things to a natural, sustainable level. no No, no, You've bought a gun.
00:10:20
Speaker
and you want to use it at any opportunity you can. And it really feels like that is what is behind things a lot of the time. And that can feel quite helpless from the point of view of someone who is vegan, who cares about animal rights. You can think, well, what, you know, what can we do, particularly when we're talking about somewhere, I would say Alaska, my perception of it is, well, that's quite a wild place. I can imagine that sort of thing. um happening quite a lot people having that sort of perspective however there is pushback the alaska wildlife alliance the center for biological diversity they are challenging the reinstatement of this mulchapner bear control program a previous court did find it unconstitutional so there has not just been pushed back in the past but it has been properly clamped down on and said no You cannot do this. And in fact, if you follow the links in this news story that you can get through the the link in our show notes, you can go onto the website, but for example, akwildlife.org, and you can see how these cases have been been filed before the lawsuit. You can sign a petition to stop the gunning down. You can donate to protect Alaska's bears. So
00:11:39
Speaker
There's basically the long and short of it is that there is a big bit of pushback. I mean, if I can just quote some members of staff from the the trustees for Alaska, allowing this unconstitutional programme to proceed threatens bear populations vital to places like Katmine National Park and McNeil River.
00:12:00
Speaker
Unfortunately, the state will continue pushing forward with its scientifically baseless bear killing programme. And by the time this case is resolved, the harm caused to these bear populations cannot be undone. That's not responsible wildlife management. And there's a lot of talk about irreversible consequences here. It is, of course, a really... really troubling situation a really troubling story but i don't want to dump negativity at people's door without any hope like i say there's things that we can do as individuals and there are people in the locality in the area that are pushing back which is what you can hope for isn't it carlos i mean it's you know you're you're a hunt sap like you you
00:12:45
Speaker
it's possible to feel helpless sometimes that, you know, the government's saying one thing and it's not being put through and you can take action as as well.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, and um well, first of all, Thank God this is not the hunt's ISAB because I don't know what I could do to to a helicopter with somebody with a rifle and a helicopter. but i'm Protecting a bear as well. I mean, it it doesn't know that you're trying to protect it, does it? Yeah, which might not be too thrilled to have me around. in the first place, and like a fox. Well, one of the ironic things about this is that they want to protect the caribou population so so they can hunt caribou. Yeah, yeah. It's like killing bears. So we so there's more caribou for us to also kill.
00:13:31
Speaker
In many ways, it's like a predator, in this case, the humans competing with the predator, the bears. you know Sorry, we're the predators of the caribou, not you, bears. So we're going to kill you. um So there's a great irony in all of this. But of course, there's people who are against this, which is great to see.
00:13:50
Speaker
Bears, thankfully, fall into the sort of, let's get let's say, mammals which humans care about and feel protective about. So I'm really hopeful this will those will have like a better like a good resolution to it it's It's interesting that they're they're going for this move when, i mean, fine, it's it's those opposing this who are putting forward this argument, but they're saying this is a waste of the state's limited resources. So like if they're relatively cash strapped, it's interesting that they're prioritising this, but it do you think it is what you said that actually they're doing this because they think, well, this will give us more caribou to hunt and maybe that's financially lucrative?
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's when I did research on this story, I came up with a few quite a few angles that supported this. you know So caribou are a resource, essentially, and that resource is game.
00:14:48
Speaker
Although, to be fair, they are, you know, they're hunted for sport, but also eaten as as meat. So, kind of a resource. Essentially, this is like a predator, us competing with another predator more than anything else. But regardless, the local local people are against it. There's a big movement against it.
00:15:05
Speaker
And if any listeners are either in the area or feel strongly about this, there are ways for them to kind of get involved. Yeah, absolutely. i've I've just clicked through to the the signing of the petition um against it. And you have to give your name, your email and declare which state you live in.
00:15:23
Speaker
So I'll leave it up to listeners to decide whether they do in fact permanently or indeed temporarily. identify as someone that lives in a United States of America state. But yeah, well done World Animal News for reporting this and even more so Alaska Wildlife Alliance for the work that they're doing along with along with countless individuals to to to back these these poor bears up.
00:15:52
Speaker
We're going to move back to The Guardian. ah very As you might expect, very you know very left-leaning show. So two of our first three stories are coming from The Guardian.
00:16:03
Speaker
The good news I'm going to put out there is that the United Nations has put a report out talking about antibiotic resistance and how we're on a slippery slope and we need to do something about it because that is something that is, um as many films, reports and things have pointed out, is ah yeah a very dangerous thing. There's a film we reviewed on the show a few months ago about this and I can't remember of the name of it.
00:16:35
Speaker
The end of medicine, I think it was, the end of medicine where we were talking about that. Quite harrowing details um and an important message to get out there. The bad news is their report is saying that antibiotic use in livestock could rise by a third in the next 15 years.
UN Warning on Antibiotic Use in Livestock
00:16:54
Speaker
And governments have been urged to act to prevent potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to medicines. I mean, goodness me. we we need to reduce it, ne ne never mind increasing it over this time. So these are new global estimates. Of course, animal husbandry accounts for a big proportion of this. So about three quarters of global use of antimicrobial medications is is the link there. So if there wasn't, animal agriculture, things like that, we would already be reducing it by 75% only it was that simple. Or maybe it is that simple. The article states that in many countries, their use is poorly monitored. Okay. But I mean, we we see plenty of that in the UK as well, that it's not doing. And of course, the the the risk, if if listeners aren't aware, is antimicrobial resistance could then lead to the only kind of ah viruses and things that do survive are really, really virulent, dangerous ones. So superbugs, so-called superbugs would be the ones that would almost be bred into existence because everything else is is some either wiped out or or they develop
00:18:10
Speaker
as different strains of themselves so that they are that they they're resistant to it i've i've explained that in a very cat candid way but that's basically it amr already costs an estimated 11 billion euros a year within europe alone and it's predicted to cost one trillion dollars globally by 2050. It's quite a grim picture, this, Carlos. Are there they're signs of hope? Are there particular angles that we can focus on in our advocacy from this? Even if we can't see hope, can we see, can we pick out the points to really drill home to people?
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the the only upside to this is that um this is an argument to stop factory farming, even for people who care absolutely nothing about animal welfare or animal lives.
00:19:02
Speaker
Just the fact that this could cause a catastrophic collapse of how we treat infections. is a good argument to use, not just with you know trying to convince Joe and Joe Jane or Tom, Dick and Harry about going vegan, but you can also convince governments to go vegan or governments to advocate for a decrease in meat production and meat consumption or change to farming practices to avoid like the high-intensity factory farming we have now.
00:19:29
Speaker
to move to to something which, because fewer animals are put into such cramped conditions with other animals, that the essentially the the bacteria does not does not have like this high concentration of animals to to evolve.
00:19:44
Speaker
So... I guess the only positive is this, that you know if, let's say, the world doesn't become more aware of, more compassionate about animals, which I don't expect it necessarily to become, but you can still make arguments you know to the European Union, to the United States government, to other governments of the world, even the UN itself, and say, look, this is ah this this poses essentially an existential risk.
00:20:11
Speaker
for um for mankind. And because of that, we need to end factory farming. If nothing else, we need to end factory farming because it's creating bacteria and other microorganisms that are resistant to every single medication that we have.
00:20:27
Speaker
And you would hope that a generation that has very recently lived through a global pandemic would be a well-placed community to hear that message and listen to it. Although, i don't know about you, Carlos, but I often feel like a lot of a lot of folk around want to just put that in the past and forget about it. But it you know it's not difficult for us to imagine. like We lived through it.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah. And and and it's it's such ah such an easy, you know, factory farming is such an easy problem to solve. it It only really began after the Second World War, essentially, like its proliferation across the world.
00:21:06
Speaker
So essentially, it's a problem. it's It's something which has been created in the last 80 years. And the world we fed, we fed lots of people before 80 years ago, and we can feed them even better now because there's there's more ways, better ways to produce plants, plant-based food than we had 80 years ago. So we can we can definitely end factory farming if collectively as a species we decided to. It's not an unsolvable problem or an extremely hard problem to solve.
00:21:35
Speaker
like let's say, you know, climate change and emissions are, is a very hard problem to solve because the way we run the planet needs energy. And right now the best sources of energy are fossil fuels.
00:21:47
Speaker
So therefore emissions, climate change and so on and so forth, but for, for feeding ourselves, factory farming is less than a hundred years old. That's, that's a really good point that I think it's easy to overlook, isn't it?
00:22:01
Speaker
Like of of course people have been exploiting and using animals, for many, many, many hundreds and and thousands of years, but in this commercial way that that has the has the great global risks of AMR, antimicrobial resistance, or even, I mean, this this report also calls on the UK to ban importing ah growth promoters, so things that have have got sort of artificial growth promoters in them,
00:22:32
Speaker
um And that's a relatively recent phenomenon as well. we you know we're not We're not necessarily talking about fertiliser. I mean, there's all sorts of ways that you can add extra nutrition to things you're growing. like's ah I was learning the other day about the plant comfrey that's like, ah it's just a weed basically. But if you if you pick it and rot it down, It's an incredibly smelly but really potent way of helping your plants grow really quickly. We're not talking about that. That wouldn't be classed as a growth promoter. We're talking about specifically manufactured things. And it's all quite recent, which is grounds for hope, isn't it, in terms of dismantling it?
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes i sometimes I'll talk to non-vegans. What? Believe me, when I when i'm hanging around when hang out with non-vegans, the last thing I want to talk about is veganism. But sometimes the last questions and... and you know and And I'll say, look, the meat you eat is full of antibiotics.
00:23:30
Speaker
It's been shot, kind of, it's been kind of injected through and through with antibiotics. And the fact you're consuming it is reducing your your so sensitivity to those same antibiotic antibiotics, which means if you get an infection, you're more likely for the antibiotics not to work on you because you've been kind of taking a dosage of antibiotics, like at all times.
00:23:49
Speaker
that That's the sort of thing people are not even aware of. And that time antibiotics kind of go into waterways and so on and so forth, which means that bacteria out there is exposed to those antibiotics and can mutate to be resistant to it.
00:24:04
Speaker
So these are massive issues. And, you know, you don't need to care about the animals to care about this. and And the kind of farming that, you know, obviously as a vegan, I don't agree with any kind of farming, but let's say low intensity farming, you know, the traditional way of farming, whatever you want to call it, where people had like maybe half a dozen animals or something does not create AMR.
00:24:28
Speaker
It's the high concentration of hundreds or thousands of animals in a small space, poorly treated, often with kind of wounds and always kind of getting fresh infections. And then the kind of, they're shot with antibiotics to to avoid getting sick from all these infections. And then of course the bacteria mutates because it's got like a very fertile ground to to adapt and lots of animals to transmit from one to the other.
00:24:55
Speaker
Essentially, That's a strong argument to end factory farming if if caring about the animals is not enough, which i don't believe will be enough to end factory farming. Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
and And it's worth pointing out as well that if everybody wanted that low intensity meat, for want of her another word, it it wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't be possible for everybody to eat things that way, would it if if if If animal products is is what you want, then you ah either have to be doing it in an intensive way with the number of people that, that we have on the planet, or everyone has to take turns in eating these low intensity products. Or we, we, we, we just say, well, actually it's, it's perfectly possible to, to sustain yourself happily and healthily without it. you know Yeah. just ah Just last week, the you know among the many news, I monitored the guidelines for from the Slovenian government. And they're not the first to put out these guidelines, like dietary guidelines. It says people should eat a maximum of 300 grams of meat per week.
00:26:03
Speaker
Wow. For health. that's not That's like one steak, right? One big steak. Yeah. And I don't think slovenian is Slovenia is a particularly woke country or dominated by vegan ideology of the South.
00:26:17
Speaker
There we go. i was I was really thinking hard about how can we find some grounds for positivity, for optimism, some calls to action from this story. Because on the face of it it just seems grim and impending doom. And I think we found a few in the fact that, yeah, like you say, the Slovenian government is saying, look, guys, you know need to cut back. You need to cut back. Yeah, it's it's not the only government advocating for 300 grams a week, by the way.
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. There are more countries in Europe saying this. And it's ah you know in and this is like a health-centric measure. It has nothing to do with animal welfare or an animal rights. It's purely based on we've got we have more science now than we used to.
00:27:01
Speaker
And the science says meat is a treat. yeah yeah that's nice that's that's a step forward that's a step forward so listeners may or may not know but we put together the the running order for the show ourselves we're starting to take turns with it a bit more it used to be uh just an anthony reign of terror and i put together the show notes every single week but we we're ah a bit more um spreading the load now a bit more collaborative and kate has put together the news stories this week and we've Like we say, we've had a couple of stories from The Guardian, one from Alaska. And now we're getting really quite specific with a story from Lincolnshire and Lincolnshire
Holly's Law and Animal Cruelty Register
00:27:43
Speaker
Police. Can you tell us a bit more about it, Carlos? Yeah, so so this relates to a murder which happened in March of 2023 Lincoln,
00:27:53
Speaker
um Holly Bramley was killed by Nicholas Madsen, who's now serving a life sentence, thankfully. um and And before she was killed by Nicholas Madsen, who was her husband, by the way, he had killed ah her pets.
00:28:12
Speaker
um and And now there's there's something, you know, which has been called Holly's Law, ah which has been proposed by...
00:28:23
Speaker
um the mother of of Holly called Annette Bramley. And Holly's Law is essentially a national animal cruelty register, which is designed to prevent known abusers from easily acquiring more animals. So the rationale is that people who ah harm animals often go on to harm humans as well. as sort of Animals are like the training ground or kind of the the first step on a ladder on an escalation of violence. Although, of course, as a vegan, I would say the violence is already in the harming of animals. You don't need to escalate to humans to be considered more violence. So essentially, this register would have would keep like records of people who have harmed animals. It will be kind of easily accessible, pretty much like the sexual offenders registry. And this hopefully would prevent...
00:29:13
Speaker
people from who are on the register for acquiring more animals and also you know for other people to be aware if somebody who's been sentenced for animal cruelty is living near them or you know if they're going to enter a relationship with somebody who has that sort of criminal record.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, so essentially the on the campaign, there's quite a lot of, it's already gathered a substantial number of signatures. And you know there's studies cited by the campaign that suggest that among domestic violence victims with companion animals, up to 71% of those report that their partner has threatened, harmed, or killed their pets. So 71% to me is a ah very strong correlation between which would imply like a direct direct kind of causation, like a causal connection between going from harming companion animals to harming human humans in a domestic violence and situation. So what's your take on this? And should we have a national animal cruelty register? Well, I mean, that that can only improve outcomes for animals in terms of visibility, in terms of
00:30:24
Speaker
Greasing the cogs, you know, I think anything that makes it easier for you to speak out against something that shouldn't be the way it is, whether that's violence against human animals or non-human animals or or any other kind of injustice, making it easier to report things, to say that things are happening. And like I say, the visibility is really important because if you've got registers, if you're keeping track of these things, then you get to publish it like is happening in this news story. And you can see here, I mean,
00:30:56
Speaker
You know, that there could be several things happening here. It could be that the people of Lincolnshire are becoming more violent towards humans and non-human animals. That might be happening.
00:31:09
Speaker
You know, if if if people are under more pressure, things like that, that that could be a thing that is happening. It might also be, or instead be, that people feel more able to report these things, either because there's the systems in place that makes it easier And or it might be because it feels more acceptable to do so.
00:31:33
Speaker
And I think, you know, some listeners might feel that this is a tenuous argument I'm making. And I i welcome that feedback or anything else that that folk would say. But I think the more you put the tools in place so that people can express with their actions that, know,
00:31:54
Speaker
they think something unjust is happening towards an animal in their life, human or otherwise, then the attitudes can follow. Like we've we've said this several times on the show and psychology backs this.
00:32:10
Speaker
We often think that we set out our stall on something, we make up our mind about something and the behavior follows. You know, I've decided animal cruelty is wrong. Therefore, I'm not going to do it anymore.
00:32:26
Speaker
But actually psychology tells us that it's the other way round. Our behaviors influence our mindset. So if it's easy for me to say, don't don't hit that dog, or I'm going to report you if you do something against this.
00:32:43
Speaker
If it's easy for us to behave in that way, then we can afford, our minds can afford to let us have that point of view. And we see all the all the mental gymnastics that carnists will do justify their behavior. Because as humans, we have to feel like how we're behaving is consistent, even if it means saying the weirdest, strangest things. So I think that the easier it is for people to be in a position of animal cruelty is wrong,
00:33:16
Speaker
then the more we will see people behaving that way and putting that attitude out there and attitudes spread, don't they? So huge, huge sympathy. Goodness, I can't imagine what it is like for you know the the mother who is featured in this news story, who who lost her daughter, so that that brutal murder, and anyone else who who suffered these things these things, and indeed the animals that are...
00:33:43
Speaker
are being abused in these cases. What an awful thing to go through. It's heartening to see that, you know, that that will be harder to happen for in the future.
00:33:55
Speaker
and And it still will happen, but you know we can we can only make progress with these things. So short answer, Carlos, yes, let's put all the things in place we can to to make violence and in injustice a thing that can be got away with, really, isn't it? And if if there's indeed such register, it kind of really drives on the point that um that people should report animal cruelty because something will happen with it.
00:34:23
Speaker
um you know Usually, I think even in this podcast, numerous times that animal cruelty against companion animals has been featured and then you know it's like, oh, you got like a 50 quid fine and and a ban from owning dogs for one year or something ridiculous like that. But if you get put on a register, that's a very dissuasive thing because you know who'd want to employ a somebody who stabbed their dog to death?
00:34:48
Speaker
You know what I mean? you know And if if that's publicly available, you as an employer, might think twice. And if an employer thinks twice, then the person who's about to do such an action might think twice as well about doing such a thing if they suspect they're going to and end up on this national register.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Certainly worth a worth a go, isn't it? Certainly worth a go. So we've covered four stories so far from the news. We've covered some, well, as as with anything to do with animal rights and veganism, it's sentimental, it's emotional, it can be divisive, it can be controversial, and you may have opinions on it. And we always like to remind you every show that your opinions are really valued. You can contact us by Facebook or Instagram. Shane tends to put up all the stories that we've covered in the news on our social media
00:35:45
Speaker
pages so you can very quickly click through to the article but you can also put your opinions in there too you can send us a direct message you can also email us we're enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com we read all your emails we um unless you tell us not to we'll feature them in one of our regular mailbag shows so we can discuss questions issues feedback hey we even read the emails where you say that we you think we're talking a load of old rubbish you know we're we're just the people behind the microphone your opinion counts too so um do get in touch if you've got any opinions or ideas uh from the show we're going to move on to our last story now we very often feature stories from the animal reader.com um and at the end of may They have reported that elephant happy, it's not a happy story I'm afraid, that elephant that humans have called happy has died at the age of 55 after being euthanised at Bronx Zoo in New York.
Legacy of Happy the Elephant
00:36:48
Speaker
um Some listeners may have heard heard of this elephant before, became famous in human circles for groundbreaking research and a major animal rights court case. The incidents in question, a scientific study was done in 2005 with regards in elephants. Researchers found that so-called happy could recognize herself in a mirror, something that had previously only been seen in a small number of animal species. Apparently during the study they repeatedly touched a painted mark above her eye after seeing it in the mirror.
00:37:30
Speaker
This suggested she understood the reflection was her own body. There was also In 2018, the Non-Human Rights Project filing a lawsuit arguing that Happy should legally be recognised as a person and moved to a sanctuary. The zoo, however, defended her care and said that moving her away from her long-time home could harm her well-being, says the place that's kept her captive for the best part of 50 years. Carlos, obviously an animal losing its life.
00:38:04
Speaker
not a great thing. We could talk about the euthanization and you know how we feel about, quote, putting down animals, but you know whether or not we get onto that, is it a valid thing to do? What what should we be doing? what what What do you feel an inclination to do when an animal like this loses their life? Is it focus on the things that they've contributed to or focus on the fact that they're being oppressed, all of them, something else? What's what's your gut telling you?
00:38:36
Speaker
I mean, it's it's really good that Happy's... Well, the name is ironic, isn't it, for a prisoner? That Happy's life and opportunity for it to be studied kind of led us to recognition of, I guess, another dimension to elephant cognition, which hopefully will kind of lead to the rights of ah elephants being respected, and one of them being the life, of course, of the right to to be free.
00:39:03
Speaker
In many ways... As far as ah an elephant living in a zoo, she had probably the best life that an elephant in the zoo could have had. But it's, you know, even, you know, 55 years old is less than a then an Asian elephant would live in the wild.
00:39:21
Speaker
And I would argue a much diminished life as well, compared to living in a herd in the wild in its natural environment. So, you know, decades and decades of confinement. um there There are credible sanctuaries for elephants in the world, in many places in the world. I mean, there's one opening soon in Portugal, of all places, we're kind of where um circus elephants will live out there the rest of their lives after the ban. And of course, there are multiple sanctuaries you know for Asian elephants, which are in Asia. and
00:39:55
Speaker
But the zoo was was against getting, sending sending Happy to spend its last few days in that in the sanctuary.
00:40:06
Speaker
i guess this elephant... generated a lot of amount of money for the zoo. You know, she she lived a very long time, which is good. In essence, her life kind of kind of forced courts and the public to confront the idea that some animals kind of passed this test of self-awareness, that even though they have self-awareness, they're treated as objects. All this stuff kind of was in the media, it was in the news. So it's great that this conversation um happened overall, all but it really raises the question of how can we really defend the institution of zoos as they currently exist compared to the existence of sanctuaries?
00:40:43
Speaker
Because one of the many arguments that we hear about the existence of the zoos is that these animals we have in the zoo right now, they cannot live in the wild, so we cannot just release them.
00:40:53
Speaker
Fine, there's sanctuaries for that as well. I mean, i wouldnt probably not for every single species of animal currently in a zoo, there would be a sanctuary for them, perhaps. But for elephants, surely they could all be released. And for a lot of other mammals, they could also be released. Even even predators have, you know, there sanctuaries for predators as well, for example.
00:41:15
Speaker
So there's really no arguments for me for zoos to continue to exist. Animals can be studied in the wild as well as humans have done for centuries already. And, you know, just the fact that this elephant in captivity kind of managed to pass the self-awareness test, that's great. But, you know, it would be even better if we didn't need to do those tests to give a kind of, let's say, the state of personhood to a species.
00:41:43
Speaker
I suppose, in a sense, the fact that there's this chronologically, the self-awareness experiment came first, and then we've got this campaign to get them moved to an elephant sanctuary following that.
00:42:03
Speaker
In a sense, that's quite a nice pairing in that, ah you know, obviously the animal reader is going to be putting arguments in that are against zoos and, you know, a more animal rights friendly argument. Whereas I imagine...
00:42:21
Speaker
The story of Happy dying recently will have been reported in non-vegan places. And the fact that of the two significant human-centric things that happened in Happy's life, like one of them is questioning the right of a zoo to to keep that animal captive.
00:42:40
Speaker
That's... That feels like it it could be a a hopeful thing resulting from this. But yeah, it's, I mean, just just dwelling on the fact that a majestic animal like an elephant has had 55 years in a zoo. Oh my goodness.
00:42:58
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Yeah. it's ah That's not a nice thing to dwell on really, is it? not it Yeah, I mean, there's um there's over 10,000 elephants in zoos and kind of similar zoos and kind of tourist attractions, mostly in Asia.
00:43:15
Speaker
These animals must be freed. Simple as that, isn't it? Simple as that. And and we we definitely mustn't, as you know as the relatively small proportion of people in the world that are vegan and animal rights advocates, we can't fall into the trap of saying, oh, well, this elephant had a life well spent because you know it's contributed to the field of scientific inquiry and what have you. No, no. no like That's... What that animal wanted was to be in the wild with its own kind, full stop.
00:43:45
Speaker
That's all that cared about. It doesn't give two hoots. Yes, of course, we can say, well, maybe a silver lining. to this sad story of captivity is maybe it's furthered you know awareness and of of of animal sentience. But the bottom line is, I think we can safely say it wanted to be living in the wild and that would have been appropriate and the right thing to do.
00:44:09
Speaker
There we are, there we are, one day, one day. Well, that's the end of our stories. We do like to so ah suggest that if if you want to um you know share details of the podcast with people, that's a wonderful thing to do. We have a Ko-Fi page you can donate to to help us get better recording equipment, things like that. That is live. We've got people doing that. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Shane.
00:44:32
Speaker
Thank you, Neil. I'm just saying some names off the top of my head there. So thank you, all the Ko-Fi people that contribute to us. And you can rate us. You can leave comments and stuff like that on Spotify. All that stuff helps. So thanks in advance for any of that you can do. Carlos, it's been a while since we've had you on the pod. Thank you for making the time for being on the pod. When is the next one of these coming out? All right. First of all, thanks everybody for listening. And the next episode coming out is Vegan Talk, which will be available from Thursday, the 11th of June. That features Dominic, David and Paul. It's about plant plant powered performance.
00:45:10
Speaker
And I can't believe I'm saying this, going vegan for my penis. Yep, that is the provocative title of the next episode, going vegan for my penis. ah So tune in for that one if you want to hear three blokes who are vegan talking about that. Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thanks, Carlos, again. Great to hear from you. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I've been Anthony.
00:45:34
Speaker
You've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
00:45:43
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster. We use music and special effects by zapsflat.com.
00:45:58
Speaker
And sometimes if you're lucky at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr. Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
00:46:24
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? twenty twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course,
00:46:45
Speaker
around a dozen news items from around the world each week. So check back on your podcast player to hear previous episodes. And remember to get an alert for each new episode, simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show.
00:47:00
Speaker
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