These days, people and animals are together in misery

For many, many people, times are hard these days.  Bitter national divisions, long covid, mass shootings, frightful storms and climate-change fears . . . . For our fellow (non-human) animals, times have always been hard -- for at least as long as we’ve been on earth with them! 

Now and then come rays of hope, surprisingly merciful deeds and happy times, but inevitably, cruel and inhumane behaviors dominate the news.

Peter Singer, for me the philosopher-king of animal welfare, in an Earth Day column last month discussed why, since 1970 – 47 years ago! – he has not eaten meat.  In that year of the first Earth Day, he realized “there is no ethical justification for treating animals like machines for converting feed into meat, milk and eggs.”  

Since then, Singer has added another, possibly world-saving reason for boycotting meat: climate change.  Think methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that’s much more destructive than carbon dioxide.  “Meat and dairy production,” he writes, are major sources of methane.

That’s a major reason why Singer proposes that people halve their consumption of animal products – a step much more effective than other options he mentions to end factory farming and save the planet. 

“This means we can do something for the planet every time we eat,” he says.     https://tinyurl.com/uhtfauaw

Purloined pigs

Another story involves saving two piglets from a Smithfield Foods factory farm in Utah, where they were destined for slaughter.  Instead, the men who rescued them gave them a chance to live “happily ever after.”  

Neither stealing nor rescuing the piglets was the intent of those who removed them that night.  But the terrible condition both baby pigs were in prompted the men to take them when they left.  Nursed back to health and re-homed at a sanctuary, the piglets, by then named Lucy and Lizzie, are enjoying new lives.   

That wasn’t the only surprise.  The second one began with the men’s indictment for taking the pigs from the farm -- and ended with their acquittal.  They wanted people to “wrestle with the moral implications of how living beings end up in grocery stores as packages of meat.”

For three surprising reasons that included having their consciences stirred, the jury found the defendants not guilty.  It’s hoped the verdict will positively influence the way corporations treat animals under their care.

https://tinyurl.com/bdd4jd9z

What is Lucy?

Besides being very big and gray and popular, Lucy, of Margate, NJ (mentioned in the last post here), is a puzzling creature to identify.  Her ears suggest she’s an Asian elephant, but her giant tusks are all wrong: female Asian elephants don’t have tusks!

Lucy may have to “live” with disputes over her animal heritage and resign herself to being . . . a large, elderly faux elephant landmark at the Jersey shore.

Just for fun and with no doubt about his heritage, here’s a delightful video of a real live baby elephant who thinks he should charge a vehicle.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSRlUsQ7TJ8

Fur family update 

Billy and Jersey Summers – a.k.a. “the Summers boys” -- are such good buddies that I’m going to quit using pheromone diffusers.  They have steadily become better friends every day since Jersey arrived last October.

Billy remains my long-time friend and support, generally sharing my bed pillows and trailing me around the house, carrying his yellow fluffy ball: a signal for us to play.  So I invite him to trip down to the basement with me for cardboard box-time, with treats (that he's really after) along the way.

Jersey continues his independent, semi-domesticated ways (running from being picked up, so also missing nail clipping and brushing and, at the toss of a toy, breaking into a kittenish dance with small balls and mice.)  He also continues to gaze into the glass fireplace door at the cat he always sees there, looking back at him.  

And uh-oh: he recently noticed the clothes dryer’s round glass door facing out and showing him still another cat in our house.  Now he has one on each floor to stare at, charm or guard against.  

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