The Friday, March 6 edition of the New York Times included a superb op-ed, by Charles Siebert, headed, "Something Wild."
It tells us of Travis, the chimp who was killed after biting off a woman's face and hands:
"His tragic end is a sadly familiar occurrence within today's equally distorting framework of trying to coerce evolution in a direction it didn't quite go for chimps, by making them be us: living on our turf and terms, dressing in our clothes, acting in our films and commercials, suffering in our research labs."
We read:
"Chimps are, like us, given to occasional violent outbursts, but they have exponentially greater strength. Chimps also have, like us, minds enough to lose and memories that can hasten the process. Wild chimps 'recruited' by poachers for entertainment watch as their mothers are gunned down -- the only way a chimp mother would ever relinquish a child. Chimps born in captivity are spared that experience, but they suffer the same premature separation from their mothers, isolation from their normal social groups and often mistreatment from trainers and keepers, all traumatic events that have been shown to cause deep psychological scarring and, as in human beings, can lead an animal to overreact to the slightest stimuli: the look in someone's eye, the color of someone's hair or, as with Ms. Herold's friend that day, hair done up in an unaccustomed style. These are, in short, deeply conflicted beings, evolutionary anomalies that only we could have created: chimps with names and yet
no recollection of trees."
The article shares other distressing tales of chimps in captivity who met their ends much, as Travis did. It is well worth reading. You'll find it on line at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/opinion/06siebert.html
Publishers keep a close eye on which stories are forwarded the most frequently, so a great way to both spread the word and encourage similarly animal friendly columns in the future is to visit the URL cited above and then click on "Email" to send the story to your friends.
A supportive letter to the editor will also keep this discussion alive on the editorial page. The New York Times takes letters at letters@nytimes.com
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be sure not to use any comments or phrases from me or from any other alerts in your letters. Editors are looking for original responses from their readers.
I thank Teresa D'Amico for making sure we saw this piece.
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews and see a fun celeb-studded video and an NBC news piece on Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals," which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the "Best Books of 2008."
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Date: Sat Mar 7 17:59:49 2009
