The Tuesday, October 18, Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a balanced front page piece on the Georgia Aquarium's "plan to publicly display the world's largest shark," -- two sharks, which the article describes as "gentle giants, which eat plankton, not people." The article's final quote is a nice jump-off line for a letter to the editor: "Global protection will then render obsolete the excuse of procuring whale sharks for aquariums in lieu of fishing, and leave these animals where they belong, in the open ocean."
I will paste the piece below. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution takes letters at http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Also, the Tuesday, October 18, Athens Banner Herald features a long story on the front page of the 'Living' section, about Howard Lyman, who will be speaking and presenting his new film at the Univesity of Georgia on Monday, October 24, sponsored by Speak Out for Species. Lyman, an ex-cattle rancher who became an expert on Mad Cow Disease and then Oprah's co-defendent when she was sued by the cattle ranchers, is a terrific speaker. If you haven't heard him before and find yourself near Athens on Monday you should check out the lecture. I will paste the story on Lyman below the AJC shark story, and encourage supportive letters to the Athens Banner Herald. That paper takes letters at: http://www.onlineathens.com/feedback.shtml
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
October 18, 2005 Tuesday
NEWS; Pg. 1A
Shark display ruffles feathers
JIM THARPE
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/1005/18fishprotest.html
Many scientists consider it a tempest in a --- very large --- fish bowl. But some animal rights activists have criticized the soon-to-open Georgia Aquarium for its plan to publicly display the world's largest shark, a feat never attempted outside Asia.
The 500,000-square-foot aquarium, a mammoth ship-shaped building near Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, plans to open its doors Nov. 21. It will be the biggest aquarium in the world with more than 100,000 fish, including Ralph and Norton, two juvenile whale sharks --- the largest fish on Earth and one of the least understood.
The United Kingdom-based Captive Animals' Protection Society, the New Jersey-based Shark Research Institute and at least one scientist who has conducted whale shark research have raised varying degrees of concern about the aquarium's decision to display the gentle giants, which eat plankton, not people.
Others, including Robert Hueter --- one of the nation's leading shark experts --- have applauded the plan to bring the big fish to the public. Exposing huge numbers of people to the giant fish through the aquarium will, they contend, help protect the animal in the wild and increase our understanding of the creature.
"This kind of display can engage the public and help protect the ocean, and there are two ways to go about that," Hueter said. "One is to take people to whale sharks in the wild. The other is to bring whale sharks to people.
"You can only take so many people to the sharks without adversely impacting the sharks' behavior. And most people just can't afford to go on those kinds of trips."
But Craig Redmond of the Captive Animals' Protection Society, which lobbies on behalf of animals in circuses, zoos and the entertainment industry, has labeled the Georgia Aquarium's move as "dangerous." He has called for a shutdown of the aquarium industry.
"CAPS believes that Georgia Aquarium's capture and display of species like whale sharks . . . is increasing the pressure on other aquariums across the U.S., and the world, to capture thousands of animals from the wild and put them on display," Redmond said. "Many of these animals will not live long in captivity and will be replaced by yet more wild-caught animals."
Before they were purchased by the Georgia Aquarium, Ralph and Norton were headed for the dinner table in Taiwan, where whale sharks are legally slaughtered for food. The Taiwanese refer to the species as the "tofu shark" due to the color and texture of its flesh.
World-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, has praised aquarium benefactor and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus for his decision to spend more than $200 million of his home-improvement fortune on an aquarium to display the big fish.
"Sharks that are at the aquarium in Georgia today would be dead if they hadn't been transported and lovingly cared for and given a home for the rest of their natural lives with people looking out for their every need," Earle said.
Hueter said most critics oppose any public display of wild animals. He said many simply want to shut down all aquariums and zoos.
"Those facilities have educated masses of people who have become biologists and conservationists and wildlife photographers. That has had tremendous benefits for species worldwide," said Hueter, who directs the Center for Shark Research for Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla. The Georgia Aquarium is funding Hueter's whale shark research in Mexico.
Marie Levine, of the Shark Research Institute, initially blasted the aquarium's decision to display whale sharks as "unconscionable," but has since mitigated her criticism.
"It's wonderful if they want to spend the money to expose people to whale sharks, but they must be responsible," Levine said. "When the animals show signs of stress, they should release them and preferably in U.S. waters since they are protected here. Historically, whale sharks have not survived in captivity."
Some critics contend there is a 30 percent mortality rate for whale sharks during their first year of captivity. Supporters point out that in recent years the Japanese, who pioneered putting whale sharks on public display, have been able to sustain the filter-feeding fish for more than a decade. Given that progress, they contend, Ralph and Norton should be able to live long and healthy lives in downtown Atlanta.
Hueter said critics often cite mortality figures from decades ago, when the Japanese first attempted to display the giant fish, which can grow to 60 feet long in the wild. Often the fish were put in tanks that were too small, and they were cared for by handlers who knew little about their requirements, he said. The Georgia Aquarium, he said, was designed specifically for the whale shark's needs, and their care is based on decades of accumulated knowledge.
"These sharks are, in fact, flourishing since they arrived in Atlanta," he said.
Rachel Graham, a scientist who has conducted extensive research on whale sharks in Belize, sent a mass e-mail to her colleagues in August criticizing the Georgia Aquarium's decision to display the fish. She noted that her research indicated that the fish in the wild undertakes a pattern of rhythmic dives that can reach hundreds of meters --- behavior impossible in a 30-foot-deep aquarium tank.
"Let us continue our push for global whale shark conservation so that populations may be protected and in some areas restored following overfishing," Graham wrote. "Global protection will then render obsolete the excuse of procuring whale sharks for aquariums in lieu of fishing and leave these animals where they belong, in the open ocean."
(END OF AJC ARTICLE)
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Here is the story from the Athens Banner Herald on Howard Lyman.
What's not for dinner: The story of Howard Lyman's beef with the cattle
industry
By Julie Phillips
julie.phillips@onlineathens.com
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
What's maybe most striking about the latest big voice for vegetarianism is
that it doesn't come from some skinny, long-haired, peace-sign flinging hippie-
type, but from a man who's the very opposite. He wears a suit and tie or
sometimes cowboy attire and has a comfortable bulge in his belly.
Howard Lyman, who'll be in Athens on Monday to speak at the University of
Georgia, is a former fourth-generation farmer from Montana who spent most of
his life not only consuming beef but producing and selling it for consumption.
So it makes sense he doesn't fit the veggie-type. And it's this bit of the
unexpected that seems to make Lyman's words that much more powerful.
How powerful?
In 1996 they translated into multi-million dollar signs in a lawsuit resulting
from his now-famous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, during which he
revealed - in a discussion about mad cow disease - that cow parts are being
ground up and fed back to cattle (and other animals), essentially turning cows
not only into carnivores, but into cannibals (Oprah quipped that information
had "stopped me cold from eating another burger!").
The lawsuit, filed by some Texas cattlemen, called Lyman's statements false
(despite USDA statistics backing him up) and alleged the show was responsible
for the decline in beef futures.
After six years in a highly publicized case, the suit was dismissed.
But Lyman's sleeves have been rolled up for a long time. He still has work to
do.
In fact, a new FDA proposal to combat mad cow disease unveiled earlier this
month is plenty to keep him going. Touring the country, he lectures and shows
his newly released film, "Mad Cowboy: The Documentary," in which he retraces
his own history in the industry and reveals the conditions imposed on
livestock as well as the health risks of mad cow disease and its human
counterpart, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Mad cow and money
"They rolled over and played dead," Lyman said of the FDA, regarding its new
proposal to ban brains and spinal cords - tissues that can carry mad cow
disease - from livestock feed from cows older than 30 months (infection levels
are believed to rise as cattle age). Noting tests in Japan that have found the
disease in cows younger than 20 months (and Japan continues its ban on U.S.-
imported beef), Lyman said the FDA's proposal is about money.
"The big money people in the (beef) industry got to them and said (the
original, more restrictive FDA proposal that came out about a year ago) would
cost too much, which means they would rather see consumers end up with a 100-
percent fatal disease than lose money at the bottom line."
Reports of CJD in the U.S. have been documented, but only in the form of the
disease not associated with beef consumption (there are three forms of the
disease). But Lyman is hardly convinced there's no connection.
"The human form of mad cow has symptoms very similar to Alzheimer's disease,"
he said. "And in 1900, there were only a handful of people with Alzheimer's in
this country. Today, there are 4 1/2 million people diagnosed with
Alzheimer's."
Lyman cites various studies, including one at Yale, showing 13 percent of
misdiagnosed cases of Alzheimer's were in fact CJD.
"Our government policy is 'don't look, don't find,' " he said. "And it's going
to send a lot of people to an early grave."
Soul searching
Lyman's ultimate solution to avoiding CJD and myriad other health hazards is
to quit eating meat and dairy. It's what he did himself.
His epiphany came in 1979, when a tumor on his spinal cord paralyzed him from
the waist down.
Having long harbored the feeling that the farming practices he'd put into
effect after finishing college in 1961 were wrong, he considered his business.
Lyman essentially had turned the small organic farm his father ran into a
large-scale factory farm with more than 1,000 range cows, 5,000 cattle in a
factory feedlot, thousands of acres of crops and more.
The result, he said, was destruction of the land.
"The birds were dying, the trees were dying, the soil was dying," Lyman said,
noting the chemical-based agriculture he'd embraced. "And for 18 years, I was
unwilling to admit that I was the problem."
But the tumor changed that. With a very small chance he would be able to walk
again, Lyman did some soul searching. "Sometimes it takes that kind of thing
to really look at yourself. And that's what happened for me. I realized that
my actions had destroyed the things I loved. I had become a farmer because I
loved the birds and the trees and the soil. But this type of agriculture isn't
sustainable - it's totally destructive."
The winds of change
Of his touring with the film, Lyman said he feels it's his life's work to
educate the public.
And, he said, it's only a matter of time before our country abandons its meat-
based diet.
"I believe in my lifetime we're going to see the majority of Americans become
vegetarians," Lyman said. "But we're going to have a terrible wake-up call
before that happens."
Still, people are making changes. "The National Restaurant Association
recently said that 20 percent of meals in restaurants are dictated by
vegetarians. It used to be that when you told someone you were vegetarian,
they looked at you like you were from another planet," Lyman said. "But
because of public education, the number of people who are on a plant-based
diet has risen monumentally."
And, he added, with a seemingly rising concern for animal welfare, it makes
sense. "The animals we're killing are killing us," he said.
"If a person is concerned about heart disease or cancer, obesity, diabetes ...
or about the damage occurring to the environment and what's happening to
animals - it's all linked," he said. "And for people to come out and spend a
couple of hours taking in this information, it could be the greatest
investment of time in their lives - these couple of hours could add seven to
15 years to your life if you're willing to make a few changes."
'Mad Cowboy: The Documentary'
Howard Lyman, author of "Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who
Won't Eat Meat" (Scribner, 2001) and "No More Bull!: The Mad Cowboy Targets
America's Worst Enemy: Our Diet" (Scribner, 2005) will speak and present the
screening of his new film.
When: 8 p.m. Monday
Where: University of Georgia Student Learning Center, Room 171
Cost: Free
Contact: sos@uga.edu or http://www.uga.edu/sos
Additional information: Information about health, vegetarianism, mad cow
disease and CJD is posted on Howard Lyman's Web site, www.madcowboy. com. For
an extensive list of recent articles about mad cow disease, visit
www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm
(END OF ATHENS BANNER HERALD ARTICLE)
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(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. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line. )
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