DawnWatch Asia

DawnWatch Asia: interview with Peter Singer in South China Morning Post -- July 17, 2006

2006-07-18T17:37:07Z

The following interview with Peter Singer, from the South China Morning Post, presents a great opportunity for animal friendly letters to the editor. The South China Morning Post takes letters at scmplet@scmp.com

South China Morning Post
July 17, 2006 Monday
FEATURES; Behind the News; Pg. 12

L Strong animal instinct

Peter Singer may be an ardent vegetarian, but he doesn't think all carnivores are monsters. He talks to Charmaine Chan about his latest book on the food we eat

Few philosophers have had to engage in such filthy work as Peter Singer, regarded as the father of animal liberation.

To understand how factory-farmed turkeys are reared in the US, he and a friend signed up several years ago for artificial-insemination work with agribusiness giant ConAgra in Missouri. "It was the hardest, fastest, dirtiest, most disgusting, worst-paid work we've done," Mr Singer said. The company needed their help because turkeys bred intensively cannot mate naturally.

"For 10 hours we grabbed and wrestled birds, jerking them upside down, facing their pushed-open a**holes, dodging their spurting s***, while breathing air filled with dust and feathers."

Little wonder Mr Singer includes a "May Be Disturbing to Some Readers" warning alongside the passage heading "Enter the Chicken Shed" in The Ethics of What We Eat. Despite such frank descriptions of factory farming, the book - co-written by lawyer and journalist Jim Mason - has been described as "Michael Moore without the antics".

The book, which seeks to inform consumers rather than to clobber them into submission, peers at the food choices of three American families: meat-and-potato types, conscientious omnivores and vegans. It then attempts to trace the items in their shopping bags to their sources of production.

Ironically, the pair's efforts are bolstered by their mostly unsuccessful bids to persuade companies to reveal their food-production practices. "If corporations won't allow the public to see how they produce food, we should not buy their food," the Australian-born academic said from Melbourne, where he lives half the year. "We should insist on transparency and, in its absence, we should look elsewhere."

Mr Singer's views have special relevance in Hong Kong - a city on the doorstep of a region seen as a breeding ground for disease and the possible epicentre of a bird-flu outbreak. Although he considers intensively bred poultry one of the worst food choices from an ethical standpoint, he commends Hong Kong for moving towards a central slaughterhouse, a measure aimed at reducing the risk of bird flu.

"It's better not to have live birds sold at markets because the conditions in which they're transported and caged while awaiting to be sold are bad," he said. "You need government regulations that make sure the slaughter and handling are done as humanely as possible."

Like many animal-rights activists, Mr Singer and Mr Mason (who together published 1980's Animal Factories) believe the global poultry industry is the root cause of the avian flu problem.

"Not only animal-rights campaigners but a number of scientists are saying that the factory-farm environment, where you have 20,000 to 30,000 chickens in one shed, is the ideal breeding ground for viruses," said Mr Singer, adding that he doesn't agree with moves by some governments to force free-range farmers to shift their chickens indoors, so they don't have any contact with wild birds.

"The best defence is for the birds to develop natural immunities, which they don't develop when they're concentrated inside." While acknowledging he is not an expert on the subject, Mr Singer said it was a mistake to believe intensive farms were "virus secure". "They're clearly not," he said. "You'll find sparrows or mice in them, so I think, in the long run, we'll be safer if we get rid of huge, intensive farms and return to more traditional styles of farming."

In addition, Mr Singer said he believed a user-pays system should be introduced for consumers who insisted on keeping chicken on the menu. "Given that we're having to spend substantial amounts of money stockpiling drugs to deal with avian influenza, it's only fair that those who eat these chickens, and are responsible for this virus, should be paying that cost," he said, adding that vegetarians such as himself should not be forced to contribute.

"I would like to see a tax introduced on the actual product that's posing the risk, rather than [expenditure] coming out of general revenue."

Driven though he may be, Mr Singer said he's not obsessive in his quest to eat ethically. "You don't have to be fanatical," he and Mr Mason write in their book. "A little self-indulgence doesn't make you a moral monster."

Which is why Mr Singer said on the eve of a hiking trip to Japan, "I'm not going to be too worried if there are bonito [fish] flakes in the soup. For me it's not a religious thing."

But where do you draw the line?

It is not all right to buy the meat of animals that "never go outdoors or were very closely confined", he insisted, adding there's a "huge difference" between such consumers and those meat eaters who say, "I have a responsibility to ensure that the animal whose flesh I'm eating had a decent life, so I'm going to eat meat only when I can get it from ethical free-range producers".

Mr Singer's use of "who" for animals, in speech and writing, aims to tweak the conscience.

"When we use the word 'that' for animals we are treating them as though they were simply objects like tables or chairs," he said. "But they can feel things. I'm not saying they are absolutely like humans in every respect but they're more like humans in having a capacity for a consciousness or awareness than they are like tables or chairs." Compared to Mr Singer's seminal 1975 work, Animal Liberation, which fuelled vegetarianism and inspired global efforts to stem cruel and unnecessary animal experimentation, he said of his new book: "It is a softer approach that recognises many people are going to continue to eat meat ... and I want to offer them more ethical choices without necessarily being the perfect choices."

Such seemingly reasonable sentiments may surprise Mr Singer's detractors, who have labelled him "a prophet of death" and "the most dangerous man on the planet". Those tags were meted out in connection with his defence of euthanasia and infanticide for severely disabled humans. His views - publicised just before his move to Princeton University in 1999 to take up a post of professor of bioethics - sparked student protests and death threats, although they also prompted supporters to call him "the most influential moral philosopher of his time".

Mr Singer - who divides his time between Princeton and the University of Melbourne - is aware of his reach: Animal Liberation has been translated into 18 languages, including Chinese; and his other books - including 2004's The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush - attract attention in a way philosophical tomes rarely do in an age of shortening attentions spans.

In The Ethics of What We Eat (titled The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter in the US) he writes not only about factory-farmed livestock, but also whether it is OK to eat beef, fish and genetically modified products. He also discusses the pros and cons of the fair-trade movement, organic food and buying locally.

With regard to fowl, Mr Singer said, the conditions in which they lived, were transported and died "should be enough to disqualify [them] from every ethical shopping list". The cramped conditions they endure provoke physiological problems: high ammonia levels from droppings cause chronic respiratory disease, foot sores, breast blisters and, in severe cases, blindness.

He continues, citing studies by veterinary science professor John Webster of the University of Bristol, that broilers "are the only livestock that are in chronic pain for the last 20 per cent of their lives": they don't move around because it hurts their joints and sometimes their vertebrae snap, which causes paralysis and death because they cannot reach food or water.

One way in which the suffering of birds may be limited is through so-called controlled-atmosphere killing, a method already implemented in parts of Europe and the US. Before being removed from their cages, "the birds are 'stunned' by inert gases rather than bio-electric currents, which don't seem to work very well", said Mr Singer, who includes in his book the revelations of a former "killing room" worker in Arkansas.

According to the ex-Tyson Foods worker, a fallible stunning system meant one in three chickens handled on any given night was still alive when dunked in the scalding tank. Often they came out with broken bones or worse because they "struggled so much" while being boiled alive.
(END OF POST ARTICLE)
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Date: Tue Jul 18 17:37:07 2006

DawnWatch Asia: Op-ed in Korea Herald on Great Ape Project -- May 18, 2006

2006-05-18T13:28:09Z

The following op-ed, by Peter Singer, opens the door for animal-friendly letters to the editor. The Korea Herald takes letters to the editor at jylee@heraldm.com
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Granting rights to the great ape

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/05/18/200605180042.asp

In his History of European Morals, published in 1869, the Irish historian and philosopher W.E.H. Lecky wrote:

At one time the benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world...

The expansion of the moral circle could be about to take a significant step forwards. Francisco Garrido, a bioethicist and member of Spain`s parliament, has moved a resolution exhorting the government "to declare its adhesion to the Great Ape Project and to take any necessary measures in international forums and organizations for the protection of great apes from maltreatment, slavery, torture, death, and extinction." The resolution would not have the force of law, but its approval would mark the first time that a national legislature has recognized the special status of great apes and the need to protect them, not only from extinction, but also from individual abuse.

I founded the Great Ape Project together with Paola Cavalieri, an Italian philosopher and animal advocate, in 1993. Our aim was to grant some basic rights to the nonhuman great apes: life, liberty, and the prohibition of torture.

The project has proven controversial. Some opponents argue that, in extending rights beyond our own species, it goes too far, while others claim that, in limiting rights to the great apes, it does not go far enough.

We reject the first criticism entirely. There is no sound moral reason why possession of basic rights should be limited to members of a particular species. If we were to meet intelligent, sympathetic extraterrestrials, would we deny them basic rights because they are not members of our own species? At a minimum, we should recognize basic rights in all beings who show intelligence and awareness (including some level of self-awareness) and who have emotional and social needs.

We are more sympathetic to the second criticism. The Great Ape Project does not reject the idea of basic rights for other animals. It merely asserts that the case for such rights is strongest in respect to great apes. The work of researchers like Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, Birute Galdikas, Frans de Waal, and many others amply demonstrates that the great apes are intelligent beings with strong emotions that in many ways resemble our own.

Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas have long-term relationships, not only between mothers and children, but also between unrelated apes. When a loved one dies, they grieve for a long time. They can solve complex puzzles that stump most two-year-old humans. They can learn hundreds of signs, and put them together in sentences that obey grammatical rules. They display a sense of justice, resenting others who do not reciprocate a favor.

When we group chimpanzees together with, say, snakes, as "animals," we imply that the gap between us and chimpanzees is greater than the gap between chimpanzees and snakes. But in evolutionary terms this is nonsense. Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest relatives, and we humans, not gorillas or orangutans, are their closest relatives. Indeed, three years ago, a group of scientists led by Derek Wildman proposed, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that chimpanzees have been shown to be so close to humans genetically that they should be included in the genus Homo.

Like any important and novel idea, Garrido`s proposal has aroused considerable debate in Spain. Some are concerned that it will interfere with medical research. But the only European biomedical research that has used great apes recently is the Biomedical Primate Research Center at Rijswijk, in the Netherlands. In 2002, a review by the Dutch Royal Academy of Science found that the chimpanzee colony there was not serving any vital research purposes. The Dutch government subsequently banned biomedical research on chimpanzees. Thus, there is no European medical research currently being conducted on great apes, and one barrier to granting them some basic rights has collapsed.

Some of the opposition stems from misunderstandings. Recognizing the rights of great apes does not mean that they all must be set free, even those born and bred in zoos, who would be unable to survive in the wild. Nor does it rule out euthanasia if that is in the interest of individual apes whose suffering cannot be relieved. Just as some humans are unable to fend for themselves and need others to act as their guardians, so, too, will great apes living in the midst of human communities. What extending basic rights to great apes does mean is that they will cease to be mere things that can be owned and used for our amusement or entertainment.

A final group of opponents recognizes the strength of the case for extending rights to great apes, but worries that this may pave the way for the extension of rights to all primates, or all mammals, or all animals. They could be right. Only time will tell. But that is irrelevant to the merits of the case for granting basic rights to the great apes. We should not be deterred from doing right now by the fear that we may later be persuaded that we should do right again.

Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.
(END OF KOREA HERALD OP-ED)
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Date: Thu May 18 13:28:09 2006

DawnWatch UK and Asia -- Articles on China's refusal to quit bear bile farming -- January 13

2006-01-13T14:10:35Z

This alert is going to subscribers in the UK and in Asia:

The South China Morning Post and The Times of London both have articles on China's refusal to put an end to bear bile farming in their Friday, January 13 editions. I will paste the articles below.
The articles provide a good opportunity for letters against the practice and about our treatment of other species.
The South China Morning Post takes letters at scmplet@scmp.com
The Times of London takes letters at letters@thetimes.co.uk
Always include your full name, address and phone number.

You'll find lots of information and shocking bear bile farming photos at http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=2&lg=en

South China Morning Post
January 13, 2006 Friday
NEWS; Pg. 4

Plea for end to bear bile farming falls on deaf ears;
It's an indispensable ingredient in traditional medicine: wildlife official

Shi Jiangtao in Beijing

China has rejected international calls for an end to the farming of bears for bile, saying it has no plans to order an end to the practice.

It also dismissed criticism that mainland consumption of shark's fin was endangering the species.

Wang Wei, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration's department of wildlife conservation, said bear farming was a market-driven activity in the country because bear bile was considered an indispensable ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.

"Until we can find a good substitute for bear bile, there is no timetable for the elimination of bear farming," he said yesterday.

Bear bile is used in dozens of Chinese medicines for the treatment of various intestinal and cardiac illnesses.

Mr Wang said the government would not accept a resolution by the European Parliament this week calling on China to phase out bear farms, a move some members said should happen before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"It is undesirable for the international community to link bear farming with other issues," he said.

Mr Wang said a decade-long crackdown on illegal bear breeding had seen the number of farms drop from 480 in the 1990s to 68, and about 7,000 bears were now raised.

Amid widespread criticism over the cruelty of the practice, Mr Wang said the mainland had made the process more humane by introducing painless practices for extracting bile through tubes made of the bears' own tissue. He said the government would set limits on the amount of bear bile to be extracted and on the number of bear farms.

Mr Wang accused some overseas organisations of distorting facts by circulating outdated videos and pictures showing bears being held in small iron cages, a practice banned on the mainland.

However, Jill Robinson, from the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation, challenged Mr Wang's defence of bear farming.

"Many Chinese doctors we work with are in complete support of herbal and synthetic alternatives, which are cheaper and just as effective," she said. "They say the practice of bear farming damages the reputation of Chinese medicine because it is such an inherently cruel practice and is not in keeping with harmony of nature, as Chinese medicine dictates."

She called on the government to recognise what she alleged was "the great deceit in the unnecessary industry" of bear farming and set a date to end the practice.

Mainland authorities also dismissed criticism that the excessive consumption of shark's fin had endangered sharks.

Li Yanliang, from the Ministry of Agriculture's fisheries bureau, said the allegations were unfounded.

"China's fishing of sharks is based on international conventions, and it has boosted the economies of developing countries in coastal Asia," he said.

The Times (London)
January 13, 2006, Friday
OVERSEAS NEWS; Pg. 42

Siphoning bear bile for medicine is painless, says China

Jane Macartney in Beijing

IT IS a scene replicated in scores of Chinese farms: hundreds of Asian black bears crowded into rows of cages with hardly enough space in which to roll over. Each animal has a hole punched through its abdomen and into its gall bladder. From that hole drips the bile that is sent off for use in traditional Chinese medicines.

Most of the bears -known as moon bears for the crescent of yellowish fur across their chests -were trapped in the wild and are destined to spend dramatically shortened lives in captivity. They die of illness, starvation, tumours or infections of their open wounds.

On the initiative of five British MEPs, Labour and Conservative, the European Parliament this week demanded an immediate ban on this "cruel and uncivilised practice".

But China rejected that demand yesterday. It argued that without a viable substitute, the bile remained an essential ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine and that a campaign launched last year had ended many of the inhumane practices cited by environmentalists.

Wang Wei, deputy director-general of the Department of Wildlife Conservation, said: "We have introduced painless practices for extracting bear bile. Until we can find a good substitute we cannot accept the EU resolution that urges the elimination of bear farming."

Mr Wang said China had closed most of its 480 bear farms and now keeps about 7,000 animals in 68 farms that meet new standards.

The Government encouraged bear farming in the 1990s to stop the endangered animals being hunted -fewer than 19,000 survive in the wild. The process is profitable, with bile fetching up to � 350 a kilogram. China is believed to produce as much as 7,000kg (15,430lb) a year.

Traditional Chinese doctors use the bitter, green bile to treat eye, liver and other ailments. Yang Liang, of the Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said: "It's definitely painful for the bears, but the synthetic substitute is too different from natural bile.

"Traditional Chinese medicine attaches importance to every material as a whole and not just one ingredient. Laboratory-made bile is just bile acid, but real bear bile has many amino acids and trace elements."

Jill Robinson, the British founder of the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation, which runs a sanctuary in southwest Sichuan province, disagreed. "It's nonsense.

Bear bile can easily and cheaply be replaced by herbal or synthetic materials."

She urged Beijing to investigate hidden malpractices on the farms, which range from family businesses with a couple of bears to "superfarms" in the northeast with as many as 2,000 animals.

Not all practitioners of Chinese medicine consider bear bile essential. Liu Zhengcai, a professor who has worked as a doctor for more than 40 years and never used the ingredient, said bile first appeared as a folk remedy in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was said to be effective in treating eye diseases.

"Traditionally, people believe bear bile can relieve internal heat or fever," he said. "Actually it functions as an anti-inflammatory and many other Chinese medicines -such as chrysanthemums -or Western medicines are more effective. Bear bile is not a magic cure."

It could even do harm. Ms Robinson said that her sanctuary had received 198 bears and every one had to have its damaged gallbladder removed. "In 100 per cent of cases, we have found pus in the bile," she said. "We wonder, what is that pus doing to the end consumer? So, far from healing people, it could be harming them."
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Date: Fri Jan 13 14:10:35 2006

DawnWatch Asia: Lead animal cruelty story in South China Morning Post -- January 8, 2006

2006-01-09T11:43:41Z

The following article, on Sunday's anti animal abuse march, provides a great opportunity for follow-up letters on any aspect of animal cruelty -- for example in the food or entertainment industries. The South China Morning Post takes letters at scmplet@scmp.com

South China Morning Post
January 8, 2006 Sunday
YOUNGPOST; Pg. 1
Paws for thought

By Lau Kit-wai

Animal lovers, it's time to take action. Last autumn, three kittens were found left for dead after being sadistically tortured and dumped in a street in Mongkok - and these cases may only be the tip of the iceberg, animal rights activists warn.

The first victim, a kitten called Sylvia, was found in September last year lying on the street with two broken limbs and a stab wound to her belly. A week later, Chop Chop (right) was found in the same area. Bowie, the third victim, had similar injuries and was found at the same site in November. He died shortly after an operation.

Sylvia and Chop Chop (below) are now living with Helena Chung Man-har, an animal lover and member of Hong Kong Alley Cat Watch (HKACW). They have almost fully recovered, although Chop Chop needed to have a front leg amputated. The attacks prompted teacher David Wong Kai-yan to start an online petition for tougher penalties against animal abuse.

Chung, Wong and volunteers from animal protection groups such as Animal Earth, Bag Me Home and HKACW have organised the 1.08 Respect for Life and Anti-Animal Abuse march. It starts at 2pm today at Chater Garden and finishes at the Central Government Offices. The march is intended to enhance public awareness of animal rights and call for tougher laws against animal abuse.

Chung said everyone is welcome to join the march because its theme is not only animal protection, but also about showing respect for life.

"There is a reason for every life that comes into this world. We should not torture animals to death, even if they are livestock," said Chung.

"Many people give up their cats if they're sick, by abandoning them or giving them away. Although Chop Chop is handicapped, she now leads a happy life. She teaches me not to give up easily."

Unfortunately, not everyone in Hong Kong shares Chung's views on animals. According to a survey by Animals Asia Foundation that has not been publicly released, about 20 per cent of the poll's 1,000 respondents admitted they had eaten dog meat within the past two years, mostly during trips to Shenzhen or Guangzhou.

More surprising was the fact that about one-third of those who had not eaten dog meat said it was not because they took offence to the practice - which is illegal in Hong Kong - but because they didn't have the opportunity.

House pets do not necessarily have an easier life, as pet abandonment is a common problem. Many people underestimate the responsibilities of keeping an animal, an Animals Asia spokeswoman said.

"Pet shop owners will not inform you of all the facts you need to know about keeping an animal. Keeping a pet is like raising a child. More importantly, a child will grow up someday and become independent, but a pet will rely on you its entire life."

The Society for Abandoned Animals, which houses about 280 animals at its shelter, said it normally receives 10 to 20 calls a day from owners who, for various reasons, are unable to keep their pets and wish to rehouse them. An average of only 10 animals are adopted each month at the shelter, so space for newly abandoned animals was limited.

So think twice before you ask your parents to buy you a pet. Ask yourself: "Am I ready to be its lifelong friend?" For nine-year-old Danise Miao Mei-sze, who has nine dogs, the answer is yes.

"Like humans, dogs have feelings. If you abandon them, they will feel sad. That's why I love my dogs so much and will never give them away."

For more information about the march, visit www.animalearth.org or www.hkalleycats.com
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Date: Mon Jan 9 11:43:41 2006

DawnWatch Asia: South China front page on kitten rescue -- Monday, Nov 28

2005-11-28T12:41:53Z

This lovely story on the front page of the South China Morning Post presents a great opportunity for letters to the editor in support of the action but perhaps pointing to the irony given some other societal treatment of cats and other animals. The South China Morning Post takes letters at scmplet@scmp.com
Always include your full name, address and daytime phone when sending a letter to the editor

South China Morning Post
November 28, 2005 Monday
NEWS; Pg. 1

That's no tiger in the tank, it's a kitten in the engine

Zhuang Pinghui

Twenty-four firefighters and police officers pulled out all the stops - and most of a car's engine - yesterday to rescue a trapped kitten.

They spent three hours removing the cat that had become lodged in the engine of a Mercedes convertible parked in Dragon Road, North Point.

The owner of the car had spotted the animal earlier under the vehicle but by the time the rescuers arrived, the kitten had managed to crawl under the bonnet.

"The kitten came from nowhere. It's very, very small," said Elaine Ha, a resident who witnessed the rescue operation.

At first two firefighters tried to free the kitten, but their number soon rose to seven, according to Ms Ha. The fire officers then told the car's owner there were two options: leave the kitten where it was and risk it being injured, or dismantle the car engine to free the kitten, Ms Ha said.

She said the owner agreed to the engine being dismantled without hesitation.

"It is a four-wheel-drive convertible Mercedes, a very expensive car, and he didn't have insurance for it yet, but he still decided to do it. That's the noblest thing I've ever heard," said Ms Ha.

The kitten was finally freed, uninjured, at 3pm.

The animal was then handed over to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which will try to find its owner.

The society warned it was common for cats seeking warmth to hide near or in car engines during the winter.

"There are at least a dozen similar cases every winter," Rebecca Ngan, a spokesman for the society said.

"I urge all drivers in Hong Kong to pat their vehicles a few times before switching on the engines. It can be a warning sign to the cats."
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Date: Mon Nov 28 12:41:53 2005