Category: Opinion Editorial

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Opinion Editorial

It’s time to end rodeo cruelty in B.C.

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

Right here in British Columbia, in 2019, animals are being tormented and abused for the entertainment of a crowd.

In July, a rodeo stock contractor was photographed using an electric prod on bulls at the Quesnel Rodeo.  Last year, the same man was caught using a prod at the Chilliwack Fair rodeo.

While the use of electric prods on cattle is not illegal, the National Farm Animal Care Council’s Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Beef Cattle states: “Electric prods must only be used to assist movement of cattle when animal or human safety is at risk or as a last resort when all other humane alternatives have failed and only when cattle have a clear path to move.”

Calf roping at Chilliwack Rodeo
Calf roping at Chilliwack Rodeo

If you used a prod to apply electric shocks to your dog you would likely face animal cruelty charges. Farm animals do not receive the same protection under the law, leaving bulls, calves and steers subject to abusive, coercive measures in rodeos.

The B.C. Rodeo Association has stated that it does not condone the use of electric cattle prods and that the matter will be dealt with according to its rules and regulations. To date, no penalty for use of the prod has been announced.

In the Quesnel and Chilliwack rodeos, the prods were being used in the bull-riding event: A bucking bull is released into the arena with an unwanted rider on its back to see if the rider can stay on for eight seconds. The rider wears spurs to grip the bull’s hide.  Just before the bull is released a “flank strap” is tightened around its hindquarters, which causes further stress to induce bucking. Electric shocks would only add to the distress the bull is already enduring.

And it’s not just bulls that suffer. Three-month-old calves are chased across the arena, roped off their feet, picked up and slammed to the ground.  In the steer-wrestling event, the animal has its neck twisted until it is bent to the ground.  In team-roping, steers are roped by the head and hind legs, often stretching the animal off the ground. Flank straps and spurs are also used in the bucking horse events.

Rodeo supporters claim that the animals love what they do, but photos of animals at the Chilliwack Fair rodeo clearly show they are in distress while being forced to perform.  No animal would willingly participate in events that subject them to fear, pain and stress.

Virtually all mainstream animal welfare organizations oppose rodeo, including Humane Canada (which represents most Canadian SPCAs and humane societies) and the national SPCAs of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Polling shows that 63 per cent of B.C. residents are opposed to rodeo.

Chilliwack Rodeo / Vancouver Humane Society
Calf roping at Chilliwack Rodeo

The Chilliwack Fair rodeo (August 9-11) is the last full rodeo in the Lower Mainland. The Cloverdale Rodeo dropped half its events and the Abbotsford Rodeo closed after campaigns by the Vancouver Humane Society. The society is now campaigning for the Chilliwack Fair to drop the rodeo from its program of events.

As Cirque du Soleil has shown, it isn’t necessary to exploit animals to provide engaging entertainment.  Country fairs, including Chilliwack’s, can be successful without spectacles of animal suffering. Isn’t it time we consigned rodeo to history, along with bear-baiting and cock-fighting?

Isn’t it time we had cruelty-free entertainment, not only in Chilliwack but everywhere?

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Opinion Editorial

Canadian veterinarians should condemn the Calgary Stampede — full stop

Steer wrestling, Chilliwack Fair rodeo 2016

Article originally published in CBC News.

Does the Canadian veterinary profession turn a blind eye to animal abuse? Or rather, to certain kinds of animal abuse?

It’s a fair question, given the relative silence from the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) on the treatment of animals at the Calgary Stampede — which kicks off Friday — as well as the active participation of some of its members who work as vets in rodeo events.

The CVMA has a commendable policy on animals being used in entertainment, which states that the association “opposes activities, contests, or events that have a high probability of causing injury, distress, or illness.” It also states that “animals should not be forced to perform actions or tasks that result in physical or mental distress or discomfort.”

So why doesn’t the CVMA speak out about the distress, discomfort and risk of injury to rodeo animals at the Stampede, or at the more than 100 professional and semi-professional rodeos in Canada? 

Calf-roping and steer-wrestling

It is self-evident that animals in certain rodeo events are forced to perform actions that result in, at the very least, distress and discomfort. In calf-roping, the animal is chased, roped to a sudden halt, picked up and thrown to the ground before being tied up. It would be preposterous to argue that calves would not feel distress or pain as a result of such treatment.  

Similarly, in steer-wrestling, the animal has its neck twisted to force it to the ground. Again, it is obvious that the animal would be distressed by such action. 

In 2013, when a steer’s neck was broken during the event, the Calgary Stampede’s chief veterinarian explained that the break was “accidental” — but how could it truly be accidental when the injury (which required the steer to be euthanized) was directly because a man deliberately twisted the animal to the ground by its neck? 

In a letter sent by the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) back in June, the VHS requested that the CVMA formally denounce such inhumane rodeo events, in accordance with the association’s own animal welfare position statement. In response, the CVMA noted that is working on new position statements that will “convey that CVMA is opposed to any events and activities, in rodeo, or elsewhere, that are inhumane and deliberately cause avoidable harm and suffering.” 

However, this response suggests the CVMA will stop short of a necessary and explicit condemnation of rodeo events, in favour of a statement that is deliberately imprecise. But to make a real impact, the CVMA needs to condemn cruel rodeo events — full stop.

What’s more, rodeo vets are clearly not honouring their veterinary oath, which requires them to swear they will strive to “promote animal health and welfare” and to “prevent and relieve animal suffering.” Instead, they are enabling animal suffering by defending activities that clearly cause animals distress and risk of injury – all for the sake of mere entertainment. 

Serving two masters

Veterinarians are trusted by Canadians, and strong opposition from the CVMA would have some real clout in the public debate over animal cruelty at rodeos. Many polls show veterinarians are among the most trusted professionals in Canada, which makes sense: who wouldn’t admire and trust people who devote their lives to keeping our pets happy and healthy?

But the veterinary profession is not just about ensuring puppies and kittens stay bright-eyed and playful. They also help ensure Canadians have meat on their tables. Except for ethical vegetarians and vegans, most people wouldn’t object to that. Farmers depend on vets to keep herds and flocks healthy and productive. But where was the profession when factory farming, with its cruel sow stalls and battery cages for laying hens, were introduced?

The problem is that the veterinary profession serves two masters: clients and animals. If the client is a factory farm or a rodeo, the animals will always come second. It can be argued that the demands of modern livestock production leave vets little choice and they do their ethical best inside a morally flawed system. But what possible excuse could there be for a vet to support the abuse of animals to amuse a crowd of rodeo fans? Vets attending rodeos should make clear they are not there to support the event, but are adhering to their oath to prevent suffering.

The CVMA has long been aware of this conflict of interest that underlies its silence on issues like animal abuse at rodeos. Writing in the Canadian Veterinary Journal in 2012, Dr. Patricia Turner, then-chair of the CVMA’s animal welfare committee, stated:  “Our duties to the animals we care for may often be in conflict with the desires of our clients and employers, or the realities of financial solvency. For veterinarians to become leaders in the field of animal welfare, we must recognize ongoing societal changes in how animals are valued and actively engage in discussions regarding animal use and care by society.”

The CVMA needs to show the courage of its convictions and speak out against the unnecessary suffering of animals at the Calgary Stampede, as well as all the other rodeos that make a mockery of its high-minded principles.

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Opinion Editorial

Go vegan to end animal suffering and help the planet

Sow confined to a gestation crate.

Article originally published in the Vancouver Sun.

Once again, the veil has been lifted on a B.C. farm to expose sickening cruelty being inflicted on animals. And once again, animal agriculture representatives say it’s not the norm — it’s just a few bad apples.

But last week’s release of an undercover video taken by animal activists at an Abbotsford hog farm, that allegedly shows sick and dying pigs living in filthy conditions alongside dead and decomposing animals, graphically illustrates why the livestock industry cannot be trusted to care for animals humanely.

The farm is owned by a director of the B.C. Pork Producers Association, whose spokesman told media: “I think it’s important to know when people see this footage this isn’t all completely normal on most farms.” Yet, the ease with which undercover investigators find and reveal abuse suggests that animal cruelty in intensive farming is not the rare occurrence that operators claim.

In 2014, activists released video that exposed horrific cruelty inflicted on cows at Chilliwack Cattle Sales, Canada’s largest dairy farm. At the time, Jeff Kooyman, one of the owners of the farm, said he was “shocked” and claimed he had no idea his staff were abusing the cows. In 2016, Kooyman and five members of his family were charged with causing or permitting animals to be in distress.

In June 2017, video footage released by animal activists showed chickens at a Chilliwack poultry operation being mangled, stomped on and thrown against a wall. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency laid charges under federal regulations against Elite Farm Services and its president, Dwayne Dueck, for allegedly beating chickens and loading them in a way “likely to cause injury or undue suffering.” When the video first appeared in the media, Dueck said he was “sickened” by the footage.

In 2018, the B.C. SPCA announced it was again investigating Elite Farm Services in what it said was “another situation where chickens have allegedly suffered as a result of what appears to be a blatant disregard to adherence of the industry’s own agreed-upon standards of care…”

These undercover animal cruelty cases, and many others that have exposed similar abuse across Canada, show that industrial agriculture cannot provide humane conditions for animals. The system is designed to mass produce cheap meat, eggs and dairy, not to provide good lives for animals.

Working with large numbers of animals on an intensive farm must be desensitizing. Each animal, as science has shown, is sentient and has its own individual personality yet on the factory farm they are by definition a commodity. This contradiction cannot be squared. Cruelty occurs when there is no empathy and factory farm workers cannot empathize with animals as individuals. If they did, how could they keep on working?

Many Canadians do not realize that animal farmers in Canada largely police themselves. There are codes of practice for the care and handling of farm animals, the creation of which are largely industry-led, but there are no on-farm government inspections to ensure they are enforced.

For a growing number of people, the real answer is to turn away from animal-based food products. As more plant-based alternatives to animal products emerge, the easier it is to transition to a plant-based diet. In the short-term, even just reducing meat consumption sends a market signal to livestock producers that factory farming is becoming unacceptable, thus forcing reforms.

In the longer term, bolstered by the need to end the environmental damage and poor health outcomes of a food system based on animal consumption, the plant-based diet may finally bring an end to factory farming and all the animal suffering it causes.

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Opinion Editorial

A grim future for the global livestock industry and its investors

Beyond Meat burger.

Article originally published in the Georgia Straight.

The global livestock industry—already under attack for damaging the environment, causing mass animal suffering, and exacerbating climate change—now faces a calamity that should have us asking: isn’t there a better way to feed the world?

Fortunately, there is.

The spread of African swine fever has forced China to cull 200 million pigs, a loss of 30 percent of the country’s pork production—the equivalent of the entire annual pork supply of the European Union. The mass slaughter is expected to cause a protein shortage, rising meat prices, and investment losses.

The devastating impact of the worldwide spread of the virus perfectly illustrates one of the many economic risks inherent in the meat and livestock industry. Livestock-disease outbreaks are a constant threat—think of mad-cow disease, avian flu, or hoof-and-mouth disease—and they are economically damaging.

They are also costly to taxpayers. Federal and provincial governments paid $4.3 billion in compensation to Canada’s cattle industry for losses stemming from the 2003 BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) outbreak. Governments around the world pick up the bill for the consequences of animal-disease outbreaks and for trying to prevent them. This year’s federal budget included $31 million for more sniffer dogs to detect African swine fever entering the country. (Although vegetables are also subject to contamination and disease, the causes are often traced to livestock.)

The risks of catastrophic disease outbreaks in the livestock sector are in addition to the environmental costs, public health risks, and animal-welfare concerns that come with industrialized animal agriculture. While animal advocates and environmentalists have raised these issues for decades, some in the investment community have woken up to the industry’s risks.

The FAIRR Initiative, a consortium of investors representing more than $12 trillion in assets, is drawing attention to the negative impacts of factory farming and, according to its website, “believes that intensive livestock production poses material risks to the global financial system and hinders sustainable development”.

FAIRR has highlighted the livestock sector’s role in issues such as climate change and the overuse of antibiotics, and it has urged food companies to diversify their protein-sourcing away from a reliance on animal proteins. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that some companies are doing exactly that.

Maple Leaf Foods, Canada’s largest pork processer, recently announced plans to build the largest plant in North America for plant-based protein (sadly, in Indiana, not Canada). The company, which previously acquired two plant-based food businesses, is not alone in its interest in nonanimal proteins: major meat companies such as Cargill and Tyson Foods have also invested in meat alternatives.

At the retail level, chains such as A&W and White Spot have jumped on the plant-based bandwagon, and consumers have welcomed their new meat-free offerings.

Ultimately, the success of new plant-based foods will depend on consumer demand and their capacity to compete on price, taste, and convenience. But as the meat industry and its investors confront the disastrous consequences of yet another global animal-disease outbreak, perhaps more sustainable and less risky food products will have greater appeal.

As for China’s shortage of pork (a traditional staple of the national diet), there may already be a plant-based product ready to help fill the gap. A Hong Kong-based company called Right Treat produces a meatless pork alternative called Omnipork that is proving popular. Developed by food scientists based in Vancouver, Omnipork is made from peas, soy, shiitake mushrooms, and rice.

When contrasted with the need to slaughter millions of pigs, dispose of their carcasses, and guard against the next animal-disease outbreak, such products seem to offer a more benign alternative to what is, quite literally, a bloody mess.

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Opinion Editorial

Politicians lagging behind soaring public interest in plant-based diets

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

Are politicians getting behind the plant-based food revolution?  Despite some promising actions, governments and political parties are lagging behind public and business interest in the shift away from an animal-based diet.

It was a welcome surprise when Health Canada, for the first time, ensured the meat and dairy industry’s lobbyists did not interfere in the creation of the new Canada Food Guide. The result was an evidence-based guide that focuses more on a plant-based diet at the expense of one centred on meat and dairy products.

Also welcome, but less well-known, is the federal government’s support for the emerging plant-based protein industry in Western Canada. Ottawa is contributing $150 million to create a plant protein “supercluster” in the Prairie provinces, aiming to take advantage of Canada’s pulse crops (lentils, beans, peas) and their potential use in products such as meat alternatives. The initiative, focusing on value-added processing, is expected to create an estimated 4,700 jobs over the next 10 years and $700 million in new commercial activity.

Such developments make sense, as study after study provides sound evidence that a food system based on the overconsumption of cheap meat is environmentally unsustainable, unhealthy and, in terms of animal welfare, unethical. Most recently, a report by respected U.K. think-tank Chatham House, called on the European Union to invest in meat alternatives because “a radical shift away from excessive meat-eating patterns is urgently needed to tackle the un-sustainability of the livestock sector.” The United Nations Environment Agency has said “meat production is known to be a major contributor to climate change and environmental destruction…” and last year honoured two plant-based meat companies with its Champions of the Earth award.

Yet Canadian taxpayers’ support for the meat and dairy sectors is massive and dwarves public funding for the budding plant-based food industry. The recently tabled federal budget promised $3.9 billion to the egg, poultry, and dairy industries as compensation for trade concessions. Last year, the federal government announced $250 million for the dairy industry to “increase productivity and competitiveness.” How many established Canadian businesses enjoy such support?

Here in B.C., the provincial government recently committed $450,000 toward the development of a slaughterhouse in Prince George. Similar grants are routinely doled out to the meat industry across Canada. In 2017, the federal and Manitoba governments gave $500,000 to Maple Leaf Foods to increase bacon production – the same year the company had net earnings of $164.1 million. In 2015, the World Health Organization declared processed meats carcinogenic to humans.

The provincial government’s Clean B.C. initiative makes no mention of reducing meat consumption. Yet a major Oxford University study last year found that avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet.

Even the Green Party of B.C. has not addressed the negative environmental impacts of the meat and livestock industries in its policy platform. In the U.K., the Green Party has pledged “to support a progressive change from diets dominated by meat, dairy and other animal products to healthier diets based mainly on plant foods…”

Local government in the province has also done little to address the issue. Several Metro Vancouver municipalities have made “Meatless Monday” proclamations but none actively promote healthy, low-carbon, plant-based diets. A number of Lower Mainland schools have individually partnered with the Vancouver Humane Society to establish Meatless Monday initiatives but no school boards have yet to make it district policy. Compare this to New York, which recently announced ALL public schools in the city will introduce Meatless Monday programs.

It’s understandable that politicians may be timid about recommending plant-based diets or calling for lower meat consumption. American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while promoting her Green New Deal, recently suggested, “Maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch and dinner” and was accused by her political opponents of coming to take Americans’ hamburgers away.

But Ocasio-Cortez has not backed down. Instead, she has patiently explained why reducing meat consumption will benefit our environment and our health. Canadian leaders at all levels of government need to show the same vision and boldness. The evidence for change is there. All that’s missing is the political courage.

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Opinion Editorial

Orcas may be the first species with individual proper names to go extinct

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

The vaquita, the smallest cetacean (the family of marine mammals that makes up whales and dolphins), is dangerously close to extinction. It is estimated that 10 individuals remain, though the nature of scientists’ best estimate means there could actually be anywhere from six to 22 left. Except that only days after this new population estimate was released (already down 50% over 2017), animal activists discovered what appeared to be the decomposing body of a vaquita trapped in a gillnet. Activists have been calling for a ban of such nets off the coast of Mexico but fear it may already be too late for the vaquita.

I’ve been finding it hard to write about the topic of extinction, as urgent as it feels now more than ever. Others have more insight into the science behind it, but ethicists have been thinking about death and loss for thousands of years, how death occurs and what it means for those who go on living. Socrates gives many beautiful theories around the nature of life and death in Plato’s Phaedo, written over 2,000 years ago. I’m always amazed at the creativity and pure interest in ideas on display as Socrates lies on his deathbed in deep discussion with his closest friends. Few in human history have thought through anything like species extinction though, let alone anything on the scale of mass extinctions.

The topic feels so distant, like something that’s always in the future but never arrives. It feels like trying to think through something like climate change. How do you think meaningfully about what could or will happen in the future without sounding naïve or alarmist? How do you write meaningfully about a species or individuals who no longer have a place in this world while ensuring you are doing them justice?

Both extinction and climate disaster feel like a threat from a parent who doesn’t really mean it: we know the possibility exists, but we don’t really believe it. At least, we don’t believe it in any meaningful way such that we change our actions in significant or timely ways. When I look out the window and see a beautiful day, I don’t see climate change. But when the city smells like smoke all summer, the fire feels more real.

We’ve been witness to animals washing ashore with stomachs bloated with plastic for years and only recently has anyone shown any concern for the straws and bags and cups we have been filling the planet with, let alone the bottles and the packaging and who knows what else. Of course, while the City of Vancouver declares a climate emergency and seeks advice on how to meaningfully combat imminent disaster, the State of Florida has sought a ban on plastic straw bans until at least 2024, so not everyone is making responsible collective choices in the best interest of all animals.

Historically, human beings have been responsible in some way for the extinction of multiple species. Our pop culture even features these long-gone creatures like the dodo who was easily and quickly hunted to extinction by humans. It didn’t help that we destroyed its habitat, along with basically all native animals on the island of Mauritius. The dodo is now of course mocked as stupid or clumsy based on its quick death and descriptions from the 1600’s, though we now know that it, along with the countless other creatures killed were adapted to their environment. It just happens that we have historically eaten just about anything that moves (or rather doesn’t move too quickly) and then use up ever-expanding swathes of land to raise and grow more animals to eat.

In the 1800’s, colonial settlers in the “New World” were responsible for virtually wiping out the buffalo, a species that numbered over 60 million the previous century and roamed from Alaska to Mexico in the south and as far east as Florida. Through a combination of hunting for food, and simply slaughtering them to eliminate a vital food source for First Nations communities (as well as the introduction of disease from farmed cattle), there were only 541 individuals remaining in 1889. In our history of grievances against other animals we should remember that humans are responsible for wiping out creatures simply as a means of eliminating other human beings, with animals and natural habitats destroyed not only as collateral damage in warfare, but used as pawns and weapons as well. The Buffalo now has a conservation status of Near Threatened.

It’s only relatively recently that human beings have reflected in any significant way on the result such mass deaths and land transformation have on other species or ecosystems. Our world has remained relatively small and fairly anthropocentric for going on 5,000 years now. We are slowly but surely becoming more aware of the needs of other animals, of expanding our concepts of intelligence and communication and community to better grasp the non-human animals we share this Earth with. It brings me hope when individuals truly care for other creatures and our collective decisions and actions reflect our compassion for others. These collective actions can’t come soon enough.

Locally, many have been following the slow decline of the southern resident killer whales, best exemplified by last summer’s tragic tour of grief as J35 (Tahlequah) swam for over two weeks carrying her calf who had died within half an hour after birth. The southern resident killer whales are composed of three pods, lending the individuals the familiar Letter-Number naming convention; J Pod is composed of 22 members, while K and L Pods are composed of 18 and 34 members, respectively. That means the entire population of southern resident killer whales is only 74.

There’s something truly unique about the possible extinction of the southern resident killer whales though, something that separates it from the dodo and the buffalo: If the southern resident killer whales are allowed to go extinct, it will be the first species to be wiped out where every individual had a name.

This means that the death of these whales may be closer in kind to the deaths of the Beothuk or of the countless genocides and wars that make up human history. Or maybe it means that all animal deaths are a matter of degree. I mean, J35 has her own Wikipedia page, while friends from graduate school, now published with teaching positions, have their own pages marked for deletion. Tahlequah the killer whale is more socially and culturally significant than respected educators and published authors.

How would we respond if Shanawdithit came to us today as Tahlequah did, a tragedy across both old and social media, crying out for help? Shanawdithit, born 1800 and the last of the Beothuk People, died as a servant in Newfoundland in 1829. Her mother and sister died of tuberculosis when brought to St. John’s where they were to all serve white immigrants after they were found searching for food in Badger Bay, a present day five-and-a-half-hour drive away, or four and a half days of continuous walking. In 1820 there were only 31 Beothuk remaining. Shanawdithit’s legacy has lasted through her retelling of her people’s story and as a symbol for cultural and racial extinction. If hashtags and Instagram stories asked us to save a dying people today, would we act?

I hope that we would. But when faced presently with a refugee crisis, with war ravaging parts of the world for decades or longer, and with the global divide between the wealthy and the poor expanding evermore, not to mention those in need in our own country facing poverty, illness, or lack of basic community infrastructure, I can’t say we’re really doing much to help those in need.

Like our history with other animals, our history with other human cultures is honestly pretty shameful. Spoiler alert for those without a cursory knowledge of human history: human beings have been pretty awful to just about everyone and everything for about as long as we’ve been around. It doesn’t have to be that way though. There are pockets of hope in human history where people have come together to better themselves, to understand what it means to be just, or to reflect on human action and its effects.

There are different schools when it comes to ethical theory. Some weigh the value of intentions, while some look to the benefit of an action’s outcome as the measure of whether this or that action is “good.” Others maintain that the things we hold valuable change over time, through social and political change, that our ethics reflect the collective aspirations of humanity to always be better, whatever that means according to our best available knowledge and wisdom.

We don’t need to reflect for even a moment on the plight facing whales all over the world, both wild and captive, we already know that we can and need to do better. But we need to ensure we actually do something with our “knowing better” before it’s too late. We owe them more than being a quickly forgotten part of our 24-hour news cycle of rotating tragedies, only to be relegated to the place of memory and fiction.

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Opinion Editorial

What the internet weeping over death of NASA robot tells us about empathy

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

On February 13th, 2019 NASA confirmed the death of the Opportunity rover. Its last image a dark static greyscape, the last view of the sandstorm that destroyed the rover, and its last message “my battery is low and it is getting dark.”

And the Internet wept.

There has been an outpouring of sympathy at “the loss of Opportunity” (the most 2019 phrase thus far), but it’s not hard to see why. Designed for a 90-day mission, the rover explored for 15 years, outliving its sibling rover, Spirit, by years.

It was programmed to know its own birthday and it sang to itself every year to commemorate the occasion. It was basically a real life Wall-E. And it lived its life like many of us, terribly online. On Twitter, Opportunity and Spirit shared the @MarsRovers handle, and have amassed over 475k followers. Opportunity had an identity.

“This is a hard day,” said project manager John Callas. “Even though it’s a machine and we’re saying goodbye, it’s still very hard and very poignant, but we had to do that… It comes time to say goodbye.”

NASA lost communication with the rover after a sandstorm, declaring the mission, which has indicated that Mars once had water capable of sustaining microbial life, complete.

The online response to the “death” of Opportunity shows clearly if nothing else how essential compassion is to the human condition. We know that a robot in outer space isn’t actually celebrating its birthday, or even really dying. But it’s sad. We feel for the robot.

That isn’t to say sympathy for a dying robot is a bad thing. I used to research and teach political and ethical theory (among other things), and as an ethicist, I take compassion to be a moral virtue and one of the best qualities a human being can have. The philosopher in me is excited for the ethical considerations that will have to come about as a result of more and more complex artificial intelligences as machines and AI continue to become more and more a part of our lives. Our capacity to care, for other humans, for non-human animals, even for fictional characters and objects with identities, tells us something incredible about human beings.

The entertainment industry has played on this for years — robots, mutants, animal-human hybrids, and aliens can all be protagonists or love interests and no one bats an eye. You only have to name a pencil in front of a group of students and suddenly if you snap it you’re destroying an individual, not a mere object.

Animals are individuals. Not exactly like us, but they are individuated in similar ways. Depending on the species, some individuals will be more curious, social, food-motivated, dominant, playful, or any number of other “personality” (animality?) traits that mark individuals within that species.

It makes sense that people sympathize more with an individual like Opportunity, just as they did with Tilikum, the orca profiled in the film Blackfish which highlighted the keeping of cetaceans at Sea World and other marine parks. The film brought to light the ethical issue of keeping highly intelligent, social creatures in environments that the best science tells us is inadequate.

I had the fortune of seeing a similarly eye-opening film in Ottawa a few years ago. Sled Dogs examines some of the issues surrounding the Iditarod dog sled race and the use of sled dogs in tourism and entertainment, including a large scale cull of dogs that took place in British Columbia. It is heartbreaking to see the lives of these creatures. In this year’s Yukon Quest, considered by many to be more difficult and dangerous than the more famous Iditarod, a dog named Joker has died. Last year a dog named Boppy died when he asphyxiated on his own vomit which froze in his throat. A dog has died or had to be euthanized every year for the last ten years of the Yukon Quest. Boppy’s owner had a dog die in a previous race, and was once disqualified based on the condition of his dog team.

The environmental conditions these dogs were in at the time of their death, white, grey, getting darker, if we could capture that image, it may not be unlike the last photo from Opportunity.

Dogs are not meant to run 1600km in some of the most dangerous conditions on the planet, and they certainly don’t *want* to. They are not capable of the kinds of complex decision making required for that. Dogs, regardless of breed, want to be happy and like us, that comes in a variety of ways. Exercise is definitely one of them, and all dogs need some level of physical activity to be healthy and happy.

Certainly some dogs enjoy the snow and the cold, I can remember vividly trying to bring a Malamute mix in at the shelter I managed in St. John’s. It was a literal blizzard and he had curled up and gone to sleep outside. I had to pick him up to get him in for the night.

But no dog wants to die, and since they aren’t capable of making complex choices in their own best interests, we owe it to them to advocate on their behalf. If we can empathize with a robot dying alone on Mars, we have to be able to empathize with Joker dying in the cold, in pain and confused.

Non-human animals do not experience time the same way we do since they don’t plan for the future or construct a narrative identity through memories of the past. What they “know” in any meaningful sense of the term is what they are immediately and directly experiencing through their senses. They react based on previous experience as well as individual disposition, something like what we experience as memory and identity. The complexity of this basic experience varies depending on the animal, but remains essentially the same.

This means that in moments of trauma and stress, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, and a lot of other animals, “know” only that trauma. A dog can’t rationalize its final moments by telling itself it’s a hero. It doesn’t grasp the concept of death in the way we do, it may not “know” it’s dying in the same way we do, but in that moment that’s all it thinks it will ever experience. Every moment is forever.

We care a lot about our pets. Some care passionately about wildlife, and others care tremendously for the animals who suffer as part of our agriculture system. We even care about cartoons and brands and robots on Mars. In a world where we have rules around infrastructure to preserve the dignity and integrity of views and scenery, let’s try to empathize more with those who depend on our care the most, and always strive to do them justice. Like most things, we can always do better.

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Opinion Editorial

Meteoric rise in plant-based foods marks larger industry trend

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

Is the rising popularity of vegan and vegetarian food just another diet fad? Evidence is emerging that it is not only taking root in a growing number of home and restaurant kitchens but also deep in the food industry.

Diners in Metro Vancouver have seen more vegan eateries opening and more plant-based options at many other restaurants. Shoppers are finding new meatless products appearing on supermarket shelves. Even fast-food joints are pushing veggie burgers. Who didn’t hear about A&W selling out of its new plant-based Beyond Meat burger within hours last summer?

The same is happening across much of the developed world. In Britain, the recent launch of a vegan sausage roll caused a national media sensation, as the product quickly sold out and pundits debated the merits of changing an iconic British snack (The U.K. overtook Germany this year as the world leader for vegan product launches).

Even France, the home of Brie cheese, has seen a rise in meatless eating. French supermarket sales of vegetable protein surged by 82 per cent in 2016, and are set to grow by another 25 percent a year through 2020, according to one study.

Nevertheless, some are skeptical about the attention being paid to plant-based food. The U.K.’s Times newspaper reported last year that the meat industry was scornful of the increased interest in vegan food, stating: “Livestock farmers are being told not to panic about the rise of veganism because it is a passing fad for many young people who are merely following the latest fashion.”

But there are clear signs that the “plant-based revolution” is real.  And it’s not because of a few more vegan cafes and some popular veggie burgers.  The real evidence of change can be found in food business journals, which are reporting a quiet but fundamental shift within the global food industry.

Last year, Ingredion, a giant U.S. food ingredients company, invested US$140 million in manufacturing facilities in Saskatchewan and Nebraska to create flours and concentrates from peas, dried beans, chickpeas and lentils. The company’s CEO explained why: “We’ve identified plant-based proteins as a high-growth, high-value market opportunity that is on-trend with consumers’ desire to find sustainable and good tasting alternatives to animal-based proteins.”

Other companies are doing the same, creating animal-free protein for use in bakery products, cereals, pasta, batters and meat substitutes.  In 2017, the global plant-based proteins market was valued at US$ 10.5 billion and is estimated to reach a value of around US$ 16.3 billion by the end of 2025, according to analysts Persistence Market Research.

The egg industry is also being disrupted, as food companies seek to avoid the market volatility of egg supplies and prices, which are affected by disease outbreaks (avian flu) and recalls (salmonella). Many have turned to plant-based alternatives that fulfil the same function of eggs in baked goods or sauces without compromising flavour.

Other food companies have focused on improving the taste and texture of the new plant-based ingredients, such as removing the bitterness of pea protein or giving non-dairy ice cream the same creamy mouthfeel as the real thing – thus creating the potential to “veganize” just about anything.

These advances come on top of the already successful introduction of non-dairy milks, the launch of popular meat substitutes and high-profile investments in the sector by billionaires like Bill Gates and Li Ka-Shing and Richard Branson.

While many ethical vegans and vegetarians welcome these developments, which open up the possibility of a future without animal slaughter, there are concerns about Big Food’s involvement, especially its over-processing of food.

That’s why many influential vegans and vegetarians advocate for a “whole foods” plant-based diet and recommend keeping processed foods to a minimum.  Desiree Nielsen, a Vancouver-based registered dietitian and host of TV’s The Urban Vegetarian, has said “You can be a junk-food, cheesy-carb vegetarian, or you can be an Oreo- and candy-obsessed vegan.” She says eating processed meat substitutes once or twice a week is fine but diet mainstays should be simpler options like beans and high protein vegetables, preferably home-cooked.

Such advice is certainly having an impact. The rise in meatless products has been matched by an explosion in plant-based cookbooks and recipe blogs, suggesting many people are at least trying to avoid an over-reliance on processed foods.

Whether it’s led by convenient meat substitutes or homemade whole foods, the plant-based revolution looks like it’s here to stay.  And keeping animals off your plate has never been easier.

Categories
Opinion Editorial

New CRISPR gene-editing technique more beneficial to meat producers than to animals

Article originally published in the Georgia Straight.

A controversial gene-editing technology may soon be widely applied to animals, with the livestock and biotech industries claiming that animals will be better off as a result. The truth is more complicated—and perhaps more disturbing—than they would have us believe.

A Chinese scientist stunned the world last month when he revealed he had created the first gene-edited babies using CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a powerful new technology that can remove specific genetic traits. The scientist, He Jiankui, has been widely condemned by the scientific community as reckless and unethical, and the case has stoked public fears about the creation of “designer babies”, but CRISPR raises wider ethical implications—in particular, its use with animals.

Researchers have already used CRISPR to edit the genes of a variety of animals, and the creation of gene-edited farm animals is poised to become a commercial reality. The livestock industry and the biotech companies behind it are promoting CRISPR as a boon to animal welfare.

For example, CRISPR can create cows without horns, which are currently removed through painful procedures (e.g., cutting or burning) to reduce risk of injury to other animals and human handlers. CRISPR advocates say the need for those procedures would disappear. Genes can also be altered to make cattle more heat-tolerant or to produce pigs that are resistant to disease, suggesting a future with healthier, more resilient farm animals. Animal-welfare benefits are prominent in media coverage of CRISPR’s potential—and it’s no accident.

Recombinetics, a U.S. biotech company, has been careful to promote these benefits as opposed to the advantages to production. As the company’s chief executive officer, Tammy Lee, told Associated Press: “It’s a better story to tell.”

There is another, more ethically complex, story. While some of the applications of CRISPR to farm animals may improve certain aspects of animal welfare, there are fears that, taken together, they will be used to further intensify industrialized animal farming. Hornless, disease-resistant, weatherproof animals are easier to manage, transport, and keep in crowded conditions. There is little incentive for producers to invest in more humane husbandry. In short, cruel factory farming remains. It will just be more efficient.

Researchers are also promoting gene-editing as a means to create “double-muscled” animals (for more meat), but this could also cause unintended health problems. One attempt to produce meatier, gene-edited pigs resulted in deformed piglets that were unable to walk, dying shortly after birth. Double-muscled cattle produced by conventional selective breeding are more susceptible to respiratory disease, lameness, stress, and difficulty giving birth. Gene-editing will make it easier to create such animals, but the welfare consequences will be the same.

Any attempt by Big Agriculture to paint gene-editing as an amazing breakthrough in improving animal welfare should be treated with skepticism. Remember, these are the people who—through selective breeding for more meat—brought us chickens that grow so fast they are crippled by their own weight, leading to heart disease, skeletal disorders, and lameness. They are the architects of a system that has crowded billions of animals into cages, crates, feedlots, and transport trucks, causing incalculable suffering. Can they and their biotech partners really be trusted when they claim that they’re advancing a world-changing technology just to make animals happier?

Even if these industries are sincere in their promotion of gene-editing to improve farm-animal welfare, their proposals amount to applying technological, piecemeal quick fixes to the cruelty of factory farming, a problem requiring abolition, not tinkering.

Industrialized animal agriculture has been shown by science to be not only cruel to animals but also devastating to our environment and detrimental to human health. It’s a system that can’t be fixed. But it can replaced—by one that focuses on the production and consumption of plant-based foods.

The rise in popularity of plant-based alternatives to meat has been well-documented. Vegan and vegetarian foods are now competing with animal-based products on taste, price, and convenience. Investment and innovation in plant-based foods have exploded in the past few years and look set to continue. (The Economist magazine is calling 2019 “the year of the vegan”.) These developments offer a different path forward, one without mass animal suffering, environmental degradation, and the negative health consequences of a meat-heavy diet.

The other path, which maintains our dependence on animal incarceration and slaughter, promises only to further commodify animals by engineering them to suit our needs and desires. It’s a path to a world in which animals have no value beyond their use to humans.

By perpetuating the treatment of animals as products we not only diminish them but also ourselves and our humanity.

Categories
Opinion Editorial

Why BC chicken abuse charges should serve as warning to all farms

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

Charges against two B.C. businesses for animal abuse may serve as a warning shot to other companies in the agriculture industry that they, and not just individual employees, are accountable for any mistreatment of the animals they raise, transport and slaughter.

Last week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) laid charges against Sofina Foods, Elite Farm Services and Elite’s president, Dwayne Dueck, for allegedly beating chickens and loading them in a way “likely to cause injury or undue suffering.”  They are scheduled to appear in court today, December 18.

The charges stem from video footage released by animal activists in June 2017 that showed chickens at a Chilliwack poultry operation being mangled, stomped on, thrown against a wall, and smashed into transport crates. The BC SPCA, which described the abuse as “absolutely sickening,” recommended charges, but a year and a half later Crown Counsel has still not prosecuted anyone.

The CFIA, however, has pursued charges under federal Health of Animals Regulation, which may financially penalize the companies.

When the alleged offences became public, the companies involved were quick to distance themselves from the revelations.  Sofina Foods called the footage “horrifying” and said it had requested that all of the employees involved be dismissed immediately.

Elite’s Mr. Dueck stated: “We are sickened with the footage and want to ensure all our suppliers and producers that this is not reflective of who we are, our fundamental beliefs or behaviours we accept from our employees.”

Six of Elite’s employees were fired but now it is the companies that are being held to account for alleged animal abuse, a development that should send a signal to others in the livestock industry that they can’t escape responsibility for what happens to the animals they profit from.

For too long, industrialized animal farms have been in a state of denial about animal suffering that occurs in their business.  When the 2017 undercover video emerged, the B.C. Chicken Marketing Board said: “It does not represent in any way, shape or form, how we do our business, not only here but anywhere in Canada.”

Yet, for years, undercover animal activists have exposed numerous cases of animal cruelty on farms across Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere.

The ease with which the undercover investigators have been able to find and reveal abuse suggests that animal cruelty in intensive farming is not the rare occurrence that operators claim.

Media coverage of animal cruelty on industrialized farms in the United States has become so commonplace and damaging to the industry that it has lobbied for “ag-gag” laws criminalizing undercover videos of the cruelty.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that some of these videos expose not only illegal acts of cruelty but also standard practices on industrialized farms that result in misery for animals.  For decades, millions of hens have suffered in cruel battery cages, that are only now being slowly phased out (and may be replaced with only marginally better “enriched” cages). Pigs and chickens are routinely transported in cramped trucks over long distances in extreme heat and cold.

Much of the suffering on factory farms is invisible to the public.  Science has shown that poultry raised for meat experience painful skeletal disorders and lameness as a result of selective breeding for fast growth. And despite the images of happy cows in pastures on milk cartons, most dairy cows in Canada are kept indoors, never feeling the sun on their backs.

Even animal agriculture’s own internal monitoring systems reveal poor animal welfare.  In 2016, inspection reports from the B.C. Milk Marketing Board, made public by media, showed that one in four farms in the province failed to comply with the provincial animal-welfare Code of Practice. During an 18-month period starting in January, 2015, the inspections revealed cases of overcrowding, lame or soiled cattle, tails torn off by machinery, branding and dehorning of calves without pain medication, and other examples of poor welfare.

The CFIA’s charges against Sofina Foods and Elite Farm Services should be welcomed, as they may encourage others in the industry to do more to prevent the kinds of extreme cruelty seen in undercover video footage.  However, no one should forget that this is an industry that incarcerates, transports and slaughters animals in conditions that compromise animal welfare but are not illegal.

Ultimately, the best way to help these animals is to reject factory farming entirely and stop buying the products this cruel industrial system produces.