That’s a loose adaptation of Ingrid Newkirk’s famous saying. Translation: in terms of being capable of suffering and having a will to live, we’re all created pretty much equal.
But the other night, when I shared Vegan Outreach’s post, “I Am Cecil,” one reader was troubled by its perceived message that seems to compare an endangered, charismatic predator to a factory-farmed pig.
I can understand both sides. Wildlife advocates are screaming for blood, in a war cry heard round the world, while animal-rights activists are hoping to harness the outrage that people are feeling over the abuses suffered by this beloved lion. On one hand there’s Cecil the lion, who was hit with an arrow and pursued for forty hours before finally being shot, decapitated and skinned. At the same time—each and every day—animals by the billions suffer endlessly on factory farms and almost no one seems to care or pay them any mind.
I’ve seen this kind of situation before. Back in 1999, members of Washington’s Makah Tribe were planning a trophy hunt of their own. Their target? An innocuous grey whale.
Long story short, much to the dismay of whale advocates, a “sacrificial” whale was shot with a fifty caliber elephant gun. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, millions of chickens, cows, pigs, turkeys, etc. were in effect sacrificed as well by people who had never heard of the Makah’s or seen a grey whale.
The only good I can think of that came out of the whole bit of ugliness was, after considering the hypocrisy of advocating for one species of animal while still eating others, my wife and I swore off meat and have been vegan ever since. As a result of 16 years of veganism (times 2), thousands of animals have been spared the horrors of factory farming.
Of course I’d love to see the uproar over Cecil become the final death knell for trophy hunting that wrenches control of wildlife from the hands of hunters and their government apologists. But, while we’re waiting, concerned people can actively end a lot of animal suffering every time they pass a drive-through window or a sit-down steak house restaurant. And folks who make the ethical switch to a plant-based diet would not likely be inclined to pay $50,000 for the sick thrill of killing a lion with an arrow.
Exposing the Big Game 
Calling trophy hunting a “sport” is insane. Hunting in general is listed in Fish and Game books as recreation. What kind of man gets joy out of killing an inocent animal? Why are they called “sportsmen?” We are called out by hunters saying “well you eat meat don’t you?” The men who work in slaugterhouse don’t hang pig, cow, or sheep heads on their walls, or have contests and submit pictures to hunting magazines. They don’t spend money on camofladge outfits, scopes for rifles, cross-bows, tree stands, cologne, ( to disguise their scent) purchase hunting licenses, etc. They also claim the meat is donated to food pantries. If you cannot sell it at the supermarket or serve it in resturants, why would you give it to food pantry recipients? Trophy hunting is not just reserved for Lions. Deer and other animals are also targeted right here in the USA. The world needs more animal rights people. I would like to see and end to “Sport Hunting.”!!!!
While following a plant-based diet is always a good thing, I would hate to see the uproar over Cecil lost in a campaign to convert people to veganism. Trophy hunters are now isolated from the general public. Whatever feeble excuses hunters make about feeding their families or the homeless clearly has never applied to lion hunting. Who seriously thinks that Palmer planned to feed the lion to his own family, or to poor Africans?
Here in New Mexico, we have a chance to protect our own lions. Not, unfortunately the true lions who were wiped out by the first humans to arrive in the Americas, but the mountain lion. Again, no one claims that anyone hunts cougars to feed their families. Usually Game and Fish (or Maim and Squish as we not so affectionately call them) routinely expands hunting at every opportunity, But now we have a chance to finally organize serious opposition when they meet in Santa Fe at the end of the month.
Ted Nugent already said he “used every part” of the lion he murdered, but if he’s the best spokesman the trophy hunting industry can come up with they don’t stand much chance justifying their sport.
I, too, am disturbed that some vegans claiming to be staunch animal rights advocates are complaining that the public firestorm over Cecil’s killing is misdirected because it diverts attention from the astronomically bigger slaughter and mistreatment of food producing animals. Of course, not to be outdone, a few civil rights advocates are also publicly whining that Americans pay more attention to the killing of this lion than to the unjust deaths of Black men at the hands of police, as though the subject of race doesn’t already figure prominently enough in the media (by actual count, an incredible 70% of the stories broadcast on NPR have some kind of racial spin to them!).
Disdaining one noble crusade in favor of another out of petty jealousy over who merits the most attention is small-minded and ultimately self-defeating. ARA’s must accept the fact that they have very little control over what attracts media attention and elicits public outrage. And that when an opportunity like the current one arises to highlight the awful realities of trophy hunting for the general public, you run with it! I’d also point out that commercial slaughter operations do not draw-out the slaughter of individual animals over 40 hours and the fact that there are only approximately 30,000 lions left on the planet, half as many as a generation ago and fewer than the number of people residing in Walter Palmer’s hometown of Bloomington, MN; versus approximately 1.3 billion domestic cattle in the world today. This is not an excuse or an apology for the atrocities routinely committed against food-producing animals by humankind, just a plea for patience, for not setting one charitable cause against another, and for allowing the animal protection movement to advance its agenda when and where the opportunity exists.
You’re the only one doing any disdaining here. I doubt if the ARAs you (disdainfully) mention are self-servingly speaking out simply in hopes of garnering more charitable donations. (I for one receive nothing for this blog or any other efforts for animals.) You obviously understand the enormity of the farmed-animal atrocity issue, so I’m surprised to hear your call for patience. How much longer did the Jews have to suffer during the Holocaust, while the Allies strategized and spoke of patience? And as far as far as commercial slaughter operations ending animals lives mercifully quicker than the lions’ (though not out of any feelings of mercy), it’s the hours spent in hellish confinement that makes the animals’ holocaust so miserable.
Of course, I’ve always spoken out against trophy hunting and the prolonged suffering endured by victims of bowhunting (I know of deer who endure months-long impaling after every bowhunting season. The point of my blog post here is that I understand both animal issues and do not think anyone should play one against the other (even in jest, like PETA did with their “Eat the Whales” campaign during the Makah whaling issue). But the one I’m disdaining today is the dentist,Walter Palmer’s, who impaled Cecil.
Well said Jim.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Surprised by the stridency of your response! No criticism of you was intended in my post. My point is that the animal rights movement is like a war with a thousand-mile front, a front that has, incidentally, been in perpetual retreat for the last half-century. Occasionally, as in the Palmer case, it does make an advance, and forms a salient into the enemy lines. When that happens ARA activists should applaud it and work in lockstep to gain as much ground, at that PARTICULAR POINT on the front, as possible. So, the focus should be on attacking and curtailing trophy hunting while the public is in a lather on that particular subject. ARA’s should make as deep inroads and take as much territory as circumstances permit knowing that public outrage will soon wane. You beat steel into the shape you want while the metal is hot not after it has cooled. You move the front forward when you bring all your assets to bear on one particular weak spot on the enemy’s line.
Some ARAs do not believe in that strategy. They want the entire front, action against trophy hunting, factory farming, vivisection, rodeo, etc. to inch forward simultaneously or not at all. And I can tell you with utmost confidence that that attitude will only result in the latter. I’ve seen a number of posts, purportedly from vegans or other assorted self-described ARAs, trying to shift the heat from the current issue by stating in effect “well where’s the public outrage over the millions of food producing animals that suffer as much as Cecil?” Well, OK, where is it? Is there anything, anything at all, on the horizon that is likely going to discourage the average American family from eating their quota of Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets? Not that I’m aware of. As another AR blogger (Roland Vincent) points out regularly, the number of animals slaughtered for food today is about twice the number it was when Peter Singer’s trenchant book, “Animal Liberation”, was published in the 70s. How’s that for progress? But right now there is the potential for significant forward movement on this particular segment of the front: from getting lions listed as “threatened” by the USFWS to convincing the airlines to refuse to transport big game trophies out of Africa, to publicly shaming those who engage in these obscene activities. Nobody, especially me, wants to let factory farming get off the hook but I am enough of a realist to see where the potential for immediate progress can be made and where it cannot.
Keep up the great journalistic work, Jim, with this excellent blog. But for god’s sake avoid military strategy and command at all cost!
Thanks, and I’ll gladly leave the military strategizing to you, since you have a clear handle on it.
The troops in the army that you’ve deferred to command will be profoundly grateful! (:
General Geoff for President!
Totally agree.
Here’s an interesting article on the subject. Without a media firestorm, we wouldn’t have had, among other things:
It’s hard to imagine we’d ever have created a Megan’s Law, for example, if 7-year-old Megan Kanka hadn’t been brutally murdered by convicted sex offender Jesse Timmendequas, who lived across the street from her in Hamilton Township, N.J. Their case put a name and a face to a brand of crime so heinous it prompted legislation that created a sex-offender registry soon copied around the nation.
I also doubt that the Confederate flag – an enduring symbol of hate, bigotry and racism – ever would’ve been removed from the South Carolina Capitol grounds had the public not learned the names and seen photos of the church worshippers mowed down by alleged murderer Dylann Roof, who embraced the Stars and Bars.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150802_Cecil_the_lion_s_legacy.html
Yes, I am no fan at all of factory farming, I’d love to see them go.
But we have a crisis with trophy hunting, I think, for iconic African wildlife – and it brings me no end of sadness to know that it is Americans, those exceptional people, who are contributing in a major way to this extinction crisis. So much ivory showing up at our ports that no one can keep up with it all, lions being lured out of national parks with the impunity they enjoy here in America. We’ve earned our reputation as ugly.
This is a beautiful image. I wish people could realise a lion is no more important than a pig. They’re all equals in my opinion.
and that’s not to put anyone down. Yes, the lion’s population is threatened, but the only reason pigs and other factory-farmed animals are so numerous is that their bred to serve as humans’ food-slaves
Thank you for standing strong on the fact that
all lives matter equally.
Anytime Katherine, thank you.
Jim, I was as surprised as Geoff was that you seemed to take offense at his view that animal activists should take advantage of the opportunity we now have to focus on trophy hunting. In both your book and this blog you have focused primarily on sport hunting, even as you mention other issues which concern anyone who cares about animals. We appreciate the work you have done.
Since you have read John A Livingston, you should appreciate the difference between endangered wildlife and overpopulated domesticates. Unfortunately, most PETA followers do not appreciate this point, and even activists like Roland Vincent get caught up in the limitations of Peter Singer’s approach. I am reprinting below my comments on Roland’s Armory of the Revolution blog, where I have addressed to this issue. (Geoff, I noticed you follow his blog as well, and I appreciate the comments you have made there.)
> Peter Singer’s thoughts on carnivores show one of the major problems with utilitarianism. Wildlife activists, and the general public, see the protection of endangered species as a critical issue. The doctrine of the “greatest good for the greatest number” places little value on wildlife, and almost no value on endangered species, because their low numbers do not count. Thoughtless vegans whose only concern is their own moral purity may not understand the fine points of utilitarianism, but they unwittingly follow Singer’s pernicious philosophy.
Genocide, the murder of a genus, is a serious problem. We are now well into the so-called sixth mass extinction, actually the seventh if you count the North American anthropogenic extinction of the Pleistocene era, when the first humans to arrive on the continent killed off the sabertooth cats, giant sloths, mammoths and others.
> I agree that the obvious solution, if we can figure out how to implement it, is to drastically reduce the population of domesticates, i.e. cows, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, and above all humans. We domesticates have far less value to the natural order than wild species.
That’s one point I disagree with Livingston on–it’s not the animals’ fault they are domesticated or overpopulated. And until we greatly reduce the number of meat-eaters (in the form of humans), someone needs to look out for the billions of animals who humans domesticated and continue to forcibly breed. I may not be as hopeful about humanity changing for the better as you or Geoff. I’d to see all animal suffering to a minimum in the meantime.
Reblogged this on Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting Blog.