One More Dead Wolf

On the morning of June 8th, a Mexican gray wolf escaped from his cage at the Minnesota Zoo. He walked slowly on a path, and people quickly moved away from him. The zoo staff decided that they should shoot to kill instead of tranquilize. Their rationale was that the wolf was a danger to zoo patrons and a tranquilizer dart, according to zoo officials, "can take 10-15 minutes to fully take effect on an animal."

So a choice had to be made by the zoo: either tranquilize the wolf and risk him injuring or killing patrons, or kill the wolf  and deal with the negative publicity that would be sure to follow. They chose to kill.

I have often said that if a tiger broke into my house and seemed intent on eating my children, I would not be opposed to killing her if that's what it took to save my kids. (I should note here that I would do the same if a human broke into my house and she seemed intent on eating (or just killing, I guess) my children. What I would do in this situation says nothing about what we should routinely do to animals.)

My point is, I'm not sure that the zoo necessarily made the wrong choice in this specific instance, though I think they should have more ways to catch an animal unharmed than by just using tranquilizer darts. The process they have in place for things like this should rule out killing an animal except for in the most extreme cases. Their emergency reaction plans don't take the non-human animal lives at the zoo into as much consideration as they should. But since they didn't have adequate protocol and their options were truly kill or tranquilize (as the zoo claims), I can understand why they chose kill.

The big wrong choice the zoo made was when it chose to be a zoo. Zoos are inherently unjust places, tiny pale facsimiles of animals' natural habitats, places where animals go senile, places where animals are merely a commodity to be used to entertain and, ostensibly, educate.

So in my view, the real question isn't whether or not the zoo should have shot the wolf, it's whether or not the wolf should have been there in the first place. It's obvious to me that the answer is no. We can't justify imprisioning these animals for our entertainment or even for (again, ostensibly) our education. And the fact that they escape (and they do quite a bit ... oh and let's not forget this), and then zoos are often caused to weigh the non-human animals' lives against the potential of harm to paying customers ... it seems like a recipe for disaster.

Of course, news outlets jumped all over this story. And there were plenty of outraged citizens, saying the zoo acted rashly and should have done more to capture the wolf alive. I agree. But I think it misses the point of the institutionally entrenched problem of speciesism, which allows horrible situations like this to happen.

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That's an It. He's an It. Not a He.

On Minnesota Public Radio, they wrote:

"Zoo officials said no people were in immediate danger but they decided to shoot the wolf because they couldn't predict where it would go or whether it would hurt people visiting the Northern Trail." (link)

Elsewhere in the story, Tony Fisher, the zoo's "animal collection manager" refers to this wolf as a "he." I can't for the life of me understand why MPR would refer to him as "it." The rest of the news outlets, of course, also referred to the wolf as "it," even though he was identified as male within their stories.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press managed to gender and neuter the wolf in the same paragraph:

"The 8-year-old male wolf slipped through the gaps of a fence in the keeper area of its exhibit into a secondary enclosure where it jumped an 8-foot fence, said animal collections manager Tony Fisher." (link)

And the Star Tribune did the same thing (in fact, the combination of the words "male that" is the shortest distance possible between gendering and neutering):

"The wolf, an 8-year-old male that was born at the zoo, is one of an endangered subspecies with only a few dozen living in the wild. There were three Mexican gray wolves at the zoo, but this one was not on exhibit because it didn't get along with the other two, Fisher said." (link)

The AP went there, too. They did correctly attribute one gendered pronoun to the wolf, but then decided to neuter him anyway:

"Tony Fisher, MN Zoo animal collection manager, told KARE 11 the ordeal began around 10 a.m. when the male wolf escaped his primary display area. Vets and zookeepers armed with tranquilizers started gathering and preparing to recapture the wolf but it jumped a secondary barrier and ran out among the public walking on the zoo's Northern Trail." (link)

I've got to hand it to Tony Fisher though, in all the quotes I saw from him, he referred to the wolf by the proper pronoun. I wish the reporting media would have followed suit. I don't have my AP Style Guide handy, but I wonder if there's something in there that says you have to refer to a non-human animal as "it" even if you know his or her gender. Any reporters out there want to help me out here? Are there style guidelines on this?

This bothers me, as you can tell. Animals are not its, they are hes and shes (or in the case of hermaphroditic animals, the generic, but non-objectifying, "they"). By routinely refusing to attribute a gender to them, we reduce them to the level of things. Things are "its." We don't have to care about things. We don't really care about animals so we refer to them at "its." And we refer to them as "its" to make it easier to not care about them.

It's pervasive, it's insidious and I really, really want it to stop. Regardless of how you feel about animals, you should at least recognize them as beings who are not mere things. That recognition should be reflected in your language.

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Precious Species, Worthless Lives

The Minnesota Zoo released a note on their Facebook page which explains why they shot the wolf instead of tranquilizing him. One of the comments on this note sums up what I think a lot of people are feeling:

"I am disappointed that this extreme action had to take place. A precious life had to end today because the zoo we support did not do its job to keep the animals safe. While I don't want to see any humans injured better safeguards should have been in place. I have been a long time member and contributor but am rethinking my support."

First of all, this extreme action didn't have to take place. This is a dilemma that was created by the zoo. If there was no zoo, this dilemma would not have existed.

Secondly, this wolf's life is no more precious than the chicken's life which became your last meal of McNuggets.

Thirdly, support for the zoo should not occur if you truly regard the lives there as precious. I know that this wolf is a member of an endangered species, but that doesn't mean his individual life is intrinsically more precious than any other animal's.

And let's not forget the reason this species is on extinction's door: human hunting of wolves. Speciesism feeds speciesism. On the one hand, humans have nearly eradicated Mexican gray wolves. On the other hand, humans are confining Mexican gray wolves in hopes of saving the species.

But what good is a species?  A species is a concept. A species doesn't have feelings. A species doesn't care if it's extinct.

What matters - who matters - are the individual members of species. But it's the individual members who are routinely confined, abused and killed. We confine them in zoos. We further encroach on their habitats with  urban sprawl. We clear-cut rain forests so we can have cheap cow flesh (and we kill cows for flesh). We kill 23 million individual chickens per day in the United States alone.

Looking at the patterns of abuse and disregard, it's obvious that the overwhelming majority of we humans could care less about individual members of species. It's almost comical to me then, that we go to such lengths to save species.

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Anna and the Aquarium

Needless to say, my family doesn't go to zoos. The potential for escaped carnivores doesn't really come in to play when we make that choice; the right of animals to live free from ownership and exploitation does. Our sense of justice does.

That said, a few weeks ago Anna's class took a field trip to the Mall of America's underground aquarium, Minnesota Sea Life. We talked with Anna about it before hand and told her that she could go if she wants, or she could stay home. She said she wanted to go. She said she thought fish shouldn't be in cages, but she also wanted to go to see what it's like. She said she would maybe ask the people who worked there if they could let the fish go.

But she was sick that day. So she didn't go after all.

Her teacher and I were talking about it today and she said she was glad Anna wasn't there. There were a lot of dead animals that the kids could look at up close. Like a dead turtle, for example.

How many kids wondered what the turtle's life was like? What lessons did they learn by gazing upon this deceased individual's lifeless form?

What lessons did they learn by looking at the living beings trapped behind glass?

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Further Reading


After writing this post, I looked online for critiques of zoos from an animal rights perspective. The following pieces are worth taking a look at (note: I don't necessarily endorse all views expressed on the sites at the other end of these links):

Should Zoos Keep Endangered Species? by Doris Lin
What's Wrong With Zoos? by Gary Yourofsky
Zoos by Wanda Embar at Vegan Peace

UPDATE: The Animal Rights Coalition has released a statement in regard to the shooting of the wolf. You can read it here.

Liam Sings Annie

I wasn't kidding about Annie. At any given point in our house you can hear a song from the movie coming from one of my kids' mouths. Liam hardly watches the movie, but he knows the songs because Anna sings them all the time. Here he is singing the medley Anna and I sang for her talent show.

Activism of the Waffle and Educational Kind

The Global Vegan Waffle Party is nearly upon us. The Animal Rights Coalition is putting it on again this year, and if it's anything like it was last year, it'll be awesome.

The event will take place from 10-12 at Fuller Park on 48th St. and Grand Ave. (indoors at the little rec center there) in Minneapolis. The Facebook invite for the par-tay is here.

But maybe you don't live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Check out the Global Vegan Waffle Party page here to see a list of parties across the world.

And check out this collage they have on their site:

Anna's there in the far upper right corner. She is now famous.

I'm of the mind that having community pot-lucks and parties like this are a great way to open people up to delicious food that doesn't involve the oppression of other animals. It's a legitimate form of activism.

Events like this also foster community within the animal rights movement, which I think is important. Almost all of us want to belong to a community of some sort. The reason for that (at least in this instance) is not to insulate ourselves from the outside world, but instead to get our bearings, get refreshed, share ideas and commune with those who have, in their own time and way, come to view the world as we have. It's not essential, but it's damn close.

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Speaking of the Animal Rights Coalition, I've been volunteering for them for a while now and I keep meaning to write about how I came to do that, but never get around with it. I won't it in this post, either. But soon...

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After the waffle party, I'm co-facilitating a workshop called Help! I'm going vegan! with Dallas Rising, ARC's program director. We've done this once before and it went really well.

So now we're doing it again as part of ARC's Vegan University program, which includes these workshops, grocery tours and ongoing mentorship for new vegans and people who are transitioning to veganism.

Cool logo, huh? 'Like' the Vegan University page here if you've been wanting to find the vegan you.

The workshop will be on May 28th from 1-3 at Ethique Nouveau, ARC's store where all proceeds from sales go directly into their animal advocacy programs.

Anyway, this is the type of volunteering that I simply adore: Helping people go vegan. If I could do nothing but this all day (when I'm not taking care of my kids and cooking, going out with my wife, etc.) I totally would.

Talent Show

The talent show at Anna's school was on Friday. Here's our number:

Art and Annie

First of all, this blog now has a Facebook page. You can click here and like it if you want. I'll mainly use  that page for linking to these blog posts as well as to other things related to veganism, parenting and vegan parenting.

All right, now on to the art. 

Anna has produced a lot of art this year at school. We have kept most of it, recycled very little. I was going through it all with her the other day and picked out some of my favorites to scan in.

I really like the color and composition of these first two. She started doing things like this half-way through the school year. She was talking about missing us while she was at school and we suggested that she could draw us pictures when she feels sad about it. I can't remember if that's what these two are about, but here they are anyway. 

Here's one of our family. Left to right: Daddy, Anna, Mommy, Liam. This is an earlier one, I think. She's now adding big boxes on the arms and legs for clothing. 

Here is a page full of hearts (I think she said it was a hundred hearts, but I counted and it's more like 120). She said, "This is how much I love you."

Here is Venus and Outer Space. The word "venus" is written in there, but it's hiding. You could always click on the photo to view it larger if you really want to see it.

And last but not least: Annie. Anna has become obsessed with Annie. She loves the movie and the music. She sings it all day long. Hell, I sing it all day long. We have become an Annie family. When Anna draws pictures now, sometimes she'll sign them "Annie," and laugh hysterically when she shows us what she did. She loves Annie so much that this Friday, at her school's talent show, her and I are going to perform an Annie medley duet. I'll post video on the blog, assuming all goes well. This will be her first time singing in front of an audience.

Wish us to break a leg!

Oh yeah, she added hearts to this drawing. Because really, what's anything without hearts? Also, the writing there on the right says "4 and she turned 5," which is something that her little head just came up with and wanted to write down. Cool, huh? 

Trampoline

Jen (my wife) had this great idea last fall. She thought that the kids would be playing less outside once the snow started flying, so she bought a trampoline. The kids love it. Their mom is super smart.

So here are a couple videos involving the trampoline. The first is Anna doing a routine that she and Jen worked out. The music is from Yo Gabba Gabba, here.

I know this video pretty dark, but you get the gist.



And here's a video of them flipping over the safety bar. Isn't it great how kids do that? Take something that's meant to make things safer and use it to make it more dangerous?

This flipping business was Liam's idea. I just looked over one day and he was flipping over the bar. I, of course, encouraged more flipping.

Anna's First Correction of "It"

So Anna's starting to read. It's really exciting.

Yesterday she was reading a Biscuit book, which are early reading books about a dog, Biscuit, who does things and says "Woof!" (I should write ad copy for children's books.) The one she was reading had a frog hopping on a log.

"The frog hopped on the log," she read and turned the page.

"It was..." she stopped, "Wait, that shouldn't say 'it,' it should say 'he.' I'm going to change it. He was hot on top of the log."

I told her she's right that we shouldn't refer to animals as "it", but corrected the change in this specific instance, since it was analogous to saying, "It's hot outside." The "it" in the book referred to the temperature of the log, not the frog. (Yes, she understood. And yes, I'm the son of an English teacher.)

But still, I'm pleased to see that she's understanding that animals aren't "its" and that they are, in fact, "hes" and "shes," or if you're unsure, "hes or shes," or the always generic but useful "theys."

I have, of course, talked to her about this subject before. If we lived in a world that didn't use words like "it" to describe sentient individuals, I wouldn't have to talk with her about it. But we do. So I do.

When I read a book that refers to an animal as "it" I will change the word to either "he" or "she" often without mentioning that I'm doing it. She knows that I do it though, because I will occasionally tell her when I make the change.

I will also change, for example, a mention of eggs (if they're being eaten by someone) to tofu. Again, I don't mention it to her every time I do it, but I have told her that I do it and I've explained that I change the words because I don't think the way it's written is nice to animals.

The time will come pretty soon when she will know exactly when I do this, and soon after that she'll read them on her own, and she'll realize just how many of her books refer to animals in this way. She may be surprised or dismayed, but I doubt it. She's very used to being the only vegan in a situation (for example, her class at school) and she knows full well that most people aren't vegan. She seems to be comfortable with those facts (though if you ask her, she'll tell you that she'd like everyone to be vegan).

She probably gets that from her dad.

Anyway, to make this long story shorter, she hasn't even fully learned to read yet and she's already correcting speciesist language. Go vegan kids!

Veggie Nugget #34

"Some people feel threatened by the prospect that in recognizing and upholding the dignity of other living beings, we betray our own dignity as a species. It should rather be asked how the human species gains dignity by creating worlds such as this for anyone to live in. Can one regard a fellow creature as a property item, an investment, a piece of meat, an "it," without degenerating into cruelty and dishonesty towards that creature? Human slavery was brutal. Does anyone really believe that nonhuman slavery operates on a higher plane?"

Karen Davis, from her book Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (REVISED ED)


(Note: I would make a few cents or something if you bought this book on Amazon by clicking on that link. If you would like me to not make money on your purchase of this book (and seriously, I'm totally OK with that) just go to Amazon via a different route and buy it that way.)

Squirrel: Episode III

Well, the squirrel was released last Thursday, thus bringing the saga to an end, at least as far as I'm concerned. For all I know, he has a few years left of being a squirrel.

My friend Threse, who volunteers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota and was nice enough to coordinate his release with me, took this photo of the squirrel shortly before his release. 

Looks way healthier than when I saw him a month ago. 

Here's video of the release. Anna got to watch. Liam was taking a nap. 

So yeah, I'm thinking of donating and/or volunteering at the WRC at some point in the near future. Seems like a place full of hope. 

A ... video! And Pictures. And another video.

It seems like it's been a while since I've posted a video of the kids. Here you go.

In it, they talk about our upcoming trip to North Dakota to celebrate their youngest cousin's first birthday. Then they sing. Then we talk about the gash in Liam's lip, which he got when he fell down at an indoor playground. I didn't see it happen, but I assume his upper teeth cut into his lower lip. There was blood everywhere. He was playing again about 20 minutes later.


The Kids Talk and Sing and Stuff from Al Nowatzki on Vimeo.


Here are some photos of Liam's lip, just because.

I swear, I did not tell him to make this face.

Or this one.

Liam thought that since I was taking photos of him, he should get a blanket out and lay down on it. Then he asked me to take photos of him lying on the blanket. I obliged. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the squirrel I brought in to the rehabilitation center is going to be released this Thursday. Possibly photos and/or video to come.

Bonus video:


Rock and Roll! from Al Nowatzki on Vimeo.