a voice for the voiceless
I volunteered to do one leg of a rooster transport that happened this weekend. The final destination was again Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary, just like last week’s little red hen, but the starting point was in the middle of rural Virginia, about 4 hours from the DC metro area. I volunteered to take that leg, and Gary volunteered to drive them out to eastern shore from here.
The people at the animal shelter were very nice. Sort of curious, perhaps, at someone doing 8 hours of driving for chickens, but very grateful at the same time. And it isn’t that they didn’t understand at all, either – it was something of a surprise to me to see that they seemed very compassionate towards these roosters, rescued from a cockfighting operation. They were perhaps even a bit attached to them. They certainly seemed invested in their rescue. I suppose I expected attitudes like I saw at the shelter last week, with regards to the little red hen. I have a feeling that this past month with these abused roosters has impacted the people who spent time with them.
The roosters had arrived at the shelter on December 22, and from what the shelter employees said, they’d gotten much easier to handle. In the beginning, it was near impossible. Now, just a month later, the employees were cautious, but it all looked easy, from a spectator standpoint.
No, it was something else that was difficult.
After I pulled around to the back, to the trailer where the roosters were being kept, they opened the door, and said “come on in. You just need to choose the 8 you’ll be taking.”
It was like a punch to the gut. I probably should have realized ahead of time that this could happen, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t thought about what it meant that Eastern Shore was able to take 8 but that there had been 39 rescued.
I had to choose 8.
At this point there are no homes for the other 31, and we know what that means. It means that in effect, I was choosing who would live, and who would likely die.
I felt a bit sick. How do you make that choice? I was in shock, hoping that they, the roosters, would somehow tell me, would talk to me.
And so when one of them did talk, quiet little “bok bok bok” sound, I said “okay, him.”
The others, they all made eye contact, they had that look in their eyes…you know the one, the one that says they want to live? That look.
I looked around for ones that looked maybe more sad or … something. But a rooster in a cage? They look sad, it is a given. Mostly they were quiet, watchful, waiting. They all were beautiful to me, they all needed saving. I was paralyzed by the decisions I had to make.
One of the workers, pointed to one of the roosters and said, “this is the meanest one.” So I took him. Of course I took him.
Somehow I chose 8. They put the ones I’d chosen in carriers, we loaded them in to my truck, I signed the paperwork, and off I went down the road.
It didn’t take long before I had tears streaming down my face for the 31 I’d left behind.
Forgetting for a moment all the careful logical arguments that we store up for those times when people question and/or attack our choices, and running on pure emotion and instinct, I can say only this: looking into the eyes of these brave birds, I simply can’t comprehend that anyone else could look into their eyes and act with anything less than compassion.
For those of us who have that compassion and live our lives careful to avoid harm wherever we can, the constant frustration is that no matter how many we rescue, it is always a drop in the bucket. It is always a small percentage of those needing to be rescued.
And for any who think I’m taking about just chickens or just non-human animals, I’m not. The same is true whether we’re talking about humans or non-humans. There is always more abuse than rescue.
Always.
And so I had to choose 31 to leave behind. And my heart breaks.
I’m back to the freezing winter after a lovely 10 days in warmer climes. It is hard to adjust after vacation – to the weather, to the “real” life – and while I expected my “extra” three days before going back to work would give me a chance to relax into my normal routines, the reality is that I hit the ground running.
Within hours after my red-eye flight landed on Friday, I was driving towards Baltimore to pick up a hen needing transport to the Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary.
“She lays beautiful eggs,” one of the workers assured me. Thinking it was a comment on her good health, which was evident in her bright clear eyes and gorgeous feathers, I thought it odd, but not that odd. As I would when faced with new parents who delight in sharing the pediatrician’s assessment of their progeny’s healthy bowel movements, I just sort of smiled and nodded.
“We made brownies with them!”
And I about gagged. “Straight from her butt to your dessert!” was all I could think.
I was assured several more times that the little red hen lays beautiful eggs. It was distressingly obvious that this woman who had just been cuddling the hen still managed to see her only in terms of what she could produce, what she could do for this woman. And there was no comprehension that I was part of a rescue group and was taking the hen to a sanctuary. Or maybe simply no comprehension of what a sanctuary is.
Reformed Fast Food Mascot had an interesting post today, and it ties directly into this issue. “The different types of people who consume animal products,” and based on those descriptions I’d put this animal shelter worker somewhere between #3 and #4.
The little red hen spent the night at my place on Friday because she needed to be picked up during the week, but I wasn’t going out to the sanctuary until Saturday. A chicken in my condo. That was an interesting experience!
pattrice (one of the co-founders of Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary) had assured me that cats rarely bother full grown chickens, and so I was watchful of my cat as I first released the little red hen in my condo, but not overly worried. And sure enough, Tempest was the intimidated one. She got up onto the desk to observe from a safe distance, while the hen ignored Tempest with a complete lack of concern for the predator in the room with her.
She was pretty demanding – she wanted corn chips, but not tofu or rice – but was a total sweetheart. Exhausted from a night of travel, I ended up napping on my big purple chair, legs up over the chair arms. And when I woke up, the hen was perched atop my legs! So light, I could only feel her feet if I concentrated on it.
She spent the night perched on the dining room table. Adjusting to the time difference, I was up a few times during the night, and she’d be sleeping peacefully, her head tucked around to the side. She’d lift her head as I walked by her and make her soft trilling coo sounds.
When I got up in the morning, she’d been finishing up the last of the tofu from the night before (which she decided was good enough, I guess, when I wasn’t around to be manipulated into giving her more corn chips), but as soon as she heard me moving around, she came trotting over to tell me in no uncertain terms that she’d like more chips!
The drive out to the eastern shore was uneventful. She didn’t find much to fuss about, and handled the change in circumstances with an unflappable calm. pattrice says this is common in her experience with these red hens.
It was great to see her in a yard full of chickens, in her element. There was dirt to scratch at instead of carpet, and she had chickens and ducks to establish a pecking order with, instead of a cat and a human. She wandered all over, interested in everything, intimidated by nothing.
It was a great feeling to leave her there, knowing she’d have a great life, allowed to just be herself.
Tempest is pretty happy to not have to share the condo with an intimidating bird too!
I wrote recently about Heidi, the cow who saved herself.
That aspect of Heidi defines her to a great deal. Knowing her story, it is impossible to look at her and not feel a sense of awe and amazement. I doubt anyone meeting her now would guess at her hidden depths, at least not of the jumping-out-the-window-to-save-herself variety.
Yet, it is unsurprising to learn that she’s showing those depths in different ways now. “Heidi, the cow who saved herself” is what she did, it is who she is. “Heidi, the cow who looks after Emily, the blind calf” is what she does now, it is who she is becoming.
Almost two years ago a little blind calf came to live at Poplar Spring. As with many of the animals, Emily’s story is convoluted, with several hops and a good deal of fantastical luck.
Emily was born on a small local beef farm. She was apparently blind from birth. And this, in the end, saved her life. Of course it almost killed her first.
On these small beef farms, the cows are out in the pastures grazing day in and day out. The “breeding females” are gotten pregnant pretty much every year, and their babies are killed at about 18 months old. Until then, the mothers and babies are together. The farmers don’t put much effort into caring for these cows; it is likely they are doing this for tax reasons as much as anything (suburb of DC, hello agricultural tax incentive!), so for their few head of cattle, they go for the minimal effort. In the cold icy February two years ago, Emily was in the field with her mother, but they somehow got separated. Emily was stuck in some ice, and the employees on this farm noticed and told the farmer. He reacted in a way that is both shocking and unsurprising. “Let her die,” was essentially what he said.
This upset one of the workers, especially as Emily and her mother were calling back and forth to each other. Emily was not only trapped in some ice, but she was somehow on the wrong side of a fence. The worker was able to free Emily from the ice. Emily was sick by then, and it was finally clear to the worker and the farmer that she was blind as well. The farmer wanted nothing to do with this sickly blind calf, and he certainly didn’t want her taking up space in his barn. The worker knew of Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary because she’d brought a chicken there once upon a time, and so she called the sanctuary to see if Emily could find a home.
Emily was 4 months old when she came to Poplar Spring, and she was very wary of humans. It was quite a while, and only with the influence of apples, before she would let anyone but Dave and Terry (and some of the regular week-day workers as well) approach her.
As is typical with cows, Emily was accepted into the herd immediately. Yet Emily was a bit independent. She’d get lost in the woods. She’d be down by the creek on her own. Likely this is how she got separated from her mother in the first place. She is actually quite good at following and finding the cows, to a certain degree, using the secondary senses of sound and smell to guide her way. She has no fear.
However, having a blind cow potentially lost in the wooded areas of the 400 acre property made for some stressful and sleepless nights for the human caretakers of the sanctuary.
Terry looked into GPS collars, and was able to raise the money for a couple. There’s a blind horse at the sanctuary as well, and though he is much more cautious and much less independent than Emily, and though he has a partner who wears a be-belled halter so that he can hear her as she moves, there is still the worry. And so GPS collars seemed a good idea.
And they were, but unfortunately they were also no longer made, which Terry found out months after she ordered them, and had her money refunded. A couple of us researched with our best search-term skills, and couldn’t find anything workable for this purpose.
And so time marched on, Emily adapted more and more, and though she still got separated from the herd, it was getting more predictable. The worry was still there, but so was the confidence that Emily did know how to take care of herself. A GPS collar would have made it easier to check up on Emily, but everyone adapted to the reality, which did not include such a collar.
Enter Heidi.
In recent months, Heidi has decided that she is the surrogate momma for Emily. Or maybe not a mother, really, but big sister or mentor of some kind.
Emily is stubborn, but of course we know that Heidi has a determined personality. When Emily hangs out near (and sometimes in) the pig barn, and the cows are beginning to move off, Heidi comes back for Emily and moos at her imperiously.
Naturally Emily, being Emily, tries to ignore the summons.
Eventually, though, Heidi is able to convince Emily to follow her.
Ever since Heidi has taken on this new role, Emily has not gotten lost. Emily has not gotten separated (other than to the extent that she insists on by her not-quite-as-social-as-average nature), and Emily is now able to stay with the cows as they wander the whole 400 acres.
Emily, as it turns out, does not need a GPS collar. She has Heidi.
I got an email from change.org this morning stating that round 2 had started. Only 10 ideas total will be presented, so you get just 10 votes.
Please go and vote for the vegan food in the school room! It is lagging seriously right now, and yet I still have such high hopes for it.
I haven’t looked at all the other categories yet to see where I’ll put my remaining 9 votes. Hopefully I’ll have time to do that before the voting ends (which I think is on Jan 15th). I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this, if you go and read up on the many categories and the ideas that made it to this round.
In other news, I’m going out of town for a couple weeks, so it is likely I’ll post seldom, if at all, while I’m gone. I predict nothing! I’m such a sporadic blogger that no one will be surprised at my radio silence, yet I do still have part two of Heidi’s story to finish.
Mostly I have to get the pictures in order…
One thing I probably should have mentioned in the original Heidi post, but figured it would be obvious to anyone who had the calendar already, is that Heidi is featured in January on the calendar. Not all the stories will be quite so full and rich as Heidi’s is, but I will eventually post all of the stories of all the animals in the calendar!
pattrice is encouraging us, in the wake of the awful attack on Nathan Runkle, to dig deep and examine an intersection, another piece of the privilege pie that we have as heterosexuals.
Finally, this attack ought to provoke the animal rights/liberation/advocacy community to take homophobia more seriously. Yes, the movement is generally queer-friendly but, no, it is not entirely free of homophobia. There are gay men in the movement who have hesitated to come out for fear of losing credibility or facing harassment. There are lesbian women in the movement whose opinions about the linkages between sexism and speciesism have been dismissed as the irrational ravings of man-haters. There have been (rare but real) incidents of both insensitivity and outright homophobia at movement events. Confronting this directly will make the movement stronger and better able to build bridges with other movements.
It comes down to a willingness to acknowledge and then divest oneself of unjust power and privilege. Just as it’s very easy for progressive activists in other movements to assume that, because they feel themselves to be good and progressive people, there couldn’t possibly be any need for them to look deeply at their power relationships with animals, it’s very easy for vegan animal rights activists to assume that, because they feel themselves to be good and progressive people, there couldn’t possibly be any need to challenge themselves about issues like race or sexual orientation. But, of course, what’s true is that we all need to be challenging ourselves about everything all the time if we’re to have any hope of salvaging the world from the wreckage wrought by the tangle of intersecting injustices in which we all are ensnared.
I was at a vegan brunch this morning, a final event marking the closing of the Brian McKenzie Infoshop. A sad day, yet it was a celebration. All these people together, sharing vegan food and memories of the Infoshop. Music, laughter, friendship, community.
One of the musicians was Spoonboy. I’ve heard him once before, though I can’t remember the topic of the songs that night. Today one of his songs was about the confusing aspects of sexuality, growing up with the pressures that society places on us to be a certain way. After Spoonboy concluded his song, he said a few words, about how important it had been for him to find the Infoshop just after high school, to have a place where he always felt accepted.
It was the perfect song to get me really thinking about my own piece of the privilege pie, as someone who is technically heterosexual.
As someone who has only dated men, and who has only been inclined to date men, I don’t have to worry that I’m going to be beat up by others who disapprove of the sex of my date. I don’t have to worry that my parents will stop talking to me based on the sex of the person I date. I never had to worry about my parents throwing me out based on my sexual orientation.
If I hold hands with someone I’m dating in public, no one will notice. If I kiss my date in public, people might notice, but any comments would be along the lines of appropriateness of public displays of affection, rather than outrage as to the sex of my date.
If I want to get married, I can, no question. In any state, and with no protests by any group. The fundamental Christians won’t protest my fictional marriage, even though I’m atheist and one would presume that they are fundamentally opposed to any marriage that doesn’t fit their view of it. As long as it is superficially like their own, I suppose they turn their eyes away.
If I want to have a child and raise it with or without a partner, no one would question the suitability, at least not based on my sexual orientation. If I want to adopt a child, there are no laws banning me from doing so. (Though this might not be true in Arkansas, which I think passed a law stating that single parents as well as gay and lesbian couples were banned from adopting.)
There are so many aspects of our society that are built around the assumption that the only valid relationship is the one between one man and one woman. In fact, as we all know, there are those who want to make this a federally enshrined definition of marriage.
But it is more than that. Or it is all of that, on a bigger deeper level.
And this is what I was thinking as Spoonboy sang. When we talk about animal rights, we talk about their right to exist without interference, to find whatever joy and form whatever relationships and live whatever lives they can. The mere fact that animals are not human makes them targets for any number of abuses. They are raped, their babies are stolen, the milk they produce for those stolen babies is then stolen. Their lives are controlled to every degree possible, and then stolen. Their wings are clipped, their beaks and toes are mutilated. They are starved and kept in dark cramped places. If they do not have the misfortune to be a “farmed” animal, then the mere fact of their existence means that there are likely people out there with guns or other instruments of death just waiting for the right time, permit, or happenstance in order to do their best to kill them. Even the exceptions to these rules, the “pets”, have a small protection, and not more than that.
Obviously I haven’t listed all the ways that humans control and kill all the animals. The real point is that it is the mere fact of their existence, and the mere fact that they are not human that opens them up to abuse and death.
This is also true if your sexuality doesn’t conform to the dominant paradigm.
As humans, we are animals. As animal rights activists, this means we must also be social justice advocates. It is without question that we need to fight injustice wherever it occurs. It is shameful that hate crimes based on sexual orientation aren’t universally viewed, in a legal sense, as hate crimes. It is, of course, even more shameful that hate crimes occur.
pattrice has said that she’s seen and experienced extreme homophobia within the animal rights movement.
This doesn’t surprise me – it is a movement made up of people, and people are not perfect. That doesn’t mean we can’t improve. That does mean we need to confront that sort of behavior if and when we witness it. That does mean we educate ourselves so that we are that much more sensitive and aware.
I did some research, and found some shocking information. Shocking because I thought we, as a society, were more advanced than this. According to About.com, twenty states do not include sexual orientation in their hate crimes laws. Twenty! Including the current state I live in, and the one I moved from a couple years ago. And seven have absolutely no hate crime laws at all. Including one I’m about to take a vacation to.
This means that there are a lot of us living in places that likely have campaigns to address this. That means there are a lot of us who could add our voices to the fight, whether or not we live in Ohio, where one of our own was so recently brutally attacked, simply for being who he is.
One of the articles I read recently was on the Gay/Straight Animal Rights Alliance website.
Racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and speciesism are separate symptoms of a greater disease – a disease that spawns from our behaviors, that will only be cured by a collective struggle to ameliorate all forms of wanton exploitation. We live in an anglicized world of white conservative values and ideals. From an early age we are spoon-fed a government education, learning the pledge of allegiance in conjunction with the alphabet. How is it that a culture so “advanced” necessitates the oppression of humyn and non-humyn animals?
Our society is founded on the inherent belief in false dualisms, dualisms constructed to subjugate and categorize animals with respect to humans, women to men, ghetto to suburb, inferior to superior. We have come to accept the torture of animals, the suppression of minorities, and the servitude of women as human nature. Through the deconstruction of false assumptions we lay the grounds for total liberation; liberation for others and ourselves irrespective of socially constructed biases.
Final words from pattrice:
By making connections and taking action, we can counter might and make things right.
I was shocked and saddened to read about the attack on Nathan Runkle, founder of Mercy for Animals, when reading pattrice’s blog, SuperWeed, this afternoon.
From the press release that pattrice linked in:
Dayton, OH – Nathan Runkle, the 24-year old openly gay founder and Executive Director of the national animal advocacy organization, Mercy For Animals, was brutally assaulted on Saturday morning in an apparent hate crime. Runkle is a nationally recognized leader in the animal protection movement, who was recently named one of the world’s “25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians” by VegNews Magazine. The assault, which occurred at Masque, a gay night club in Dayton, Ohio, was completely unprovoked.
I don’t know Nathan personally, other than having heard him speak at various AR conferences, and probably having the quick kind of talks you have when you stop by someone’s table. My impressions were always of gentleness and kindness, backed by that core of strength innate to people who follow their conscience as strongly and unwaveringly as Nathan has. It is amazing to think that he started Mercy for Animals when he was in high school, but that’s exactly what he did. 9 years later and he is still filled with energy and conviction.
And his reaction to this attack shows that strength as well. What does Nathan say, how should we react?
The press release says that Nathan wants sexual orientation included in Ohio’s hate crimes legislation. So, one thing that those of us who know and love — or just know of and respect — Nathan can do is join the effort to make that happen.
pattrice says further:
So, if you’re somebody who cares about or works on LGBTQ issues but has not (yet) integrated the animals into your analysis of oppression, let this attack on a gay man who has dedicated himself to animal rights motivate you to educate yourself about the connections. And, if you’re a straight animal liberationist or veg*n advocate who hasn’t thought deeply about your heterosexual privilege and what obligations you might have to divest yourself of that, let this near-deadly attack on a gay animal advocate remind you (if Proposition 8 and Obama’s selection of a homophobic preacher to speak at his inauguration did not) that homophobia is still alive and dangerous.
In both instances: Educate yourself about the intersections and then figure out how you might integrate what you learn into your activism and your daily life. Those of us who are already hip to that particular intersection ought to realize that there’s always more for us to learn too. Finally, all of us can be inspired by Nathan’s relentless activism and take up the charge to do just a little bit more while he’s recovering from this terrible trauma.
Stephanie wrote about it too, with some additional links.
Let’s see what we can do to aid in the fight in Ohio to have sexual orientation included in hate crimes legislation.
“What you have done is who you are. What you do is who you will be.”
That’s the quote my yoga instructor started today’s class with. I don’t know who originally said it.
And in many ways it ties in with the story I want to tell today, about one cow by the name of Heidi.
Heidi was born in Florida on a dairy farm. The farmer didn’t see enough profit in selling the babies for veal, so he would put the newborn calves into trenches and shoot them. Heidi was spared that fate only because a couple farmers from Virginia had come to visit the Florida farmer to give him information on goat dairy farming. In “payment”, Heidi was given to these farmers, to be slaughtered for meat once she had grown enough.
And so Heidi went to that small farm in Virginia, a farm that was likely close to what most people imagine when they think of the idealized little farm. It was a farm that was a hobby, rather than an occupation. These hobby-farmers made a clear distinction between the animals they grew attached to, and those they would kill for profit or convenience. They were running a goat-dairy, after all, and the baby goats get killed just as surely as the baby cows do on a cow-dairy farm.
And so Heidi lived there, on that small hobby farm, for her first year. When she was deemed large enough to fetch a profit at slaughter, the slaughter truck was called to come pick her up.
And Heidi refused to get on it.
The farmers and the truck driver gave up, and the slaughter truck left without Heidi. Heidi lived, but the farmers of that small little hobby farm hadn’t given up their determination to kill Heidi.
The next time they called the slaughter truck, they were prepared. They’d closed Heidi into a barn, and backed the truck right up to the doors. The only way out was onto the truck, and there is no way that those farmers would have been gentle in their persuasion.
And so Heidi broke out of that barn by jumping through a window.
When Terry told me that, my jaw dropped. It bears repeating – Heidi jumped through a window.
I still can’t get over that.
Heidi wasn’t quite safe yet, however. The farmers’ next plan was to slaughter her on the property. Talk about people determined to cause death. One of their coworkers (remember, this farm was just a hobby for them) heard about Heidi, and somehow convinced the farmers to let her purchase Heidi so she could find a place for Heidi to live out her life. Her real life, where she wouldn’t be profited from, and she wouldn’t be killed.
When she called Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, she was getting desperate. Terry and Dave would have one chance to bring Heidi home. They arrived at night with their trailer. Heidi was out in the field.
“You’ll never get her on the truck,” the farmers stated. Terry didn’t agree.
And Terry was right.
She had the farmers stay away from the trailer, away from the pasture where Heidi was. They got the trailer ready, and they called to Heidi. Heidi came right over and walked calmly onto the trailer. She knew, somehow, that these were people who would do her no harm, who were there to save her and take her home.
That is the story of how Heidi saved herself.
But that’s only half her story. The other half will be saved for another day.
Edit: part 2, now posted!
All proceeds will be donated to the sanctuary.
Coupons: http://www.lulu.com/current_specials?cid=eng_advent_specials_112210
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