This image appeared in my Facebook feed this morning, and it struck me as one we might talk about. What do you see in this representation on an animal? What cultural commonplaces about animals? About human-animal relationships? About dogs in particular?
Author: Bianca Falbo (Page 1 of 3)
By a vote of 52 to 13 in the state assembly, and 32 to 1 in the senate, New Jersey legislators last month passed a bill to ban a particular form of cruelty to pigs in factory farms, extending the smallest of mercies to the humblest of creatures. Senate Bill 998 prohibits “the confinement, in an enclosure, of any sow during gestation in a manner that prevents the sow from turning around freely, lying down, standing up, or fully extending the limbs of the animal.” Shall a pregnant pig be granted space enough to stretch her legs and turn around? The question awaits deliberations in the governor’s office, where, as The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf writes, “a moral dilemma is unfolding.”
If Governor Chris Christie signs this bill into law, he has been warned, it won’t be taken well in Iowa. Read more…
Video recorded by Drew Hamilton of the Alaska department of Fish and Game. Having watched Grizzly Man, what are you thoughts about the interaction in this video?
Today is the anniversary of the day the Soviet space program launched Laika into outer space. Check out Mike’s post below for more about Laika. You may also be interested in this new book about Laika and the other Soviet space dogs.
“When Dallas health care worker Nina Pham became infected with Ebola earlier this month, city officials vowed to keep her beloved dog, Bentley, safe under quarantine as a precaution in case he contracted the virus too. But now that both have been given a clean bill of health, their long and challenging period of separation will come to a happy close.”
House Bill 1750 has been in the news lately. Supported by 75% of PA residents, the bil banned live pigeon shoots and other animal cruelty offenses including eating cats and dogs. According to most reports, the NRA lobby killed the bill (by blocking the vote) because, according to them, “These types of activities have been held in the Keystone State for more than a century, and participants are law-abiding, ethical shooting enthusiasts, hunters and sportsmen. ”
Sources for this post
http://www.mcall.com/opinion/white/mc-bw-pennsylvania-pigeon-shoot-20141018-column.html
Echoing the kind of reasoning we’ve seen in Eating Animals, Bill Maher, in an Op Ed for the NYT, asks:
WOULD you cram a dog into a crate for her entire life, never letting her out, until you took her to the pound to kill her?
Of course you wouldn’t, and yet that’s effectively what happens to most mother pigs in this country. They spend their lives in what are called gestation crates, tiny stalls that house pregnant sows. They cannot even turn around, and are immobilized in these crates until they are taken to the slaughterhouse.
ALBANY, New York—Can an animal who possesses the essential qualities of personhood ever be considered, in the eyes of the law, a person?
As of now, the answer is no. But a panel of New York state judges yesterday considered that question, which was posed by a group called the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of a 26-year-old chimpanzee named Tommy.
This article
from the NYT on a new study of primate intelligence reminded me of Brian O’s question about animals and learning. In this study, chimps were observed not only making tools (old news) but learning how from one another.
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