On February 15, I attended a lecture by Rebecca Huss, expert in Animal Law, and had the added privilege of having her visit our Knowing Animals seminar for discussion. She was kind of amazing -- such an ability to remember dates and names and laws and explain them to us very well.
We also read a number of articles that she selected for our class, and below are my notes from those articles.
In her "The Nation" article ("Michael Vick, Racial History and Animal Rights"), Melissa Harris-Perry (Dec 2010) talks about race and its relationship to animals. A few interesting points she makes that I hadn't thought of . . . apparently, PETA also did a campaign comparing black slaves to animals (similar to the Holocaust one) where cattle hang upside down next to hanging black people. She says that you might think black people would be particularly interested in animal welfare since their "interests are profoundly linked" but that since dogs were used to terrorize civil rights demonstrators or capture escaped slaves, perhaps not so much. Plus, there is the glaring inequality that happens all the time, like when pets were evacuated from New Orleans on air-conditioned buses while "tens of thousands of black residents" remained trapped by the storm.
Something I found really interesting that I think might actually relate to my work is the idea of animal hoarders. First of all, the idea of hoarding animals is somewhat funny to me in terms of the word "hoarder" but is of course really sad and disgusting and filthy in reality. Apparently, a lot of people who hoard animals think they are running rescue or shelter organizations and they refuse to believe they are doing anything detrimental to themselves, the animals, and their families. "One study found that the majority of hoarders were female and about half of the hoarders lived in single person households. There are anecdotal reports which indicate that employed animal hoarders are able to live a double life until their homes are investigated. Cats and dogs are the animals that are most frequently involved in hoarding cases." and further down the page, a footnote reminds us that it is not a particular number of animals that defines a hoarder, but an inability to provide adequate care.
Later, she cites a specific case in the footnotes, that says "Chandra Huston, Animal Sanctuary? Gruesome scene inside What is Supposed to be a Sanctuary for Animals: Authorities discover 400-500 dogs Living in Cramped, Filthy Conditions BAXTER BULL (Mountain Hime, Ark.), Oct. 24, 2005", at IA blah blah blah blah and more information about the citation, and then another article on the same thing that is titled "We Know Every Name of Every Dog" which seems kind of an amazing quote. It makes me want to do a similar thing to the hog confinement facility piece with a toy house and 400-500 dogs. . . another toy. Because it is so much like the factory farming, but also not because it doesn't have the veneer of science or the idea of productivity, but really just a crazy person wanting to keep way too many animals. The realtionship to factory farming is so obvious too . . .
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