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Connections are being drawn between animal abuse and other kinds of violence (New York Times Magazine)
Tag Archives: animals
Killer Whale Attack: The Cove star calls for federal investigation of SeaWorld
‘There’s an eerily timely connection between the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, who was killed Wednesday by the killer whale she was training, and the documentary The Cove, which is the frontrunner to win the Oscar for best documentary feature next Sunday, March 7. The documentary is about dolphins that are slaughtered by fishermen outside a town in Japan after they are rejected by aquatic theme park operators looking for the next dolphin star. The film’s main subject, Ric O’ Barry, trained the famous dolphin Flipper, but has since dedicated his life to freeing dolphins and other sea mammals from theme parks. Today, O’ Barry and David Phillips, of the Earth Island Institute, released a statement about Brancheau’s death, and called for a federal investigation into SeaWorld’s actions surrounding the tragedy.
“It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Dawn Brancheau, who by all accounts was a loving and talented caretaker for Tilikum (Tilly), the killer whale who took her life at SeaWorld Orlando just days ago,” the said in a statement. “Along with sadness of this tragic event we can’t help feeling anger toward those who insist upon exhibiting these wild creatures in habitats that can drive them to violence. Dependent on sonar/sound to navigate their vast ocean homes, dolphins and whales are in constant state of distress living in cramped pools, bombarded by noise, stressed by food deprivation and forced to perform…” ‘ (EW.com)
I’ve just seen The Cove, which is not to be missed, a damning indictment of an annual Japanese dolphin capture and slaughter the Japanese have gone to great lengths to conceal from the world.
Related:
Going to the Dogs
“Moral in Tooth and Claw: Animals are in.’ This might well be called the decade of the animal. Research on animal behavior has never been more vibrant and more revealing of the amazing cognitive, emotional, and moral capacities of a broad range of animals. That is particularly true of research into social behavior—how groups of animals form, how and why individuals live harmoniously together, and the underlying emotional bases for social living. It’s becoming clear that animals have both emotional and moral intelligences.” (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
And:
The Dogs Have Eyes — And the Nose Knows: “…[W]hat do we really know about the creatures we’ve promoted to full-fledged family members? To judge from the proliferation of books, classes and celebrity trainers offering their own elaborate theories of the beast, the answer is “Not as much as we’d like.” It’s a central irony of our pet-obsessed era: As retail-driven humanization of pets reaches increasingly improbable levels — 56 percent of dog owners report buying Christmas presents for their animals — we’re more eager than ever to understand their essential dogginess.” (Washington Post)
Related?
“[Malcolm] Gladwell’s latest book, What the Dog Saw, bundles together his favourite articles from the New Yorker since he joined as a staff writer in 1996. It makes for a handy crash course in the world according to Gladwell: this is the bedrock on which his rise to popularity is built. A warning, though: it’s hard to read the book without the sneaking suspicion that you’re unwittingly taking part in a social experiment he’s masterminded to provide grist for his next book. Times are hard, good ideas are scarce: it may just be true. But more about that later…” (Guardian.UK review)
