Ed Yong, Beavers, Mustangs, AI, Maher, Orcas, Feathers, Avian cow flu & bunnies 3-31-24

Today's New York Times has a beautiful op-ed on birding, by Ed Yong, the author of the exquisite book, "An Immense World." The Los Angeles Times has a front-page story on the value of beavers in blocking wildfires, plus a story on mustang roundups and an op-ed on the need for AI protections to consider what's good for all sentient beings, not just humans. Plus Le Monde has covered an orca death at Marineland in Southern France, the Sunday Observer looks at the cruelty of feathers and exotic skins in fashion, Bill Maher has called attention to our "torturing animals" for food in his New Rules segment, NPR has shared that bird flu has spread to cows, and Mutts has called attention to the darker side of Easter bunnies.

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Ed Yong's 2022 book "An Immense World" is one of my favorite books of all time; I believe it to be one of the most important ever written because of its ramifications. It makes the whole idea of human supremacy seem ridiculous, simply by what it teaches us about our fellow earthlings. Yong's op-ed in the Sunday, March 31, New York Times, titled "Birds Open Our Eyes And Ears," (page SR9) could be seen to be taking a more blatant dig at the idea with these lovely lines:

"It’s easy to think of birding as an escape from reality. Instead, I see it as immersion in the true reality. I don’t need to know who the main characters are on social media and what everyone is saying about them, when I can instead spend an hour trying to find a rare sparrow. It’s very clear to me which of those two activities is the more ridiculous. It’s not the one with the sparrow."

I wholeheartedly recommend reading the beautiful piece, and thank DawnWatch advisor Teresa D'Amico for making that so easy by sharing this gift link with us!

If you are moved to respond with a letter to the New York Times, you will enjoy the tips the paper offers for getting published.

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The Sunday March 31 Los Angeles Times front page headline reads "Dam right, beavers can allay wildfires."

The article, by Alex Wigglesworth, opens with:

"A vast burn scar unfolds in drone footage of a landscape seared by massive wildfires north of Lake Tahoe. But amid the expanses of torched trees and gray soil, an unburnt island of lush green emerges.

"The patch of greenery was painstakingly engineered. A creek had been dammed, creating ponds that slowed the flow of water so the surrounding earth had more time to sop it up. A weblike system of canals helped spread that moisture through the floodplain. Trees that had been encroaching on the wetlands were felled.

"But it wasn’t a team of firefighters or conservationists who performed this work. It was a crew of semiaquatic rodents whose wetland-building skills have seen them gain popularity as a natural way to mitigate wildfires.

"A movement is afoot to restore beavers to the state’s waterways, many of which have suffered from their absence."

Just in case anybody wonders where they went, we read later:

"Native to much of California, beavers were hunted to near extinction throughout North America by fur traders in the 1800s. Their numbers have rebounded in some areas, with populations in the Sierra Nevada, northeastern California and along the Salinas River Corridor from San Luis Obispo County to Monterey County, but they’ve had a hard time recovering overall."

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Page A2 of the same paper gives us the headline, "Wild horse advocates handed a rare victory." That article, which is available for all to read on Yahoo, written by Scott Sonner, opens with:

"In a rare legal victory for wild horse advocates, a judge has ruled U.S. land managers failed to adopt a legal herd management plan or conduct the necessary environmental review before 31 mustangs died during the roundup of more than 2,000 horses in Nevada last summer.

"U.S. District Court Judge Miranda Du in Reno ordered the Bureau of Land Management to complete a formal herd management plan for the Pancake complex in eastern Nevada by next March 24. She also ordered the agency to reopen an environmental assessment to include the potential impact of roundups on wildfire risks.

It includes the point of view of Laura Leigh, founder and president of the plaintiff, Wild Horse Education:

"Leigh said that, among other things, the agency's failure to complete the plan denied the public a chance to address how forage is divided between horses and livestock, herd genetics can be preserved or mitigation measures can be adopted for mining and livestock expanding in the area."

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And on page A15 of the Sunday March 31 Los Angeles Times, an op-ed titled, "The Real AI Nightmare: What if it serves humans too well?" by Brian Kateman points out that different people may have different ideas about what AI serving humans well might look like and then points out:

"The potential problem goes beyond humans harming other humans. What’s 'good' for humanity has, many times throughout history, come at the expense of other sentient beings. Such is the situation today.

"In the U.S. alone, we have billions of animals subjected to captivity, torturous practices and denial of their basic psychological and physiological needs at any given time. Entire species are subjugated and systemically slaughtered so that we can have omelets, burgers and shoes.

"If AI does exactly what 'we' (whoever programs the system) want it to, that would likely mean enacting this mass cruelty more efficiently, at an even greater scale and with more automation and fewer opportunities for sympathetic humans to step in and flag anything particularly horrifying."

I especially urge Angelenos to respond to any of those three Los Angeles Times articles, though the LA Times does often also publish letters from elsewhere and is highly likely to publish responses to a front-page story. And, as always, I thank DawnWatch advisor Elaine Livesey-Fassel for keeping such a close eye on the Los Angeles Times.

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Sunday's Observer, the Sunday version of the Guardian, has run an article on page 16 titled "Skins and feathers are as cruel as fur, fashion industry told."

It tells us:

"Copenhagen fashion week has just announced that it will ban exotic skins and feathers from its catwalks next year, becoming the biggest industry event yet to do so....

"The case against fur has taken hold after many years of work by animal rights campaigners. It has now been banned by most of the luxury sector’s biggest brands, and in December the British Fashion Council also formally banned fur from London fashion week, although the ban has been tacit since 2018...

"Håkansson agrees that there’s an emotional barrier: 'It’s really difficult for people to connect with the reality that a crocodile or a snake is absolutely sentient in the same way that a fox or a mink is,' she says...

"Håkansson hopes that people become more patient. 'There’s a feeling that solutions, if they don’t happen overnight, won’t work.' But, she said, 'people need to be willing to play a longer game.'”

I urge UK activists and those from elsewhere with a special interest in animal suffering for fashion to send a letter to the Observer.

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Le Monde, one of the world's leading newspapers, (which has had an English edition for two years) has run a strong story on the death of an orca at Marineland in Southern France.

It opens:

"Inouk, a 25-year-old orca, died where he was born: in a concrete tank. He was the second orca to die in less than six months in the tanks at Marineland, in Antibes, near Calais. The orca shows, due to resume this Easter weekend after a winter break, were postponed.

"The young male was recognizable by his completely collapsed dorsal fin and toothless mouth. The reasons for his death are not yet known, but the animal had been treated for serious dental problems over several years. According to a report by three scientists – including New Zealand orca specialist Ingrid Visser, who was commissioned by the One Voice organization – Inouk had worn his teeth down to the pulp by gnawing on his tank, forming ulcers on his gums and abscesses in his jaw."

DawnWatch has only a handful of subscribers of France, for now, so if you can forward that link to any you know there that would be great.

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In a Friday March 29, New Rules segment, about how misguided the United States' response to Covid turned out to be, which some of you will find hilarious and some of you will not, there is common ground for us all as Maher points out (at the 8-minute mark) how little we have learned and says, "We're still torturing animals by raising our food in conditions ideal for viruses to make the leap to humans."

Enjoy!

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How perfect that on the same weekend, National Public Radio. on Sunday, aired a story discussing the spread of avian flu to dairy cows in Texas.

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The New York Times has a story, which is yet to be in print but I which have shared on the DawnWatch Facebook page and which I can share with you via this gift link provided by Teresa D'Amico, and which has the online headline, "Tired of Doomscrolling? Try Ringing a Doorbell for Fish." The subheading explains, "Viewers are glued to an underwater livestream meant to help fish migration in the Netherlands. Devotees welcome the distraction — and the chance to help a fish get frisky."

Teresa shared it with me while expressing the hope that people who are assisting the various fishes will "think about who they eat." That gives me the opportunity to mention another extraordinarily important book for activists (besides Ed Yong's, noted above), Robert Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion," which teaches us that this is exactly the kind of involvement that might inspire folks to think about their diets.

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And finally, on this day that I love because it celebrates the whole idea of resurrection, let us also celebrate the Mutts comic strip, which featured abandoned rabbits in both its Thursday and Friday cartoons, as part of its recurring "Shelter Stories" theme, with yesterday's strip instructing anybody who wants a rabbit to head to a shelter or rabbit rescue group.

Amen!

Yours and all animals',
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch
https://DawnWatch.com