December 2011 Blog Posts (10)

Transcript of Prof. Priscilla Cohn’s Live ARZone Guest Chat

17 December 2011

5pm US Eastern Time

10pm UK Time…

The Ethics of the Ecology of Fear against the

Nonspeciesist Paradigm:

A Shift in the Aims of Intervention in Nature

by Professor Oscar…

Recently I’ve been viewing an impressive 8-disc historical documentary series (produced by Octapixx and narrated by James Earl Jones) entitled “The American West.” Discs 3 and 4 of the series cover the infamous “Trail of Tears” experienced by the Cherokee and other tribes of Native Americans. As a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 under President Andrew Jackson, thousands of indians were snatched from their homes and forcibly marched some 800 miles…

Transcript of Josh Harper’s ARZone Live Guest Chat

10 December 2011

5pm US Eastern Time

10pm UK Time…

If you’re like me while on vacation, you turn off the smartphone, avoid watching all that dreary news coverage or reading depressing newspapers, and instead grab a juicy paperback novel (Grisham? Kellerman?) to enjoy under a palapa near the gorgeous blue of Caribbean waters. Work? Forget about it. Guilt? What’s that? Saving the environment? Maybe next trip.

What would you…

In a recent very interesting Facebook discussion, Tim Gier wrote (in part, and perhaps it is unfair to extract this out - but I'm gonna anyway!), “I don’t accept that the property status of other animals necessarily entails harm towards them.” 

[I began to write a response to Tim’s observation for the FB discussion - but then realised that I was writing a blog entry, so that is why I have decided to post it here instead. In addition, I have not written a blog entry for a while,…

Being vegan is difficult, and if it is going to mean anything, and result in anything, then it must be difficult.…

Ordinarily, those who are concerned about animal ethics or animal welfare would instead ask, “Does culling justify hunting?”—In other words, “Does the need to curtail overpopulation in a species justify killing them (even from helicopters!) in large numbers to ensure their own survival and that of their prey?” This is a fair question, and one that requires careful consideration by conservation biologists.

However, if the political propaganda of hunting lobbyists (and of course gun…

There is no doubt that the gun culture is replete with euphemisms. Terms such as “sport”, “harvest”, “game”, and “livestock” grace the rhetoric of those who want to subdue animals and gather trophies of victory and dominance with impunity. 

To ask if hunting is analogous to either a sport or a harvest is often to evoke passionate debate between animal lovers and “arms-bearing” traditionalists. Certainly, an argument can be made for the taking of “livestock” in the wild by hunters…