Brian Griffith's Blog - Posts Tagged "animals"

In Sunday school as a child, I heard that the ancient Egyptians “worshiped the beast,” which sounded absolutely evil, even though I loved my dog far more than I cared about the church. I accepted this contradiction without much thought, and only years later did I wonder how animals got such a Satanic reputation. War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

Although the Bible recorded numerous priestly commands that violations of the holy law must be paid for in animal sacrifices, it also recorded denunciations of this practice by Isaiah (1:11-13), Micah (6:7-8), and Hosea, as in “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:5-6). Also, in the Talmud we read “It is forbidden, according to the law of Torah, to inflict pain upon any living creature, even if it is ownerlessˮ (Preece, xx). The Old Testament actually says, “He who kills an ox is the same as he who slays a person” (Isaiah 66:3). Among these various conflicting values, people have had to choose which ones they prefer.

In the Old World civilizations of ancient warlords and absolute monarchs, subordinate creatures fell into several categories. There were loyal servants of their masters, like the conquered peasants and domestic animals. Then there were non-subject creatures, like the people of rival states or animals in the bush, who were fair game for attack and plunder. Last and worst were enemies within the kingdom, such as traitors, rebellious minorities, criminal gangs, and animal foes of civilization. Back around 1700, as the age of colonial empires got rolling, French archbishop François Fénelon reasoned that “If all countries were peopled and made subject to law and order as they should be, there would be no animals that would attack man.”

Concerning the European colonists’ attitudes toward wild creatures, we should mention that when they landed in the New World, they were coming from lands where ordinary people had long been banned from hunting in the forests. Since medieval times, the lords and kings had enclosed the woods for their own use. Commoners caught trespassing in the forests faced the usual horrific penalties. As England’s Henry II proclaimed, “He who does wrong in the King’s forest touching his venison shall be blinded and castrated.”

Although Islam is more famous than Zoroastrianism for dividing all creation into good and evil sides, the Quran sometimes seems to eliminate any distinction between good and evil animals, and even any moral chasm between humanity and the beasts: “There is not an animal on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but that forms communities like you” (Quran 6:38). According to Anas, Muhammad said “All creatures are like a family of God.” A prostitute was reportedly forgiven by Allah because she brought water in her shoe for a thirsty dog. Another woman went to hell because she caged a cat till it died. Abu Dawud claims the Prophet warned, “Fear God in your treatment of animals!” War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

Without legal restraint on the right to profit from killing, people turned hunting into an enterprise like commercial fishing. “Market hunters” started running through resource after resource. It took over three centuries, but eventually they drove the beaver, bison, prairie chickens, whales, sea otters, Pacific sardines, and Atlantic cod so close to extinction that exploiting them further grew commercially unviable. They killed every Carolina parakeet, ivory-billed woodpecker, Labrador duck, and Eastern elk. They strip-mined the billions of passenger pigeons for cheap meat at two cents a bird till every last one was gone. As Edmunde Burke explained, “The laws of commerce are the laws of nature.” And as they traditionally said in Newfoundland, “If it runs, walks, or swims, kill it.”War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

By 1930, naturalist Vernon Bailey noted the effect of extermination campaigns on coyote evolution: "After many years of persistent hunting … and the constant warfare of stockmen … who never miss an opportunity to kill a coyote, the numbers in most localities are apparently as great today as they were in 1889 … In full view of the evidence, then, man’s blind intolerance leads him to continue to kill coyotes … constantly selecting for intelligence in this species."
War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

At this point in history, the domestication and husbandry of animals has become a furiously evolving process. And as the rapid transformations of the animals’ worlds are mainly human-imposed, the animals are evolving for adaption to us. The implications for livestock, pets, and wild animal “friends” commonly range from the horrific to the laughable.
War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

When we talk about animals being “tame,” it could simply mean that we have decent, neighborly relations, as opposed to fear-filled mutual hostility. And it’s probable that domesticating animals began with simple friendliness, as with the Russian beekeeper whose son said, “He liked bees, and they liked him. He would go to the hives without his shirt. He wasn’t afraid.ˮ
War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

Jared Diamond claims that reliance on domesticated animals has reduced the variety in our diet, lowered life expectancy, and generated maladaptive behavior by both humans and beasts. The Nuer pastoralists of Sudan agree, and they should know, as they have based their lives on cows for thousands of years. These highly experienced people report that cows have killed more humans than anything else. In ancient times, they say, humans killed the mothers of both cows and buffaloes. The buffaloes vowed to get revenge by attacking people in the bush. But the cows more cleverly plotted revenge by staying with humans in their camps and causing them to endlessly kill each other in disputes over herds, debts, bride-wealth, pasture lands, or watering holes. In the end, it will all lead to a kind of cow apocalypse, of which it is said that “They [the cattle] will be finished together with mankind, for men will die on account of cattle, and they and the cattle will cease together” War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals