John Yunker

The cover of Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism, a collection of essays edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey, features a photograph of a rescued chicken taken by Jo-Anne McArthur.

Rescued is an optimistic word because the life of a chicken freed from a factory farm is often all-too-brief. Chickens bred for food are pumped so full of growth hormones that their legs cannot bear the weight of their super-sized bodies. Their bodies break under the many pressures of simply being alive — something they were never bred to experience for more than a few months. And the weeks that they are alive are, to put it plainly, a hell on earth. Over the years, this hell has grown in magnitude. According to the essay by Lucille Claire Thibodeau, more than 9 billion chickens are killed each year, up from 1.6 billion in 1960. And 250 million male chickens are killed each year at birth simply because they were born the incorrect gender.

When you consider the chickens, the cows, the pigs and the sheep, you arrive at a gruesome grand total: more than 60 billion animals killed each year; the equivalent of every human on this planet taking the lives of more than seven animals.

How does one visualize a number so large? As a few of the essays astutely point out, we don't want to visualize it — and animal agriculture companies and their political enablers have made it so journalists can't even show us what goes on behind these slaughterhouse doors. (Thankfully there are those who risk their lives to do just that.)

But this book is about so much more than laying out the numbers. It is about dissecting many of the justifications for eating animals that we have been raised to believe. Like our religions. As one raised on the Bible, I was taught that humans had “dominion” over other animals. What I wasn't taught in Sunday School was that Adam and Eve were vegans — and that there are numerous passages in the Bible in defense of animals. Just as the Bible can be used as a basis for killing animals it can also be used as a basis for doing quite the opposite. A growing number of Christians are making the case for just this. And it's not just Christianity that uses ancient texts to justify animal killing — other religions are also taken to task in this book.

Other essays explore issues such as the treatment of humans who work in animal agriculture, the “moral poverty” of pescatarianism, and can one be a vegetarian if he or she eats insects?

I was also pleased to see an essay address the issue concerning the death of field animals in plant agriculture. I have seen the argument tossed around quite frequently along the lines of “When you eat plants you're responsible for the deaths of all those mice and birds and other creatures caught up in farm equipment.” And this is true, to a point. The author, Joe Wills, differentiates between intentional killing and unintentional killing. To equate the intentional killing of billions of animals with the unintentional killing of field animals is a suspect argument, but one that I'm hearing more frequently (from people who don't really care about field mice, but do care about giving up meat).

Ultimately, as history has taught us, people can rationalize practically any type of cruelty. This book provides a solid foundation for questioning the many rationalizations that have resulted in the suffering and deaths of so many of our fellow animals.

The book jacket text of Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism reads “The protest against meat eating may turn out to be one of the most significant movements of our age.” Indeed. In fact, I believe it is fast becoming “the” most significant movements of our age. This book is by its existence a positive sign that our society is finally coming to terms with the horror that we created.

This book is a welcome addition to the growing curriculum in defense of animals.

NOTE: This review was first published on EcoLit Books.

We want to believe that cows live happy lives. From our childhoods of Old MacDonald and his farm, field trips and cartoons and stuffed animals, we are raised to believe they are happy. The dairy industry tells us they are happy. The advertisements we see on TV reinforce the illusion. But it is only an illusion and more of us are awakening to the cruel reality of the world we have created for them. A world in which animals — cows, chickens, goats, sheep, and so many other species — are viewed and treated as little more than their component parts.

Why should a cow not receive the same degree of love and protection as the cat or dog we share our homes with?

This is a question in desperate need of an obvious answer. So I'm always happy to see more authors and publishers posing this question. Like this book by Kathryn Gillespie, published by the University of Chicago Press.

In The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 Gillespie takes us on a necessarily uncomfortable journey through America's dairy industry. The core illusion built around the dairy industry is that cows somehow want to share their milk with us. And that they want to be milked. But the truth is, the milk is there for a very specific reason, one that is stolen from them every year. Each year, dairy cows are artificially inseminated and separated from their newborn calves within minutes after birth. A mother cow may bellow for weeks, calling out to a child that has been taken from her. Of course we can imagine the terror of this because we can imagine ourselves losing a loved one. And yet this is how milk is made. Cows don't want to give their milk away. They create it for calves who are most often sent straight into veal crates, which the industry now euphemistically refers to as “hutches.” And the fact that the dairy industry is very much intertwined with the veal industry has long been the industry's dirty little secret.

Gillespie is not the first person to analyze animal agriculture, but she provides an honest and human element to the journey that I found deeply moving. Her candor throughout her visits to farms and auction houses had me squirming in my seat as she watched those poor animals being pushed and prodded along. And it was not surprising but sad that nearly every dairy farm she approached for her research turned her away under the sad excuse of “biosecurity.” This is an industry that thrives on ignorance. On illusion.

But this book is not all pain and misery. There are inspiring moments amidst the stories of those who have founded animal sanctuaries, like Animal Place and Pigs Peace. Gillespie takes us along with her, where we can get a sense for what it's like to care for an animal after it has suffered so much. As the founder of Pigs Peace noted, she had difficultly finding vets who understood how to care for aging pigs because in our world pigs aren't allows to age. They all die young, as do cows and chickens. Those few chickens who do make it to sanctuaries have great difficulty simply standing upright because they were bred to get large quickly, so large that they can barely support their bodies.

Gillespie notes that there are 9.3 million dairy cows in the US that are used for their milk until they are “spent” after about three years and then sent to slaughter, to the tune of roughly 3 million cows per year. As Carol Adams writes in The Sexual Politics of Meat, “Female animals are doubly exploited: both when they are alive and then when they are dead.”

This is world I was raised into. A world in which I assumed we needed meat to survive, that violence to animals was necessary. I know now it is not necessary. That humans don't need meat to survive and that we have never needed milk from a cow or a goat.

Gillespie is not out to belittle those who work in the industry — she is empathetic to the worlds they live in as well, and the emotional toll this work ultimately exacts on them. They are part of a system, a system that supplies a demand based on illusion, based on a tradition that so many of us except without question. Gillespie travels to a trade conference and notes how intertwined the dairy industry is with notions of family and patriotism and what it means to be an American. And it is these ideas that make it so difficult for people to give up milk and cheese and ice cream (even though they don't have to give up any of it — vegan alternatives are far tastier and healthier).

This book is a valuable addition to a growing canon of literature that challenges our understanding of “normal” and that will, hopefully, as more people become aware of the horror, lead to positive changes for animals. It's simple enough to start, really. You just stop eating meat and go from there. The Cow with Ear Tag 1389 is doing its part to opens hearts and minds.

NOTE: This review first posted on EcoLit Books: www.ecolitbooks.com.

Pity the keystone species.

Those animals upon which the health of so many ecosystems depend — wolves and jaguars, sharks and sea otters, to name just a few.

Due in large part to their outsized impact on our planet, they are often blamed for getting in our way. Wolves take our cows and sheep. Sea otters take our seafood. And jaguars and sharks take away our sense of comfort on land and in water.

Beavers are also a keystone species and, not surprisingly, no friend to many city managers or land owners. They create chaos with our human-built rivers and drains. And, because they are the member of a family with few human friends — the rodent family — we tend to view them as just another invasive species.

But what if beavers are not the sharp-toothed Beelzebubs we make them out to be?

What if beavers are actually a solution to many of the environmental crises we face today (crises brought about in part because we have done such a good job of getting rid of beavers in the first place)?

As author Ben Goldfarb makes engagingly clear in the timely book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter the eradication of the beaver across the United States over the past several centuries has had a significant and negative impact on water quality and supply, fish populations, riparian vegetation and the countless creatures that depend on those millions of ponds that once dotted continental North America.

And why did we lose the beavers?

Blame it on a hat, the beaver hat. This European fashion craze brought about their near extermination. Eager takes us back to the 1500s when Europeans began trading pelts with the natives until the fur gold rush attracted fortune hunters from far and wide. The killing was so complete that it was widely assumed by those who settled in California in the 1800s that beavers had never lived in much of the state (when in fact they once blanketed the state). But researchers and historians are finally and gratefully setting the record straight. And they are making clear that beavers played a critical role in building not just dams but in conserving water for dry summer months, providing nesting places for other animals, and breeding waters for fish.

Fortunately, we're starting to relearn what was forgotten so long ago — that beavers are essential to healthy ecosystems. And there is a growing chorus of “beaver believers” who are spreading the word about their many benefits of these animals. These believers stand up in city hall meetings and write letters and letter our cities know that there are people who do not want to see beavers killed. Besides, one does not easily eradicate beavers. City leaders are learning that it's far wiser to learn to coexist with beavers than try to kill them, because when you create a vacuum you only encourage new residents to set up shop. And there are businesses now that will help you build flow-through tunnels that allow beavers to have their dams while also maintaining human-built infrastructure.

It's not often I feel inspired after reading books about animals these days. Everywhere I turn I find another species in rapid decline (and it's partly my fault because I'm drawn to endangered species).

And yet we have the beaver, a species that despite our best efforts continues to survive and, in many parts of the world, thrive.

Thankfully, a growing number of scientists, citizens and ranchers now see that beavers not only have much to offer this land, but may in fact play a essential role in saving it.

Out here in the west, water can never be taken for granted. Once the snow melt goes dry so too do the valleys, unless we dam enough of the snow melt along the way, which we've done. But beavers do it better, in staggered steps, in ways that not only collect water but recharge the water table, provide nesting sites for birds (sandhill cranes in particular), filter the water that passed through and over the dams, providing the perfect spawning ponds for salmon. We talk a lot in the Pacific Northwest about removing human-built dams to save the salmon, but we also need to talk about allowing beavers back to building some of their dams, which will also help salmon rebound.

It's nice to read examples of old-school ranchers who would have once shot a beaver on site now working to protect them (a handful of ranchers had been doing this way back in the early 1900s). To protect beavers is to embrace a degree of chaos. But the fact is, the more we try to manage nature the less manageable it becomes.

And I'll leave you with a photo of a beaver from my neck of the woods, spotted just a few weeks ago here in Southern Oregon...



Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

Chelsea Green Publishing

This review first appeared on EcoLit Books (https://www.ecolitbooks.com).

The sea otter should have been extinct by now.

We, as in human civilization, did our very best to eliminate the species — not because we saw it as a pest but because its pelts were among the most desirable. And so hundreds of thousands of these sea mammals were killed because they happened to posses the densest fur coats of any animal on this planet.

But the sea otter somehow managed to survive the slaughter. Handfuls of otters in Russia and the coasts of Alaska and California escaped, and, over time, their populations grew. Return of the Sea Otter: The Story of the Animal That Evaded Extinction on the Pacific Coast, by Todd McLeish, tells their comeback story — but with a caveat: their comeback is not without its challenges.

Such as, sea otters are now considered pests. The fishing industry would like to see them eradicated or “managed” and this has led to much conflict and numerous accounts of sea otter attacks by boat and by gun. We simply do not know how many of these animals are killed by fisherman who deem them fair game, along with seals.

McLeish takes us with him as he visits researchers in Monterey, Alaska, British Columbia. We learn how sea otters are tracked and how the injured are nursed back to life. We watch them in the wild as they eat and play and use tools to pry open their shelled food — one of the few mammal to do so.

And we learn that their comeback story is geographically uneven. While they are doing better along the central California coast, there are vast areas along Alaska's coast where they have declined. They are still missing from the coast of my home state of Oregon, where they were once numerous.

I always find it unfortunate when we must make the case for saving a species based on its value to us or the ecosystem. But the fact is, sea otters are considered keystone species of the coasts — and, as we are now learning, even estuaries. Sea otters love to exist among kelp and they feed on the creatures that would feed on kelp. By protecting the kelp they protect the countless other species that depend on kelp for their survival. Similarly, scientists have found that when sea otters live in estuaries, the grasses do far better, which in turn makes for healthier environments.

Of course, by eating sea urchins, fisherman have lost a key part of their industry. So, naturally, they say that sea otters must go.

It's a tired story, but one that will play again and again as our oceans become increasingly depleted by, who else, the fishing industry. And make no mistake. The fishing industry is not the victim here. It's time we as a society realize that there is no such thing as sustainable fisheries. We may want to believe they are possible, but they're not. And you don't have to look far to see atrocities taking place under the guise of sustainable fishing.

But I digress.

I enjoyed this book. And not only am I inspired by the stubbornness of this species, I'm equally inspired by the many researchers and volunteers and citizen scientists who do their parts to defend it.

You'll come away knowing so much more about this amazing animal and, like me, desperate to go to the coast in search of seeing one (or a raft of them) in the wild.

NOTE: This review was first published on EcoLit Books: https://www.ecolitbooks.com

Here in Ashland, Oregon, I listen to our local radio station KSKQ. And for the past several years I've enjoyed the weekly, two-minute BirdNote programs.

So I was excited to find that there is now a BirdNote book. What the book lacks in audio, it makes up for in very high print production values; it is beautifully designed, with full-color illustrations and a handy bookmark tassel.

This will make an excellent gift for the would-be birder in your family. And even veteran birders will enjoy it. While I'd like to think I've learned a fair amount about birds over the years spent gazing upwards, I still learned plenty, such as:

The Northern Flicker and Pileated Woodpecker rely heavily on ants that bore through the trees. A Norther Flicker was known to consume 5,000 ants in one sitting (or perching).
The Green Heron may use a “bait” of twigs, feathers or insects to attract fish within reach of their bills.
A barn swallow eats up to 850 insects a day — making this a wonderful bird to have around not just a barn, but any yard.
There is a crow roost in Illinois that is home to 100,000 crows. I would love to hear that.
The cardinal (who I sorely miss out here in the Oregon) was named after the red hats and robes of the Roman cardinals.
And speaking of red, cars this color are most often targeted by birds doing their business, according to a study. Green cars are least likely to be targeted.
And the much-maligned starling gets some deserved love. I find their symphony of sounds to be truly remarkable. And I was not alone; turns out Mozart had a pet starling that he wrote a poem about after it passed on.
My only complaint is that it would have been nice to see longer, more informative notes. A number of notes come in at just a few paragraphs.

Also, while some chapters do explain why certain species are threatened, such as the California Condor, I would have liked to see more of this, such as regarding the many species of albatross now under threat.

Quibbles aside, I recommend this book to anyone who loves birds (or anyone you think should love birds).

PS: All BirdNotes can be listened to online here

NOTE: This review first appeared on EcoLit Books:
https://ecolitbooks.com/2018/05/birdnote-chirps-quirks-and-stories-of-100-birds-from-the-popular-public-radio-show/

When we started EcoLit Books five years ago, this was the type of book I had in mind.

A novel that places nature in its proper place in relation to people. That is, above us — in this case, both figuratively and literally.

In The Overstory, Richard Powers has crafted an epic novel that stretches hundreds of years, culminating in a series of life-and-death environmental battles. But even more so, this is a novel about rediscovering the largest and oldest living creatures on our planet.

So many of the characters are alien to the trees they share the planet with until various events open their eyes. And they look. They smell. They see and feel the loss. And they act up.

The book could be used to teach a course on trees. And it should be used for just that purpose. I have books about trees — mostly identification. But identifying a tree is only step one. How does a tree relate to the creatures around it? How does it respond to insect attacks? How does it care for its siblings? And other species of trees? For example, the Douglas Fir, which we live among here in Southern Oregon, are called “giving trees” because the dying trees will send out nutrients to the Ponderosa Pines. Powers does an outstanding job of providing insights into beings we have only just begun to understand.

But there are oversights in the novel in regards to activism. While the novel addresses environmental activism in Oregon and elsewhere, the players are too often seen eating meat without any awareness of the irony of defending one living entity while eating another. I know that many of those activists who have served actual time behind bars for similar crimes are vegan. They don't differentiate between protecting trees and protecting non-human animals. And it must be noted that millions upon millions of acres of forests have been cleared for the sole purpose of raising cows and sheep for human consumption.

In many ways I feel that this novel begins where Barkskins by Annie Proulx ends. And I highly recommend reading them in chronological order. And I'm not just talking about time but about awareness — our collective awareness that the planet is not some all-you-can-eat buffet, that the planet is, like us, finite and fragile. If you are not a “tree hugger” before reading these two books, you will be afterwards.

And I think what I like most about this book are the voices he gives those who have no (human) voice. Such as: All the ways you imagine us–bewitched mangroves up on stilts, a nutmeg's inverted spade, gnarled baja elephant trunks, the straight-up missile of a sal–are always amputations. Your kind never sees us whole. You miss the half of it, and more. There's always as much belowground as above.

Like the trees Powers writes so beautifully about, this book towers above us and nurtures us. And, I certainly do hope, it motivates us to do more. And quickly.

This review was first published on EcoLit Books: https://www.ecolitbooks.com.

Peter Godfrey-Smith has a passion for cephalopods, the class of sea animals that includes the octopus, cuttlefish, and nautilus, among others. Animals that among the oldest creatures on this planet.

Measured in numbers of neurons, the octopus has the largest brain of all invertebrates. Its eyes are remarkably similar to ours. And, like us, the octopus can unscrew jars, recognize faces, plot creative escapes, and generally make plenty of mischief.

Peter notes instances of octopuses, who don't like bright lights, squirting jets of water at the lights above their tanks in order to short circuit them. In another case, an octopus didn't like a specific researcher and always sent a dose of water her way when she passed.

Their ability to change colors is hard to fathom. And nobody has fully cracked the code for what all those colors and patterns mean. Darker colors tend to signal aggression; an octopus will turn black when attacking another. But often it seems the light show is occurring completely on its own.

Godfrey-Smith devotes about half of the book exploring the evolution of sentience, which I found the least interesting aspect of the book. Then again, it's hard to compete with an octopus. What I most enjoyed about the book were his experiences with them in their environment. Peter spent a great amount of time off the coast of Australia at a place known as Octopolis because it was home to so many of these creatures. Witnessing their interactions, their soap opera lives, and the tragic briefness of it all – they only live a few years – is by itself good enough reason to read this book.

What's sobering about this book is learning about the many scientific tests conducted on these creatures, some using electric shocks. Fortunately, these animals now receive a degree of protection as “honorary vertebrates,” but that doesn't save them from the prison of tanks.

What's nice about this book is how it places the reader underwater with these amazing creatures, hopefully, encouraging readers to consider what they can do to protect them. Giving up on calamari (and all seafood) would be a good start.

Peter Godfrey-Smith has a passion for cephalopods, And by the end of this book I suspect most readers will as well.

This review first appeared on EcoLit Books:
http://ecolitbooks.com/

Barkskins tells the intertwined and intergenerational stories of the natives and immigrants of the North American territory once known as New France.

Because this novel takes place over more than 300 years, there are quite a few stories to tell; I found myself frequently consulting the two lengthy family trees in the appendix to keep track of the many characters that come and go.

But the primary (and most tragic) character of this novel is one with no dialogue at all.

As Annie Proulx noted in a recent interview with The New Yorker:

For me, the chief character in the long story was the forest, the great now-lost forest(s) of the world. The characters, as interesting as they were to develop, were there to carry the story of how we have cut and destroyed the wooden world. There was the real tragedy, and there was no way to make it seriocomic. But rather than calling it an environmental novel I think of it more in the sense of a writerly nod to human interplay with climate change, what some in the humanities and arts are beginning to think of as a cultural response to the environmental changes we have inherited in the so-called Anthropocene.

For early European settlers, the trees were a gold rush with no end. The patriarch of one family tree, Charles Duquet, devotes his life to harvesting as much of this gold as he can. And in a pivotal scene he sheds light on the rage that fueled his rise from poverty to timber baron:

Inside Duquet something like a tightly close pinecone licked by fire opened abruptly and he exploded with insensate and uncontrolled fury, a life's pent-up rage. “No one helped me!” he shrieked. “I did everything myself! I endured! I contended with powerful men. I suffered in the wilderness. I accepted the risk I might die! No one helped me!”

Ultimately, there would be too many Duquets arriving in search of unlimited trees and land; natives suffered this violent and slow-moving disaster firsthand. As a Mi'kmaw elder observed:

“We are sharing our land with the Wenuj and they take more and more. You see how their beasts destroy our food, how their boats and nets take our fish. They bring plants that vanquish our plants. Most do not mean to hurt us, but they are many and we are few. I believe they will become as a great wave sweeping over us.”

Proulx, like Cormac Mcarthy, has a dark sense of humor that expresses itself through the bizarre and unpredictable ways many of the characters meet their demise. I sometimes felt like I was watching Game of Thrones in the sense that just as I become attached to a character he or she would be quickly expired.

In a work of this scale, it's not surprising that some characters and scenes feel rush or underdeveloped. Proulx was forced to cut a good 150 pages out of the book, which could be a reason why some chapters feel this way. I would have gladly read another 200 pages.

I'm in awe of how Proulx balanced documentary like detail with a plot that takes readers not only across time but halfway around the world. It's easy to attach “epic” to any novel that weighs in at more than 700 pages, but when I say this novel is epic, I'm talking about what Proulx set out to accomplish, and ultimately did accomplish. Where Sometimes a Great Notion is a testament to the forests along the coast range of Oregon, Barkskins is a testament to all forests.

Despite the overarching sadness of seeing so much beauty and innocence wiped away, there is hope. And it is the young who offer it up. Like the son of a compromised logger, Charley, who asks one day:

“Father, how do you feel about this logging enterprise? Better and better?”

“I give it my support, as we start replanting a year after they get out the cut. It is a balanced process.”

“I can't image what you think will replace two-thousand-yer-old redwoods–Scotch pine seedlings? And what of the diversity of the soil? Erosion? All those qualities you once cared about? Are you cutting old-growth fir and cedar and planting pine? You mentioned Oregon and Washington.”

Living near the redwoods, where only 5% of these majestic trees remain from a forest that once stretched a thousand miles along the Pacific coast, we came all too close to losing it all.

Proulx dedicates this novel to “barkskins of all kinds” which includes not only those who fell trees for profit, but those who study them and those (we meet near the end of the novel) who devote their lives to protecting the trees we have left.

With each chapter, each passing generation, this book gains a presence that you don't fully appreciate until you are near the end. At least I didn't. As I approached the end, chronologically the present, I felt the weight of all that was lost. But I also felt a growing sense of optimism for what people are doing today to save what is still here and to regrow what is lost.

NOTE: This review first appeared on http://www.ecolitbooks.com

The National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. And while a century may seem like a long time, it's safe to say, after reading Engineering Eden, that we're only just beginning to understand how to best manage our lands.

Fundamental to management is the question of how “wild” do we want our parks to be? Author Jordan Fisher Smith writes:

There are two ways in which most people don't wish to die: by being torn apart by a wild animal and by being roasted in flames. These two abject fears from deep in the ape-psyche, became, in the American West, bloated government programs, the two-headed dragon that Starker Leopold fought all his life.

wild

safe

Engineering Eden

The Laysan albatross is known as Mōlī in Hawaiian. It is difficult not to speak in superlatives when describing the albatross. The bird has a wingspan longer than most humans are tall. Albatross far outlive most other birds — with one active albatross now 64 years old. They spend most of their lives at sea, gliding just a few inches above the waves. Only 5% of their lives are spent on land — and this is where they are particularly vulnerable, when they are breeding and caring for their chicks.Author Hob Osterlund is founder of the Kaua'i Albatross Network an organization that works to protect these birds. And through her writing you experience firsthand the challenges she and the birds face in establishing their relatively new colony. Generation by generation, Osterlund shares a wealth of stories, some happy and some not so.Like the story of twin chicks, born to a couple that cannot possibly provide for both. Osterlund writes:If you are like a lot of people, you might interrupt me now. You might ask if there wasn't a way to hand-feed the chicks. I would have to refer you to Aaron; feeding a seabird is more complex than feeding a songbird. You have to be trained and officially authorized to slurry a squid and force-feed a ‘tross.You might also ask whether The Twins should be euthanized to prevent their inevitable suffering. You might blame our species, and your own good self, for the many ways we've harmed the birds and their oceans. You might search for data to diminish your sorrow, to find a precedent. Alas, you will find little consolation in facts. None, actually. An albatross pair simply cannot catch and carry enough food to sustain two offspring.We must try to be as brave as the babes, you and I.But this is much more than a book about the albatross.Interspersed are personal stories of a woman who lost her mother way too early. A woman who migrated to Hawaii after having been summoned in a dream by her ancestor.Osterlund is a wonderful writer, deftly documenting a painful childhood while retaining her sense of humor throughout. She believes strongly in the power of humor, and this attitude carries through her writing.As a bird lover, I appreciate how birds and humans are treated equally in this book. The birds have names, strong personalities, complex lives. They are, in other words, a lot like us. And, in other ways, they are our betters. Their navigational skills put most GPS devices to shame. And their willingness to raise chicks not of their own making is inspiring.This is a lovely book about devoting your life to another species and coming to terms with your own.This review was first published on EcoLit Books [bc:Holy Moli: Albatross and Other Ancestors 27409599 Holy Moli Albatross and Other Ancestors Hob Osterlund https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1448318124s/27409599.jpg 47457334]

Donald Watson is widely credited with having coined the term “vegan” in 1944, when he and others founded the Vegan Society.

Since then, the word has become so heavily loaded with cultural and emotional baggage (both pro and con) that an increasing number of vegan restaurants and food brands I come across now use the words “plant-based” instead.

But I like the word “vegan” in all its messy glory. And I'm not about to stop using it.

The fact is, the word represents disruption on an enormous scale — to food industries, political systems, religious traditions, family traditions, and personal relationships. This word can make people uncomfortable. There was a time in my life, not many years ago, when it made me uncomfortable.

Which is why I was so interested in reading The Vegan Studies Project by Laura Wright.

The book is largely academic in nature, with plenty of footnotes and references to other academic works. But there are also numerous personal narratives included. While the author doesn't explicitly call out for the creation of “vegan studies” programs at universities, this would be a natural and positive outcome.

Wright points out that there is no “one” vegan movement, nor one typical vegan. Some people are vegan for animals, some for diet, some for allergies, some for all of the above. But Wright illustrates how commonly vegans are portrayed by media and popular culture as one entity: elitists, separatists, even terrorists. More culturally loaded words.

This is a book that poses considerably more questions than it answers, which is by design. The word “project” denotes the beginning of something, and this book sets out to open lines of discussion around the contemporary vegan movement. Issues such as:

Vegan celebrities: Do celebrities help the movement when they go vegan? And do they do more harm than good when they give it up?
Death by veganism: Every few years it seems that vegan parents come under scrutiny for “starving” their children through their vegan diet. Neal Barnard is one of a growing number of doctors who have made good progress in debunking the myths surrounding vegan diets and children.
Vegans in entertainment: Wright devotes significant attention to the popularity of vampire books, TV and film, examining the evolution of vampires. (As an aside, it's a shame the vegan vampire series that Ashland Creek Press published — the Lithia Trilogy — was overlooked. This series features a vegan vampire that goes well beyond the “vegetarian” vampires popularized by the Twilight Series and discussed by the author.)
Veganism and eating disorders: Is veganism the cause of some eating disorders (as some people claim) or does it represent a path away from eating disorders? I find this area particularly interesting because veganism is often viewed as a lifestyle of deprivation — and, if not embarked upon properly, sometimes it can be. Many restaurants still make it difficult to eat vegan, but this is changing — and quickly. How will veganism be portrayed in the years ahead as food choices become more commonplace and more affordable?
Veganism and masculinity: Meat is so tightly intertwined with the concept of masculinity that it's hard to get through fifteen minutes of an NFL football game without watching commercials that all but shout that you're not a man if you don't eat meat. Fortunately, many men are challenging this worldview, proving through bodybuilding or running that men can thrive without eating meat. This is a positive step forward, though I'd like to get to a point in time where men can be vegan without feeling like they have to run a marathon or two.
Religion should also be included in this field of study and was curiously missing from the book. I would love to see more researchers tackle how religious works are used to defend meat eating as well as to defend not eating meat.

Veganism/vegetarianism is not a new philosophy. The notion of not eating animals apparently goes back to Pythagoras. But I do find it maddening how over the past few hundred years the movement has bubbled up for periods of time only to fade again from mainstream view. This time, I think, is different — especially as climate change and the environment is increasingly linked with animal agriculture. Reading this book, I'm reminded of the many ways that veganism is becoming more and more central to our culture, even if the word itself is not used outright.

This book sets the stage for more researchers, more writers, more people to better understand this word and what it means to the world.

NOTE: This review was first published on EcoLit Books: http://www.ecolitbooks.com/2015/12/book-review-the-vegan-studies-project/

In Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction, environmental philosopher Thom van Dooren tells the stories of five species of bird:

Albatross
Little Penguin
Indian Vulture
Whooping Crane
Hawaiian Crow

Each species sheds light on a different “extinction story.” We begin with the albatross — birds that spend most of their lives gliding inches above the sea, ingesting plastics and other contaminants that they in turn feed to their offspring, resulting in increased numbers of dead offspring. Fishing lines have had an equally devastating effect on the adults. Most humans may never set eyes on an albatross, but by eating seafood or by simply participating in a global economy that relies on shipping plastic stuff, we have all had an impact on these majestic birds.

As van Dooren writes, “Our flight ways have crossed, and each of us has become implicated in the fate of the other.” He continues:

Standing among a colony of albatrosses along a windy cliff top on the island of Kaua'i, I was reminded of the shifting and consequential nature of this entanglement. ... I reflected that perhaps what is most tragic about the current situation is not the “failure” of albatrosses to adjust or adapt to new threats and an altered environment ... Rather, what is most tragic is another failure to adapt. Our own failure ... Perhaps it is we who have not yet “evolved” into the kinds of beings worthy of our own inheritances.

We move on to the little penguin, which has for many years nested along the outer shores of Sydney, Australia — shores that are now lined with homes and sea walls, presenting obstacles and predators that have driven this species to the edge. This story is one of place — how animals not only lose real estate to humans but also their future. And humans, the late arrivals, too often view these penguins, simply searching for their old homes, as pests.

The Indian Vulture presents a tragic irony — a bird long associated with death now facing the death of its species, due largely to chemicals fed to cattle that may lengthen the life of cattle only to poison the birds. Vultures have long lived symbiotically with humans, playing the role of garbage collector — and, for the ethnic group known as the Parsee, vultures dispose of the human dead as well. But as the vultures pass away from sight, dogs and rats take up their role and, in turn, bring diseases back to the human communities. Extinction doesn't just impact the species itself — its impact can be felt far and wide.

The story of the whooping crane is one that I thought I understood until reading this book. You might have seen videos of this human-assisted migration — an ultralight plane being used to teach young birds how to migrate south. But there is a darker, sadder story underneath the “feel-good” story — one of significant bird suffering. The birds selected for breeding never get to leave captivity. And other birds have been sacrificed over the years (sandhill cranes, chickens) to incubate the eggs, with limited success. Finally, the result of human intervention has been largely unsuccessful; that is, the captive-raised birds have not been particularly good at rearing their young, which raises doubt about the long-term viability of this conservation model. Van Dooren doesn't suggest that we should stop trying to save this species, but he does urge a greater awareness for the costs that birds must pay to support this effort.

Finally, there is the Hawaiian Crow — a bird that does not exist outside of captivity. There are roughly 100 birds left alive — and humans are doing their very best to reintroduce the species into the wild. It is a story of hope.

Van Dooren writes about the “dull edge of extinction,” a phrase that captures the slow-motion disaster that is extinction. What we see here are examples of birds living on this edge, some perhaps destined to cross over, some perhaps not. And humans are playing violent and benevolent roles along the way. Van Doren highlights the inherent tensions between animal conservation and animal welfare. At what point is the cure worse than the disease?

This is an academic book, heavily footnoted, but the annotations do not get in the way of the stories, which are enlightening, albeit sad. Van Dooren does an excellent job of going beyond the science to the emotional experience of observing and spending time among the birds. The author is keenly aware of the role that stories play in raising awareness and, more important, empathy. This book is another example of the growing importance of environmental humanities in pushing society forward.

(Originally published on EcoLit Books: www.ecolitbooks.com)

In Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, Carl Safina sets out on a global journey to listen to and understand animals on their terms and not ours. By the end of this book, I can guarantee that readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the self-awareness, intelligence, and empathy of the animals we share this planet with.

The bulk of the book is devoted to studying African elephants, North American wolves, and Pacific Northwest orcas (killer whales). Safina does an excellent job of describing what he sees and learns as he travels with naturalists who have dedicated their lives to understanding these species.

We watch elephants caring for their young, playing, and mourning (something that happens all too often due to poachers). The elephants are named, and researchers can identify them them by sight — and we get a sense of the life histories of many of these elephants, histories that are no less complex and challenging than any human animal. We follow wolf watchers in Yellowstone, and while the wolves may be given numbers and not names, we learn their life histories in similar detail — histories that sadly include equally tragic encounters with humans.

I was struck by the similarities of risks both wolves and elephants face when they venture beyond human-drawn boundaries. In Africa, so long as elephants stay within national parks, they enjoy a greater degree of security; when they wander out of the parks, they run a gantlet of dangers. So too do the wolves who step outside the boundaries of Yellowstone. Hunters have gone so far as to use radio devices to track the electronic collars placed on wolves by researchers to know when wolves have crossed outside park boundaries (you can read Beckie Elgin's many reviews of wolf literature to grasp the full scope of the war being waged on wolves).

And then we meet the orcas in the waters surrounding the San Juan Islands. While I was aware that orcas have widely divergent diets — the residents of the San Juan Islands prefer salmon, while the transients who pass through prefer seals — I did not know that are eight distinct species of orca around the world, which scientists have not yet made official. We know so little yet about these animals. We do know that there is no documented case of an orca in the wild killing a human (only examples of orcas in captivity doing so). Orcas are members of the dolphin family, and the stories of kindness that this family have exhibited towards humans over the years are remarkable — leading lost swimmers and boaters to safety, protecting humans from sharks, rescuing a drowning woman. One may argue that these actions are merely instinctual, but as the evidence mounts I'm not sure that argument holds any weight.

Safina does not limit himself to a few species of animal. He digresses into stories about dogs, bonobos, ravens, tortoises, even worms. Stories that illustrate again and again that the animal world is far more intelligent and communicative that we have been led to believe (and perhaps want to believe). Darwin made the case long ago for the intelligence of non-human animals.

Safina does not hesitate to take scientists to task for the great efforts they have exerted to avoid the scientific “third rail” of anthropomorphism. Safina points out that scientists often try to apply measures of intelligence that simply don't make sense. The “mirror test” is one such measurement. (I'd like to think my cat has self awareness, even though he has yet to show any signs of recognizing himself in a mirror.)

As an aside, a hundred years ago scientists argued that vivisection on live animals was perfectly reasonable because animals were “machine-like” and felt no pain. I know we've come a long way since then, but we still have a long ways to go.

Safina writes that just because an animal can't talk doesn't mean it can't communicate. And if we judge animals by the standards we set, we miss the point. Animals don't need to measure up to our standards of intelligence — only their standards.

This is an important book and one that raises tough questions about not only how society views animals but how we treat animals — all animals. I would have liked to see Safina include a “what you can do” chapter to the book with actions we all can take. It's hard to walk away from this book and not wonder why we still eat animals. Safina does not draw this connection — and I'm clearly biased in this regard — but this is really the only conclusion we can draw. Animals evolve. Humans evolve. It's time humans evolve to a more equitable and respectful relationship with all animals. They've suffered us long enough.

I'll leave you with this quote:

If cruelty and destructiveness are bad, humans are by a wide margin the worst species ever to infest this planet. If compassion and creativity are good, humans are by a wide margin the finest. But we are neither simply good nor bad; we are all these things together, and imperfectly so. The question for all is: Which way is our balance trending?

(Review first appeared on EcoLit Books: www.ecolitbooks.com)

The Chain picks up where The Jungle leaves off

The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, by Ted Genoways, is an important work of reporting. Based on years of interviews and tireless research, the book spans the length of our food system, focused largely on Hormel Foods, the makers of Spam. It covers the tragically interconnected plight of the workers and of the animals.

Genoways cites The Jungle throughout this book, and for good reason. We'd certainly like to believe The Jungle brought attention to issues that have since been solved.

But these problems have not been solved. If anything they are worse.

Worse because there are so more many animals being killed today, animals who now never set foot on ground or see the light of day. And the workers are treated as badly now as they were then, losing fingers, becoming horribly diseased. Worse because so many of these workers, as undocumented workers, have so few rights, and as a result, are powerless to speak up.

Worse because we should know better now. We have laws now that are intended to protect humans and, to limited extent, the animals. Laws that are overlooked or ignored because the companies are firmly in charge of their own regulations. And the small towns that could pressure these companies to act like better citizens are terrified daily of watching the companies move to some other jobs-starved region.

In reading this book you learn:

Slaughterhouses keep accelerating the lines of production, to speeds that are frighteningly unsustainable — that is, if you want to ensure food safety and worker safety. One plant slaughters 10,000 hogs a day, a number once seemed impossible.
But do the workers get bonuses for this breakneck production? Of course not. They get sick. And the stories of human suffering in this book makes me wonder how the company's executives sleep at night. Our desire for cheap meat has very real human costs.
Worse, the unions that once protected these workers have been largely made irrelevant. The companies prey on undocumented workers to keep wages low.
The water supplies around these plants are becoming so polluted that people now need to drink bottled water. There was once a time you'd travel to a third-world country and be wary of drinking the water. Now, we've created this experience across growing regions of the United States.
The numerous antibiotics and hormones injected into the animals are most certainly entering our bodies.
Perhaps slaughterhouses should be located in the hearts of major cities where we could all watch the animals being herded up the ramps with electric prods, instead of located in small towns that politicians will sell their souls to keep what few jobs they have left from going away. And where, now, so many states have enacted laws to prevent journalists or activists from photographing the animals or the workers.

It's not hard to feel helpless and deeply upset reading this book. Because the corruption at the top levels of state and federal governments is so entrenched. This, by the way, is not a Democratic or Republic problem — neither party particularly cares for animals or the people who work on the lines.

But the fact is, there is one way to change the world.

Stop eating animals.

Genoways does not prescribe solutions in his book, but on his website he does suggest eating less meat.

And I will add that as someone who doesn't eat meat, the meat substitutes avaiable these days are amazing. So are the fake cheeses. And these products don't contain cholesterol or antibiotics. And they aren't tainted with the horror that surrounds the meat industry.

Just as demand created the meat industry, demand for fake meat will one day create an entirely new industry, one that is far better for people, animals, and this planet.

The Jungle isn't over. It's still happening.

NOTE: This review first appeared on EcoLit Books:
http://www.ecolitbooks.com

It is difficult to separate Moby-Dick, the book, from Moby-Dick, the whale.

Both are epic in scale, and both have been met with wildly different perceptions and interpretations.

You only need to browse Amazon reviews to get a taste.

I've now read this book twice, and I can't say that the second time around was any easier than the first, though the second time was a different experience.

The first time I read the book, I was awed by the construction, the different styles of writing, and the numerous, mind-numbing asides that Ishmael takes with the reader.

On my second time through, I found myself thinking again and again about just how sad it all was.

Many years have passed between my first reading and my second and, in those years, I've come a very long way in how I view the animals we share this planet with.

Where once I was content to view the whale as an adversary or antagonist, I now see a creature simply trying to defend himself.

I also see a human species hell-bent on extracting every last living creature from the sea.

And, worse, spinning the entire endeavor into some high-seas adventure.

I can't say with any degree of certainty that Herman Melville felt sad for the whales — or guilty for his role while he worked on a whaling ship. But several times during the novel I got the feeling he was struggling with this issue. On occasion, Ishmael imagined the oceans from the whale's perspective, and was often amazed by the great intelligence, empathy, and bravery the species displayed through their actions. Melville writes:

The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep. I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about his face, I say again he has no face.

In one passage in particular he calls out not only whale hunters specifically but carnivores in general:

It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand, dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty of Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that the society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.

I suspect, based on Melville's earlier writings, that he initially set out to write another epic adventure — the type of book that always sells — but at some point found himself writing something quite different, less black and white, more ambitious.

Now, is this book eco-literature?

Absolutely.

While you could argue that the book glorifies whaling, I get the sense — certainly the second time around — that Melville was playing more the role of the documentary filmmaker, displaying the gruesomeness of it all. I'm not sure he was trying to turn people against whaling — for the industry was already seeing its days numbered at that point in history — but I think he was deeply conflicted about the industry and America's role in leading it.

I think Ahab holds the clue to the novel, a man obsessed with the “one that got away.”

And this obsession is with our culture still.

When I finished reading the book I noticed that the Spielberg film Jaws was on the television. And in that movie we see the very same dynamic at work. This demonization of nature, this never-ending need to control that which cannot be controlled, and the irrepressible need for humans to create monsters where monsters do not exist.

This text from Ahab's perspective:

God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

From sharks to whales to seals and, on land, to wolves and bears and even deer –the pattern repeats.

I believe eco-literature has an important role to play in making this pattern apparent to people so that we may finally one day break it.

As an aside, for years I believed that Moby-Dick received bad reviews simply because the public wasn't ready for such a “modern” work. But I recently read that London readers first experienced a book that was missing entire sections, including the epilogue.

At any rate, the book is a fascinating and challenging read for both its glimpse into the past and its possibility for changing the future.

Reviewed for EcoLit Books:
http://www.ecolitbooks.com/2014/01/book-review-moby-dick/

Whenever I speak to people about the eco-fiction, this book is the most commonly mentioned.

And it should be.

It's the first book to put a name and face to the movement to protect the planet — or at least “throw a monkey wrench” in developments.

Published in 1975, many aspects of the book are remarkably timely, which is quite sad, of course. As the book is about four people who join forces to throw a monkey wrench into developments that are destroying local environments. This ranges from burning billboards to torching a clear cutting operation, destroying bridges, and, ultimately, trying to destroy the Glen Canyon Dam. The spirit of Ned Ludd looms large over this book.

The spirit of the book is infectious: four revolutionaries traveling across the Southwest desert destroying signs of commercialism and extraction along the way. It's easy to see how this book has inspired a generation of activism. The firebrand of the group, Hayduke, sums it up nicely when he says:

“My job is to save the fucking wilderness. I don't know anything else worth saving.”

What I like most about this book is how Abbey captures the “tilting at windmills” mentally of the characters. I empathize with their need to strike out, to say no in whatever fashion they can. But the more they destroy, the closer they get to being caught.

Near-misses multiply. People get sloppy. And the authorities get more persistent.

Abbey portrays a vivid, exciting world of living on the edge of society. And for these people, once they go to the edge and beyond, it's clear they're not coming back. Which is how I feel at times, though for different reasons.

There is a major flaw to this book, which is quite obvious to me. A number of characters are upset with developments that kill trees or damage native wildlife, and yet they all eat meat without any remorse. It's a shame there is a disconnect among the characters regarding the detrimental effects of animal agriculture on the environment. But, then again, it's the early 1970s. If this book were updated for today, that's the only thing I would change. The rest of it, sadly, is as timely as it was when it was published.

One final point: I like how two of the characters are older — one is in his sixties. I look around today and sometimes wonder what happened to all that activism that sprouted in the 1970s only to go fallow in the '80s and '90s.

Review originally posted on EcoLit Books:
http://www.ecolitbooks.com/2013/08/book-review-the-monkey-wrench-gang/

Let me first back up about five years. I was researching my novel The Tourist Trail, wondering to what extent law enforcement agencies had tried to infiltrate animal rights groups. I had heard firsthand of an attempt of the FBI to infiltrate The Sea Shepherd Society, and I had come across several documented cases of the FBI “flipping” activists to turn on one another. But I came across little concrete evidence of undercover agents working for extended periods of time as activists. I felt confident this sort of thing was indeed happening — so I ran with it in my book — but it was mostly “fiction.”

Across the pond, it appears that this sort of activity is all too real.

A few years ago, news broke about an undercover police officer who had not only infiltrated an animal rights group but had a child with one of the activists.

This story — and many others — is included in this troubling book: Undercover.

Journalists Rob Evans and Paul Lewis have written a book that is very much hot off the press. And, according to the authors, undercover agents are still embedded in activist groups.

In 1968, in response to growing concerns over anti-war protests, the Metropolitan Police created the Special Demonstration Squad — intended to send agents undercover for long periods of time. Targets included the animal rights movement, anti-racism movement, climate change protestors — anyone that fit under the “domestic extremism” category.

My focus is on those officers who infiltrated the animal rights groups.

In 1983, the SDS began targeting animal rights organizations. Much of this book is devoted to officer Bob Lambert, who for years portrayed an animal rights activist, going so far as to help write an anti-McDonald's brochure that led to the longest civil libel trial in English history (McDonald's lost). He also fathered a child with a fellow activist, only to disappear years later after the child was born and his assignment concluded.

The authors identify 10 undercover police officers and estimate that there have been more than 100 in action over the past four decades. Some of the stories are rich with irony. For example, at one point an activist group was close to disbanding due to attrition of members. However, the addition of an undercover agent and a few undercover investigators hired by McDonald's (yes, McDonald's) convinced the members to keep going because they were under the impression they were adding new members. I don't know if this qualifies as entrapment, but there are more than a few stories that most certainly do. The undercover agents were helping to fund operations, offering activists rides to protest and action sites, and egging activists into getting more radical.

Interestingly, a few of the police officers, after their assignments ended, often struggled to leave their fellow activists behind. Mental breakdowns were a common problem, understandable since so many men were not only living double lives but were involved in multiple romantic relationships.

Also noted in the book was the growth of a database of named activists — a database that I'm sure has expanded exponentially as the intelligence community has tapped social networks and email providers.

Lines that I once believed the US or the UK wouldn't cross I've since come to believe are crossed so frequently that they don't really exist anymore.

There are so many tragedies in this book. The stories of women who were lied to by men paid to lie to them. The activists entrapped by undercover agents who literally urged them into direct action. The phenomenal waste of taxpayer money.

But more than that, it's a tragedy for the animals. For the planet.

I'm not saying activists are all saints; they aren't. But the surveillance industry has grown so pervasive, so well financed, and so aggressive that it has turned all activists into “terrorists,” and every protest is suddenly a cause for undercover activity. And it is ruining what makes democratic societies so vibrant — the freedom to protest, to speak out, to believe that individuals can make the world a better place.

Originally posted on EcoLit Books:
http://www.ecolitbooks.com/2013/07/book-review-undercover/

Let me preface this review by saying that I am a longtime fan of co-author Dee Boersma's work.

Years ago, I was part of a volunteer project at Punta Tombo, assisting Dee and her team with a penguin census. It was a week that changed the direction of my life in ways I couldn't possibly imagine at the time. Dee has spent more than 20 years at Punta Tumbo researching Magellanic penguins — and helped to found the Penguin Sentinels organization.

So now that you know of my affinity for penguins and those who work to protect them, on with the review.

This is a reference book at its core.

It provides an in-depth description (and plenty of photos) of each of the 17 penguin species — from Gentoos to Rockhoppers to the Emperor penguins that were made famous in March of the Penguins. You'll learn how to identify each, as well as its breeding habits, range, prey, and predators. (Did you know the Emperor penguin can dive up to 500 meters and hold its breath for 23 minutes?)

Yet even though this book is chock full of penguin details, such as counts and feeding habits and population trends, there is plenty drama between the lines.

For example, in the African Penguin section there are two photos of the Halifax Island colony in Namibia. In the photo taken in the 1930s, the colony is filled with penguins. In the 2004 photo, only a handful of penguins can be seen. The African Penguins are in big trouble, due to oil spills and overfishing.

I didn't realize until reading this book the extent to which penguin eggs were once collected by locals. And penguin guano was also a target (which some species very much need for their nests).

Not all penguin species are declining. The Gentoos appear to be growing in number (though it appears that most species are indeed in various stages of decline).

Ultimately, this book is a call to action. For example, if the human demand for seafood ended tomorrow, the fishing trawlers would have a reason to be out in the oceans, scooping up the penguins' food supply (as well as the penguins themselves).

Climate change is a more insidious challenge simply because it's not so easily combatted or its impact fully understood. All we do know is that the waters are warming and food sources are moving or declining. And penguins must adapt to these changes or fade away.

Some species, sadly, are fading away.

If you're passionate about penguins and the oceans, this is a must-have book. You'll find yourself referring to it again and again, as I have.

Let me begin by saying I recommend this book to anyone who doubts that animals grieve. The evidence presented is overwhelming.

Dolphins who try to keep their dead calves afloat. Elephants who seek out the remains of their dead years after their passing. A cat who wails inconsolably after losing a sibling. A turtle who comes ashore and stares for hours at the photo of its dead loved one.

Or the story of two ducks, Kohl and Harper, who had been rescued from horrible lives in a foie gras factory. Author Barbara King writes:

That Kohl and Harper lived for four years at the sanctuary was, given their traumatic past histories, a happy and unexpected outcome. When Kohl could not longer walk, or his pain be treated effectively, he was euthanized. From outside the barn where the procedure took place, Harper was watching, and after it was over, he could see his friend's body, lying in straw on the barn floor. At first, Harper tried to communicate with Kohl in the usual ways. Getting no response, he bent down and prodded Kohl with his head. After more inspection and prodding, Harper lay down next to Kohl and put his head and neck over Kohl's neck. He stayed in that position for some hours.

Harper got up eventually, and sanctuary caretakers removed Kohl's body. For a while after that, Harper went every day to his favorite spot, once shared with Kohl, next to a small pond. There he would sit. Efforts to introduce him to another potential duck friend didn't take, which was especially sad because Harper was now more nervous around people without Kohl. Everyone at the sanctuary recognized Harper's depression. Two months later, Harper died as well.

Reading the many stories included in this book isn't easy. Particularly because, as King notes, too many of the scientists who provide the source material resist seeing grief where grief clearly resides. And, in some horrible cases, scientists have inflicted grief onto animals only to prove that it does exist.

The author astutely makes the point that not all humans grieve publicly, so we can't assume that the lack of display with animals is proof that they do not grieve. People are not all the same, and neither are animals of a given species.

The key is not that all animals grieve but that all animals have the capacity to grieve. And this is the point that matters most. It's not that one “special” cat suffers visibly while other cats may not suffer so visibly. It's that all animals feel loss and deal with it in different ways.

The major lesson to be taken from this book for those in charge of animals is to allow the necessary time for grieving. Don't just rush away the body. Let the animal companions spend time with the body and grieve in their own ways, if this takes a few minutes or hours or longer.

People need time to grieve. So do animals.

“Grief is but the price of love,” the author writes, quoting animal welfare activist Marc Bekoff.

Anthropomorphism is a four-letter word in scientific circles and the author did a good job of keeping her distance while laying out the facts for all to see — though at times I felt she worked a bit too hard to keep her distance (I'm not scientist so I have no problem anthropomorphizing). For instance, while there is ample evidence that elephants and dolphins and apes grieve, the author cites the limited evidence for monkeys to conclude they do not mourn the dead.

It's time that more people felt grief over the way we treat animals. This book is an important step in that direction.

The Lapham's Quarterly has devoted its Spring 2013 issue to Animals. It's a marvelous collection of historical essays and stories.

Many of the stories included are in the public domain, such as this excerpt from Moby-Dick.

What jumped out at me was this excerpt from the essay The Silent Majority by John Berger.

The cultural marginalization of animals is, of course, a more complex process than their physical marginalization. The animals of the mind cannot be so easily dispersed. Sayings, dreams, games, stories, superstitions, the language itself recall them. The animals of the mind, instead of being dispersed, have been co-opted into other categories so that the category animal has lost its central importance. Mostly they have been co-opted into the family and into the spectacle.

I also read a short essay Can They Suffer, circa 1780:

The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villousity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

Reading historical essays such as this make it clear that the idea of animal rights is hardly novel (though it still feels that way at times). It's perhaps as old as mankind.

That some of us question the eating of animals and have questioned it for hundreds of years is comforting though one might think it depressing. I could say to myself: Nothing changed over the past two hundred years; why should anything change in the next two hundred years? Or I could say: There was someone writing about this issue in 1780, and I have a responsibility to continue writing about it.

I'll leave you with this quote from Henry David Thoreau, circa 1858:

Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale? Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to have “seen the elephant”? These are petty and accidental uses—just as if a stronger race were to kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones—for everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

Thoreau continues (in the Atlantic):

Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet; he it is who makes the truest use of the pine,—who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane,—who knows whether its heart is false without cutting into it,—who has not bought the stumpage of the township on which it stands. All the pines shudder and heave a sigh when that man steps on the forest floor. No, it is the poet, who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and lets them stand. I have been into the lumber-yard, and the carpenter's shop, and the tannery, and the lampblack factory, and the turpentine clearing; but when at length I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the light at a distance high over all the rest of the forest, I realized that the former were not the highest use of the pine. It is not their bones or hide or tallow that I love most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and perchance will go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.

Review originally posted on EcoLit Books:
http://www.ecolitbooks.com/2013/04/laphams-quarterly-animals/

No review can do this book justice.

A wonderful portrait of five whales: minke, orca, humpback, bottlenose, and blue.

Loved Dido. But did the latter third have to be so bloody?

Graham Greene is one of the greats.

So much of animal activism is focused around what one sees — witnessing the beauty as well as the suffering of the animals we share this planet with.

But what about focusing less on one's eyes and more on one's ears?

In Listen, We All Bleed Mandy-Suzanne Wong has compiled a rich array of essays that compel us to listen. To whales and insects. Singing cod, snapping shrimp and boisterous bats. She takes us into the worlds of some truly amazing artists who have devoted their lives to documenting not just the sounds of animals, but their ongoing effort to protect these animals.

Such as Dave Phillips, who records the sounds of African wildlife and not just the “charismatic” species. He focuses heavily on bugs, creatures who are just as critical to a healthy ecosystem, but too often overlooked. Wong writes “When wildlife conservations throw their energy behind charismatic animals and overlook the small, the ugly, the dirty, and the pesky, conservation is doomed to fail.”

Not every essay is just about sounds. Artist Colleen Plumb has spent years video-recording the repetitive movements that trapped elephants exhibits in zoos, such as pacing and the swinging back and forth of trunks. And she projects these videos against buildings in cities around the world in an effort to raise awareness. See her book Thirty Times a Minute in our best books list for 2020.

Kathryn Eddy founded the Urban Wild Coyote Project to foster empathy for animals that are too often vilified and slaughtered, to the number of 400,000 animals a year. Eddy uses art to show how blind we have become to these animals that share every major city with us, often just out of sight. And she also shows how sound is used by hunters to attract coyotes to the manufactured decoy sounds of wounded animals. But because these animals, like so many species, are labeled pest or nuisance animals, few people speak up for them.

I found myself writing down the names of a number of artists I can't wait to learn more about. I'm always inspired to see artists embrace animal activism because they often approach animal issues in surprising and eye- (or ear-) opening. And as we've long believed as Ashland Creek Press, while science and facts may speak to one's mind, art speaks to one's soul.

If you'd like to be inspired by the work artists around the world are creating to open hearts and eyes (and ears) I highly recommend this book.

NOTe: This review was first posted on EcoLitBooks.com.