Sasha Farm Animal Sanctuary’s Director, Dorothy Davies, wrote
Thank you for your post about Moo’s arrival. There is much mooing between him and the other cows. Hopefully they are telling him that life is so good here that he will never want to run away again!
A ballooning world population, intensive farming practices and changes in sexual behavior have provided a breeding ground for an unprecedented number of emerging diseases, the U.N. health agency said Thursday.
AIDS and 38 other new pathogens are afflicting mankind that were unknown a generation ago, the World Health Organization said.
Though advances in science could account for the discovery of existing pathogens that were previously unidentified, WHO epidemics expert Dr. Mike Ryan said changes in human behavior and practices have produced more new diseases.
”We’ve seen a shift in trend that reflects a transition of human civilization,” Ryan said. ”The relationship to the animal kingdom, our travel, our social, sexual and other behaviors have changed the nature of our relationship with the microbial world and the result of that is the emergence of new pathogens and the spread of those pathogens around the world.”
[emphasis added]
UN: Global Change Poses New Health Risks New York Times August 23, 2007
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu (1931-), South African Archbishop
The Malaysian government lifted a decades-old ban on the export of macaques two months ago.
“We are talking about keeping a figure (of macaques) that is sustainable … that will not cause problems to the people,” Natural Resources and Environment Minister Azmi Khalid told reporters Friday.
The government quietly lifted a decades-old ban on the export of macaques two months ago. Since then, Azmi said, he has received complaints that it is cruel to export the monkeys, which are destined for restaurants and research laboratories.
[…] destined for restaurants and research laboratories
The Grumpy Vegan can understand that if you’re going to eat any animal, then, you might as well eat any animal, including a macaque monkey. But the thought is horrifying and repulsive.
But what I can’t understand is how the animal research industry can justify using wild-caught macaques for experimentation. Wouldn’t the macaques’ unknown history (e.g., diet, potential exposure to disease, stress from international transportation) automatically qualify them as unsuitable animals for research? It just doesn’t seem, well, scientific. Financially expedient. Yes. But not scientifically plausible.
But the Grumpy Vegan isn’t a scientist and doesn’t know any better. Don’t I?
I’m pleased to report that Moo is now safely ensconced at Sasha Farms. According to their blog
What were you doing at midnight? Probably not what we were doing here at the sanctuary! Our much-anticipated new resident, Moo, arrived last night around 11:30.
For anyone that missed Moo’s story, he is a young steer who was raised on Long Island, New York. He was destined for slaughter until he broke free and ran amok for a few days, stopping traffic and creating quite a scene, until finally being captured on a busy beach. His release was negotiated by a local citizen, and with the help of Farm Sanctuary, he was brought to live here at SASHA Farm. There will be more about his story on our website in the next few days.
Moo has been described as rambunctious and spirited, and he certainly fits that description. He’s still much smaller than any of our current bovine residents, and acts a lot like a 700-pound puppy. He’s still very shy, but this morning he approached me quite readily for carrots and celery. Given a little time and patience, he’ll settle in nicely and be charging us for treats in no time at all.
With half an hour’s reading in bed every night as a steady practice, the busiest man can get a fair education before the plasma sets in the periganglionic spaces of his grey cortex.
Sir William Osler, Oxford Regius Professor of Medicine (1849-1919)
