Wayne Pacelle on Animal Protection

Wayne Pacelle on Animal Protection Policy at the Woodrow Wilson Center
April 30, 2008

Making the Connections: Animal Protection as a Domestic and International Public Policy Issue

By Wayne Pacelle
President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States

Thank you for that kind introduction, and thank you all very much for the welcome. This is my first visit to the Woodrow Wilson Center, and I appreciate not only the hospitality but your attention to the issue of animal protection. I don't know if Woodrow Wilson himself had much to say on the subject, but he's certainly remembered for his idealism. You'll find a great deal of idealism in the cause of defending animals, and that trait we share with him.

I've been around animal advocates all of my adult life, and though the issues and arguments have changed over the years, the basic convictions have endured. At its best, the cause of animal protection is one of the more altruistic concerns you'll find. It's a cause that arises from some of the best instincts of humanity. It reminds us that animals have claims of their own in the world. They are not just here to be used and killed. They are not just things, or resources, or commodities, or targets, or economic opportunities in the waiting. Animals have the same spark of life that we have, formed from the same dust of the earth. They want to live just as badly as we do. Often, they experience life as we do … they can feel playful or angry … affectionate or afraid … sad or joyful.

Some deduce rights for animals, others reject that term, but it can be an academic debate because what we're really talking about are limits and boundaries in our conduct. We need laws, and standards, and clear, bright lines to halt cruelty and abuse. It is for us to exercise restraint because in our dealings with other animals, there is an asymmetry in power. We hold all of the cards.

The care of animals doesn't just present a moral problem—it presents a moral opportunity. Kindness to animals makes us better people; it fosters responsibility in young men and women; it is a feature of any civil society.

This is the creed, at least as we see it at The Humane Society of the United States. And like many other issues that you examine at the Wilson Center, animal welfare is now much more than a challenge of personal ethics. It is a matter of deep social concern, and increasingly a matter of corporate responsibility and an essential component of sound public policy.
Sometimes you can read commentaries on the subject of animal welfare, hostile or friendly, and be left with the impression that the ethical treatment of animals is a uniquely modern preoccupation. But of course this is not the case. Human beings have given thought to the proper treatment of animals for as long as we have been capable of moral thought. People have pitied animals, and empathized with animals, and sought compassion and mercy for animals for as long as we have understood any of those values. When the proverb declared that "the righteous man regards the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," this was not a foreign notion the world had never heard before. The admonition expressed a truth already well known, a feeling understood then and now as moral intuition and common sense.

In all of the world's great religions and philosophical traditions, you will find cruelty to animals rebuked and compassion celebrated. Among intellectuals, there are pedantic debates sometimes about whether cruelty is forbidden for the sake of the animals themselves, or for the sake of a person's own virtue or spiritual state. But these disputes miss the point. What matters most is that cruelty is wrong. And it has always been recognized as such, in principle if not in practice.
The very concept of "cruelty to animals" implies moral disapproval. Yet for all the cruelty in the world, you won't hear many people admit to the offense. I've seen people club and hack hundreds of seal pups to death in the morning, and think nothing of it for the rest of the day … people who shoot elephants, and can hardly contain their joy at the sight of the fallen giant—the bigger the better … and people who preside over factory farms and slaughterhouses, and sleep every night undisturbed by second thoughts. The people emotionally and financially invested in these activities never see themselves as cruel. Instead, they try to explain their conduct away. They search for justifications—in economics, or in cultural traditions, or in nature itself. They offer elaborate arguments attempting to prove that animals don't feel pain or that the animals would be worse off but for the coup de grace delivered by them. There's an old saying that "man is not only the rational creature—he is also the rationalizing creature." We run into that a lot in our work at The HSUS. In the exploitation of animals, excuses are the one resource we'll never run out of.

Of course, there's one very obvious reason that you find admonitions about cruelty to animals in every time and culture. The reason is that in every time and culture cruelty has been a problem. Think of any merciless thing a human being can do to an animal, and at one time or another it has been thought of already and done. Every society has had its own signature cruelties, whether it's the violent animal-fighting spectacles of the Romans, the public vivisections of 18th century England, or the mass-confinement farms of industrialized nations today. Civilized societies have always known that the abuse of animals was wrong. Yet civilized societies have always tolerated various forms of animal abuse. In the slow and halting progress of humanity, we too often resist change and defend what we've become accustomed to. Every age has its massive moral lapses, and this is one that we must overcome in our age.

We now have an organized resistance to cruelty, and to the great credit of the United Kingdom it really began there. Men and women of conscience came to believe that if cruelty was wrong and unworthy of humanity, then the law should not be silent. Why just rebuke cruelty in word, or caution against it in lofty admonitions? Why not forbid cruelty in law, as we do other serious wrongs? In time, the first major cruelty statutes were enacted, defining and enforcing standards of conduct in the treatment of animals. Skeptics at the time warned of radical implications, and in a way they were right. There's always something a little radical when we dare to live up to our own beliefs.

Among the most prominent of these early reformers were men like William Wilberforce, Cardinal Manning, and the Earl of Shaftesbury, who were champions of exploited human beings as well and saw a connection. They believed, as Shaftesbury put it, that they were called to serve "the cause of the weak, the helpless, both man and beast, and those who had none to help them." One result of their efforts was a bill introduced in the House of Lords 200 years ago next May. It was called a Bill for Preventing Wanton and Malicious Cruelty to Animals. And though it failed in 1809, these men and women were not the type to call retreat. A similar bill became the law of England in 1822. And you can draw straight line from that reform to the early animal-protection societies of 19th century America, and to the work today of The Humane Society of the United States and its global affiliate Humane Society International.

This is the venerable tradition that we follow—we at The HSUS, and at thousands of other animal-protection groups across America and the world. Our opponents try to dismiss us, and marginalize us, and portray our concerns as trivial, foreign, doctrinaire, or, worst of all, impractical. But the real power of the cause is that it speaks to the basic standards and conscience of all people of good will. Like all the best ideas and moral causes, we don't invent new standards and expect people to conform to them. In the spirit of Wilberforce, we remind our fellow citizens of what they already know to be true, and seek to hold them to their own standards of respect and compassion for a fellow creature. We ask the same kind of questions as those early reformers—about the rightful limits of human action, and the responsibilities of the strong to the weak. We draw the same kind of connections—between the wrongs that are forbidden in law and the wrongs that aren't. We confront the same kind of contradictions. We seek the same kind of remedies to rid our country and our world of cruelties old and new.
The basic problem is the same too—the fundamental tension that runs through all of our debates today about the status of animals and the obligations of humanity. And in many ways the tension only grows as we humans learn more about the other creatures of the earth—about their capacities, their intelligence, their emotions, and their experience of suffering.

On the one hand, we understand animals more than ever. Many scientists take a more benevolent approach to studying animals than in other times, trying to understand and explain animals on their own terms. Thanks to people like Donald Griffin and Jane Goodall, we have discovered the remarkably sophisticated language skills of parrots … the signature whistles of dolphins … the complex social structures of elephant herds … the cognitive abilities of pigs … the basic tool use of chimps … the communication among whales by sonar and song … and many other things we never knew or imagined in other times. Here and there, you will still find scientists who insist that the minds and feelings of animals need not concern us. But most people know better now. We know that the appearance of thought and feeling in animals is the reality, not just some sentimental illusion. And not only do people know this to be true: More than ever, people of every age, background, and place are inspired to help and serve in the cause of animals. Every day, across the world, millions are at work helping animals in need, delivering homeless animals to safety and shelter, feeding and giving comfort to animals, fighting the wildlife trade or the destruction of habitat, or making the case for in legislative bodies or corporate board rooms.

Yet at the same time, even as all of this unfolds, there has never been a time in human experience when we tolerated more needless suffering inflicted upon animals. The cruelty is on a vast scale … more systematic and ruthless than ever before. In advanced societies, we have adopted some laws in an attempt to rid our communities of the rot of egregious cruelties, such as animal fighting or baiting. But we drew the curtain on the vast new systems of cruelty that were rising up, in the form of laboratories, factory farms, and other places where billions of animals are condemned to lives of unyielding misery. We've become intolerant of seemingly aberrational acts of cruelty, but inattentive to normative abuse, when it's cloaked, or backed by a powerful economic interest. The result is a world of contradictions in which personal cruelty is forbidden and often punished, while institutional cruelty remains common, legal, and too often unhindered.
We tolerate these large-scale cruelties, even though at this scale they pose an increasing threat to our own well being. No longer are the consequences of cruelty confined to its intended victims. So many troubles in the world can be traced in part to the abuse of animals.

If climate change is a matter that concerns you, then the environmental costs of raising sixty billion animals for food—increasingly on industrialized factory farms—also warrant your urgent attention. If the spread of disease and the danger of pandemics are a threat, then we have to get serious about stemming the exotic animal trade, the global cockfighting subculture, and mass-confinement methods of producing poultry—since these industries are incubators of diseases that can jump from animals to people. If you wonder about domestic abuse or violent crime in our communities, then look no farther than how people get started. Often it starts with the abuse of animals and the loss of empathy.

In the end, the case for animals stands on its merits. It needs no other concerns or connections to give it importance. Compassion for animals is now a universal value. Animals matter for their own sake, in their own right. But today more than ever, there is a close connection between cruelty and other pressing social concerns, and that reinforces the case for animal protection in the modern era.

You probably remember the case last year of Michael Vick. It was a good example of how the curtain is sometimes opened on truly appalling cruelties, and suddenly people get a glimpse of what's been going on all along. What started as a drug bust ended in the discovery of a multi-state dogfighting ring. Every detail of the case was discussed and debated on television—the torture of dogs, the privations and punishments they were subjected to, the viciousness of the dog- and animal-fighting trade. And few people but Mr. Vick and his lawyers seemed to feel that the prosecutors were too harsh and the sentence too severe. When it was all over, the man had gained an NFL suspension, lost a Nike sponsorship, and a $100 million contract, and earned the prison sentence he's serving now.

As the debate broadened beyond Vick's acts and to the larger subculture of dogfighting, Americans learned that dogfighting is almost always entangled with other criminal behavior, such as narcotics and human violence. People began to understand that the dogs are victims, but so are other members of our communities. Dogfighting is a gateway crime, and society has a variety of compelling reasons to root out this behavior.

A more recent story you might remember concerned a southern California slaughter plant named the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company, and it struck a different chord with the American public. The Vick case struck at our notions of responsible treatment of companion animals—the cats, dogs and other animals that Americans now lavish with attention and a stunning $40 billion in spending. The Hallmark case was also a matter of conscience, but it put the uncomfortable subject of rearing animals for food on the front page and more importantly on the television screen. When the dairy industry is done with milk cows, the cows are sent to slaughter, but often they're too sick or lame even to walk to their death. It's common enough that the industry has a name for them, "downer cows." You may recall what our undercover investigator recorded. The downer cows were being tormented with electricity to make them stand. They were rammed with forklifts. They even had a high-pressure water hose forced into their nostrils to simulate a drowning effect, so that the ailing animals would get up and move closer to the slaughter area.

One camera caught these scenes, in one slaughterhouse. And for a few days, at least, the American people saw through the "happy cow" ad campaigns of the dairy industry. In short order, schools across the nation stopped serving beef because their second-largest supplier was exposed as a merciless abuser of sick and crippled animals. Mad cow disease, e coli, and salmonella, along with animal cruelty and the slaughter of crippled cows, became part of the more complete narrative of the meat industry. During the process, the public questioned the gaps in the government's regulatory system. Prosecutors brought the first felony charges ever against slaughterhouse workers. Members of Congress probed the issue in eight separate hearings. The USDA ordered the largest-ever recall of beef in the nation, and a $100 million company was closed—probably forever.

All of this was to the good. Justice was served in the case at hand. And it would be unfair and a little ungrateful to use the Hallmark case as an example of selective judgments in public opinion. The truth is it showed the power of public opinion at its best. It showed how much people can influence events when they follow their instincts and demand that corporations and government do better. We need more of that spirit, a lot more of it, because the scenes from that one slaughter plant are just the smallest glimpse of the nightmarish world of industrial farming. Factory farming has become an amoral business, detached from any standards of decent and honorable animal husbandry. And though the pitiful circumstances demand the enactment and enforcement of laws, we don't need a statute to make our own choices right now. Every one of us can take our business elsewhere, and use the market to get the animals out of their cages and crates and mass confinement.

This is the tension that runs through our debates on industrial agriculture and so many other animal welfare issues. And often the best way to break the tension is to point out the obvious. Factory farming is a rotten and morally corrupt business, and the whole world will be better off without it. It's not only wrong on its face, it's a massively inefficient way to produce protein and it pollutes soil, air, and water. We hear a lot of environmentalists these days warning us about the dangers of global warming. The more prominent ones pride themselves as bold truth tellers. But if you want to know which ones warrant the most serious attention, it's those who refuse to overlook one of the biggest problems of all. More than cars and trucks, and all other forms of transport, the bigger source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world is livestock agriculture.
We run into a lot of conflict and controversy at The HSUS. But what always strikes me the most in these debates is the static nature of the arguments that our opponents make. They cling to old ways and old traditions as if nothing is ever allowed to change, no matter the costs or the harm. The sealers in Atlantic Canada talk as if life could not go on without forever clubbing and killing newborn seal pups. And as soon as one reason for the slaughter is disproved they'll quickly pick up another. They don't care that the world is moving on. They just want to keep things exactly as they are. It's the same with the whalers in Japan and Norway. They know that whale-watching is a potentially more lucrative and sustainable source of revenue, but they don't want to hear it and they don't want to change. They just want to go on killing, and without international action they would stay at it and haul in and carve up thousands of whales, including many of the rarest. The same is true of so many of the other interests and industries we deal with at the HSUS—the fur farmers and the trappers, the horse slaughter plants and the killer buyers, the trophy hunters, the animal-testing lobby, the cockfighters, and on and on. They all want to live in a static world, doing the same thing, in the same way, forever.

In an odd way, however, this is good news for the cause of animal protection, because it means that human innovation is our ally. We don't just have human conscience working for us, though that will always take the lead. We have all the resourcefulness of the human mind—the boundless capacity of this nation and others to change, to question, to improve, and to shake off old ways. The cause of animal protection speaks not only to the conscience of America. It speaks as well to the ingenuity of America. And that is always a force you want on your side.
Every so often you come across one story that captures the big picture in animal welfare. And I found one the other day about a whale who was hunted and killed by native hunters last year off the Alaskan coast. These self-described subsistence hunters hauled in a bowhead whale only to find that they were not the first to hunt that particular creature. Embedded in the flesh of the whale were the fragments of a bomb lance, traceable to a type of shoulder gun last used before 1890.

Only in recent years have we learned how long whales live, and this creature killed in the year 2007 was at least 130 years old. The lance carried a small metal cylinder fitted with a time-delay fuse, but it had failed to kill the whale, and he survived the span of the entire twentieth century without further harm. When Edison was at working on the phonograph, this whale was feeding on plankton and diving in Arctic waters. Before Wilson was president of Princeton, much less of president of the United States, this whale was learning his migration routes.
He lived all that time, only to be slaughtered by men with harpoons, dodging the orcas that are the only other predators he would have to face.

But the hopeful side of the story is how much the world can change, in a hundred years, even in the life of a whale. It was a century that began with the old economy of hunting and killing whales and ended with a new economy of appreciating whales and watching whales. It was a century that began with a lonely few animal welfare groups, a scarcity of laws to constrain human greed, and a worldview that animals were there for the taking. But by the end of that century, there were hundreds of new groups, thousands of new laws to shield animals from cruelty and abuse, and an emerging attitude that we are custodians of the other creatures—called to defend them and to be their voice. A lot can happen in a hundred years, or in much less time. And the life and fate of this single creature teaches us that change for the better is not only possible—it is certain, in our lifetime and in the generations to come.
Thank you.