The Register-Guard
Posted on 03/21/2002 11:48:14 AM PST by Glutton
Research mulls animal worth
By JEFF WRIGHT
The Register-Guard
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Or are they?
Steven Davis, a longtime professor of animal science at Oregon State University in Corvallis, isn't so sure.
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 Steven Davis, Oregon State University professor of animal science, pays a visit to one of the herds of cattle at the OSU research facility. Photo: CHRIS PIETSCH / The Register-Guard |
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In Davis' view, an animal's life is an animal's life. So why, he asks, "is it morally defensible to kill a field mouse but not a pig or cow?"
Davis' research concludes tillers and other farm machinery kill between two and three animals per acre - or roughly 1.2 billion creatures across the nation's farmlands - each year.
He proposes an alternative farming model that calls for farmers to grow crops on half of the country's current farm acreage - because such crops are crucial to human nutrition - but return the other half to pasture land for cows to graze. At the same time, he proposes that farmers no longer raise poultry, pigs or lambs for food.
Then, even if all the cows are killed for beef consumption, farmers would end up destroying about 300 million fewer animals each year - such as mice, snakes, pheasants and rabbits - because of the dramatic reduction in tilling, he says.
Davis, who hopes to publish his research soon in a scientific journal, says he's found only a few related studies - most by wildlife biologists assessing farming's effects on endangered species.
Last fall, when he presented his findings at a meeting of the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics in Florence, Italy, he says he got two distinct responses.
"There were the doubters who said I was just trying to salve my conscience for continuing to eat animals, and there were those who said this is a significant issue that current theories about animal liberation haven't considered."
At OSU, Davis is in his fourth year of teaching a required class for animal science majors called "Ethical Issues in Animal Agriculture." In the class, students write papers on such topics as whether live animals should undergo fatal surgeries to teach veterinary students, whether laying hens should be kept in battery cages, and whether ranchers should be allowed to graze their cattle on public rangelands.
But even many of his own students disagree with Davis' premise that the life of a field mouse is equal to the life of a cow.
"I think it's the fact that they like cows better," he says. "Also, there's something about the size of a critter that seems to be involved."
Emily Joyce, a vegetarian who works at the vegan-menu Morning Glory Cafe in downtown Eugene, sees other gaps in Davis' thesis.
While it's true that field animals are killed during farming, "at least they're living free, non-enslaved lives," she says. "That's not true for animals raised on factory farms for profit and slaughter."
Tony Waters of Eugene, a visiting law professor from the University of Maryland, has taught classes on the emerging legal field of animal rights. He says it's ludicrous, legally or morally, to view all nonhuman animals as equals.
Recent research on chimpanzees, for example, has revealed how similar they are to humans in their emotions, intellect, language and ability to suffer.
Waters says he recently helped write a legal brief to the U.S. Supreme Court contending that a chimpanzee has at least as much right as a spotted owl to be named a plaintiff in a lawsuit.
"On a very practical level, if you go into a courtroom representing a tapeworm, you lose," he says. "But if you go in representing (a chimp) dressed in human clothing, who knows?"
Robin Newman, who works at Harwood Leslie Farms in Junction City, derides Davis' ideas as "stupid."
"Tilling the ground actually helps animals, the birds and the moles," she says. "You bring up the dirt, the worms come up, and that feeds the birds. That's the chain of life."
Geneva Harwood, one of the farm's owners, says the very notion of not tilling the land makes her question Davis' credentials. "He isn't a farmer, is he?"
Actually, Davis grew up on a farm in southeast Idaho where his family raised cows, pigs, chickens, grains, sugar beets and, of course, potatoes. It was thinking back to the field animals caught under the wheels of his tractor that helped lead him to his current position, he says.
Davis, 60, says he's worked hard to understand the philosophic underpinnings of the animal rights movement. He cites the work of Tom Regan, a philosophy professor from North Carolina State University, who contends that all animals have equal value and can be best protected if humans adopt a vegan diet - no meat, eggs or milk products.
It's that "least harm principle" that Davis says led him to conclude that the inadvertent deaths of field animals should carry the same moral weight as the intentional killing of animals raised for meat consumption.
He insists he's not trying to make excuses for animal agriculture or the status quo.
"If I were, I'd have figured some way to keeps chickens and pigs in the picture as well," he says.
Davis, who wants to fund an endowed chair at OSU for the study of animal ethics, says farm animals are sentient beings that can feel pain and suffering and shouldn't be subjected to production systems that cause such distress.
But neither, he contends, are such animals "functionally different" - physiologically or morally - from rodents, snakes or birds.
"One just happens to live in the field and the other happens to live in the farmyard."
Recent research on chimpanzees, for example, has revealed how similar they are to humans in their emotions, intellect, language and ability to suffer.
It seems rather un-PETA like to say that the more similar an animal is to a human, the more valuable its life is. Seems to me they would think just the opposite.
Diversity is God, after all.
Heh, the sound you hear is the smiles forming on the mouths of avid hunters everywhere...
Yep these guys are no smarter than monkeys. As for their emotions and ability to suffer? Who cares?
I'm no PETA member, but I would like to see animals raised for food to be treated better during their lives.
If you're going to agonize about the fate of the country mouse you gotta worry about his city cousin, too, and that makes every vegan guilty of "animal abuse".
I'm no PETA member, but I would like to see animals raised for food to be treated better during their lives.
they were back in the day when people were free to keep animals without being zoned out of exsistance..now it's only people who can raise farm animals in vast numbers that can actually live off the land, so to speak. zoning and regulation has effectived bumped small farmers out of the box.
and then there's always "work"....
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