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While American humanoids battled it out this week in the usual teeter-totter grab for power, animals went about their business. Or tried to. There were some bizarre developments in the animal world -- some victories, some defeats and one very big WTF? involving a country western "star" and a tame bear named Cubby.
GOOD NEWS: Voters in Missouri, Puppy Mill Capital of the USA (approx. 3,000), resoundingly passed Proposition B, designed to enforce better dog care and more oversight of professional dog breeders, specifically those who keep 10 or more bitches "for the purpose of breeding those animals and selling any offspring for use as a pet" to provide for each:
- Sufficient food and clean water
- Necessary veterinary care
- Sufficient housing, including protection from the elements
- Sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down and fully extend his or her limbs
- Regular exercise
- Adequate rest between breeding cycles
Prop. B also requires breeders keep no more than 50 unaltered dogs over the age of six months. Violations would be considered misdemeanor offenses and could carry a maximum penalty of 15 days in jail and a $300 fine. Betty White did robo-calls for the cause, and St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa did a great TV ad here. Prop B. goes into effect November 2011.
BAD NEWS: In the I-shit-you-not category … An enterprising inventor in China has developed a vending machine for live crabs. The low temperature keeps them sleepy but alive, and folks love the freshness! The Twin Lake Crab Company has created a unique plastic entrapment that keeps the crabs properly packaged until the crustaceans face drop time like a Cheetos bag.
The crabs come small, medium or large and cost about $3-9 each. And no, the Chinese do not eat them raw, they take them home to be cooked. The vending machines are located in a number of Nanjing metro stations and the company is looking toward nationwide expansion. Although consumers initially had a hard time believing the crabs were actually alive, word has spread and sales have started to pick up to hundreds a day.
And only because I have it handy and not related to anything at all, here's a Queen's University study on how crabs feel -- and remember -- pain.
GOOD NEWS: The defeat of Prop 109 in Arizona means that its citizens can still make wildlife policy through the initiative process. (NRA, Gov. Jan Brewer and John McCain backed 109.) The proposal would have given constitutional protection to Arizona hunters while prohibiting citizens from using the ballot initiative to make hunting and fishing laws - that exclusive power would have been given to the legislature.
BAD NEWS: Unfortunately, North Dakota voters rejected Measure 2, an effort led by hunters in the state to ban "canned hunts" of tame deer and elk trapped behind fences. This issue is hotly contested in these parts, with debates raging on both sides of the ... er, chain link fence. I found a great one-hand-and-the-other quote on the matter from Pace Law School's excellent GreenLaw Blog:
It’s hard to know where to begin with this. Does one side with those who oppose the measure on the grounds that there is no ethically relevant difference between slaughtering farm animals and staging canned “hunts” of imprisoned “wild” animals? Or does one argue that enabling an industry built solely on the pleasure that “hunters” derive from shooting helpless, trapped animals is different and worse than raising and killing animals not for the fun of killing but rather because of a belief that killing is an acceptable by-product of animal consumption? Is there an ethical divide here? Or merely a distinction without a difference?
And speaking of canned hunts, I present to you the Mother of All Staged Hunting Trips:
BACK STORY: So, there's a McCountry music "star" named Troy Lee Gentry, one-half of the duo Montgomery-Gentry. I'd never heard of him but evidence shows that Troy wrestles with serious manhood issues. In October 2004, Gentry and his buddy, Lee Marvin Greenly, staged a ridiculous fake outing the "wild" environs of Greenly's three-acre compound (near Sandstone, Minnesota) to "hunt" Greenly's tame bear, Cubby. Photos show the bear being hand fed by humans, like a giant, 600-pound baby.
"They turned a petting zoo into Auschwitz."
--Comedian Lewis Black on canned hunting
Turns out that Cubby, which Greenly made available to equally insecure "wildlife" photographers for a price, needed some dental work done. Instead of taking care of Cubby, he opted to have Gentry act out his
