Diet for a New America 25th Anniversary Edition. John Robbins

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СКАЧАТЬ was first seen by human beings when he appeared in front of a schooner from Boston named Brindle, just as the ship was approaching French Pass. When the members of the crew saw the dolphin bobbing up and down in front of the ship, they wanted to kill him—but, fortunately, the captain’s wife was able to talk them out of it. To their amazement, the dolphin then proceeded to guide the ship through the narrow channel. And for years thereafter, he safely guided almost every ship that came by. So regular and reliable was the dolphin that when ships reached the entrance to French Pass they would look for him, and if he was not visible, they would wait for him to appear to guide them safely through the treacherous rocks and currents.

      On one sad occasion, a drunken passenger aboard a ship named the Penguin took out a gun and shot at Pelorus Jack. The crew was furious, and when they saw Jack swim away with blood pouring from his body they came very close to lynching the passenger. The Penguin had to negotiate the channel without Pelorus Jack’s help, as did the other ships that came through in the next few weeks. But one day the dolphin reappeared, apparently recovered from his wound. He had evidently forgiven the human species, because he once again proceeded to guide ship after ship through the channel. When the Penguin showed up again, however, the dolphin immediately disappeared.

      For a number of years thereafter, Pelorus Jack continued to escort ships through French Pass—but never the Penguin, and the crew of that ship never saw the dolphin again. Ironically, the Penguin was later wrecked, and a large number of passengers and crew were drowned, as it sailed—unguided—through French Pass.²

       Who Is the Animal?

      A San Francisco science fair recently awarded a prize to a junior high school student whose science project consisted of cutting the head off a live frog with a pair of scissors, to find out whether frogs swim better with or without their brains.

      Of course, this is not the only case of frogs being treated cruelly in our schools. They are often dissected by children ostensibly learning “how life works.” But what did this youngster learn through his experiment? I think he learned that it is all right to treat other living things as if they have no feelings, as if they are nothing but machines. I think he learned disrespect for life. And I wouldn’t call that a good thing.

      The science fair judges, however, obviously disagree with me, for they commended the boy on his contributions to the forward march of science, predicted great things for his future, and rewarded him for scientifically proving that: “Frogs will not swim with brain missing unless harassed. A frog swims better with head on.”³

      The attitude we develop toward animals when we are children tends to stay with us through the rest of our lives. And it continues to influence our experience not only of animals but of other people, ourselves, and life itself. There is a great deal of evidence from all over the world indicating that people who have learned as children to care for animals grow up more capable of caring for themselves and for other people. By the same token, people who later become criminals have very often abused animals as children. We find high statistical correlations in every country and culture where research has been done.

      The way we treat animals is indicative of the way we treat our fellow humans. One Soviet study, published in Ogonyok, found that over 87 percent of a group of violent criminals had, as children, burned, hanged, or stabbed domestic animals.⁴ In our own country, a major study by Dr. Stephen Kellert of Yale University found that children who abuse animals have a much higher likelihood of becoming violent criminals.⁵

      Studies of inmates in a number of U.S. prisons reveal that almost none of the convicts had a pet as a child. None of them had this opportunity to learn to respect and care for another creature’s life, and to feel valuable in so doing.

      But these attitudes can be reversed, even in criminals. Heartwarming research has been done in which convicts nearing their release dates were allowed to have pet cats in their cells with them. The result? “Of the men who loved and cared for their cats, not a single one later failed as a free man to adjust to society.”⁶ This in a penal system where over 70 percent of released convicts are expected to return to jail.

      The attitudes toward animals shown by the youngster at the science fair, and by the Soviet criminals when they were youths, are not at all unusual. We’ve all grown up in a system that condones such cruelty. Our public stance is basically that animals are ours to treat any way we wish, and that kindness to animals and sensitivity to them as fellow beings is an option some may choose if they want to, but it is no more incumbent upon us than being nice to plastic dolls.

      This attitude toward animals has been given voice even by modern religious leaders, one of whom said the following of animals being slaughtered:

       Their cries should not arouse unreasonable compassion any more than to red-hot metals undergoing the blows of a hammer, seeds spoiling underground, branches crackling when they are pruned, grain that is surrendered to the harvester, wheat being ground by the milling machine.7

      For this religious leader, animals are not creatures who merit any sort of empathy. They are merely machines, bundles of reflexes and instincts, mechanical things with no feelings to speak of, objects that we can treat without qualm in any way whatever. This is a far cry from the attitude of Albert Schweitzer, who believed the following:

       Any religion which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion…8 Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace. ⁹

      Toward the end of his long life, Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for dedicating his whole life to teaching that:

       We must never permit the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is man’s sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man.10

       Dolphins to the Rescue

      The official position of the Catholic Church has long been that animals don’t have souls. During a Church council in the Middle Ages a vote was taken on whether women and animals have souls. Women squeaked by. Animals lost.

      One thing is sure. Yvonne Vladislavich would give you quite an argument if you tried to tell her animals don’t have souls. In June 1971, Yvonne was aboard a yacht that exploded and sank in the Indian Ocean. Utterly terrified, she was thrown into shark-infested waters. Then she saw three dolphins approach her. One of them proceeded to buoy her up, while the other two swam in circles around her and guarded her from the sharks. The dolphins continued to take care of Yvonne and protect her, until she finally drifted to a marker in the sea and climbed up onto it. When she was rescued from this marker, it was determined that the dolphins had stayed with her, kept her afloat, and protected her across more than 200 miles of open sea.¹¹

      And there’s more. On May 28, 1978, four fishermen became lost in a fog off the coast of Dassen Island, South Africa. They knew there were dangerous rocks in the vicinity, and they feared running into them because the fog had become so thick they couldn’t see where they were going. Then they became aware of a group of dolphins nudging and pushing the boat, forcing them to change course. Suddenly, through the fog, they saw sharp rocks protruding through the water. The rocks only became visible as they floated by them, and the fishermen realized at once that the dolphins had saved their lives. Meanwhile, the dolphins continued to push the boat along a course known only to them, until it reached calm waters. Then they swam away, evidently feeling their job was done. When the fog lifted, the men were flabbergasted to find themselves in the very bay from which they had originally set out early that СКАЧАТЬ