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NEWS & UPDATES
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The following message was emailed to animal rights newsgroups, activists, and personal friends of Jeremy Beckham. Dear Opponents of Animal Abuse, In the Spring of 2002 I was thrown into the grim world of primate vivisection and the incredibly frustrating world of being an antivivisectionist; I had just started to learn the bare facts about animal experimentation. I stumbled across The Primate Freedom Project website and read about a whistleblower at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, who I would later discover to be Matt Rossell. The overall description of the facility was extremely grim. Intrigued by an endemic disease called "shigella" that I had never heard of, I called the organization's headquarters for more information and spoke with Rick Bogle. Rick's extensive knowledge on the issue of primate research was immediately apparent. He explained to me that the disease caused monkeys to shed the lining of their intestines, causing extreme pain and bloody diarrhea. I was appropriately horrified at the gruesome nature of this disease and the disease-inducing laboratory environment that primates live in. I became curious and wanted to learn more. Rick emailed me (I still have the email) an extensive list of books that he recommended I read. I first read The Great Ape Project and was convinced by the philosophical and moral arguments for extending basic rights to nonhuman primates. I continued to read, and read Deborah Blum's book The Monkey Wars - an historical account of primate experimentation that served as an excellent primer for learning about the world of primate vivisection. After reading more books and papers on the minds of primates, the case for primates' rights became even clearer to me. I asked myself: “If monkeys and apes demonstrate mental capabilities that in many ways are parallel to small human children, why should we treat primates so differently?" And, after reading one startling paper which showed that monkeys would rather starve themselves for 12 days instead of hurting each other; I asked myself, "Why should we hold ourselves to lower standards than primates hold themselves’ to?" During the summer of 2002 I made three trips that, in retrospect, I believe firmly cemented my resolve and rage against these primate laboratories. First, I went to Ellensburg, Washington in June 2002, to meet (then) five chimpanzees who speak American Sign Language (ASL), a language I spoke decently at the time. The experience of seeing members of another species communicate with each other with a language so familiar to me was very challenging. Although I had started to read about the intelligence of primates and had read the story of these particular 5 animals, personally witnessing such cognitive abilities was a personal epiphany on an entirely different level. Simply put, it forced me to ask myself "What makes humans so damned special?" A month later, I went to Waco, Texas for debate camp at Baylor University. I discovered some bears being used as mascots who were being forced to live in horrid conditions. I didn't know who to turn to help me try to improve their miserable lot.. My mom, who is an animal activist, researched the matter and told me to call Cindy Carrocio of the Austin Zoo. Cindy had previously rescued a bear who was formerly used and abused by Baylor University and has since became an outspoken opponent of Baylor's use of these animals. Cindy drove from Austin to Waco; we met at Baylor. She told me about the facility she runs and its policy of refusing to support breeding or wild-capturing. All of the Austin Zoo's animals are rescued. Very soon after, I made a trip to Austin myself to visit her and her facility. It was there I met the primate victims of Daniel Casey. Daniel Casey was a vivisector at the Oregon primate center whom I had read about online. I remembered reading about his hideously cruel experiments on capuchin monkeys involving tremendous physical and psychological stress. But reading and seeing are two very different things. It is one thing to read descriptions of atrocities or the stories of the victims, but it is a different experience altogether to actually meet these victims. These poor individuals were in horrible shape. One was missing a tail. Another’s tail was bent at a conspicuously awkward 90-degree angle. One was severely frightened by every little movement or noise. All were missing large patches of hair and some were missing fingers and toes. It was clear they were the survivors of a holocaust. My last trip that summer was to meet and visit Rick Bogle and his wife Lynn Pauly. Apart from meeting two very nice people, I learned a lot about primate vivisection. I believe it was here that I began to fathom the scope of the severity of the situation. I also learned a lot about their past experiences in fighting against this hideous evil. Rick told me about his seven-months-long Ape Army tour to the (then) seven regional primate research centers in 1997 and about the subsequent 1999 Primate Freedom Tour which carried activists around the country. Needless to say, Rick's past efforts were largely what inspired my beginnings as an antivivisectionist. Then a high school senior, I developed a PowerPoint presentation about it and spoke at high schools whenever I got the opportunity. I made a short documentary on primate vivisection and aired it on my high school's closed circuit television station. I devised and authored a winning high school debate case arguing for the abolition of vivisection. In college, shortly after, I started working against the University of Utah and their primate vivisectors. This campaign still has many years ahead of it, but already we're seeing some substantial legal victories that really give me hope for the potential of local grassroots efforts. However, while I feel I have accomplished a lot by the age of 19, there is still much, much, more I could be doing. For animal advocates in America, all those who are aware of the present situation have an enormous moral burden. Now that I know that tens of thousands of creatures with mental lives so similar to my own are being brutalized, what does this mean for me? Can I really just shrug it off and go to movie theaters, concerts, or parties every weekend? How am I to live in the midst of a holocaust? How should I act? Perhaps more importantly, what should I do? These are the questions I ask myself, and these are the questions I haven't been able to satisfactorily answer. What I've decided is that the absolute least I can do for the primates in American labs is devote my summer to them. So what can I do? The situation with primates in America today is part of a global problem. While my local activism is important, I recognize that the University of Utah houses fewer than 100 of our nation's 100,000 captive primates. While my friends and family members are all becoming staunch antivivisectionists, the message needs to garner the attention of the greater public and the decision-makers. It is for this reason that I will make a road trip, starting tomorrow, to each of the eight national primate research centers. At each stop I will set up an information table in front of the primate center and speak with passersby about the horrific animal abuse occurring in each lab. It is my hope that if enough people are educated on the issue, that eventually the ranks of dissenters will grow and there will be a genuine movement against the policies of torture sponsored by our federal government. It is only then that we can hope to influence these decision makers to grant basic rights to primates and cease experimentation on them. I fear that, if they refuse to listen and to act, that future activists will have little choice but to turn to violence. My schedule is as follows: May 20th - May 26th: The Washington National Primate Research Center in Seattle, WA I think our movement – the animal rights movement – needs a strategy. It seems clear to me that our society’s moral and legal framework is established in such a way that it reinforces an artificial “species barrier.” This is the idea that basic principles or rights to be free from harm should apply exclusively to members of the human species. This archaic notion is morally bankrupt and responsible for the enormous suffering being inflicted by humans on other animals for the most trivial purposes. I think we need to pick the weakest point in this societal mindset and attack it ideologically. It is much easier for defenders of the status quo to fall back on ill-defined defenses of this "species barrier" when denying rights to honeybees or to rodents than it is for defending cruelties to primates. This is obvious; a honeybee is more alien to us than another primate is. However, the issue of primates’ rights forces defenders of the status quo into a corner by requiring them to delineate the characteristics that impart moral significance to us, but not to any others. The data on the minds of primates indicates that, in reality, there are no significant shared characteristics of every member of the human species that set us apart from other primates. Therefore, the only argument available to them is that we are human and they are not. Such a position is transparently bigoted. The primate issue forces the question: How like us need they be? I think everyone within our movement should be working to help to ignite a national campaign against the use of primates in experimentation and attack it with constant fervor. I hope that my trip and the 2005 Primate Freedom Tour will prove to be the catalyst that ignites an abolitionist movement-wide effort that will see the first true legal rights granted to animals. If you'd like to join me at any of these stops, or get involved in any other way please contact me at jerm@primatefreedom.org. I make this trip with the tremendously helpful support of the Primate Freedom Project and In Defense of Animals. Special Thanks to the following people (in no particular order) for everything they've done for me and for the animals: My parents, Steve Hindi, Lynn Pauly, Cindy & Jim Carroccio, Dr. Elliot Katz and the IDA staff, Matt Rossell, Jean Barnes, Angie Thompson, Michael Budkie, Eric Waters, Faith Ching, Harold Rose, Jason & Lidya Hardy, Autumn Wagner, Mandy & Rich Hawkes, Linda J. Howard, Steve Baer, Sean/Adam Diener, Dave Bemel, Rebecca Harrell, Kristen Coult, Seana Blake and the CHCI staff, Drs.Ray and Jean Greek, and of course, Rick Bogle. Sincerely, Jeremy Beckham 2005 Primate Freedom Tour Co-Ordinator For updates on Jeremy's trip, please see "Diary of an Anti-Vivisectionist" at primatefreedom.com. |
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