Report on the Melbourne Knowing Animals Reading Group in February 2019
The Melbourne Knowing Animals Reading Group is spending 2019 with foundational thinking that focuses on multispecies justice. We began the year with Cora Diamond’s seminal paper “Eating Meat and Eating People” (1978). This work, which responds to the early animal rights philosophy of Peter Singer, Tom Regan and others, suggests a rational philosophical approach may […]
Dr Alex Lockwood on public vigils for nonhuman animals
Alex Lockwood is a writer, activist and public speaker. Please visit his website for more info and updates: http://alexlockwood.co.uk/ ‘It’s a busy one today,’ says the guy with the goatee beard, who we often talk to as he arrives for work. He does shoulders with a boning blade. ‘About nine hundred.’ We absorb the news. We’ve […]
Varda Mehrotra on Personhood: The Principle and the Practice
PERSONHOOD: THE PRINCIPLE AND THE PRACTICE Varda Mehrotra, Executive Director of Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO) CONCEPT OF PERSONHOOD OF ANIMALS There is a growing debate as to what the legal classification of animals should be. Presently, within most cruelty prevention statutes across the world, animals are defined as property, (with limited instances […]
Varda Mehrotra on India’s Animal Protection Movement
From 1990 to 2007 I (Christine Townend) was living in India, as managing trustee of an animal protection organisation in Jaipur, and during this time I started two more animal shelters in Kalimpong and Darjeeling in the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas. During this time I saw how much a Federation of animal shelters was […]
Jane Johnson – Dissenting Animals
Dissenting Animals Oscar, my Cairn terrier, is a remarkable creature in lots of ways, including that he loves going to the vet. Although some pretty traumatic things have happened to him in his 14 years, Oscar seems to know that the vet is there to help, that the poking and prodding will be worth it. […]
Peter Singer – The Cow Who…
MELBOURNE – Last month, a steer escaped from a slaughterhouse in the New York City borough of Queens. Video of the animal trotting down a busy street was soon featured on many media outlets. For those who care about animals, the story has a happy ending: The steer was captured and taken to a sanctuary, […]
Peter Singer – Are Insects Conscious?
MELBOURNE – Last summer, a cabbage white butterfly laid its eggs on an arugula I was growing. Before long, the plant was swarming with green caterpillars, well disguised against the green leaves. I had other arugula plants, some distance away, that would give me plenty of leaves for our salads, and I didn’t want to […]
Five Propositions on Ferals Fiona Probyn-Rapsey.
Five Propositions on Ferals Fiona Probyn-Rapsey. First published in Feral Feminisms,Issue 6, Fall 2016, http://www.feralfeminisms.com In September 2015, I gave a talk at Siteworks, an arts festival that takes place at Bundanon (see Bundanon Trust https://bundanon.com.au/) on the South Coast of New South Wales about two hours south of Sydney, Australia. The theme for the festival was […]
Fiona Probyn-Rapsey on Australia’s war on feral cats
Last week in Canberra I attended the Threatened Species Commission Community roundtable on the ‘feral cats’ strategy – the plan to eradicate 2 million feral cats by 2020, announced by Environment Minister Greg Hunt in July last year. Otherwise known as the ‘war on cats’, the plan is devised to tackle cats as the ‘single […]
Ruminations of a Retiring Veterinarian – Michael W. Fox
I grew up during World War 11 in the north of England surrounded by William Blake’s “satanic mills.” I came to respect the dignity of hard labor, the spirit of the Luddite and the virtues of frugality, self-reliance and serving the greater good in accord with the Golden Rule. My childhood relationships with other animals […]