Podcast Transcript
Hope
Welcome to the Hope for the Animals Podcast, sponsored by United Poultry Concerns. I’m your host, Hope Bohanec, and you can find all our past episodes at Hope For The Animals Podcast.org.
In this episode, we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to explore spirituality and veganism with Lisa Levinson, the co-founder of Vegan Spirituality and the Interfaith Vegan Coalition. She also works on National Goose Protection Coalition and will share a bit about her work saving wild geese from round ups and slaughter.
But first, I want to bring up a topic that has been on my mind lately. Even though I have dedicated myself to veganism, vegan education, and vegan activism for 30 years, I have always felt that just being vegan is not enough. I believe that we need, as a human society, a fundamental consciousness shift. Really a spiritual awakening. Just getting everyone to eat veggie burgers, I feel like it’s not enough. I feel like we would easily slip back into killing animals and harming each other and the planet if there isn’t a truly deep shift in our psyche, at least a shift in our priorities as a society, and really embracing our compassionate nature. I believe that we must have a respect and reverence for all of life to really turn the corner on every issue we face globally, from climate disruption to racial divides and racism to the suffering of the animals. I don’t think that any of this will truly heal without major shifts in societal consciousness. I don’t feel that religion or spirituality has to be the way to do this; I certainly don’t feel that we must have religion or spirituality, but for me and for a lot of people, I think we see spiritually as a natural ally in this shift. A tool to help us awaken to a global compassion.
But before we bring in Lisa, I wanted to talk about a question out there that most vegans hear at some point about plant life. So, the question is “What is the difference between killing plants and killing animals? Don’t plants feel pain?” I want to explore this question because I have some interesting thoughts about it – or I hope that they are interesting thoughts on it. But when we get this question, I think most people who make this argument are just trying to have a “gotcha” moment. I don’t think they’re really thinking it through thoroughly.
But there are other people who I have had conversations with who are spiritually minded people who evoke this argument about plant life. These individuals really do feel that plants feel pain, have feelings, that they deserve life equally to an animal, so why avoid animal foods, we must eat, so might as well eat both. I know that it might seem very obvious to many of us that there is a huge difference in plant and animal life. I want to give this claim the full examination and consideration that a legitimate dispute deserves, because I have talked to people who really do believe that plants feel pain. There are books and videos out that claim plants feel pain, and feel sensation similar to pain. These are completely unscientific claims, and if we want to start with the science, scientists have done extensive research on this questions, “Where does pain begin in an organism? Where does sensation begin in an organism?” They’ve even looked at where does consciousness, sensation, and emotion begin in an organism?
Science concludes that plants do not experience pain. Or any of those other things I mentioned. That must have a central nervous system or something equivalate and plants do not possess. So going with science, it’s pretty straightforward – plants don’t feel pain. But the folks that believe this aren’t concerned with the science, it’s more on a metaphysical believe that they believe this.
- So let’s start with what we do know- Ask yourself this: Would you rather mow your lawn or hit a dog? Would you rather weed the garden or kick a chicken? There is a drastic difference. We know inherently through observation of behavior that animals have the capacity to suffer and feel pain. Step on a dog’s tail and see the reaction, it’s undeniable. It’s the same way we know a baby feels pain. Pain like I said is a lower brain stem function that all animals, avians, and fish equally possess. Unlike plants, animals cry out when in pain and struggle to get away from physical harm. With regard to the people who say that plants feel pain, I don’t think that their argument is that animals don’t feel pain, but I think it’s important to establish what we absolutely do know: that animals have rich emotional lives, they suffer in misery in farming, and they want to live.
I think that is really interesting to look at people who are close to all this and who both harvest plants and kill animals. I’m talking about small scale farming, do-it-yourselfers, people who slaughter animals in their backyards, people who have killed animals with their own hands, and also have gardens and pick fruits and vegetables. It’s really telling to read their accounts of killing animals in their books and journals and online, even people who are adamant carnivores and have written books on the virtues of meat eating. They recognize that there is something very different about killing an animal compared to picking an apple. They recognize that animals are sentient beings, that they are individuals with emotions – and emotions that they need to soothe in this horrible process. They seem to really crave ritual around the experience of killing an animal, trying to make it more “meaningful.” They talk of honoring the animal, and write about it very differently than about casually picking a cucumber. These authors will articulate guilt, even, and convey discomfort over killing animals themselves. Some express that they don’t want the animal to have “died in vain” and will relish the meat and share the meat to make sure this does not happen, even though they never talk about vegetables this way. This kind of concern and hand-wringing; it’s never expressed for the string beans. They recognize that killing an animal is a matter of blood, and suffering, and a much more significant mortality, so much so that they try to minimize the misery of the farmed animals’ lives and the pain of their deaths, even though killing an animal is a messy, horrible process no matter how humanely you try to do it. Some of these accounts are of grizzly, botched slaughters – I mean, it’s awful, where it seems like the animal couldn’t have suffered more, it’s just unimaginable. I have some of these accounts in my book The Ultimate Betrayal if you are interested in reading them.
There’s a reason that there is no such thing as “humane” zucchini, “happy” carrots, or “cruelty-free” cabbage. People that are close to the process of harvesting plants and killing animals know that there is a huge difference, even if they still eat meat.
With all that said, I am not opposed to speculating that we might not know all the facts yet. That metaphysically, plants may be perceiving something on a level that we cannot measure at this time. If this is the case and plants are experiencing some sort of sensation of discomfort or even pain on some level, then it is even more critical that we eat only plants. That we eat a vegan diet, here’s why. A person eats fewer over all organisms, both plant and animal, when they eat vegan foods because farmed animals eat plants too. When you eat animals, you kill and eat plants and you kill and eat animals and the plants the animals ate, causing more over all killing. So, if we are accepting the premise that plants feel pain and we want to minimize suffering, when you eat only plants, we are reducing the amount of individual entities effected.
Robert Grillo states in his book Farm to Fable, “Even if plants were discovered to be sentient, raising animals for food requires vastly more feed crops than eating plant foods directly from the source. The principle of harm reduction would still logically and ethically compel us to eat plants over animals.”
So even if it were true that plants feel pain, a vegan diet would still cause the least suffering. If we want to be sensitive to all life and live with a light impact, killing the fewest life forms with a vegan diet is a beautiful expression of that compassion. And it’s better for the planet, it’s better ecologically, it’s better for your health. Overall, there are so many critical and crucial and wonderful reasons to eat vegan.
So if you are asked about this subject – if plants feel pain – here are two good answers for you. One is, “Well, would you rather weed your garden or kick a chicken? There is a huge difference between plant and animal life, and we know it inherently.” Another great short quick answer is “When a house is on fire, who do you rescue? Do you rescue the fern or do you rescue the cat?” In both cases, we know who would suffer.
So I’d really love to bring on our speaker now. Today we have Lisa Levinson. She directs In Defense of Animals’ Sustainable Activism Campaign, which offers emotional and spiritual resources for animal activists. She also co-directs the Wild Animals Campaign. She founded Vegan Spirituality to explore veganism as a spiritual practice and she co-founded the Interfaith Vegan Coalition, which provides resources for faith-based vegan advocacy. She also started Public Eye: Artists for Animals to teach compassion for animals through the arts and the Toad Detour to help migrating toads safely cross the road in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lisa has a long history of helping animals.
Welcome Lisa. We’re so happy to have you
Lisa:
Thank you Hope, it’s a delight to be here.
Hope:
Wonderful. So let’s get started with why and when did you go vegan, and how did that lead you to activism? What is Lisa’s story?
Lisa:
Well, so, it’s the long and winding road. I actually think that I was born this way as they say. I do believe that I had the heart of a vegan, though I grew up with the standard American diet. I definitely loved animals, and when I did make the connection between an animal that was on our plate and the actual animal, I would instantly refuse to eat that animal any longer.
But I didn’t really have a lot of agency as a child, so I remember telling my parents “Oh, I want to be vegetarian,” and my dad said “Well, who’s cooking for you?” And I thought, oh, I don’t know! I just kind of grew up doing what they did. Then, when I went out on my own in college, I was able to learn more about what it meant to be vegetarian. At that time I really never had heard the word vegan. But once I got the hang of being vegetarian, I worked at a health food store and made that shift pretty quickly on.
Also I had a stint where I was an intern at a place called Hidden Villa Environmental Program and it was a really wonderful experience. We lived on the farm, and there we had animals. Of course we were taking care of them, as the interns, and I learned while we were there that they actually killed the animals at the end of the year, which was really distressing for me. They literally divided them up between the people who lived on the property, and so the animals that we raised and took care of were sent to slaughter. I can actually remember the day that Brownie – the cow that we actually watched get born – when he was taken off to – in the truck – I ran down the road, I was upset, I was crying, I just thought this was terrible.
But at that point I had already made the choice to be vegetarian. And then fast forward to graduate school which I did in Philadelphia Pennsylvania – and while I was there I was like looking around to kind of associate myself with some new people, some vegetarians, and I found this macrobiotic community.
So at that time I was in my maybe my early or mid-twenties. I met up with a woman who has actually become quite famous, Christina Pirello. She was a macrobiotic chef. She was also vegetarian, and at that time, when you’re vegetarian and macrobiotic, you are vegan because you’re not consuming any dairy products. And so that’s how it really happened, how I became vegan. I didn’t know the word until years later, and then started to do some more research on animal rights and understood even more why that was the way to go.
Hope:
And no eggs, too? For vegan.
Lisa:
Oh, definitely. The macrobiotic community doesn’t eat eggs, at least to my knowledge. So we were no dairy, no eggs, even no honey as well. So it really was vegan. And I learned quite a bit from Christina. She is a fabulous chef, and that got me on my way to cooking and preparing healthy vegan food. And then over the years in Philadelphia…I actually was a mosaic mural artist for many years. And while I was doing that I was going into a lot of inner city communities and working with different nonprofits. And we would go into the communities. And often there would be animals in there, and we would end up rescuing dogs, I would end up helping feed cats, and so this also started the animal rights piece that went along with the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle.
Hope:
What is the Interfaith Vegan Coalition and what do you do? Has what you do changed with the pandemic that we’re in?
Lisa:
Sure. The Interfaith Vegan Coalition – it’s really a group of individuals and organizations that have banded together to get the vegan message of compassion out to spiritual and faith-based communities. And we do this by providing various tools such as – we put together these interfaith kits – they’re vegan advocacy kits – and they’re specific to each religion.
So for example, if you’re Catholic, there’s a Catholic advocacy kit that contains poems, and it has articles, and stories, and event ideas. And even different spiritual practices and ceremonies that might be used within your tradition that you can then take to the leaders of your community and ask them if they might be willing to host these types of events, or just so they begin to integrate vegan values into their place of worship.
So, we have them for different – all different kinds of traditions, from Sikh to Judaism, to paganism – we have a whole series of them. They’re available for people to download on our website, which is www.interfaithvegancoalition.org. What we do as a coalition, we actually have a voice, as a group of religious and spiritual practitioners, to put together media releases with statements.
We also go to various spiritual events, such as The Parliament of the World’s Religions. We went there in 2018 actually, and we had a table, we had vegan food that people could try. We also had videos people could watch, and we did some vegan advocacy. We passed out brochures and talked to people of faith about veganism, and why that is an important next step. So it’s a great opportunity for us to do advocacy work. And we also have tools to help people who are vegan in these communities – that are within these communities – who may want to encourage their place of worship to adopt vegan values and practices.
Hope:
Wonderful. So you’ve moved into spirituality and vegan connection. Why do you think that spirituality is important to veganism? What is the connection between spirituality and veganism?
Lisa:
Well to me, veganism and spirituality are deeply intertwined. In fact, they are one and the same. I would say that my connection to spirituality is through compassion for all living beings. I think that is the foundation of veganism. It’s about the love that we share and the life force that is surrounding and within us. And that all of this is bound together by the spirit of love. And that there’s really no difference between the love that we might share between one another, and the love we might share between different animal companions, or animals we come across in the wild, or different spiritual connections that we might have. So, vegan spirituality really looks at the spiritual nature of all beings, which includes all of the animals.
Hope:
That’s beautiful.
Were you raised in a religious household? What brought you to spirituality?
Lisa:
Well, my household…I grew up with my immediate family, I grew up Jewish, and we did attend- I attended Hebrew school, and we celebrated the major holidays. But we were reformed which is – the practice that we had was more following the major holidays. We didn’t celebrate the weekly Shabad, or keep kosher, or anything of those – that kind, but we did attend a synagogue for major holidays, we did – I did have a be mitzvah with my sister,
The deeper part of my spirituality growing up was connected to my grandparents, because my grandfather was a rabbi. And he was a rabbi in the reform movement, so I grew up with him, learning from him, and understanding the importance of spirituality and of religious practices. And the significance that it has in our lives. So for me, it was a connection to my grandparents.
Then, as I grew up and explored, I actually was very interested in eastern religions, and college, and beyond I was exploring some wicken traditions, and a lot of women’s spirituality including Jewish women’s spirituality. So I did explore in all those ways, and it was almost – I really felt like – there’s a tale, I think it might be a duckling who’s looking for her mom, or parent, and she looks “Are you my parent? Are you my parent?” In a way, I was doing that with spirituality. I was looking to try to see, where do I fit? Do I fit in the Buddhist community? Do I fit in this? And this other community? The Wiccan one? And every time I delved a little deeper I found out …hmmm, this piece of it doesn’t quite fit.
And in the Jewish tradition, I was, at that time, a little frustrated with going to some of the holidays and always hearing these stories about sacrificing animals, and that did not resonate with me. And so I was really searching for something that did resonate. And then, realized that veganism and spirituality together – that was my spiritual calling. And I was at that time leading a group. An animal rights group called Public Eye for Animals. We were a group of artists in Philadelphia who had joined together to teach compassion for animals through the arts.
While we were doing this, we really built a wonderful community of people including actors, and musicians, and singers, who were very talented. We would put together veggie cabarets and we had full on theater productions that we did. Many were funded by the Culture and Animals Foundation, which was quite an honor. Part of what we did was we really started to engage with the community. And we had a kids club, to support vegan kids, and there were other kids who wanted to join in. And we also hosted another group that was a spiritual group. One of our members said, “I’d like to have a vegan church!” She was feeling disconnected from her church, because they would often have events that would have nonvegan food. Several of us were thinking, oh, I had that experience at the synagogue, or I have this experience when I go to the wicken gatherings. So we all decided, let’s create our own group. Sandy Herman, one of the members of our group had been playing around with the phrase “vegan spirituality,” so we adopted that as the name of our group. We met and our goal was really to explore veganism as a spiritual practice, and bring in the concept of ahimsa and also looking at the common ground between all of us, even though we were all from different religious backgrounds. So I think that brings together the different pieces of this puzzle that started vegan spirituality.
Hope:
That is wonderful. And you have online gatherings now, I believe. The Vegan Spirituality online gatherings?
Lisa:
Yes, exactly. Our group that met in Philadelphia was very successful. We actually decided we would host a retreat. And this is many years ago in 2009, and we were surprised to have fifty plus people show up at it. And we realized that maybe there’s a need in the community for this. And so started hosting vegan Thanksgivings, and retreats, and we had our group. I at that time had moved back to California and started a Los Angeles chapter of our Vegan Spirituality group. Then other people have reached out saying they wanted to start their own chapters, so we had people reaching out from different places such as Olympia, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona, and just different places: New York, around the country, and even places in Florida that wanted to do their own group.
So, we started expanding. There are different groups that meet locally, in person, and they all run independently and focus on the idea of vegan spirituality. At one point we thought, what about people in remote areas, who can’t actually make it to any of these events? Judy Carmin and I decided to start these online gatherings where people could join in and really experience the same kind of community connection even though we lived in different areas. We called it our Vegan Spirituality Online Gathering, and we’ve been meeting for a few years. These gatherings include an interview with a vegan spiritual leader. And we share about their practice, and we discuss what they’re doing and how it has impacted our vegan spiritual movement.
Then we also have a closing prayer, and intention that we share. So, it’s a nice gathering. Anyone’s welcome to join in. You can actually sign up going to www.idausa.org/veganspirituality. And then you’ll get the registration form to tune in. We host it once a month. It’s usually the second Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time. It’s something that we host live, but you could also just sign up and get the replay and you can watch it at any time.
Hope:
That’s great. And I know that you had a large retreat scheduled for this year, the Vegan Spirituality Forum and Retreat. But of course because of the pandemic it is unknown if you’re going to have it or not. Did you want to talk about that a little bit? Because it’s a really wonderful idea to be able to come together from all over the country. I hope it can happen at some point.
Lisa:
Yes, certainly. We’re very excited about this event. It’s a Vegan Spirituality Forum and Retreat and it’s actually titled “The 2020 Vision: Creating a World that Works for All.” So we might have to retitle it if we’re going to extend it into 2021. However, this has been an event that’s been like years in the making. Judy Carmin, and also Reverend Carol Saunders and myself have been planning it. The goal is to really bring people together for a collaborative, interactive event. Where we bring together people of various faiths who all want to practice faith-based vegan advocacy.
This retreat, although it does include walking the labyrinth, it’s going to be hosted at the Unity Village, which has lovely grounds. It is also the home of the founders of Unity – that spiritual practice and tradition – and so we’re excited to be on the grounds. They have a convention center there called Unity Village. That’s where we’re going to host. It is going to have elements of self-care and personal reflection, along with community rituals and ceremonies. All of this is going to be giving people the tools and also spiritual foundations for practicing vegan-based advocacy at their place of worship.
Hope:
Where is that?
Lisa:
It’s near Kansas City in Missouri. The main difference between this retreat and other retreats that we’ve done in the past is that this one is focused on faith-based advocacy. We encourage people, whether or not they’re vegan, to come and to join us and to learn how to approach veganism in their place of worship. these are the main goals that we have. We’re bringing people of diverse backgrounds together to speak. Our speakers are Dr. Milton Mills, Victoria Moran, and Dr. Lisa Kemerer, who has written a book on world religions and animals. We’re excited to bring together these different leaders, but we’re going to have workshops where people get to learn, such as, how does Jewish veg accomplish their vegan advocacy? We’re going to have director of programs come and talk to us about the programs that she has put together that have been very effective.
We’re also going to have people in different communities. It’s going to be a real collaborative feeling of networking and sharing tools so that people can bring them back into their places of worship. We plan to have this event perhaps this or maybe next year. You are to check it out. Registrations are open. The webpage is thespiritualforum.org/vegan-retreat. If you go there, we also have the event listed on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/VeganSpiritualityCommunity/), where you can learn more about it, you can sign up for it. Any registrations taken will be honored for the following year if it is rescheduled due to the pandemic.
We’re also going to be hosting the Religion and Animals Exhibit that was curated by Dr. Lisa Kemerer. That exhibit includes panels that have descriptions and quotes and animal advocacy that has been taking place in each religion. We have these for all of the major religions and it’s a wonderful traveling exhibit if anyone is interested in this exhibit coming to their place of worship you can contact me, or you can reach out to the Interfaith Vegan Coalition at interfaith@idausa.org. Just to find out more. We are also putting together brochure versions so if you’re not able to have the exhibit travel to your place of worship, you could order the vegan brochure version of the panel for that exhibit. We’re really trying to get this information out there to a broader audience.
Hope:
Yeah, that’s great, and I’m really excited about the forum and the retreat. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go – we’ll just see what life is like whenever it is happening. But you mentioned a couple of website addresses and I’ll put those in the show notes so anyone that’s interested in learning about the retreat and also the art exhibit you were talking about. I’ll put those links in the show notes.
So, let’s see. Another aspect to this that you work on is sustainable activism support, such as support for animal activists. I know you have the Animal Activist Support Line. I’d love for you to talk about that. It can be traumatizing, really, for people, when you first hear about all the horrors that the animals endure. Also, I think there’s too – and I’ve experienced this – a collective kind of trauma that can occur after years and years of having to be exposed to the videos, and the horrible things that happen to animals. I know for myself I have to compartmentalize and go into those videos and that information with kind of shields up, you know, to protect myself. But I have to do it. It’s part of my work, my job, and my life that I want to help these animals. So, we must, you know, know about it. It can be, you know, mentally exhausting. So I think this is an important aspect. So please please talk about this – the Animal Activist Support line, and sustainable activist support.
Lisa:
Sure. And thank you for mentioning this, and describing how it feels, because that is often what we experience on our support line. We run an Animal Activist Support line. We’ve been doing this for several years at In Defense of Animals. That was the idea of Dr. Marilyn Kroplik and I’ve helped to manage it. I also have a background in group therapy. I worked as a therapist for many years at the Urban Center for Eating Disorders and so I have been bringing those skills into my current work at In Defense of Animals working to support animal activists.
When people call us, they share about their struggles. They can be from a variety of things. It may be personal struggles that are causing them difficulty with their animal activism. Or it could be something going on in our community. For example, just recently we had Reagan Russell, who is an activist, who was killed by a slaughterhouse truck during a protest in Canada. Activists called our support line reaching out for some compassion and for some counseling to try to deal with the emotions that come up – the grief, anger, sadness. We do counseling in the moment.
We also have an extensive lists of vegan therapists. When people contact us and want ongoing therapy, we’re able to refer them to therapists who understand and also adhere to their vegan values. We also have different resources that we’ve gathered through the years. We have a resource list that you can access through www.idausa.org/resources. This resource list has mental, physical, and spiritual resources listed there for anyone who’s interested.
One of the favorite and most popular resources that I like to share is for compassion fatigue, which is what happens when animal activists, and also people in other fields in the health care field experience. Such people can become overwhelmed, they can become frustrated and even depressed over time from dealing with ongoing trauma. Even first responders feel that trauma. Animal activists, who are on the front lines, also experience this type of trauma, from witnessing animal abuse. This can happen whether you’re caring for animals in a rescue situation, working at a farm sanctuary, or if you are watching videos for your job, or happen to be watching them while you’re signing petitions on social media. This is a very important piece of self-care –to try to prevent and heal from compassion fatigue.
We put together a page of resources and that website is www.idausa.org/compassion-fatigue. There are videos, articles, and all sorts of helpful tips right there on the page. As part of what I have done for activists, I have hosted sustainable activism webinars where we’ve interviewed people in the animal rights community and also psychologists who specialize in dealing with people who share their tools and resources. It’s another great resource that you can access from the compassion fatigue page or from our resources page. There are years of different webinars that are specifically created for activists. We have interviewed Anita Craintz of the Save movement who is now really being impacted by the death of Reagan Russell. We’ve also interviewed people who are compassion fatigue therapists such as Jennifer Blau, who runs a special podcast on compassion fatigue.
There are so many resources out there. We’re really just trying to direct people towards them. So, we encourage people to take a look at our website. You can find on our events page, idausa.org/events. You can link directly into these sustainable activism webinars. Also, you can join in – we have a support group that we lead online. We’ve been doing this as well for several years. And we have people from all around the country who join in. You can find more information about that on the events page. I facilitate the group and we have people who join in just to talk with other activists and get a sense of camaraderie and perhaps acceptance and even encouragement for the projects that they’re working on.
Hope:
I think that’s really important work, necessary work, and yeah I feel it. I’ve been doing this work for thirty years and I’ve always been able to really compartmentalize very easily. For many years I could watch any video – the worst of the worst of the torture of these poor animals – and just go on with my day. And it was fine.
But that has kind of shifted for me. Maybe in the last five years or so. Where sometimes these videos will send me off in tears for the day. You know, where it’s just – I don’t know if I’ve reached a saturation point after thirty years of it? But you know, it’s true, it’s fatiguing. I think compassion fatigue is a good way to describe it. People don’t realize what activists have to endure day in and day out. Not just animal activists, but anyone you know who is working for the welfare of others. Just to live in another’s trauma is, you know, having that empathy – so much so that we’re willing to dedicate our lives to trying to help, and to stop theses horrors. It certainly affects your psyche and it’s good that we do that self-care and that we try to be sure that it’s not affecting us so that we can do the work in the most effective way that we can.
Lisa:
Oh, definitely. And there’s more to it. There’s self care. there’s also something called community care which Paul Gorsky has done some research on animal activists. He found that a lot of activists ended up dropping out of the movement for other types of broader systemic issues such as racism, sexism, and bullying of different kinds. So, that is another piece of what we are trying to educate people around, when they join the animal rights movement, to let them know that we also have to be mindful of these other “isms” that com into our lives and that can be very draining as well.
Hope:
Yes. And care for each other, and support each other in the work that we do. Because it’s critical that we all are at our best and feel comfortable and safe in our activist spaces. You know?
Lisa:
Yes, exactly.
Hope:
So, I want to switch focus just a little bit. Since we of course love birds here at UPC,
I wanted to ask you about your new National Goose Protection Coalition and this is a campaign against Wildlife Services. Tell us a little about that, what wildlife services is, and what this coalition is doing to help geese.
Lisa:
Sure. We started this coalition because we’ve been receiving different concerns about geese from our supporters and people who care about geese and don’t want to see them rounded up and being killed in their communities. So, we put this together in an effort to provide resources and also mentorship and assistance.
Hope:
Tell us what is it that’s happening? Start from the beginning. What’s happening to the geese? Why are these roundups happening? How does it work? Who does it?
Lisa:
Yes. Good question. So, many people don’t know this, that if you live in an environment – perhaps there’s a little water in your housing development – a little pond – and then you’ll find that there’s waterfowl there. You’ll find different birds. And geese may come. Often there are droppings the geese leave. As a result, people in these housing developments are upset, and they don’t like that. They’ll make a complaint perhaps to their housing association. Then the housing association will reach out to the USDA with their complaint, or to their department of natural resources statewide. When they do this, the complaint gets registered and a contract is often set up between wildlife services to come in and kill the geese.
Essentially it’s a truly horrible genocide of these geese because what happens is they’re rounded up. Literally they’re put in little fencing enclosures that encourage them to go in a central location, and then they’re put into crates. They’re separated from their families, and geese are among the most family-bonded of birds. And for them to be separated…. They do this generally while the birds are molting, which means it’s the time where the birds have their young, and their feathers are changing so that they cannot fly during this time. That’s the time you would think that we would be giving them their peace and privacy to raise their young, that’s exactly the time when when these roundups occur, and….
Hope:
Because they can’t fly away.
Lisa:
Because they can’t fly away. They are also there with their babies and they separate the babies from the parents. They generally kill the babies, and also the parents are – they call it euthanized, but they’re gassed. Gassing, when this refers to geese, is terribly traumatic and painful, because the geese designed to hold their breath in low oxygen at high altitudes and also underwater. And so their death is not a quick and easy one. It’s painful, traumatic, and can last up to forty minutes to an hour. This is a traumatic experience. It’s cruel. And because it’s such an awful experience to watch, the geese get upset of course, they’re vocalizing. This is usually done in the wee hours of the morning before people get up, so that when they wake up people who care about the geese, who are used to coming out and feeding the geese, they’ll see just a few little feathers left over. It’s just painful for people who care about geese to find out after the fact that they’ve been rounded up and slaughtered. Often these are referred to as a “charity harvest”. One way to get buy-in from the local communities is the flesh of the birds is going to be donated to a charity, to a food bank.
However, no reputable food banks will accept goose flesh because it is tainted with poisons because they are in waters that are laden with different pesticides from the runoff from our agriculture, and also from different types of chemicals to prevent the algal blooms and other things in our waterways. They’re swimming in this, they’re ingesting it, and they have high toxins in their flesh. So it’s dangerous for people to actually consume it.
A lot of the slaughtering that is done is done illegally, because most of the processing plants are specialized for chickens and for animals that are in grown or raised in controlled environments. And so you’re really mixing the wild types of bacteria with the domestic – mixing the wild, with the domestic, in the slaughter process. These machines are notoriously difficult to clean, and so a lot of the mixing can cause these contaminants to wind up in the food that people who eat animals will end up eating.
Hope:
And the geese are killed by wildlife services and I just want to be clear they’re a government organization whose sole purpose really is to go out and slaughter wildlife in numerous different ways and different settings. They kill just millions upon millions of animals yearly – all kinds of different animals.
So, what does the National Goose Protection Coalition do to help with this situation?
Lisa:
Well, first of all we’ve joined together with other people across the country who may be running their individual local groups to protect geese. Or they might be individuals who are concerned about geese in their communities and want to help.
We’ve joined together first of all to share resources, because that’s important. We communicate with one another. If there’s a round-up in one community, another person from a different community might share “Here are some humane methods that you can reach out to your local authorities about.” We really have an opportunity to network with each other, which is important. We’re not all isolated. We’re connected.
The other things that we do is through Defense of Animals we can send out media releases to alert the public about what’s going on. As I mentioned, this sometimes happens in the cover of night and nobody Is aware until it’s already occurred. But what we’re trying to do is provide people with resources and also access to communications, our communications team that can send out media releases beforehand, and maybe stop these round-ups before they happen. And create a plan to prevent future ones.
We’re working with local communities to put together these media releases. We’re also creating petitions and we’re creating billboards for the community to call out the decision makers and make sure that other people are aware of what they are doing.
Another program that we’re involved in is a research project to look at, statewide all across the United States, what the financial impacts of this – how much are communities spending on these round-ups, are they effective, and how much taxpayer money is being wasted.
We have a few different angles that we are looking at, and we hope to share these in the coming months.
Hope:
Yes, it’s upsetting to think that this is all because, there are some droppings around, and then someone complains. Probably that someone just wants the poop cleaned up. They have no idea that the authorities would go and just kill all the birds. That’s probably not what they wanted. Unfortunately, it is the cheapest and easiest thing to do with them.
It’s really important work to try and find alternatives and to bring community awareness that that is the possible outcome for these birds, that they’re just going to get slaughtered. So, really great work.
Lisa:
Yeah, thank you so much. We feel it’s important because there are a lot of myths out there. Geese are blamed for contaminating the water, which is actually mostly caused by human leaky septics. They get blamed in ways; it’s not really their fault, let’s say, that these things are happening. The poop, actually, is a great fertilizer, and some communities have created a business of packaging it up and selling it. There are a lot of alternatives in place. It’s actually something very doable. There are many communities out there who’ve been successful and have now a program where the geese are either resident geese who are there in smaller numbers, or, the geese are migrating after their molt. So, there are these success stories. We hope to encourage different communities to adopt these methods so that we can have more and more success, and hopefully turn the tides. And maybe prevent the USDA from becoming wealthy at the expense of the suffering geese.
Hope:
Well, we’re just about out of time. We’re going to need to wrap it up. But I did want to ask you,
what is your visions for a post-pandemic world? Your vegan vision for a post-pandemic world. What gives you hope?
Lisa:
Thank you for asking that question. I’ll combine them. One of the things that gives me hope is actually seeing what’s happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. As I’m watching and seeing people – all kinds of people joined together in these peaceful protests and really reaching out for systemic change, I see that this is the future for the vegan movement as well. That when we actually reach that tipping point, that there will be people marching in the streets. That there will be concerted effort to make systemic change. That we no longer have these slaughterhouse businesses. That it switches over to a vegonomy, or the veconomy, however you want to say it. Our vegan economy. And there are lots of plans in the works.
But as this comes into fruition, I really see a lot of harmony and peace between people, and also between people and animals. There’s some beauty in the pandemic where animals started to come back into the cities. They came back into places where they had been forbidden. I really see that in our vegan world that we have that type of camaraderie with the animals. That they come back and integrate with us into our world. We’re happy to live with them. We support and appreciate what they bring to our world. And so we’re living in this integrative way.
Years ago I was traveling in Brazil, and I remember – actually this might have been in Peru where I was – and it was such a beautiful experience to be in a kitchen there with people. They were preparing vegan food. And there were toucans just sitting on the ledges – they were there, they were enjoying the experience of being part of the activity. And that people in the kitchen were sharing food with them. I really see that we would live all in a harmonious way. That also leaves room for animals that are predatory as well. Just like in Los Angeles, we have mountain lions here. It’s wonderful to see our community support and advocate for these lions. I’ve known other places – perhaps parts of Idaho, or Nebraska, places where they are killing the mountain lions. Here, our mountain lions are celebrities, and I really see that this would change, for all the animals. All of our relationships with animals will change. We won’t have these animals with, as they call it bad reputations, like coyotes or skunks, and how there are a lot of myths about these animals, and reasons why people don’t want to be around them.
They bring so much to our world. I’m hoping that in our vegan world we have this amazing camaraderie and appreciation for all of the animals. And that we can live in harmony with one another.
Hope:
I hope that comes to pass. Post pandemic.
Lisa:
Yes, yes, me too. Part of it is we’ve got to see it and feel it happening. If we can do that in specific ways, and even for a few minutes each day, I do believe that helps to amplify our message and to set our intention.
Hope:
Well, Lisa, thank you so much for being with us. It’s been a wonderful conversation. I’ve really enjoyed it. Do you have any final thoughts? And how can people get ahold of you?
Lisa:
Yes. Well, I’ll tell you a couple things. One is, if people are – anyone out there who hears of a goose roundup, or is aware of complaints going on, you’re welcome to reach out to us at geese@idausa.org.
If anyone who wants to experience the religion in animals exhibit, or has questions about a retreat, or wants to start a local vegan spirituality group, you’re welcome to reach out to me via interfaith@idausa.org. And we will follow up with you, and share resources.
And we also have our support line, which is www.idausa.org/activistsupport. Those are some great ways to get in touch and I look forward to connecting.
Hope:
Thank you so much Lisa Levinson. It’s been a wonderful conversation.
Thank you, for listening to the Hope for the Animals Podcast. You can support this podcast by leaving a rating or review wherever you listen to your podcasts. And please, have hope for a better world for animals and live vegan.
