Photo by Thomas Gray Salter.
A half century of community organizational activism... We cannot run away from the Winds of Challenge and Change. We have to take History and ride with it. Always ahead, always toward the Sun. And always aware that Democracy is natural and, given half a chance, it will always flourish. We have big fish to fry and we're going to have to do it in our own home-grown skillet -- over a long-burning fire from the timber of our own forests.
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Musings On PETA
by Hunter Gray, 21 January 2009

A little tired of political stuff for the moment, I happened to run across an hour HBO special featuring one of the co-founders of PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. There was a time, and it was a fairly long time, that I was politely critical of the group -- though I really knew little about it. My inclinations were to sort of write "them" off as East Coast/West Coast do-gooders, well meaning folks, maybe a little cracked. I was surprised when I learned that an old lawyer companero, Phil Hirschkop, had become their attorney. We had encountered the very good Phil when he was a finishing-up Georgetown University law student -- and he came down to help us in Eastern North Carolina. Soon thereafter, as a lawyer, he was a great and loyal help, much involved with Kunstler and Kinoy and Stavis in some key cases our campaign engendered. His most famous case, not connected with our work, was the signal Loving v Virginia -- which ended all remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the U,S. Later, he represented the Hunt brothers in Texas [silver speculation etc] and eventually, among other things, came to represent PETA.

But despite Phil's work with the organization, I remained -- as many still do -- sort of critical of the PETA "busy-bodies." But somewhere along the line, I did -- at a glacial pace -- undergo something of a process of change. My great pet coyote of yore, Good, was a key factor in this -- to say nothing of the long string of our family's furry friends [virtually all of them strays, later some from local pounds], and clearly the Great Cloudy [and now of course, the equally great Sky.]

I'm not a vegetarian by any stretch and our freezer is packed with elk meat, thanks to Cameron and Josie. I strongly support hunting for meat -- and, in very special cases, as Ritual. I don't really like city hunters -- and I very much scorn those who are after "trophies." I haven't trapped in decades [Thomas, during his recent visit here, was fascinated by my one surviving Number 4 Victor Doublespring and by my trapping tales -- especially the time I caught an eagle by accident and spent the better part of two hours freeing the understandably very crabby bird.]. I do support trapping as economic subsistence -- Natives, farm and ranch kids, anyone. How could the great great great grandson of John Gray [Hatchiorauquasha] -- leader of the Mohawk [with some St Francis Abenaki] fur hunters in the Columbia and Snake river country and the Family Culture Hero -- ever say otherwise? No way.

PETA and I obviously disagree on all of the foregoing.

But I agree with PETA when it comes to its opposition to medical or other experiments with animals. And I'm appalled, more each year, about the growing number of dogs and cats that are callously abandoned by their owners -- and I certainly agree super strongly with the "do gooders"on the awfulness of that endless river of tragedies.

PETA doesn't understand wild-life matters in the rural areas -- and especially in the wilderness context. There is a natural balance of nature. A now time-honored example -- which occurred long, long before PETA and back in my own early time -- involved the mule deer in the North Kaibab. That's a heavily timbered wilderness setting bordered by the Grand Canyon on the south, and high desert to the north and east and west. It's a large area, but exists as its own isolated world. The mule deer cannot easily get into the Canyon and the high desert is not their habitat by any stretch. Bounty hunters began to enter the area after lions for whom mule deer are natural prey -- Arizona in those days was paying $150 per lion scalp -- and wiped out almost all of the North Kaibab lions. The mule deer herds multiplied astronomically -- and were then struck pervasively by consequent famine and disease. When the lions slowly"returned," the balance was slowly restored.

But, when I watched the co-founder of PETA patiently "doing her thing," I liked her -- and thought again that the outfit is truly on the Good Side. I'm still surprised that I've changed my mind so substantially. Not known for doing that.

Anyway, just a few words and thoughts on a slow late afternoon.

And the psychic Sky is watching me very, very closely as I write this.


Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]
In the mountains of Eastern Idaho
Nialetch / Onen

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COMMENTARY:

Sam Friedman writes: Interesting thoughts indeed, Hunter. And deep. I have two questions for you, though:

1. I have known a lot of eastern working class city dwellers-- articularly in Michigan, but also in NJ--who have gone hunting for meat to eat; and many more who have gone fishing for food. Indeed, I walk over a bridge coming home from work and often see people fishing in the Raritan River, and I am pretty sure that in most cases this is an important part of their diet. Why do you indicate some dislike for them based on where they live?

2. I certainly oppose some of what is done to animals in labs, but I also support the use of mice and even some primates in research into HIV/AIDS vaccines, hep C vaccines, and, indeed, Lupus vaccines (if relevant). Am I reading your words right that you oppose this?

I look forward to learning your thoughts on these matters. They are very difficult ones--particularly #2--on which my views sometimes change too.

Hunter Gray responds: You're always taking up for those Big City people, Sam. But I guess they sometimes need a good advocate like you. Seriously, if in addition to "the sport of it", they are also interested in meat, I can go along with their doings. They're obviously a factor -- vis a vis my very clearly pointed North Kaibab example -- in maintaining the balance of nature along with the more numerous local hunters. But many of the city hunters I've seen are poorly trained in hunting and gun safety, more than likely drink alcohol [which never mixes sensibly with firearms], often start forest fires, and wind up getting lost or stranded in inclement weather, even when such has been preceded via radio warnings by local authorities. Some are interested only in "the head and the horns" for taxidermy/mounting purposes.

I recall an elk season in Northern Arizona where a great many of the Phoenix and Tucson dudes failed to heed heavy snow warnings. Several hundred were trapped and had to, via great local effort and expense, be rescued by Forest Service personnel, sheriff's men, and no end of local volunteers. Nineteen were never rescued and obviously died. In some cases, their scattered bones were found in the spring. [With my Model A, I got two out and their vehicle as well -- one man had suffered a moderate heart attack. The other man was an Air Force colonel and did, without my solicitation, write a very laudatory letter of reference re me to the Coconino National Forest -- and that letter followed me into the Army in due course.]

So I have seen the "difficult" side of Big City hunters. I think many of them need the services of professional guides.

Among the blessings of my Special Lands, the vast Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area, was the fact there were no other hunters of any kind within many, many miles. I've always been a lone hunter.

I am now against any medical experimentation using animals. We had a big flap here at Pocatello about that -- and it stopped.

Sam Friedman responds: I agree about the need for guides for some of them. Others do just fine. May sometimes be a class thing, or a rural roots thing. How would you develop vaccines and medicines without animals? or should we forego them?

Hunter Gray responds: As you know, and I say this seriously, I am pretty critical of western medicine. I also think we all should place much emphasis on dealing effectively with the environmental situations which produce or at least enhance much illness. [I grant that not every medical ill is environmentally generated. Lupus is among the many that are genetic -- but in some instances of these there may be secondary environmental factors.

Of course, we vigorously support our very fine Thomas -- on the brink of becoming an MD. But he has much faith in, and some knowledge of, American Indian medicine as well.

Back in 1966 or so, a student assistant at University of North Carolina showed me a complex of cages with many rats and mice. "They're all scheduled to get leukemia", he told me. They were, at that point, happy little creatures. Never forgot that -- and have never heard yet of a real cure for blood cancer.

Sam Friedman responds: and yet, chemotherapies do wonders with Hodgkins Disease and indeed even leukemia. I imagine they were developed at the cost to the mice. My daughter might well not be alive without the sacrifice of the mice or whatever to do these experiments.

So, just as you opt for hunting and killing animals to feed people, I opt for lab mice being killed to keep people from dying of various diseases. I guess we differ on this one--but that poses no problems for me

Hunter responds to Sam: Nor any problems for me. As William James put it, it's a "pluralistic universe." I have, however, staunchly resisted chemo drugs in my personal med situation.

Norla Antinoro wrote: Having been a biomedical research scientist doing those studies, I am ambivalent. Yes, we still need animal testing. But we need to be very careful to make sure it is necessary, humane as it can be, and that the animals are treated with compassion.

I have seen hundreds of animals killed for studies that were being done just because somebody got a wild idea and had a few dollars left in their grant budget. And I have seen poorly conceived studies that involved terrible cruelty that was totally unnecessary to meet the aims of the research. If the animal rights people did not have some valid points they would not make such an impact.

Eventually we will replace most animals studies with computer models, tissue culture, tissue cloning and similar things. But in the final analysis we will continue to need some animal studies for a very long time because we simply cannot duplicate they complexity of a whole animal using computers and tissue culture. I would not be alive today without the studies done on animals. Heart
surgery was studied and perfected on animals. Transplants were as well.

Many valid points on both sides. Unfortunately I see both and stand firmly on both sides. A difficult stance.

John Salter responds: Not an original thought, I know, but is there any difference between raising animals for medical tests and raising them to eat? In fact, wouldn't an animal which has been used in tests have a potentially greater legacy than one that ends up in my stomach?

My little daughter was forced to dissect a fetal pig a couple years ago and hasn't eaten meat since then. Evidently, it wasn't a pretty sight. I like meat. But more and more I question why. Not that I'm going vegetarian. Just questioning why as I eat it.

Cornet Joyce comments: Two out of five americans, approximately, favor torturing humans. Any idea what proportion favors torturing other critters? And are the two categories ever joined in polls?

Hunter Gray comments: I don't consider my opposition to laboratory experimentation with animals to be anything other than perfectly consistent with my basic cultural values. I wouldn't tag those values "Luddite" or "Anarcho Primitivist" or any other such western-world ideological gobbledygook term -- just Traditional, emanating from my deepest headwaters. Domestic animals [cattle, sheep, goats and pigs et al.] are conceived, nurtured, fed -- and, in time, feed their people: a fair bargain truly in accord with eons-old Cosmic Balance. [Horses and mules are frequently buddies of people.] Meat is necessary for a genuinely healthy human body -- but, of course, vegetables and fruit are as well. If I had to choose between those categories, I'll take meat.

The hunting process is an ages-old contest between human and wild animal -- almost always in the context of a kind of equality. I've always been inclined to see it as a mystical -- even spiritual -- affair. Others, of course, from other backgrounds, may see hunting in a purely secular context. Either way, however, there is the element of egalitarian contest.

But taking dogs and cats, mice and rats, into a cold-blooded laboratory setting, and slicing them up intricately, exploring their most private facets -- or injecting them with diseases --well, I just don't buy that. Dogs and cats are natural friends of Humanity, and mice and rats can be as well. Some years ago, a "lab rat" was given to Josie, then at St Mary's school at Grand Forks. Wonderful little friend, who we named Betty. I used to feed her Ritz Crackers in the early morning hours -- and she happily danced and ran excitedly whenever she saw me. And then, suddenly, she had large malignant tumors. We spent around one hundred dollars in an effort to save her -- but she passed on.

Some hair-splitters would probably accuse me of "inconsistencies" -- logic-wise.

And they might have a point -- in their culture.

But, as I say, I'm a Traditionalist -- in my Cosmic Circle.

Michael Marino writes: With regard to one slice of a much larger issue, and the small slice is the subject of medical testing with animals: Rats are, of course, frequently used for testing medications. Supposedly, theoreticlly, or statistically, their reactions to medications are similar to ours. They breed, for examples, lines of epileptic rats -- which strikes me as being pretty immoral in the first place -- and give them experimental drugs to see if the stuff is carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic, etc. Very often, the labels on these medications, when they first come out for humans, have notes like: "* Stopseizuresdeaditol is a known carcinogen in rats"

So I was prescribed with of these. It might have been divalproex, a medication based on divalproate. (Somebody, somewhere, gets paid to make up all those stupid names.) In any event, I went to get the "data sheet" thing the pharmacists hand out that tells me about all the side effects and suchlike, with the result that I came back to the good doctor and said I would not be interested in switching to whatever it was because it was a mutagenic or carcinogenic (I think this has happened with three alternative medications suggested: one was a carcinogen, one was a mutagen, and the third listed "Sudden Unexplained Death Episodes" in its list of side effects -- these were Sudden Unexplained Death Episodes during the human trials that came after the rat trials). The good doctor made that sound that scoffing people make to indicate that they are scoffing and he said, "Well, sure -- IN RATS!" as if it were ridiculous to think that it might also be bad for humans, too.

This gentleman's seeming opinion of the validity of the data on rat trials should give plenty of ammo for PETA. I would not be surprised to see that his opinion were widespread -- I doubt that Neurontin would have ever been given the green light to proceed to human trials if the rats had been having Sudden Unexplained Death Episodes.

For those who currently take Neurontin: So far as I noted, 0.39% of people who take it drop dead almost immediately, and the other 99.61% were fine -- that is, it (seems to) either kill you right away, or it is not fatal to you. Like Kryptonite or something.

For those who are considering trying Neurontin for control of seizure disorder, or for any other purpose: no person has ever had a second Sudden Unexplained Death Episode. The probability is pretty low, but that;s one serious side effect!

The data sheets I read did not mention any person dropping dead after taking a placebo, so, if you get the chance to be in one of these studies, ask to be in the control group.

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