GUEST OPINION: The suffering of animals GUEST OPINION: The suffering of animals (December 15, 2004)

By Carroll Ann Hodges

"Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy" -- Matthew Scully, St. Martins, paperback, $14.95. Available at Kepler's.

Ever wonder how an animal becomes dinner? How meat can be so cheap, costing little more today than 40 years ago in today's dollars, and far, far less in constant dollars?

Is your vision of farm animals one of bucolic serenity with contented cows on the range, suckling pigs lolling about in straw and mud, chickens strutting about in barn yards cackling and laying eggs in nests? Or any variation of the above?

Well think again -- and read this powerful expose of factory farming in this country wherein live sentient innocent creatures that have become nothing more than production units, crammed into tiny spaces between bars, with no room to lie down or even give birth, never to feel the sun or see the sky.

But factory farming isn't the only atrocity humans inflict on our fellow creatures. In "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy," Matthew Scully has dug deeply into the hideous underbelly of trophy hunting, whaling, laboratory experimentation, and other examples of exploitation.

Scully had the courage, determination, and immense fortitude to enter the worlds of these enterprises, not by stealth but openly seeking the guidance of managers and practitioners. His narrative is not just a theoretical polemic but, rather, an eyewitness account of the misery to which animals are subjected.

Scully does not simply cite the usual litany of abuses ascribed by animal welfare groups to factory farming -- he takes the reader on a personal tour of the Smithfield pig farms in Virginia, the conditions of which are horrifying beyond comprehension. One is appalled by the total lack of even the most rudimentary acknowledgement that the millions of animals contained and confined inside these barns are living creatures, deprived totally of any connection to the real world in which they evolved to live.

He takes us "inside the tent" of the annual convention of Safari Club International, with its grisly appeals to those who would kill the last elephant on earth for its tusks or the last sable for its incredibly beautiful horns.

He takes us to the International Whaling Commission to hear the words of Japan's and Norway's representatives who insist that killing whales is part of their culture. How dare we deprive them -- even though the methods of butchery now used resemble nothing in their culture's heritage and numbers of the world's largest mammal have plummeted in the face of electronic harpoonery.

The book is so compelling I kept pen in hand, underlining whole paragraphs on nearly every page. Scully's revealing testimony is all the more damning because he is decidedly not the typical -- or typically portrayed -- animal rights advocate. He is, quite the contrary, the embodiment of "Christian conservative" -- a Catholic, and a former senior speechwriter for none other than George W. Bush. But he is truly a compassionate conservative if ever there was one.

I must commend this book to anyone who truly cares about animals -- especially if he or she also eats them or hunts them. Even those who care only about the healthiness of the raw meat in supermarket cases might be appalled by the circumstances under which that meat is produced.

In this season of festivity and feasting, it seems appropriate to give a little thought to the quality of the lives sacrificed to provide for our indulgence. "Dominion" is a seminal work and enormously enlightening. Copies exist in all our local libraries; check it out.

Carroll Ann Hodges is a Woodside resident who lives on Canada Road with two cats and a horse.

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