On “Refuge,” “Rights,” and “Put Down”

The language problem we here in America are having regarding animals is quite startling in its Orwellian-ness as of late. In the past week, three examples stand out as so compelling I had to devote a post to them.

1.    I briefly wrote about the slaughter of mountain lions on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge last year, but there’s no way anything I wrote would ever come close to Deb Durant’s treatment over at Invisible Voices. When you consider a refuge is supposed to be a shelter–protection from danger–it is a wee bit ironic that, as Deb writes:

[R]efuges are primarily places to hunt. The refuge management wants to maintain the prey species population so that there is a large enough population of the prey species to justify the “need” for hunting, and thus make the hunters happy. You get one guess as to where a large amount of the refuges’ money comes from. A more accurate name, instead of wildlife refuge, would be hunter refuges.

And what’s worse . . .

In addition to ignoring basic population biology principles to justify killing mountain lions and propping up hunting revenues, the AGFD is using radio collars on the mountain lions to track them down to kill them, in what amounts to a canned hunt. Why are they wearing radio collars to begin with? As part of a costly research project which is obviously being made absolutely worthless by the fact that the subjects are killed.

Please read Deb’s post, if only for your personal edification. She has some great links for further info AND she has a list of what we can do about this.

2.    According to The Daily Green‘s column, The Green Carpet:

A radical animal rights group attempted to disrupt the Humane Society of the U.S.’s Genesis Awards, held Saturday, March 29, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, claiming that Los Angeles is the country’s number one puppy killer because our pounds euthanize unwanted animals.

First, the word radical. What makes them radical? Were they wearing "I’m a Radical" T-shirts? Next, why on earth is it radical to not want to kill healthy animals? Oh, wait . . . euthanize.

But wait, there’s more:

The foiled protest (the dozen or so protesters were instantly escorted off the property) seemed a tad ironic considering the award show was honoring news and entertainment media for raising public awareness of animal issues.

What was ironic was not the protest, but that fact was evidently lost on the reporter. But back to "rights," as the faux pas continues:

Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle tells us that animal rights and the environmental movement go hand in hand. "There’s an inseparability between animals and the environment. In order to give animals homes, we need to protect the state of the atmosphere and not have greenhouse gases because animals will suffer if we do. We have to be concerned about this thin layer of life on this very small planet."

Reread the reporter’s intro sentence, then reread Wayne’s quote. He said nothing about animal rights. Now, I don’t mean to come down hard on the reporter, as this kind of language flipping happens quite frequently (Check out Will Potter’s vigilance regarding language. It certainly gives him plenty of fodder, as well.). But if I am to understand correctly, the demonstrators were animal rights activists, Wayne is (presumably) an animal rights activist, but the difference is that the radicals don’t want to kill healthy animals? That is a conclusion easily reached via the verbiage of this article. But I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the intention.

There’s room to comment, if you’d like. As always, a gentle nudge in the direction of education and clarification would be nice.

3.    Finally, about all those unwanted animals . . . .

On Oprah’s show about puppy mills on Friday, we heard the following inaccurate usages of language or euphemisms: "euthanize, " "put down" and "put to sleep." I was waiting for someone to slip and say "kill," but alas, if the word was spoken, I missed it (and I’ve got DVR, so I don’t think I missed it).

Of course, in the article referenced above in #2, "euthanize" was the word of choice, as well.

Other than pointing out the way language has come to belie what’s really going on, and suggesting we comment, write letters, etc…, I don’t know how to change this situation that has become so deeply troubling. If anyone has any ideas, I’m all ears . . .