Hillary Rettig

Your weekly compendium of global animal-related news.

1. We’ll start with some retroactive props to the Obama administration for negotiating an ivory ban with China in October. It’s a Big Biden Deal for the elephants.

2. 

   Also some good news from Betty’s own state of Florida, where the senate approved a “Hot Car” bill shielding Good Samaritans who break a car window to save a person or animal in distress from legal repercussions. Gov. Scott is expected to sign, so I guess that will lift him one rung in hell.

3. Umami! Target now offering its own brand of plant-based proteins in Korean BBQ, teriyaki, smoky chipotle, and mushroom miso flavors.
4. Too bad we need them, but glad they’re here: pet food pantries growing nationally.
5. Young gorillas collaborate to dismantle poachers’ traps. “This is absolutely the first time that we’ve seen juveniles doing that,” says researcher.
6. Wendy’s testing vegan burger in Columbus, OH, Columbia, SC, and Salt Lake City, UT. (This one’s a big deal for me personally, as I love Wendy’s but haven’t eaten there in more than a decade.)
7. Thanks an ocelot! Peru sentences its first wildlife trafficker. (And check out the picture of that cutie.)
8. Great work activists! South Korea banning dolphin imports from the notorious Taiji Hunt.
9. From the “the biggest dopes are always social-conservative dopes” department: “Russian prosecutors have begun considering whether media coverage of the unexpected friendship between a male tiger and goat at a safari park in the country’s far east counts as gay propaganda.” Also: the goat’s fans have “begun a campaign to elect him to parliament, arguing that he would be braver and more honest than current MPs.”
10. Paging Hagrid! “Though it does not breathe fire, the olm has several attributes fitting a creature of mythology. It can live as long as a hundred years and survive without food for 10. It is blind, but hunts using its incredible sense of hearing and smell, and it can detect electric and magnetic fields.” They also mate every six years and 15^th century Slovenians actually thought they were baby dragons.

Thoughts on any of the above, Juicers? Any other fauna-related news to report?

Also, do we agree or disagree with the director of a human food pantry who says that the pet pantries are a misuse of resources that should be given to under-resourced human food pantries?

Also: blind cave-dwellers who mate once every six years: [insert GOP joke here]

News From the Faunasphere: “Morally Compromising” Goats and Tigers EditionPost + Comments (87)

David Perry, one of the top journalists currently writing on disability rights, reported on this whopper:

The Arc of Texas, an organization dedicated to inclusion, advocacy and disability rights, is hiring a new CEO. Their job announcement, as originally posted, made one thing clear: Disabled people need not apply.

Towards the bottom of the application, a strange list of criteria under the headline, “Physical and Mental Requirements,” included “Seeing, Hearing/Listening, Clear speech, Ability to move distances between offices and workspaces, Driving.” The next post, for another well-paid leadership position, added “manual dexterity, lifting up to 25 pounds, carrying up to 25 pounds” to the list, making it even more restrictive.

What’s a disability rights organization doing pre-emptively discriminating against disabled individuals in their most important hiring? And is this kind of language — which can be found in job postings from the tech sector, the non-profit world, and countless academic jobs — even legal?

(Note: at some point Arc edited the job requirements to remove the “physical and mental requirements.” Not clear when this happened relative to Perry’s article.)

I have to confess that, as a (mostly) able-bodied person, the “Seeing, Hearing/Listening, Clear speech, Ability to move distances between offices and workspaces, Driving” part didn’t initially seem discriminatory to me. But technology now exists that enables persons with visual impairments, etc., to take on management duties. And then there’s that “lifting/carrying 25 pounds” thing, which you see everywhere. I myself have (under instruction) included that in job descriptions, knowing all the while it was ridiculous. (I was hiring for non-physically-taxing office work, and also would be hard pressed myself to lift 25 pounds, much less do anything useful with it.) But I never connected the dots to see how discriminatory it was. So I’m glad that’s getting called out.

In his article, Perry lists several other examples of job descriptions that include discriminatory boilerplate, including a couple for teaching jobs that demand color vision and the ability to climb stairs. And here’s the worst one he found:

“The Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Tarrant County College District, an office that includes oversight over disability issues, must be able to meet “physical demands” such as the need to “sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, tools, or controls; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear.” What’s more, the employee is “occasionally required to stand; walk; climb or balance; stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl; and taste or smell,” as well as “frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.” And “Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.””

He notes that, “Every category in the Director of Diversity posting is listed as essential, even the ability to taste or smell.”

People with disabilities experience high levels of unemployment, and, as Perry notes, “Boilerplate clauses keep disabled people from even applying for jobs.” He also notes that they often represent an ADA violation, so it would be great for everyone involved, including the organizations doing the hiring, to ditch them.

When Boilerplate DiscriminatesPost + Comments (42)

I’m as caught up in the primary stuff as anyone—maybe too much. I keep thinking about the perhaps apocryphal story that Mozart never once mentioned a little thing called The French Revolution in any of his letters. The guy was a bit focused on his work, I guess, and that’s looking pretty good right now.

As a Sandernista, I appreciate Richard’s hard look at Bernie’s health care plan, and Betty’s wise suggestion that both candidates rein in their more obnoxious proxies. At the very least, I’m sure we can all agree that, now more than ever, it’s GREAT not to be a Republican!

Anyhoo, I’ll be posting something politicky soon that I’m sure many of you will enjoy eviscerating. In the meantime, perhaps as a break from the all the politicking, how about some News From the Faunasphere?

1. FBI now tracking animal abuse like it tracks homicides and other serious crimes. Not just for the animals’ sake, but because “research has backed up that animal abuse can be a precursor to future violent crimes.”
2. A lovely piece in The New York Times on a rehab center where traumatized vets and parrots help each other heal.
3. Bad news for grandma, and so effed up. States use so-called “ag-gag laws” to criminalize free speech, free assembly, and whistleblowing. They’ve primarily targeted animal activists who document animal abuse and other malfeasances at factory farms and slaughterhouses. However, North Carolina’s new version adds “nursing homes, day care centers, and veterans’ facilities” to the list of protected enterprises.
4. Courageous pilot who was tracking elephant poachers in Tanzania died after his helicopter was shot down by one. Roger Gower was only 37. So sad.
5. The very first cultured-meat meatball has been produced and—surprise!—tastes like a meatball. Video: https://youtu.be/Y027yLT2QY0 Mosa Meat founder says cultured meats will be on supermarket shelves within three years. (Note: cultured meat isn’t cruelty-free since it originates with non-cultured meat and requires animal-derived nutrients for growth. But it will still relieve a lot of suffering.)
6. Sea Shepherd is buying a new boat and it’s big (and cool).
7. The New York Times ponders which pronoun to use for a non-human.
8. Kids from Guatemala being trafficked to work on egg farms.
9. If you can’t beat ’em… After a year of feckless anticompetitive shenanigans against vegan upstart Just Mayo, Unilever (maker of Hellmann’s/Best Foods) just announced that it will sell its own brand of vegan mayo. And last, but way not least:
10. It’s here!!! Ben & Jerry just (today) announced its long-awaited vegan ice creamfrozen dessert line.

Thoughts on any of the above, Juicers? Got any other fauna-related news?

News From the Faunasphere: I Like Big Boats EditionPost + Comments (129)