Animals

Lying on a cold table in an unfamiliar place and undergoing a core biopsy was probably one of the most traumatic events of my life. I was frightened, confused, hurting and, yes, I cried - but not just for myself.

As I lay there, experiencing a needle digging around inside me and having small pieces of flesh cut from my body, I thought about the animals in laboratories who are subjected to similar experiences.

Of course, I had been given some analgesic, the process was explained to me and ultimately it was for my own benefit… not so the case for lab animals.

Continue reading "Animal experiments won’t cure me from cancer" »

Welcome to the fifth edition of Dr Tinman’s Ignorant Remedies for the Aching Soul. I am Dr Tinman, life-doctor and former explorer of the Earth’s molten core.

Life is hard. It’s full of disappointments, tragedy and jars that just won’t open, even though you did the hot water thing and the towel thing and now you have to ask someone else to open it for you - which they will and then you’ll have to joke about how you “must’ve loosened it”. But you both know that’s not true. You know you’re physically weaker than them. And now, so do they.

Sometimes, it’s just easier to log onto your favourite online retailer and use any major credit card to purchase, with free shipping, a range of self-help books - all of which are available in 27 languages, including German, French, Mandarin and the hyper-sexual eyebrow arching-based form of communication utilised by terrifying teen bride Courtney Stodden.

Continue reading "Dear Dr Tinman: Should I get a pug, or a pet snow leopard?" »

Tabby or not tabby? That is the question.

Another key question in the wake of the tragic death of “Meow” the 17 kilo cat overnight, is why oh why did he have to die so young? It’s not like he brought it on himself. He was just naturally big boned and big whiskered. And big tailed and big furred and big, big tummied.

Vets said Meow died overnight as a result of complications from his morbid obesity. Well, those remarks are just plain catty. “Meow” spent his whole life on the high protein Catkins diet, yet still ballooned out to a catastrophic weight.

Continue reading "He wasn’t fat, he was just big boned and big whiskered" »

One Punch reader’s next door neighbour has a huuuuuge beast of a dog. In Latin, it’s a gigantasaurus canineteethobeast. Said Punch reader doesn’t have particularly good relations with this neighbour. The dog has gone off leash in the past and came menacingly close to the reader’s three-year-old daughter.

Last week, another neighbour on the cul de sac told this reader that they’re going to call the council after the pitbull-esque monster barktastically blockaded the neighbour in their home.

In normal times, this action would be a positive development. But the Punch reader is having a party in the not-too-distant future. Maintaining stable relations with the neighbours is imperative at least until the party has safely concluded. And given past tensions over Fido, the Punch reader is sure to take the blame for any council action.

So. Should our reader try put the kybosh on their anti-dog neighbour’s complaint plans until after the party is over in a couple of weeks? Or should neighbourhood safety be the immediate prerogative?

Send us your Friday dilemmas. feedback@thepunch.com.au

You can pet a human, but you really shouldn’t human a pet. Things can get… a bit sick.

No, not in a Monaghan kind of way. Wash your mouth out. In an awww-i-wuv-my-widdle-wascal-so-much-I-just-wanna-dress-him-up-like-a-real-little-boy kind of way.

Going overboard on the pet love can nauseate your friends and family, and can make you really – really – sick. Some people anthropomorphise their pets to the point where they forget that pets don’t floss or use alcohol-based sanitation gels as often as they should.

Continue reading "Pets are not the best people" »

There are lots of things in our lives that cause animal, human or environmental harm. Some we already know about. Others we blindly ignore until an intrepid investigator breaks the story.

Even the most innovative or seemingly innocent products can have a murky past. Angry Birds loses its fun when you consider the Apple workers committing suicide in China. And Valentine’s Day becomes ever so slightly more nauseating when you learn that those chocolates you bought the mother of your children may have furthered the slave trade of other children in Africa (at least, that’s what I told her when I forgot to buy them).

Human actions always seem to have an impact somewhere in the world.  All we can do is try to mitigate or fix the problem once we are made aware and move on better for it. Except, it seems, with meat production.

Continue reading "Whatever you eat, there’s better ways to make meat" »

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.” So goes a rather weary old dog of a proverb attributed to Paul McCartney.

Admittedly, his sentiment makes me as misty-eyed as the next idealist softie. But in light of the latest abattoir cruelty scandal, I need to have a quiet word with Paul.

“Glass walls” don’t come much clearer than the hidden footage uncovered by the ABC and subsequently splattered across our news last week. You don’t exactly need Windex to see inside the pure barbarism of NSW’s Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors.

Continue reading "Enjoy your porterhouse, but consider the slaughterhouse" »

Who would work in an abattoir?

Most of us have done jobs we didn’t want to do because we needed the cash. There are plenty of dirty, smelly, difficult, revolting jobs out there that usually get left to immigrants, to the uneducated, to the desperate.

Slaughtering animals is something most people would turn their noses up at, but someone has to do it.

Continue reading "Would you kill for a job?" »

Three years ago this week, Australia was burning. On 7 February 2009 — now known as Black Saturday — a massive firestorm consumed more than 400,000 hectares in southern Australia. At least 173 people died trying to outrun the fires, defend their homes or seek shelter.

That blaze was unusually fierce, but fires are a constant source of anxiety for Australia. The continent is extremely fire-prone, with a distinctive signature of oscillating fire activity that begins in the north during the winter, then moves south during the summer. Lately, the fires have been more intense and widespread, perhaps as a result of climate change — last year, around 5 per cent of the continent was burnt.

If only fires were Australia’s sole environmental concern. The continent is also overrun by invasive species. They fill holes created by a mass extinction event that occurred around 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene, when the arrival of the first Australians coincided with a collapse in the continent’s megafauna, namely giant marsupials (some as large as hippopotamuses), reptiles and birds.

Continue reading "Could elephants save the Australian environment?" »

I once tried to explain cricket to a Spaniard. After half an hour of Pictionary-grade diagrams, an English-Spanish dictionary and rubbing my groin with a Granny Smith, all that Fernando had grasped with any certainty was that he didn’t wish to eat the apple.

I have lived in some peculiar places and enjoyed some peculiar conversations, but I had to venture to Cairns to have a discussion with a woman about how best to post an ant through the mail. And not any type of ant but an Electric ant, or a suspected Electric ant, hence the conversation.

I grew up on Sydney’s forested North Shore, so I’m accustomed to creepy crawlies in the house and have liberated many a spider in the brave space between a cup and a postcard. Postcards were invented for such endeavours. Now that people have stopped sending them, my house resembles the set of Arachnophobia. 

Continue reading "Pfft to your fancy European power, we have electric ants" »

The BBC has compiled a list of 12 Female Faces of 2011 (one for each month) and guess who took out the final spot?

Angela Zhang who at the age of 17 discovered a nanoparticle that kills cancer cells? Nope.

Eman al-Obeidi, who defied Muuammar Gadaffi’s regime by confessing to the foreign press that she had been beaten and gang-raped by members of his militia? Nope.

Continue reading "BBC’s panda propaganda is utterly bamboozling" »

In a few months’ time, you will be confronted by a bunch of people will beg you to let a pair of cows onto a ship. But do not allow those wild-eyed bovine to set even one hoof on deck, lest they rend the supple flesh from your throat. That sounds crazy, but give me a moment to explain.

If ancient civilisations, reclusive internet jabberers and random online sex offenders are to be believed, 2012 marks the end of the world.

Some say an asteroid with a crudely-drawn smiley face will plunge into the Earth during the final chorus of Auld Lang Syne, while others believe apes will suddenly spear everyone to death on December 31. It doesn’t matter - it’s curtains either way.

Continue reading "Happy moo year, just watch out for those killer cows" »

Watch this. Now, do you have a dog? Did you get it from a pet store? Or online?

If you did get your dog from a petshop or ordered it online, there’s a strong chance you have unwittingly bought a dog from a puppy factory.

A puppy factory – like the dark satanic mills which ruthlessly exploited children of the Industrial Revolution – churns out cute designer crossbreeds which we all go goo and gah over. While the puppies mostly go on to have good lives with owners, walkies, grass, toys, food and vet care, the breeding animals do not. They exist for the sole purpose of breeding, and live in appalling conditions, in tiny cages, sometimes with barely enough food and water to sustain their horrible lives.

Continue reading "How much has that doggy in the window suffered?" »

With apologies to the venerable Hillary Clinton, whose plea to treat women with dignity has enjoyed a clear run atop this website for six hours, we now move to a lesser but no less impassioned issue.

The Australian White Ibis, better known as “Bic Macus Scabicus” or “that stupid ugly thing stealing my sandwich! Shoo! Shoo!” is a much-maligned species.

But does it deserve our derision? Does it warrant being chased across city parks by office workers with umbrellas? Or has it earned the right for a tiny slice of the affection we automatically bestow upon kookaburras, rosellas, ducklings and the Minogue sisters? That, friends, is today’s dilemma.

Continue reading "Friday Dilemma: pest or downtrodden beauty?" »

I want to conduct an experiment. I’ve tried it at home and reckon it’s ready for a bigger venue. The Sydney Opera House would do. Or perhaps the Louisiana Superdome. I want a huge audience and plenty of space in front of the stage. People with sensitive ears be warned, there will be opera. I need divas. I want Wagner and cleavage and buxom plaited blondes.

I want helicopters and Robert Duvall  (without the napalm). There will be a monster flower garden planted in front of the stage and when the time comes to bond the divas with their bouquets, an army of florists will prowl the garden. They’ll be picking, snipping and binding the most exquisite and beautiful of the freshest opening blooms.

Here’s what would not happen at my opera.

Continue reading "NEWFLASH: Plants do not have feelings" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a weekly column on shenanigans of all kinds. Today we look at Tim Mathieson’s 50th birthday present to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. A Cavoodle.

Hybrid vigour? I call bullshit. These designer dogs are just mongrels with a ludicrous price tag. Keep your bullshit special-purpose cross breed, your genetically manipulated bundle of non-shedding joy.

Keep your Labradoodles and Shegroodles, your Foxyhuahuas and Afghanitas, your Bullalutes.

Continue reading "ICB: Thanks, Tim, but a Cavoodle’s not a REAL dog" »

By now, you’ve probably heard about Happy Feet, the ailing emperor penguin who was found near New Zealand a few months back. After rehab, Happy Feet was released this week, only to go missing somewhere in southern waters.

Some say he was gobbled by an orca. We think he might’ve been munched by a huge manatee, even though said mammals reside only in the northern hemisphere. Hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good headline.

Dead or alive, Happy Feet has captivated everyone. This is not unusual. Animal stories are always popular in any form of media, especially online. And if you think about it, that says something gently profound about our own humanity.

Continue reading "Oh, the huge manatee!" »

Another dead kid, another dog which should never have been breathing and eating Pal, let alone allowed to escape from its yard and kill somebody.

Too often on a range of topics these days, we see the tail of minority concerns wagging the dog of the silent majority. The tiny, mad minority who love pitbulls, and endanger the rest of us, are a classic case.

Pitbull lovers seem to be as aggressive as the dogs themselves. On the website dogforum.com.au today, a delightful user called Shelby-001 said: “stop stereotyping BREED and just judge the DEED”. They even added the word “ggggrrrrrrr” after their rant, as though to further underline the similarity between dog and owner.

Continue reading "Enough bullpit. Destroy these murderous mutts" »

Animal rights activists get a bad rap. Reactions to those who dare to speak out against animal abuse reveal a level of vitriol rarely aimed at any other group of social justice campaigners.

They are assumed to be a bunch of unwashed, dope-smoking, dole-bludging criminals.

‘Extremist’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘militant’ are the stock standard descriptors churned out whenever animal advocates engage in various forms of activism that challenge us to shake up our thinking.

Continue reading "Time to treat animal rights activists like humans" »

Sometimes, you wonder who the real animals are, and what kind of condition they keep themselves in.

On the weekend, I dropped my daughter at a friend’s birthday party at Lennon Brothers Circus. Lennon Brothers is one of the few remaining Australian circuses with animals, and a group of protestors had set up shop out the front.

Never in my life have I encountered such an unruly, rude rabble of misfits, thugs and foaming-at-the-mouth ideologues. Not content to peacefully pursue their aims, they actively victimised the poor helpless children attending the circus with some of the most vile slurs imaginable.

Continue reading "When animal activists attack!" »

Happy Monday, Punchers. Loads of not very important stuff happened on this day in history, so we thought we’d post this video of a dolphin and a cat.

Awwww, cute.

Are you a cat person or a dolphin person? What else is on your mind? You know how this works. Share it here.

Continue reading "Punch on: Open thread 20/06/2011" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. Nonsensical headline. Sorry. Now, to the point.  Amid debate on trifling topics such as the future of the nation and the world, the most robust conversations at the moment are centering on a single “meow”.

More accurately it was a sort of “reeeeee-ow” that Liberal Senator David Bushby uttered when Finance Minister Penny Wong (justifiably) snapped at him for interrupting.

And so the crowd was heard to shout “sexism”! Well, I call bullshit. It wasn’t sexist.

Continue reading "ICB: To bitch is human, to meow feline" »

It’s hard to know what the live animal export industry is more concerned about.

The fact that Australian animals are being tortured in Indonesia, or the fact that Australians now know that Australian animals are being tortured in Indonesia.

I have long been opposed to the live animal export industry.

Continue reading "Spend on job creation, not overseas cruelty" »

This story was written before I had seen the Four Corners special ‘A bloody business’. I had the intention of opening with a description of some of the footage shown in that program. Footage showing scenes of horrific cruelty in Indonesian slaughter houses. But I can’t do that. It was simply too horrible.

Stories from Indonesia - Live Export Investigation from Animals Australia on Vimeo.

All I could think of was my student days studying the history of Germany during the 1930s and the rise of Nazism. The acquiescence that allowed the Holocaust to happen was on display during interviews with Australian cattle producers who were appalled by the slaughter conditions while perfectly happy to bank the money. These human scum, and in particular Meat and Livestock Corporation CEO Cameron Hall, rank among the worst excuses for human beings on the planet.

Rest assured, the remainder of this story will perhaps shock but there will be no graphic descriptions of cruelty.

Continue reading "Slaughterhouse live: Our bloody cattle exports" »

A friend of mine recently posted a picture on Facebook of their well-loved pug sleeping companionably underneath their sleeping baby’s cradle.

“Protective pug”, she posted, and a flurry of exclamation marks followed in reply - pug and baby were bonding, our friends’ fears were allayed, their household was harmonious, everything would be fine.

As any dog person will tell you, this was an important step. Dogs need heaps of love, care and attention, especially when life is apt to change.

Continue reading "Puppy love and pampered pooches: It’s a dog’s life" »

One of the weirdest pieces of television ever screened in Australia showed a Werribee Zoo rhinoceros which, to put it gently, needed a little human handiwork to get it interested in the local female rhino. You can just imagine the zookeeper describing her day at work. “Oh, you know. Fed the zebras, jerked a rhino off. Just the usual.”

But the point of this story is not to mention a great big wank that screened on the ABC. That would hardly be news. It’s to point out that captive breeding programs are a complicated business. Handled professionally, as they are in Werribee, they can be tremendously effective programs. Handled poorly, they can be nothing short of cruel.

Yesterday’s awful amateur video of German polar bear “Knut” dying in captivity has spawned debate on the worthiness of captive breeding programs, and more generally, the role of zoos. (Click on the link only if you have a strong stomach. It’s a lot more graphic than watching a rhinoceros spank the monkey.)

Continue reading "Knut of a day raises questions over zoos" »

We like to think of ourselves as a nation of animal lovers.

We bay for blood when a woman throws a cat in a bin in the UK, or a team of huskies is massacred in Canada, and are brought to tears when a Queensland hero risks his life in the floods to save a kangaroo from drowning.

Yet every single day there are stories in the shadows we miss.

Continue reading "We can all love animals without being weird about it" »

It’s the month of love. Of greeting cards, long stemmed roses and boxed chocolate. Of old flames, new flames, love hearts and lonely hearts.

I figure people can be roughly divided into two groups – those who love Valentine’s Day and those who avoid it.

While my longest relationship is with my husband Richard (and don’t get me wrong it’s a very happy one) some of my most treasured moments in life have been with my fur family.

Continue reading "Finding your pawfect match this Valentine’s Day" »

Welcome to another trek across the nature strips and service lanes of splendid suburbia.

We in suburban journoland always do a good line in “animal saves human” yarns. But scratch the surface most of these stories, and you generally find that the animals being fitted up for bravery awards were mostly just trying to escape death or hump something.

Behold, for instance, the rabbit optimistically dubbed a hero because it bleated enough at its own impending fiery doom, to wake its owners to the fact they had a blaze in their house.

Continue reading "Suburban tales: of hero animals and pole dancing" »