Bob Beale Doesn't Like Our Review: Margaret Setter's Response

GOING NATIVE: Living in the Australian Environment By Michael Archer and Bob Beale
Read Margaret Setter's Review
Bob Beale Doesn't Like Our Review Read Bob Beale's Emails to Abolitionist-Online

Dear Mr Beale,

I am writing in response to your email to Claudette Vaughan complaining about my review of your book, Going Native: Living In An Australian Environment. You are right of course in objecting to the paragraph in which the following words appear: “There is no mention of an animal's welfare, either in the text or the index, an omission that surely is indicative of their indifference to animal suffering, despite protestations of their ‘love’ for them.”

What I intended to say was: “there was no category ‘animal welfare’ in the index of the book - which is true. Any mistakes I might have made do not arise from any personal predilection to lie but from honest mistakes caused by fatigue. It was not my intention to misrepresent you in this instance and I thank you for pointing out my mistake.

Your book has many things to say that are uncontroversial and worthy of support. As a first generation born Australian I gained an array of insights on issues I had not previously thought much about. For example, chapters one and two, dealing with Australia’s prehistory as shown in the fossil record are both interesting and informative. You paint a vivid picture of the archaeological work carried out at Riversleigh and other places. I can well imagine the excitement and elation you experienced as one of the first modern humans to uncover the treasures contained in the fossil record. And how fascinating it must be to unravel the evidence provided by the record of creatures who died so long ago, who for thousands of years inhabited what was then the continent of Gondwanaland.

It was fascinating too, to learn something of continental drift, with its long periods of dynamic evolutionary developments. There would be periods of relative stability, until their cumulative effects resulted in what Jared Diamond refers to as a “tipping point”, that set off more or less cataclysmic events leading to mass extinctions of species. These processes will no doubt continue until the death of our solar system. What you have written of these events adds to my enjoyment and understanding of a program currently screened on SBS about the origins and natural history of the British Isles, for which I once again thank you.

Chapter 9, dealing with Australia’s marvellous native foods, was a real eye-opener too. In my review I stated how amazed I was to read about the variety of bush foods that could be incorporated into the modern diet. (For me, preferably one that is vegetarian, or even better, vegan).

Our indigenous people managed this land and its beautiful animals for up to eighty thousand of years. We white fellas have much to learn from them. This week, at the launch of the book Kangaroos Myths and Realities, an aboriginal elder, introduced as Uncle Max, shared his people’s love and knowledge of the land and its animals, their sorrow and opposition to the ongoing commercial slaughter of kangaroos and other wildlife. Listening to Uncle Max was an intensely moving experience. I fully support our indigenous people in their struggle for self-determination and acknowledge their prior ownership as rightful custodians of this land.

Having conceded thus far, I do not resile from the general outline of my review. I am not a professional environmentalist, but a grass-roots animal rights activist, and an atheist. While my formulations may be faulted in detail, I am satisfied that, broadly speaking, I have drawn upon models constructed by reputable environmentalists who I believe, would consider your model and the arguments you adduce, both controversial and deeply problematic.

I take your point when you state “Our philosophy is based on a deep respect for life: it is an ecological ethic, but not an exploitative one, with no tolerance of inhumanity or cruelty”. Nevertheless, I find it curiously at odds with comments such as “throwing an animal on the barbie”. Also, I would ask whether you, as a scientifically trained writer don’t think it rather incongruous to refer to animals and plants as “ours”? It seems to me you unreflectively, or perhaps unconsciously; remain under the sway of the biblical creation story in which God granted our mythical forbears dominion over the plants and animals. “Into your hands I have delivered them”.

Consider Peter Singer’s Foreword to Kangaroos Myths and Realities: “At least since Darwin, we have known that the forests and animals were not placed on the earth for us to use. They have evolved alongside us. Once felled, the virgin forest can never be restored. The animals we kill for their skins or for pet food have similar nervous systems to our own, and presumably feel pain, or enjoy life as we do”…”Those who see kangaroos only as a resource, overlook the ethical aspects of how we are treating other sentient beings. Several hundred thousands die inhumanely every year. There is also the suffering of joeys, who are orphaned when their mothers are shot and upon whom they depend for their survival.

In the light of this suffering, whatever views one may have about the rights and wrongs of eating other animals, it should not be too difficult to see that there are special reasons for not eating kangaroos or supporting the kangaroo trade in any other way”. (My emphasis). “We need a Mabo decision for Australia’s wild animals, a legal recognition of their special status as original residents of Australia, alongside its original inhabitants. The only ethical approach is one that gives their interests equal consideration alongside similar human interests”.

Kangaroos Myths and Realities brings together scientists and animal advocates who present an irrefutable case that kangaroos are being cruelly exploited without regard to their sentiency and capacity to suffer. I challenge you to read this book and then reflect on the many statements in your book that I consider to be insensitive and even callous with respect to the suffering, which is intrinsic to both commercial shooting, and big-game hunting, itself an enjoyable pastime to some, less sensitive souls. For my part, having jumped from my car on occasion to rescue injured animals I can only wonder at the capacity of the hunter to watch the light fading from the eyes of a mortally wounded animal and not be moved to compassion for its suffering and bewilderment.

Professional kangaroo shooting is hard, lonely and backbreaking work. We are told that close to 100% of kangaroos are killed with a single shot to the head. The truth is usually otherwise. David Nicholls, a former shooter, knows better. He writes: “The head of a kangaroo is a very small target and many factors come into play….. Such accuracy is only obtained in Olympic shooting where the shooter is fit and healthy”.

In the field “The mouth of a kangaroo can be blown off and the kangaroo can escape to die of shock and starvation. Forearms can be blown off, as can ears, eyes and noses. Stomachs can be hit, expelling the contents with the kangaroo still alive. Backbones can be pulverised to an unrecognisable state etc. Hind legs can be shattered with the kangaroo desperately trying to get away on the other or without the use of either. To deny that this goes on is just an exercise in attempting to fool the public”.

You claim that kangaroo harvesting is regulated by the government. You also produce statements by the RSPCA that back your claim that most kills are humane. A thorough reading of this report will show that their opinions on kangaroo harvesting are heavily qualified, which for reasons of space I cannot elaborate on here. In any case why use the euphemism ‘harvest”? Kangaroos are not a crop, subject to harvesting but sentient beings, slaughtered in their millions every year.

In my review I referred to the “conditioned ethical blindness” of many scientists, who like you, advocate the commercialisation of Australian wildlife. Borrowed from Don Barnes, an American psychologist, the concept refers to the occupational hazards associated with using (non-human) animals in laboratory experiments. It is the kindest description I can come up with to describe the state of mind prepared to overlook or ignore, not wilful acts of cruelty and brutality, which of course no-one but a psychopath would enjoy, but the inevitable and inescapable cruelty that is part and parcel of the kangaroo industry.

Professions of concern for animal welfare bear no weight unless they carry over into day today practice. Once again I refer to David Nicholls, former professional kangaroo shooter. David writes: “Young joeys are unceremoniously dragged out of their previously secure world (the pouch) by the hind legs and swung against a purposed hard object. One swing may be followed by another and yet another if the prior (blow) does not complete a death. Otherwise healthy young animals are killed for no reason than there are no other choices. Even hardened kangaroo shooters are often sickened by this never-ending process…..

Former NSW parliamentarian Richard Jones, asks, “How can a decent human being bash a young kangaroo to death? How can a humane person leave the young kangaroo at foot to starve to death or be taken by foxes? How can it ever be “humane”? I think I can answer that question. It is the young man of limited education, with few or no prospects of gaining satisfying employment, who must take what he can get, just as the country boy, forced by circumstance to work in stinking piggeries, carries out mutually degrading procedures such as artificial insemination and other abominations against the bodily integrity of sentient beings.

I fully support your call for massive public investment if by such means we, as a society; can create interesting, environmentally worthwhile jobs. Why not rally your friends and acquaintances - the scientists, businessmen, public servants etc - many of whom you acknowledge in Going Native? Perhaps they can persuade our Prime Minister, who currently is sitting on an $18 billion dollar surplus, to set aside at least some of this vast sum to provide jobs for the many young people, driven by desperation and alienation into drug taking and other anti-social forms of behaviour. Perhaps they will be successful in dissuading him from saving this vast sum for tax cuts to the well off at election time.

Our wonderful land, and its amazing wildlife are desperate for loving care and attention. Our creeks are utilised as open drains for run-off, forced into a never-ending cycle of flooding followed by reversion to stagnant, oily ponds in prolonged dry spells.

Funds are readily available and allocated for the cruel disposal of innocent misplaced animals, pejoratively labelled as “feral”, who are the scapegoat for the human crime of biocide. Such cruelty is the way we demonstrate our commitment to the environment, making out we really are attacking the causes of its deterioration, while concealing the underlying reasons for such degradation under the ideology of development, ‘sustainable’ or otherwise.

Let me give a personal example. For several years I maintained a (de-sexed) colony of free-living cats inhabiting the campus of an educational institution situated alongside the Cabramatta Creek. Each night at about 10pm, while feeding them, I would be greeted by the sounds of millions of living beings going about their business of surviving, or perhaps, who knows? They were simply expressing their joy at being alive. Once I glimpsed two young foxes, chasing each other round and round, like puppies. Then the rain would come, and the storm water channels would pour their run-off directly into the creek. Almost immediately the cacophony of sound would be silenced. Within a few months newcomers would begin to replace those who died and the cycle would begin again. Such perseverance in the face of man-made disasters deserves our respect and calls for radical, non-violent, changes in the way we humans manage our affairs on this planet.

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Setter

GOING NATIVE: Living in the Australian Environment By Michael Archer and Bob Beale
Read Margaret Setter's Review
Bob Beale Doesn't Like Our Review Read Bob Beale's Emails to Abolitionist-Online