Sharing Life with Non-human Animals

by Mitch Hall

“A robin redbreast in a cage            

Puts all heaven in a rage.”   

( from “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake)

What leads a minority of people to care about animal rights, to be vegetarians, to protest the abuse of animals, whether on factory farms, in scientific experiments, in circuses and zoos, or in the fur trade? Why do so few people include animals and the earth in their advocacy of nonviolence and compassion? In a world plagued by war, domestic violence, slavery, abuse, crime, and the destruction of the earth itself, it seems hopelessly quixotic to think that more humans can be awakened to the need to treat non-human animals kindly.

Nonetheless, some people choose to be advocates for the rights of animals of other species than our own. Because this interests me, I was delighted to watch a moving video called “The Witness” about the work of a unique animal rights advocate. I had been attracted to it by a promotional brochure which described it as “the story of Eddie Lama, a construction contractor from a violent Brooklyn neighborhood who was raised in a family with an aversion to animals.” From “the unexpected love of a kitten who opened his heart,” Eddie went on to become a dedicated vegetarian and a creative animal rights activist who focused on awakening public consciousness to the cruelties of the fur industry.

My thirteen-year-old son Pierre watched “The Witness” with me the first time I got to see it. We were both moved, at times to tears, as we witnessed the cruel torture of animals in the fur trade. We were also inspired by Eddie’s courage and creativity in getting his message across to others. Pierre said he learned there are no grounds for distinguishing among cats, dogs, chickens, or cows. If it is wrong to eat some, it is wrong to eat any. He thought other youth his age could benefit from viewing the film. 

To express appreciation for what the video brought to us, I wrote to James LaVeck, its producer and co-founder of Tribe of Heart, a charitable, not-for-profit organization devoted to encouraging compassionate living through media and arts projects. We exchanged some email. As I am always curious about what leads people to such idealistic commitments, I asked James about how he came to his mission. He answered and asked me a similar question. What had led me to care about animals’ rights?

The video had already stirred some memories. His question stirred more and led to this essay in which I tell stories of my relationships with animals at different stages of my life.

Some of these relationships were ordinary and similar to what countless people experience. Others were extraordinary and raised my awareness of the depths of intelligence and feelings of non-human animals.

Life has taught me there is much more to animals’ subjective beings than most people assume. I have read many heartening stories about animals, such as a pet pig, a gorilla in a zoo, wild dolphins, and a wild sea turtle that have altruistically and on their own mysterious initiative saved human lives. These stories make me wonder how much more meaningful interaction could be possible between people and other animal species if humans would renounce violence in their hearts, minds, and behavior. True compassion and loving kindness for life are all embracing, calling for the reduction and elimination of human violence toward animals, people, and the earth.

In this essay, I am focusing on our relations with animals and giving witness to some of what I have experienced in my own life.

I believe in the value of telling stories, whereby we can remind ourselves and one another about what gives value and meaning to life. These stories can be expressed in many ways including art, the written and spoken word, and films. Eddie Lama’s story in the video “The Witness” conveys messages that have the potential for awakening others and encouraging them to do something to make a difference. If Eddie could change from indifference to caring and promoting humane treatment of animals, so can others. This gives hope.

Stories from My Life

My earliest memories of animals involve my great grandmother, an immigrant who never learned English. As a very young child, I took the word “great” quite literally. It implied something grand about her. She was a character, unlike anyone else I knew, and she lived in the poetically named Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia, where I saw neither strawberries nor mansions. Rather, in the 1940s of my childhood, it was an urban ghetto of working-class immigrants. At my great grandmother’s sink, I found a colorful array of soaps -- pink, blue, green , lavender... , each of which I was welcome to suds up into bright bubbles to my heart’s content. However, the greatest attraction at my great grandmother’s was her stray cats. She had lots of them. In fact, my mother and grandmother told me she could not bear to let any cat go hungry. She adopted all who came to her and housed them in her basement, where they had their own small entry and exit hatch. As far as I was concerned, this was indeed great. However, my mother and grandparents, with whom I lived, found it embarrassing. They said pets such as cats and dogs were dirty, and I could not have any. Period!

In the summer before I was to enter second grade, my mother remarried and moved to Detroit. I joined her there at the beginning of that school year. Her new husband, as it turned out, was physically and emotionally abusive to me. He was also racially prejudiced. He was a furrier. The workshop in which he cut up and sewed together the hides and pelts of slaughtered animals had a strong, unpleasant smell. It was a dark, messy space, but he took pride in how much money he could get for the garments he made. A few times stray cats followed me home, and I asked my mother and him if I could adopt them. They refused, and my stepfather spoke of them with contempt, similarly to how he spoke about people of different races.

Once in Detroit, I came upon an injured pigeon. My mother allowed me to keep her on the outside front porch, where I gave her a soft bed of rags, a water dish, and some seeds. When I returned from school, I couldn’t wait to see my pigeon. To my horror, a couple of days later, I found her dead body grotesquely draped by her broken neck over the metal pipe fence on the small front lawn. My mother told me she must have tried to fly, hit the fence, and broken her neck that way. I did not believe this. I was convinced my stepfather, at whose hands I had already suffered cruelty, had taken her and strangled her around that fence. Fortunately, my mother divorced him within a year, and we moved away from there.

The next period of my life about which I have significant memories about sensitivity to animal issues was after I graduated from college and entered Peace Corps training during the summer of 1964. I was one of over one-hundred trainees being prepared to teach in French-speaking countries in west Africa. Our trainers told us that we had to be prepared for the fact we were likely to see animals slaughtered in Africa. Therefore, they wanted each of us to kill a chicken as they watched to see how we coped. Instinctively, this did not appeal to me, so I managed to get “lost” wandering in the woods during the hour of the killing of the chickens.

When I came back, I found that we were all required to see a lamb slaughtered. I saw a peaceful animal grazing on the grass. He reminded me of the little cotton lamb I had played with in my earliest years. A forest ranger with a pistol called on our entire group to circle around the lamb so he could not escape. I realized I could not escape without being noticed either, so I decided to watch. I saw the changes in this fellow creature’s eyes from a placid, dreamlike state, to alarm, to fear, to panic, to despair, to the dullness of death when the ranger shot him point blank in the head. I identified with him and knew his feelings were the same as mine would have been in similar circumstances. This was unforgettable. It was a pivotal experience in turning me toward vegetarianism and a deeper interest in the feelings, intelligence, and rights of animals.

I had been in a two-summer Peace Corps training program. When I returned to New York City, where I taught for a year before going to the second training session and eventually to Africa, I wanted to have some pets. First I took in a stray dog and named her Daffy. She welcomed kindness and had a gentle temperament, but she also showed some peculiar behavior. Whenever we walked near steps that went down to a basement apartment, she nervously shied away from them. She would actually tremble and resist going down such steps if I ever wanted to visit someone who lived in a basement. One day on the streets a stranger introduced himself and said he recognized the dog and was glad to see me taking care of her. She used to live in a basement apartment not too far away where the man who owned her beat her cruelly until she finally got a chance to run away. Daffy obviously remembered and associated basements with her abuse.

Walking into a pet store one day, I saw a young, female Capuchin monkey from South America and bought her as a pet. The first night I put her into the bedroom early so she would settle down to sleep. I turned off the overhead light by flipping the switch on the wall by the door. No sooner had I closed the door then I heard a familiar clicking sound and saw the light shining under the door. In disbelief, I opened the door a crack, reached my hand in, and again shut off the light. It was to no avail. The monkey had observed the connection between the switch and the light and again lit up her new bedroom.

That school year I learned much about the monkey’s intelligence and emotional sensitivity, but the strongest lesson occurred when I had to give her up for adoption before going into the Peace Corps . We were not permitted to take any pets with us to Africa, and my written request for an exception to this policy was to no avail. Through an ad in a magazine called “Monkey Business,” I contacted a woman in Manhattan who wanted a monkey. I took my pet in its cage to her apartment where she had a menagerie of cats, dogs, parakeets, and parrots. She seemed an unusual animal lover, so I felt encouraged that I was doing the right thing. However, my monkey clung to the side of her cage closest to me and held my fingers in one of her hands. She was crouching and shaking with fear. Each time I started to leave, she screamed in terror. I went back to touch her hand, and this would calm her down. After repeating this a number of times, I realized I just had to walk out that door. I felt torn apart with feelings of sadness, loss, guilt, and remorse. I heard her pitiful cries as I walked down the stairs and out the building. I was shaking also, worrying about whether this woman, a stranger whom I had just met, would take good care of the monkey, and whether this sensitive creature would survive the transition. The monkey had bonded to me, and I felt as if I were abandoning a human child. I began questioning keeping wild animals, especially monkeys, as pets. I began recognizing the injustice of separating them from their natural environment and family bonds with members of their own species.

In Africa, I quickly learned the Peace Corps trainers had been right that I would see animals slaughtered there. I was not quite prepared for which animals they would be, though. On one of my first days in Lama Kara, as I was walking to the market place in the center of town, I heard yelps of pain. Turning my head quickly, I was startled to see four men hacking a dog to death with machetes. Dogs were food to the Kabre people of northern Togo. A sickening feeling of disgust and horror went through me.

In Togo, I had a few pets: a dog, an eagle, and a spot-nosed monkey, all of which I raised from early ages. To the local people, I seemed odd for sharing the inside of my house with these animals that they saw at best as potential food. The baby eagle was brought to my house by some boys who said they found him in a nest after his mother was killed by hunters. The boys had one interest, to make some money by selling their find to me. I wanted to raise the eagle until he could fly away on his own. As eagles are carnivores, I paid neighbor children to catch mice and lizards for his meals. I kept the eagle in a corner of the living room and began feeding him at regular times. He would call out to me sharply in a high-pitched cry when I entered the house from teaching since this signaled that meal time was approaching. The eagle seemed to be saying, “Feed me, Pappa. I’m hungry!” I found him responsive to being petted gently. I would stroke his back, wings, breast, head, neck, and throat. He would close and half open his eyes dreamily as I stroked him. He would raise and lower his head, and make a deep-throated, purring sound of pleasure. As he matured, I realized he needed to learn to fly and that I was responsible to teach him.

He had grown big and heavy by now. First I threw him into the air from close to the ground. The force of gravity took over instantly, and the clueless eagle hit the ground with a clunk. He shook himself, looked around as if wondering what had happened, moved his body and ruffled his feathers to shake off the dust and reclaim his dignity. I repeated the action. Clunk! Finally, the eagle discovered his wings and began awkwardly to use them with varied levels of success. Day by day, I increased the height to which I threw him. Then I put him on my lap as I rode my bicycle to the top of a hill, from where I began riding down at accelerating speed. With one hand on the handle bars, I would toss the eagle as high as I could with the other hand. This is how I taught him to fly, and it was a thrill to watch him gain confidence and distance. He would land and wait for me to pick him up. Eventually, I would place him for the night on the branches of a tree in my back yard. In the mornings when I came out, he would call for me to feed him. One morning he was gone, and I never saw him again. I hoped he had finally felt the urge for freedom in the wild and not wound up in a neighbor’s stew pot. I never knew.        

The monkey, just a tiny baby when I met him, was also sold to me by a boy who wanted to make some money. Despite my reservations about keeping monkeys as pets, I wanted to rescue him and realized he had poor chances of survival unless I cared for him. He became an affectionate, playful companion and grew in size and strength. He liked to lie on the back of my dog, Puppy, and ride her around the house while he clutched some of Puppy’s fur in his hands. Monkey would go outside, stay in the yard, and return home regularly for meals and sleep. Then one day he did not return.    

I searched the neighborhood calling his name, “Monkey” hoping I would spot him in the branches of a tree. A few days went by until finally one of the high school students told me where I could find him and what had happened. Apparently he was walking on the ground by a neighbor’s compound when a pack of poorly fed and surly dogs that belonged to that household surrounded, attacked, and killed him. I was horror stricken and heartbroken as I imagined his last minutes of life and how painful his unjust death must have been. I wondered whether his friendship with the gentle, well fed, and fondly petted Puppy had given him a mistaken notion of the trustworthiness of dogs or a sense that he could “tame” them.

I found his wounded remains, stiff with rigor mortis, lying under some bushes. I held him by the tail and walked over to the compound of the neighbors whose dogs had killed my friend. I was shaking as I held in my grief, rage, and indignation. The women of the compound were sitting on the ground and busy with the tasks of brewing and stirring thick millet beer in large, reddish brown, clay pots over fires. They appeared casually indifferent to my arrival. I asked whether they had seen their dogs kill my monkey. They had. I confronted them about why they had not stopped the killing. They let out contemptuous bursts of air through their pursed lips, as if saying, “So what; who cares!” They spoke mockingly and sarcastically, asking about what kind of human being I was to be living with a wild animal. They seemed incapable of any empathy for the wonderful being that Monkey was or for my feelings of affection and friendship for him and indignation and grief over his loss. For a moment, I fantasized about kicking over their pots of millet beer. However, I realized this would neither lead them to feel any remorse nor bring Monkey back to life. So I turned my back on them and walked away with Monkey to bury his lifeless body behind my house.

Before I left Africa, some peasant friends of the Fulani ethnic group wanted to give me a duck I often admired when I visited them in the countryside. I could not bear the idea of eating that animal and confused them by not accepting their generous gift. Almost without knowing what was happening to me, it was during those two years in the mid 1960s in Africa that the idea of becoming a vegetarian grew in me. I began making that dietary transition without reading books or understanding the implications for better health or protecting the environment. It was an intuitive preference on which I acted, one based on positive feelings for animals and not wanting to have harm inflicted on them for my sake. The idea of eating meat just became distasteful to me. Back in the United States, I began to read books and meet people who confirmed the viability and relevance of the vegetarian option.

In 1970, while working for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation in Europe as a peace activist, I met the late Dr. Catherine Roberts, who became my mentor with regard to animal rights issues and a lifelong friend. We met in London at a conference on the Threats and Promises of Science where we participated in the same work group about spiritual values in relation to science. She was then living in Copenhagen where she had been a research microbiologist. At the height of her career, she became alarmed by the cruel treatment of animals in scientific research. She abandoned her career, enrolled in university courses in philosophy and religion, and devoted the rest of her life to writing about animal rights from a spiritual and ethical perspective. She wrote letters, articles, and books indefatigably. She engaged in scholarly debates such as one with a neurosurgeon who was trying to transplant monkey’s heads. We corresponded regularly, and I received and read her writings, including her two published books: “The Scientific Conscience” and “Science, Animals, and Evolution.” They are well worth reading, and she was a principled forerunner to the modern animal rights movement.

I found further inspiration about the significance of compassion for animals in Albert Schweitzer’s writings, and in my association over a five-year period with Acharya Sushil Kumar, a Jain monk, who taught about nonviolence and had been the most prominent leader of the cow protection movement in his native India. In a world where violence is so widespread, it is important for those who would like to work for an end to violence against all sentient beings to find kindred spirits. Such people as Dr. Catherine Roberts, Albert Schweitzer, and Acharya Sushil Kumar were among those kindred spirits for me.

In 1971, I moved to northern California, where I taught and advised students at Stanford University for the next decade. During that period, I also began to raise children and to be faced with questions about how to help them learn ethical and spiritual values regarding human and animal rights and the protection of the environment. Life events continued to provide lessons and opportunities to wonder about the mysterious link between human and non-human animals.

I was teaching a class in English as a second language to immigrant workers at the Stanford University Hospital. One woman told me about a man from her village in Mexico who had become mentally disturbed as a result of a hunting incident. While hunting in the forest, he had come across a monkey in a tree. When he aimed his rifle at the monkey, she saw him, screamed, and pointed to her lower abdomen. The man shot and killed the monkey. He found that she was pregnant.

I was affected by this haunting story. My own earlier friendships with monkeys made the pregnant monkey’s appeal for the hunter’s mercy all the more poignant. Having recently become a dad myself, I could also relate to the monkey’s anguished feelings and urgent attempt to protect the vulnerable new life in her womb.

On a hot summer day I went for a walk with my daughter, Esmé, and her friend, Daniel. They were almost four years old. On the way home, they were getting tired, and to entertain them I told a story about a ladybug. I was trying to think of another story to tell when Daniel said, “What’s that?” A ladybug had flown onto his pants. I told the children it was the ladybug from the story.

When Esmé was nine, we were living in Vermont. She came home with a nest of three newly hatched birds. She was upset that two smaller boys had taken the nest from a tree. She did not want the unfledged birds to die. We found the birds liked worms. We fed them all we could dig up in the garden and all we could buy at the local stores that stocked worms for fishermen. The tiny birds’ big appetites amazed us. They developed quickly, and within a few weeks we saw that they were robins. When they were big enough to fly, we let them fly outside. In the early morning, they brushed their wings against my bedroom window to wake me so I would come out and feed them. First one then another robin flew away for a life on its own. One morning the remaining bird was in a tree about fifty yards from the house. It called out, and I responded with the best imitation of its call I could make. It swooped across the yard to where I stood on the second-story porch and landed on my shoulder, where it stayed for a few moments. We looked into each other’s eyes, and then the robin flew away for good.

This story was originally published in 2001 on the website of Tribe of Heart <www.tribeofheart.org>. Directed by James LaVeck and Jenny Stein, Tribe of Heart is a 501(c)(3) charitable, non-profit organization offering a unique fusion of artistic filmmaking, public education and programs for citizen engagement