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Animal Advocacy 101

(Excerpt from Let No Day Dawn that the Animals Cannot Share)

 

From 1981 to 1985 I worked as a Field Service Representative (later, as a Field Service Director) for an animal welfare group based in Sacramento, Ca. It was right up my alley so most of the time I was in seventh heaven.

A significant part of my job involved visits to grade schools, high schools, colleges and universities, where I would throw a spotlight on individual or collective environmental or cultural challenges which threatened the well-being or the continued existence of animals, wild and domestic. My expertise spanned diverse issues, including agribusiness farming practices, puppy mills, animal research, the use of leg-hold traps, and so forth.

One time my sole colleague on the wild horse issue, along with our foundation’s Public Relations expert, were called to Washington DC to testify before Congress regarding the fate of bands of wild horses that roamed public lands. They flew off and were gone. Wild horses was my issue, too, but I stayed behind—happily so, as I was a relative newcomer to the animal welfare wars and didn’t  yet  feel  secure  enough  to  tackle  a vitally important Congressional hearing.

As luck would have it, our organization had a previous commitment on the same date as the congressional hearing. We were to provide a “burro expert” for a television show. Our burro expert’s comments would be broadcast as a counterpoint to comments made by a representative from the Bureau of Land Management regarding the wild burro/land management challenge. But one small problem existed: our only bona fide “burro expert” was on the aforementioned plane heading to Washington!

That morning my boss called me in to say I would be the day’s burro defender during the shoot with the camera crew. More than a little panicked, I cleared my throat and reminded him that burros were not my issue— that wild HORSES, not burros, were MY field of expertise. That would be no problem, he assured me—the land use controversy was essentially the same for both species and I could “review the finer details” on the way to the burro ranch. I would handle it just fine, he assured me, expressing great confidence via a smiling, relaxed demeanor.

Oh, and by the way, he added parenthetically, the drive to the burro site would take just over two hours and the camera crew would be there waiting for the interview as soon as I arrived. They were on a tight schedule. I was to go home, change into jeans and ranch shirt as fast as I could, and then drive on up and do the burros proud.

Well, I was a nervous wreck. How, I wondered, was I supposed to drive a car 65 mph AND study a position paper? (My first duty to this mission, after all, was to arrive alive!) I also knew I wasn’t adequately versed in camera crews, interviews, or debates, much less in hosting a burro visitation party! I had never even MET a burro! But there was no one else. I was the last, best hope of burro-kind that day. (By this, you might guess that things didn’t look good for the poor burros!)

When I arrived at the ranch, the camera crew was ready. A ranch hand had loaded a small pick-up truck with a couple bales of hay. We all piled in and headed for the field in which dozens of wild burros were domiciled following a wild burro round-up and adoption campaign.

The cameraman told me to go ahead and chat, to get comfortable with the crew while the truck headed toward the field.  I let them know, right away, that I was simply a stand in for the real burro expert, and that my expertise was with wild horses, not burros. I told them then that the wild horse species, eohippus, had actually evolved on the North American continent, but had become extinct—possibly due to predation by dire wolves; the American lion and saber-tooth cat species and/or Native Americans—and that they had been brought back by the Spaniards later. This detail, in my mind, made the wild horse not an exotic species, as the BLM claimed, but merely a re-introduced species. I said the wild horses had as much claim to public lands as rabbits, coyotes and cactus.

As we entered the field where the burros stood (gazing warily from a distance), a crewmember whispered to me, “How will we get close enough to the burros to get decent shots of them?” Naturally, I had no idea…but this was no time to be caught without a ready answer, so I suggested confidently, “Just disguise yourself to resemble a bale of hay—like this!” I held a couple large flakes of hay in front of myself. No one laughed. So much for warming up the audience…

Thank God, my humorous, half-hearted suggestion worked!  The burros had been fed from the truck for several weeks following the round-up and were accustomed to the routine of having hay fall from the rear of the vehicle. I held two flakes of hay in front of me, and stepped off the bumper into the field; a cameraman followed suit.

So there we were—two flakes out walking in a field, surrounded by nuzzling, contented burros. The cameraman got some of the best close-ups ever obtained. Viewers saw burros from as little as two feet away, at times bumping the camera in their quest for a mouthful of hay. It was a coup of immense proportions. My organization was thrilled with the resulting intimate footage. I was just relieved we got some!

I was less thrilled to see the show. While others stood around congratulating me on how natural I looked and how wonderful the show was, I was mortified to discover that the editor had included my defense of wild HORSES as “natives”—but had edited the statement to sound as though I had asserted that BURROS had evolved on the North American continent and were therefore not an exotic species at all! The BLM rep countered that claim unequivocally, saying he had no idea where I got such a preposterous idea.   Missing entirely was my REAL defense of the burros’ right to exist. I had said, “Burros were instrumental in opening up this continent. Prospectors used them, trappers used them. Burros have as much right to exist today on this continent as do European settlers and other immigrants. Without the help of burros, horses, mules and oxen, our settlements would have been limited to places where only rivers could take us.”

To this day I still occasionally run across that old interview— and blush every time. It seems that “native burros claim” will dog me as long as I live— and I didn’t even SAY it!

This was an invaluable lesson. These days if I feel uncertain when given orders from a boss or supervisor, I stand firm and state my case. Beguiling me—as my animal welfare boss did—with “my natural ability to charm a crowd” doesn’t get terribly far with me anymore. Until I know for sure what I’m doing, I balk mightily. I guess that makes me a person you can rely on—I won’t do the job unless I’m 98% sure I CAN do it—and that I can face myself in a mirror (or on a television screen) ever after! LOOKING foolish is okay, when it’s by design (as is the case with this piece) but BEING foolish has never been a sought-after target of mine.

Alas—I somehow manage to hit the bulls-eye anyway—all too often…

Buy Let No Day Dawn that the Animals Cannot Share at YellowBalloonPublications.com.

 

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