Another Life Stolen by Poaching

Written by Grace Brosofsky

Poaching steals life away from not only legally protected animals but also humans with the courage to protect the species poachers carelessly destroy. One of these human heroes who recently lost his life due to the crime of poaching was Jairo Mora Sandoval, whose murder on May 31 of this year stood as a saddening example of the brutality that poaching entails. Sandoval worked on  Moín Beach to protect the eggs, meat, and shells of critically endangered leatherback sea turtles from poachers focused more on reaping a profit on the black market than allowing a magnificent but dwindling species to survive. These poachers threatened...and still threaten... to prevent the future existence of leatherbacks for the temporary satisfaction of material gain. Worse, as Sandoval tried to teach the public, poachers do not simply kill for money; they also kill for drugs, and drug runners added an extra element of danger to the beach at which Sandoval toiled. Valuable life is destructed so that poachers and those working with them can attain something destructive to life. As the largest of all sea turtles, leatherbacks are both a natural resource in Costa Rica drawing awed tourists to Caribbean beaches and living creatures who do not deserve to have no chance to begin their lives because of the selfish acts of humans enveloped in a world of crime.

While the details are fuzzy, what we do know is this: Sandoval and other conservationists saw enough value in the preservation of the sea turtles to dedicate hours upon hours to laboring for the animals' benefit for little pay, but the Costa Rican government has been willing to act as if almost blind to the blatantly illegal actions of poachers despite its focus on promoting an image of the country as a paradise for ecotourism. During his life, Sandoval pleaded for greater protection and government support in the national Costa Rican newspaper La Nación and took the La Nación team on a tour of the beach, where they witnessed the stronger presence of poachers than authorities. Conservationists should not have to risk their lives to do what is right while poachers continue to do what is wrong unstopped by weakly enforced laws. There is no ethical option but to honor the life and death of the murdered man by supporting his work instead of indirectly supporting the "work" of poachers through apathy. Inaction sends poachers the message that killing and drug dealing are acceptable. Poachers have been implementing their own brute "government" over Moín Beach, rendering environmentalists powerless a year before Sandoval's death when they approached a guarded sea turtle hatchery carrying AK-47 rifles (powerful weapons not even carried by the police), taking the communication devices of the volunteers along with 1,520 leatherback eggs. Mora's murder was another expression of the confidence of poachers that their lawless actions give them power - a confidence that the government must break.

We can neither ignore or forget the tainted focus of poaching, a trade which values money and even drugs over animal - and human - life. Challenge poaching and help change Sandoval's death from a victory of poachers casting fear over conservationists to an impetus for progress in allowing life, not death, to have victory on Costa Rica's beaches by signing this petition:
http://action.seaturtles.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13612

For more of the sadly true story of Jairo Mora Sandoval's death, please visit:
Washington Post on Sandoval
ABC News on Sandoval
National Geographic on Sandoval
Costa Rican Times on Sandoval
Sandoval in La Nacion

Horse Meat in "100% Beef Burgers": Just One Piece of an Unappetizing Story

Written by Grace Brosofsky

Horse meat in a "100% beef burger"? It sounds absurd, but DNA tests have sounded yet another alarm that the meat industry hides difficult truths in its shadows. What should be an atrocious abnormality has become a sickening commonality in recent news. Horse has been discovered not in just one dish prepared by an obsolete chef but in beefburgers sold by a number of big brands in the United Kingdom such as Tesco, Findus, Aldi, and Burger King...and these companies can no longer deny it. While Burger King initially attempted to cling to its claim that its burgers contained beef and nothing but beef, even the fast food giant itself admitted to the public that customers could very well bite into the equines they might prefer to mount than eat, and the story doesn't end there. The unnerving confessions of the four UK companies aforementioned are only a small sliver of a story I still find almost indigestible.

It all began behind the scenes last November when, for the first time, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) conducted tests for the presence of the DNA of different species (including horse) on a varied selection of beefburgers. These tests were certainly abnormal, but they were far from pointless as proven when the results came back, revealing that more than one-third of the products tested contained horse DNA. After arriving at such alarming results, the FSAI repeated the testing procedure to verify that the truth was as bad as it seemed... and found that it was. The release of the FSAI's findings on January 15 launched a chain of accusations and denials as meat companies in the United Kingdom attempted to evade responsibility for feeding horse to unwary consumers. In the cloud of chaotic investigations and disputed leads, one thing became more and more certain: the horse meat scandal involved much more than just one company or even one nation.

And as each day unfolds, the scandal explodes into even larger proportions. As UK companies began to recall beefburgers, other countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany quickly fell into the horse meat scandal. Back in Britain, horse meat turned up even outside supermarkets and fast food restaurants; meals served to children at schools and the sick at hospitals tested positive for horse. The story has yet to end, and new, ever-sickening developments continue to emerge at an overwhelming pace. Just yesterday, Nestlé discovered levels of horse DNA in its own dishes, and the well-known company's Beef Tortellini and Buitoni Beef Ravioli sold in Spain and Italy joined the expanding list of recalled foods.

Why does the scandal seem to have no bounds? The simplest answer is this - it is the result of an industry that is itself unbounded by humane standards and in many areas untouched by basic ethics. The meat industry asserts that it has complete record of its supply chains, but the large-scale fraud consuming the industry prevents that assertion from being even close to true. Horse meat ends up in beefburgers because a fraudulent trade of horses for slaughter is sadly interwoven into the meat market, and the FSAI's reports have opened a door to a disturbing world beneath the public eye. Records suggest that thousands of horses destined for slaughter illegally move between at least thirteen nations, and criminal organizations have used the horse trade as a cover for the transport of cannabis. In an industry that operates outside the limits of law, no standards can prevent the worst from happening, adding an additional element of danger to the troubling presence of horse in so-called beef products. While slaughtering horses given the painkiller "bute" for human consumption explicitly violates the law because of the potentially deadly effects of the drug, officials know of at least six horses sent from Britain to France for use in human meals despite testing positive for bute. In the shadowy world of the underground horse trade, bute could have slipped into meat many other times unknown to authorities, and if horse meat contaminated with bute can adulterate beef products, what else goes on unstopped by regulations before meat reach our plates?

The answer is harsh but unavoidable. The meat industry is full of truths akin to horror stories. The horse meat scandal sends some grave reminders about the facts of an industry marked with suffering: the "guarantees" of the meat vendors melt in the face of truth, and behind the cheerful facades constructed by companies such as Burger King and Nestlé, meat is the product of realities that fail our every expectation.

For more facts on the unthinkable events of the horse meat scandal please visit:

New York Times - Nestlé
Guardian - The Essential Guide to the Scandal
Guardian - Timeline of the Scandal
Guardian - Horse Meat Schools and Hospitals
Guardian - No more excuses. The only defensible option is to go vegetarian