ALF interview with Mike Jaynes

Mike Jaynes is an active Animal Rights activist who writes and speaks on behalf of performing elephants, sharks, farmed animals and other animal rights matters. His animal advocacy writing has been published in dozens of outlets and this past summer he was an invited speaker at the national Animal Rights conference in Washington, D.C. He has recently completed activism projects for Farm Sanctuary, the Farm Animal Rights Movement, Saving Animals Via Education and he has completed undercover investigations for PETA in the past. Believing in non-violence and human joy, he most actively writes for elephant advocacy, but Jaynes also speaks against Sustainable Use, the mass confinement factory farming system, divisive Animal Rights community infighting. He also teaches English and Western Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

He agreed to a short interview, which follows.

 

I first went vegetarian for health reasons. I grew up in the South on a small farm in the Northeast corner of Tennessee and ate the typical southern diet of just about every kind of fried animal you can imagine. After a hypertension diagnosis in my early twenties, I cut out all meat in an attempt to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Also, I saw it as an excellent opportunity to test my self control. Soon after cutting meat out of my diet, I began researching American agri-business and mass confinement factory farming. I was appalled and what began as a health related diet change quickly became an ethical stance, even a moral stance.

What is it that the public should know about the American agribusiness system?

Well, they should simply Google "factory farming" and read about it for themselves. Most people are unaware of the confinement and cruelty that is inherent in producing America’s cheap meat. The suffering of gestation crates, battery cages, and the specifics of slaughterhouse practices are largely unknown by most meat eaters. Around 90 percent of Americans say they are against animal abuse and around 95 percent of Americans eat meat. Aside from my primary motivation for action…animal suffering…the health effects are becoming widely known as well. The massive amounts of antibiotics pumped into these farmed animals are needed to keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them. Well over half the antibiotics consumed in the States is given to cattle. Massive doses of growth hormones and other chemical cocktails simply add to the reasoned argument to go vegetarian. However, I want to be clear in stating that my primary reason for being vegetarian and promoting animal rights issues is animal suffering. Animals are suffering for our convenience. As a thinking person and as a Christian, that is not acceptable to me.

What will save the animals?

Human education on the plight of animals used for food, entertainment, clothing, experimentation, and other human uses. In short, only a broad paradigm shift will save the animals. We are more open, it seems, these days to animal rights issues. The AR world was once considered "fringe" or "radical," and now you’ve got meat and animal issues on Oprah and students in grammar school are going vegan for ethical reasons! Perhaps a new paradigm is being woven out of the uncertain zeitgeist of our times, I don’t know. But I do know that hope is not something one has. Hope is something one makes with active life changes to help the animals, and humans and the Earth, heal from the long eons of the massive crushing weight of human anthropocentrism.

It seems you’re primarily known for your elephant writing. Is it true circuses hate you?

I have written a great deal on captive and performing elephants, and they do hold a very special place in my life. However, as I’ve said often in public: if Ringling Brothers ever retires animals from their live performances, I’ll be the first one in line to buy a multitude of tickets to see their very talented human performers. Until then, I will continue to travel the country as much as I am able to speak against using eles in circuses or other captive venues. As if they hate me, I can’t say. I don’t hate them; I simply wish circuses would quit forcing animals to perform for half empty arenas. If any animal issue is more anachronistic than fur, at this point, it has to be circus animals. I realize circus owners are attempting to make a living and they truly feel they are preserving an American tradition. It’s my hope that they will go the way of the Pickle Family Circus or Cirque Du Soleil and become a human only show.

If someone wants to help elephants, what is the best organization out there?

There are a number of them. But I must say the Tennessee Elephant Sanctuary (www.elephants.com) is one of the most ethically consistent and wonderful ele organizations around. They have about 17 elephants on their 2,900 acres in Hohenwald, Tennessee. In fact, the TES is the only elephant only sanctuary in the United States. I am a native of Tennessee, and I truly believe the elephant sanctuary is one of the most wonderful things my state has to offer! At the national animal rights conference this year I spoke on behalf of elephants and met the founders of a new, smaller ele organization called the Love Saves Foundation. They have a great passion and will to help. Of course there is the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, which is the longest study of wild elephants in the world. In Africa, they are trying to ensure the future of 1,500 elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem fed by the waters of Kilimanjaro. Other orgs include The Performing Animal Welfare Society, Elephant Care International, and Thailand’s amazing Elephant Nature Foundation.

You have also written in support of direct action and A.L.F. related activities. What’s your take on those?

I understand the motivation behind direct action. I advocate non-violent direct action, and as long as activists truly share the stated A.L.F. guideline of not harming any life, animal or human, I can’t see the ethical flaw in the kindness involved in actively saving animals form situations in which they would be tortured and/or killed. I suppose the muddy legalities of property destruction gets a bit tricky, and explosives always make me nervous and I know I would never use them for property destruction, but non-violently rescuing animals – or humans - from harm’s way is a difficult thing to oppose. Having never personally known anyone who claimed association with the A.L.F., I can only hope they are very safe in their activities and no humans or animals suffer harm. I do, however, believe education of the public to be the most effective means of ending animal suffering and spreading joy to all humans and animals.

We heard good things about your elephant presentation at AR2008 in D.C. this past summer. Will you be speaking at AR2009 in LA?

I have certainly let Alex and Jen at FARM know I am very interested in being invited back, but I haven’t heard anything as of yet. I don’t think they start lining up speakers until the spring. But if I am asked, I will definitely be at AR2009 in Los Angeles.

8. You’re an English Professor, so if you were to recommend one book on animal rights, what would it be?

How about two? First, I would recommend the easily readable Matthew Scully’s "Dominion: The Suffering of Animals, The Power of Man, and The Call to Mercy." Secondly, I would recommend Carol Adams’ "The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist Vegetarian Critical Theory" for a more ethically detailed approach. Or perhaps Adams’ "The Pornography of Meat" for a less academic view of the same issues. Okay, there’s three.

Any current projects you’re working on?

I’m planning on starting my elephant book in early 2009. It’s in the early stages, but I can already tell that what has begun as a book length project on elephants has become quite a bit more. It deals with performing ele issues and touches on Sustainable Use, anthropocentrism, the ever-present Ivory trade, temple elephants in India and street and illegal logging elephants in Thailand. However, it also deals with introductory issues to animal rights such as Deep Ecology, Deep Vegetarianism, the interlinked issues of animal and Earth liberation, some introductory vegetarian ecofeminism and how to cope as a friend of animals in a world bent on their destruction and enslavement. It also has much to do with a little theory of mine I’m calling the Human Joy Theory and is partly about how to not be crushed by depression and hopelessness when educated on the massive amounts of horror we are inflicting on our animal brethren. I believe the animal advocate must remain calm and joyful as the cause of animal advocacy is a correct, and good, and just one. To save animals, we have to save ourselves and our personal sanity and joy. And what’s more…I truly think it’s possible to work in the often dark details of animal advocacy and simultaneously always be on the watch for the coming of wonders, as E.B. White told us. Consequently, as my favorite spider says, we must go forth and enjoy this beautiful world, these precious days. In all, it’s a book about elephants, animal rights, humans, and the unending pursuit of joy.

Any completion time frame?

I hope to have it circulating around between agents by the end of 2009. But my writing keeps getting interrupted by activism projects, so who’s to know? I also often get sidetracked by the burning sky and the great bowl of night stars and the entire greatness the outdoors has to offer, so sometimes the output that involves me sitting inside in front of a keyboard suffers.

Last words, and how can people contact you?

Thanks for having me. Anyone can contact me at michael-jaynes@utc.edu

Also, please check out my very small website devoted to elephants. It’s called Elephanatic and I can also be reached though it. Embrace joy and Save the Animals!