Embracing Our Responsibility: Animal Welfare and the Spirit of Stewardship with Beth Cooper
Jan 30, 2024Season 5Episode 2
Thomas Ziegert
Have you ever considered the profound responsibility we hold towards the animal kingdom? It's a question that carries weighty moral implications, and together with Reverend Dr. Beth Cooper, an animal advocate and health specialist, we tackle this very subject. Our conversation navigates the delicate terrain of animal trauma, the stark realities of euthanasia, and the deep-seated call for stewardship that transcends our human-centered world. Dr. Cooper's expertise sheds light on the behaviors of both domesticated and wild animals, urging us to recognize our role in their lives and the significance of compassionate care.
The episode takes a further leap into the spiritual realm, where faith intersects with our treatment of God's creatures. Drawing from Christian teachings, we discuss the concept of stewardship over dominion, and recount the transformative story of St. Francis of Assisi, whose life epitomizes the healing bond between humans and nature. We also share an inspiring rescue tale—a Palomino Tennessee walking horse's journey from the brink of death to a new life, highlighting the intelligence and resilience inherent in these beautiful creatures. With Dr. Cooper's contribution, this episode is not just a dialogue but a heartfelt call to action for anyone who cherishes the creatures with whom we share this earth.
Have you ever considered the profound responsibility we hold towards the animal kingdom? It's a question that carries weighty moral implications, and together with Reverend Dr. Beth Cooper, an animal advocate and health specialist, we tackle this very subject. Our conversation navigates the delicate terrain of animal trauma, the stark realities of euthanasia, and the deep-seated call for stewardship that transcends our human-centered world. Dr. Cooper's expertise sheds light on the behaviors of both domesticated and wild animals, urging us to recognize our role in their lives and the significance of compassionate care.
The episode takes a further leap into the spiritual realm, where faith intersects with our treatment of God's creatures. Drawing from Christian teachings, we discuss the concept of stewardship over dominion, and recount the transformative story of St. Francis of Assisi, whose life epitomizes the healing bond between humans and nature. We also share an inspiring rescue tale—a Palomino Tennessee walking horse's journey from the brink of death to a new life, highlighting the intelligence and resilience inherent in these beautiful creatures. With Dr. Cooper's contribution, this episode is not just a dialogue but a heartfelt call to action for anyone who cherishes the creatures with whom we share this earth.
Speaker 1:
Greetings listeners. This is Reverend Tom Ziegert. Welcome to my podcast, theology 21st Century, offering the religious outsider alternatives and practical understandings of God's relationship with us. Your experiences and thoughts are more than welcome. Your posts are important to me. You can leave likes and comments both on my blog site, searching-for-godcom, my blog's Facebook site under the same name, or at wwwtheology21cecom. If you do, I'll respond to you. This episode begins this podcast's fifth season with a three-part interview about healing modalities as experienced by my guest. We hope this podcast serves as an inspiration for you. Let's begin With me. Again is Reverend Dr Beth Cooper, an ordained elder in a Christian church, an animal advocate and health specialist that includes body work for people and animals. Beth is also a licensed massage therapist and a holistic health practitioner. She grew up on a farm and has taught religion and ethics at San Diego State University. Welcome back to this second podcast together, beth.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:
Always a pleasure to be in your company.
Speaker 2:
And likewise Tom.
Speaker 1:
Thanks. It's my thought that there are two general categories of animals domesticated or pets, and wildlife or untamed. You've had experiences of interaction with both. From your experience, what are the observable differences between just those two categories of animals?
Speaker 2:
Wow, what a first question for a podcast.
Speaker 2:
You know, it's fascinating because when we take general science and we learn the different categories of animals, we're pretty much taught the land animals and then we're taught the animals that live in the water and the oceans, rivers, things like that.
Speaker 2:
But what you're asking is between what is wildlife and what is domesticated, and I have to say that, being someone who practices and helps people to regulate their central nervous system, we can also do this with animals. And what we find from wildlife and we can thank Dr Peter Levine for this is that wild animals don't have PTSD, that they are able, when traumatized, to be able to go through a loop and then, as they come out of that, their central nervous system begins to regulate. They actually shake and that shaking helps to soothe and to regulate their central nervous system. And what is happening with our domesticated animals, as well as our pets, meaning livestock, anything that's like in captivity, we do find PTSD among animals that suffer from trauma and abandonment and neglect. So I would say that that's one of the biggest things that we find between the two different groups that you've asked about.
Speaker 1:
Do you think that humans in our interaction with our pets and domesticated animals encourage the PTSD? Is that kind of where you're going with that?
Speaker 2:
Humans definitely are the connectional piece in that, because, by having animals in captivity, the animals do not have, there is no choice to go through the cycle. We are a part of the problem. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have domesticated animals. What I am saying, though, is that we can do better with what we have going on right now. Just to give you some statistics, the University of Cal Davis put out that 100,000 animals, just in California alone, every day are euthanized. If you take a look United State-wise, we're looking at 7.6 million companion animals. Of that, 7.6 million companion animals are put in a shelter. Of that, 2.7 million animals are euthanized.
Speaker 1:
That's a day.
Speaker 2:
No, that's a year. But what that means per day is that anywhere between 4,000 to 10,000 animals a day are euthanized. It's increased because of the pandemic. We're not making long-term commitments to our animal companions. If you take a look at the world statistics, we are euthanizing 200 million animals a day, meaning that's 72 billion a year.
Speaker 2:
People say, well, we have to be able to eat meat, we have to be able to sustain, but the problem is that that's not true. When we look at world populations where a lot of the world is eating rice and beans and what we're doing globally with our climate, we're finding that, because of the increase of livestock, we're really having issues with how we're harming the soil and the type of contracts that we've made with seed companies that are harder on the soil to be able to feed the amount of livestock that we have. So I think there are better ways that we can. I know that there are better ways in which we can not only be good stewards of God's creation, but to extend life in a joyful and a more humane way with our animal family members and our domesticated animals, as well as wildlife.
Speaker 1:
As an elder in the Christian tradition with that title reverend with your name, I would suspect, with the way you care about the animals that you interact with, should the church show any kind of leadership or guidance toward human and animal interaction?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, and it's unfortunate that in many ways we're in the rear. We're not, and maybe some of it is because of survival mentality, but if we could be more relaxed and looking at ways to be creative, we would see that the way people view family is different. You know, if you look like even 50 years ago, 100 years ago, everybody knew how to garden. Many were farmers. We had this connection to the land, and so when you realize that today less than 2% of the population in the United States are farmers, we have this different understanding of land, different understanding of animals, and so we have a disconnect and so we feel this less of a responsibility that they're here to serve us, or it's really out of balance. And if we could get back to the land and get our hands dirty and I don't mean to simplify it, but by having local farming become mega farming, we all know that when communities get bigger, so does the disconnect. We know this.
Speaker 2:
And then, in order for a small group of people to do such mass production, we then have shortcuts like more hormones and things like that. My grandfather a farmer, and you know the average lifespan of a cow back then was like 10 years and now it's like 18 months. So if we began to think about what we're putting in our mouth and what that means to our body but not only me, me, me but what it means for our community, what it means for the earth and what it means to be a good steward of God's creation, then we start talking about being balanced, and I think that's where the joy and the wonder, the awe of God comes to mind.
Speaker 1:
Looking at it as a consumer, as a meat eater, I have experienced eating meat from different places around the world. One of the most tasteless meats that are, in my experiences, that grown in the United States, in Argentina I was in Buenos Aires for a vacation once they bring the cattle in in the morning and it's on a spit by lunchtime and the taste is much different. It actually has taste. Even in Thailand meat has taste pork or beef and Brazil. Even in Europe there's more taste to it. I know that's because chewed up so many hormones and stuff Not getting into the ethics of me eating, or that in this question because it's just coming from my own much my own inquisitiveness.
Speaker 1:
It's the way we treat our domesticated animals, those that we are going to consume, is just seems horrible. I have a member of my extended family raises chickens for consumption and they're just in a big there's. No, I don't know if you even I don't know how to think about it. I mean, it's a very confusing issue for someone who chooses to continue to eat meat. I know it's not an enlightened stance, I understand that, but it's. But I, so I don't think about it too deeply, yeah, and I think that's what a lot of people do.
Speaker 2:
They don't think about it. As long as they can go to a grocery store, they don't have to think about where it comes from or the hands that have harvested it, because most of the time, the people that are doing the work are people that are in poverty.
Speaker 1:
And we don't even seem to care what we put into our mouths. We don't even know where it comes from most of the time.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And, as a Delaware raised person, I come from the land of Scrabble, which I've been told is what they won't use in spam, the leftovers, and in some ways you have to make light of it because it's so tragic. If I really sit, it's like trying to think about all the poverty and all the violence and all the all the pain of the world. I've driven up five freeway and when you go north to up toward north, you're in California. You see cattle and you see the.
Speaker 1:
you see the beef commercials or the milk commercials, and there's, there are cows frolicking in the green grass and these are cows bunched up together in small corrals in mud covered. Then they're mud covered and there's no to use, I guess, what we consider a human phrase, quality of life. I mean, there's, there's nothing, and and I can't understand how that kind of living isn't traumatic for any kind of creature, Absolutely, and the stress that puts on them, and then what does that mean in terms of what's happening to their muscles, to the way that they they react internally?
Speaker 1:
and then what actually becomes of the meat we eat. Right, there's a organization I was involved with called Food Securities, and when we stop consuming intentionally as much as we stop living intentionally, if we aren't intentional about each day we live, if we aren't intentional about what we say, if we aren't intentional about how we deal with each other or animals or what we put into our stomachs, we have lost all security. We are. It's like we've unlocked a door and opened it up to the world. We don't know what the food is doing to us. We don't know what they've used on it. I've been to Mexico. Don't drink the water. Well, that also means don't eat a salad because it's been washed in water and I didn't always know that and got infected or, you know, got bacteria from that.
Speaker 2:
I want to say. There's so many responses. First of all, as a non meat eater, I want to say that there are lots of reasons to not eat meat, but one of the things that I want to bridge because this is all a process and I think Tick-Nock Hans said it the best if you have to have meat in your diet, great, then eat less of it, because anything is going to be better than where we're going, and a lot of this is fed by greed. So we need to really think about how this is impacting the globe, how it impacts people's livelihood, how it impacts nutrition for our future generations, and really begin to even. It's not only about what we're putting in our mouths, but what we're putting in the animals mouths. So, very important.
Speaker 1:
Well, my underlying point was that, on a selfish basis, just being about me, that there is good reason to pay attention to what's happening with our food supply on all levels meat, vegetables, fruit and it comes from very far in places in very unregulated conditions, shipped or however.
Speaker 1:
They come in, and these are uncontrolled. There is so much lack of control of what's happening to our food before we get to us. We've gone through a pandemic, what's next? And I don't know eventually where we've wound up and what caused it, but early on it was about food source.
Speaker 2:
Well, and yet I mean, if you take a look at the statistics of it, if you look at 23.3 million in land production are being slaughtered, and then if you want to include sea life, that ups it up to 150 million for food production, I mean that's a lot of excess. And then you think about how much of that is even really being eaten. And yet we have this growing divide between people that don't have and people that do. Where are we going with this?
Speaker 1:
So, moving back to the you know, to getting away from my self-interest, my self-centeredness, because I think if I actually was enlightened about my self-interest I would be much more concerned about how much water it takes to make a quarter pounder and how much poop goes into the soil, that runs into the and the fertilizer that goes into all the food and all the bacteria that goes into the streams and the water supply. If I were truly enlightened in my own self-interest, I would not eat me.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and then think about the short term of it just seems like we forget. Because, you know, in the 70s we were talking about this kind of stuff and we were even talking about it like with plant life, about you just don't use certain chemicals. And then all this legislation was passed and you could only use certain things on certain foods. And so where are we now? Well, we're importing so much stuff that guess what they're using those chemicals on the things that were banned in the United States. Why? Because it's cheaper.
Speaker 2:
And at some point, as religious people, people of faith I don't care what your religious tradition is, it tends to go across the board that we respect what God has created. And if we believe in scripture and from a Christian tradition, we have the different things and after each one, and God said it is good. And there's even one day that God created the wild beast, and I don't think that that was talking about fraternities on college campuses. We're talking about our animal companions, and God said it is good. And so I kind of feel like we're being hypocritical on our faith if we're not finding better ways of being humane and understanding that anything with a central nervous system. Because I've had interesting conversations with people who say well, animals don't feel pain. Well, as an animal massage therapist working on animals, I want to tell you the amount of animals I've worked on that feel pain. And anyone who has an animal knows at some point you're going to go to a veterinarian because they're in pain.
Speaker 2:
So if you have a central nervous system and you're in pain, guess what you feel? Fear. You can feel fear, and there are emotions there. Now, they might not talk like humans talk, but they do communicate, and there are all kinds of studies that show how animals communicate with humans. If there's anything we can do, let's dispel the myth that animals don't feel pain. They do feel pain and they feel fear, which is part of why we have so many animals that have PTSD.
Speaker 1:
Speaking of religion and animals, christians I can't, that's that being my primary faith base, so I'm not going to talk about any other one. But we have conveniently chosen one translation of the place of human beings and the relationship with beasts from the Hebrew texts. The translation we have failed to use as Christians is steward. That as being the creatures or the creations of God that named the beasts, we were given not rulership over them, as we tend to use, but stewardship of. We are supposed to be stewards of the world and the beasts upon it. Stewards mean taking care of, in my understanding of the way it was meant, they are our responsibility not to abuse. They are our responsibility to care for and to see to it that they procreate and continue to exist.
Speaker 1:
I know I read a long time ago that with the deforestation of the Amazonian forests, that 20,000 species a day were destroyed, and it makes me think of what is the place of animals. In the church I've been, I've blessed animals. People have brought their snakes and their turtles and their goats and their pigs and their dogs and their cats, and that's a lovely thing for us to do with people's pets, but that's about as far as I think we've ever gone, except to maybe allow people to bring their dogs in the church, which is, by the way, the reason they had an altar rail in the old days.
Speaker 1:
They had to keep the dogs from getting to the communion host. We make no space for anything but people in our religion.
Speaker 2:
Well, yeah, I see where you're going with it. I would also add, though, that the church can be one of the more inclusive places for groups of people, because they know they can get away with it. They know that they have a long tradition that shows that, but as far as animals and being able to express that, as far as being welcoming to God's creation, we're way behind, absolutely. You know, I think churches are doing blessing services. I'm not so sure. I would say that's still the majority of churches aren't doing that, but I'm not so sure that they even understand where it comes from, or they think, well, why should we do it? It's like a Catholic tradition, but one of the things that I learned in my time in Italy. I had a couple nuns, sisters I should say sisters from the St Francis Order. I knew about St Francis. I knew that St Francis was the Patriot Saint of the animals, but here are some things that I didn't know about St Francis. St Francis, if you were to go to a CC, you would see this incredible cathedral all trimmed in gold. If St Francis came back, he would shudder the think of what they have done to uphold his name. He was not a person like that. But going through all of this and seeing what Ollie did and how he was trying to reform the church from within, the man actually walked from a CC all the way to Rome. They actually have this Camino. Now that you can do that, I would strongly urge anyone that, if you're into hiking or walking, that would certainly be an incredible, incredible thing to do. But here's where I'm going with this. As you walk through all of this grandeur and everything and you're just like wow. And then you come out there's this open green space and there's this statue made of metal and it's very contemporary, it doesn't fit in to anything that you've seen and the horse is slumped over, very, very tired. It is literally slumped over. And there's this military person slumped over the horse and you're just like you've just been through this Wow, look at all of this. And then you see this and I didn't know what it was, and so I was texting one of the sisters and the sister texted back and said when you come back to Rome, we'll talk, I go, ok.
Speaker 2:
I found out that St Francis was a military person and he had fought in all these battles and he kind of hit the wall. He came back with PTSD. He was very depressed. He had a lot of money, he came from this family, but he knew this way of life was not for him, that there had to be something better. And he gave it all and he went into nature, and now we have the science to back up. Nature gives off energy. It gives off renewal. St Francis, before the science, even said, hey, you did it. Right, he was doing it. He went out in nature and the animals because he was out there every day. He lived out there until he could regulate his central nervous system. And again, I understand I'm putting contemporary language to what has been taught. That's where we're going with it, right, I mean, we know the science. Now he was able to get regulation again and it was such a blessing for him to have relief that he went into the community. He wanted the people to have this experience and he is the one that said, hey, one of the ways that we can get animals to be thinking about this is to realize they were a part of the nativity. He is the one that created the nativity scene outside of every Christian church during Christmas, and we don't even make that connection.
Speaker 2:
And so then you begin to start exploring the Bible in different ways. You see pictures of Jesus holding a lamb or the sheep are following Jesus. Well, you go back and you look at animal husbandry back then and you know what? Guess what? Shepherds knew their sheep and they followed the shepherd. Why? Because the shepherd had a relationship with the sheep. How are we doing sheep now? We run a four-wheeler behind the sheep. They're not following the sheep because there's no relationship. The sheep aren't following the shepherd. We're running an ATV and ATC whatever they call them four-wheelers behind them, because we don't have the time to build relationship. It's all about mass quantity, not quality, and it's certainly not about connection. There are so many ways the church can explore, ways in which we can think about how we involve animals within the life of the Christian community.
Speaker 2:
Another thing that I was thinking about our families have become disconnected. We don't have extended family like we used to. Seniors don't have children that are around that can take care of them, or parents don't have seniors that are around, and the animal's work has changed. It was all about agriculture and I don't even want to get into the abuses of that and the work of the animal has changed in the amount of how animals have become service animals. But even just being a companion, a pet, those animals absorb our energy. They give us companionship when we're in isolation, let alone what they're doing for our veterans for war, all the different things that they're providing for, but we don't see it. We just are so disconnected that we don't see it.
Speaker 2:
The other day I came across something on the internet and I saw this beautiful horse and I guess the reason why I caught my eye, after working on so many animals and knowing my breeds and all that it said it was this champagne pacifinal horse. That's not a champagne, it's not even a pacifino. And I was looking at it and then I realized it was at a kill lot. And I'm like what? In the United States in the 70s we passed that horses couldn't be slaughtered in the United States. So instead of looking at what that should mean and how we could be better people, we ended up saying, okay, well, we found a way to work around the system. We'll develop all these kill-lots for horses in the United States and then we'll ship them out to Canada and Mexico.
Speaker 2:
So then, as I started beginning to research all of this, I had people say well, you know, we've got cripple and we've got sick and we gotta do something with them. Well, I'm thinking we still could find a better or humane or way than hauling them and not caring about even how we haul them, which I'm not so sure there are. I mean, I would have to check into it, but I don't even know that there are laws that say how we haul animals and trucks. So as I look at these kill-lots, I found that it's a system and it feeds into it, and then they fatten them up because what it means is more money per volume. Well then, if you get a horse pregnant, that means more volume, and so it becomes an abuse. To me it's a moral injury to what we're doing to these animals. For what? For money.
Speaker 2:
And so, getting back to this horse, I found out it was five years old and healthy, and then I started researching and found out that 80, some percent of horses that are in these kill-lots are actually rideable, healthy. They might need some groomer training or maintenance training. Why are they here? So then you realize that as long as there's demand, there will be supply. So these horses are now being harvested or slaughtered for meat and then sent to Europe or to Japan, because they don't want horses that are crippled or sick, they want a nice, healthy horse stick. And so you're just like you get overwhelmed by the knowledge, and so I get that sense of it's just easier to not think about it. But yet if we don't, then we don't change it either. I just raised that as one of the things the church could really do in this is to engage in conversation and really look at all sides, because wherever we fall, we ought to be able to still be better. We need to be humane about our methodology and it shouldn't always be about the almighty dollar.
Speaker 1:
The final disposition of that non-champagne horse.
Speaker 2:
I couldn't sleep at night. I could not believe, and I know that she's one of many and there will always be unwanted animals. But there was something very special about her and it got down to the final hours before she was going to be shipped to Mexico. I ended up getting a horse that I have done somatic work on. She's got many massages. I found a wonderful trainer who just is absolutely wonderful with her and she in four months is completely rideable, safe, and the trainer said she's one of the smartest horses she's ever trained in her life.
Speaker 1:
And how would you describe the breed of this horse?
Speaker 2:
I did DNA on her and she is a Palomino Tennessee walking horse. How she ever ended up at a kill lot is beyond me, but, like I said, she's just one of many.
Speaker 1:
Beth, it's been a long time that we've been together on this podcast. I'm sure there's going to be another one, but thank you for being with us today.