The iconic Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen has taken on a new look this month: anti-whaling advocates vandalized the statue, coating it in red paint in an effort to draw attention to the endangered whales of the Faroe Islands.

Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid statue was vandalized…again https://t.co/8Aq7meZiMy pic.twitter.com/odfmW4UiON

— Condé Nast Traveler (@CNTraveler) June 7, 2017

For a thousand years, the people of the Faroe Islands have conducted an annual grindadráp, a drive hunt where a flotilla of small boats drive whales and dolphins into a small bay where they are killed by hand with knives. The organization Sea Shepherd has worked to end these hunts since the 1980s, but the inhabitants of the islands have pushed back, arguing that the “grind” is critical for both food and preserving the islanders’ sense of community. The enmity between environmental advocates and the Danish authorities has grown exponentially since crews of Sea Shepherd boats were detained by the Danish navy when they tried to block the 2014 grind. Whaling is illegal within the EU and Sea Shepherd has declared that Brussels must launch “infringement proceedings” against Denmark for allowing the grind. However, the Faroe Islands have a unique status–as an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, they rely on Denmark for military, judicial, and foreign affairs but have control over their own domestic issues.

Carl Christian Ebbesen, head of Copenhagen’s culture and leisure committee, was outraged by the vandalism, calling it “well out of line” and “as stupid as you can possibly get.” Despite Ebbesen’s dismissal of the red paint, this is not the first time the Little Mermaid statue has been used for political purposes. In 1964, the Situationist avant-garde group sawed off the head of the statue. She has also lost limbs and been painted numerous times by various groups. In 2004, a burqa was draped over the head of the statue as part of protest against Turkey joining the EU and the statue was clothed in a headscarf in 2007 for reasons that are unclear.

Vandalizing the statue may seem like a petty or juvenile act, but it has served its purpose–getting the grinds of the Faroe Island back in the headlines in the wake of Sea Shepherd officially requesting the European Commission punish Denmark for the grinds (Sea Shepherd has claimed no responsibility for the vandalism). Tourists visiting Copenhagen and dozens of media outlets picking up images of the statue have made the red paint stunt go viral, bringing attention to a debate that relatively few outside of Denmark have been following. By next week, the red paint will have been removed from the statue and it will return to its role as a charming backdrop in Instagram snaps for visitors from around the globe–but for the moment, it is a powerful political statement.

In the past, we’ve discussed Greenpeace’s symbolic activism as effective at drumming up sympathy and finding new allies but activism does not always have to take place on such a grandiose scale. The painting of the statue is an effective, albeit temporary, protest–the anonymous painters should consider it a job well done.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Vandalism as Activism: Protesting Whaling on the Faroe Islands appeared first on Law Street.

Much controversy has arisen over Cecil the lion, who was killed, skinned and beheaded by a dentist from Minnesota looking for a trophy. The slaying of a protected and revered animal drew criticism from national media and social media and forced the man responsible into hiding. However, this is just one example of an exotic animal killed for its skin, head, or body parts. These unique species are often smuggled or illegally traded, transported through grueling conditions, and forced into unnatural environments . Read on to learn about the exotic animal trade–from hunting to breeding and trafficking.

Live Animal Trading

Traded animals come from a variety of sources, including from being captured in the wild to being sold as surplus from zoos or zoo-like institutions. These animals are then sold over the internet or through live auctions. Both marketplaces are poorly regulated, although auctions are regulated through the Animal Welfare Act and any state regulations that might also apply.

In addition to acquiring these animals through smuggling, Americans began breeding their own exotic animals beginning in the 1960s and 70s. Due to the high profitability of selling these animals, breeding has become a successful industry. The increased value often comes from restaurants seeking alternative types of meat or for hides.  High import taxes, which have  reduced poaching, also make breeding a profitable option for American sellers who can potentially benefit from decreased competition and expenses.

Wherever animals are bought and sold, they often face poor treatment from their new owners, even unintentionally. For companies, this is frequently a result of economics–it is usually cheaper to let an animal die or not treat it than it is to pay for a veterinarian. In the case of private individuals, animals are often bought without the knowledge of how to care for them, particularly in the case of exotic species. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to a high rate of abnormal behavior, sickness, and even death amongst animals living in new environments.

Perhaps the most gruesome and public incident occurred four years ago in Zanesville, Ohio. In 2011, a caretaker of large exotic animals released many of them before killing himself. Most of the animals were then subsequently killed by authorities, including endangered species such as lions, tigers, bears, and wolves.  In this case, local authorities unfamiliar with how to trap these exotic species resorted to killing them in order to protect the public.

Transporting animals illegally also presents significant challenges. When shipping animals to evade authorities, many of the animals transported actually die in transit.  While exact figures are not entirely clear and are often exaggerated to drum up action, the laundering of animals in ways such as the one used by a man who strapped lizards to his chest when passing through LAX can lead to high mortality rates. The following video gives an inside look into the exotic animal trade:

Fur and Pelt Trade

In the Wild

Various animals and plants are hunted for a number of reasons. However, continued hunting has left many of these animals and plants at endangered levels or very near to it. Perhaps the most affected are large mammals, as well as sharks and whales. While these animals can be hunted for meat, more often they are hunted for sport, either for the head or other body parts.

While it is illegal to hunt these animals without a permit, if the hunter is willing to pay enough he or she can hunt virtually every animal on or approaching the endangered species list; the idea is the money spent killing them can then be used in protecting healthier members of the same species. This includes lions and even black-horned rhinos, one of the most endangered species in the world.  In fact the right to kill one such rhino last year, a rhino past his effective breeding age, generated 350,000 dollars for Namibia to use for its conservation efforts.

In Captivity

As an alternative to the wild, exotic animals are also bred on farms. These farms often exist for the express purpose of producing furs. The value of animal furs cannot be understated in history, as it was a main source of development for Europeans in modern-day North America and Russia. Currently, most of the furs used for clothing come from animals raised on fur farms. The United States is home to many such places, however, China is quickly dominating more and more of the fur farm market.  The following video provides some details on the lives of animals raised on fur farms:

Aside from raising animals on farms for fur, they are also being bred on ranches. In this case, for half a century exotic animals have been brought up in ranches in Texas with the express purpose of hunting them. In the view of those running such ranches, this allows hunters to get out their desire to hunt these animals in a controlled setting and thus reduce the need for killing them in the wild.  The video below looks at the ranches in  Texas:

Method to the Madness

The reasons why people kill these exotic animals include use in religious ceremonies, for food or clothing, and even to use them as trophies. The most common underlying motive, though, seems to be for profit. Killing most animals is allowed by governments for the right price and with the proper licensing.  Walt Palmer, the dentist who shot Cecil the lion for example, reportedly claimed to have paid more than $50,000 dollars and obtained the proper permits to kill the animal. The return on this investment–whether it be a trophy, skin, or head–to the hunter can more than make up the cost in hunting, especially if the hunt is orchestrated illegally.

Tigers, for example, can fetch as much as $15,000 for their skins. In fact, the profitability of killing and selling animals is so great that is has become the sphere of organized crime. These professional criminals employ every means from using helicopters to night-vison goggles to body armor to kill their prey.

Regulating the Animal and Fur Trade

According to the Michigan State Animal Legal and Historical Center, while few states require anything more than permits for hunting, the United States has several federal laws that seek to prevent the killing of animals for fur, including the Lacey Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Fur Seal Act and the Endangered Species Act deal. Additionally, the Fur Products Labeling Act requires precise labeling on clothing of exactly what type of fur is being used. There is also the Dog and Cat Fur Protection Act, which prevents using fur from those animals in clothing. However, these laws are ultimately aimed at stopping the fur trade from wild animals, not those bred on fur farms.

The U.S. government sees fur farms like most other farms, leaving them under the authority of the Department of Agriculture. While the United States has laws against animal cruelty, there are very few other protections in place. However, some other countries have much stricter fur regulations. In fact, the UK, Austria, and Croatia ban fur farms entirely.

Conclusion

Killing and illegally transporting is a problem, but a problem that begs the question: how much more can be done? More laws and agencies can continue to be created with the goal being to stop this industry, but like with drugs or gambling, after a while more restrictions stop having any more effect.  Existing laws have been somewhat successful, particularly using the money for the right to kill animals to reinvest in protecting them, a fact even acknowledged by the World Wildlife Fund. Furthermore, like those industries, these laws fail to get at the root of the problem: the demand for these animals and their skins. No matter how many poachers or hunters get arrested there will always be someone else to take their place, especially when it offers a lucrative job for a person in need.

There are several alternatives to the hunting and poaching of these animals in the wild, like fur farms and ranches. However these also draw a great deal of criticism which puts hunters in a somewhat difficult position where they face criticism for hunting animals in the wild and on ranches whose sole purpose is hunting.

Either way, while major news outlets and social media platforms crackle with indignation over the death of one lion, it appears if people at times lose track of more important issues. While high-profile events like the killing of Cecil the lion gain a lot of attention and may even spark public outcry, focusing on individual cases may cause people to lose sight of the issues with the animal trade as a whole. The industry is likely to continue as long as people have a desire to hunt, the price is right, and society lacks a proper understanding of how these animals are treated.

Resources

Born Free USA: The Dirty Side of the Exotic Animal Trade

Michigan State University Animal Legal & Historical Center: Fur Production and Fur Laws

Chicagoist: Minnesota Trophy Hunter Accused of Killing Beloved Lion

Discover News: Trophy Hunting Is There Any Benefit to Conservation?

USA Today: Fury Over Cecil the Lion also Sparks Race Controversy

PETA: Inside the Exotic Animal Trade

The Center for Consumer Freedom: FBI Anti-terror Unit Investigated PETA

USA Today: Years later Effects of Exotic-Animal Tragedy Still Felt

Dr. Steve Best: Top Five Animals that Face Extinction Satisfying Human greed

CBS News: Can Hunting Endangered Animals Save the Species?

National Wildlife Federation: Overexploitation

List Verse: 8 Endangered Species Still Hunted

Priceonomics: The Exotic Animal Trade

UC Small Farm Program: Exotic Livestock

Humane Society: Dangerous Exotic Pets

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Michigan is a lovely state, arguably most famous as the home of the Great Lakes. It is also a state with many strange laws, especially a specific few pertaining to transportation. In Michigan, it is illegal to be drunk while on a train, and cars may not be sold on Sunday. Speaking of Sundays, the last one in June of every year is officially deemed “log cabin day.”

There are myriad laws in Michigan pertaining to the conduct of men and women. For one, adultery is illegal but only punishable if the affected husband or wife files a complaint. Also, men are banned from “seducing and corrupting unmarried girls.” If they do so, they face up to five years in prison.

Not if you’re an unmarried woman, missy!

Animal rights activists will be happy to know that in Michigan it is illegal to kill a dog using a decompression chamber. They would also be happy to know that a law that would have previously angered them has been repealed; at one point, there was a bounty on starlings and crows killed in any “village, township or city” in Michigan. Granted, a three cent bounty (for starlings) and a ten cent bounty (for crows) probably wouldn’t lead many to make them hunting targets, but you never know.

I know you’ve all been anxiously waiting to discover what the dumb laws in Ohio are. Well, the wait is over! Until 2005, breastfeeding was not allowed in public, no matter the state of hunger of the baby. Ohio lawmakers also decided at one point to create a nice and obscure law to make it illegal to “mistreat anything of great importance.” That is quite a subjective term, considering we all generally think of different things as greatly important.

Criminals in Ohio can basically go wild on Sundays and on the Fourth of July. On those days, no civil arrests may be made in the state.

These days, the appearance of food is grossly misrepresented in advertisements and other images. Akron decided to put an end to this by enacting a law banning the display of colored chickens. The city also takes sports safety a bit too seriously and bans skateboarding after dark.

Last but not least in this edition of Dumb Laws in the United States: Indiana. Mathematicians must have argued substantially over when to stop reciting the digits in Pi, as there is a law officially deeming its value as three.

If an Indiana man wants to impress a lady by showing off his macho nature skills, he cannot do so by catching a fish with his bare hands. He also had better not walk around looking aroused–another no-no according to Indiana law.

Lawmakers must really believe into the power of prayer as those who pray for their dependents don’t have to pay for their medical care. And liquor laws in Indiana redefine ridiculous. Looking for a one-stop shop for White Russian ingredients? You won’t find everything you need in Indiana, where liquor stores may not sell milk. You’ll also have to go elsewhere for cold soda as a mixer, since liquor stores there cannot sell that either.

Not if you’re an Indiana liquor store, you don’t!

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Texas. Home to the Bush family, the South by Southwest music festival, big trucks, Tex Mex, and some of the dumbest laws in the South. Knowing the conservative tendencies typical of the large southern state, it should hardly be surprising that homosexual behavior there was once a misdemeanor offense. The Supreme Court overturned this law in 2003, however.

Also reflecting the state’s conservative nature is the law banning the promotion of dildos or owning more than six of them. Technically, the law bans obscene devices, which it defined as “a device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”

Reflecting a previous post on dumb laws in Nevada, urinating on the streets is illegal in El Paso. Really gotta pee there? Best to sneak into McDonald’s and pretend to be a paying customer.

Not in the El Paso streets, Tom Hanks!

It is also prohibited to appear in public places wearing lewd dress. Specifically, the “lewd dress law” states that, among other things, “no person shall exhibit or expose himself naked, or disguised, or in any indecent or offensive manner to any person.”

Looking to sell your eye or other organs in Texas? Sorry, you’ll have to take your body-part sales aspirations elsewhere, as doing so is illegal there.

Agnostics or Atheists looking to hold public office in Texas may have trouble since you are legally required to acknowledge the existence of a higher being before taking office. Though, I guess they could lie and say they believe in a higher power.

In Austin, wire cutters cannot be carried in one’s pockets. This law seems perfectly reasonable to me, however; imagine how many accidents have been and will be prevented by such a measure, especially for men.

Speaking of conservative laws, New Mexico has many of them on the books, especially concerning nudity. There, nudity is legal under two conditions: first, male genitals must be covered, and second, women must have their nipples covered.

I’m not sure exactly the criteria used to determine whether or not one is an idiot, but in New Mexico, they are prevented from voting. Perhaps it is some sort of I.Q. test. Maybe they should just take it one step further and say that only geniuses may vote. In fact, not only idiots but also “insane persons and persons convicted of a felonious or infamous crime unless restored to political rights” are prevented from voting.

Deming, New Mexico must have had some strange issues in the past because it saw the need to specifically ban spitting on the steps of an opera house. Or, the community just really, truly values the operatic arts and doesn’t want a building relating to them defiled by nasty saliva. In the same city, they made a law prohibiting hunting in Mountain View Cemetery. I don’t even WANT to know what happened to provoke that one.

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Dumbest Laws in the United States: Texas and New Mexico appeared first on Law Street.

In Colorado, there is a famous city called Boulder. World-class geology professors teach at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the state’s concert venue Red Rocks is known across the nation. So, naturally, Colorado takes rocks very seriously.

This brings me to dumb Colorado law number one: one may not mutilate a rock in a state park. I’m not entirely sure what is considered “rock mutilation.” Carving your initials into a rock? Do pebbles count? Oh, the confusion! In the city of Boulder, it is illegal to roll or throw rocks on public property. This law also raises a lot of questions. What if you are rolling snow to make a snowman and there is a rock in the ball of snow? Does that count? Can you throw a pebble at a window to get someones’ attention like they do in the movies?

Because of the presence of llama farms in Boulder, lawmakers felt it necessary to ban llamas from grazing on city property. This law also applies to other domestic animals, in case you’re wondering. No need to worry about a missile being thrown at your vehicle while driving in Alamosa, Colorado, as that is illegal there. And if you frequently need to pee in Alamosa, make sure you are always near a restroom, as there is a law banning public urination.

Colorado is famous for a lot of things, including recreational marijuana and skiing. If you decide to take a skiing or snowboarding trip to Vail, you’d better be pretty good at it, as it is illegal to crash into obstacles on a ski slope. So, if you are a little less than pro level, I’d recommend venturing elsewhere lest you have a run in with the law.

Now it’s time to poke some fun at Arizona laws. Obviously, Cocaine is illegal in the state, yet lawmakers also felt the need to make the manufacture of imitation cocaine illegal, as well. What about baking soda companies, or other companies that make white powdery substances? Doesn’t that technically count as “imitation cocaine?”

You should also be careful what you write or draw on a flag in Arizona. If you place any mark on a flag likely to cause a physical retaliation, you will be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor. The state also cherishes its cacti. If you cut one down, you’re looking at up to 25 years in prison. Also, if you happen to come across a camel there, don’t shoot! Camel hunting in Arizona is illegal. This law may sound dumb, but there actually are camels in Arizona. The U.S. Army once experimented with camels in the desert there but they eventually gave up. The remaining camels were set free, and are now protected.

In summary, be careful with rocks in Colorado and don’t cut down cacti in Arizona or kill any camels and you should be okay. Join me next time for the dumbest laws of New Mexico and Texas!

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Next Monday begins the week-long tradition of the New Jersey black bear hunt. During this process, between 250-300 bears of a population that tends to dance around a total of 3,400 north of Interstate 80 are “harvested” so as to keep their numbers in check. The reasons for this hunt and the manners in which it is pursued are controversial, and there may exist more progressive and responsible alternatives.

The general argument is that black bear populations can get out of control; they encroach upon our territory and into our backyards, and the likelihood of people experiencing dangerous encounters with them increases. We do not pause to consider that human populations might be the ones getting out of control. Rampant development and overbuilding in the North Jersey area means habitat damage for all manners of local wildlife. As forests are bulldozed, bears’ homes are destroyed. Furthermore, the homes of the animals on which they prey are destroyed as well, meaning that they all must relocate. This concentrates bears into smaller areas, which might produce the illusion that there are more of them while in actuality we simply see them more frequently.

The extensive building does not effectively take into account animal geographies; that is to say, the routes and manners in which they travel, hunt, court and mate, and go about their business. As we build out of control, bears are channeled into ever narrowing corridors or their paths are completely blocked, forcing them to pass through our backyards. We should also keep in mind that leveling wooded areas might put a strain on their food supply; the common image of a black bear sifting through people’s trash might not be a result of overly aggressive and bold bears seeking out human habitat in order to feed, but a last resort to which we have reduced them.

A site of deforestation and habitat destruction. Courtesy of crustmania via Flickr.

The very concept that a large and occasionally predatory animal such as a bear is constantly undergoing a population explosion seems to run contrary to the laws of nature. The food chain is a pyramid; the things on the bottom are the most numerous and as one ascends there are fewer and fewer of those creatures that prey on them. For example, as plants are at the bottom of every food chain, their numbers are astronomical. Then, the small rodents that eat them are naturally less numerous than the plants on which they feed, and the foxes that eat those rodents are fewer still. Bears are very large and, while they feed on roots, berries, and things of that nature as well, there would first have to be population explosions at every level of the food chain below them if their own numbers were to get out of control.

The New Jersey Fish and Game Council’s black bear management policy declares that it intends to consider

The cultural carrying capacity, which is the number of bears that can co-exist compatibly with the local human population in a given area in concert with the biological carrying capacity of the land to support bears.

There are two things wrong with this statement. The first, in conjunction with the previous discussion, is that it presumes to take into our own hands the bear population for the sake of the biological carrying capacity of the local environment. It assumes that the exploding bear population will overwhelm the local ecosystem and it is our responsibility to keep it in check. Again, if the population is growing rampantly it is because the ecosystem is flourishing in a manner so as to support it; the bears will not simply increase on their own. Therefore the ecosystem would maintain its balance. If for some reason at a particular point in time the bear population was unusually large, competition for food, shelter, and reproduction would increase and some bears would lose out and die off. Thus the ecosystem would self regulate. That’s the point; these things occur naturally all the time. Humans do not need to step in and play God.

The second problem with the management policy’s statement is that it assumes bear populations are the only factor in measuring the quality of the cultural carrying capacity. It declares that only a certain number of bears is suitable for a healthy carrying capacity; then if their populations get too high things go wrong. Why must this be the determining factor? Instead, if the unlikely situation arises that their populations do rise substantially, why can’t we readdress our own behavior, building policies, and attitudes and interactions with the environments of which we are a part? Why do we absolve ourselves of any responsibility? On the local level, humans aren’t exactly putting checks on their own populations; it is always others who are in the wrong and must get out of the way.

Let’s assume the bear populations are in fact rising. How is this determined? A team uses a DNA sampling technique in order to estimate the number of actively breeding bears in the region. Based on this, the total number is subsequently calculated. This method is supposedly more accurate than the more traditional catch, tag, and release systems. Be that as it may, does the hunt account for this delicate dynamic or do we shoot indiscriminately? What if, say, 80 percent of the bears killed during a particular hunt are active breeders? This could potentially devastate the bear population. It is not simply a matter of how many bears should or should not be killed, but which ones and where.

Courtesy of Tim Lumley via Flickr.

Rather than turn to black bears as scape goats, we should admit that we are causing habitat destruction and environmental damage. The validity of the black bear management policy has been questioned in the past, but to no avail. On the basis of not just science and policy but inward social reflection and questions of human behavior and value systems, it is time to challenge it again.

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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