May 14, 2008

Still fuming over the San Francisco Art Institute's recent exhibition of videos showing six different animals being bludgeoned to death, the city's Animal Welfare Commission is proposing a law that would treat art that abuses animals like child pornography: If an animal is harmed for the purpose of making art, it would be a criminal offense to display or possibly even keep in San Francisco. Even if the animal cruelty happens outside San Francisco, artists could still face criminal charges in the city under the proposal.

"It doesn't have to be an issue of art or free speech; this is based on what's already illegal," said Commissioner Christine Garcia, who proposed the measure, at the commission's meeting last week. "If there's something out there that's so horrendous, we shouldn't encourage an industry to glamorize it, to publicize it, to profit off of it."

Commission chairwoman Sally Stephens, however, was skeptical. This law "would end up in the court over art issues and free speech issues, and the city doesn't want to be in the position of defining what is art and what is not art," she said.

It's actually unclear whether the Humanitarian Art Ordinance would even have prevented the Art Institute from showing Adel Abdessemed's "Don't Trust Me," since it could never be confirmed that the animals were killed expressly for the making of the piece. The Art Institute's president wrote in the May edition of The Art Newspaper that they were raised for food and slaughtered professionally in Mexico. Likewise, the only other example of animal cruelty for art that commission members and supporters could cite might also have been exempt.

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May 8, 2008

Famed naturalist Jane Goodall cut the ribbon at the Foster Parrots Wildlife Sanctuary, opening the doors to the new permanent home for 300 birds that are not adoptable.

"You may know me as someone who studies chimpanzees," Goodall said to 200 supporters. "But my interest in parrots started way back."

Goodall's first exposure to parrots came early. A housekeeper owned a parrot whose bright colors and use of human words captivated her as a child. When she was old enough to read, she enjoyed the story of Doctor Dolittle, whose parrot Polynesia taught him how to speak animal languages.

That interest in parrots was coupled with a love of all animals.

In the 1960s, Goodall observed chimpanzee behavior up close, eventually being accepted as a member of a tribe of chimps for almost two years. She chronicled her experiences for National Geographic with "My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees."

Now 74, Goodall no longer spends months at a time living among the primates. She established the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 and today travels 300 days a year educating the world about wildlife.

The birds now living at Foster Parrots under the care of director Marc Johnson have plenty of room to roam, a major improvement on their previous habitat, as Goodall noted.

"The last time I saw Marc and the parrots, we were all in Marc's house," she said.

At that time, the entire collection of birds were sheltered inside Johnson's home. It was so crowded and noisy from the birds that it was difficult to find a place quiet enough to talk.

Massachusetts legislator Bob Hedlund, who also helped cut the ribbon to the new facility, said "the word facility doesn't fit the old location. It’s like the difference between Little League and the Boston Red Sox."

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