Merritt Clifton interview in Excalibur, July, 2008

[Guest guest]

*Merritt Clifton is the editor of ANIMAL PEOPLE, a US based newspaper that

provides coverage of animal issues all over the world. He has over 30 years

of journalistic experience. In this interview with ,

executive editor of Excalibur, he describes his life and the motives and

achievements of his newspaper.*

 

**

 

*THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD*

 

 

* 1) Did you always want to become a journalist?*

* **For as long as I can remember. I learned to read at age 3, &

remember reading in newspapers about the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. My

father bought a globe to show me where it was and why it was strategically

important, after I began asking him questions about it. *

 

* *

*2) Where did you start your journalistic career and how?*

*I auditioned for a job as a cub reporter for a long defunct daily newspaper

in Berkeley, California, on my 15th birthday, competing against a lot of

older people, some with previous newspaper experience. *

 

* *

* The editor assigned us to go out and bring him back a nine-inch

business feature. I was the first one back, and the first to complete my

write-up. The editor gave it a glance, balled it up, and bounced it off

my forehead. His speech went something like this:*

 

* " Who-what-where-when-why-and-how, you dumb @#$%! That's how you

write journalism. This is what it means:*

 

* *

* " Who gives a @#$%?*

* *

* " What does it matter to me?*

 

* *

* " Where is my share of it?*

 

* *

* " When do I get it?*

 

* *

* " Why do I not have it yet?*

 

* *

* " How do I get my share?*

 

* *

* " That's what the @#% & $%$ on the street is thinking. Give him his

answers and you might survive in the noosepaper racket. " *

 

* *

 

* *

* I rewrote, knowing the editor was right, told the editor to stuff

it up his ass (which probably helped to get his attention--it is not

standard procedure for job applicants), left, and found my article on page

one of the newspaper the next day.*

 

* *

* Obviously I was hired. I have never forgotten the editor's

speech, because it put the tools in my hands to do everything worth a damn

that I've done ever since.*

 

* *

* That editor continued to shout at me that way for the next two

years, I shouted back at least as obscenely, and when he finally fired me

I got a job with a bigger paper in about 10 minutes flat.

*

 

* *

 

*3) How did you become interested in animals?*

 

*4) Could you please write something about your childhood, ie., your family

background and how that influenced you to care for animals and become an

activist?*

 

 

* *

* I'm not an activist; I'm a journalist who reports about activism.*

 

* *

* Animal people usually say that animals were always in their lives,

years before their awakening as animal advocates--but animals were almost

entirely absent from my childhood, seen only on Easter visits to zoos. *

 

* *

* Dogs were an accursed and sometimes menacing presence who messed

sidewalks; the first cat I remember was seething in a rabid frenzy.*

 

* *

* Despite that, though, I was always keenly interested in animals.

Animal stories were my favorites from my earliest memories, and I

remembered every detail of my zoo visits.*

 

* *

* In 1958, when I was a precocious five-year-old, I cried upon

reading that Laika the Russian space dog would burn to death during reentry

from orbit. When I learned that the decompression chambers used for

deep-sea diving were also used to kill unwanted dogs and cats, I declared

that I would start a kitty farm to save them all.*

 

* It was right about then that I learned where meat comes from. It

wasn't the shock that it was for most children--we were already

vegetarians. My father had renounced bloodshed in any form after his World

War II combat experience. As we had no more direct involvement with meat

and slaughter than we did with war, I did not have to deal with the issues

of guilt and denial that trouble so many children (and awakened adults).

When I read in a magazine about both the Nazi death camps and the 1959

effort to pass the Humane Slaughter Act, I immediately equated the photos

of dead, naked children my own age with photos of dead pigs on a conveyor

belt. It was all the same thing to me.*

 

* *

* We moved a lot during my childhood. Every new school I attended

brought with it a new gang of older boys who tried almost daily to trash the

vegetarian lunch I made myself, and tried to force me to ingest meat or dog

feces. They never succeeded, and I became quite good at standing up to

bullies. *

 

* *

* No one seemed surprised when in 1966 and again in 1967 I refused to

kill and dissect animals in science class. I took the academic

consequences--first a 'D' grade and then demotion to non-college track

science--without complaint.*

 

* *

* Despite all that, and despite dividing most of my high school

years between playing baseball and newspaper work, I scored ridiculously

high on my university entrance exam, started university on my 17th

birthday, & graduated with honors at 20--but I skipped the graduation

ceremony to pursue an opportunity to play professional baseball. *

 

* *

* I had one of the briefest baseball careers on record, pitching the

last three innings of one pre-season professional game, but it was

definitely much more interesting than standing in line to be handed a piece

of paper.*

* *

 

* *

 

*5) What animal issues have you covered over the years? Are there any issues

that you have not covered?*

 

 

* *

* Early in my career, in nine years as a farm-and-business reporter

in rural Quebec, I covered mainly agricultural and habitat issues, doing

many exposes of harmful practices in what is now known as " factory farming. "

*

 

* *

* Investigations of the effects of herbicides and pesticides led into

exposing how animal tests were being manipulated to conceal various

hazards. I worked intensively on toxicological issues for several years.

This led into exposing how laboratory animals were procured and treated,

which in turn led to investigations of greyhound racing and pet theft. *

 

* *

* Meanwhile, I had begun exposing exotic animal trafficking and

" hunts " of captive animals in Quebec. When a local zoo illegally imported a

wild-caught baby gorilla, I exposed that situation.*

 

* *

* During this time, I was also volunteer assistant to a Quebec

deputy game warden, delegated mainly to detecting and removing illegal

traplines. I did this for 12 winters, gaining far more trapline experience

than most trappers. I also helped to apprehend deer poachers. *

 

* *

* The opportunity to report on animal issues full time came in late

1986, when Kim Bartlett hired me from a resume to become lead feature

writer for the defunct Animals' Agenda magazine, which she then edited.

Two years later she promoted me to news editor. A year after that, I

finally met her in person.*

 

* *

* I don't think there are any major animal issues that I have not

investigated at some point--but challenging new developments occur every

day, and there is much more I would like to write about than time and page

space have ever permitted.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*6) Which are the major issues that your reporting has influenced?*

 

 

* *

* In January 1987 I exposed several economic points of vulnerability

within the fur trade, and then exposed them further in mid-1988 with a

300-page study that 19 organizations used in their anti-fur campaigns during

the next several years. U.S. retail fur sales fell from $1.85 billion to

$950 million, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, have yet to recover. *

 

* *

* Kim Bartlett started one of the first major trap-neuter-release

programs in the U.S. in 1991. I did the statistical documentation and

habitat assessments that established the success of the method. My articles

and conference presentations about our findings were instrumental in helping

to popularize trap-neuter-release, which in the U.S. is now widely used to

control feral cats, and elsewhere in the world, including India, is the

basis of non-lethal dog population control.*

 

* *

* We left Animals' Agenda due to conflict with the board of directors

and founded ANIMAL PEOPLE in mid-1992. ANIMAL PEOPLE has been instrumental

in introducing no-kill animal control to the U.S., and in encouraging U.S.

donors to help support animal welfare work in the less affluent parts of the

world.*

 

* *

* Globally, we have helped to introduce more effective and

enlightened approaches to zoonotic disease control than just trying to kill

all the animals who might potentially contract a disease such as rabies,

SARS, or H5N1, and have helped to promote understanding that street dogs,

feral cats, urban monkeys, et al are part of the urban ecology, with

essential ecological roles.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*7) What do you say to the argument that there are enough human issues to

worry about than spending time, money and resources on animals? Do you think

that human rights and animal rights issues can clash and one must be done at

the expense of the other as a matter of priority?*

 

 

* *

* Animal issues mostly are human issues. Much of my work on " animal

issues, " mentioned above, has also involved exposing threats to human

health, for example as result of water pollution caused by factory farming

and harmful chemicals being put on the market based on misleading animal

test results. Much of my work helps to prevent outbreaks of rabies,

leptospirosis, and other potentially deadly diseases.*

 

* *

* There is also the inescapable association of violence against

animals with violence against humans. No human was ever better off because

someone was allowed to abuse a dog; but wherever dogs may not be abused

with impunity, women, children, the aged, and the infirm are also safer

from abuse.*

 

* *

* Incidentally, for 20 years I published a monthly

literary/political magazine called SAMISDAT, with a strong human rights

orientation. Eventually I decided that my abilities were more effectively

used in writing about animal issues. Yet I did help to accomplish a few

worthwhile things on the human rights beat too.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*8) How many countries have you visited whilst reporting on animal issues?*

 

 

* *

* 38, by quick count.*

 

* *

 

*9) How do you sustain your magazine financially?*

 

 

* *

* ANIMAL PEOPLE is supported by a combination of paid subscriptions,

advertising, donations, and grants.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*10) Which animal issues in Asia concern you the most?*

 

 

* *

* There are really three major animal issues in Asia, each of which

has many different aspects. *

 

* *

* One is the changing role of animals as Asian economies modernize

and mechanize. Another is the effect on animals and habitat of an

increasing human population, with growing affluence. *

 

* *

* The third is the effect and influence of Asian religious and

philosophical ideas about animals on the world as a whole--and the effect

and influence of western ideas about animals on Asians. *

 

* *

 

* *

 

*11) Do you think that awareness on animal issues has been heightened in

Asia and in the world since you started your journalistic career? Can you

elaborate on this?*

 

 

* *

* Certainly organized animal advocacy has rapidly grown in Asia, as

elsewhere. The numbers of humane societies and other animal advocacy

projects worldwide have approximately tripled in 15 years, after doubling

in the preceding ten years. But there was awareness, and concern, long

before most people who care about animals had any idea what they could do to

really change anything. *

 

* *

* The very first person who encouraged me to write on behalf of

animals was an old Chinese soldier I met in September 1970, who told me

that the worst atrocities he had seen in 25 years of service in the

militaries of three nations were things he had seen done to animals--and he

himself had survived one of the most notorious atrocities done to prisoners

of war during World War II.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*12) What do you think of the role of the mainstream press in advancing the

animal movement? Has the press and media done enough to highlight the animal

cause?*

 

 

* *

* Coverage of animal issues has increased about ten times over in

mainstream U.S. newspapers since I started in journalism, and appears to

have increased about four times over in Indian newspapers during the past 20

years. *

 

* *

* As to whether anyone has " done enough, " " enough " to me signifies

that a problem is solved. We haven't done enough to end war, poverty,

alcoholism, domestic violence, pollution, global warming, or any of a

long catalog of other social ills. Cruelty to animals is another major

topic on the list competing for attention. Some day I hope we will have

" done enough " about all of these topics, but I don't see that day dawning

soon.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*13) Are you a vegan? Do you use leather, silk and wool?*

 

 

* *

* I'm vegan when I do the cooking, vegetarian the rest of the time,

because I believe accepting vegetarian hospitality and encouraging people to

be vegetarian is much more important than worrying about my own purity.*

 

* *

* I consider matters of chiefly symbolic importance to be in truth

matters of no real importance whatever. The question when I go to India,

for instance, and someone serves me a vegetarian meal containing a dairy

product, is what will set the best example.*

 

* *

* I still play baseball and softball, and often the balls are made

of leather. I also still have the leather catcher's mitt and first

baseman's mitt that I have had since 1969, as no one makes a non-leather

catcher's mitt or first baseman's mitt. However, I am chiefly a pitcher

and outfielder, and have long used non-leather gloves in those roles.*

 

* *

* As it happens, I am still among the better local players, among

men half my age, and this gives me much opportunity to point out some of

the benefits of not eating meat.*

 

* *

* Silk is seldom seen in the U.S., & far from using it, I can't

even remember when I last saw any, outside of visits to India. *

 

* *

* Woolen yarn is also used in making baseballs, but I don't think I

have ever had any woolen clothing.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*14) What do you think about the stray dog problem in India? India still

harbours hundreds and thousands of rabies cases. What could be done to

rectify the situation?*

 

 

* *

* India now has only about 25% as many street dogs as 10 years ago,

based on my personal counts in various cities. As India becomes

increasingly motorized, with fewer work animals and less fodder storage in

cities to attract rats, the habitat niche for street dogs will diminish,

and as sanitation improves, the niche will diminish further.*

 

* *

* India is presently at the same level of mechanization that the U.S.

reached in 1927. In that year, a national survey found that half the dogs

in the U.S. were street dogs--about the same situation as in India right

now. *

 

* *

* By 1950, only 30% of the dogs in the U.S. were street dogs, and

by 1970 there were virtually no street dogs left here. *

 

* *

* This will happen in India, too. The only question is how long it

will take. *

 

* *

* Canine rabies, meanwhile, is easily eradicated if one takes the

right approach, vaccinating the vector to eliminate the disease, instead

of relying on post-exposure vaccination to prevent the consequences.*

 

* *

* If India invested a fraction of the money now spent on

post-exposure vaccination to immunize street dogs, there would soon be

little need for doing post-exposure anti-rabies vaccination.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*15) What do you think of channels like Animal Planet, Discovery and

National Geographic in promoting kindness to animals?*

 

 

* *

* They seem to be having a positive effect, but I don't even have a

TV, so am not familiar with their work.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*16) What do you have to say about the differing philosophies of the animal

rights, animal welfare and conservation movements? Is there an inherent

contradiction between these three ideologies? If there is, can the

differences be resolved?*

 

 

* *

* I don't see that concern for animal rights, animal welfare, and

conservation are necessarily mutually exclusive, if each concern is

interpreted with consideration for each of the others, and indeed this has

long been my personal approach. To me, a decent respect for an animal's

rights includes concern for the welfare of the animal, and if this is

observed toward all species, conservation largely takes care of itself.*

 

* *

* There are some rigid and dogmatic views of animal rights that

oppose any use of animals by humans, even in mutually beneficial

partnerships which the animals themselves seem to welcome, and some views

of animal welfare that disavow animals' rights. Many conservationists act

as if only the survival of species matters, to the exclusion of concern for

either rights or welfare.*

 

* *

* I believe these folks are all in urgent need of more prunes and

leafy vegetables in their diet.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*17) Internationally, what do you feel about corruption creeping in some of

the larger organisations with huge employee salaries and misuse of money?*

 

 

* *

* This is why ANIMAL PEOPLE has from the first published annual

financial reports about the leading animal charities, evolving from a

section of the newspaper into our annual Watchdog Report on Animal Charities

handbook.*

 

* *

* We have exposed an enormous amount of corruption involving some of

the biggest organizations in the field--but small organizations are scarcely

immune from similar problems, and numerically, because there are many

times more small organizations, small organizations become corrupted far

more often.*

 

* *

* As in any field, vigilance is always necessary to ensure that the

service providers are actually doing the work that their clients pay for.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*18) How has ANIMAL PEOPLE been received in India?*

 

 

* *

* Very, very well. Our second largest contingent of readers is in

India, and our Indian readers are extremely responsive. On our first visit

to India, in 1997, a group of " tribals " --elders, wives, children, all

of them--walked for four hours to meet with us through an interpreter in

Jalgoan, to explain how they had given up animal sacrifice. *

 

* *

* We had no idea they were coming, or who they were, until they

were there. None of them could read English, but somehow they knew what

ANIMAL PEOPLE was, and wanted to tell their story. *

 

* *

 

* *

 

* 19) Why do you support elephant polo, an activity that has been condemned

by so many experts around the world?*

 

 

* *

* " Support " suggests an advocacy role. More precisely, I do not

oppose elephant polo. *

 

* *

* The elephants used in elephant polo are already captive, with not

even the slightest prospect of being returned to the wild. In many cases,

the forests where they formerly lived were long since logged and turned over

to cultivation. *

 

* *

* These elephants are also already under daily command by mahouts.

They are not subjected to anything in training to play elephant polo that is

not already part of their existence.*

 

* *

* The only real question is whether they will spend all day every day

hauling tourists or waiting for tourists on hot pavement, or once in a

while get a day of light duty on grass.*

 

* *

* Because elephants are highly intelligent, they might actually

enjoy the opportunity to play a game, much as the huskies who run in the

Iditarod and Yukon Quest quite obviously enjoy racing as a pack. Anyone who

has ever had huskies knows that the hard part is not getting them to run;

it is getting them to stop. They will sometimes literally run themselves to

death, if allowed to do so, and a musher must be attentive to make sure

that they do not.*

 

* *

* Even if elephants do not respond to elephant polo as

enthusiastically as huskies respond to racing, though, the basic question

has to be, " Are these particular elephants better off or worse off for

playing elephant polo? " *

 

* *

* Some people have advanced the hypothetical proposition that

elephant polo might become such a successful sport as to cause more

elephants to be captured just to play. This overlooks that more people

climb Mount Everest every year than have ever played elephant polo; that

elephant polo is not played often enough to develop stars or team identities

with continuity; that elephant polo is not easily televised, nor a sport

that encourages wagering; and that the number of places where elephant polo

could even be played is quite limited. We will not see it coming to Yankee

Stadium.*

 

* *

* *

 

*20) Where do you see yourself and ANIMAL PEOPLE five years from now?*

 

 

* *

* I tend to take things one deadline at a time. Five years from now

will take care of itself.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*21) What do you think of the animal movement in India? Does it have a long

way to go judging the progress made till date?*

 

 

* *

* India has by far the oldest and perhaps the largest and most

dynamic animal advocacy sector of any nation, though the Chinese animal

advocacy sector is now experiencing explosive growth, far beyond anything

that anyone even imagined possible just a few years ago.*

 

* *

* Obviously much more must be done in India, as elsewhere, but

Indian animal advocates are already reaching out and helping to lead the

cause worldwide, having demonstrated the capacity to do a great deal with

relatively little affluence compared to counterparts in the U.S. and Europe.

*

 

* *

* People in developing nations tend to look at the U.S. and European

animal welfare sectors and say, " We can't do that. We will never have that

kind of money. " Then they look at India, and say, " But we can do what

they do, " even though what is actually done in India is not very different

from what is actually done in the U.S. and Europe.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*22) Which individuals have influenced your thinking the most? Any

journalists or animal activists you admire?*

 

 

* *

* After this long on the beat, I have collected ideas from so many

different places that no particular source stands out.

*

 

* *

 

*23) What is your assessment of the Compassionate Crusaders Trust?*

 

 

* *

* A very dynamic and accomplished organization, which will rise to

do more as Indian affluence rises, increasing the support base for

Compassionate Crusaders' work.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*24) What is your opinion on the Indian Zoo Inquiry project?*

 

 

* *

* I would have to see many more Indian zoos to form a clear idea

about this. As regards Indian zoos, though, I am encouraged that the

Central Zoo Authority is encouraging many to become actively involved in

wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, and that for some this is becoming a

central focus, rather than the U.S. and European emphasis on captive

breeding. I believe the wildlife rescue and rehabilitation role is the more

humane approach, and will in the long run better achieve conservation goals

too.*

 

* *

 

* *

 

*25) How would Merritt Clifton like to be remembered?*

 

 

* *

* To wish to be remembered after one is deceased is a conceit. To

hope to advance ideas that continue to contribute to building a better world

long after one's own time is, however, a worthwhile ambition. *

 

* *

* Which of the ideas I am working to advance will have most resonance

and relevance in the future, I cannot predict. They center, though, on

two much older ideas: be kind to animals, and tell the truth. *

**

* Excalibur, July, 2008, Quarterly Newsletter of People for Animals,

Calcutta*