a tribute to Little Chickie

a heartfelt tribute to the communication capabilities of chickens, and one "Little Chickie" in particular, from Jenny Sue Hane ...

“Indeed, but are they truly incomprehensible?  In my experience communication is a matter of patience, imagination.  I would like to believe that these are qualities that we have in sufficient measure.” (Captain Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 102 “Darmok”)

It may surprise you to learn that the thing I associate most strongly with that quote is a chicken.

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more Christian voices for animals

Over the past month we've shared a variety of poignant reflections on animals and our calling to steward to them as followers of Christ, including posts on our relationship to wildlife ("The Interloper" by Ben Witherington and "Does Wildlife Need Our Management?" from Jenny Sue Hane), the diversity of God's creatures ("Embracing Diversity" by Chuck Summers) and our frequent failure to know and appreciate them ("Naming Again all the Animals" from Lowell Bliss), a historic evangelical voice against animal cruelty and a contemporary one for including animals in our understanding of rest ("Sabbath, Animals Included" by Nancy Janisch), even some thoughts on Thanksgiving and turkeys.

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does wildlife need our management? (part 2)

Continuing Jenny Sue Hane's thought-provoking and biblically grounded post "Does Wildlife Need Our Management?" ...

There are already signs that “management” by humans might not be all it’s cracked up to be.  Unlike natural predators, we are not limited in our choice of prey by our strength and speed.  So although hunters might describe their work as “culling,” in reality they often take the highest quality animals they can find.  Traits that once improved animals’ ability to survive are now working against them by making them desirable targets for hunters, so reproductive selection begins to reduce or eliminate those traits.  Elephants without tusks have increased, kangaroos are getting smaller, and bighorn sheep are developing less impressive headgear.  Our attempts to control nature may actually reduce the genetic strength and diversity of animal populations.  Is this a sign of responsible stewardship in action?  Is this what we wanted?  (See for instance Newsweek's "It's Survival of the Weak and Scrawny.")

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does wildlife need our management?

One of our community members Jenny Sue Hane has been following the recent wolf hunting developments closely, and even organized an exemplary rally in opposition to them.  This is the first part of a thoughtful post she wrote for us on taking a genuinely Christian approach to wildlife management ...

Here in the US, where I live, state game agencies are in the business of managing wildlife.  This includes issuing a number of permits to hunters every year, even for creatures that are not typically eaten and bear many similarities to domestic companion animals.  Some of the arguments for the hunting of non-food animals focus on their supposed conflicts with people and their livestock, which may be greatly overstated.  But once those are out of the way, there is another argument that the trophy hunters fall back on: the “animals need to be managed” argument. 

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the ugly consequences of our deeds

As we continue to respond to the question "Do animals really suffer?", I'm grateful to be able to share some very insightful thoughts on the reasons behind animal suffering from one of our blog readers, Jenny Sue Hane.  Jenny first shared them in response to another commenter, who posed the following questions under a previous post:

If God cares about animals so much, why did he kill a whole bunch of them in a giant Flood?  Why did Jesus send pigs to their deaths? ...

Why did God make parasitic wasps that eat the host alive from the inside out?  Why did he create predators that kill baby zebras?  Or cuckoo birds that kick the host's chicks out of the nest?  Why did God make dinosaurs, only to let them die via an asteroid?  In fact, why have 99% of all species gone extinct?

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