I came across a truly unbelievable blog post where a holier-than-thou raw vegan fanatic has had the balls to slam the Fauna Foundation – of all things, criticizing the way they feed the chimpanzees who are living out their retirement at the sanctuary.
As a loyal supporter and regular volunteer at Fauna I am floored that this woman has done such a thing, and on such a public forum as the internet. If she really had any of the positive intentions that she feigns to have, and if she had a brain in her head, she would have addressed her concerns privately to the owners of the sanctuary.
She starts her post whining about how “conflicted” she was about writing it in the first place, then she rattles off a few misinformed details about how horrible the lives of laboratory chimpanzees are. But the line that started the war for me is where she says – and I quote “At Fauna Foundation, the chimps are spared such torture, but they are not spared from human ignorance.” Excuse me? Is this woman mistaking herself to be an all knowledgeable resource on the proper care and nutrition of chimpanzees?
Let’s step back for a minute and try to figure out exactly what it was that she was trying to get out of her visit to Fauna. Many of her blog posts boast about her strange obsession with eating the same regime as a bonobo. So it stands to reason that what she hoped to get from her visit to Fauna was a plethora of new bonobo-appropriate raw vegan recipes. And now, in retaliation for coming away with an empty recipe box she’s attacking Fauna.
OK - so this woman wants to eat like a bonobo – good for her. She has obviously chosen not to really eat like a bonobo or her diet would include worms, insects and the occasional raw fish. This shows that she makes choices – she keeps what she wants and ignores the rest. Her argument against Fauna is caused by her retaining what she has conceived, by her own lunatic standards, as being wrong and conveniently ignoring everything else.
Her wild assumptions that the Fauna chimps eat eggs (which they never do) and that their diets are high in fat, cocoa and salt (which they most definitely aren’t) are ludicrous. Her entire argument about us forcing protein on the chimps is outrageous – the chimp’s diets consist of about 2% protein which is perfectly normal for a chimpanzee. Her accusations that the chimps are deprived of generous quantities of fruits and vegetables are insane – she obviously visited at a time when the trolleys had been out all day and hadn’t yet been replenished. Full trolleys are a thing of beauty. They overflow with a huge, colourful variety of fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables in abundant quantities. What she doesn’t know is that at the end of the day there are always a few fruits and vegetables left on the trolleys…for the simple reason that the chimps have had their fill.
I can make wild assumptions too. Maybe Via811 yearns so much to be like a bonobo that she spends all of her free time screwing like a bonobo too. Maybe what really frustrated her when she visited Fauna was that she wanted to witness some good hard core chimp sex and was disappointed that she wasn’t able to glean any new kinky ideas.
She accuses us of killing the Fauna chimps, like Tommy, with kindness – “loving them to death” as she puts it. She even exaggerates by saying that 9 chimps have died over the years at Fauna. Um, I don’t know where she gets her numbers from because the rest of us only know 6 chimps who have gone over the rainbow bridge – and it certainly had nothing to do with their diet. She seems oh, so concerned that we should make changes so that we can love Tommy for many more years, but implies that we are forsaking that because of our human arrogance and ignorance.
I’ll tell you what’s arrogant and ignorant. Statements such as the following from her blog: “BTW, there's plenty of protein in fruit”. In what universe? Oh yeah, I forgot. This woman actually entertains the possibility of eating 30 bananas a day. 30 bananas a day! So, yeah, I suppose if you eat copious quantities of fruit that you might get a small enough amount of protein to register on the idiot scale. I don’t know where she gets her information from, but it’s definitely not the same place as the rest of us.
It’s really hard to believe that someone who is a raw vegan can be so full of krap. Maybe it’s the accumulation of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides in her blood stream that are making her think she is better than everybody else. Or maybe it’s the lack of protein that is making her hostile. Who knows, maybe she’s just naturally arrogant, obnoxious and full of herself. I don’t know, and frankly I don’t really care.
But I will say one thing. If she ever decides to invest all of her life savings and to dedicate every waking moment of her life to creating and running a chimpanzee sanctuary of her own like Gloria has done, then I will let her throw stones. Until then, every time she throws a stone I will throw it back, and with a vengeance.
Probably deep down inside she isn’t really a bad person. If she was having “conflicts” it’s because she knew that she was doing a horrible injustice to the founders of The Fauna Foundation and everyone who puts their hearts and souls into the work they do there.
The next time this woman is feeling “conflicted” my suggestion would be that she stick to writing about the stuff that nobody cares about – like her usual lunatic ranting about the unhealthy fanatic diet she is on.
OK, so you’re probably aching to see what it is exactly that has got me so riled up.
Here is the link to Via811’s putrid post – please feel free to leave her a nasty comment
http://via811.blogspot.com/2009/08/loving-them-to-death-tragedy-at-chimp.html
I have let her know (via a comment on her blog that I’m sure she will not publish) that when she removes her blasphemous post about the Fauna Foundation, that I will do likewise and remove this one.
Let the games begin!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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