Photo: Li Feng
National Geographic has just chosen the winners of its International Photography Contest. Out of 148,203 images submitted, this particular one above by Chinese photographer Li Feng won for the category Animal - International.
Caged monkeys await their fate at a medical laboratory in Hubei Province, China. The judges liked that this image subverted the usual “romanticized” approach to wildlife photography, and more accurately reflected the fate of many of the world’s animals. The sneaker at the top provides scale and injects humanity into the scene; the anonymity of its wearer suggests concealment and complicity. The structure of the cages, the horror of the captivity, the crowded composition, and the claustrophobic tension all add up to a very sad and compelling photo.
See the winners here: Link [Flash] - Thanks Marilyn Terrell!
The sneaker at the top looks out of place to me.
Compelling picture, though.
It's not like drug companies are honest with their testing data: how many drugs have been labeled with homicidal, suicidal, heart complications, kidney and liver complications, etc. years after the drugs were released for human consumption.
The only thing a drug company cares about is profit, and a little thing like the truth is not going to get in the way of a trillion dollar industry.
I think using animals for research is borne out of some sick pervert's idea of how animals should be treated.
1) how is eating an egg the same as eating meat? Eggs are not fertilized. When you eat an egg you are not ending a life, or even a potential life.
2) when you drink milk, you are not hurting anything at all. Diary cows need to give milk, are you suggesting that we dump it all?
3) Are you suggesting there is no difference in being cruel to an animal and using it for medical knowledge?
I am a proud meat eating man, but I don't want to see animals mistreated. I hardly think this makes me a hippocrate. (sorry, i can't figure out how to spell that.)
How cruel is cruel?
I think the point was more that, anytime we use something that was an animal, came from an animal or was used on an animal, we are potentially put animals in less than comfortable situations.
I also don't care unless for the most part. People do what they can to get by. I wouldn't try hard to harm animals, but if there is someone out there whose only way to survive is working for a company that is cruel to others, who is to say he is wrong?
Many of the people harming the rainforest are small groups of villages who need the wood for their homes and fires. I can't say that I would want to stop them.
Also, am I the only one who doesn't think the picture boasts much artistic merit?
human race for shame
This photo illustrates how wrong all that can go. It shows how human beings can deny their humanity and treat animals as if they have no connection to them, as if we were aliens from another planet doing research and collected some monkeys, with no understanding of their basic needs. These monkeys are fearful, and utterly alone yet shoved all together, like chickens in a warehouse. What would motivate a person to do this?
It is times like this when I feel discouraged. Especially if someone posts that it's not a big deal. When we have lost our humanity, my god what is left? In that moment I wish for that ice age, or that asteroid, or that plague, which wipes out our species and allows the earth, (yet again) to try it again.
You asked what would motivate a person to do such a thing. Pure and simple. To live. I wouldn't doubt if the people that collected the monkeys were paid a minuscule amount of money to do so. But, in doing so, it feeds their family for one more day, lets them buy simple necessities for one more day, gives them a place to sleep for one more day. It's easy to chastise a person or persons for doing what it takes to get by when all of us here obviously have computers to type on and an internet connection to use.
What discourages me is that people have the audacity to place the rights of an animal over that of a human being.
umm... are you having a little trouble sticking to the topic? We are talking monkeys in cages.
If I may use the cliche, If by PETA you mean People Eating Tasty Animals, then yes.
You know, I hear you can save the planet by getting yourself sterilized. If enough people do it, we won't have to wait for the ice age.
Are they that wild to be caged that way? Bring them back to the Wildlife!!!!
I have been a subscriber to National Geographic for probably 30 years and it has lost it's way. It has become a political tool for whiners and complainers. The adventure is only a tiny part of its pages, anymore. I keep signing up year after year and I'm getting sick and tired of having political opinions and agendas pushed down my throat.
I sympathize with you. Try subscribing to Scientific American -- it's most sad what a biased single-view political agenda piece of trash that has become. No more subscription to me, but I still occasionally buy it because of a technology article that interests me (usually when I am trapped in an airport on an unexpected layover). EVERY time I shake my head in disgust that they only powder puff one side of the issue or look at some proposed energy solution through rose-colored glasses. Show us BOTH sides and let us learn and decide ourselevs.
Back to the monkeys... I like critters. Some I find very tasty. Others are useful at saving human lives through research. In either case, though, they should be treated with respect and not subjected to unnecessary suffering or cruelty.