04-24-02

By Andy Duncan, 541-737-3379
SOURCE: Steve Davis, 541-737-1892

CORVALLIS - An Oregon State University professor whose work on the ethics of animal agriculture seems to make some people within and outside the livestock industry nervous has retired from the university.

But not from his work.

"I won't teach classes regularly anymore," said animal science professor Steve Davis. "But that's going to give me more time for research and writing - and I have additional thoughts on how OSU can approach helping society address complex and challenging animal issues."

Just a few weeks ago, in early March, Davis stirred controversy when a university news release outlined his questioning of philosophical underpinnings of a strictly vegetarian, vegan diet.

Steve Davis Click on image to go to downloadable photo

He gave a presentation on the topic last fall to the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics, presenting not only his questions but a proposal for a different kind of animal agriculture. An article he wrote on the subject has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal, the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics.

Basically, Davis is asking whether the livestock industry or the production of row crops and grains for a vegan diet does more harm to animals. Within that is another question: Is there a moral basis for considering some kinds of animals more important than others?

In developing the questions, he reviewed studies that looked at the death rate of creatures such as rabbits, mice, pheasants, snakes and other field animals from farming practices such as plowing, planting, harvesting and applying pesticides.

Steve Davis Click on image to go to downloadable photo

"Over the years that I have been studying animal rights theories, I haven't found philosophers who have considered the deaths of - or, the 'harm' to - animals of the field," he said. "This, it seems to me, is a serious omission."

Public reaction to stories in the media has varied.

"A lot (of reaction) has been positive and supportive, and some hasn't," Davis said. "Several people who contacted me said they'd thought about this idea of field animals getting killed in production agriculture for a vegan diet."

A representative from PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asked for a copy of his article.

"I explained I couldn't give it to him yet because it hasn't been published, but I agreed to send him a copy of the abstract of the presentation last fall," he said. "He (the PETA representative) reacted in two ways. He asked me if animals lost in the field were killed or if they ran away and escaped.

"I could only tell him about a study where 25 animals were radio-collared," Davis said. "After (wheat) harvest, they only recovered five. The other 20 either migrated or were killed. The researchers found that 52 percent of those were killed, several by predators after their cover was gone.

"His other point was that my theory doesn't hold water because in cattle feedlots they feed grains to animals. But, of course, my model proposes feeding beef and dairy cattle on the range or in pastures."

Another person asked Davis how much money he was receiving to work for the beef and dairy industries. "Zero," he replied.

"Some people who don't want to take the theory seriously want to say I'm doing this work to salve my conscience because I continue to eat meat," said Davis. "My reply is that I would have included pork and poultry in my model if that were the case. I propose replacing those with grass-fed beef."

That sort of talk is not popular with the pork and poultry industries, Davis conceded.

But controversy doesn't seem to deter Davis, a former head of OSU's Department of Animal Sciences and former interim director of the university's Agricultural Experiment Station.

A major reason he keeps on working in his OSU office after officially retiring March 1, he said, is a sense of the importance to society of the emerging field of animal bioethics.

A retirement reception on Friday, April 26, will recognize Davis' service to the university. The public is invited to the reception, which runs from 4 to 6 p.m. in OSU's Memorial Union Room 109.

But in some ways, his retirement is merely a formality.

Besides doing research and writing, in the years ahead Davis hopes to raise enough funds to set up an endowed chair in animal bioethics at OSU and to establish a center at the university for study of not only bioethics with livestock but with wild animals such as endangered species, and with animals used in veterinary teaching and research and human medical research.

"It's only a glimmer in my eye at the moment (the center)," he said. "But I envision a collaboration among not only animal scientists but veterinary scientists and medical researchers and philosophers and others.

"As I've tried to tell students in recent years in the classes we teach on animal ethics, and on contentious issues in animal agriculture, we need to genuinely examine all these issues and develop more informed opinions. Our society needs to think openly and critically, and if we can't justify certain practices ethically, maybe we shouldn't use them."

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