Young cows await the auction pen at White's Livestock Auction in Indiana; a rooster looks on.

A proposed constitutional amendment that defines minimum welfare standards for Ohio’s farm animals, has been cleared by Attorney General Richard Cordray to move toward November’s ballot.  The bill is sponsored by Ohioans for Humane Farms, a coalition of local and national humane societies, consumer safety groups, and others.  The organization’s supporters have until June 30 to gather 402,275 valid Ohio signatures, for the amendment to appear on November’s ballot.

If the bill passes, Ohio’s still-unformed Livestock Care Standards Board will be required to enforce these regulations:

•  Prohibit a farm owner or operator from tethering or confining any calf raised for veal, pig during pregnancy, or egg-laying hen, on a farm, for all or the majority of a day, in a manner that prevents such animal from lying down, standing up, fully extending his or her limbs, or turning around freely.  [Exceptions apply during research, veterinary treatment, and exhibitions.]

•  Require that the killing of cows and pigs on farms be performed in a humane manner [as defined by the American Veterinary Medical Association].

•  Prohibit the killing of cows and pigs on farms by strangulation as a form of euthanasia.

•  Prohibit the transport, sale, or receipt, for use in the human food supply, of any cow or calf too sick or injured to stand and walk.

The two-page text of the proposed amendment is available here; click the link under the words “Livestock Board Amendment.”

Those who stand to benefit most from the bill are laying hens, pregnant sows, and veal calves–animals considered to suffer from the most severe restrictions of bodily movement, on today’s industrial farms.

The amendment could therefore present a cost to industrial-scale egg, pork, and veal producers, by requiring them to resize their cages and crates.

According to United Egg Producer (UEP) President and CEO Gene Gregory, producers accounting for 80% of America’s eggs have already expanded their cages voluntarily, as part of a certification program run by UEP.  Over a six-year period ending in 2008, said Gregory, all of these producers adjusted their facilities to give 67 square inches to each white hen, and 76 square inches to each brown hen, in shared cages.

As a point of comparison, a standard sheet of 8×10″ paper has an area of 80 square inches.

Asked how well the birds are able to extend their limbs under these arrangements, Gregory responded, “They don’t all do it at the same time, but they’re social beings and as such they accommodate each other.”

Under the proposed bill, each bird would be allotted a space of one and a half square feet–equivalent to four sheets of notebook paper arranged in a rectangle.

“That will virtually wipe out the egg industry in Ohio,” said Gregory.

None of the large-scale producers contacted for this article were willing to make a statement on the bill.

But farmers who raise their animals in open spaces such as barns and fields, say they will not be affected.

Diane Emmich, co-owner of B&D Goats in New Richmond with her husband Bob, said the guidelines would not affect her farm.  None of their 15 goats, 30 chickens, or 20 ducks, are tethered or caged.

“We got a chicken house, we do lock them up at night because there’s predators, but they’re not in pens or anything.  They have a really nice little house with heated water.  They’re free to walk around, and our ducks have a little wading pond that they can go swimming in,” said Emmich.  Meanwhile, due to her unique service of egg delivery to around 30 customers, Emmich said her egg business was tripling.

“This bill wouldn’t be an issue for us.”

A gaggle of Canada geese crosses a path in Cincinnati's Sharon Woods. Photo courtesy of Konstantin Vasserman.

Last January 15, the celebrated level heads of US Air Flight 1549’s captain and crew saved 155 lives, and brought Americans together around a rare event: heroism untainted by politics or villains. The plane had flown from New York’s La Guardia Airport into a flock of geese, lost the use of both engines, and landed safely on the Hudson River.

But the accident was nearly disastrous, and New York City officials were quick to declare their commitment to preventing future goose airstrikes.

“Lives are at stake here,” said Queens City Councilman David Weprin. “And that is why we must work together to mitigate the hazard. We cannot afford to wait until another accident occurs.”

The city faced the task of somehow cracking down on a problem they had been battling for years: large birds sharing New York City’s airways.  Despite the use of techniques both lethal (shooting and gassing), and non-lethal (harassment and “egg-addling” to stop embryo development) to keep geese away from airports, the number of wildlife airstrikes increased from 1,759 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2007.

So the scuttled engines were returned to Cincinnati for analysis by their maker, CFM International.  CFM found the engines had indeed been jammed by birds, and sent tissue samples to the Smithsonian Institute’s Feather Lab, which identifies bird remains for the USDA’s Wildlife Services program.  Scientists at the Feather Lab used DNA analysis to identify the tissues as remains of Canada geese–at least two females and one male. And then, because of the accident’s high profile, they used a new technique to learn more about the birds.

A Canada Goose forages in Kentucky's Bernheim Arboretum. Image courtesy of Mary Darling, www.darlingarts.com

A New Way to Read Bird Remains

The scientists knew that hydrogen was found in different isotopes (versions with more and fewer neutrons) at different global latitudes.  So they looked closely at the hydrogen atoms in the birds’ tissues, and found that they came from a latitude near Canada’s Labrador province.

The remains found in Flight 1549’s engines, they found, resembled that of migratory birds from around Labrador, and bore little resemblance to tissue samples from local resident birds.

Why was this important?  Because it indicated that Flight 1549 had sucked members of a migratory flock into its engines, not resident New York birds.

Hailed as an important clue for managing birdstrikes, this finding was published and discussed during four months of meetings among the New York’s local and state governments and transport authorities.

Unexpected scapegeese

Some New Yorkers were therefore taken aback by the city’s response, which was to catch and gas up to 2,000 of New York City’s resident geese.

“We are sending some of these geese for a well-deserved rest up in the sky, wherever geese go,” New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as saying, in response to questions about public protests.

Maggie Brasted, Director of Urban Wildlife Conflict for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), explained the discrepancy between the Feather Lab’s finding and the city’s action, as “political cover” for lethal measures that the public had never supported.

To Brasted, Flight 1549 underscored the failure of lethal methods on Rikers Island, a prison site near La Guardia Airport whose landscape attracts large numbers of geese.  HSUS hired a landscape architect to recommend landscaping changes to the island, she said, but the city had never responded.

“They’ve been killing geese on Riker’s Island for years,” said Brasted, “[but] that’s temporary, short-term. If you don’t change the habitat, they’ll just reproduce more successfully, and refill that habitat.”

But Martin Lowney, Director of New York’s Wildlife Services, the agency paid to exterminate the geese, saw the city’s failure to reduce geese numbers as evidence that more lethal control was needed.

“The population went from 101,000 geese in 1991 to 250,000 geese in 2008 because the state of NY had embraced a non-lethal policy,” he said.  “Cities and towns for several decades have been harassing geese, and it’s been a huge failure.”

Lowney disagreed with the Feather Lab’s conclusion, arguing that the geese could still be New York residents, who had summered in Labrador as part of a “molt migration.”

But either way, said Lowney, “it doesn’t matter.  I think what matters is you shouldn’t have geese near the airport.  It just doesn’t matter whether the goose is a resident or a migrant.”

A battle of undisclosed values

The conflicting conclusions of policy voices such as Brasted’s and Lowney’s, given the same information, point to the predominance of values and political pressures over scientific findings, in forming New York City’s policy toward geese.  Both spokespeople made it clear that their perspectives on goose control were formed before–not in response to–information emerging about Flight 1549.

The matter begs a question not yet common in animal policy discussions: How did policy players value the geese themselves?

While New Yorkers protested the killing on the basis of both inhumaneness and ineffectiveness, official policy voices almost uniformly resisted discussing humaneness as a relevant policy concern.

Peter Marra, a migratory bird biologist and spokesman for the Smithsonian National Zoo, said humaneness was too hard to define.  “I have less of a problem with that, because what is humane?” he asked.  “It’s a matter of scale, in a lot of ways.”

To Brasted of the HSUS, humaneness was beside the point: “That kind of gets into a side issue of how are we killing them and is it nice enough.  We need not to kill them at all.”

David Feld, Executive Director of the non-profit organization GeesePeace, also side-stepped the issue.  “We’re not an org that is animal protection or animal welfare,” he said.  “Our goal is better communities.”

Curiously, Wildlife Services director Lowney was the only spokesperson interviewed for this article who would comment on humaneness.  He said he was present for the death of one batch of geese.

“I watched it to see–it seems humane, the birds don’t seem to suffer, it met the [American Veterinary Medical Association's] criteria for humaneness.”

Actually, he admitted, there were no windows in the gas crates to let him see the birds, but he could hear them “talking” after the gas was poured in; within five minutes, he said, the talking stopped.

If humaneness was not a central value in the debate over killing New York City geese, what values drove the controversy?

Recreational value and beauty

As Wildlife Services Director, Lowney was most attuned to the recreational value of geese. For hunters, geese are a key part of their sport, and hunting license sales are a key part of state wildlife agencies’ budgets.

Furthmore, said Lowney, to outdoorspeople in general geese are simply beautiful to look at. But that aesthetic value is limited by overabundance.

Geese are beautiful, but they’ve become so abundant that people aren’t enjoying them anymore.

Intrinsic value

Brasted of HSUS took a different view of geese. Independent of their value or bother to us, she said, they are valuable to themselves.

They’re just animals living their lives.  No matter whether an animal is common or rare, whatever label you give it, every animal feels pain, and has the right to exist to live its life.

Ecological value

To the Smithsonian’s Marra, the value of geese depended on the place they occupied within ecosystems. As spokesman he emphasized the importance of basing management policies on detailed information. But in an interview he stressed the greater importance of protecting migratory birds and eliminating resident birds.

It’s essential to continue to reduce resident populations, but I would never advocate for the removal of a natural process, system or behavior, to minimize bird strikes. In this case, there’s a clear line between resident geese and migratory birds; they [resident geese] are not natural.

Value of community-building opportunities

David Feld of GeesePeace saw the geese’s role in Flight 1549 as part of another larger issue. In accordance with Geesepeace’s goal of helping communities solve goose problems collaboratively, Feld viewed each conflict as an opportunity to draw upon humans’ finer qualities, including compassion.

Personally, I think it’s very important that what we do is an expression of the best of the human spirit. . .  Our goal is better communities. And we get there by considering the means as well as the ends.

Implications for Cincinnati

Questions of how (and whether) to coexist with deer, coyotes, and other wild animals arise almost weekly in Cincinnati’s newspapers and community bulletins.  If we can understand the ways that we and our neighbors value these different animals, we will be better equipped to guide our neighborhoods towards consensus decisions honoring safety, compassion, and the diversity of other values we place upon our community’s animals.

A cage of chickens at White's Livestock Auction and Flea Market in Brookville, IN

It’s not a question that’s receiving much attention in the debate over whether an Ohio “Livestock Care Standards Board” should be formed, as per Issue 2.  But concerned humans should pay attention to the phrase “animal care” this week, since the two sides of the battle refer to different modes of caring.

To some, animal care means doing what is needed to make animal operations as efficient as possible–generally focusing on “herd health” and output over the health of individual animals.

Dean Bobby Moser of OSU’s agricultural college, and Tony Forshey, Ohio’s State Veterinarian and Animal Industry Chief, who will both be on the Board if Issue 2 passes, likely see animal care from this perpective. Moser’s academic research focused on “the effect of high-energy diets on swine reproductive performance, carcass quality, and growth rate and efficiency,” and Dr. Forshey, a food animal vet, is himself a pork producer.

In this line of work–industrial animal agriculture–we humans relate to other animals as commodities, like the cars we drive.

Another kind of care is focused on the well-being of the animal itself, unrelated to his/her reproductive performance or carcass quality; this is the kind of care we Americans usually give to the dogs and cats in our lives. It’s the kind of care the Humane Society of the United States was aiming for, when it helped pass California’s Prop. 2 this time last year, “to prohibit the confinement of certain farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.”

In these relationships–as guardians and advocates–we humans relate to animals as individuals whose lives matter to them–regardless of any other value they hold for us.

Livestock production has strayed far from where it was 50 years ago, when small, independent farmers were able to know their animals individually, and were thus personally driven to care for them as individuals. The focus there was on making a living, but it was compatible with providing for an animal’s basic needs.

On small-scale farms of the past and present, humans have related to animals as commodities without ceasing to recognize that they are also subjects of their own lives, with physical needs that include limb-stretching and walking.

To the farmers who oppose Issue 2, running an animal farm with integrity means providing for these needs; they have nothing to lose if future animal welfare reforms require it.  But the farmers who authored Issue 2–and who would populate the Livestock Care Standards Board–have repeated that reforms like California’s threaten their methods of production.

For wings to extend in Ohio, cage space would need to be redistributed in industrial chicken operations, where a large bird typically lives on an area smaller than an 8×10″ sheet of paper.

Issue 2 would both protect and perpetuate today’s low industrial standards, AND allow industrial producers to regulate standards for other farms.  Is this the direction we want our agriculture to take?  Or should we instead allow smaller, more humane farms to continue setting their own standards?

Issue 2 would amend Ohio’s constitution to place future decisions about the treatment of livestock animals, in the hands of a government-appointed “Livestock Care Standards Board.”

The resolution does not define “livestock,” so it is unclear whether dogs raised on large-scale intensive breeding facilities–known by detractors as “puppy mills”–would be affected by this legislation.

A White's Livestock Auction employee moves pigs into a waiting pen, in Brookville, IN.

Why has Issue 2 been proposed?

Issue 2’s proponents have been clear about their motive: to prevent animal welfare reforms backed by the Humane Society of the United States. An HSUS-supported referendum passed this year in California, which requires that all caged farm animals be given enough room to stretch their wings and legs, and turn around in a circle.  While small farms often meet this requirement, the large, industrialized indoor farms that provide most of America’s meat and eggs, often do not.

In an Oct. 14 Farm and Dairy article John Fitzpatrick, Farm Bureau director for Ashland, Wayne, and Medina counties, expressed what many other industry advocates have said:

Some regulation is coming.  It’s probably better that we set it, rather than someone else. They may be after the veal farmers, and the swine farmers and the layers, but they’re coming for all of us and we all need to care about each other.

Who would serve on the board?

This board has therefore been designed to favor the interests of commercial livestock producers.  Chaired by Ohio’s Director of Agriculture, it would consist of:

• five livestock farm representatives

• two food animal veterinarians, including Ohio’s State Veterinarian

• the dean of a university agriculture department

• one member who is “knowledgeable about food safety”

• two consumer representatives

• one humane society representative

Eight of these twelve members would necessarily be members of the livestock industry: the farm representatives, the livestock veterinarians, and the agriculture dean.  If the proposal passes, three individuals will join the board regardless of appointments: the agriculture department dean, the State Veterinarian, and the Director of Agriculture.  A glance into the backgrounds of these men–who are not officially on the board as interest group representatives–may provide an inkling of the group’s likely leaning on food animal policies:

Bobby D. Moser, Dean of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, holds degrees in animal science and nutrition.   Before becoming an agriculture education administrator, his research was focused on making intensive farming practices more efficient: specifically, “the effect of high-energy diets on swine reproductive performance, carcass quality, and growth rate and efficiency.” Since 2002, Moser has donated $2,100 to the Political Action Committee of Land’O'Lakes, one of America’s largest producers of butter and cheese.  Last month Land’O'Lakes was accused of supporting cruelty to animals, after Fox News broke this story.

Tony Forshey, State Veterinarian for the Department of Agriculture, is a pork producer who has donated $505 to Friends of Pork, the political action committee of the Ohio Pork Producers Council.  He earned his veterinary degree from Ohio State University.

Robert J. Boggs, Ohio Director of Agriculture, joined the Department of Agriculture after a 34-year career in state politics.  He is affiliated with both the Ohio Farm Bureau–one of the most vocal industry advocacy groups to support Issue 2–and the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group which opposes Issue 2.

Please revisit Sentient Cincinnati soon, for a brief analysis of Issue 2’s implications for farmers, consumers, and farm animals.

St. Francis of Assisi, an Italian monk who died 783 years ago, may be the most celebrated Christian voice to embrace the moral relevance of animals.  According to stories, he often spoke of humans’ sacred relationship with other animals, and addressed those around him as “brother hare” or “my sisters, the birds.”

In honor of his feast day (Oct. 4th), churches around the world included a Blessing of the Animals in their Sunday service.  At Cincinnati’s Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, a 5 PM service was held on the church’s front lawn beneath a bright evening sky, to the jaunty tunes of the city’s Celtic Ensemble.  Sunlight raked across the faces of several dozen (mostly calm) dogs, a few cats who appeared anxiously outnumbered, and three fish traveling in Mason jars.

The church’s associate rector, Rev. Charles Brumbaugh, delivered readings on the subject of  animal brethren including this “Remembrance of Pets Departed:”

Let us pray.  O God of all creation, we thank you for the gift of companionship in the animals who have throughout our lives shared our earthly journey.  Make us ever mindful of the love and devotion bestowed on us by the creatures we accept into our lives.  Help us to remember and honor the gift of companionship which they have given so generously.  Heal the deep grief and sorrow we feel at the death of beloved pets, especially those we now name, either silently or aloud…  Help us to share our love and lives abundantly as we go forward.  In Jesus’ name.

Rev. Brumbaugh and the church’s head rector, Rev. Bruce Freeman, blessed each animal individually after delivering a blessing to the crowd:

O Lord, who looks upon all creation and declares it to be very good: we thank you for the animals with whom we share this earth, and particularly those you have given into our care.  Guard them, we pray.  Tend to their necessities, relieve their suffering, and protect them from exploitation.  Help us to see in them the beauty and glory of your creative hand.  As you raised your servant, St. Francis, to declare the oneness of your work, help us to be instruments of your loving providence, that all creation may sing your praises.  In God’s name.

The two pastors spoke to human families about their animals’ health and households, before laying hands upon heads (and jars).  They thanked each dog, cat, and fish for the companionship they gave to their family members, human and animal, and for being an instrument of god’s love.  And they prayed for their recovery from injuries and other hardships.

The service ended with a hymn written by St. Francis of Assisi shortly before his death:

All creatures of our God and King, Lift up your voices, let us sing.  Bright burning sun with golden beams, pale silver moon that gently gleams.

Great rushing winds and breezes soft, you clouds that ride the heavens aloft, Fair rising morn, with praise rejoice; stars nightly shining find a voice.

Swift flowing water, pure and clear, make music for your Lord to hear.  Fire, so intense and fiercely bright, you give to us both warmth and light.

Dear mother earth, you day by day unfold your blessings on our way.  All flowers and fruits that in you grow, let them his glory also show.

Let all things their creator bless, and worship him in humbleness.  Praise God the Father, praise the Son, and praise the Spirit, Three in One.

The American Bar Association has devoted its latest issue of GPSOLO Magazine to the blooming field of animal law.  In ten articles, lawyers describe how they are adapting legal concepts such as guardianship and ownership, to reflect Americans’ evolving regard for animals.

All but one focus on animal companions, whom–according to a recent AP poll–Americans increasingly consider to be family members.  The trend brings more pet owners into contact with the law through custody disputes (recall Michael Vick’s dogs) and trusts (recall the $12 million left to billionaire Leona Helmsley’s Maltese), and as targets of an ever-diversifying market for products and services like pet insurance.

Some readers may be frustrated by the short shrift this collection gives to laws affecting farm and lab animals.  Or, they may interpret the emphasis on pets as indication that those animals perch at the frontier of a shifting status quo in animals’ legal status.

A few highlights from the issue:

• Dana M. Campbell surveys legal efforts to pass and defeat “breed specific legislation” (BSL) (such as Cincinnati’s ban on owning, selling or harboring pit bulls, whose penalties were doubled in March).  She examines the origins and results of such efforts, and the effectiveness of various arguments in courts of law.

• Christine Garcia outlines her experiences with civil (e.g. divorce) and criminal (e.g. dog fighting, domestic violence) cases that regard the custody of companion animals.

• Katherine Hessler and Tanith Balaban offer the collection’s single foray out of pet law: a discussion of the legal issues that have arisen from the America’s recent and dramatic industrialization of animal farming.  The authors examine how legislation such as the Clean Water Act, the Animal Health Protection Act, and state constitutional protections, impact farms and animals.  And they highlight key loopholes in animal welfare laws; The Humane Slaughter Act and The Twenty-Eight Hour Law, for example, aim to make slaughter and transport more humane, yet  birds–who comprise 95% of America’s farmed land animals–are exempted from the protections of both.

Those who follow changes in the legal statuses of animals, will appreciate this collection of updates by sharp minds keen to make sense of  animal law and American sensibilities, in light of each other.

For for those interested in staying up to date, these think tanks and research centers may be of use (and they are all on my blog roll):

• Animal Legal and Historical Web Center; Michigan State University College of Law

• Center for Animal Law Studies; Lewis & Clark University Law School

• Center for Animals and Public Policy (disclaimer: this center is my alma mater); Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

"Bump!" Last month at Cincinnati's Everything Pet Expo, Amy Hoh showed how her service dog, Cortez, opens doors for her.

Amy Hoh, 51, is a Hamilton County employee with a strong voice, a glowing face, and degenerative disk disease that landed her in a wheelchair 5 years ago.

Cortez is a five-year-old German shepherd with bat ears that flicker constantly toward Hoh, waiting for a signal that she needs his help.

As a trained service dog, Cortez opens doors and carries drinks for Hoh, monitors the blood-sugar levels perceptible in her breath, and, in less busy moments, turns his exceptional focus upon learning new tasks and commands.

“He came to me with 43 different commands, and my job was to string them together into tasks I needed,” explained Hoh.

Cortez already knew, for example, that the verbal command “bump” meant “poke with your nose”—a command to which he responds daily, to open the disabled access doors in the buildings where Hoh works. Hoh, who is diabetic, said it took Cortez one night of study to recognize and alert her to the smell of ketoacidosis that her breath carries just before her blood sugar takes a dive. She trained him during one slump—“I’d blow in his face and say bump—“ and the next time her blood sugar began to sink, a poke from Cortez’ delicate nose tipped her off.

It was an inmate at Chillicothe Correctional Institution who taught Cortez his initial repertoire of commands. The dog spent his first two years in and out of Chillicothe after the death of his first human guardian landed him and four littermates at Circle Tail Inc., an organization that quickly saw service dog potential in Cortez and one of his brothers.

Circle Tail, based in Pleasant Plain, OH, provides deaf and disabled humans with prison-trained service dogs at no charge. The group also improves the adoptability of homeless dogs unsuited for service, by pairing them with inmates who teach them basic commands and social graces.

Similar programs have sprung up in most states, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and several European countries, since a young Californian woman on welfare who later became a Dominican nun, founded the Prison Pet Partnership Program in 1981.

A Seattle Times report on the founder, Sister Pauline Quinn, describes a horrific childhood as a homeless runaway in 1950’s Los Angeles, who only learned to speak to people face-to-face in her 20’s, after joining forces with a German shepherd named Joni:

“Police didn’t stop Quinn when she walked down the street with the dog by her side. Joni became a magnet to people who wanted to talk. As long as their eyes were on the dog, Quinn could respond.”

Hoh is an outgoing woman whose settled marriage and career bear little resemblance to Quinn’s early life, yet she described similar changes after partnering with Cortez.

When Hoh’s chronic pain first led her to navigate public places by wheelchair, she was dismayed by how her social world changed. She saw people avert their eyes when she rolled past, and she heard parents tell their children not to speak to her, for fear of catching a disease. “I became invisible,” she said.

When she found Cortez two years later, that painful period ended. He draws curiosity and attention in spades, and people approach her constantly to ask about him.

“Cortez gave me back the part of my life that I lost to my disability,” said Hoh.

Regina (l) and Priscilla (r) waited in line Saturday to strut their colors at the Everything Pet Expo.

Under fluorescent lights reminiscent of an industrial animal farm, last weekend’s Everything Pet Expo nonetheless hummed with celebration. On display were died pom-poms, blurry terriers obstacle-coursing over astroturf pitches, prisoner-trained service dogs, and unsung heroes of several species. I interviewed a few handfuls of organizations that help humans and other animals assist each other through life’s trials.

Over the coming months I’ll be posting more photos, as I profile the most innovative and interesting of these groups. Stay tuned, to read what strokes of hardship and luck can befall unwanted foals, banned pitbulls, wheelchair-bound adults, retired racedogs, disabled children, and feral cats in the Tri-State area.

Onstage were tenor saxophonist Edwin Bayard, drummer Melvin Broach, trumpeter Mike Wade, guitarist Wilbert Longmire, and standing bassist Eddie Brookshire. Enjoy the sketches, and keep your ears peeled for their next show.

Mike Wade on trumpet at The Redmoor, 3.26.09

Eddie Brookshire on bass at The Redmoor, 3.26.09

I joined some Hindu friends on Sunday for a trip to the Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati, at the end of a rural road in Union Township. They began their worship service seated cross-legged atop ornate rugs beneath plain, soaring ceilings, chanting call-and-response songs before a row of 10 or 15 painted, bejeweled, Paul Bunyan-sized god sculptures.

Three of them were familiar to me: Ganesh the elephant god, Hanuman the monkey god, and Buddha. It surprised me to learn that some Hindus count the Buddha among their gods, whereas the Buddhists I know regard him as a human who, through meditation, succeeded in shedding the delusions that plague all humans.

The chanting ended before I could sketch Hanuman’s cheeky face–or Ganesh’s fourth hand. I look forward to revisiting.

It stumps me to think what the non-human elements of these gods might mean to Hindus–or what monkeys and elephants might mean in their culture, given their resemblances to gods.

Light to shed on this, anyone?