Just a couple of articles I read yesterday. The butterfly art work and the badger cull each pose a moral question on the acceptability of our attitudes towards the species inhabiting the earth with us.  The badger cull is simply breathtaking in its scope and ideology. I hope it does not take place.

 9,000 butterflies died as part of an art work

 The artist Damien Hirst has come under fire after it emerged that more than 9,000 butterflies died as part of an art work in his latest exhibition. Even by Damien Hirst’s standards it was an unusual artwork – two windowless rooms swirling with live butterflies. Visitors to the exhibit at the Tate Modern in London observed the insects close-up as they flew, rested, and fed on bowls of fruit.

But whilst the work, In and Out of Love, was praised by many art critics when it featured in the gallery’s Hirst retrospective earlier this year, it has now landed the artist in a row with the RSPCA.

Figures obtained from the Tate reveal that more than 9,000 butterflies died during the 23 weeks that the exhibition was open.  Each week it was replenished with approximately 400 live butterflies to replace those that died – some of them trodden underfoot, others injured when they landed on visitors’ clothing and were brushed off.

 All life is a manifestation of infinite consciousness, and we cannot pretend to have evolved to a higher level of consciousness if we treat other sentient beings with such indifference. Butterflies may be low down in the order of sentience, but contempt for other life forms extrapolates into ever greater forms of abuse. Art should elevate the human consciousness – not debase it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9606498/Damien-Hirst-condemned-for-killing-9000-butterflies-in-Tate-show.html

Badger cull 'mindless', say scientists

Government's chief scientist among those who dispute evidence used to justify killings, which may begin imminently. Britain's top animal disease scientists have launched a devastating attack on the government's "mindless" badger cull, accusing ministers of failing to tell the truth and demanding the immediate abandonment of the killings.

The intervention by dozens of the nation's most senior experts, in a letter in the Observer, comes as farmers prepare to begin the cull in Gloucestershire and Somerset, possibly as early as tomorrow. The governments own chief scientist has refused to back the killings.

More than 30 eminent animal disease experts describe the cull as a "costly distraction" that risks making the problem of tuberculosis in cattle worse and that will cost far more than it saves. The cull, could wipe out 100,000 badgers, a third of the national population. The cull policy is "mindless", according to Lord John Krebs, one of the UK's most eminent scientists and the architect of the landmark 10-year culling trials that ended in 2007. "The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle. The government is cherry-picking bits of data to support its case."

Another signatory, Lord Robert May, a former government chief scientist and president of the Royal Society, said: "It is very clear to me that the government's policy does not make sense."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/oct/14/letters-observer