HELLO FROM THE CHILDREN OF PLANET EARTH1 by M.H. Tse

There is a message on Voyager 1 and 2, space probes that have been sailing away from the planet Earth for almost 50 years. The message is cut into a 12-inch gold- plated copper disk and contains 115 images and 35 sound recordings of life on Earth, 90 minutes of music, and greetings spoken in 55 different human languages. There are images of mathematical equations, bridges, a strand of DNA, and a human mother nursing an infant. There are bird sounds, folk songs, an aria, and a recording of the brainwaves of one of the creators, Ann Druyan, meditating on the wonder of being in love. “Hello from the children of Planet Earth,” a voice says in English.2 The Golden Record is supposed to remain legible for a billion years.

As an artifact of the human story, this object contains vital information about the beings who made it. That information is not, however, revealed in the contents of the message, but in how these beings had positioned certain parts of themselves in the light and other parts in shadow when they sat for their portrait.

Of all the pieces of information conveyed by the Golden Record about the beings who made it, the most important is that the image they made is not an image of what the beings are, but what the beings imagine themselves to be.

And it is the distance between these that tells us we are dealing with authors with all the freedom and distortion this entails. It is no surprise that the human account of itself, whether in the Record or in other human reveries, does little to convey the second most fundamental thing about them.

It will not be clear just from speaking to a human that it is an animal.

Or that, like many animals, it lives by killing and consuming the bodily material of other animals.

It will not be clear from their accounts of “what makes us human” that they have developed a unique predatory style that is built on the practice of holding and keeping prey alive and breeding them in perpetuity, so that their flesh, fluids, skin, fur, ova, and offspring, can be extracted over time.

This predatory method, which may be described as domestic predation, is an innovation on prototypal predation because it incorporates a pre- slaughter period of preservation. It delays the act of killing, so that not only the material in hand, but all biological materials that can potentially be generated by the body can be fully appropriated. The domestic predator thereby extends the act of taking into the future, by shifting its focus “from the dead to the living animal.”3 This human focus is not, however, on life as an ultimate end.

The focus is on the use of life in the production of death.

Thus, in contrast to Dr. Frankenstein, who sought to use dead body parts to create life, the human uses life to create dead body parts. At the center of this subsistence model is the occupation of the sexual and reproductive functions of other animals, which allows the domestic predator to continue bodily extraction beyond the life of any individual animal through the supply of offspring. As the human, John Lee, explains, a strong reproductive program “delivers a steady pipeline of replacements.”4 There is no secret to “reproductive success,” Lee says, the “key is getting more semen in more cows.”5 These efforts are referred to as “setting [the animals] up for success.”6

The prolongation of life for the in vivo extraction of prized reproductive materials, such as milk and eggs, connects domestic predation to parasitism. Parasitism is the consumption of a living creature over time or, as the human, E.O. Wilson, explains, it is the practice of eating prey “in units of less than one.”7

Domestic predation is an innovation on prototypal parasitism, however, because it allows a parasite to engage in in vivo consumption without having to live inside or directly on their prey.

As with the extraction of offspring from animals, the extraction of substances such as milk and eggs is also centered on sexual and reproductive control. For instance, the process of lactation, which is a maternal response that evolved “to support [the] survival of milkdependent offspring,”8 is activated by repeatedly impregnating female mammals such as cows. This method of production involves compelling cows, or other mammals, to birth a calf and then removing the calf so that human milkers can assume the place of the calf in the mother- baby dyad. As human, Marina von Keyserlingk, explains, cow milk extraction is achieved by “redirecting” the nursing behavior of mother cows to human milkers.9 When a calf suckles on his mother’s teats, it triggers the secretion of the hormone oxytocin. This hormone causes milk to be released from the upper chambers of the mammary glands of the calf’s mother into the lower cisterns and teats, where it can then be consumed by the calf.10 In addition to promoting “milk let- down,” oxytocin also plays an important role in the formation of maternal bonds between mothers and their offspring.11 The human provokes this neuro- endocrine release of oxytocin by mimicking the stimulation of a cow’s teats by her calf. This is accomplished by manual or machine stimulation, although other methods of stimulation are continually being invented and tested by humans, such as playing the calls of hungry calves, presenting cows with calf odours from calf hairs, and vaginal stimulation.12 Human methods of stimulation for inducing milk- release then displace the calf as an associational trigger, or learned condition, for lactation.

Human extraction of milk from cows is also achieved by various methods that have been developed for overcoming the cow’s physiological and neuro- endocrinological attempts to withhold her milk from human milkers, which the human refers to as “disturbed milk ejection.”13 Oxytocin release is suppressed in cows under emotional stress, in cows who are milked by humans for the first time, or in cows who are switched from nursing a calf to human or machine 131 milking.14 Humans have recognized that oxytocin suppression and “disturbed milk ejection” may be an attempt by the cow to keep her milk for her calf.15 Humans bypass this hormonal block by removing calves from their mothers at the time of birth, thereby preventing the establishment of maternal bonds in the first place. Humans also render ejection- resistance futile by injecting oxytocin into a cow before they milk her.16

The second way that cows regulate milk production is through a protein contained in their milk that inhibits lactation, which the human calls the “feedback inhibitor of lactation” or “FIL.”17 Because of this protein, leftover milk in a cow’s udders acts as a cellular signal to decrease milk production, thereby limiting the amount of milk produced by a cow to the needs of her calf. To overcome this natural inhibitor of milk production, the human places cows under an intensive milking regimen, in which they are milked 3 or more times daily, with the goal of completely emptying the udder of milk during each extraction session.18 This technique effectively compels the udder to communicate that more milk must be made to feed an insatiably hungry calf. Thus, milking frequency is not a response to the high volumes of milk production we see in human extraction systems today. Rather, high volumes of milk production are a response to high frequency and high intensity milking. As the archeologist human, Sytze Bootema, explains, the enormous size of the udder of a modern dairy cow is not a domestication characteristic – only the “shape of the udder is hereditary.”19 When cows are “left to suckle their own calves,” they “develop only a small udder, densely covered with hairs.”20 The “excessive size” of the udder, Bootema explains, “is induced by the milking regime, whether milking is done by hand or by machine.”21 Through such ingenious manipulations, humans have been able to fully deplete the total metabolic and reproductive capacities which may be utilized by a cow over a 20-year lifespan, in just 3 to 4 years.22 At the end of this extraction cycle, many cows will be physically compromised by conditions such as lameness and injury, diseases of the udder, and emaciation.23 These bodies can then be transported to sites of mass assembly and mass killing and harvested as carcasses. Humans are voracious extractors of milk from the bodies of other mammals. In a single yearly cycle, humans extract roughly 800 million tonnes of milk from the animals they hold.24

To take hold of life as an engine of production means taking hold of the sexual and reproductive functions of other animals. As a driver manipulates the controls of a car to utilize its vehicular power as 132 a means of transportation, the domestic predator manipulates the sexual and reproductive organs of an animal to commandeer their generative power as an engine of production and reproduction. In its pursuit of this power, humans have invented tools and techniques and built infrastructures for exercising prolonged intimate control over the bodies of other animals and for compelling such bodies to grow, produce, and reproduce.

In bovine production and extraction systems, for instance, semen is extracted by humans from bulls either by stimulating the bull’s rectum by human hand or by electrical probes. Another method for extracting semen from bulls is the diverted intercourse method. This method involves inciting sexual intercourse between male animals with “mount” animals under varying degrees of restraint or confinement.25 After conducting several “false” mounts, the thrust of the bull is diverted and their ejaculate is collected by a human semen collector using a device called an “artificial vagina.”26 Bulls and mount animals are restrained and controlled during these procedures in steel chutes and/or by ropes or staffs attached to metal rings that have been installed in the animals’ nasal septum.

Insemination of female animals is accomplished either by techniques of artificial insemination or by human- orchestrated animal intercourse while one or both animals are restrained or confined.27 Artificial insemination of cows, for instance, involves a technique known as rectovaginal fixation of the cervix.28 In this procedure, a cow is restrained by a chain or headlock that prevents the cow from moving forward or backing up. Some cows may require containment in a breeding chute, or a “dark box,” made of metal or wood. While the cow is restrained, the human inseminator inserts its arm deep into a cow’s rectum and grabs hold of her cervix through the rectal wall. With the other hand, the human inserts an insemination rod through the vagina and then through the “fixed” cervix and injects the semen through the rod and into the uterus.29 A cow may attempt to kick when a human pushes its hand into her rectum, but once the hand is inside the rectum, this causes the cow to arch her back and positions the spine in a way that will inhibit kicking.30

These technologies of domestic predation can be seen as the great legacy of the human species. It is not, however, a legacy that is overamplified in the human account of itself. The details of sexual and reproductive control appear instead to have been quietly set aside in the curatorial process. Legal prohibitions on sexual contact between 133 humans and animals, or “bestiality,” which is condemned as an offence against morality,31 push such practices further into the shadows of the popular imagination. In a much finer print, however, every jurisdiction that has condemned acts of bestiality makes an exception, either implicitly or explicitly, to protect sexual engagements between humans and animals from legal prosecution when performed for the purpose of domestic predation.32 Without control over breeding, there is no control over the biological processes of growth and reproduction which is the principal imperative of domestic predation. Putting an end to human sexual engagements with other animals would mean putting an end to the human practice of domestication.33

By whatever power you arrive at this place, it will become clear that the human account of the “story of our world” will not help you understand the objects and infrastructures of these signal achievements of the human being.

The metal restraining chutes, the concrete stalls with their individual chains and tethers, the layered encrusted cages, the darkened, rank outbuildings, the pits of neon-colored waste, the perforated trailers stuffed with creature life skimming through the silent prairie night, the glistening slaughter chambers, the ropes in tension, the hooks, the whips, the prods, the nose prongs, the plyers, the scissors, the electric bath, the ejaculation probes, the insemination rods, the vials of semen, the breeding pens, the long glove, the plastic apron, the stained walls – this vast nether- architecture on the underside of the human story, which to anyone else would seem to be its main monument.

The record will be inadequate in shedding light on the instruments and facilities of bodily restraint, confinement, extraction, and slaughter, that will inescapably unfold before your eyes.

You will not be prepared to confront the 26 billion other animals that the human faction is presently holding as living inventory under regimes of bodily extraction and sexual and reproductive control, or to witness the more than 100 billion individual animals who will be killed in every yearly cycle for the purposes of extraction.34

With the information you have been provided, you will not appreciate a primary cause for how the face of this world came to be denuded, or how the ecological patterns of life evolved, and you will fail to grasp how the biological inventory held by humans has come to eclipse all other forms of life.35

The story of the human cannot be described without some explanation of this corpus of living prey and the means by which it is held. Without some knowledge of the human project of domestic predation, you will not be able to make sense of their enclosure of the land and their partitioning of the world. And the songs they sing, the gods they imagine, their humor, and their terrors – reconfigured into stories of the dead who nonetheless live and the living who ought to be dead – these too will be unfathomable to you.

Considering these facts, it would not do harm to the human account, as a matter of accuracy, to de- emphasize some elements that are typically recounted in it, and to take note of the true monuments of the human experience which are typically neglected.

NOTES

1. Nick Sagan, audio clip from “Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages,” Golden Record, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, accessed December 19, 2023, https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov /golden- record/whats- on- the- record/greetings/, archived at https://perma .cc/7DUU- MT53.

2. Nick Sagan, “Greetings.”

3. Richard H. Meadow, “Osteological Evidence for the Process of Animal Domestication,” in The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism, and Predation, ed. Juliet Clutton- Brock (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 80, 81.

4. John Lee, “The Secret to Repro Success is Not a Secret,” Progressive Dairy, April 30, 2013, archived at https://perma.cc/HXB7-3SPY.

5. Lee, “Secret to Repro.”

6. For example, see Rebecca Hannam, “Setting Dairy Calves Up for Success,” Farmtario, June 23, 2022, archived at https://perma.cc/H4A4-QYEV; Barry Bradford, “Feeding for Fertility,” Michigan State University Extension, April 2, 2021, archived at https://perma.cc/U3JK- ZGQU; Heather Smith Thomas, “Setting Up Young Cows for Success,” Canadian Cattlemen, December 15, 2021, archived at https:// perma.cc/9VCJ- 6P2R; Taylor Leach, “The 7 Repro Sins You Can’t Afford to Make,” Dairy Herd Management, September 19, 2023, archived at https://perma .cc/LEN7-MQXC; Stephen LeBlanc, “State- of-the- art dairy farming: Repro duc tive performance on transition cows,” interview, The Dairy Podcast Show, episode #20, January 23, 2023, audio, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/20-state- of-the - art- dairy- farming/id1643773684?i=1000596179729.

7. Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence (New York: Norton, 2014), 180.

8. Josef J. Gross, “Dairy Cow Physiology and Production Limits,” Anim. Front. 13, no. 3 (2023): 44–50, 45; Maria Vilain Rørvang et al., “Prepartum Maternal Behavior of Domesticated Cattle: A Comparison with Managed, Feral, and Wild Ungulates,” Front. Vet. Sci. 5, art. 45 (2018): 1–11; Hector Macias and Lindsay Hinck, “Mammary Gland Development,” Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Dev. Biol. 1, no. 4 (2012): 533–557.

9. Marina A.G. von Keyserlingk and Daniel M. Weary, “Maternal Behavior in Cattle,” Hormones and Behavior 52 (2007): 106–113, 111.

10. K. Svennersten- Sjaunja and K. Olsson, “Endocrinology of Milk Production,” Domestic Animal Endocrinology 29 (2005): 241–258, 250–251.

11. Julie Føske Johnsen et al., “Is Rearing Calves with the Dam a Feasible Option for Dairy Farms? – Current and Future Research,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 181 (2016) 1– 11, 7; Berit Lupoli et al., “Effect of Suckling on the Release of Oxytocin, Prolactin, Cortisol, Gastrin, Cholecystokinin, Somatostatin and Insulin in Dairy Cows and Their Calves,” J. Dairy Research 68 (2001): 175–187, 176.

12. Juliana Macˇuhová et al., “Inhibition of Oxytocin Release During Repeated Milking in Unfamiliar Surroundings: The Importance of Opioids and Adrenal Cortex Sensitivity,” J. Dairy Research 69 (2002): 63–73; R.M. Bruckmaier and O. Wellnitz, “Induction of Milk Ejection and Milk Removal in Different Production Systems,” J. Anim. Sci. 86, supp. 1 (2008) 15–20, 16, 18; Johnsen et al., “Is Rearing Calves with the Dam a Feasible Option,” 7; Katharina A. Zipp et al., “Responses of Dams Versus Non- nursing Cows to Machine Milking in Terms of Milk Performance, Behaviour and Heart Rate With and Without Additional Acoustic, Olfactory or Manual Stimulation,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 204 (2018): 10–17.

13. C.J. Belo and R.M. Bruckmaier, “Suitability of Low- Dosage Oxytocin Treat ment to Induce Milk Ejection in Dairy Cows,” J. Dairy Sci. 93 (2010): 63-69; J. Macˇuhová et al., “Effects of Oxytocin Administration on Oxytocin Release and Milk Ejection,” J. Dairy Sci. 87 (2004): 1236–1244; Wolf- Dieter Kraetzl et al., “Naloxone Cannot Abolish the Lack of Oxytocin Release During Unexperienced Suckling of Dairy Cows,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 72 (2001): 247–253.

14. Macˇuhová et al., “Inhibition of Oxytocin Release,” 64; Bruckmaier and Wellnitz, “Induction of Milk Ejection,” 17; V. Tancˇin et al., “Effect of Suckling During Early Lactation and Change Over to Machine Milking on Plasma Oxytocin and Cortisol Levels and Milk Characteristics in Holstein Cows,” J. Dairy Research 62 (1995): 249–256; V. Tancˇin and R.M. Bruckmaier, “Factors Affecting Milk Ejection and Removal During Milking and Suckling of Dairy Cows,” Vet. Med. – Czech 46 (2001): 108–118.

15. V. Tancˇin et. al., “The Effects of Conditioning to Suckling, Milking and of Calf Presence on the Release of Oxytocin in Dairy Cows,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 72 (2001): 235–246, 242; Johnsen et al., “Is Rearing Calves with the Dam a Feasible Option,” 5, 9; A.M. de Passillé et al., “Effects of Twice- Daily Nursing on Milk Ejection and Milk Yield During Nursing and Milking in Dairy Cows,” J. Dairy Sci. 91 (2008): 1416–1422, 1420–1421; U. Bar- Peled et al., “Relationship between Frequent Milking or Suckling in Early Lactation and Milk Production of High Producing Dairy Cows,” J. Dairy Sci. 78 (1995): 2726–2736, 2734.

16. Belo and Bruckmaier, “Suitability of Low- Dosage Oxytocin Treatment,” 63–4; Bruckmaier and Wellnitz, “Induction of Milk Ejection,” 18; Macˇuhová et al., “Effects of Oxytocin Administration,” 1236; Robert J. Collier et al., “Impacts on Human Health and Safety of Naturally Occurring and Supplemental Hormones in Food Animals,” Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, July 27, 2020, 15–17, https://www.cast- science.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/07/ QTA2020-4-Hormones.pdf, archived at https://perma.cc/82J6-3MSZ.

17. E. H. Wall and T.B. McFadden, “Use It Or Lose It: Enhancing Milk Production Efficiency by Frequent Milking of Dairy Cows,” J. Anim. Sci. 86 (2008): 27–36, 31; Bar- Peled et al., “Relationship between Frequent Milking or Suckling in Early 136 Lactation and Milk Production,” 2733; Svennersten- Sjaunja and Olsson, “Endocrinology of Milk Production,” 249.

18. Wall and McFadden, “Use It Or Lose It.”

19. Wall and McFadden, “Use It Or Lose It.” 19. Sytze Bootema, “Some Observations on Modern Domestication Processes,” in The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism, and Predation, ed. Juliet Clutton- Brock (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 31–45, 31.

20. Bootema, “Some Observations,” 31.

21. Bootema, 31.

22. Gross, “Dairy Cow Physiology and Production Limits,” 45.

23. A. De Vries and M.I. Marcondes, “Review: Overview of Factors Affecting Productive Lifespan of Dairy Cows,” Animal 14:S1 (2020): s155–s164; J. Stojkov et al., “Fitness for Transport of Cull Dairy Cows at Livestock Markets,” J. Dairy Sci. 103 (2020): 2650–2661; J. Stojkov et al., “Management of Cull Dairy Cows: Culling Decisions, Duration of Transport, and Effect on Cow Condition,” J. Dairy Sci. 103 (2020): 2636–2649; J. Stojkov et. al., “Hot Topic: Management of Cull Dairy Cows – Consensus of an Expert Consultation in Canada,” J. Dairy Sci. 101 (2018): 11170–11174.

24. Hannah Ritchie et al., “Meat and Dairy Production,” Our World in Data, August 2017, Revised December 2023, accessed February 28, 2024, https://ourworldin data.org/meat- production, archived at https://perma.cc/2N4B- WPSZ.

25. Albert D. Barth, “Evaluation of Potential Breeding Soundness of the Bull,” in Current Therapy in Large Animal Theriogenology, eds. Robert S. Youngquist and Walter R. Threlfall (Elsevier Health Sciences, 2007), 228–240, 233–235; J.L. Schenk, “Review: Principles of Maximizing Bull Semen Production at Genetic Centers,” Animal 12:S1 (2018): s142–147; J.L. Tank and D.R. Monke, “Bull Management: Artificial Insemination Centers,” in Encyclopedia of Dairy Sciences, Third Edition, eds. Paul L.H. McSweeney and John P. McNamara (Elsevier, 2022), 178–186, 185.

26. Ibid. See also Melissa Rouge, “Semen Collection From Bulls,” Colorado State University, September 2, 2002, archived at https://perma.cc/M9YG- QTQC; “Seminal Collection,” in Management Guidelines of the National Association of Animal Breeders, Certified Semen Services, accessed March 9, 2023, https:// www.naab- css.org/management- guidelines, archived at https://perma.cc /L5FS- S5KZ.

27. Richard A. Battaglia, Handbook of Livestock Management, 4th Edition (New Jersey and Ohio: Prentice Hall, 2007), 196–197.

28. P. Lonergan, “Review: Historical and Futuristic Developments in Bovine Semen Technology,” Animal 12:S1 (2018): s4–s18, s12; R.H. Foote, “The History of Artificial Insemination: Selected Notes and Notables,” Journal of Animal Science 80 (2002): 1–10, 2; M.T Kaproth and R.H. Foote, “Mating Management: Artificial Insemination, Utilization,” in Encyclopedia of Dairy Sciences, Second Edition, ed. John W. Fuquay (Elsevier, 2011), 467–474, 469; Battaglia, Handbook of Livestock Management, 128–132.

29. Ibid.

30. Battaglia, Handbook of Livestock Management, 130.

31. Brian James Holoyda, “Bestiality Law in the United States: Evolving Legislation with Scientific Limitations,” 12 Animals 12 (2022): 1525.

32. For example see Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. Tit. 17, §1031(1)(I) (Bestiality provisions which make it an offence to engage in sexual acts with an animal “may not be construed to prohibit normal and accepted practices of animal husbandry.”); 137 Tex. Penal Code Ann. §21.09(a)(2), (4) (Bestiality provisions make it an offence to engage in sexual contact with an animal except where the conduct is “a generally accepted and otherwise lawful animal husbandry or veterinary practice.”).

33. Control over the breeding of animals is the defining condition of the human practice of domesticating other animals. Sandor Bökönyi, “Definitions of Domestication,” in The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism, and Predation, ed. Juliet Clutton- Brock (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 22–27; M.R. Jarman and P.F. Wilkinson, “Criteria of Animal Domestication,” in Papers in Economic Prehistory, ed. E.S. Higgs (Cambridge University Press, 1972), 83–96; Juliet Clutton- Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 30, 32.

34. Hannah Ritchie, “How many animals are factory- farmed?,” Our World in Data, September 25, 2023, accessed December 21, 2023, https://ourworldindata.org /how- many- animals- are- factory- farmed#article- citation, archived at https:// perma.cc/5E59-7WSC; Ritchie et al., “Meat and Dairy Production.”

35. Hannah Ritchie et al., “Environmental Impacts of Food Production,” Our World in Data, 2022, accessed September 7, 2023, https://ourworldindata.org /environmental- impacts- of-food, archived at https://perma.cc/3SUN- CBQQ; Yinon M. Bar- On et al., “The Biomass Distribution on Earth,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115, no. 25 (June 19, 2018): 6506–6511; H. Steinfeld et al., Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options (Rome: FAO UN, 2006).

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This is M.H. Tse’s first publication, adapted from a forthcoming book on human predation.