| To most folks who hunt wildlife in the Glades, rabbits are for
eating. As far back as anyone can remember, local kids have
participated in the "rundown," waiting near burning sugar
fields to bag a bunny and sell it as food.
But this was news to the People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, a Norfolk, Va., animal-rights group that has gained
notoriety for its headline-grabbing tactics, like the "I'd
Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign. PETA on Thursday urged
its 700,000 members to boycott U.S. Sugar Corp. products until the
company comes up with a better way to harvest sugar.
The animal-rights group was flooded with letters, e-mails and
phone calls Wednesday about Robert Powell, a New Jersey man who
claimed to have seen hundreds of flaming rabbits running from a
blazing sugar field owned by Florida Crystals on U.S. 27 near South
Bay. Powell rescued one of the rabbits and brought it to a shelter
in Key West, where it died Sunday, touching off a conflict between
animal-rights groups and the sugar industry.
"Apparently this has been a chronic situation for what seems
to be decades," said Stephanie Boyles, wildlife biologist for
PETA. "But few people knew about the number of wild animals
that suffer in the burns, not to mention people who pick them off
and sell the animals' bodies for profit."
Sugar companies say that the boycott is unwarranted and that
there's no other economical way to harvest sugar. "This whole
thing has been blown way out of proportion," U.S. Sugar
spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said. "Our farms have a long record of
a commitment to the environment. Unless we can grow plants that drop
their leaves and march out of the field themselves, I don't see how
we can do this."
PETA chastised another sugar producer, Florida Crystals, for
burning sugar cane but is not urging a boycott of that company's
products, which it has endorsed in the past. Florida Crystals grows
organic sugar on about 4,000 acres, which it harvests without
burning, but burns the rest of its crop. If PETA had known that
burning the fields harmed animals, it never would have endorsed the
company, Boyles said. The company only produces organic sugar for a
very small market, and couldn't stay in business if it did so on a
larger scale, Florida Crystals Vice President Jorge Dominicis said.
Both companies said they burn in small sections and monitor the
fires, making sure they don't ring the fields with fire or burn in a
way that animals are trapped. The burns are part of the agricultural
cycle, and, like fires that occur naturally in the Everglades, help
nature renew itself, Sanchez said.
Dominicis and Sanchez said their companies strive to preserve the
environment, and questioned whether Powell saw what he thought he
saw. U.S. 27 is a busy road, and no one else saw the alleged rabbit
inferno, Sanchez said. Most likely, Powell saw a few rabbits fleeing
the fire and thought they also were on fire.
"What he described is not something most people who live
around the fields have seen," Dominicis said. "Part of
what seems to have appalled this particular gentleman is that there
were buzzards chasing the rabbits, and you would see that in
nature."
meghan_meyer@pbpost.com |