Unity ...
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Albert Schweitzer, French philosopher, physician, and musician (Nobel 1952)
Wikimedia Commons
BACKGROUND | SOURCE PETA
Rock Springs One, a homeowners’ association (HOA) in Mesquite, Nevada, is considering the use of notorious poison Avitrol to kill pigeons and other birds living in its neighborhood. PETA informed the management about the cruelty of Avitrol, but to no apparent avail. Reportedly, the HOA is voting on this issue this Thursday, May 31!
Lethal methods don’t work and will actually backfire. Whenever birds are killed or removed, a spike in the food supply results, which causes accelerated breeding among survivors and newcomers. Populations then increase! Furthermore, Avitrol is horribly cruel. It causes disorientation, convulsions, and a slow, agonizing death. Pest-control companies often tell clients that Avitrol only “scares birds away,” but this is flatly untrue. And dogs, cats, and “nontarget” wildlife can die after consuming the bodies of poisoned birds.
Please politely urge Rock Springs One HOA officials to refrain from poisoning birds and to stick with humane and effective bird control methods instead.
WHOM TO CONTACT
Trish Hall, President
Colonial Property Management
thall@cpmlv.com
Tiara Gehl
Provisional Community Manager
Colonial Property Management
tgehl@cpmlv.com
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear President Hall and Provisional Community Manager Gehl,
It has come to my attention that Rock Springs One, a homeowners’ association (HOA) in Mesquite, Nevada, is considering the use of the notorious poison Avitrol to kill pigeons and other birds living in its neighborhood. Please allow me this opportunity to elaborate my protest. First, these animals are targeted to be killed as a response to private and public objections over their presence, and the use of the poison Avitrol has been chosen as the preferred method of death. This poison is not rapid; in fact, it causes a drawn-out and painful condition that can last for days. Many birds will attempt escape and fly only to be stricken mid-flight to fall to the ground dying upon impact.
Second, this poison can also affect other non-target wild and non-wild animals, including those who maintain an endangered definition.
Third, killing the birds artificially increases food supplies to the remaining birds, the consequence of which is increased reproduction and an ensuing greater bird population. In fact, studies have demonstrated that the continual cycle of seasonal culls is responsible for a rebound, or larger populations, in subsequent years.
As such, I respectfully request that you work with particular groups and citizens to develop alternative, humane solutions to killing these animals. These creatures are sentient and deserve our compassion and respect, not our brutality and violence.
I thank you for your attention to this matter.
Read more…
Ban shark finning and fishing in Costa Rica
BACKGROUND | SOURCE FACEBOOK
The Sharks in Costa Rica are abandoned. Over 200.000 are brutally chopped alive and thrown into the sea while still conscious.
Shark slaughter continues in Costa Rica. Taiwanese finning ships now dock illegally, at private facilities, to escape the reach of the law. The act is cruel, inhumane and misrepresents a country recognized for biodiversity protection. Learn more by visiting http://www.sharkwater.com/
Every year around 200.000 sharks are slaughtered,chopped alive in Costa Rica.
Last month the international shark finning fleet’s boats (the same ones that previously arrived at Costa Rica’s private docks) began docking and landing shark fins in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. What’s more, the fins are loaded into trucks and driven/imported back into Costa Rica where they are prepared for export.
Voice your disapproval of shark finning and be a part of the movement to save sharks and restore their populations.
PETITIONS
1) http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_trade_in_shark_fins_in_Costa_Rica/?launch
2) http://www.change.org/petitions/ban-shark-finningfishing-in-costa-rica
3) http://www.thepetitionsite.com/703/908/499/stop-ilegal-shark-fining-in-costa-rica/
WHOM TO CONTACT
consulate@costarica-embassy.org , embassy@costarica-embassy.org , ambassador@costarica-embassy.org , ldachner@costarica-embassy.org , jsalas@costarica-embassy.org , aoduber@costarica-embassy.org , achacon@costarica-embassy.org , gnavarro@costarica-embassy.org
SAMPLE LETTER
To Whom It Concerns,
I am writing today to request you immediately ban shark finning, a process of extreme animal suffering and environmental destruction. Please allow me this opportunity to elaborate. Shark fin commerce is a vicious business; indeed, the unprincipled nature of such operations includes mutilating the shark for fins and then discarding the still-living shark to die in what can only be considered prolonged agony and fear. To deliberately inflict a non-human animal to such an incredibly savage practice is contrary to any established animal protection policies, and the majority of citizens, including voting constituents, has repeatedly voiced condemnation of such abuse.
Additionally, it has been factually established that shark meat is essentially toxic: shark products contain harmful levels of mercury, the content of which could prove potentially harmful to people, particularly women and children, who have been advised to discontinue consumption. Furthermore, claiming a desire to be a leader in environmental protection, Costa Rica has instead contradicted such assertions by sanctioning such an environmentally unsound business. To promote oneself as environmental while enabling shark harvesting is both unethical and fraudulent. Indeed, killing sharks has been proven ecologically detrimental, harming an extremely fragile and vitally important ecosystem, the consequences of which negatively affect all other marine and land life. Because these systems exist amongst each other in symbiotic relationships, no animal, human or non-human, is immune.
As such, I am encouraging you to make the ethical and ecologically-beneficial decision to ban the commerce of shark finning in your country; until such a time, I feel my only recourse is to promote a boycott. Sacrificing vital business during the current financial climate may prove commercially damaging, and my hope is that this letter finds you willing to consider your actions and implement changes to ensure the safety of all animals, sharks and humans, as well as the vital ecology being continually eroded because of such damaging practices.
I know your time is limited and I thank you for your attention to this important issue.
NAME
Stop the Torture of Children in Syria
Avaaz
Please click and sign HERE
Background | Source Avaaz
“My son’s throat was cut,” she said. “He was 12.”
“Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.” — Albert Camus
Syrian army and security officers with the help of Iranian mercenaries have been torturing children with impunity during the past year. There have also been cases documented of children who were shot while in their homes or on the street. Syrian Human Rights Activists told us that they have seen the government use schools as detention centers, military bases or barracks and children have been arrested from their schools!
Witnesses from the towns of Baba Amr, al-Janoudyah, Kafr Nabl, Kafr Rouma, and Ayn Larouz in the Idlib governorate in northern Syria told us that they saw the army and pro-government armed men, referred to locally as shabeeha, force people especially children to march in front of the advancing army during the March 2012 offensive to retake control of areas that had fallen into the hands of the opposition. From the circumstances of these incidents, it was clear to the witnesses that the purpose of this was to protect the army from attack.
Slaughtering and torturing children is now considered as a profession for Al-Assad thugs, that’s why you gotta (sign, share and let the whole world know about these soulless creatures). I hope you can sign this petition, or at least spread it, and once enough people have signed, we will get decision makers’ attention directly!
I believe that this horrible human rights violations done by Al-Assad thugs must be stopped as soon as possible.
We need a real/responsible action, guys.
–Mouaaz Al-Ajami
Read more…
Wikimedia Commons
Please click and sign HERE
Background | Source PCRM
We need your help to stop the abuse of kittens by Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. This week, PCRM filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, explaining that the medical center is violating the federal Animal Welfare Act by using live kittens in its pediatrics residency program. Please help this effort by asking the medical center to end the use of animals today.
In the pediatrics residency program at Albert Einstein Medical Center, breathing tubes are pushed down the throats of live kittens to teach endotracheal intubation. This painful procedure is repeated numerous times on each animal and can cause tracheal bruising, bleeding, and severe trauma. Nonanimal training methods are widely implemented in accredited pediatrics programs, making this use of animals not only cruel but unnecessary.
So far, the responsible Albert Einstein faculty and administrators have refused pleas to change this practice. Please e-mail Albert Einstein Healthcare Network president and CEO Barry Freedman, and urge him to end this cruel and unnecessary practice. Send an automatic e-mail.
Gaumard’s Premie HAL and PREMIE Blue simulators, designed to mimic the airway of a premature newborn; Laerdal’s SimNewB, which was developed in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics; and METI’s BabySim can all be used for this type of training. The medical center even teaches a pediatrics critical care course that includes intubation at the simulation center.
More than 95 percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States and Canada—including every other program in Pennsylvania—do not use animals. It is time for Albert Einstein Medical Center to join the majority. Please e-mail Mr. Freedman today and ask him to replace the use of animals in the medical center’s pediatrics residency program.
You can read our complaint to the Department of Agriculture here.
Thank you for your help.
BACKGROUND | SOURCE PETA
Reportedly, GOLDMARK Property Management, Inc., and Sand Companies, Inc.—property management groups that own multiple apartment complexes in Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska—require tenants to declaw their cats. PETA has reached out to both companies several times, but to no avail. We need your help!
Outlawed in 22 countries, declawing is a cruel and permanently crippling surgery involving the amputation of the last joint of every toe, including bones and cartilage! Persistent pain, loss of balance, nerve damage, bone chips requiring additional surgery, gangrene, and skin disorders are associated physical complications; and nails can later grow back painfully and unseen, within the paw! Declawed cats often become reclusive, depressed, and insecure and begin eliminating outside the litterbox. Psychologically changed, these animals are then bounced around from home to home or wind up at animal shelters.
Please politely urge GOLDMARK Property Management and Sand Companies to join the numerous property management groups that do not require declawing. And please, forward this alert widely!
WHOM TO CONTACT
Polite comments can be sent to:
Kenneth Regan
Chief Executive Officer, Chair, and Owner
GOLDMARK Property Management, Inc.
ken.regan@goldmark.com
Jamie Thelen, President
Sand Companies, Inc.
jjthelen@sandcompanies.com
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Chief Executive Officer Regan and President Thelen,
I am writing to ask that you please discontinue your requirement to declaw cats homed in any of your properties. This is a cruel, archaic procedure that causes suffering and pain, undesirable patterns and behaviour and has been recognized as such internationally. Declawing is illegal or restricted in over 20 countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada. Cities such as San Francisco, West Hollywood, and Norfolk, VA ban declawing — while Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Berkeley, Malibu and Santa Monica are evaluating similar legislation. The Humane Society of the U.S. and ASPCA oppose declawing. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons rejects the operation, describing it as “mutilation.”
Overwhelming evidence demonstrates declawing causes severe behavioral problems that often lead guardians to abandon their animals in overcrowded shelters; 33% of declawed cats begin post-procedure, according to a 2001 study in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association (JAVMA). National shelter surveys reveal that 70-80% of cats surrendered for offensive behavior are declawed. Declawed felines enter shelters with behavioral issues like biting or not using the litter box, claims shelter director William Lombardi of Gloucester County, New Jersey. For the estimated 70% of declawed cats who are euthanized, the surgery is a death sentence.
Moreover, declawing generates suffering and permanent disability. The invasive procedure amputates not only the claw, but also the entire last “knuckle” of a cat’s toes. Veterinary experts recognize laser or scalpel declawing as among the most painful surgeries routinely performed.
Please reconsider this cruel policy and ban the declawing requirement for tenants’ cats in your properties.
Thank you,
Wikimedia Commons
BACKGROUND | SOURCE PCRM
Live cats are used in a cruel pediatrics residency training program at the University of Virginia. PCRM’s recent federal complaint says this is unlawful and that the university already owns a simulator that better mimics newborn anatomy.
Pediatrics training at the University of Virginia (UVA) includes repeatedly forcing a plastic tube through the mouth and into the windpipe (trachea) of a live cat. Animals used in this training procedure can suffer tracheal bruising, bleeding, scarring, severe pain, and they are at risk of death.
“It is unnecessary to traumatize and harm animals to teach pediatric emergency procedures, especially when validated simulators developed to replace animals are widely used,” says Josie Kinkade, M.D., a local physician who co-signed the federal complaint. “A newborn’s anatomy is different from a cat’s, and residents at UVA can get a better education using human based medical simulators.”
UVA’s state-of-the-art medical simulation center already owns a simulator validated for this training. Numerous pediatrics residencies use the Gaumard Premie HAL and Premie Blue simulators, which mimic the airway of a low birth weight premature newborn.
PCRM’s complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eastern Region Animal Care office, states, “UVA is violating the AWA because superior training methods exist that could replace the university’s use of live animals and alleviate this severe pain.” The complaint also cites inadequate oversight in the approval of the training protocol by the school’s animal care and use committee.
The Animal Welfare Act’s implementing regulations “require that a principal investigator—including course instructors—consider alternatives to procedures that may cause more than momentary or slight pain or distress to any animal used for research purposes.”
Nonanimal education methods are exclusively used by 94 percent of U.S. pediatrics programs, including those at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Inova Fairfax Hospital and Hospital for Children, and Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond, according to an ongoing PCRM survey.
To take action and learn more, visit PCRM.org/Pediatrics.
GROUP TO JOIN
End the Suffering of Cats at the University of Virginia
PETITIONS
UVA President: Stop Cruel, Outdated Trainings On Cats
Stop Live Cat Testing at the University of Virginia
WHOM TO CONTACT
Email Block
dekosky@virginia.edu , sd3zc@Virginia.EDU , jpn2r@virginia.edu
Individual
Steven T. DeKosky, MD, Vice President and Dean, UVA School of Medicine, dekosky@virginia.edu, sd3zc@Virginia.EDU P.O. Box 800394, Charlottesville, VA, 22908, Ph: 434-924-5118
James P. Natarro, MD, PhD, Pediatrics Chair, UVA Medical Center, jpn2r@virginia.edu, P.O. Box 800386,Charlottesville, VA, 22908, Ph: 434-924-5093
Fax number for Dean DeKosky: 434-982-0874
Click HERE for free faxing from your computer. No fax machine, credit card, or registering required. Please be certain to confirm you message by clicking on the link sent to your email address or else your fax will not be sent.
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Dean DeKosky and Pediatrics Chair Natarro,
I was shocked to learn the cruelty inflicted on cats by the University of Virginia Medical School, which continues to use live cats as test subjects for students learning intubation procedures for research, the efficacy of which is questionable at best, and lethal at worst. I am part of a group whose mission is to effect an end to experimenting on cats: http://www.facebook.com/groups/144828258983731/. These experiments subject the cats to enormous suffering and pain, forcing breathing tubes down their throats, up to 22 times per day; the dats are used a few times a year, which means that over the course of their time in the lab, they will undergo dozens of administrations of anesthesia and hundreds of intubations! These tests cause bleeding, bruising, and significant residual pain.
We are requesting you immediately discontinue testing on cats, given the enormity of the issue and the unnecessary abuse: human simulators are available and have proven superior to outdated and inhumane testing on cats. The majority of schools in the US and Canada use human patient simulators, and Canada uses no animals for their testing programs: unlike animals, whose anatomy is different from human babies, the infant models of this simulators are anatomically correct and provide a greater and more efficient mode of testing. Students who use human simulators achieve a greater understanding and performance of intubation procedures.
As such, it is important to recognize that the University of Virginia causes considerable abuse on cats, which is significantly unethical, especially concerning the alternative humane human simulators. It would be a shame to have to dismiss the University of Virginia, but until this outrageous abuse stops, I and others will collectively boycott your school.
Thank you for your time.
NAME
Read more…
Friends of Animals
BACKGROUND | SOURCE MARC BEKOFF
Following up on the good news about the release of two dolphins into the wild, I learned this morning about a most heinous and perverse situation in Alaska. Healy, Alaska trapper Coke Wallace “apparently walked a horse out to an area off the Stampede Trail near the boundary of Denali National Park – an area made famous by the 1996 book ‘Into the Wild’ – shot the horse, and set snares all around the area hoping to catch wolves attracted to the carcass. Wolves from Denali National Park were drawn to the dead horse, resulting in the killing of a primary reproductive female wolf from the Grant Creek (also called Toklat West) pack from the park, along with at least one other wolf. It is unknown how long the two wolves were alive in the snares before being killed and collected by the trapper. The Grant Creek wolf pack has been one of the three packs most often viewed in Denali National Park.”
All of this happened in a former buffer area where wolves were protected from 2002-2010 when the Alaska Board of Game eliminated the protected area. The loss of these wolves puts the fate of this long-lived and long-studied pack in jeopardy. Observations began on this pack back in the 1930s. Of course, the loss of any wolves due to killing another animal to use as bait is reprehensible, legal or not.
This kind of hearltess slaughter must not be tolerated and it’s important to call attention to it and to protest it loudly and clearly. While “the incident does not violate state law, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) is looking at potential violations of state water quality regulations, which prohibit discarding carcasses in surface waters of the state.”
WHOM TO CONTACT
According to Friends of Animals, here are some people you can contact (the area code is 907):
Tom Meier, Wildlife Biologist, Denali National Park. Tom_Meier@nps.gov; 683-9572
Susan and Dave Braun, Healy: braun@mtaonline.net; 683-2654
Trooper James Ellison, Cantwell: james.ellison@alaska.gov; 768-2202
Chris Foley, Water Quality, ADEC, Anchorage: chris.foley@alaska.gov; 269-4632
Marybeth Holleman, Anchorage: marybeth@alaskawriters.com, 360-4512
Coke Wallace, Midnight Sun Safaris, Healy: info@midnightsunsafaris.com; 683-4868
EMAIL BLOCK
Tom_Meier@nps.gov , braun@mtaonline.net , james.ellison@alaska.gov , chris.foley@alaska.gov , marybeth@alaskawriters.com , info@midnightsunsafaris.com
SAMPLE MESSAGE
To Whom It Concerns,
I am writing to protest the brutal slaughter of a horse to attract and subsequently viciously kill wolves, one of whom was likely pregnant. Humans have adopted dangerous constructs of speciesism, the prejudicial regard of non-human species, to validate the brutality inflicted upon them. Using this manufactured status of superiority, humans have sanctioned the use of animals as commodities, regarding them only as products to benefit our goals and needs. We embrace inequity to justify our treatment of animals, yet euphemistic descriptions meant to facilitate morality cannot disguise the fundamentally unethical parameters with which we surround ourselves to distinguish our dominance. As dangerous as racism and sexism, speciesism further divides the chasm between species, which desensitizes us to cruelty and inevitably leads to human inequality and injustice.
This disregard of your most vulnerable group of beings is unacceptable, and until this barbarism is appropriately addressed including a mandatory ban of such, I will boycott. I and others will collectively voice condemnation, resulting in the sacrifice of vital tourism and commerce profits. Please act responsibly and with compassion and choose to protect, rather than sanction harm, to animals.
NAME
Read more…
