Three actions: oppose animals in film and marine parks, and the construction of new pipelines
Please click and take action on the following:
1. Future productions: no more animals exploited
3. President Obama: ban new oil pipelines
1. Background | From In Defense of Animals
Recently released video footage shows shocking scenes of elephant abuse by the owner and a trainer at Have Trunk Will Travel, a company that hires out elephants for films, TV, print and rides. In the video, elephants are “trained” with electric shock devices and struck with steel bullhooks, and a baby elephant is cruelly hooked in the mouth.
One of the abuse victims shown in the video is Tai, who screams after being shocked with a powerful hand-held electric device. She appears in the recently released film Water for Elephants, in which she undergoes a vicious staged “beating.” The public was repeatedly and falsely assured by Have Trunk Will Travel that Tai was never mistreated, and the American Humane Association gave the film its “no animals were harmed” seal of approval and sponsored a promotion for the film. But the video (also below), revealed on TMZ’s website, shows otherwise (you can also vote on a poll asking whether an elephant should have been used in the movie).
Obtained by UK-based Animal Defenders International (ADI) and shot in 2005, the video shows extremely disturbing images including:
- Elephants repeatedly shocked with a hand-held electric device
- Elephants crying out after being struck, beaten and hooked on the legs and body with a bullhook, a pointed steel rod resembling a fireplace poker
- A baby elephant being hooked in the mouth during training
- An elephant who is jabbed and pinned with bullhooks as she is having her tusks sawn down
Have Trunk Will Travel has been at the center of controversy before. The company provided Tai for a notorious art show in Los Angeles for which she was fully body painted; animal control officials forced Have Trunk Will Travel to wash off the paint. And the Science Discovery Center in Santa Ana cancelled an event in which an elephant would be encased in a giant soap bubble, after receiving thousands of emails and phone calls when IDA exposed the stunt. While on loan to the Denver Zoo, one of the outfit’s elephants escaped and ran through a crowd, injuring her trainer and a baby.
It’s time to stop the use of elephants and other wild animals in films and other forms of entertainment. Please send a strong message to the Hollywood movers and shakers, asking them to use advanced computer-based technologies instead of live animals who endure a lifetime of suffering for a few moments of screen time.
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2. Background | From PETA
A Canadian expat has proposed an aquarium in Rawai, Phuket, in Thailand—a project that would sentence countless fish, sea lions, seals, and dolphins to lives spent swimming in circles in small tanks and pools that never could compare to the vast oceans that these animals call home.
Aquariums make claims of providing “education” and “conservation,” but they rarely succeed on either count. Marine parks present a distorted view of wildlife—the only thing that they teach people is that it is acceptable to keep wild animals in captivity far from their natural homes and subject them to boredom and loneliness.
Please write to Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha and ask that he not approve the proposed aquarium plans. The aquarium would just be one more addition to Thailand’s horrific animal attractions, which include camps where elephants are beaten into submission, cruel live animal performances, and decrepit zoos where animals are denied everything that is natural and important to them.
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3. Message Text | From Rainforest Action Network
America’s pipeline safeguards are broken.
In July 2009, federal inspectors with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) found evidence that an above-ground span of Exxon’s pipeline had become submerged under a creek and was piling up debris. Nearly 20 months later, in March of this year, Exxon reported that it was “evaluating control measures to keep future debris from accumulating over the pipeline.” Last weekend, in the same region cited in the inspection, the same pipeline ruptured during record flooding of the Yellowstone River.
Exxon’s spill in Montana is just the latest in a string of accidents as long as the industry is old. And while Big Oil says that it’s learning from its mistakes, even its newest pipelines can’t seem to contain the increasingly corrosive oil mined from Canada’s tar sands. We don’t need more pipelines. Most analysts actually expect a steady decline in U.S. demand for oil. What we do need is a system of regulations and penalties that keep our communities safe from the pipelines already in the ground.
Please establish an immediate moratorium on construction of new crude oil pipelines until the safety of our communities can be guaranteed. Please also ensure that the pending application of by TransCanada to construct the KeystoneXL pipeline is denied unless targeted safety guidelines for tar sands crude are established.
Related:
the human race
racing towards its
own end
as they laugh, party
and pretend
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
Our Compass 
Sick people 😦
Done and shared, thank you Stacey
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