Please send automatic messages opposing subsidized cruelty and tiger displays
Please click on and sign the following:
1. Tax-funded food programs are making us sick!
2. Concord Mall in Elkhart Hosts Abusive Tiger Cub Display: Ask the mall and the government to end this kind of abuse
1. Background | From PCRM
Please take a minute to let your member of Congress know that you support cuts to agricultural subsidies that promote unhealthful food. We have provided text for you, but if you decide to write your own message, please be polite and encouraging. Here are some talking points:
- Approximately 60 percent of all deaths in the United States are from diseases linked to unhealthy diets, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, and high blood pressure.
- Costs to treat these diseases will soon soar into the trillions of dollars.
- The most healthful foods–fruits and vegetables–receive less than 1 percent of the subsidies.
- Please support cuts to agricultural subsidies that promote unhealthful food.
Related | Trailer: Food, Inc.
2. Background | From Big Cat Rescue
Concord Mall in Elkhart, Indiana is allowing a group that incessantly breeds and exhibits tiger cubs for profit to display their cubs at the mall from July 6 -10. The group, which exhibits throughout the Midwest under various names, is calling themselves Big Cat Rescue Entertainment while in Elkhart.
Big Cat Rescue Entertainment is NOT to be confused with Tampa, Florida-based Big Cat Rescue, the largest accredited sanctuary in the world dedicated entirely to abused and abandoned big cats. Oklahoma-based Big Cat Rescue Entertainment uses the almost identical name in order to dupe and confuse the public. In fact, Big Cat Rescue has filed a Federal intellectual property lawsuit to stop this group from using its name.
“Big Cat Rescue Entertainment is a group of unscrupulous breeders of big cats, especially tigers, who travel the country displaying tiger cubs at malls and offering the mall’s customers – for a fee of about $25 – the opportunity to pet the cubs and have a photo taken with them, “explained Carole Baskin, founder and CEO of Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue sanctuary and a nationally recognized expert on the plight of exotic cats. “These breeders often promote their “pay to play with cubs” scheme under the guise of providing consumers with education about the plight of exotic cats. But the truth is they are exhibiting the cubs only to make money.”
Without knowing the facts, seeing children pet cute tiger cubs seems adorable and innocent. But in reality these cubs endure a miserable existence while they are on display and then are destined, in most cases, to a life sentence in deplorable conditions or are killed as part of the billion-dollar illegal trade in tiger parts.
Big Cat Rescue contacted Concord Mall General Manager Robert Thatcher last week. Thatcher said he is “satisfied with the group that brings in the cubs” and has “done his own research” to determine if there is abuse. But if Thatcher had contacted the USDA, the governmental body that oversees exotic animal displays, he would have found that this Oklahoma group is currently under investigation for the deaths of 23 tiger cubs just last year. And the group has been investigated and fined for numerous violations over the years.
“We are deeply concerned that Concord Mall and its management company, Triyar, do not care about the safety of their patrons or about the abuse these tiny, defenseless animals are forced to endure,” said Baskin. “More and more malls across the country are banning these cub displays as they learn about the abuse to the animals. And research shows that mall patrons are disgusted by these exhibits and will not continue to shop at malls that host them. It is truly a shame that Concord Mall and its management company insist upon allowing animal abuse at their mall.”
See More:
- Compassion
- PCRM’s Power Plate Program
- VegGuide.Org : Community-maintained, world-wide guide to vegetarian and vegan restaurants, grocers, and more.
- Happy Cow : Compassionate Eating Guide
- Community Walk : Vegan & vegetarian restaurant guide to the world
- VegEats : World Veg*an Restaurant Guides grouped by contributor
Guide To Cruelty-Free Eating: Vegan Outreach
stupid is as stupid does
will manunkind ever
generate any
better buzz:(
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
Our Compass 