Sign petitions to help end foie gras, elephant ride barbarity, & future Toro de la Vega fiesta cruelty

Please click on and sign the following petitions:

1. Speak Out Against Foie Gras

2. Please Ban Cruel Elephant Rides!

3. Help end the Toro de le Vega fiesta


1. Background | From Animal Legal Defense Fund

The Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a legal petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), urging that foie gras—the “fatty liver” of a force-fed duck or goose—bear a consumer warning label stating “NOTICE: Foie gras products are derived from diseased birds.” Because the USDA is responsible for ensuring that poultry products are wholesome and for approving only products from healthy animals, stamping foie gras products with the USDA seal without disclosing that those products are derived from diseased birds misleads consumers, contravening the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

Currently, on U.S. foie gras farms in New York and California, ducks are force fed three pounds of mash a day through a pipe shoved down their throats—the equivalent of force-feeding 45 pounds of food to an adult human—inducing liver disease known as hepatic lipidosis that often cripples and poisons the birds. The cruel and unhealthy force-feeding of birds for foie gras production has been banned in over a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Israel, and a California state ban, passed in 2004, will go into effect on July 1, 2012. Even retailers like Whole Foods and Wolfgang Puck’s restaurants refuse to sell foie gras.

In addition to being diseased, foie gras products may induce disease. A 2007 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that protein fibers from foie gras enhanced the onset of Secondary Amyloidosis, a disease fatal to humans. In the past, ALDF and other animal protection groups have called on the USDA to ban foie gras outright as unfit for human consumption.

Join the Animal Legal Defense Fund in urging the USDA to place a consumer warning label on foie gras.

Sign the petition to the USDA now!

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2. Background | From PETA

So-called “elephant joyrides” are anything but joyful for the elephants who are forced to undergo them. A PETA-commissioned investigation of elephant training in Nepal revealed that elephants who are used to give rides are physically and emotionally abused every step of the way.

When they are just 2 years old, baby elephants are torn away from their loving mothers and tied up out of their reach. The frantic babies cry and struggle for days to reach their mothers, who are also tethered. Elephant calves are restrained during “training” for as long as 14 hours at a time with heavy chains and with ropes that cause painful burns.

Calves are repeatedly put through terrifying “desensitization” abuse, in which trainers tie the elephants tightly to poles, startle them with loud noises, hit them, prod them with sticks and wave flaming torches at them – often singeing the elephants’ skin.

Trainers routinely pierce the animals’ sensitive ears and yank on them with hooks to force them to walk a certain way. Restraints studded with iron nails, which dig into the elephants’ skin and cause infections, are used on their feet. Barbed shackles are frequently placed around one of their legs, and one end of the shackle is attached to the saddle so that the rider can punish the elephant for any misstep. Trainers routinely beat elephants on the head with sticks to punish them for “mistakes”, leaving many elephants with open wounds.

Please watch this undercover video footage of elephant training camps. This is just one example of the cruel ways that elephants are trained to give rides, but all elephant training methods are cruel. In India, chaining, beating and the use of ankuses (iron hooks) to jab and hit elephants is common. In Thailand, still-nursing baby elephants are literally dragged, kicking and screaming, from their mothers. They are immobilised, beaten mercilessly, and gouged with nails for days at a time. These ritualized “training” sessions leave the elephants badly injured, traumatized, or dead.

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3. Background | From Humane Society International

Help end the Toro de le Vega fiesta in the Castilla y León region of Spain, where bulls are pursued, taunted and tormented by spear-wielding men and then stabbed to death in an annual spectacle every September.

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See More:

• Fur | Skin
• Dissection | Testing
• Cruelty-Free

some more munitions
for our fight
to see that animals
are treated right
we sign, we share
we keep on going
we spread our words
our tribe keeps growing ♥

Karen Lyons Kalmenson