Tell Congress: Save Over 300 Million Tax Dollars By Ending Chimpanzee Experimentation | Tell Mayor Villaraigosa: Remove Los Angeles Zoo Veterinarian Who Supports Cruel And Illegal Elephant Training

Please click on and sign the following two petitions:

1.Urgent: Motivate Congress To Save Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars
By Ending Chimpanzee Experimentation

2.Tell Mayor Villaraigosa: Remove Los Angeles Zoo Veterinarian Who Supports
Cruel And Illegal Elephant Training

1. Background | From IDA

In order to resolve our country’s historic budget crisis, the U.S. Congress has created a 12-member “Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction” that is to create a plan by November 23 to reduce our nation’s debt by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. There are many areas of spending on which the 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats will have difficulty agreeing. However, because so much wasteful spending also needlessly harms animals, this gives the animal protection community an enormous and extraordinary opportunity to suggest budget cuts that the committee can easily agree on!

Ending chimpanzee experimentation would save over $300 million. The National Institutes of Health is leading the attempt to try and convince the public, and Congress, that chimpanzee experimentation is necessary. But the concept of ending this morally and scientifically bankrupt practice has become so mainstream, on so many fronts – scientific, ethical, political, financial – that on September 28, Scientific American, perhaps the most prestigious general interest science magazine in the world, called for a ban, explaining “Why it is time to end invasive biomedical research on chimpanzees.”

The emerging scientific, ethical and political consensus is clear: as Scientific American so aptly said, “[T]he time has come to end biomedical experimentation on chimpanzees.” IDA is asking our members to send a fax to the committee to give them the opportunity to make that consensus a reality while saving U.S. taxpayers $300 million. The fax will automatically be sent to your own U.S. Senators and Representative also.

Each member of the Congressional committee has already been provided with the details backing up this proposal. So all you need to do is send a fax indicating your support! Feel free to add your own thoughts. Thank you!


2. Background | From IDA

IDA has sent a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, calling for the removal of Los Angeles Zoo veterinarian Ellen Wiedner. The demand was prompted by Dr. Wiedner’s recent testimony at a public hearing in San Diego County, during which she expressed adamant support for Have Trunk Will Travel, the company whose trainers were caught on video viciously striking several elephants including a calf with bullhooks, and using an electric prod on another. She called these cruel and illegal acts appropriate care and control of elephants.

Not only did Dr. Wiedner condone the violent use of bullhooks on several elephants, even when pressed she would not condemn the use of an electric prod, which is strictly illegal in California. This is not a person who should be caring for elephants at the Los Angeles Zoo!

Dr. Wiedner previously was the director of animal care for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has been at the center of controversy due to the abuse of elephants with bullhooks. This is well-documented on video and in sworn testimony from a recent federal trial.

What you can do

Send a message to Mayor Villaraigosa that Dr. Wiedner should not be caring for elephants or any other animals at the Los Angeles Zoo. Please follow up with a phone call to the Mayor at (213) 978-0600 or (213) 978-0721.

Personalize and submit the form below to send your message to:

• Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa
• A copy will also be sent to the City Council

See More:

• Animal Wrongs

• What Can I Do?

In hope that one day
After a long, sleepless
Night
I open my eyes
To a world, doing right
That cruelty is
Banished
And disappears
That torment
Vanishes
And kindness
Lives here !

Karen Lyons Kalmenson