HighestWelfare.Humane.Assured.GoodPractices.Vegetarian. Regenerative.Flexitarian.Lies...
What is the difference between No Welfare, High Welfare, and Highest Welfare when they all require animals to die? Only human comfort, NONE protect the actual animals. The most humane, ethical, and honest Webster-defined "welfare" is NOT exploiting animals - not using, not wearing, not eating, not killing - animals. The only meaningful position is vegan, everything else is just how humans euphemize animals' required suffering and violent deaths: no human exploits animals because they honestly believe that NOT exploiting animals is UNethical or INhumane.
Beverly Hills Avalon Hotel says “No” to foie gras, plus important additional information
From Animal Rescue Examiner
By Paula Lopez
The Beverly Hills Avalon Hotel made a bold decision last Tuesday to remove the brutal production of foie gras from their menu. The hotel has now joined Spago in becoming one of only two culinary institutions in Beverly Hills to remove foie gras from their menu.
In Defense of Animals (IDA), an international animal protection organization, praised the Beverly Hills hotel for its compassionate decision: “Foie gras production universally ranks as one of the cruelest forms of animal agriculture,” said Hope Bohanec, IDA Grassroots Campaigns Director. “We thank the Avalon Hotel for joining the ranks of world-renowned chefs like Wolfgang Puck in denouncing foie gras and refusing to serve cruelty.”
To read the rest of this entry, please click HERE
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
http://www.nofoiegras.org/
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
http://www.nofoiegras.org/help.html
FREE POSTCARDS FOR FOIE GRAS OUTREACH PLEDGING TO NOT PARTICIPATE IN FOIE GRAS COMMERCE:
http://www.nofoiegras.org/FGrestaurant_outreach.htm
VIDEO
Vodpod videos no longer available.
If you are interested in protesting a restaurant or store that sells foie gras, please feel free to use the following sample letter, I have modified it somewhat but do not know the original author or group from whom it was generously provided:
FOIE GRAS SAMPLE LETTER:
To Whom It Concerns,
I am disturbed to learn that your establishment sells foie gras, the production of which inflicts incredible suffering and cruelty upon sentient animals. As such, I respectfully request you take immediate steps to eliminate foie gras from your product list.
Foie gras, French for “fatty liver,” is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of male ducks and geese. The birds are kept in tiny wire cages or packed into sheds. Pipes are repeatedly shoved down the birds’ throats, and up to 4 pounds of grain and fat are pumped into their stomachs two or three times every day. The pipes puncture many birds’ throats, sometimes causing the animals to bleed to death. This cruel procedure causes the birds’ livers to become diseased and swell to up to 10 times their normal size. Many birds become too sick to stand up. The birds who survive the force-feeding are killed, and their livers are sold for foie gras.
Globally, people have spoken out against the cruelty of foie gras. In 2004, California passed a law banning the sale and production of foie gras, effective in 2012. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI denounced force-feeding as being in violation of Biblical principles, and foie gras production has been outlawed in the U.K., Germany, the Czech Republic, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and Israel.
As such, I respectfully request you please reconsider and make the compassionate and ethical decision to ban foie gras. You may be interested to know in addition to those people and places indicated above, many regional chefs and colleagues have recently removed foie gras from their menus, and I would love to inform my friends and acquaintances that you have joined them by also rejecting this torture and eliminating foie gras. Until such a time, however, I maintain the only ethical decision is to promote a boycott of your establishment and visiting instead the ones that have removed foie gras already.
I look forward to a positive response, however, so that I may visit your establishment again.
Please feel free to watch the following video illustrating in disturbing detail the inherent cruelty of foie gras production:
http://vodpod.com/watch/4203098-foie-gras-culinary-cruelty?u=ourcompass&c=ourcompass
Thank you for your attention to this urgent issue.
NAME
ADDRESS
Pimps force Mexican women into prostitution in US
Associated Press
By Mark Stevenson
Via Care2
In this impoverished town in central Mexico, a sinister trade has taken root: entire extended families exploit desperation and lure hundreds of unsuspecting young Mexican women to the United States to force them into prostitution.
Those who know the pimps of Tlaxcala state — victims, prosecutors, social workers and researchers — say the men from Tenancingo have honed their methods over at least three generations.
They play on all that is good in their victims — love of family, love of husband, love of children — to force young women into near-bondage in the United States.
The town provided the perfect petri dish for forced prostitution. A heavily Indian area, it combines long-standing traditions of forced marriage or “bride kidnapping,” with machismo, grinding poverty and an early wave of industrialization in the 1890s that later went bust, leaving a displaced population that would roam, looking for elusive work.
Added to that, says anthropologist Oscar Montiel — who has interviewed the pimps about their work — is a tradition of informal, sworn-to-silence male groups. He believes that, in the town of just over 10,000, there may be as many as 3,000 people directly involved the trade. Prosecutors say the network includes female relatives of the pimps, who often serve as go-betweens or supervisors, or who care for the children of women working as prostitutes.
A pimp Montiel identified only by his unprintable nickname said his uncle got him started in the business and that he has since passed the techniques on to his brother and two sons. Federico Pohls, who runs a center that tries to help victims, says established pimps will sometimes bankroll young men who aspire to the profession but lack the clothes, money and cars to impress young women.
Dilcya Garcia, a Mexico City prosecutor who did anti-trafficking work in Tenancingo, confirms that many boys in the town aspire to be pimps.
“If you ask some boys, and we have done this, ‘Hey what do you want to be when you grow up?’ They reply: ‘I want to have a lot of sisters and a lot of daughters to make lots of money.'”
Undercover investigation reveals horrific animal cruelty at Swedish mink farms, please help
1. Please sign HERE
2. Pledge and share HERE
3. Protest Swedish fur arms: New York and United Kingdom
4. Tell them how you feel. Unable to protest in person? Please take a few moments to email the embassy(ies) in your country with your own message or copy one of the SAMPLE LETTERS below; modify and shorten if you use one, however, if possible.
5. Watch the VIDEO below and share.
Swedish embassies and consulates listed by country HERE
Swedish embassies and consulates listed by city HERE
For the past year-and-a-half, the Animal Rights Alliance investigation unit has been mapping out the Swedish fur industry. We have combed through environmental inspection protocols, court documents and research reports and what’s more – we have visited one-fifth of the 75 mink farms in Sweden to see them for ourselves. We have discovered major environmental violations by an industry that is already highly-criticized. Above all we have discovered the mink. Clever, beautiful wild mink imprisoned in shed after shed, housing row after row of small dirty cages. Mink that will never see any water beyond what comes out of a water nipple, even though they are hunters that naturally spend half of their life in water. Mink that express so-called stereotypical behavior, endless repetitive motion without purpose, a feeble attempt at dealing with stress and frustration.
We already knew that this would be the case. We were prepared for meeting curious eyes behind bars from animals that are so psychologically-broken that they incessantly circle their cages. We knew that it would be bad, but reality on the farms was worse than we could have ever imagined.
We understood that the mortality rate would be high. Several reports show that one out of every four or five animals die before they reach 6 months of age. But we didn’t know how they die – and how they suffer. Now we know. We have seen pups chewing on their dead littermates, entire litters where every animals has had its ear bitten off; young animals with gaping wounds on their heads; and fully-grown mink that twist and turn in agony, screaming in panic from pain and illness that minutes later ceases but only with their death.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
By Judy Levy
Watch Heart-Warming Video of Cloud, the iconic white stallion whose life has been recorded since his birth in the wild. Get a glimpse into the complex social structures of wild horses. They run free in the wind, they Love, they live their lives in FREEDOM and now Ken Salazar and BLM are rounding them all up into small reservations and breaking their Spirits, just like was done to the Native Americans….Watch the Free Spirited Horses, soon to be seen only on dvd’s, thanks to BLM.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Genocide of the Dineh – more well-known as the Navajo Tribe of Native Americans. Watch this heart-wrenching video of the Native American Grandmothers resisting relocation off Their Land to small reservations where their Spirits are Broken…The Dineh are a Matriarchal Society, living in the high deserts of Arizona, where they have lived for hundreds of years. They have always lived in Sacred Harmony with the Land…..But their lives are changing forever…..Watch the Sadness please:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Watch the Brutality….The Dineh’s livestock are torn from them and brutally murdered by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs)…The Native American people are forced to live in Abject Poverty…These are people, who were fiercely independent – like the Wild Mustangs of America; now their spirits are broken, they are forced to live on government handouts…….Their Sacred Structures are being demolished……Watch the Heartbreak please:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
- Please sign this pledge: GENOCIDE IN AMERICA and the US GOV’T IS GUILTY
- Please click HERE for information and actions to take.
- RELATED, please verify you have participated, thank you:
New Strategy for BLM: Madeleine’s Pony Express. One message, one address, one minute!
Wild horse was driven over rocks to his death during recent Owyhee roundup
The pressure is working, please help the horses! One letter to one email to BLM!
By Arthur Poletti
Please watch the video and see what happens to millions of beautiful precious cows like the ones in the illustration above.
Do you think most children would eat the flesh of a cow or any animal after watching the video?
Portions of decomposed animal flesh from tortured, murdered, and butchered cows, like the precious cows illustrated above, who are about to be brutally destroyed, are constantly eaten by most world leaders and their families.
President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama should immediately set the example and the precedent, for many world leaders and their families to emulate, by announcing to the world that they and their children have stopped eating flesh taken from the corpses of tortured and murdered animals, which is what happened to the cows illustrated at the bottom of this message.
Watch how the cows like the ones pictured above are tortured and murdered: forced down a chute and then turned upside down in specially designed machinery and then have their throats slit and their tracheas pulled out.
How could any rational person ever eat animal flesh again or feed it to their children after watching the following video? Evil!!
Beautiful precious cows who are about to be destroyed so that humans can eat their flesh.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
PLEASE SIGN:
President Obama, You And Your Family Should Stop Eating Animal Flesh
Please find more vegan information and starter kits HERE
Visit HERE to see what else you can do now.
Watch EARTHLINGS
University of Wisconsin Cited for Animal Welfare Violations
From Care2
By Mac McDaniel
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been cited with more breaches of the Animal Welfare Act with regard to its animal testing laboratories. Coming on the heels of an investigation in December, which found twenty breaches, this most recent inspection by the USDA cited the research facility for expired medications and dirty, “cockroach infested” primate holding rooms.
The circumstances cited this time around, as well as the investigation eight months ago, are indicative of the general attitude that vivisectors have toward their test subjects. Animal testing is by its very nature a cruel occupation and requires that those who take part in it have no regard for the safety, comfort, or lives of animals.
It is a mockery to expect that a person who makes their living by subjecting animals to painful, distressing, torturous experiments and circumstances, will magically develop a conscience in regard to the way that the animals are housed or cared for before, and after, the experiments.
Expose Animal Abusers
Immediate, US friends, please sign HERE
Wouldn’t you want to know if a violent or repeat animal abuser were living next door to you and your family? Animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.
Convicted animal abusers pose a real, ongoing threat to your pets, your family, and your community. The Animal Legal Defense Fund’s proposed abuser registry legislation would require mandatory registration and community notification for convicted animal abusers. These laws would make a dramatic difference in keeping offenders away from potential new victims by allowing animal shelters and humane societies to more thoroughly screen potential adopters—and by alerting the public to their whereabouts.
To view a few case studies, please click HERE
- Watch the video and find out how you can expose animal abusers in your community.
- Sign the petition to demand that your state require animal abusers register in their communities.
- Share this important information with family and friends and encourage them to get involved. You can also become a fan of ALDF on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
- Sign up for the latest breaking news on cases the Animal Legal Defense Fund is working on and ways you can help.
The End of Times: Do Scientists and Fundamentalists Concur?
From The Huffington Post
By Clay Farris Naff
You might think that scientists and Evangelicals have nothing in common. But you’d be wrong. Large numbers of both agree on one thing: the end is near.
A few years back, Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Royal Astronomer, published a book titled Our Final Century in which he put the odds of human survival through this century at no better than 50-50. Now, biologist Frank Fenner, who played a key role in ending the scourge of smallpox, says the end is certain.
Surveying the carnage humanity has inflicted on the ecosphere, the 95-year-old Australian scientist says nothing can change our fate now. “It’s an irreversible situation,” he’s quoted as telling the press. “I think it’s too late.”
Many of the best-informed scientists agree that we have left it too late to prevent anthropogenic climate change from bringing on a global catastrophe. Whether this results in actual extinction or merely the ruin of civilization is a matter they are still debating.
Fundies entertain no such doubts. Preacher Tim LaHaye and his potboiler copilot Jerry Jenkins have made a vast fortune describing the gory biblical end they gleefully anticipate. Their Left Behind novels have been bestsellers, but don’t get the idea they think this is mere fiction. In a recent Fox News interview with Governor (and former Republican presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee, LaHaye says the End Times are due to start, and that President Obama’s “socialism” is speeding the day:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
It would be nice to think that LaHaye is a lonely loon, spouting nonsense for fun and profit, but a Pew Center report finds that nearly 60 percent of white Evangelicals believe Jesus will be back in town any day now — and most definitely within the first half of this century.
Justice for Mima! Make Animal Cruelty a Crime in Bulgaria
1. Please sign HERE or click on the picture
2. Email the embassy in your country with your own message or copy the PETITION LETTER below.
3. Click HERE for Bulgarian Embassies abroad
4. Use the following for US-associated addresses:
Copy/paste emails into your TO and hit one carriage return, international friends, please visit the above link for associated addresses (FYI, I have had three returned but will keep them in):
office@bulgaria-embassy.org
consulate@bulgaria-embassy.org
e.panayotova@mi.government.bg
trade@bulgaria-embassy.org
bulgaria@un.int
bulconsgen@cs.com
g.ivanov@mi.government.bg
Targeting: H.E. Ambassador Ivan Garvalov (UN Ambassador of Bulgaria), Mr. Traicho Traikov (BG Minister Economy, Energy & Tourism), Mr. Boiko Borisov (Bulgarian Prime Minister) Mrs. Anelia Krushkova (Chairman, Bulgaria Tourism), Dr. Miroslav Najdenov (BG Minister of Agriculture), Mrs. Asya Yosifova (Director of BG Tourism Marketing), Mr. Georgi Parvanov (Bulgarian President), Mr. Slavcho Atanasov (Mayor of Plovdiv, Bulgaria) and Mr. Nickolay Mladenov (BG Minister of Foreign Affairs)
Started by: Nadia Donato
On March 26, 2010, a dog named Mima was found tortured, all her 4 legs brutally mutilated apparently over an old conflict between neighbors. Currently, animal cruelty is not a crime in Bulgaria. Thousands of their citizens protested and a proposal for a new law was sent to their Parliament to vote on.
As months progress, the situation in Bulgaria is getting worse. Animals and their advocates are now the target of more abuse from those who are angry of the attention their cause has received since Mima’s story of unimaginable torture came to light. A popular “journalist” who used his TV show as a platform for hate speech, even had a guest showing techniques on how to poison strays. Some of the recent atrocities in addition to the daily poisoning are as follows: a kitten’s head was decapitated and displayed on a fence for all to see, more dogs being hung from a bridge or a tree, another mutilation case– this time a very young puppy, an 80 year old woman who was caring for stray cats was assaulted by her neighbors. When animal lovers report these atrocities to the police, they’re either apathetic or they laugh it off.
Last month, the Parliament vote result for incriminating animal cruelty was a 9/9 split. The final voting takes place in September and the majority party is expected to turn it down! To add more outrage, Bulgaria’s court ruled to dismiss Mima’s case on the grounds that they can’t prove a human mutilated all her 4 legs! A mockery!! We can not let Mima’s anguish be done in vain. The government’s inaction clearly shows that it is not listening to its people and international pressure is the only hope! This needs to happen before their Parliament’s final vote in September. We have very little time. Please sign and share this petition which will generate the pre-written letter below, or customize it for more impact. This message will automatically be emailed directly to each of the targeted Bulgarian officials’ inbox.
Immediate, please sign HERE
More ways to Help:
- Email the embassy in your country with your own message or copy the PETITION LETTER below. Here’s a link to Bulgarian Embassies abroad:
http://www.buldir.com/bulgarian_embassies_abroad.html
- Get Mima Shirts and Other Protest Items:
http://www.cafepress.com/protestbg
All profits will go to help homeless animals in Bulgaria where there are no laws to protect them.
- Download our Flyer and post them everywhere:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4405620&l=54efcf376c&id=622515628
- Join our Facebook Group- Justice for Mima:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=104654392906259&ref=ts
Thank you for speaking for Mima and all the animals in Bulgaria. At this very crucial time, we need ALL our voices heard even louder!
PETITION LETTER (As provided from HERE)
To Whom It Concerns,
I am calling on everyone I know to BOYCOTT BULGARIA; here’s why…
I am absolutely outraged to hear that after the brutal mutilation of all of the 4 limbs of the dog Mima from Drjanovo, the Government of Bulgaria is still condoning cruelty to animals and the conditions are just getting worse. I was horrified to hear that a popular “journalist,” Martin Karbovski, was calling on his audience to target and harm the animals and the people who care for them. The crimes are only escalating! Some of the recent atrocities in addition to the daily poisoning and random shooting of strays by maniacs at large: a kitten’s head was decapitated and displayed on a fence for all to see, more dogs being hung from a bridge or a tree, more mutilation cases- most recent is a very young puppy, an 80 year old woman who was caring for stray cats was assaulted by her neighbors. When animal lovers report these atrocities to the police, the officers are either apathetic or laugh it off. Appalling!!
I expected the Government of Bulgaria to turn Mima’s tragedy into something good; to finally protect the animals and pass the proposed law making animal cruelty a crime. In addition, I hoped for humane education, spay/neuter programs, and that the corruption and barbarity that goes on within the isolators in Bulgaria (especially in Plovdiv), would be cleaned up and turned into humane shelters. It is very frightening to see that the government is going in the opposite direction. First, Bulgaria’s court made a mockery of Mima and all humanity by dismissing Mima’s case on the grounds that they can’t prove a human mutilated all her 4 legs. I can’t fathom this illogical rationale! To add, the Parliament’s last vote to incriminate animal cruelty resulted to a 9/9 split and the majority party is expected to turn it down this September. Why?! All animals suffer and feel pain just as we do and laws must exist and be enforced to protect them.
I urge all lawmakers to please pass the proposal and protect the animals and all citizens of Bulgaria. There is a proven link between animal cruelty and human violence. First a dog, next a child. Although animal abuse knows no borders, civilized societies have laws to protect them. Animal Police is present to enforce the law and the perpetrators are punished with jail time and fines. Currently, these sadists will continue to torture and terrorize simply because they CAN.
As a citizen of the world, I will call on everyone I know to BOYCOTT BULGARIA, its tourism and all products made in Bulgaria until its government does the right thing and join the rest of the civilized nations that have criminalized animal cruelty long ago.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
Sincerely,
NAME
ADDRESS
FROM: SaveLolita.org
Please read about Lolita and send two sample letters to the associated addresses.
Thank you.
The BP oil gusher is projected to hit Miami and toxify the water in Lolita’s tank in mid-August, please read HERE
Lolita’s Capture is detailed HERE
Her life today is detailed HERE
First letter and addresses generously provided by SaveLolita.com
FIRST LETTER
SUBJECT: RETIRE LOLITA TO A SEAPEN
WHERE TO SEND SAMPLE LETTER ONE
Email group, copy/paste into your TO, hit one carriage return; complete address, phone, and fax details at the end of this alert (FYI, mannydiaz@miamigov.com is being returned as full, but please resend if possible):
ace@aphis.usda.gov
aphis.web@aphis.usda.gov
awic@nal.usda.gov
cyber.fish@noaa.gov
mannydiaz@ci.miami.fl.us
agsec@usda.gov
info@keybiscaynechamber.org
Charlie.crist@myflorida.com
rvillar@miamidade.gov
SAMPLE LETTER ONE
To Whom It Concerns,
I know that, as a part of APHIS at The United States Department of Agriculture, you are concerned with the future of marine mammals in captivity and the situation at the Miami Seaquarium.
I would like to voice my concerns in uniformity with professionals about the life of a captive Orca named Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium. It causes me deep heartache seeing Lolita in her small tank at the Miami Seaquarium. Her tank is illegal by section 3.104 of APHIS regulations, entitled space requirements for an Orca.
Lolita would not just survive, but thrive in a sea pen in her native waters, and ultimately she could rejoin her family, effectively forage cooperatively for fish once again, and resume her normal social role and biological functions after full release if she chooses to do so. If that proves impossible, she could live out a healthy life, retired in her native habitat, cared for in a sea pen while accessible to the orca community that she is related to. As described at length in “A Review of the Releasability of Long Term Captive Orcas“, there is no significant risk involved in Lolita’s relocation to a protected sea pen in her native habitat. The State of Washington and its officials are willing and ready to get the wheels turning on this rehabilitation/retirement plan for Lolita. Please consider these possibilities.
For your information, please consider this detailed and compelling plan to free Lolita: http://www.orcanetwork.org/captivity/2007proposaldraft.html
Thank you for your time.
NAME
ADDRESS
SECOND LETTER
SUBJECT: RETIRE LOLITA TO A SEAPEN
WHERE TO SEND SAMPLE LETTER TWO
Email group, copy/paste into your TO, hit one carriage return, complete address, phone, and fax details at the end of this alert:
District1@miamidade.gov
District2@miamidade.gov
District3@miamidade.gov
District4@miamidade.gov
District5@miamidade.gov
District6@miamidade.gov
District7@miamidade.gov
District8@miamidade.gov
DennisMoss@miamidade.gov
District10@miamidade.gov
District11@miamidade.gov
District12@miamidade.gov
ALSO:
Miami Seaquarium Phone:
1-305-365-2501
Miami Seaquarium webform (fits all letter characters):
http://www.miamiseaquarium.com/contact/contact.asp
SAMPLE LETTER TWO:
To Whom It Concerns,
I am writing today to encourage Miami Seaquarium to relinquish Lolita to a seapen for rehabilitation so that she may then rejoin her pod family in Puget Sound. For almost her entire life, Lolita has been imprisoned by the Miami Seaquarium, forced to endure inadequate space, inferior medical treatment and care, lack of companionship, involuntary training, and made to perform tricks for largely-apathetic audiences. Since her capture, occurring in 1970 after the vicious slaughter of many of her pod mates, individuals comprising a large global audience concerned with Lolita have been encouraging Miami Seaquarium to relinquish her to freedom; sadly, corporate greed and indifference have resulted in Lolita’s deteriorating mental and physical state and her continued imprisonment. By refusing to release her to her family pod, Miami Seaquarium is establishing its approval of animal cruelty, and I am appalled to learn of the deliberate involvement in the exploitation of animals.
Although there are those who may assert that humane protocols must be followed in accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act standards, the visual evidence validates the position that these directives are often ignored in favor of park management; nevertheless, establishing a threshold of humane treatment is ambiguous at best, these standards being implemented by those with questionable interests, its oversight managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service as part of the Department of Commerce. As such, it is important to recognize that all animals, fundamentally valuable beyond monetary benefit, are being exploited in demonstrably cruel and unnecessary manners. Additionally, Lolita still displays behaviours typical of those characteristic of calling to pod members (www.miamiseaprison.com) while other animals continually languish as well.
I hope the compassionate decision to discontinue the imprisonment of Lolita and relinquish her to a qualified seapen so that she may subsequently join her family pod in Puget Sound is exercised. However, as long as Miami Seaquarium continues to unnecessarily capitalize on the exploitation, imprisonment, and maltreatment of her, I will not financially support you. It is important to recognize that consumers are increasingly rejecting those businesses and destinations that are complicit in the suffering and unnecessary treatment of animals by shifting their loyalties to those companies that do not participate in the exploitation of them, and I hope that you will extend such an ethical and empathetic gesture as well.
I understand your time is limited and I thank you for your attention and consideration.
NAME
ADDRESS
Judge reinstates federal protections for wolves
From Billings Gazette
A federal judge on Thursday reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho, saying the government made a political decision in removing the protections from just two of the states where Northern Rocky Mountain wolves roam.
The decision puts a halt to wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho planned for this fall. Montana wildlife regulators last month set the wolf hunt quota at 186, more than doubling last year’s number, with the aim of reducing the state’s wolf population.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula said in his ruling that the entire region’s wolf population either must be listed as an endangered species or removed from the list, but the protections for the same population can’t be different for each state.
Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to Montana and Idaho wildlife officials but left federal endangered-species protections in place for wolves in Wyoming. There, legislators have approved a plan classifying wolves in most areas of the state outside the vicinity of Yellowstone National Park as predators that could be shot on sight.
Molloy sided with the wildlife advocates who sued the federal government, ruling that Endangered Species Act does not allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to list only part of a species as endangered, and the federal agency must protect the entire Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population.
By Paul York
Cruelty-Free.org
The climate change mitigation movement is struggling with questions of social justice, racism and classism. To this we may also include speciesism.
Food justice for the poor
There are now two documentary films showing the destruction of plot of land used for community gardening – the South Central Farm – which fed 300 families, in Los Angeles, and which had been farmed by poor people as a community project. The City councilors in LA were corrupt and handed it over to developers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Central_Farm
More community gardens needed!
Turning empty plots into community gardens for the use of all is an important and even vital step towards food independence in cities, in a way that does not discriminate against based on income, ethnicity, class, etc. People can eat good food inexpensively, reduce greenhouse gases from factory farming, and it is psychologically beneficial to sit in a garden – as empirical studies from the field of eco-psychology attest.
Less meat, eggs and dairy
Another area where there could be much more improvement among climate activists, vis-a-vis food justice, is is to discourage meat consumption. As most environmentalists know – or should know – about 18% of global greenhouse gases come from factory farming (United Nations, 2007). The factory farms (or CAFOs) use water and arable land (through grain production) that could be far better used.
From WSPA
Please take immediate action HERE
For the very first time, the South Korean government is considering phasing out bear farming.
With our member society, Green Korea United (GKU), WSPA is participating in discussions with the South Korean government about permanently ending this cruelty. Please help us convince them to phase out bear farming and end the lifetime of suffering endured by these bears.
Right now more than 1,400 bears suffer on bear farms in South Korea. These bears are confined to cramped, barren cages until the age of 10, when they are then slaughtered for their bile, which is then used in Traditional Asian Medicine. This industry is still legal under South Korean law.
Bear farming is cruel. The captive conditions greatly restrict the bears’ movements and have a terrible impact on their wellbeing. WSPA has witnessed bears rocking and pacing in their small cages, and seen the severe wounds, sores and stress caused by confining them.
Help stop EU subsidies for the bullfighting industry
From League Against Cruel Sports
To take immediate action please click HERE
Bullfighting has been banned in the UK since 1835 and is illegal in many other European Union countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands. However, the European Commission is using our tax money to subsidise the breeding of bulls for bullfights.
It is estimated that bull breeders who provide bulls for bullfighting receive around 30 million Euros a year in subsidies through the EU. These subsidies are dispensed through the Common Agricultural Policy, to which the UK contributes billions of pounds each year.
I know you agree with us that bullfighting is an appallingly cruel and totally outdated ‘sport.’ Bullfighting is a dying industry, but these subsidies are helping to keep it alive. And it’s YOUR money that’s keeping it alive.
We need your help to send a strong message to European decision-makers that bullfighting has no place in a modern, civilised society. Please join campaigners across Europe and take action now. Email Dacian Cioloş, the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, and tell him to stop the subsidies HERE.
RELATED:
URGENT! Help Ban Bullfighting in Catalonia
VICTORY! Spain’s Catalonia bans bullfighting
WATCH EARTHLINGS
Earthlings … Make the Connection
PLEASE NOTE: Because of the importance of this film, we have included it as an individual page as well as this post. The page can be found HERE, as part of the top menu selection on Our Compass. It is also in our VodPod video collection (upper right). Please select “popout” on the collection video for a full-screen version, or click on the Google link provided at the bottom of this post for a link to a full-screen version as well. There is also a version with captions below.
From EARTHLINGS … EARTHLINGS is an award-winning documentary film about the suffering of animals for food, fashion, pets, entertainment and medical research. Considered the most persuasive documentary ever made, EARTHLINGS is nicknamed “the Vegan maker” for its sensitive footage shot at animal shelters, pet stores, puppy mills, factory farms, slaughterhouses, the leather and fur trades, sporting events, circuses and research labs. The film is narrated by Academy Award® nominee Joaquin Phoenix and features music by platinum-selling recording artist Moby. Initially ignored by distributors, today EARTHLINGS is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world. “Of all the films I have ever made, this is the one that gets people talking the most,” said Phoenix. “For every one person who sees EARTHLINGS, they will tell three.”
In 1999, writer/producer/director Shaun Monson began work on a series of PSAs about spaying and neutering pets. The footage he shot at animal shelters around Los Angeles affected him so profoundly that the project soon evolved into EARTHLINGS. The film would take another six years to complete because of the difficulty in obtaining footage within these profitable industries. Though the film was initially ignored by distributors, who told Monson that the film would “never see the light of day and should be swept under the rug,” today EARTHLINGS is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world.
Nation Earth was established to produce documentary films on socially urgent issues. EARTHLINGS, released in 2005, was the company’s first feature film and is the first of a documentary trilogy. The company is currently at work on the second installment, UNITY, which will explore the unifying force of consciousness found in nature, animals and humankind. UNITY is scheduled to be completed in 2010. For more information please see www.unitythemovie.com.
Vodpod videos no longer available.With Captions
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