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.
Dear all,
We have learned of a tragic incident at the first bend on Yarmouth track, probably not that uncommon on the greyhound racetrack. On Wednesday night Sky Sports broadcast live coverage of dog racing from Yarmouth. Having been knocked down and sustained an injury at the first bend – Kokoro – a 2 year old brindle male did not finish and had to be put to sleep. Ballycowen Dave was also brought down at the first bend.
The footage of the incident is available on YouTube http://youtu.be/Syk4sK72DIw
Please email Sky Sports and politely raise your concerns regarding their coverage and support of a cruel gambling industry.
Regards,
Greyhound Compassion
Proud to be opposed to greyhound racing. Oxford and Walthamstow greyhound racetracks closed, Wimbledon under threat.
WHOM TO CONTACT
Click HERE for an online contact form
SAMPLE LETTER
To Whom It Concerns,
I have learned of a tragic incident at the first bend on Yarmouth track on March 27, 2013. On Wednesday night, Sky Sports broadcast live coverage of dog racing from Yarmouth. Having been knocked down and sustaining an injury at the first bend, Kokoro, a two-year-old brindle male did not finish and had to be euthanized. Ballycowen Dave was also brought down at the first bend.
Please discontinue your coverage and support of a cruel gambling industry where live, sentient beings are exploited in unimaginable manners, objectified, and killed, all for profit. Animals are feeling beings, capable of emotions, including happiness, fear, and pain. Please treat them with respect and compassion and cease exploiting them; broadcasting one of the most cruel and exploitative industries only exemplifies your objection to animal respect and compassion.
Thank you for your consideration to this urgent appeal.
NAME
Shocking New Live Export Investigation
Click HERE to ban live exports
Click HERE if you live in Australia
Background | Source Animals Australia
Australian cattle were again at the centre of a shocking expose that made international headlines in 2012.
Frightened animals being bashed, hit, shocked with an electric prod in the eyes and face before suffering a terrifying death… these are the images filmed by Israeli journalist and undercover investigator, Ronen Bar. Watch his interview…
WARNING: contains graphic images.
Read more…
Wikimedia Commons
Source Exposing the Big Game
MP Oleg Mikheyev, of the center-left Fair Russia parliamentary party, told reporters on Monday just what I’ve been saying all along: “People who feel pleasure when they kill animals cannot be called normal.” That quote appeared in the following article entitled, “Russia mulls total ban on game hunting.” (It appears Russians have their own version of Dennis Kucinich—too bad no American politician is willing to go as far…)
Russia may soon ban both amateur and professional hunting, only allowing indigenous peoples in remote regions and certified rangers to hunt.
Mikheyev entered a draft law to ban most hunting for preliminary discussion and expressed his belief that hunting is unnecessary and immoral, regardless of whether one sees it as a sport, a pastime or an industry. “What many people call hunting now is more of a cruel killing…” The MP noted that modern hunters use helicopters and specially built towers, and that in Russia’s Far East region many animals are killed on an industrial scale, and their carcasses are smuggled to China where they are used in traditional medicines.
Fines for poaching cannot rectify the problem, Mikheyev argues, as they are too small and cannot be increased due to corruption. He suggested a total ban on hunting, and the introduction of criminal penalties for poachers totaling up to 500,000 rubles ($16,000), or three to five years in prison; poaching is currently an administrative offense in Russia.
[Unfortunately] the bill provides for some exceptions – hunting will be allowed for indigenous peoples of the Far North, Siberia and the Far East regions, but on the condition that hunters use only traditional weapons. (What, no rifles or snowmobiles?) Hunting quotas will also remain for forest rangers, but candidates will now be required to pass a psychological test to get a hunting permit (a practice that should be adopted by the US, Canada, etc., which as Mikheyev points out, “… can help us in early detection of latent madmen and murderers.”
“People who feel pleasure when they kill animals cannot be called normal. The procedure can help us in early detection of latent madmen and murderers,” Mikheyev told daily newspaper Izvestia.
Mikheyev also pointed to African countries, saying that nations like Zambia and Botswana did the right thing when they sacrificed income from safari tourism in order to safeguard endangered species.
Fair Russia will discuss the new bill next Monday; if approved, it will be submitted to the State Duma committee for natural resources and ecology. …
(Cross your fingers, but don’t necessarily hold your breath just yet.)
Read more…
URGENT: Animals in Laton, California, Need Your Voice!
Wikimedia Commons
BACKGROUND | SOURCE PETA
This Sunday, the Laton Lions Club has reportedly scheduled a “Barnyard Scramble” for the organization’s 49th annual rodeo. Bunnies, piglets, calves, lambs, and chicks will be released into the arena and frantically pursued by children ages 4 to 7. Being chased and subjected to rough handling, crowds, and loud noises is a terrifying (and easily injurious) ordeal for these animals, who have no opportunity to escape or defend themselves. To make matters worse, the animals used in the event will be sent home with participants! Sadly, every year, countless animals are “won” as prizes. Many die within weeks from neglect or are bounced around from home to home, relegated to lonely rooms or backyards, and ignored. Participants and their families are simply unprepared for the extraordinary responsibility of caring for their “prizes.”
Please urge the Laton Lions Club to cancel this cruel event. And spread this alert far and wide!
WHOM TO CONTACT
Please call and send polite comments to:
Manuel Dias, President
Laton Lions Club
559-362-0577
http://www.latonrodeo.com/id2.html (Click on this link to send an e-mail.)
Kelley Medico, Organizer
Laton Lions Club
559-355-1022
kelleymedico@yahoo.com
Laton Lions Club: 559-923-1303
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear President Dias and Organizer Medico,
This Sunday, April 7, the Laton Lions Club has reportedly scheduled a “Barnyard Scramble” for the organization’s 49th annual rodeo. Bunnies, piglets, calves, lambs, and chicks will be released into the arena and frantically pursued by children ages 4 to 7. Being chased and subjected to rough handling, crowds, and loud noises is a terrifying (and easily injurious) ordeal for these animals, who have no opportunity to escape or defend themselves.
To make matters worse, the animals used in the event will be sent home with participants! Sadly, every year, countless animals are “won” as prizes. Many die within weeks from neglect or are bounced around from home to home, relegated to lonely rooms or backyards, and ignored. Participants and their families are simply unprepared for the extraordinary responsibility of caring for their “prizes.”
Animals are sentient creatures, capable of fear, pain, suffering, and happiness. Theirs are not lives for humans to abuse, exploit, or harm. Please take this opportunity to teach each other, as well as impressionable children, the importance of non-human life and your capacity to be kind and compassionate to them by cancelling the “Barnyard Scramble”.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this urgent appeal.
NAME
Read more…
Government of Bulgaria: Stop and prosecute inhumane animal cruelty against animals like “Borko”
Please click HERE to sign petition
Background | Source Change
To:
Government of Bulgaria, Ministry of Justice
Republic of Bulgaria, Council of Ministers
Georgi Parvanov, President of Bulgaria
After watching this video, I worry of additional mobs that might decide they do not like a disabled person living in a particular home or even a homeless person that wants to live in a particular park. There must be law and order. The directives must come from your government.
Even when there is civil unrest, it is imperative that the government establish laws to protect its citizens. If there was fear of persecution, then perhaps actions such as trespassing and subsequent beating of Borko would not occur or be documented on film.
Spay/neuter programs are crucial to combating the numbers of homeless/unwanted animals. Citizens need to be educated on proper animal ownership and care. If you do not know where to start, then please consult organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States (www.hsus.org) or K9 Rescue Bulgaria (www.k9-rescue.co.uk) for tips on how to humanely deal with stray animals. They may not have all the answers but a “stick and a mob” are definitely not the best solution!
USDA Fails To Help Elephant Nosey: Second Appeal, Tell USDA To Do Its Job And Help Elephant Nosey
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
Click here to send a fax to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack right now.
Background | Source IDA
The USDA has yet again let a chronic violator of federal animal welfare standards get away with little more than a slap on the wrist. Just days before circus handler Hugo Liebel was to face a hearing for 33 violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the USDA announced it had reached a settlement. Instead of revoking Liebel’s license and handing down a maximum penalty of $330,000, the USDA settled with the agreement that Liebel would pay a meager civil penalty of $7,500 and cease and desist from violating the AWA.
The charges included failure to provide veterinary care for the weight loss and chronic skin condition of the elephant Nosey, chaining her so tightly that she could not move or lie down, and handling her in a way that was dangerous to her and to the public.
IDA has worked for years to help Nosey by documenting evidence of flagrant violations of the AWA and submitting numerous complaints to the USDA, urging the agency to take action. This settlement is a shocking disappointment in its blatant disregard for animal welfare.
Please contact the USDA today. Click here to send a fax to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack right now.
Wikimedia Commons
BACKGROUND | SOURCE LCA
Ag Gag or “whistleblower suppression” laws allow animal enterprises to get away with animal abuse, food safety violations, workplace safety violations, and countless environmental hazards.
SAMPLE LETTER | SOURCE LCA
Please know that citizens do not want any Ag Gag Laws to become constitutional as it is a repression of free speach rights.
Ag Gag or “whistleblower suppression” laws allow animal enterprises to get away with animal abuse, food safety violations, workplace safety violations, and countless environmental hazards.
The farm industry and the American Legislative Exchange Council are behind the latest Ag Gag bills being introduced in state legislatures nationwide. The purpose of these bills is to criminalize acts related to investigating the day-to-day activities of industrial (factory) farms and other animal enterprises, including the recording, possession or distribution of photos, video and/or audio. Such investigations have been instrumental in animal cruelty prosecutions and spurred reforms to protect the safety of the nation’s food supply. The bills threaten not only to cover up horrific animal abuse and food safety issues, but also other illegal environmental and labor violations. The animals need to be protected and the American people have a right to know how food is produced.
Free speech is a constitutional right; it is an outrage that laws are being passed to stifle it!
Please vote against Ag Gag Laws.
Read more…
Wikimedia Commons
BACKGROUND | SOURCE FRIENDS OF ANIMALS
The efforts of Friends of Animals and other local groups and residents have led the Mamaroneck Board of Trustees to back off from their plans to slaughter Canada Geese this summer, and from their signed contract with the USDA, as the article below details.
Please contact each member of the Mamaroneck Board of Trustees below and urge them to commit to habitat/landscape modification as outlined in Friends of Animals’ Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual in addition to instituting a formal clean-up plan for goose droppings in parks.
Be sure to thank Trustee Illissa Miller for speaking out against the kill contract with the USDA at last night’s meeting, and for making a motion to cancel the wrong-headed contract.
Let’s make sure killing is off the table for good in Mamaroneck and that a long-overdue attitude of tolerance and respect for geese and other wildlife begin to take root.
WHOM TO CONTACT
Email Block
imiller@vomny.org , lpotok@vomny.org , lsantoro@vomny.org , abermudez@vomny.org , nrosenblum@vomny.org
Individual
Illissa Miller, Trustee
Leon Potok, Trustee
Louis N. Santoro, Deputy Mayor
Andres Bermudez-Hallstrom, Trustee
Norman S. Rosenblum, Mayor, or Phone: (914) 777-7738
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Trustees Miller, Potok, Bermudez-Hallstrom, Deputy Mayor Santoro, and Mayor Rosenblum:
Thank you for your compassionate decision to discontinue plans to slaughter geese in Mamaroneck. This decision not only establishes a threshold for respecting wildlife, but it also says that Mamaroneck is willing to listen to concerned citizens, groups, and potential tourists.
Please commit to habitat/landscape modification as outlined in Friends of Animals’ Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual in addition to instituting a formal clean-up plan for goose droppings in parks.
Thank you for your attention to the previous appeal and for committing to responsible habitat coexistence.
NAME
Read more…
Graveyard Races: A PETA Undercover Investigation
Please click HERE to end similar cruel races in the US.
Background | Source PETA
On September 1, 2012, the National Flying Club released more than 5,500 pigeons from Fougères, France, for a large international pigeon race. The birds had to attempt to fly hundreds of miles back to the U.K., including across the English Channel, where winds can be fierce and exhaustion means drowning, and only 622 pigeons reportedly made it back home. The rest, some 89 per cent, are believed to have perished. This is just one example of the enormous number of casualties documented during PETA’s heartbreaking investigation into the secretive world of pigeon racing in Britain.
Our investigators went undercover at multiple races across Europe and gained access to all major British pigeon-racing organizations. Everywhere we turned, the findings were the same—most birds who are entered into pigeon races never make it home. Click here to learn more.
There are many reasons why pigeons don’t survive races. Young birds easily become disoriented, and because they have no experience at finding food, water, or shelter on their own, they often succumb to the elements, starvation, or predators. Pigeons used for racing are forced to travel extremely long and dangerous distances, including over the English Channel, which is commonly referred to as the “graveyard” in racing circles. They have nowhere to land if they become tired or injured or encounter treacherous winds and storms, and many of them die.
Those birds who do make it home aren’t as lucky as you might think. It’s common practice for birds who are not winning or producing winners to have their necks broken. Our video shows one man who kills a pigeon with his bare hands and leaves the bird, while the animal’s wings are still flapping, to die slowly in a paper bag.
Please click here to watch the video from our breaking investigation, and click here to learn more about the case.
The death of one animal, let alone thousands, is heartbreaking, but if you are like me, you must be thinking, “What is being done, and how can I help?” PETA is calling on residents of the U.K. to help us fight the European races, but we need you to help us end similar cruel races here in the United States. Find out more by clicking here.
Read more…
Thank you for all your support!
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
Background | Source PCRM
I am very excited to be able to share with you that Kiki, Alley, and Fiddle, the last three cats used in the University of Virginia’s (UVA) pediatrics residency program to teach endotracheal intubation, have been adopted out after eight years of abuse. PCRM learned of the change when we received documents via a state public records request.
This change is the result of PCRM’s campaign that began in September 2010 and the support of our members – including retired pediatrician Roberta Grey, M.D., who started a Change.org petition that received more than 185,000 signatures from people asking UVA to stop this practice. PCRM filed federal and state complaints against UVA’s animal use and held a demonstration outside the president’s office, and more than 200,000 supporters e-mailed UVA’s administrators encouraging the university to take this progressive step.
In this training, pediatrics residents and other trainees repeatedly forced breathing tubes down the throats of Kiki, Alley, Fiddle, and other cats. This practice can cause tracheal bruising, bleeding, scarring, severe pain, and permanent injury.
UVA now joins the 98 percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States and Canada that view nonanimal methods as not only more humane but educationally superior.
Unfortunately, live pigs are being killed in Advanced Trauma Life Support training at Hartford Hospital. Please ask Hartford Hospital president and CEO Jeffrey Flaks to replace this use of pigs with medical simulation.
Thank you again for all of your support. Without it PCRM would not be able to secure victories like this for animals still used in medical education and for the future infant patients of today’s pediatrics residents.
Tell U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service To Protect Wolverines
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
BACKGROUND | SOURCE IDA
It was bittersweet news when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS) recently announced its intent to list the wolverine as an endangered species due to threats from climate change and recreational trapping.
Once found all across North America, current guestimates are that 250-300 wolverines reside in the lower 48 states, and fewer than 40 of those individuals are able to breed. As the largest member of the weasel family, wolverines have huge territories and are constantly on the move, which makes them extremely likely to encounter deadly traps.
Most wolverines are hanging on to life in the high mountain ranges in Montana – the only state in the lower 48 that still allows trapping of this rapidly vanishing species. Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP) is not only opposed to protecting wolverines, but the agency is expected to try to get federal permission to allow trapping of other animals within wolverine habitat once the species is listed.
Needless to say, traps don’t discriminate – where they exist, they catch and kill animals regardless of their “protected” status.
Wolverines will fiercely fight for their own survival and to protect their offspring’s lives, which is why trappers use spine-crushing traps, or snares, which do the dirty work of slowly and painfully suffocating the animals. Baited traps and snares lure any animal into their tortuous and often deadly grip. A MT study showed that the majority of female wolverines were pregnant at the time they were killed in traps or snares.
WHOM TO CONTACT | ONLY YOUR SAMPLE LETTER IS A REQUIRED FIELD
1) Contact USFWS today and encourage them to prohibit ALL recreational trapping in wolverine habitat in all states where wolverines still occur, and particularly in Montana. Tell them that you do not tolerate Montana FWP’s apparent priority to put the “recreational” interests of trappers ahead of their obligation to protect wildlife.
Unfortunately, comments are being taken only by webform, at this link. So we can’t set up an automatic point-and-click letter for you. Instead, please copy the sample letter below, then visit the webform and paste it in, or compose your own copy. Deadline for written comments is May 6.
If you prefer to mail your comments, please send to:
Public Comments Processing
Attn: FWS-R6-ES-2012-0107
Division of Policy and Directives Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222
Arlington, VA 22203.
2) If you are near Montana, please try to attend the public hearing on this proposed rule:
- Helena, Montana: March 27, 2013 at the Red Lion Colonial Inn, 2301 Colonial Drive, Helena, MT 59601. The public informational session will run from 2 p.m. – 5 p.m., followed by public speaker registration at 6 p.m., and then the public hearing for oral testimony from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
SAMPLE LETTER
As a U.S. resident and supporter of In Defense of Animals (IDA) who is deeply concerned about the survival of the last remaining wolverines in the Rocky Mountain States, I thank you for your intent to protect wolverines under the Endangered Species Act.
I understand that Montana’s state wildlife agency, the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP), is going to apply for a permit (the 4-D-rule) that would allow continued trapping of other animals within wolverine habitat, even after the species is listed.
I urge you not to allow this to happen. Wolverines are currently threatened with extinction due to climate change, but also due to recreational trapping, even when they are not targeted. There are a mere 300 wolverines left, with an “effective population” size of fewer than 40 individuals.
Wolverines have huge territories, and as researchers often state, “wolverines are always on the move,” which makes them extremely vulnerable to encounter indiscriminate and baited, deadly traps and snares. Studies in Montana have shown that a large number of female wolverines are pregnant when trappers kill them.
Allowing trapping in the habitat of an endangered or threatened species is unethical and contrary to the intent of the Endangered Species Act to prevent further threats to a listed species. Allowing trapping would further threaten the intended and much needed recovery of wolverines in Montana as evidenced by the fact that other listed species, i.e. lynx, are caught and killed in traps every season because Montana allows trapping in core lynx habitat. In recent incidents in Montana, four Golden Eagles were either seriously injured or killed in traps and snares intended for other animals.
In addition, 50 “incidental” dog captures, two of which were lethal, and several mountain lion captures in traps set for wolves, were reported to MTFWP this trapping season.
Montana is the last stronghold of wolverines in the lower 48 states. Please do not allow Montana to continue to put trappers’ recreational interests ahead of the welfare of the wild animals they have an obligation to protect. I urge you to not allow MTFWP to continue recreational trapping in wolverine habitat. Wolverine conservation for all (people and wild animals) has to trump recreational interests of few.
Sincerely,
Wikimedia Commons
You can help by taking action at PETA.org/AirCruelty!
Background | Source PETA
I have exciting news to share! Thanks in large part to your phone calls and support, Hainan Airlines has just confirmed to PETA that it will maintain its ban on shipping primates to laboratories. In a written statement, Hainan representatives said they “fully agree” with PETA on this issue and that they support our “effort in the protection of animal rights.”
Because no China-based airline is willing to get involved in this cruel practice, primate experimenters have no easy or feasible route to import primates to the United States from China. This means that more monkeys will remain with their families in the wild and fewer monkeys will suffer a fate worse than death in laboratories, where monkeys are commonly force-fed experimental chemicals, cut up, addicted to drugs, and killed. PETA will remain vigilant to ensure that no airline starts or resumes shipping monkeys to laboratories under pressure from the cruel primate experimentation industry.
Only three major international airlines still ship monkeys to laboratories: Vietnam Airlines, Philippine Airlines, and Air France. PETA will continue to increase our pressure on these airlines until they stop delivering primates to laboratories. You can help by taking action at PETA.org/AirCruelty!
Read more…
Urgent actions, please participate
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
1. Please click HERE to Ask Laval University to end the use of piglets in its pediatrics residency
2. Please click HERE to protect cubs from being abused at fair
3. Please click HERE to ensure that PETCO leaves no animals to drown
4. Please click HERE to take action to stop puppy mills
5. Please click HERE to urge Caesars to drop down
6. Please click HERE to ask the army to cancel its plans to kill goats for five more years
1. Background | Source PCRM
oday, PCRM filed a complaint with the Quebec City Director of Criminal and Penal Proceedings in Canada, explaining that Laval University is violating the province’s animal cruelty law by using and killing piglets. Please help this effort by asking the dean of Laval University Faculty of Medicine, Rénald Bergeron, M.D., to end the use of animals for pediatrics residency training today.
In the pediatrics residency program at Laval, each resident is instructed to make an incision between a piglet’s ribs, insert tubes into the chest cavity, insert a needle into the abdominal
cavity, cut open and insert a needle into the animal’s veins, and insert a needle under the breast bone and into the sac surrounding the heart. The piglet is then killed and residents are instructed to make incisions in the animal’s throat, into which a tube is inserted. Nonanimal training methods exist, making this use of animals not only cruel but completely unnecessary.
For more than one year, the responsible Laval faculty and administrators have ignored pleas to change this practice. Please e-mail Dr. Bergeron and urge him to end this cruel and unnecessary practice. Send an automatic e-mail.
Laerdal’s infant simulators SimBaby and SimNewB, CAE Healthcare’s Babysim, and Simulab’s TraumaChild can all be used to teach the procedures taught in Laval’s pediatrics residency training.
Ninety-eight percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States and Canada use only nonanimal methods, including all 16 other pediatrics programs in Canada. It is time for Laval to join the majority. Please e-mail Dr. Bergeron today and ask him to replace the use of animals in Laval’s pediatrics residency program.
2. Background | Source Big Cat Rescue
Last March when we told you the Sarasota County Agricultural Fair (Florida) had an exhibitor charging patrons to pet and have photos taken with a tiny tiger cub, more than 1200 of you called and emailed the fair’s management asking them to please not allow this exploitation of big cat cubs. Some of you even protested outside the fairgrounds.
Unfortunately, we’ve just learned that the Sarasota County Fair is at it again this week. They have a different exhibitor this year but the abuse is the same: a lion cub is being used for profit by the exhibitor who is charging people to pet and take photos with him. In addition, this exhibitor has an adult tiger confined in a tiny transport cage. We are told from concerned visitors to the fair that the display is right next to a loud motocross bike show. According to eye witnesses, the tiger appears so distressed by the noise and fumes that he is continually pacing and trying desperately to get out of the cage.
Success in changing people’s mindsets often takes persistence. With your help in repeatedly contacting the fair’s management about the issue of cub abuse, the fair’s management will see that many Americans do NOT condone using big cats and cubs in these money-making schemes. And that it is bad business for the fair to have these displays because it negatively affects their reputation among the many, many people who love animals and do not want to see them exploited to make money.
In the form below, we make it easy for you to send an email that will go to the management at the Sarasota County Fair, the International Association of Fairs and Expos, the Mayor of Sarasota, the Sarasota County Commissioners and the Sarasota County Administrator. You can make an even bigger impact by also taking the time to call and tell these people that you oppose big cats at fairs – it is cruel to breed them for this purpose and then cart them around in cramped trailers for months at a time in order to make money off of them.
You are the only voice this lion cub and tiger have and they are counting on you to roar for them! Thank you in advance for speaking up for the cats.
3. Background | Source PETA
In late 2011, national attention was focused on Johnson City, New York, after PETCO and its workers abandoned hundreds of caged animals in its store there and dozens drowned in massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm Lee.
After 16 months of repeated public-records requests, PETA has obtained police records from the incident, while doing its own digging. PETCO workers’ failures to do the right thing for the animals in their charge are even worse than anyone imagined.
Remember when PETCO Vice President Marcie Whichard called the flooding “completely unpredictable?” Well, it turns out that the flooding was the subject of at least 15 National Weather Service watches, warnings, and forecasts beginning before dawn on September 6, 2011.
That’s 36 hours before PETCO managers and employees abandoned the animals who later drowned.
PETCO reopened the location in April 2012, but—likely due largely to the community outcry following the drowning—it no longer sells animals there.
You can help ensure that no animal is ever again abandoned to drown in a PETCO store. Please urge PETCO to stop selling all animals in its stores that are located in flood plains or are prone to flooding.
4. Background | Source ALDF
ALDF needs your help to support passage of the “PUPS Act” (S. 395). Thousands of dogs are suffering immensely in “puppy mills”—large-scale, unethical commercial dog-breeding facilities—so they can be sold to unsuspecting consumers. Dogs produced in puppy mills not only endure terrible conditions before purchase, but are prone to contagious disease, heart and hip problems, and serious breathing difficulties. Meanwhile, millions of dogs are euthanized in animal shelters every year because they haven’t been adopted in forever homes.
5. Background | Source PETA
To produce down pillows, comforters, or jackets, birds are often pinned down as hurried workers yank fistfuls of feathers from the birds’ sensitive bodies while they are still alive, often plucking them so violently that they rip open the birds’ delicate skin, and then sew up the gaping wounds using a needle and thread and no painkillers.
Buying down can also support the cruelty of the foie gras and meat industries because many farmers who raise birds for food make an extra profit by selling their feathers as well. When these birds are sent to slaughter, their throats are slit—often while fully conscious—and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. All down comes from birds who suffer and die violently and painfully.
Caesars (which owns Caesars Palace, Harrah’s, Planet Hollywood, Paris, Rio, Flamingo, Bally’s, and many more) clearly understands the benefits of cruelty-free synthetic materials—the company uses synthetic bedding in all of its hotel rooms except a few at Caesars Palace.
Please join us in asking Caesars to drop down in all its hotel rooms.
6. Background | Source PCRM
The Department of Defense (DOD) has missed a deadline set by Congress to set a plan for phasing out the use of animals. In December, Congress passed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, which called on the DOD to issue a report by March 1, 2013, that includes a strategy for transitioning to the use of human-based methods in combat trauma training courses. This was a huge victory and was the first time Congress has held the DOD accountable on this issue.
Instead of working on a strategy to replace the use of live animals in training, the Army’s Medical Command has made plans to continue the use of live goats in combat trauma training for the next five years!
Please write the Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Jonathan Woodson, M.D., and ask them to replace the use of live animals in combat trauma training with the many human-based medical simulators available.
With the availability of several such simulators, the use of live animals in combat trauma training is unnecessary. Please tell Lt. Gen Horoho and Dr. Woodson to stop Army Medical Command’s plans to extend the use of live goats for five more years.
Thank you for all of your help.
Stop Flogging Women in Maldives ~ Please Sign Petition
Avaaz
Please click HERE to sign petition
Background | Source Avaaz, This ‘N’ That
It’s hard to believe, but a 15-year-old rape survivor has been sentenced to be whipped 100 times in public! Let’s put an end to this lunacy by hitting the Maldives government where it hurts: the tourism industry.
The girl’s stepfather is accused of raping her for years and murdering the baby she bore. Now the court says she must be flogged for “sex outside marriage” with a man who has not even been named! President Waheed of the Maldives is already feeling global pressure on this, and we can force him to save this girl and change the law to spare other victims this cruel fate. This is how we can end the War on Women – by standing up every time an outrage like this happens.
Tourism is the big earner for the Maldives elite, including government ministers. Let’s build a million-strong petition to President Waheed this week, then threaten the islands’ reputation through hard-hitting ads in travel magazines and online until he steps in to save her and abolish this outrageous law. Sign now and share this with everyone to get us to a million!
Read more…
Cruel slaughter of monkeys in Malaysia: please protest
Wikimedia Commons
BACKGROUND | SOURCE THE STAR ONLINE
MALACCA: The culling of almost 100,000 long-tailed macaques last year by the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) has turned into a controversy, with the decision being challenged here.
Kota Melaka MCA complaint bureau deputy chief Dr Yee Kok Wah said he found out that Johor topped the list with 20,600 of the primates culled, followed by Selangor (18,800), Perak (16,000), Kedah (13,000), Pahang (8,100) and Negri Sembilan (8,000).
The total number culled last year was 97,200, up from 87,900 in 2011.
“The primates should not have been exterminated as they were not diseased.
“We need to create a colony for them so that the monkeys can be relocated.
“We have a moral responsibility to look after the primates.
“They will not pose a danger to humans if they are relocated to the jungle,” he told The Star.
Dr Yee said Kyoto University’s Juichi Yamagiwa, who is president of the International Primatological Society, had found that the transmission of virus between humans and macaques was very rare.
“As such, the mass culling of macaques here should be stopped.
“The primates are being driven to extinction,” he added.
Dr Yee said there was a report saying that captured wild macaques from Malaysia had ended up on dinner plates in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, or in research laboratories.
Long-tailed macaques are native to Malaysia and considered opportunistic feeders, and can adapt well to the urban environment.
A Perhilitan official, when contacted, explained that the primates were exterminated through an internationally accepted culling method to control “a population that far exceeded the proportionate capacity of its habitat”.
He said the culling, conducted by trained game rangers, was carried out where human-macaque conflicts were most serious.
He denied that the macaques were killed by deliberate drowning as alleged by some quarters, adding that standard operating procedures were adhered to.
WHOM TO CONTACT
Protests can be registered with the Malaysian Embassy in your country of residence. All Malaysia’s embassies are listed at http://my.embassyinformation.com
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Ambassador,
I am disturbed to learn that greater than 150,000 macaque monkeys have been slaughtered in Malaysia. It is my understanding that the government wants to reduce the population and has set kill quotas for every state.
I am therefore respectfully urging you cancel these unjustified and cruel culls. Macaque monkeys are marvelously intelligent and sentient creatures, capable of love, pain, thought, and suffering; when you subject them to such barbaric treatments, you not only condemn them to fear,agony, and death, but you also demean yourself and establish that you are unsympathetic and discompassionate.
Indeed, this type of mass killing using such a brutal type of slaughter in such a central and visible location would certainly adversely affect both visitation and tourism; it would be detrimental to continue with such a cruel and unnecessary killing, and although I do not currently reside in Malaysia, I would be unwilling to consider it, or nearby, as a potential vacation destination if this cull continues.
Please instead examine alternative, non-lethal options. “The primates should not have been exterminated as they were not diseased. We need to create a colony for them so that the monkeys can be relocated. We have a moral responsibility to look after the primates. They will not pose a danger to humans if they are relocated to the jungle,” he [Dr. Yee Kok Wah] told The Star Online.
I know your time is limited and I want to thank you for your attention to this urgent appeal; I look forward to a positive resolution to this situation.
NAME
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