What an important question this time of the year.
According to http://www.peta.org/feat/halloween01/ and http://www.petakids.com/candy.html, the following candies are gelatin-free, and overall vegan.
As always, if someone sees a candy on this list that they do not believe is vegan, please let us know via a post on this blog. We’ll look into it!
Airheads taffy
Atkins peanut butter bars
Blow Pops
Charms lollipops
Chick-o-Sticks
Cracker Jack
Cry Babies
Dem Bones
Dots
Dum-Dums
Fireballs
Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
Hot Tamales
Hubba Bubba bubblegum
Jolly Ranchers (lollipops and hard candy)
Jujubees
Jujyfruits
Lemonheads
Mambas
Mary Janes (regular and peanut butter kisses)
Mike and Ike
pumpkin Now and Later
Pez
Ring Pop lollipops
Smarties
Sour Patch Kids
Starburst (jelly beans and hard candy)
Super Bubble
Swedish Fish
Sweet Tarts
Tropical Source mini chocolate bags
Twizzlers
Zotz
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
More on Sarah Palin and Backward Policies: Opposed the Listing of Beluga Whales as Endangered Species
Luckily NOAA didn’t agree with her blatantly obvious backward policies. Keeping in line with typical Republican policy, Palin used the same old lines to attempt to prevent the implementation of sound and reasonable protection of an endangered species. I assume more of the same should she take over in January.
Article:
Boogie Woogie, Beluga Boy
http://www.grist.org/news/2008/10/17/beluga/index.html?source=rss
Belugas listed as endangered over Sarah Palin's objections
Posted at 2:29 PM on 17 Oct 2008
Despite opposition from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, beluga whales in the Cook Inlet have been declared endangered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency estimates that only 375 belugas currently frolic in the inlet, down from some 1,300 in the 1980s. Restricting subsistence hunting by Native Alaskans has not helped the problem, says NOAA, and whales continue to be threatened by development, oil and gas exploration, and industrial activities (as well as beach strandings, disease, and being munched by killer whales).
Palin strenuously opposed the listing, stating in Aug. 2007 that the science was inconclusive and that "an unnecessary federal listing and designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area." There may indeed be an impact: Unlike the feds' polar-bear listing, the beluga listing contains no caveat that economic development should remain unhindered.
Article:
Boogie Woogie, Beluga Boy
http://www.grist.org/news/2008/10/17/beluga/index.html?source=rss
Belugas listed as endangered over Sarah Palin's objections
Posted at 2:29 PM on 17 Oct 2008
Despite opposition from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, beluga whales in the Cook Inlet have been declared endangered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency estimates that only 375 belugas currently frolic in the inlet, down from some 1,300 in the 1980s. Restricting subsistence hunting by Native Alaskans has not helped the problem, says NOAA, and whales continue to be threatened by development, oil and gas exploration, and industrial activities (as well as beach strandings, disease, and being munched by killer whales).
Palin strenuously opposed the listing, stating in Aug. 2007 that the science was inconclusive and that "an unnecessary federal listing and designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area." There may indeed be an impact: Unlike the feds' polar-bear listing, the beluga listing contains no caveat that economic development should remain unhindered.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Brigitte Bardot Calls Out Sarah Palin: 'a disgrace to women' and Lacking Any Respect for Animal Life
Glad the famous are now starting to speak as to the cruelty of Sarah Palin. I wrote recently about Palin and her support of animal cruelty here http://geari.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-animal-abuser-and-animal.html
Bardot is clear in what she sees as Palin’s cruel nature:
"This shows your total lack of responsibility, your inability to protect or simply respect animal life,"
Article:
Brigitte Bardot slams Sarah Palin as 'a disgrace to women'
http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/10/08/
Brigitte_Bardot_slams_Sarah_Palin_as_a_disgrace_to_women
Screen icon and 1960s sex symbol Brigitte Bargot has slammed Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, calling her a disgrace to women.
"I hope you lose these elections because that would be a victory for the world," the French actor-turned-activist wrote in an open letter to Palin.
"By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe," wrote Bardot.
Bardot, who now leads an animal rights foundation, blasted Palin for supporting Arctic oil exploration, which is reportedly threatening delicate animals habitats, and for ignoring calls to protect polar bears.
"This shows your total lack of responsibility, your inability to protect or simply respect animal life," Bardot wrote.
Finally, the 74-year-old chastised Palin for depicting herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick and asked the Republican running mate to stop comparing herself to dogs.
"I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are," Bardot wrote.
Bardot is clear in what she sees as Palin’s cruel nature:
"This shows your total lack of responsibility, your inability to protect or simply respect animal life,"
Article:
Brigitte Bardot slams Sarah Palin as 'a disgrace to women'
http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/10/08/
Brigitte_Bardot_slams_Sarah_Palin_as_a_disgrace_to_women
Screen icon and 1960s sex symbol Brigitte Bargot has slammed Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, calling her a disgrace to women.
"I hope you lose these elections because that would be a victory for the world," the French actor-turned-activist wrote in an open letter to Palin.
"By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe," wrote Bardot.
Bardot, who now leads an animal rights foundation, blasted Palin for supporting Arctic oil exploration, which is reportedly threatening delicate animals habitats, and for ignoring calls to protect polar bears.
"This shows your total lack of responsibility, your inability to protect or simply respect animal life," Bardot wrote.
Finally, the 74-year-old chastised Palin for depicting herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick and asked the Republican running mate to stop comparing herself to dogs.
"I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are," Bardot wrote.
Rare Black Rhinoceros Dies While Being Transported to Oregon Zoo
What else can be said other than score one more for the crulty of zoos. Good f…ing job Oregon Zoo. You killed another one!
Article:
Rare black rhino dies en route to Oregon Zoo
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008238237_webrhinodeath07.html?syndication=rss
A rare black rhinoceros died while being transported to Portland from Kansas City for breeding purposes, the Oregon Zoo said Tuesday. The rhino became agitated...
By Mary Hudetz
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — A rare black rhinoceros died while being transported to Portland from Kansas City for breeding purposes, the Oregon Zoo said Tuesday.
The rhino became agitated early Monday about 20 miles outside Phoenix, causing the truck to sway. Zoo staff immediately stopped the truck to check on her before heading to the city's zoo to seek care.
The Phoenix Zoo had a crane delivered and the rhino was unloaded from the truck into an elephant barn. The rhino died Monday night from unknown causes.
"It just doesn't always go they way you hope it does," said Oregon Zoo veterinarian Dr. Lisa Harrenstien, who flew to Arizona on Monday to help care for the animal. "It can take a turn for the worse, and you do what you can to get back on track."
The Phoenix Zoo is performing a necropsy to determine the cause of death, said Oregon Zoo spokesman Bill LaMarche. Preliminary results should be available within three weeks.
There are an estimated 3,500 black rhinos left in the world and 67 are held in captivity, LaMarche said. "Poachers hunt them mercilessly for their horn," he said. "The species is really on the brink."
LaMarche said staffers transporting the rhinoceros from Kansas City, where it was born in 2000, took a detour through Arizona because of snow advisories in Wyoming.
The Species Survival Plan, which is run by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, had called for the 8-year-old female named Kipenzi, which means "precious one" in Swahili, to breed with the Oregon Zoo's 21-year-old male.
LaMarche said another female will likely be sent to the Oregon Zoo through the plan, which aims to sustain a genetically diverse population among animals in North American zoos.
Black rhinos are native to Eastern and Central Africa.
Article:
Rare black rhino dies en route to Oregon Zoo
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008238237_webrhinodeath07.html?syndication=rss
A rare black rhinoceros died while being transported to Portland from Kansas City for breeding purposes, the Oregon Zoo said Tuesday. The rhino became agitated...
By Mary Hudetz
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — A rare black rhinoceros died while being transported to Portland from Kansas City for breeding purposes, the Oregon Zoo said Tuesday.
The rhino became agitated early Monday about 20 miles outside Phoenix, causing the truck to sway. Zoo staff immediately stopped the truck to check on her before heading to the city's zoo to seek care.
The Phoenix Zoo had a crane delivered and the rhino was unloaded from the truck into an elephant barn. The rhino died Monday night from unknown causes.
"It just doesn't always go they way you hope it does," said Oregon Zoo veterinarian Dr. Lisa Harrenstien, who flew to Arizona on Monday to help care for the animal. "It can take a turn for the worse, and you do what you can to get back on track."
The Phoenix Zoo is performing a necropsy to determine the cause of death, said Oregon Zoo spokesman Bill LaMarche. Preliminary results should be available within three weeks.
There are an estimated 3,500 black rhinos left in the world and 67 are held in captivity, LaMarche said. "Poachers hunt them mercilessly for their horn," he said. "The species is really on the brink."
LaMarche said staffers transporting the rhinoceros from Kansas City, where it was born in 2000, took a detour through Arizona because of snow advisories in Wyoming.
The Species Survival Plan, which is run by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, had called for the 8-year-old female named Kipenzi, which means "precious one" in Swahili, to breed with the Oregon Zoo's 21-year-old male.
LaMarche said another female will likely be sent to the Oregon Zoo through the plan, which aims to sustain a genetically diverse population among animals in North American zoos.
Black rhinos are native to Eastern and Central Africa.
Despite Conviction of Cruel Michael Vick, Dogfighting is Growing Among the Youth in the United States
Unfortunately, the case of cruel and evil Michael Vick has done little to deter dogfighting.
As stated below, "There are at least 100,000 young kids fighting their dogs under the radar in America," estimates Chicago-based anti-violence advocate Tio Hardiman, who built his estimate on conversations with young dogfighters and authorities in 35 states he has visited. In contrast, about 40,000 adults are involved in organized dogfighting, according to the Humane Society of the United States.” It goes on, “The most active and numerous dogfighters, experts say, are 13 or 14 or 17 years old — inner-city youths who have trained their pit bulls to fight other dogs in the neighborhood.”
Sad to see this reality.
Article:
A fight to save urban youth from dogfighting
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-29-dogfighting_N.htm
By Sharon L. Peters, Special for USA TODAY
The vast majority of dogfighters are not rich and famous like former football star Michael Vick or as organized as the pit masters who schedule high-stakes blood battles that rake in thousands of dollars a night.
The most active and numerous dogfighters, experts say, are 13 or 14 or 17 years old — inner-city youths who have trained their pit bulls to fight other dogs in the neighborhood.
"There are at least 100,000 young kids fighting their dogs under the radar in America," estimates Chicago-based anti-violence advocate Tio Hardiman, who built his estimate on conversations with young dogfighters and authorities in 35 states he has visited. In contrast, about 40,000 adults are involved in organized dogfighting, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
Hardiman, who is a special consultant to the Humane Society and has launched an anti-dogfighting program in Chicago, says large numbers of youngsters are conducting street dogfights "in almost every urban inner city," and the numbers are growing. Among the cities he lists: Chicago; St. Louis; New York; Atlanta; Memphis; Detroit; Jackson, Miss.; Los Angeles; New Orleans; Milwaukee; Baltimore; Charlotte; and Newark.
"The kids are getting younger and younger," says Randy Grim, executive director of Stray Rescue of St. Louis. He roams the worst streets rescuing dogs, most of them scarred-up fight-trained pit bulls discarded because they weren't vicious enough. "I saw a kid in a park, he was probably 8 or 9 years old, training and strengthening his pit bull by having him tread water in a creek."
FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States Newark Michael Vick Chicago-based Humane Society Stray Rescue of St. Louis Tio Hardiman
It's not about the dog
Getting and fighting a pit bull has become a way for inner-city youth to "show their toughness," "develop a reputation in the neighborhood" and "make some money," says Kelly Daley, who led a recent University of Chicago Survey Lab study on dogfighting. Urban kids see dogfighting as a stature builder, and they give no thought to what the animals endure, she says. "This kind of stuff doesn't have anything at all to do with the dog."
Reformed Chicago dogfighter Kione Ford, 16, fits the description. Dogfighting "made me kind of popular," he says. And each time one of his dogs got hurt, "I'd think, 'Well, next time he'll win.' "
Most dogfighting by young people is not the sort described during the Vick episode — big-money events held in well-constructed pits for large audiences. Youth dogfights are usually forced skirmishes between leashed pit bulls on the sidewalks or alleys, or low-stakes unleashed contests in backyards and basements. The results, however, are similar to organized matches: dogs maimed or dying by the thousands every year, enough cash or veneration bestowed on winners to keep them committed, and owners — teens and pre-teens in this case — growing increasingly non-empathetic and violence-prone.
"We've got a whole new generation of criminals coming up as a result of all this," Grim says. Although dogfighting by inner-city kids has been reported for two decades, he says, it is now more prevalent, more enmeshed in the fabric of communities and more appealing to a broader circle of urban youth.
Making dogs fight is "not something that's a thought process at all, it's just something they do" as part of the intertwined activities of violence, says Cynthia Bathurst of Safe Humane Chicago, a coalition aimed at ending inner-city violence against humans and animals. Hardiman agrees: "Violence against dogs doesn't even register."
Life expectancy: 18 months
The Vick case hasn't deterred young urban tough guys. "It actually generated more interest among urban youth," Grim says. Suddenly, kids who had believed dogfighting was only a ghetto or rural Southern sport saw rich role models were involved. "They thought, if (Vick) does it, it's cool."
The fact that Vick got prison time and that dogfighting is a felony doesn't stop them because they reject both as establishment punishment leveled against the disenfranchised, Grim says.
Kids get drawn in at an early age, says Hardiman, motivated by the "glamorization" of dogfighting by rap and hip-hop music and by neighborhood values that prize machismo. They give little value to animals and assert that pit bulls "were born to fight."
"We discovered (in St. Louis) a group that held a dogfight for a church fundraiser, and that sends a pretty strong message to children," Grim says.
A kid gets a pit bull from a breeder who churns out litters in backyards or abandoned buildings, or from a pet store known to have a non-public cache of pit puppies, or they steal animals chained out in a yard or on a fire escape.
The youngster learns from friends or uncles how to turn the animal into a fighter, often starting by setting it against smaller dogs or cats referred to as "pit bait," creatures that almost never survive the encounters. Most kids also do torturous things to their dogs to make them meaner, more pain tolerant, more likely to go the extra mile in battle, says Robert Missari of Rescue Ink, which scours the boroughs of New York for abused animals.
"These kids may make some money on fights," Missari says, "but it's equally about the whole macho thing and security thing of being able to say, 'My dog is the toughest on the block, my pit bull can kill your pit bull.' "
Dogs that are decent fighters may survive several bouts before being mauled so badly they die or are killed. "The life expectancy of an inner-city pit bull is 18 months," says Hardiman. Dogs that won't fight or don't fight well are regarded as "not worthy," and they're shot, hanged or set loose.
Authorities sometimes take a dog away from its owner, but these can be tough cases. There are few witnesses, kids claim they don't know who owns a mauled dog, and there has been a pattern of pleading down cases to misdemeanors, experts say.
Kids can quit
Ultimately, the mind-set of young dogfighters must be changed, Hardiman says. Later this year, he'll take to Atlanta and Charlotte his Campaign to End Dogfighting, which rechannels kids and their dogs to more constructive agility and obedience competitions. He's bolstered by apparent successes that include Ford, who vows he'll never make a dog fight again, and George Brent, 18, who fought his dog Red for months, then hooked up with Hardiman's team. Red earned the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizenship certification.
Tamaris Jones, 17, says he won't fight again. He and dog Trouble have spent months of Saturdays in Hardiman's program. "They explained to me that it wasn't right to fight him," Jones says. "I would be mad at (Trouble) when he lost, and I'd hug him when he won. Now he's not a fighter no more. I can hug him all the time."
The Humane Society of the United States also is working on other ways to de-romanticize dogfighting, including public service announcements from messengers these kids respect, people who speak their language and understand their lives. Music mogul Russell Simmons has signed on; other like-thinking rappers and sports figures are being contacted.
Grim plans a humane-education camp next summer that will address dogfighting; Rescue Ink is going into the schools this fall with the message; and Bathurst has joined Best Friends Animal Society to spread the anti-violence word in several cities.
"We're creating a movement around seeing these animals in a different way," Hardiman says.
While he insists "80% of inner-city youths love their dogs and don't fight them," he acknowledges that reversing the other 20% is tough. "I get a kid for a few hours, and the rest of the time he's living where he's living, and they're not reinforcing my message, they're doing what they do … fighting dogs."
But he knows some are strong enough to leave fighting forever. His evidence is Sean Moore, 37, who works with him to steer kids onto a different path. Moore was a revered dogfighter from age 13 to 18. Fifteen of his dogs died in fights or he killed them to end their agony after hideous injuries.
"I apologize every day for what I did back then," Moore says.
He left that life when he realized "I didn't want to be a killer no more. It was an ego trip. I sometimes made some money. But I'm just not a killer."
McDonald's Illegally Uses Image of Paul McCartney in Store: McCartney Calls for Boycott
Just the usual from McDonald’s and their illegal tactics.
Article:
Sir Paul McCartney calls for McDonald's boycott
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3157502/
Sir-Paul-McCartney-calls-for-McDonalds-boycott.html
Sir Paul McCartney has called for fans to boycott McDonald's after the fast food chain used an image of the former Beatle in its Liverpool store.
The singer, who has been a vocal advocate of vegetarianism for 30 years was said to be furious after discovering pictures of the Beatles had been placed prominently in a restaurant in his home town.
His image appeared alongside former band mates John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
Geoff Baker, a spokesman for Sir Paul said: "What sort of morons do McDonald's think Beatles' fans are.
"It's ridiculous and insulting to use images to peddle hamburgers. Fans should boycott McDonald’s, and not just in Liverpool."
Sir Paul is a staunch supporter of animal rights, president of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain and an ambassador for People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA). His late wife Linda had her own range of vegetarian foods.
A PETA spokeswoman said: "He became a vegetarian after watching lambs play in a field outside his home and surely would not want anyone to use his likeness to help promote meat.
"We hope anyone who sees his picture on the wall will be reminded that he's a vegetarian and skip the Big Mac for a veggie burger."
A McDonald's spokeswoman said the pictures were to "acknowledge the outstanding contribution the Beatles made to both local and global culture."
Article:
Sir Paul McCartney calls for McDonald's boycott
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3157502/
Sir-Paul-McCartney-calls-for-McDonalds-boycott.html
Sir Paul McCartney has called for fans to boycott McDonald's after the fast food chain used an image of the former Beatle in its Liverpool store.
The singer, who has been a vocal advocate of vegetarianism for 30 years was said to be furious after discovering pictures of the Beatles had been placed prominently in a restaurant in his home town.
His image appeared alongside former band mates John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
Geoff Baker, a spokesman for Sir Paul said: "What sort of morons do McDonald's think Beatles' fans are.
"It's ridiculous and insulting to use images to peddle hamburgers. Fans should boycott McDonald’s, and not just in Liverpool."
Sir Paul is a staunch supporter of animal rights, president of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain and an ambassador for People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA). His late wife Linda had her own range of vegetarian foods.
A PETA spokeswoman said: "He became a vegetarian after watching lambs play in a field outside his home and surely would not want anyone to use his likeness to help promote meat.
"We hope anyone who sees his picture on the wall will be reminded that he's a vegetarian and skip the Big Mac for a veggie burger."
A McDonald's spokeswoman said the pictures were to "acknowledge the outstanding contribution the Beatles made to both local and global culture."
Monday, September 29, 2008
Obama vs. McCain and Animal Rights Legislation as the President
The HSUS has endorsed Obama for president. You can see their message here -
http://hslf.typepad.com/political_animal/2008/09/humane-society.html
Sadly though, as stated below, “…neither a President Obama nor a President McCain will do anything to seriously advance animal rights.”
Yet, the article does state that Obama is the better choice for those interested in seeing positive legislation helping animals. “Obama is generally more receptive than his opponents to animal welfare and animal protection legislation, though he is not a leader. Like, say, Dennis Kucinich.”
Ultimately though, both parties usually bend down to industry vs. true animal concerns. As stated below, “For folks hoping for more radical change, neither of the major two parties offers anything. The above scorecard shows how the political climate prevents all but the most limited attempts at advancing animals' interests from even getting on the legislative docket….On the flip side, animal industries have found Congress an easy venue for expanding legislation (the AETA) picking out those animal and environmental activists who commit violent acts and damage property as deserving greater punishment than activists using those tactics to further other causes. Neither presidential candidate blocked the bill when it passed by unanimous consent, but Obama did put the bill in context…”
Article:
The elections and animal law
http://hcb.typepad.com/hounded_cowed_badgered/2008/09/
the-presidential-candidates-and-animal-law.html
The lobbying wing of the Humane Society of the United States has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Earlier posts, here and here, by blogger and animal-legislation expert Michael Markarian spotlighted the records of senators Obama and McCain on animal welfare. From an animal welfare perspective, the endorsement is no doubt the right choice. As the lobby's latest Humane Scorecard shows, Obama is generally more receptive than his opponents to animal welfare and animal protection legislation, though he is not a leader. Like, say, Dennis Kucinich.
For folks hoping for more radical change, neither of the major two parties offers anything. The above scorecard shows how the political climate prevents all but the most limited attempts at advancing animals' interests from even getting on the legislative docket. To the extent that any large scale animal protection (i.e., protection from humans) occurs, it happens as part of already existing environmental regimes. On the flip side, animal industries have found Congress an easy venue for expanding legislation (the AETA) picking out those animal and environmental activists who commit violent acts and damage property as deserving greater punishment than activists using those tactics to further other causes. Neither presidential candidate blocked the bill when it passed by unanimous consent, but Obama did put the bill in context (hat tip: Green is the New Red).
I don't know anyone who votes on animal issues alone (I do not), but such single-minded voters should consider third parties. Even progressive third parties, however, only rarely call for outright bans on certain animal practices. The strongest animal-related proposal in the Socialist Party USA platform is a ban on animal testing for consumer products. The Green Party platform endorses a "phase-out" of such testing. Still, these parties offers more than the Democrats, whose platform contains nothing positive on animals and promises to "open millions of new acres of land to public hunting and fishing" and the GOP, whose platform, less specifically, calls for public "access to public lands for recreational activities such as hunting, hiking, and fishing." Absent a vegan revelation (join with me in prayer, fellow religious vegans), neither a President Obama nor a President McCain will do anything to seriously advance animal rights.
http://hslf.typepad.com/political_animal/2008/09/humane-society.html
Sadly though, as stated below, “…neither a President Obama nor a President McCain will do anything to seriously advance animal rights.”
Yet, the article does state that Obama is the better choice for those interested in seeing positive legislation helping animals. “Obama is generally more receptive than his opponents to animal welfare and animal protection legislation, though he is not a leader. Like, say, Dennis Kucinich.”
Ultimately though, both parties usually bend down to industry vs. true animal concerns. As stated below, “For folks hoping for more radical change, neither of the major two parties offers anything. The above scorecard shows how the political climate prevents all but the most limited attempts at advancing animals' interests from even getting on the legislative docket….On the flip side, animal industries have found Congress an easy venue for expanding legislation (the AETA) picking out those animal and environmental activists who commit violent acts and damage property as deserving greater punishment than activists using those tactics to further other causes. Neither presidential candidate blocked the bill when it passed by unanimous consent, but Obama did put the bill in context…”
Article:
The elections and animal law
http://hcb.typepad.com/hounded_cowed_badgered/2008/09/
the-presidential-candidates-and-animal-law.html
The lobbying wing of the Humane Society of the United States has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Earlier posts, here and here, by blogger and animal-legislation expert Michael Markarian spotlighted the records of senators Obama and McCain on animal welfare. From an animal welfare perspective, the endorsement is no doubt the right choice. As the lobby's latest Humane Scorecard shows, Obama is generally more receptive than his opponents to animal welfare and animal protection legislation, though he is not a leader. Like, say, Dennis Kucinich.
For folks hoping for more radical change, neither of the major two parties offers anything. The above scorecard shows how the political climate prevents all but the most limited attempts at advancing animals' interests from even getting on the legislative docket. To the extent that any large scale animal protection (i.e., protection from humans) occurs, it happens as part of already existing environmental regimes. On the flip side, animal industries have found Congress an easy venue for expanding legislation (the AETA) picking out those animal and environmental activists who commit violent acts and damage property as deserving greater punishment than activists using those tactics to further other causes. Neither presidential candidate blocked the bill when it passed by unanimous consent, but Obama did put the bill in context (hat tip: Green is the New Red).
I don't know anyone who votes on animal issues alone (I do not), but such single-minded voters should consider third parties. Even progressive third parties, however, only rarely call for outright bans on certain animal practices. The strongest animal-related proposal in the Socialist Party USA platform is a ban on animal testing for consumer products. The Green Party platform endorses a "phase-out" of such testing. Still, these parties offers more than the Democrats, whose platform contains nothing positive on animals and promises to "open millions of new acres of land to public hunting and fishing" and the GOP, whose platform, less specifically, calls for public "access to public lands for recreational activities such as hunting, hiking, and fishing." Absent a vegan revelation (join with me in prayer, fellow religious vegans), neither a President Obama nor a President McCain will do anything to seriously advance animal rights.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sarah Palin: Animal Abuser and Animal Cruelty Supporter: Her Record Proves It!
I think this very telling quote from the story below sums it up:
“Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States -- and that's a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation's worst governor doesn't end up just a heartbeat away from the nation's most important job.”
And, in case you don’t understand just how much power she would have to destroy animal issues, making the United States a haven for animal abuse, just read this:
“If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska--controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands--it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.”
Here are just a few reasons on why Sarah Palin is a supporter or animal abuse. I encourage all of you to read the whole story below as these are only a few of the many horrible realities of the animal abusing nature of Sarah Palin and, by proxy, John McCain. In addition, please visit the story via the link below to see a horrible video which proves the cruelty associated with aerial gunning or hunting in Alaska. You won’t believe the cruelty:
* “Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don't represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps -- practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
* And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska's predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters.
* Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
* Leading up to the recent statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized "the old politics as usual" and "the culture of self-dealing" in her speech last night, but that's a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.
* Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill's author "doesn't understand rural Alaska" and "doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North."
Article:
Sarah Palin's Shocking Animal Cruelty
http://www.alternet.org/story/98918/sara_palin's_shocking_animal_cruelty/
By Michael Markarian, Humane Society Legislative Fund. Posted September 16, 2008.
If Sarah Palin ran the United States like she has run Alaska, it would indeed be a terrible day for animals.
GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, "the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose."
But it's not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation--it's her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state's wolves and other creatures.
Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States -- and that's a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation's worst governor doesn't end up just a heartbeat away from the nation's most important job.
Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don't represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps -- practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska's predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
Leading up to the recent statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized "the old politics as usual" and "the culture of self-dealing" in her speech last night, but that's a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.
Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill's author "doesn't understand rural Alaska" and "doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North."
This new video from our friends at the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund reveals shocking images from the brutal practice of aerial hunting, and shows the world just what Gov. Palin has championed at the state and federal levels.
Watch:
But that's only one part of the story. It's not just wolves, of course, who have been the targets of Palin's outdated policies, but also the Arctic region's iconic polar bears, the 21st Century's canaries in the mineshaft who are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Despite the effects of climate change on the bear's vanishing habitat and shrinking ice floes, Gov. Palin penned an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year arguing that it was the "wrong move" to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Later, when the Bush Administration announced its listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, she filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the decision. Environmentalists fired back over Palin's lawsuit and said "her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear."
For those who don't believe that the number two spot on the ticket matters much at all, consider this: fourteen vice presidents in American history eventually climbed to the top job, eight of them because their predecessors died in office. If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska--controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands--it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.
AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.
“Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States -- and that's a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation's worst governor doesn't end up just a heartbeat away from the nation's most important job.”
And, in case you don’t understand just how much power she would have to destroy animal issues, making the United States a haven for animal abuse, just read this:
“If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska--controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands--it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.”
Here are just a few reasons on why Sarah Palin is a supporter or animal abuse. I encourage all of you to read the whole story below as these are only a few of the many horrible realities of the animal abusing nature of Sarah Palin and, by proxy, John McCain. In addition, please visit the story via the link below to see a horrible video which proves the cruelty associated with aerial gunning or hunting in Alaska. You won’t believe the cruelty:
* “Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don't represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps -- practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
* And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska's predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters.
* Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
* Leading up to the recent statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized "the old politics as usual" and "the culture of self-dealing" in her speech last night, but that's a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.
* Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill's author "doesn't understand rural Alaska" and "doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North."
Article:
Sarah Palin's Shocking Animal Cruelty
http://www.alternet.org/story/98918/sara_palin's_shocking_animal_cruelty/
By Michael Markarian, Humane Society Legislative Fund. Posted September 16, 2008.
If Sarah Palin ran the United States like she has run Alaska, it would indeed be a terrible day for animals.
GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, "the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose."
But it's not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation--it's her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state's wolves and other creatures.
Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States -- and that's a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation's worst governor doesn't end up just a heartbeat away from the nation's most important job.
Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don't represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps -- practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska's predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
Leading up to the recent statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized "the old politics as usual" and "the culture of self-dealing" in her speech last night, but that's a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.
Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill's author "doesn't understand rural Alaska" and "doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North."
This new video from our friends at the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund reveals shocking images from the brutal practice of aerial hunting, and shows the world just what Gov. Palin has championed at the state and federal levels.
Watch:
But that's only one part of the story. It's not just wolves, of course, who have been the targets of Palin's outdated policies, but also the Arctic region's iconic polar bears, the 21st Century's canaries in the mineshaft who are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Despite the effects of climate change on the bear's vanishing habitat and shrinking ice floes, Gov. Palin penned an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year arguing that it was the "wrong move" to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Later, when the Bush Administration announced its listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, she filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the decision. Environmentalists fired back over Palin's lawsuit and said "her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear."
For those who don't believe that the number two spot on the ticket matters much at all, consider this: fourteen vice presidents in American history eventually climbed to the top job, eight of them because their predecessors died in office. If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska--controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands--it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.
AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Arrogant, Cruel and Sick Nationwide Tour Golf player Tripp Isenhour Finally Convicted in Killing of a Federally Protected Red-Shouldered Hawk
Intentionally Killed with Golf Ball
As you’ll read this story, you’ll see just how sick and self-absorbed Tripp Isenhour is. Not only did he intentionally kill a protected hawk, he then tried to get out of it, eventually accepting no contest plea. So, a killer and a scofflaw.
As stated below, “…Isenhour, 40, created a national controversy when, while filming an instructional video Dec. 12 at Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando, he attempted to quiet the noisy hawk by hitting golf balls with a 7-iron at the tree in which the bird was roosting, about 50 or 60 yards from the set. On about the sixth shot, Isenhour hit the hawk and killed it.”
So, all for a video. Couldn’t he just wait, or even just play with the sounds of the hawk? No, in his mind, his importance outweighed the hawk’s life.
Article:
Isenhour accepts plea deal for killing hawk
http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/8502486/
Isenhour-accepts-plea-deal-for-killing-hawk
by Rex Hoggard, Golfweek.com
Updated: August 29, 2008, 10:51 AM EST 66 comments
add this RSS blog email print
ORLANDO, Fla. - Nationwide Tour player Tripp Isenhour has accepted a "no contest" plea agreement for two misdemeanor charges stemming from an incident last year that resulted in the death of a federally protected red-shouldered hawk.
Golfweek.com
From event coverage to commentary to fantasy tips, Golfweek.com provides all you'll ever need to be up to speed on the world of golf.
The agreement requires Isenhour to serve one year of probation, donate $1,500 to the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter, Fla., and pay a $500 fine. The former PGA Tour player also will be required to undergo 40 hours of community service and attend a four-hour anger-management class.
"I'm not denying that the bird accidentally was killed by the golf ball and we're not denying it was wrong," Isenhour told Golfweek in an exclusive interview. "I did something wrong, and I have to take ownership of that."
Isenhour, 40, created a national controversy when, while filming an instructional video Dec. 12 at Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando, he attempted to quiet the noisy hawk by hitting golf balls with a 7-iron at the tree in which the bird was roosting, about 50 or 60 yards from the set. On about the sixth shot, Isenhour hit the hawk and killed it.
According to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission report, witnesses say Isenhour was angry that the bird, which initially was perched in a tree about 120 yards from the set, was disrupting the filming. Isenhour said he attempted to make the bird fly away by hitting two sticks together. He also said he hit three to four golf balls into the tree but could not see the bird.
In contrast to earlier media reports, when the hawk landed in a tree closer to the set, Isenhour said he started hitting golf balls at the hawk again only after members of the crew attempted to move the bird by banging sticks together and throwing objects into the tree.
Jethro Senger, a sound engineer for the informercial who reported the incident to Fish and Wildlife officials, said it was "basically like a joke to (Isenhour)."
Fish and Wildlife officer Brian Baine investigated the incident and said Isenhour was angry that the hawk was disrupting the filming and that the golfer intended to hit the bird.
"It was one thing if he hit a couple of balls, but two elements give it away," Baine said. "The first is that he was unsuccessful the first time and did it again. The second is he didn't call me and say, 'I did something foolish. I killed a migratory bird and I'd like to make this good.' "
Isenhour and other members of the crew did contact the local Audubon Society to inform officials about the accident and were told that if the hawk was not breathing to then bury it.
Sworn statements from other members of the crew collected by Isenhour's investigators do not corroborate the state's claim the golfer intended to harm the hawk or that he was angry.
"He wasn't angry. He didn't come off to me as being angry at all," said Ryan Krause, a crew member on the set, in a statement to Isenhour's investigators.
"He was just like trying to scare it away. He wasn't like, you know, seriously like trying to like hit the bird or do anything like that. . . . He definitely wasn't trying to kill the bird."
Isenhour was charged with two misdemeanors: cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird. He could have faced fines up to $5,500 and up to 14 months in jail.
In an interview with Golfweek, he said he was happy to have the incident behind him but said he was disappointed in the Fish and Wildlife investigation.
According to Isenhour, whose investigators took statements from eight of the other nine crew members on the informercial set, Baine only interviewed two of the 10 eyewitnesses, Senger and Krause.
Isenhour said Baine attempted to interview him at his home on Dec. 23, but the golfer declined comment until his lawyer was present.
When Isenhour's Orlando-based attorney, David de Armas, attempted to contact Baine in January after the officer had filed his report to the State Attorney's Office, he was informed, "We don't need to talk to (Isenhour)."
"The part that bothers me the most in all this is the conduct of the officer," Isenhour said. "He shouldn't be in a position of authority if you abuse that authority."
Baine said he made a "good-faith attempt" to contact Isenhour's lawyers before submitting his report and also said he interviewed "three or four" witnesses, but he could not recall the names of those interviewed.
"I look at things in perfunctory way. I have no vested interest," Baine said.
Isenhour said he accepted the plea instead of an opportunity to tell his side of the story in court because, "To go through what I went through in March (when the charges were filed), with the media circus and everything I went through, I didn't want to put my family through all that. The fact is, I'm not denying the accident occurred, but it would be very hard for a jury — even though the circumstances are much different than what was reported — it would be very difficult for them to find me not guilty, given the way the law is written."
Reaction to the incident was swift. Animal-rights activists and others called upon the PGA Tour to discipline Isenhour. According to Isenhour, who has played 18 events on the Nationwide Tour this year, the Tour took no disciplinary action. Keeping with its long-held policy, the Tour does not disclose penalties or fines.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Kansas City Chiefs All-Pro Tight End - Ninth Consecutive Pro Bowl - Tony Gonzalez, Promotes Vegetarian Diet: Smashes Stereotype of Vegetarians
I wrote about Tony a few months back -
http://geari.blogspot.com/2008/05/
strong-fit-tough-guys-mac-danzig-and.html
As I said before, I’m so glad this stuff is coming out in the open. I too break the stereotype of the skinny, wimpy vegan, as I work out and am nearing 200 lbs while in shape. I love it when people hear that I’m vegan, as they’re pretty surprised. Yes, not all vegans have long hair, a long beard and are hippies. And, even more, as you’ll read below, a vegetarian diet WILL increase your performance and longevity.
Just check out this quote from the article below:
“A year-and-a-half after swearing off most dairy products and meat, the
6-foot-5, 251-pounder is laying waste to the stereotype of the scrawny,
wimpy herbivore.” Very nice. Unfortunately, they should have used the real term – vegetarian.
The story goes on to show that his performance actually increased after his move to a vegan diet:
“Coming off a stellar campaign that included 99 receptions for 1,172 yards
(leaving him 179 yards behind Shannon Sharpe for the NFL's all time lead
among tight ends) and earned him a ninth consecutive Pro Bowl invitation,
the 32-year-old Gonzalez insists he's at his physical peak, with no sign
of a decline.”
"It's unbelievable how good I feel," Gonzalez said. "Seriously, my
recovery is so much better than it's ever been, and my endurance is
tremendous. The best part is that during games I really don't get tired.
I have more focus, too. I'm even staying awake in meetings."
Finally the truth of vegetarianism and vegetarians is acknowledged all because a man with courage, intelligence, compassion and fame dove right into a diet that most would never even consider. Because of this, stereotypes are crushed and the “haters” and detractors lose their ammunition.
The same can be said of another hero of mine, Mac Danzig. He also stands out, as he actually won Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter." Everyone counted him out due to his diet, but he proved them wrong. As you’ll see below, “[l]ast month, on a diet of brown-rice protein, beans, soy, nuts and vegetables, Mr. Danzig defeated the last of his challengers in Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter."” As you’ll read on his website at http://www.macdanzig.net/ “Mac is featured in the new July issue of Men's Fitness magazine (in stores now) as one of the "25 fittest men in America".” Also, stated – “[a] vegan, naturalist, animal lover and serious photographer, Danzig transcends the typical stereotype of a combat athlete.”
So, Tony and Mac, you both are real heroes to me and an inspiration to men everywhere to break the mold and prove that vegan doesn’t equal wimp.
Article:
Gonzalez gives Chiefs steady diet of lectures
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ms-
thegameface081508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
August 15, 2008
RI
frantic screams – "He can't breathe! He can't breathe!" a woman sitting
behind him in a Southern California restaurant was yelling last month –
and whisked around to see a man turning blue. Within seconds, the Kansas
City Chiefs' perennial All-Pro tight end was standing behind the stricken
diner and administering the Heimlich maneuver, a lifesaving technique for
which he'd never received any formal training.
As a chunk of filet mignon shot out of 45-year-old shipping company
manager Ken Hunter's mouth and onto the restaurant floor, the first
thought Gonzalez had was, "Thank God he's alive."
His second thought?
I'll bet that beef is full of antibiotics.
An exaggeration? If so it's only a slight stretch. Of all the NFL stars
who could've saved a man from choking, he may have been the only one
who'd be quite so grossed out by the food he managed to dislodge. Just
ask Gonzalez's teammates, who've grown so accustomed to his neo-vegan
diet and the accompanying lectures that they sometimes shy away from him
during meals.
"Eating with Tony is a great way to ruin your appetite," veteran
quarterback Damon Huard said last Saturday from the team's training camp.
"You'll be biting into a piece of meat, and he'll say, 'You know that cow
was probably corn-fed. And because of that, they had to give it
antibiotics, and that probably gave it ulcers. I don't even want to think
about what might be in there.' By then you're pretty much ready to clear
your plate."
An hour later, as he sat in the cafeteria at the team's University of
Wisconsin-River Falls headquarters, Gonzalez expanded upon the carefully
crafted dietary approach that has fueled his second decade of excellence.
A year-and-a-half after swearing off most dairy products and meat, the
6-foot-5, 251-pounder is laying waste to the stereotype of the scrawny,
wimpy herbivore.
Coming off a stellar campaign that included 99 receptions for 1,172 yards
(leaving him 179 yards behind Shannon Sharpe for the NFL's all time lead
among tight ends) and earned him a ninth consecutive Pro Bowl invitation,
the 32-year-old Gonzalez insists he's at his physical peak, with no sign
of a decline.
AccuScore on the Chiefs
The Chiefs defense allowed 20.9 points per game last season and is
forecasted for an identical 20.9 points allowed this season. The team
lost Jared Allen, but added Glenn Dorsey to the defensive line. The good
news offensively is the Chiefs are forecasted for 25 percent more points
in 2008 with the combo of Larry Johnson and rookie Jamaal Charles
generating more than 120 rushing yards and 16 rushing TDs this season.
However, a 25-percent increase only results in a 17 point per game
average (up from 14 last season) and an average margin of victory of
nearly negative 4 points per game. The Chiefs are winning an average of
6.5 games per season simulation, up from 4 last year, but it is still
only good enough for third in the AFC West.
The big question in fantasy football is what kind of year can Johnson
have. AccuScore expects Johnson to average nearly 4.5 ypc in 2008, which
is significantly higher than his 3.5 in eight games in 2007. If Johnson
struggles and averages under 3.8 ypc, the Chiefs average season win total
falls to 4 and their chances of making the playoffs plummet to 2 percent.
Projected Record: 6-10
Playoff Probability: 12%
– AccuScore
"It's unbelievable how good I feel," Gonzalez said. "Seriously, my
recovery is so much better than it's ever been, and my endurance is
tremendous. The best part is that during games I really don't get tired.
I have more focus, too. I'm even staying awake in meetings."
There were times last season when Gonzalez felt like closing his eyes
during film sessions, especially during Kansas City's nine-game losing
streak to complete a 4-12 campaign. Frustrated by the motion-laden yet
inflexible schemes of offensive coordinator Mike Solari, Gonzalez chafed
as opponents such as Packers linebacker Brady Poppinga correctly called
out his routes before they were run.
"Sometimes we'd do all that shifting and defenses wouldn't move,"
Gonzalez recalled. "They'd just sit there and wait, and we'd run the ball
into an eight-man front and get stuffed. Even when we had a mismatch, the
quarterback didn't have the freedom to change the play at the line. It's
dumbfounding that we didn't do that."
With Chan Gailey having replaced the fired Solari and an influx of young
players that includes rookie left tackle Branden Albert, the 15th overall
pick in the 2008 NFL draft, the rebuilding Chiefs have reason for
optimism. If star halfback Johnson comes back strong from the foot injury
that short-circuited his '07 season, wideout Dwayne Bowe builds upon the
breakout flashes he showed as a rookie and third-year quarterback Brodie
Croyle justifies the faith coach Herm Edwards has shown in him, Chiefs
fans could at least experience some offensive excitement.
It's a given that Gonzalez, fresh off his fifth consecutive season with
at least 900 receiving yards, will do his part. "He's not slowing down at
all," Vikings safety Darren Sharper says of Gonzalez. "Plus he's such a
crafty tight end – he knows all the little push-off moves, and how to use
his body and post you up."
Another standout Vikings defender, recently acquired All-Pro defensive
end Jared Allen, says his former Chiefs teammate is "one of my biggest
role models in the NFL, because of his work ethic. A lot of people don't
see that – they see Tony Gonzalez, superstar pretty boy, the guy who has
to be dressed just right and have his hair done before he does anything.
But the guy works – he's out there catching 100 balls a day; he never
drops a ball in practice and never lets up. He's an absolute machine."
For Gonzalez, it all goes back to nutrition. When he decided to eliminate
dairy and red meat from his largely organic diet – he still eats fish and
the occasional chicken dish – Gonzalez's peers were highly skeptical.
"They'd tell me, 'You're gonna get crushed. You're gonna get your ass
kicked,'" Gonzalez recalled. "They still think that, too, because I look
so skinny, but I weigh what I've always weighed."
Gonzalez is currently collaborating with a nutritionist on a book
detailing his dietary philosophies, though not necessarily from a vegan
perspective, that will tentatively be published toward the end of '08.
Gonzalez, who was so moved by scientific tome "The China Study" that he
met with author T. Colin Campbell, has spoken to children about the
benefits of maintaining proper nutritional habits, something on which he
wants to expand in the coming years.
In the meantime he is more than willing to lecture his teammates.
"Anything I eat, he'll tell me what's in it," Croyle said. "I tell him,
'Man, I'm from Alabama. I just eat. Leave me alone.' When I hear him ask,
'Could you cook that in olive oil instead of butter?' I say, 'Dude, if
you went to Alabama and said that stuff, they'd ask you to leave.'"
Said Edwards, the Chiefs' third-year coach: "Tony and (veteran linebacker
Donnie Edwards), they both get on each other. They're each on diets, but
different kind of diets, and they argue about which one is better. I walk
by and go, 'You guys are like two women.' "
Bowe, who caught 70 passes for 995 yards as a rookie in '07, is
well-acquainted with The Lecture. "At least twice a week he'll be like,
'Man, what are you eating?' " Bowe said. "I'll look down and say, 'Fried
chicken? Cheese?' and then he'll stop eating his big ol' salad and give
me the talk. He'll say, '1 or 13? You can eat like that and play one year
or eat like this play 13.' And you know what – I listen."
Perhaps, but Gonzalez isn't close to satisfied. As he paused to inspect a
piece of tortellini to ensure that no cheese was inside, the tight end
noted that two nights earlier in a preseason victory over the Bears, the
Chiefs had moved 81 yards in 16 plays in the game's first 8:45.
"I wasn't tired at all," Gonzalez said, "but Dwayne Bowe is out there
tapping his helmet saying, 'Come get me.' And he's in his second year! I
was like, 'Bowe, you're killing me.'"
Spoken like a true lifesaver.
Take it to the ATM
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Poignant Article and Accompanying Heartbreaking Photo Speak to the Truth of Diet and Famine: Meat Production and World Hunger
If you view the photo in the story and you don’t feel absolute sadness and sickness then there’s no hope for you anyway. If you view the photo with shock and an internal question of “what can I do to prevent this?” then there is hope for you.
I’ll let the article speak for it’s self, but it comes down to this: “Nutritious plant-based food that could feed humans instead goes to feed animals in a very inefficient use of resources…. The USDA and the United Nations state that using an acre of land to raise cattle yields 20 pounds of usable protein. If soybeans were grown instead, that same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein. Animal agriculture also wastes valuable water resources. Population biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 gallons of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 gallons.”
So, again, it comes down to selfish motives trumping a truly real problem. If one cares about other humans going hungry, then the reality exposed below should be taken to heart.
Before you read this, please see the photo at http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/71230
Article:
Feast or Famine: Meat Production and World Hunger
Mark Hawthorne
August 12, 2008
Hanging in the Newseum in Washington, DC, is a photo that is about as heart-rending an image as you´re likely to find anywhere. Taken by Kevin Carter for The New York Times in 1993, the photo depicts a starving Sudanese toddler crumpled on the ground, as if her stick-like legs could no longer bear the weight of her large head and swollen stomach, bloated from the malnourishment disease called kwashiorkor. While that alone is disturbing, what makes the tableau truly haunting is the vulture patiently waiting just a few feet behind the emaciated child. This photograph earned Carter a Pulitzer Prize and epitomized the toll famine is taking on developing countries around the world.
Tragically, of course, hunger has only become an even graver issue in the last 15 years -- a point made clear in a report released July 29 from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Recommending urgent action for long-term relief, the CSIS report calls for "a strategic U.S. approach to the global food crisis."
"Food crisis," however, implies some recent, short-term cause and effect, when in fact the "perfect storm" of rising energy costs, grain hoarding, government subsidies, drought and the demand for biofuels diverts attention from an entrenched industry and a remedy neither the CSIS nor many social activists want to contemplate: eliminating meat production.
"Whoa!" you say. "Don´t take away my steaks and cheeseburgers." Meat-eating is such an ingrained aspect of Western culture that proposing its demise, even to save the world, deserves some discussion. Fair enough.
The United Nations estimates that 854 million people -- nearly 13 percent of the world´s human population -- go hungry every day. And the problem is only getting worse. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN´s World Food Program, says, "The world´s misery index is rising."
So is our hunger for meat. As Gene Baur observes in "Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food," in 1950, 50,000 farms produced 630 million "meat" chickens in the United States. By 2005, the U.S. had 20,000 fewer farms -- but they were producing 8.7 billion chickens for meat. That´s a lot of chicken feed. In fact, every year industrial animal factories in the U.S. feed 157 million metric tons of legumes, cereal and vegetable protein to livestock, resulting in 28 million metric tons of animal protein for human consumption. Nutritious plant-based food that could feed humans instead goes to feed animals in a very inefficient use of resources.
Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, DC, states it succinctly: "People go hungry because much of arable land is used to grow feed grain for animals rather than people." He offers as one example the Ethiopian famine of 1984, which was fueled by the meat industry. "While people starved, Ethiopia was growing linseed cake, cottonseed cake and rapeseed meal for European livestock," he says. "Millions of acres of land in the developing world are used for this purpose. Tragically, 80 percent of the world´s hungry children live in countries with food surpluses which are fed to animals for consumption by the affluent."
The demand for meat has been especially dramatic in developing countries. "China´s meat consumption is increasing rapidly with income growth and urbanization, and it has more than doubled in the past generation," says Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. As a result, land once used to provide grains for humans now provides feed for chickens and pigs.
The USDA and the United Nations state that using an acre of land to raise cattle yields 20 pounds of usable protein. If soybeans were grown instead, that same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein. Animal agriculture also wastes valuable water resources. Population biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 gallons of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 gallons.
Here´s another way to look at it. According to the aid group Vegfam, a ten-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, ten people growing corn and only two people producing cattle. Reducing meat production by just ten percent in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people, estimates Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer. Sixty million people -- that´s the population of Great Britain, which, by the way, could support 250 million people on an all-vegetable diet.
Not surprisingly, the meat industry has a beef with these statistics. They say, for example, that the grains and soybeans fed to farmed animals are not of the high quality that humans would expect to eat (tell that to a starving child). Yet it´s difficult to dispute the fact that animal agribusiness uses land and water that could be used to grow plant foods for human consumption.
As Rifkin observes, it is ironic that millions of consumers in developed countries are dying from diseases of affluence such as heart attacks, diabetes and cancer, brought on by eating animal products, while the poor in the Third World are dying of diseases of poverty caused by being denied access to land to grow food grain for their families.
"We are long overdue for a global discussion on how to promote a diversified, high-protein, vegetarian diet for the human race," says Rifkin, whose book "Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture" addresses the moral paradoxes of eating meat.
Are those steaks and cheeseburgers really worth all the lives they take -- human and non-human? It would be naïve to think the world will go vegetarian overnight, or even in a few decades. But looking at Carter´s powerful photograph, I can´t help but believe we have been woefully mistaken in how we treat those with whom we share this planet. If we hope to bequeath a sustainable world to future generations, we´ll have to shake loose this meat-produced disaster and embrace a kinder way of living.
Mark Hawthorne is the author of "Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism" (www.strikingattheroots.com).
I’ll let the article speak for it’s self, but it comes down to this: “Nutritious plant-based food that could feed humans instead goes to feed animals in a very inefficient use of resources…. The USDA and the United Nations state that using an acre of land to raise cattle yields 20 pounds of usable protein. If soybeans were grown instead, that same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein. Animal agriculture also wastes valuable water resources. Population biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 gallons of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 gallons.”
So, again, it comes down to selfish motives trumping a truly real problem. If one cares about other humans going hungry, then the reality exposed below should be taken to heart.
Before you read this, please see the photo at http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/71230
Article:
Feast or Famine: Meat Production and World Hunger
Mark Hawthorne
August 12, 2008
Hanging in the Newseum in Washington, DC, is a photo that is about as heart-rending an image as you´re likely to find anywhere. Taken by Kevin Carter for The New York Times in 1993, the photo depicts a starving Sudanese toddler crumpled on the ground, as if her stick-like legs could no longer bear the weight of her large head and swollen stomach, bloated from the malnourishment disease called kwashiorkor. While that alone is disturbing, what makes the tableau truly haunting is the vulture patiently waiting just a few feet behind the emaciated child. This photograph earned Carter a Pulitzer Prize and epitomized the toll famine is taking on developing countries around the world.
Tragically, of course, hunger has only become an even graver issue in the last 15 years -- a point made clear in a report released July 29 from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Recommending urgent action for long-term relief, the CSIS report calls for "a strategic U.S. approach to the global food crisis."
"Food crisis," however, implies some recent, short-term cause and effect, when in fact the "perfect storm" of rising energy costs, grain hoarding, government subsidies, drought and the demand for biofuels diverts attention from an entrenched industry and a remedy neither the CSIS nor many social activists want to contemplate: eliminating meat production.
"Whoa!" you say. "Don´t take away my steaks and cheeseburgers." Meat-eating is such an ingrained aspect of Western culture that proposing its demise, even to save the world, deserves some discussion. Fair enough.
The United Nations estimates that 854 million people -- nearly 13 percent of the world´s human population -- go hungry every day. And the problem is only getting worse. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN´s World Food Program, says, "The world´s misery index is rising."
So is our hunger for meat. As Gene Baur observes in "Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food," in 1950, 50,000 farms produced 630 million "meat" chickens in the United States. By 2005, the U.S. had 20,000 fewer farms -- but they were producing 8.7 billion chickens for meat. That´s a lot of chicken feed. In fact, every year industrial animal factories in the U.S. feed 157 million metric tons of legumes, cereal and vegetable protein to livestock, resulting in 28 million metric tons of animal protein for human consumption. Nutritious plant-based food that could feed humans instead goes to feed animals in a very inefficient use of resources.
Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, DC, states it succinctly: "People go hungry because much of arable land is used to grow feed grain for animals rather than people." He offers as one example the Ethiopian famine of 1984, which was fueled by the meat industry. "While people starved, Ethiopia was growing linseed cake, cottonseed cake and rapeseed meal for European livestock," he says. "Millions of acres of land in the developing world are used for this purpose. Tragically, 80 percent of the world´s hungry children live in countries with food surpluses which are fed to animals for consumption by the affluent."
The demand for meat has been especially dramatic in developing countries. "China´s meat consumption is increasing rapidly with income growth and urbanization, and it has more than doubled in the past generation," says Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. As a result, land once used to provide grains for humans now provides feed for chickens and pigs.
The USDA and the United Nations state that using an acre of land to raise cattle yields 20 pounds of usable protein. If soybeans were grown instead, that same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein. Animal agriculture also wastes valuable water resources. Population biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 gallons of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 gallons.
Here´s another way to look at it. According to the aid group Vegfam, a ten-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, ten people growing corn and only two people producing cattle. Reducing meat production by just ten percent in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people, estimates Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer. Sixty million people -- that´s the population of Great Britain, which, by the way, could support 250 million people on an all-vegetable diet.
Not surprisingly, the meat industry has a beef with these statistics. They say, for example, that the grains and soybeans fed to farmed animals are not of the high quality that humans would expect to eat (tell that to a starving child). Yet it´s difficult to dispute the fact that animal agribusiness uses land and water that could be used to grow plant foods for human consumption.
As Rifkin observes, it is ironic that millions of consumers in developed countries are dying from diseases of affluence such as heart attacks, diabetes and cancer, brought on by eating animal products, while the poor in the Third World are dying of diseases of poverty caused by being denied access to land to grow food grain for their families.
"We are long overdue for a global discussion on how to promote a diversified, high-protein, vegetarian diet for the human race," says Rifkin, whose book "Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture" addresses the moral paradoxes of eating meat.
Are those steaks and cheeseburgers really worth all the lives they take -- human and non-human? It would be naïve to think the world will go vegetarian overnight, or even in a few decades. But looking at Carter´s powerful photograph, I can´t help but believe we have been woefully mistaken in how we treat those with whom we share this planet. If we hope to bequeath a sustainable world to future generations, we´ll have to shake loose this meat-produced disaster and embrace a kinder way of living.
Mark Hawthorne is the author of "Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism" (www.strikingattheroots.com).
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer Amanda Beard Shows Courage and Raises Awareness to the Cruelty of Fur via Photo Shoot in China
I’ve always said that the people I respect the most are those that use their status to actually do something good, even in the face of controversy. This is especially the case with Amanda Beard. In an amazing move, she actually went against the draconian Chinese police and literally avoided their intervention by moving the shoot to a different location.
In a time such as now, and in a place such as China, where control of every movement is the norm, I fully applaud Amanda Beard for her courage in exposing the horrors of fur.
As stated in another article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/7704052, she is aware of the horrible cruelty of fur. "What happens with animals when their skin is ripped from their bodies when they are still alive, it's heartbreaking for me," she said. The Olympics provided a great platform for making those views known, she added.
For more on the horrors of fur, please visit www.furisdead.com
Please also check out her website, amandabeard.net, for her thoughts and a link to a petition.
You can see the photo at http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/08/06/
bears-adds-animal-rights-to-olympic-agenda/
Article:
Amanda Beard Adds Animal Rights to Olympic Agenda
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/08/06/
bears-adds-animal-rights-to-olympic-agenda/
Just when you thought that the Olympics couldn’t handle any more controversies, here comes one that we can all get behind. Despite security concerns, US Swimmer Amanda Beard debuted her brand new PETA ad at the Athlete’s Village in Beijing.
“I have seen a lot of the videos, and (it) brings me to tears,” the four-time Olympian was quoted saying in a PETA statement. “What (some people) think is pretty is actually something that’s very gruesome and gross.”
The photo was scheduled to be unveiled at an indoor press conference but officials feared for Beard’s safety. Undaunted, she just took the whole thing outside.
I’d be happy to tell you more about her anti-fur resume, but you’re probably just looking at the picture anyway, Check out her website, amandabeard.net, for her thoughts and a link to an animal rights petition.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Update: Ridiculous and Unnecessary Live Animal Pig Lab by Covidien to Take Place: How You Can Help Stop It
A couple updates. For one, it SEEMS that the event was not to take place at the hotel. I'm still not fully certain of this, but that's the information I received.
Also, I have been told that the event was canceled. Again, not sure if we can trust a group like Covidien that has been cited with past animal cruelty, but that's the news. I've left the information about the event below.
NOTE: I've added more information below in addition to what was posted yesterday. You'll see new names to contact in addition to the hotel. Very easy actions that should take no more than 10 minutes.
Yes, I’m telling you the truth. This will actually take place in a hotel! The ridiculousness and cruelty never end. Please read below and see how you can easily speak up abut this issue. Turns out that the group sponsoring the event, is Covidien Electrosurgery, a company known for controversy in regard to vivisection.
Action Alerts & Updates
Stop Cruel Pig Lab
August 4, 2008
On August 7, the Omni Interlocken Resort is hosting an event in which pigs will be killed and sacrificed in a "Hands-On Pig Lab" to demonstrate electrosurgical tools.
The Pig Lab is being devised by Covidien Electrosurgery, a company that performs laboratory tests on animals in order to market its surgical tools.
Formerly known as ValleyLab, Covidien has a history of controversy, including an incident that prompted the University of Colorado at Denver to ban all non-research vivisection in 2007.
The August 7 event advertises, "Procedures that will be performed include: ureteral dissection, pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy, repair of simulated bowel and bladder injury, bowel resection, ureteral re-anasomosis, and liver resection."
In other words, pigs will be mutilated and cut apart at the August 7 so that Covidien can hawk its wares to buyers.
You Can Help
Please contact Covidien Electosurgery, the Pig Lab organizers, and urge them to remove live animals from their demonstration.
Bryan Hanson
President, Covidien Electrosurgery
ph: 303-530-2300
fax: 303-530-6285
e-mail: bryan.hanson@covidien.com
2. Politely contact the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists and urge them to not promote such live animal labs.
ph: 312-235-4060
fax: 312-235-4059
e-mail: sgo@sgo.org and jenna.cummins@sgo.org
3. Please contact your federal representative and urge him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 2193– legislation that will amend the Animal Welfare Act to prohibit the use of animals for marketing medical devices. You can find out who represents you by going to http://action.farmsanctuary.org/legislatorlookup. The sponsors of this bill are Reps. Steve Israel (D-NY) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) and if your member of Congress has already become a cosponsor, please thank them!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Web Page from Group Shows Video and Photo Proof of Torture Primates Endure in a Variety of Settings: Can’t Argue with Images
Don’t be afraid to face the truth. View the videos and pictures that serve as proof to what occurs on a daily basis.
Again, that page is http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/monkey.html#abuse
Friday, July 18, 2008
Army Turns to Outdated and Cruel Practice: Will Shoot Live Pigs in Gunshot Wound Exercise
Need I really comment on just how ridiculous this is? And, of course, overly cruel.
Article:
Army to shoot live pigs for medical drill
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080718/ap_on_re_us/army_pigs
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 18, 4:27 AM ET
HONOLULU - The Army says it's critical to saving the lives of wounded soldiers. Animal-rights activists call the training cruel and outdated.
Despite opposition by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Army is moving forward with its plan to shoot live pigs and treat their gunshot wounds in a medical trauma exercise Friday at Schofield Barracks for soldiers headed to Iraq.
Maj. Derrick Cheng, spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division, said the training is being conducted under a U.S. Department of Agriculture license and the careful supervision of veterinarians and a military Animal Care and Use Committee.
"It's to teach Army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first few hours of their injury," Cheng said.
The soldiers are learning emergency lifesaving skills needed on the battlefield when there are no medics, doctors or facility nearby, he said.
PETA, however, said there are more advanced and humane options available, including high-tech human simulators. In a letter, PETA urged the Army to end all use of animals, "as the overwhelming majority of North American medical schools have already done."
"Shooting and maiming pigs is outdated as Civil War rifles," said Kathy Guillermo, director of PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department.
The Norfolk, Va.-based group demanded the exercise be halted after it was notified by a "distraught" soldier from the unit, who disclosed a plan to shoot the animals with M4 carbines and M16 rifles.
"There's absolutely no reason why they have to shoot live pigs," PETA spokeswoman Holly Beal said.
The bloody exercise, she said, is difficult for soldiers because they sometimes associate the animals with their own pet dogs.
Cheng said the exercise is conducted in a controlled environment with the pigs anesthetized the entire time. He had "no doubt whatsoever" in the effectiveness of the instruction, which he called the best option available at the base.
"Those alternative methods just can't replicate what the troops are going to face when we use live-tissue training," he said. "What we're doing is unique to what the soldiers are going to actually experience."
Cheng didn't have details about the number of pigs, how they were acquired or the weapons involved in the training.
The soldiers being trained are with the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, which is deploying to Iraq this year.
"We understand (PETA's) concerns and point of view. At the same, the Army is committed to providing the soldiers with the best training possible," Cheng said.
Disappointed at the Army's decision, PETA on Thursday instructed its 2 million members to inundate the Army with calls and e-mails.
"We're hoping at the 11th hour here that we can have this stopped. We have to hang on to hope," Beal said.
PETA believes the U.S. military has conducted similar training at other bases using pigs and goats.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The European Commission, the Executive Branch of the European Union, will Meet to Discuss Prohibiting the Import of Seal Products
It’s not hard to see what such a monumental move would lead to. In short – the significant decrease in the horrible practice of baby seal slaughter from Canada and Namibia.
So, let’s hope compassion rules over the meeting. But, as with anything in which money is involved, don’t hope too much.
The group that is tireless in fighting this unfortunate spectacle of human cruelty is Sea Shepherd.
To follow their campaign and to support them in ending this ridiculously cruel and unnecessary annual slaughter fest, visit their site at: http://www.seashepherd.org/seals2008/
Article:
Sealers brace for impact on industry as EU discusses import ban
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iAnsH8B0TqDnJX7r6yiPhPnmN8PA
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — For animal welfare activists, this week could mark the first step to ending the largest marine mammal slaughter in the world.
For Canada's commercial seal hunters, it could represent the triumph of emotion over reason.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, is expected to discuss legislation Wednesday that aims to prohibit the import of seal products.
What's decided in the Berlaymont, an ornate 14-storey office tower in Brussels, Belgium, could have a far-reaching impact on outports throughout Atlantic Canada.
"It's the epitome of hypocrisy," said Jim Winter, a long-time advocate of the sealing industry.
"It just goes to prove that the European parliamentarians and the European bureaucracy are owned by the animal rights groups, multimillion-dollar, American-based organizations that have been spreading propaganda in Europe now for decades."
His views are echoed by many sealers who accuse both levels of government of lacking the political will to defend their centuries-old industry and way of life.
"Our own governments have let us down immensely," said Jack Troake, who has hunted seals off the coast of Twillingate, N.L., since 1951.
"If the ban goes in place, it's going to be interesting to see what Canada is going to do, to see what kind of a stand they'll take. I suspect it's not going to be nothing."
A spokesman for federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said the minister would not comment until the EU votes on the proposed ban.
Trevor Taylor, acting fisheries minister in Newfoundland and Labrador, has called on the federal government to launch trade sanctions against Europe if the EU approves of a ban. He has complained that Ottawa has remained silent while animal rights activists in Europe rallied support for a ban.
"At the end of the day, the buck stops at the federal government level," Taylor said.
Premier Danny Williams and Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik wrote the prime minister in April, calling on him to ban the use of the hakapik from the annual hunt in the interests of defending its image.
Taylor, himself a sealer before entering politics, said his province has yet to hear a response.
In a brief statement on Friday after the federal government was criticized by Newfoundland and Labrador for not speaking up, Hearn said the federal government has shown its commitment to sealers on the international stage.
"We will continue to lead with a strong voice and strong actions on behalf of the sealers and the sealing industry," he said.
Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also said he raised the seal hunt with European Commission president Jose Barroso, and told him that EU member nations should carefully consider any measure that would restrict the sale of seal products within their borders.
Over the past two years, the federal and provincial governments have joined forces to lobby the EU in the hope of thwarting any legislation that would close its borders to Canadian seal products.
"Big deal," retorts Winter. "What did you achieve?"
In January 2007, the province hailed the European Commission for refusing to draft a prohibition on seal products. But since then momentum has shifted in favour of animal rights organizations that have waged a decades-long fight to end the commercial seal trade.
The seal hunt, arguably the most politically and emotionally charged issue in Newfoundland and Labrador, did not always arouse such public interest.
Its roots run deep in the province, where the seal was once second only to cod as the most economically vital species to catch.
Fishermen have caught seals on the heaving ice floes of the North Atlantic since the 16th century. After the advent of the steam vessel in the 1800s - an era nostalgically known as "the Great Days of Sealing" - the seal hunt accounted for about a third of the province's exports, with an annual harvest often exceeding 500,000 seals.
But by the 1970s, animal rights groups focused their attention on ending the hunt, gaining celebrity support in the process.
In 1983, after public pressure grew, Europe banned the import of products from harp seals up to two weeks old - known as whitecoats - and hooded seals up to 16 months of age - called bluebacks.
Ottawa prohibited the hunt of those animals four years later, delivering a blow to some sealers for several years. But the industry rebounded in the 1990s, and with it so did the annual quota.
In the past three years, the total allowable catch has hovered between 270,000 and 335,000 seals.
"The seal hunt was a part of our history and I think it needs to be put in the history books where it belongs," said Rebecca Aldworth, a spokeswoman for the Humane Society of the United States.
For 15 years, Aldworth, a Newfoundlander, has campaigned for the end of the commercial seal hunt.
With a ban possibly in sight, the federal government should offer sealers a compensation package to ease their transition out of a dying industry, Aldworth said.
"It's a tremendous feeling to know that a solution is finally within reach and there may be hope for the seals next year," she said.
Some fishermen say they depend on the seal hunt for up to 35 per cent of their annual income, but that can fluctuate from year to year depending on a host of factors including quota allocation, the market for seals and the price of other fish stocks.
But according to a survey conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in 2004, considered to be a typical year for seal pelt prices, 17 per cent of sealing enterprises earned more than 20 per cent of their revenue from the hunt.
Troake puts it another way. He says during peak seasons, some crew members can take in $10,000 to $12,000 for 10 days of work.
"I doubt you're making that kind of money," Troake said in an interview.
But he said the hunt is also significant because it is the first harvest of the year, offering fishermen an opportunity to earn much-needed income after months of unemployment in the winter.
The proposal to ban seal products has not been made public, but EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas has indicated its general thrust is to prohibit the import of products from seals that the EU determines have been killed inhumanely.
Any legislation would have to be unanimously approved by the EU's 27 commissioners. It would then go to the European Parliament and the EU presidency, France, to decide how to proceed with the matter.
It's difficult to determine the precise parameters of any ban the EU could adopt.
Rob Cahill, executive director of the Canadian Fur Institute, said the impact of a ban depends on the precise wording of the legislation. But he acknowledged that any ban would have a detrimental effect on the industry.
"Any ban, any sort of tainting of a product anywhere in the world, especially in a market the size and influence of Europe, is a negative influence," Cahill said.
"Many of the trends that are established and are in demand in Russia are established in Europe and if Europe is not allowing the seal products to come in, it could influence fashion in a negative way."
Another major concern for the sealing industry is that a ban would close critical shipment points such as Rotterdam, Holland and Hamburg, Germany, thereby forcing the seal trade to extend shipping routes to the bigger markets of Norway, Russia and China.
"If Europe is going to be able to pass legislation that is not based on good, sound science or good fact, then that is setting a bad precedent that we will fight right to the end," Cahill said.
eBay Finally Does Good Move: Bans Sale of Cat and Dog Pelts in Austria, Germany, Switzerland: Soon May Extend to France, Italy and Spain: Why Not US?
It’s about time! Can you imagine that it took this long to do such an obvious move? Yet, it stops short, as is stated below, “a move to do the same in the U.S., where eBay was founded, is being considered…”
So why would you not also extend the ban to the US? No sense at all.
Article:
eBay bans sale of cat and dog pelts in Germany, other European countries
The online marketplace eBay plans to ban the sale of dog and cat pelts on its German-language Web sites starting Tuesday.
Alexander Witt, a spokesman for eBay in Germany, said the ban was in response to protests from animal rights groups that believe clothing and other goods claiming to contain rabbit or mink fur are actually made illegally from cats and dogs.
"We want to forbid these dealers from our marketplace," he said, adding that the ban would encompass eBay's sites in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Witt said the ban would be extended to France, Italy and Spain, with more European countries to follow. A previous ban is already in place in the United Kingdom, Witt said.
A move to do the same in the U.S., where eBay was founded, is being considered, he said.
"That is a conversation, but no decision has been made yet," Witt said.
Peter Pueschel, a program leader with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in a statement that he welcomed eBay's decision as an important step in animal protection.
"We hope that others will follow worldwide, and that such products will be taken off the market," Pueschel said.
The online marketplace does not allow the sale of live animals on its Web site. Rules governing the sale of plants vary widely from country to country, Witt said, often depending on customs regulations.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
PCRM Asks for Your Help Ending Live Animal Labs at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), the Only Military Medical School
As you’ll read below, the military (not surprisingly) uses live animals in labs in the medical school. As you’ll also read at http://www.pcrm.org/resch/meded/index.html many of the top medical schools in the country have long abandoned live animal labs. Please read on and see how you can easily make voice against the practice of live animal labs.
Ask the Military to End Live Animal Use in Medical Student Courses
We need your help to end the use of live animals for medical student training at U.S. military facilities. Live animals are used and killed in medical student courses at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Md., and Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. PCRM filed a petition for enforcement with the Department of Defense (DOD) on July 2, 2008, asking for an end to this animal use. The Washington Post recently covered PCRM’s campaign.
USUHS is the country’s only military medical school. The teaching methods it uses impact medical student training at military facilities across the country. There are at least five live animal labs at USUHS. According to the school’s Web site and other documents obtained by PCRM, they include:
* A live pig lab offered to third-year medical students as part of a surgery rotation (this lab also takes place at Wilford Hall). At the end of this lab, the pigs are killed.
* A physiology lab using live pigs, offered to first-year medical students. At the end of this lab, the pigs are killed.
* An intubation lab using live ferrets offered to third-year medical students (also offered at Wilford Hall). Ferrets can suffer fatal injuries during these labs.
* A parasitology lab using live gerbils, offered to students as a means of studying the disease filariasis. For this lab, the gerbils are killed.
* A medical zoology lab using live snakes.
Please call, e-mail, fax, or write a letter to USUHS president Charles L. Rice, M.D., and the dean of the medical school Larry W. Laughlin, M.D., Ph.D., and politely ask them to end the school’s live animal lab program. Being polite is the most effective way to help these animals. Send an automatic e-mail>
Charles L. Rice, M.D.
President
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
4301 Jones Bridge Rd.
Bethesda, MD 20814-4799
Phone: 301-295-3013
Fax: 301-295-1960
president@usuhs.mil
Larry W. Laughlin, M.D., Ph.D.
Dean
F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
4301 Jones Bridge Rd.
Bethesda, MD 20814-4799
Phone: 301-295-3017
Fax: 301-295-3542
llaughlin@usuhs.mil
A DOD directive renewed in 2005 mandates that nonanimal alternatives be used if they exist. There are nonanimal teaching methods that achieve the educational goals for all five animal labs mentioned above. Many of these alternatives are currently in use at the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center, a state-of-the-art simulation center operated by USUHS.
More than 90 percent of U.S. medical schools have eliminated live animal labs from their curricula altogether. Innovations in medical simulation technology, availability of alternatives, increased awareness of ethical concerns, and a growing acknowledgement that medical training must be human-focused have all facilitated this shift. Only eight out of 154 allopathic and osteopathic medical schools in the United States still use live animals in their curricula.
Learn more about live animal labs and what you can do to help end them. If you have any questions, please contact me at rmerkley@pcrm.org or 202-686-2210, ext. 336. Thanks so much for your help!
Best regards,
sig_ryan_merkley
Ryan Merkley
Research Program Coordinator
Monday, July 07, 2008
Horribly Cruel Practice of Eating Dogs Very Much Still Alive: Cruel Asian Counties Mostly to Blame
First, I’m sorry to have to post this, but this blog is about exposing the truth. Unfortunately, as you’ll read, Dogs are still eaten in many areas of Asia, including China, South Korea, North Korea, Vietnam.
I’ve posted the most telling quotes from the story below. You really won’t believe the horrible cruelty behind eating dogs. Not only do they eat them, but they torture them prior to death. I say it once again, Asian countries are probably the cruelest on Earth, especially china.
As is the case with practices such as the bull run in Spain, tradition and practice do not excuse cruel behaviors. A great writing that disucess this notion can be found at http://www.sosanimalslaunge.com/changing-tradition-or-change-is-not-always-a-bad-thing-51.html
Here are a few telling quotes form the story below:
Various breeds are reared but many farmers prefer St Bernards for their rapid growth, bulk and flavour.
Farmed dogs endure short, cramped, miserable lives. Brutal death awaits them. Many are said to be tortured or bled to death slowly. This results in adrenaline-rich meat which, according to folklore, makes men who eat it more virile.
Dog meat dealers also exploit the myth that eating dogs increases male virility. Over two million dogs are killed yearly on the basis of this widespread belief.
When preparing the dog for food, it is said that the fur may be burned off with a blowtorch, often while the animal is still alive. Many dogs are subjected to a cruel, slow death due to the superstitious belief that the more the animal suffers, the better the meat tastes.
Despite South Korea’s economic success, this cruel practice is still carried out till this day.
Article:
Appetite for dog meat
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/
7/7/lifefocus/21710634&sec=lifefocus
By MAJORIE CHIEW
Where in Asia do people eat dog meat?
China
THE Chinese are said to have eaten dogs for at least 7,000 years. Dog meat is said to be favoured for its flavour and supposed health benefits, including the belief that it warms the body during winter, according to the website One.
The report states that even today, dogs are eaten throughout China, except in Hong Kong where eating dog meat has been illegal since 1950.
A South Korean woman cutting dog meat for students from France in one of the best restaurants in Seoul, as part of a course on Korean culture.
In recent times, the bulk of dog meat has been produced commercially by dog breeding farms. Various breeds are reared but many farmers prefer St Bernards for their rapid growth, bulk and flavour. Today, however, they appear to have fallen from favour because of their substantial feeding costs.
Farmed dogs endure short, cramped, miserable lives. Brutal death awaits them. Many are said to be tortured or bled to death slowly. This results in adrenaline-rich meat which, according to folklore, makes men who eat it more virile.
China’s clean-up of Beijing ahead of the summer Olympic Games has also resulted in the closure of many dog meat restaurants. But in cities across China, roadside restaurants specialise in dishes made from every conceivable part of the dog, including the head, legs, testicles and innards.
South Korea
The practice of dog-eating may have originated during times of famine when people killed and ate their dogs (friendsofdogs.net/koreandogs.html). However, this practice was viewed with disgust by the community.
Those who eat dogs cite superstitious beliefs to justify their acts. Some claim that keeping an old dog brings disaster to the household and a woman who is too fond of dogs may become infertile.
Dog meat dealers also exploit the myth that eating dogs increases male virility. Over two million dogs are killed yearly on the basis of this widespread belief.
When preparing the dog for food, it is said that the fur may be burned off with a blowtorch, often while the animal is still alive. Many dogs are subjected to a cruel, slow death due to the superstitious belief that the more the animal suffers, the better the meat tastes.
Despite South Korea’s economic success, this cruel practice is still carried out till this day.
Vietnam The dog-eating custom, which developed as a result of poverty, originated from then-North Vietnam. In the north, dogs were the cheapest source of protein. As the people didn’t have anything to feed them, the dogs became scavengers and were later picked up off the streets.
The owner of Ho Chi Minh City’s thriving Hai Mo dog restaurant insists that the dogs served at the restaurant are not pets or strays, but are from breeding farms in the countryside.
The restaurant’s menu features 10 dishes, including steamed dog, minced and seasoned dog wrapped in leaves, fried intestines, spare ribs and fried thighs. A sour dog curry with fermented wine is served with noodles for variety while the most expensive dish is bamboo-shoot dog soup.
Though dog-eating has come under fire in South Korea, where dog restaurants were officially banned during the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and criticised by Fifa during the 2002 World Cup, the practice of eating dogs has gone unchallenged in Vietnam. The country has no animal welfare organisation and no laws to protect animals from cruelty. Opinions on dog-eating are divided although many Vietnamese see it as unsavoury.
The south’s plentiful food supply and Buddhist influence will probably ensure that dog-eating will never become popular.
From Tragedy and Cruelty to Hope: Pit bulls Rescued from Michael Vick's Fighting Hell Show Progress in Rehabilitation
What really sticks out here is the realty behind these dogs. As you’ll see by the following two quotes, only 1 was deemed to vicious to save. So, the other 48 were dogs worth saving. Also, I really like the Judge’s order to evaluate each dog individually. He was aware the stereotyping each dog is illogical and wrong. Thankfully he had a brain and a heart.
“Instead, the court gave Vick's dogs a second chance. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ordered each dog to be evaluated individually, not judged by the stereotype of the breed. And he ordered Vick to pony up close to $1 million to pay for the lifelong care of those that could be saved.
Of the 49 pit bulls animal behavior experts evaluated in the fall, only one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized. (Another was euthanized because it was sick and in pain.)”
What you’ll also notice from the pictures is just how loving these dogs naturally are. It’s only thugs and scum like Michael Vick who make them into “fighters.” Also, this story does justice to looking at the breed in an objective light.
Article:
Saving Michael Vick's dogs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25564825/
Pit bulls rescued from fighting ring show progress in rehabilitation effort
Leslie Nuccio, left, holds up Hector, a pit bull that was seized from Michael Vick's property, as he meets Johnny, another dog taken from Vick, held by Jennifer, right, during a good citizen-dog training class in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008.
By Brigid Schulte
updated 7:33 a.m. MT, Mon., July. 7, 2008
When football superstar Michael Vick pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to run a dogfighting operation, we knew he had kept about 50 pit bulls on his 15-acre property in rural Surry County, Va., on a road named Moonlight. We knew the dogs were chained to car axles near wooden hovels for shelter. And we knew the dogs that didn't fight were beaten, shot, hanged, electrocuted or drowned.
But we didn't know their names. Headlines described the nameless dogs as "menacing." Some animal rights groups called for the "ticking time bombs" to be euthanized as soon as Vick's case was closed and they were no longer valuable as evidence. That's what typically happens after a dogfighting bust.
Instead, the court gave Vick's dogs a second chance. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ordered each dog to be evaluated individually, not judged by the stereotype of the breed. And he ordered Vick to pony up close to $1 million to pay for the lifelong care of those that could be saved.
Of the 49 pit bulls animal behavior experts evaluated in the fall, only one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized. (Another was euthanized because it was sick and in pain.)
More than a year after being confiscated from Vick's property, Leo, a tan, muscular pit bull, dons a colorful clown collar and visits cancer patients as a certified therapy dog in California. Hector, who bears deep scars on his chest and legs, recently was adopted and is about to start training for national flying disc competitions in Minnesota. Teddles takes orders from a 2-year-old. Gracie is a couch potato in Richmond who lives with cats and sleeps with four other dogs.
Of the 47 surviving dogs, 25 were placed directly in foster homes, and a handful have been or are being adopted. Twenty-two were deemed potentially aggressive toward other dogs and were sent to an animal sanctuary in Utah. Some, after intensive retraining, are expected to move on to foster care and eventual adoption.
Understanding the breed
How can this be? Reports of gruesome pit bull maulings make international news. Pit bulls are one of the few canine breeds thought to be so dangerous that they are banned in some places.
The answer, says Frank McMillan, a veterinarian who is studying the recovery of some of the Vick dogs, is that we don't know. "We've assumed all pits are the same, and we've never let this many fighting dogs live long enough to find out. There are hardly ever studies, because these animals don't survive," he said.
Classic fighting pit bulls, part bulldog and part terrier, were bred to be friendly to people and aggressive with other dogs. Their ability to withstand great pain and keep fighting is a quality prized as "gameness."
But with an explosion in urban street fighting, some pit bulls are being trained to go after animals and people. Evaluators said that when they walked into the kennels where the Vick dogs were being held in the fall, they weren't sure what to expect.
"I thought, if we see four or five dogs that we can save, I'll be happy," said Randy Lockwood, an animal behaviorist with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "If we had to euthanize the majority, then we could at least say we'd tried."
Instead, they found dogs with behaviors that ran the gamut. Some would lick human hands but lunge at other dogs. Some almost immediately went into play mode with other dogs, wagging their tails and crouching down on their front legs in a play bow. "Some actually perked up and developed more confidence only around other dogs," said Rebecca Huss, a law professor and animal law expert who was appointed by the court to oversee the evaluations and determine the dogs' fates. "They actually seemed happier around other dogs."
Some of the dogs were scarred. All were sick and malnourished. Once it became clear that the dogs might be allowed to live, evaluators gave them names.
Iggy, Zippy, Cherry Garcia, Hazel, Little Red, Uba, Squeaker, Big Fella, Handsome Dan, Ginger, Ernie, Alf.
"One of the things that struck us immediately was that these dogs were more like the dogs we see rescued from animal hoarding situations," Lockwood said. "Their main problem was not aggressiveness but isolation." Loud noises startled them. A light coming on made them jump.
All that the dogs seemed to know about people was that they were to be feared.
Witness Sweet Pea, a compact cinnamon-colored dog with a pleat of wrinkles above her eyes who was hiding under the desk of the Frederick animal acupuncturist trying to treat her for anxiety. Fred Wolfson dimmed the office lights. Soft Native American flute music wafted through wall speakers. Wolfson held out his hand for Sweet Pea to sniff. When she would not budge, he sat on the floor and took his bowl of needles to her.
Sweet Pea began to pant.
Video
Dog’s new life
June 17: A pit bull rescued from Michael Vick's dogfighting stable finds a new life in California. KNTV’s Marianne Favro reports.
NBC News Channel
"She pants when she's nervous," said Stacy Leipold, who volunteers with the Baltimore-based animal rescue organization Recycled Love and is fostering Sweet Pea in her home. "I thought for a very long time she was just a hot dog."
As Wolfson rubbed the dog's head and felt along her spine for the proper relaxation points, Leipold explained that Sweet Pea was little more than a lump when she came to her home in December. She rarely left her crate. If she did, it was to hide under a desk. She had to be carried outside to do her business. Over time, with Leipold meticulously tracking her behavior, Sweet Pea began to pace in a circle and wag her tail when she realized it was time for a walk. And she seemed to take comfort in Leipold's other dogs, a Jack Russell terrier and a Great Dane. Still, one of her favorite places is the landing on the basement stairs. That way, up or down, she has two routes of escape.
Five needles and 12 minutes later, Sweet Pea stopped trembling.
Jane, Homicide, Jade, Bandit, Miami, Mike-Mike, Big Boy, Magic, Tiny, Too Short, Seal, Chico.
Sweet Pea is not what Vick, who is serving a 23-month prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kan., called this dog. We don't know what he called her, or whether he had a name for her at all. One of the few names that appeared in court papers was Jane, one of the first pit bulls Vick bought in 2001 to start Bad Newz Kennels. The Humane Society of the United States found results for some of Bad Newz's dogfights in underground magazines. They show that Vick's Homicide lost to Maniac. Vick's Bandit lost to Red Rover. And Vick's Mike-Mike lost, after fighting for three hours and five minutes, to Dragon. Out of 10 fights recorded, Vick's dogs lost seven.
But no one knows who most of these dogs are, or whether they are even alive. Jane is. She is now called Georgia. Her jaw is crooked, having been broken at least once, and her tongue sticks out. She is covered in scars, and her teeth have all been pulled. By court order, she will live out her days in Dogtown, at the Best Friends Animal Society's 3,700-acre sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. So will Lucas, a tail-wagging, 60-pound dog who evaluators suspect was Vick's grand champion fighter.
They are two of 22 dogs who were deemed worth saving but who showed enough animal aggression that they could be held only in a tightly controlled sanctuary. At Best Friends', McMillan, the veterinarian, has developed a "personalized emotional rehabilitation plan" for each dog and measures how they exhibit such traits as aggression, fearfulness, calmness or friendliness. True to their "people soft" nature, all but two of the Vick dogs are on "green collar," meaning they are open and friendly to human visitors. About nine have begun to have supervised play dates with other Vick dogs.
The remaining 25 Vick dogs were given to seven animal rescue organizations across the country, which placed them in experienced foster homes. A number have since passed the American Kennel Club's 10-part Canine Good Citizenship test. Many are in the process of being adopted.
Sharon Cornett, a member of the Richmond Animal League's board, agreed to foster Gracie and is now adopting her. "I adore this dog. She is just a love bucket. She loves people and animals unconditionally," Cornett said. She has four other dogs. All of them sleep together at night. "Gracie is not what the public perception has been of a fighting pit bull."
Still, Cornett and other pit bull rescuers say that they never leave the dogs unsupervised with other animals. And rehabilitating a fighting pit is not for everyone: You have to know what you're doing, they say.
'No simple answers'
John Goodwin, a dogfighting expert with the Humane Society and a proponent of euthanizing fight dogs, is skeptical of the emerging reports of the Vick dog recoveries. Fighting is in their blood, he said. Retrievers retrieve. Shepherds herd. And fighting pit bulls fight. "The behavior is bred into them," he said. "These groups are not rehabilitating these dogs. They're training them to behave in a more socialized manner. But these pit bulls should never be left alone with other dogs, because you never know when that instinct to fight another dog is going to surface."
Tim Racer, one of the founders of Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls (BAD RAP), who, before taking in 10 Vick dogs, had evaluated and retrained 400 pit bulls over the past 10 years, disagrees. Yes, there are pit bulls who have fought, attacked and mauled other animals and people. But so have other breeds. And incidents almost always have been traced to negligent or abusive owners, he said.
Racer said it is not surprising that many of the dogs get along so well with other dogs. Just as the urge to fight is in their blood, so, too, is the need to get along. "You have 150 years of man trying to produce an aggressive dog. But you have tens of thousands of years of Mother Nature preceding that," he said. "Dogs are pack animals. They survived because of their pack. . . . It's hard-wired into their genes that they do no harm to each other."
Indeed, long before a glowering pit bull came to symbolize tough guy vogue, pit bulls, or American Staffordshire terriers, were the all-American dog. In the Civil War era, they were known as nurse dogs because they were so good with children. Pit bulls sold war bonds, earned medals in World War I and starred in such TV shows as "The Little Rascals."
All the more reason, Racer and other rescuers say, to look at each dog individually. "Every thoroughbred is not a great racehorse. Every pit bull, even if it's of fighting stock, is not an aggressive dogfighter," said Steve Zawistowski, an animal behaviorist with the ASPCA who helped assess the Vick dogs. "There are no simple answers."
As with any celebrity case, the legacy of the Vick bust has been far-reaching. Dogfighting raids across the country have tripled in the past year. Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been trained to detect the signs of underground rings. And, in some cases, officials have asked pit bull behavior experts to evaluate seized fighting dogs rather than automatically euthanizing them. But most dogfighters don't have the kind of money that Vick did. So even those deemed worthy of a second chance don't always get one.
Charlie, Denzel, Halle, Oscar, Sox, Ray, Frodo, Aretha.
They, it turns out, are the lucky ones.
“Instead, the court gave Vick's dogs a second chance. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ordered each dog to be evaluated individually, not judged by the stereotype of the breed. And he ordered Vick to pony up close to $1 million to pay for the lifelong care of those that could be saved.
Of the 49 pit bulls animal behavior experts evaluated in the fall, only one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized. (Another was euthanized because it was sick and in pain.)”
What you’ll also notice from the pictures is just how loving these dogs naturally are. It’s only thugs and scum like Michael Vick who make them into “fighters.” Also, this story does justice to looking at the breed in an objective light.
Article:
Saving Michael Vick's dogs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25564825/
Pit bulls rescued from fighting ring show progress in rehabilitation effort
Leslie Nuccio, left, holds up Hector, a pit bull that was seized from Michael Vick's property, as he meets Johnny, another dog taken from Vick, held by Jennifer, right, during a good citizen-dog training class in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008.
By Brigid Schulte
updated 7:33 a.m. MT, Mon., July. 7, 2008
When football superstar Michael Vick pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to run a dogfighting operation, we knew he had kept about 50 pit bulls on his 15-acre property in rural Surry County, Va., on a road named Moonlight. We knew the dogs were chained to car axles near wooden hovels for shelter. And we knew the dogs that didn't fight were beaten, shot, hanged, electrocuted or drowned.
But we didn't know their names. Headlines described the nameless dogs as "menacing." Some animal rights groups called for the "ticking time bombs" to be euthanized as soon as Vick's case was closed and they were no longer valuable as evidence. That's what typically happens after a dogfighting bust.
Instead, the court gave Vick's dogs a second chance. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ordered each dog to be evaluated individually, not judged by the stereotype of the breed. And he ordered Vick to pony up close to $1 million to pay for the lifelong care of those that could be saved.
Of the 49 pit bulls animal behavior experts evaluated in the fall, only one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized. (Another was euthanized because it was sick and in pain.)
More than a year after being confiscated from Vick's property, Leo, a tan, muscular pit bull, dons a colorful clown collar and visits cancer patients as a certified therapy dog in California. Hector, who bears deep scars on his chest and legs, recently was adopted and is about to start training for national flying disc competitions in Minnesota. Teddles takes orders from a 2-year-old. Gracie is a couch potato in Richmond who lives with cats and sleeps with four other dogs.
Of the 47 surviving dogs, 25 were placed directly in foster homes, and a handful have been or are being adopted. Twenty-two were deemed potentially aggressive toward other dogs and were sent to an animal sanctuary in Utah. Some, after intensive retraining, are expected to move on to foster care and eventual adoption.
Understanding the breed
How can this be? Reports of gruesome pit bull maulings make international news. Pit bulls are one of the few canine breeds thought to be so dangerous that they are banned in some places.
The answer, says Frank McMillan, a veterinarian who is studying the recovery of some of the Vick dogs, is that we don't know. "We've assumed all pits are the same, and we've never let this many fighting dogs live long enough to find out. There are hardly ever studies, because these animals don't survive," he said.
Classic fighting pit bulls, part bulldog and part terrier, were bred to be friendly to people and aggressive with other dogs. Their ability to withstand great pain and keep fighting is a quality prized as "gameness."
But with an explosion in urban street fighting, some pit bulls are being trained to go after animals and people. Evaluators said that when they walked into the kennels where the Vick dogs were being held in the fall, they weren't sure what to expect.
"I thought, if we see four or five dogs that we can save, I'll be happy," said Randy Lockwood, an animal behaviorist with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "If we had to euthanize the majority, then we could at least say we'd tried."
Instead, they found dogs with behaviors that ran the gamut. Some would lick human hands but lunge at other dogs. Some almost immediately went into play mode with other dogs, wagging their tails and crouching down on their front legs in a play bow. "Some actually perked up and developed more confidence only around other dogs," said Rebecca Huss, a law professor and animal law expert who was appointed by the court to oversee the evaluations and determine the dogs' fates. "They actually seemed happier around other dogs."
Some of the dogs were scarred. All were sick and malnourished. Once it became clear that the dogs might be allowed to live, evaluators gave them names.
Iggy, Zippy, Cherry Garcia, Hazel, Little Red, Uba, Squeaker, Big Fella, Handsome Dan, Ginger, Ernie, Alf.
"One of the things that struck us immediately was that these dogs were more like the dogs we see rescued from animal hoarding situations," Lockwood said. "Their main problem was not aggressiveness but isolation." Loud noises startled them. A light coming on made them jump.
All that the dogs seemed to know about people was that they were to be feared.
Witness Sweet Pea, a compact cinnamon-colored dog with a pleat of wrinkles above her eyes who was hiding under the desk of the Frederick animal acupuncturist trying to treat her for anxiety. Fred Wolfson dimmed the office lights. Soft Native American flute music wafted through wall speakers. Wolfson held out his hand for Sweet Pea to sniff. When she would not budge, he sat on the floor and took his bowl of needles to her.
Sweet Pea began to pant.
Video
Dog’s new life
June 17: A pit bull rescued from Michael Vick's dogfighting stable finds a new life in California. KNTV’s Marianne Favro reports.
NBC News Channel
"She pants when she's nervous," said Stacy Leipold, who volunteers with the Baltimore-based animal rescue organization Recycled Love and is fostering Sweet Pea in her home. "I thought for a very long time she was just a hot dog."
As Wolfson rubbed the dog's head and felt along her spine for the proper relaxation points, Leipold explained that Sweet Pea was little more than a lump when she came to her home in December. She rarely left her crate. If she did, it was to hide under a desk. She had to be carried outside to do her business. Over time, with Leipold meticulously tracking her behavior, Sweet Pea began to pace in a circle and wag her tail when she realized it was time for a walk. And she seemed to take comfort in Leipold's other dogs, a Jack Russell terrier and a Great Dane. Still, one of her favorite places is the landing on the basement stairs. That way, up or down, she has two routes of escape.
Five needles and 12 minutes later, Sweet Pea stopped trembling.
Jane, Homicide, Jade, Bandit, Miami, Mike-Mike, Big Boy, Magic, Tiny, Too Short, Seal, Chico.
Sweet Pea is not what Vick, who is serving a 23-month prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kan., called this dog. We don't know what he called her, or whether he had a name for her at all. One of the few names that appeared in court papers was Jane, one of the first pit bulls Vick bought in 2001 to start Bad Newz Kennels. The Humane Society of the United States found results for some of Bad Newz's dogfights in underground magazines. They show that Vick's Homicide lost to Maniac. Vick's Bandit lost to Red Rover. And Vick's Mike-Mike lost, after fighting for three hours and five minutes, to Dragon. Out of 10 fights recorded, Vick's dogs lost seven.
But no one knows who most of these dogs are, or whether they are even alive. Jane is. She is now called Georgia. Her jaw is crooked, having been broken at least once, and her tongue sticks out. She is covered in scars, and her teeth have all been pulled. By court order, she will live out her days in Dogtown, at the Best Friends Animal Society's 3,700-acre sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. So will Lucas, a tail-wagging, 60-pound dog who evaluators suspect was Vick's grand champion fighter.
They are two of 22 dogs who were deemed worth saving but who showed enough animal aggression that they could be held only in a tightly controlled sanctuary. At Best Friends', McMillan, the veterinarian, has developed a "personalized emotional rehabilitation plan" for each dog and measures how they exhibit such traits as aggression, fearfulness, calmness or friendliness. True to their "people soft" nature, all but two of the Vick dogs are on "green collar," meaning they are open and friendly to human visitors. About nine have begun to have supervised play dates with other Vick dogs.
The remaining 25 Vick dogs were given to seven animal rescue organizations across the country, which placed them in experienced foster homes. A number have since passed the American Kennel Club's 10-part Canine Good Citizenship test. Many are in the process of being adopted.
Sharon Cornett, a member of the Richmond Animal League's board, agreed to foster Gracie and is now adopting her. "I adore this dog. She is just a love bucket. She loves people and animals unconditionally," Cornett said. She has four other dogs. All of them sleep together at night. "Gracie is not what the public perception has been of a fighting pit bull."
Still, Cornett and other pit bull rescuers say that they never leave the dogs unsupervised with other animals. And rehabilitating a fighting pit is not for everyone: You have to know what you're doing, they say.
'No simple answers'
John Goodwin, a dogfighting expert with the Humane Society and a proponent of euthanizing fight dogs, is skeptical of the emerging reports of the Vick dog recoveries. Fighting is in their blood, he said. Retrievers retrieve. Shepherds herd. And fighting pit bulls fight. "The behavior is bred into them," he said. "These groups are not rehabilitating these dogs. They're training them to behave in a more socialized manner. But these pit bulls should never be left alone with other dogs, because you never know when that instinct to fight another dog is going to surface."
Tim Racer, one of the founders of Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls (BAD RAP), who, before taking in 10 Vick dogs, had evaluated and retrained 400 pit bulls over the past 10 years, disagrees. Yes, there are pit bulls who have fought, attacked and mauled other animals and people. But so have other breeds. And incidents almost always have been traced to negligent or abusive owners, he said.
Racer said it is not surprising that many of the dogs get along so well with other dogs. Just as the urge to fight is in their blood, so, too, is the need to get along. "You have 150 years of man trying to produce an aggressive dog. But you have tens of thousands of years of Mother Nature preceding that," he said. "Dogs are pack animals. They survived because of their pack. . . . It's hard-wired into their genes that they do no harm to each other."
Indeed, long before a glowering pit bull came to symbolize tough guy vogue, pit bulls, or American Staffordshire terriers, were the all-American dog. In the Civil War era, they were known as nurse dogs because they were so good with children. Pit bulls sold war bonds, earned medals in World War I and starred in such TV shows as "The Little Rascals."
All the more reason, Racer and other rescuers say, to look at each dog individually. "Every thoroughbred is not a great racehorse. Every pit bull, even if it's of fighting stock, is not an aggressive dogfighter," said Steve Zawistowski, an animal behaviorist with the ASPCA who helped assess the Vick dogs. "There are no simple answers."
As with any celebrity case, the legacy of the Vick bust has been far-reaching. Dogfighting raids across the country have tripled in the past year. Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been trained to detect the signs of underground rings. And, in some cases, officials have asked pit bull behavior experts to evaluate seized fighting dogs rather than automatically euthanizing them. But most dogfighters don't have the kind of money that Vick did. So even those deemed worthy of a second chance don't always get one.
Charlie, Denzel, Halle, Oscar, Sox, Ray, Frodo, Aretha.
They, it turns out, are the lucky ones.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Search for More Content
Custom Search
