Despite being the daughter of a Beatle, she has earned her own place in the spotlight as a staunch advocate for animal rights and vegetarianism. Now the fashion-designer is championing the eye-opening message conveyed in the documentary Food, Inc.
The street art troupe known as Neozoon manages to beautify urban areas with fur-trimmed likenesses of the wild creatures that were once free to roam before we took over, symbolically breathing life back into them.
Got a fur coat gathering dust? The Humane Society suggests the ultimate recycling – putting it on the backs of other animals.
The Coats for Cubs program by the Humane Society of the United States helps orphaned, injured or sick wildlife by gathering fur coats and using them for nests, bedding or cuddly replacements for mom and dad. In 2009, 2,687 fur items were donated.
"We use the discarded furs as bedding to give the animals comfort and reduce stress," said Michael Markarian, the agency's chief operating officer in Washington, D.C. "The fur garments act as a surrogate mother. It is a warm and furry substitute."
The coats go to wildlife rehabilitation centers that take in baby raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels, coyotes, skunks and other animals, and has helped thousands of animals since it began in 2005 with the Fund for Animals.
Lord Howe Island, 800 miles off the coast of Sydney and considered by many to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, has a rat problem. Island officials are willing to go to great lengths to exterminate the invasive pests, while hoping to avoid any collateral wildlife deaths.
Jackson, Miss. – In Defense of Animals’ (IDA) Project Hope sanctuary near Grenada, Mississippi, and Mississippi Spay & Neuter (MS SPAN) are teaming up to spay and neuter scores of dogs released to IDA by a Holmes County woman. Once a breeder, she’d fallen on hard times and couldn’t feed or properly care for the dogs.
On Friday, February 5, 20 of the dogs will be spayed by MS SPAN at their “Big Fix” rig at 2104 Old Brandon Road, Pearl, Mississippi. IDA and MS SPAN hope this event will bring attention to the plight of homeless and abused companion animals across Mississippi through the promotion of affordable low cost, high volume spay/neuter of animals.
The Guinness Book of World Records lists Hercules the liger as the largest living cat on Earth–at 12 feet long and weighing more than 900 pounds. He’s lion/tiger crossbreed with the appetite of both animals combined, consuming 25 pounds of meat and a gallon of water a day. Hercules resides at The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S) in South Carolina, and was the offspring of an accidental romp between a female tiger and male lion.
Ligers are the result of male lions and female tigers crossbreeding, and are larger than either lions or tigers – unlike tiglons (male tiger/female lion crossbreeds), which are the same size as their parents.
After the jump, an image of a tiger/lion and a tiger/cheetah!
This is a tiglon (male tiger/female lion crossbreeds):
Save yourself the trouble of claiming you only eat "free range" meat or milk. This stuff is happening everywhere and that is why every time an investigator goes in, this is what comes out. -AL
A new Mercy For Animals investigation is pulling back the curtains on the largest dairy factory farm in New York State Willet Dairy in Locke.
In early 2009 an MFA undercover investigator worked at the mega-dairy, secretly documenting egregious acts of animal cruelty, including neglect, with a hidden camera.
Thankfully, compassionate consumers can choose to withdraw their support of these abusive industries by adopting a vegan diet.
Each time we eat we can choose kindness over cruelty. Visit ChooseVeg DOT com for dairy-free recipes.
Evidence gathered during the investigation reveals:
* Cows with bloody open wounds, prolapsed uteruses, pus-filled infections, and swollen joints, apparently left to suffer without veterinary care
* "Downed" cows those too sick or injured to even stand left to suffer for weeks before dying or being killed
* Workers hitting, kicking, punching, and electric-shocking cows and calves
* Calves having their horns burned off without painkillers, as a worker shoved his fingers into the calves' eyes to restrain them
* Calves having their tails cut off a painful practice condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association as cruel and unnecessary
* Newborn calves forcibly dragged away from their mothers by their legs, causing emotional distress to both mother and calf
* Cows living in overcrowded sheds on manure-coated concrete flooring
* Workers injecting cows with a controversial bovine growth hormone, used to increase milk productionSave yourself the trouble of claiming you only eat "free range" meat or... more
Whoa. I've heard that people do some pretty crummy and even rather disgusting things when no one is looking, but this is taking the whole "litter bug" syndrome to an entirely new level. Is there really any hope for humanity?
A new Mercy For Animals investigation is pulling back the curtains on the largest dairy factory farm in New York State Willet Dairy in Locke.
In early 2009 an MFA undercover investigator worked at the mega-dairy, secretly documenting egregious acts of animal cruelty, including neglect, with a hidden camera.
Thankfully, compassionate consumers can choose to withdraw their support of these abusive industries by adopting a vegan diet.
Each time we eat we can choose kindness over cruelty. Visit ChooseVeg.com for dairy-free recipes.
Evidence gathered during the investigation reveals:
* Cows with bloody open wounds, prolapsed uteruses, pus-filled infections, and swollen joints, apparently left to suffer without veterinary care
* "Downed" cows those too sick or injured to even stand left to suffer for weeks before dying or being killed
* Workers hitting, kicking, punching, and electric-shocking cows and calves
* Calves having their horns burned off without painkillers, as a worker shoved his fingers into the calves' eyes to restrain them
* Calves having their tails cut off a painful practice condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association as cruel and unnecessary
* Newborn calves forcibly dragged away from their mothers by their legs, causing emotional distress to both mother and calf
* Cows living in overcrowded sheds on manure-coated concrete flooring
* Workers injecting cows with a controversial bovine growth hormone, used to increase milk productionA new Mercy For Animals investigation is pulling back the curtains on the largest... more
Go ahead. You're dying to know what this is all about. Take a peek, I dare you. Let's put it this way -- you can be 99.999% certain that real live eager-beaver rats are involved....and YES, this is a legitimate project happening right now!!
A common parasite associated with diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome appears to be spreading among animals, and from animals to zookeepers, at several zoos worldwide, according to a new study.
LINK : http://news.discovery.com/animals/zoos-disease-animals-humans.htmlA common parasite associated with diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome appears to be... more
The decline in the world's biodiversity is approaching a point of no return, warns Hilary Benn. In this week's Green Room, the UK's environment secretary urges the international community to seize the chance to act before it is too late.
In 2002, the world's governments made a commitment to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
Although it is hard to measure how much biodiversity we have, we do know these targets have not been met.
Our ecological footprint - what we take out of the planet - is now 1.3 times the biological capacity of the Earth.
In the words of Professor Bob Watson, Defra's chief scientific adviser and former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are in danger of approaching "a point of no return".
So the action we take in the next couple of decades will determine whether the stable environment on which human civilisation has depended since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago will continue.
To do this, we need to widen the nature of the debate about biodiversity. Flora and fauna matter for their own sake; they lift our spirits and nurture our souls.
But our ecosystems also sustain us and our economies - purifying our drinking water, producing our food and regulating our climate.
Climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked. We ignore natural capital at our peril.
Interdependence
The UK and Brazil are hosting a workshop in preparation for the next UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Representatives from more than 60 countries - from the Maldives to China - will attend the three-day event to discuss how we can ensure that the post-2010 targets stand a better chance of being met than those set in 2002.
The number of species facing extinction continues to grow
Action urged on nature 'crisis'
The majority of those attending are from developing countries, including those with the rarest and greatest biodiversity. They need to be listened to.
It is easy to have principles when you can afford then - economics and ecology are interdependent.
So when it comes to biodiversity, we desperately need to start restoring links between science and policy, between taking action and evaluating it and between economies and ecosystems.
The big challenge will be for the real benefits of biodiversity and the hard costs of its loss to be included in our economic systems and markets.
Perverse subsidies and the lack of value attached to the services provided by ecosystems have been factors contributing to their loss. What we cannot cost, we don't value - until it has gone.
Investing in the future
Much greater concerted effort is needed to stop the plunder of our ecosystems.
The restoration of our ecosystems must be seen as a sensible and cost-effective investment in this planet's economic survival and growth
Overfishing has reduced blue fin tuna numbers to 18% of what they were in the mid-1970s.
The burning of Indonesia's peat lands and forests for palm oil plantations generates 1.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, and demand is predicted to double by 2020 compared to 2000.
More than seven million hectares are lost worldwide to deforestation every single year.
The restoration of our ecosystems must be seen as a sensible and cost-effective investment in this planet's economic survival and growth.
I am optimistic. Talking about the danger of climate change has brought with it opportunities to tackle the biodiversity crisis.
While the 2010 targets have not been met, more than 160 countries now have national biodiversity action plans.
cont.The decline in the world's biodiversity is approaching a point of no return,... more
From Ceiling Cat to Limecat, let's admire the ultimate family tree of celebrity LOLcats (click to enlarge).From Ceiling Cat to Limecat, let's admire the ultimate family tree of celebrity... more
The world's first film shot entirely by chimpanzees is to be broadcast by the BBC as part of a natural history documentary.
The apes created the movie using a specially designed chimp-proof camera given to them by primatologists.
The film-making exercise is part of a scientific study into how chimpanzees perceive the world and each other.
It will be screened within the Natural World programme "Chimpcam" shown on BBC Two at 2000GMT on Wednesday 27 January.
Making the movie was the brainchild of primatologist Ms Betsy Herrelko, who is studying for a PhD in primate behaviour at the University of Stirling, UK.
Over 18 months, she introduced video technology to a group of 11 chimpanzees living in a newly built enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo, UK.
The enclosure, which contains three large interlinked outdoor arenas, as well as a series of smaller rooms in which the apes can be studied by researchers, is the largest of its kind in the world.
Despite the fact that the chimps had never taken part in a research project before, they soon displayed an interest in film-making.
Ms Herrelko set the chimps two challenges.
The first was to teach the chimps how to use a touchscreen to select different videos.
By doing so, Ms Herrelko could investigate which types of images chimps prefer to watch.
The second challenge was to give the apes a "Chimpcam", a recording camera housed in a chimp-proof box.
Chimps both in captivity and the wild will spontaneously use tools
Some use wooden hammers to break open nuts, others use rocks, while many use varying styles of stick to fish for termites and honey
Watch videos of chimps using tools here
On top of the box was a video screen that showed live images of whatever the camera was pointing at.
Initially, the chimps were more interested in each other than the video technology, as two male chimps within the study group vied to become the alpha male, disrupting the experiment.
But over time, some of the chimps learned how to select different videos to watch.
For example, the chimps could use a touchscreen to decide whether to watch footage of their outside enclosure, or the food preparation room, where zoo staff prepare the chimps' meals.
The results still have to be analysed in detail, but it seems the chimps did not prefer to watch any of these images over the others.
Ms Herrelko is not sure why, but it could be that the images shown were too familiar to the chimps or because they have no way of asking to see something different.
Then in the final the final stage of her work, she investigated what happened when she gave the Chimpcam to the whole group.
A captive chimpanzee watching a video of a wild chimp
Watching wild relatives
Gradually, the chimps started playing with the Chimpcam, carrying it around the enclosure.
The chimps soon became interested in the camera view screen on the Chimpcam box, watching what happened as they moved the Chimpcam around filming new images.
Overall, they were more interested in the Chipcam viewfinder than they were the touchscreen in the research room.
The apes are unlikely to have actively tried to film any particular subject, or understand that by carrying Chimpcam around, they were making a film.
However, the result, as well as providing new information on how chimps like to see the world, may yet go down in television history.The world's first film shot entirely by chimpanzees is to be broadcast by the BBC... more
WALLABIES are hopping into Tasmania's opium poppy fields and getting high.
The revelation has also solved what some growers say has spurred a campfire legend about mysterious crop circles which appear in the state's poppy paddocks. In true X-Files style, Attorney-General Lara Giddings said yesterday the drugged-up wallabies had been found hopping around in circles squashing the poppies, creating the formations.
The wallabies are increasingly entering the fields and eating the poppy heads.
That causes them to get high and run around in turns creating "crop circles".
"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Ms Giddings told a Budget Estimates hearing.
"Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."
Tasmanian Alkaloids field operations manager Rick Rockliff said wildlife and livestock which ate the poppies were known to "act weird" -- including deer in the state's highlands and sheep.
"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," Mr Rockliff said.
"But as growers we try our best to try and stop this sort of consumption, particularly by livestock, due to concerns about the contamination of the meat.
"There is also the risk to our poppy stocks, so growers take this very seriously but there has been a steady increase in the number of wild animals and that is where we are having difficulty keeping them off our land."
Tasmania is the world's largest producer of legally grown opium for the pharmaceutical market. About 500 farmers grow the crop supplying the market with about 50 percent of the world's raw material for morphine and related opiates.
Ms Giddings was answering questions about the security of Tasmanias poppy stocks, that are considered some of the safest in the world.
However there has been 17 thefts resulting in 2280 poppy heads stolen throughout the financial year.
Of those, Ms Giddings said 551 heads, eight events were from thebaine crops.
Thebaine is a variety of poppy opiate alkaloid is can be potentially deadly when it is consumed.
The other main variety is morphine.
Mr Rockliff said those figures were still considered very low but called for a review into the state's security protocols.
"Although there has not been a major incident in the past 40 years of this industry it is time that we look at licensing measures and other security handling procedures to make sure that stays the same in the future." http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/06/25/80825_tasmania-news.htmlWALLABIES are hopping into Tasmania's opium poppy fields and getting high.
The... more
February 5, at the Liquid Lounge, the Mammal Animals will be rocking out from approximately 9 to 10 in the PM.
The Lounge is described is an intimate room next to the Curtain Club that is "perfect for smaller gatherings." The club is located at 2800 Main Street, Dallas, TX.
Mammal Animals consists of Sarah Gilbert on Violin/Cello, Jason Wald on Guitars, Devin Gonier on Guitars/Synth/Keyboards, Taylor Browne on Bass, and
Evan Lapka on Drums/Percussion/Vocals. They describe themselves as Prog. Psychedelic Funk Rock.
For info on the band as well as downloads visit http://www.purevolume.com/MammalAnimalsFebruary 5, at the Liquid Lounge, the Mammal Animals will be rocking out from... more
COPAKE, N.Y. - Officials say a New York dairy farmer who methodically slaughtered 51 cows before taking his own life may have been trying to spare his family the burden of caring for the animals.
Dean Pierson was found dead Thursday on the floor of his barn in Copake.
Nearby, half his heard lay in their milking stalls, also dead of gunshot wounds.
Pierson left no explanation for what he’d done, just a note on the barn door warning whoever found it not to come in and to call the police.
But there appeared to be a method to his bloody work. He killed only the cows that required frequent milking.
Pierson’s wife says she wants to figure out how to keep the farm going.
She says she doesn’t want "all that work he put into it to go to nothing."
Imagine for a minute if corporate-sponsored mouthpieces like Limbaugh and O'Reilly were correct on either of these points:
Global warming is a hoax
Humans are not responsible for climate change
Well, guess what? It wouldn't change the green movement's primary mission. Because while some waste valuable time debating deniers, every 24 hours:
13 million tons of toxic chemicals are released across the globe
Over 100 plant or animal species go extinct
200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed
45,000 humans die of starvation
And that's just the tip of the melting iceberg...Imagine for a minute if corporate-sponsored mouthpieces like Limbaugh and... more
