tagged w/ Compassion for Animals
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Truly inspiring! -- if this doesn’t cause you to shed a tear or two, and then put a smile on your face, then you have no heart...
http://veracitystew.com/?p=32718Truly inspiring! -- if this doesn’t cause you to shed a tear or two, and then... more
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treehugger...
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"Why Love One But Eat the Other?" Billboards Stir Controversy in Toronto Subway System
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They are pretty careful about who gets to put ads up in the Toronto subway system, and animal rights activists usually don't make the cut. But through September and October, subway riders have come face to face with a powerful campaign to convince people that if they like cute kittens and puppies, then they shouldn't be eating chickens and pigs. Kimberly Caroll, an organizer of the campaign says:
Pigs, cows and chickens are remarkable beings," says campaign spokesperson Kimberly Carroll. "Cows will walk for miles to reunite with a calf after being sold at auction. Pigs have intelligence beyond that of a 3 year-old human. Chickens mourn the loss of their loved ones. We hope that in connecting with these animals and the grievous suffering that is behind every burger, omelette, and hot dog, people will be motivated to make more compassionate food choices.
I was surprised that the campaign got approved at all; Kimberly explained:
We ran a similar campaign back in 2009 on the TTC at about a quarter of the size of the current one. At that point the ad had to go through various levels of approval while we waited on pins and needles, but it was approved! This time around, it seems there were no concerns. We've been very impressed with the TTC for this. We believe this is the first animal rights campaign to run on the TTC.
While the puppy and pig comparison is probably not a stretch for most people, the kitten and chicken one is probably a bit more difficult. But they make a case that chickens are "inquisitive, affectionate and personable."
It is not a new message, that animals are animals and it is crazy to treat one kind so differently from another; the British Vegetarian Society did it decades ago. But it is new, seeing it in Toronto plastered all over the subway, where the TTC says it will be seen by 5.7 million people every week. Kimberly says that it is effective; she is getting "several emails, posts, and twitters a day from folks saying they're going veg after seeing the ads."
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"Why Love One But Eat the Other?" Billboards Stir... more
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Japan to launch massive search for quake bodies
By SHINO YUASA, AP
4 hours ago
TOKYO — Japan will send nearly 25,000 soldiers backed by boats and aircraft into its disaster zone Monday on an intensive land-and-sea mission to recover the bodies of those killed by last month's earthquake and tsunami, the military said.
Agriculture officials also plan to send a team of veterinarians into the evacuation zone around a stricken nuclear plant to check on hundreds of thousands of abandoned cows, pigs and chickens, many of which are believed to have died of starvation and neglect. The government is considering euthanizing some of the dying animals, officials said.
About 14,300 people have been confirmed dead so far in the catastrophic March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Another 12,000 remain missing and are presumed killed. Some of their bodies were likely swept out to sea, while others were buried under the mass of rubble.
Cleanup crews have discovered some remains as they gingerly removed rotting debris to clear the area for rebuilding.
But the two-day military search operation will be far more extensive, Defense Ministry spokesman Ippo Maeyama said Sunday.
"We will do our utmost to recover bodies for bereaved families," he said.
A total of 24,800 soldiers will scour the rubble, backed by 90 helicopters and planes, he said. Another 50 boats, along with 100 navy divers, will search the waters up to 20 kilometers off the coast, he said. Police, coast guard and U.S. troops will also take part.
"It's been very difficult and challenging to find bodies because the areas hit by tsunami are so widespread," he said. "Many bodies also have been swept away by the tsunami."
The operation will be the third intensive military search for bodies since the disaster last month. With the waters receding, Maeyama hopes the teams will have more success.
The search was complicated by the decomposition of some of the corpses, he said. Some had already turned into skeletons.
"You have to be very careful in touching the bodies because they quickly disintegrate. We cannot tell the bodies' gender anymore, let alone their age," he said.
The searches will continue, however, "as long as families want us to look for their loved ones," Maeyama said.
Meanwhile, the government in the Fukushima prefecture will send a team of six veterinarians into the 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone around the radiation-leaking Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to survey the livestock there.
Farmers in the area were estimated to have left 3,000 cows, 130,000 pigs and 680,000 chickens behind when they hurriedly fled the area last month when the nuclear crisis started.
With no time for burials, veterinarians who find dead livestock will spray lime over them to prevent them from spreading disease, agricultural officials said.
The government is also considering euthanizing dying animals, but only after getting permission from their owners, said Yutaka Kashimura, an agricultural official in Fukushima.
"Killing animals is the very last resort," he said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewriJapan to launch massive search for quake bodies
By SHINO YUASA, AP
4 hours ago... more
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September 1, 2010
Dalai Lama Says Caging Hens is Cruel
By Nathan Runkle
dalai-lama-10-07-lg.jpg
The Dalai Lama is speaking out for the millions of egg-laying hens condemned to lives of misery inside tiny, wire battery cages and is urging consumers to switch to cage-free eggs.
"In these cages, birds cannot engage in natural behaviors such as spreading their wings, laying eggs in a nesting area, perching, scratching at the ground, and even standing on a solid surface. Each hen has less space to live than the very sheet of paper I have written this letter on," wrote the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
According to the Hindustan Times on Wednesday, the Dalai Lama added that "Cage-free hens may not be able to go outside, but they are able to walk, spread their wings and lay their eggs in nests - all behaviours denied to hens confined in battery cages."
Over 95% of the chickens raised to lay eggs in the U.S. are forced to live crammed together inside battery cages, small, barren wire cages stacked in rows inside filthy windowless sheds that can stretch the length of two football fields. Not only are battery-cage egg operations extremely cruel, they pose a serious public health menace by dramatically increasing the risk of salmonella.
As the Dalai Lama noted, cage-free does not mean cruelty-free. The best thing people can do to protect their health and prevent needless cruelty to animals is to adopt a healthy and compassionate vegan lifestyle.September 1, 2010
Dalai Lama Says Caging Hens is Cruel
By Nathan Runkle... more
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John Robbins
Author of The New Good Life, Diet For A New America, and many other bestsellers
Posted: July 13, 2010 08:00 AM
The Brutality of Factory Farms: An Inside Look (VIDEO):
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DTEGw8iFbG5I%26has_verified%3D1
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This past week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that will essentially prohibit, starting in 2015, any egg from being sold in the state that comes from caged hens. This bill became law 20 months after a majority of California voters approved Proposition 2, making it clear that concern for the living conditions of livestock is no longer the province of animal rights activists alone.
Recognizing how widespread concern about the humane treatment of farm animals has become, the California Milk Advisory Board has recently ramped up its 10-year "Happy Cow" advertising campaign with a new series of ads proclaiming that "Great milk comes from Happy Cows. Happy Cows come from California." These ads are now being shown across the nation.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the ads. For one, they weren't filmed in California at all. They were filmed in Auckland, New Zealand.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Current Milk Board ads claim that 99 percent of the state's dairy farms are family owned. But in order to arrive at this figure, they count as "dairy farms" rural households with one or two cows. Meanwhile, there are corporate-owned dairies in the San Joaquin Valley which have 15,000 or 20,000 cows. It is these far larger enterprises that produce the vast majority of California's milk.
My concern, let me emphasize, is not with small-scale family farms. I have no problem with the many hard-working families who treat their cows well, take care of the land and try to bring a healthy product to market. My problem is with the much larger agribusiness enterprises, the factory farms to whom the animals in their care are nothing but sources of revenue.
Thanks to the practices they employ, the amount of milk produced yearly by the average California cow is nearly 3,000 pounds more than the national average. This increased production may seem like a good thing, but it is achieved at great cost to the animals. The cows are routinely confined in extremely unnatural conditions, injected with hormones, fed antibiotics, and in general treated with all the compassion of four legged milk pumps. Roughly one third of California's cows suffer from painful udder infections, and more than half suffer from other infections and illnesses.
Although genetically engineered bovine growth hormone is banned in many countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of the European Union, it is widely used in California's largest dairy operations to increase milk production. Unfortunately, it also increases udder infections and lameness in the cows, markedly raises the amount of pus found in milk, and may increase the risk of cancer in consumers.
The natural lifespan of a dairy cow is about 25 years, but one-fourth of California's dairy cows are slaughtered each year (typically at four or five years old), because they've become crippled from painful foot infections or calcium depletion, or simply because they can no longer produce the unnaturally high amounts of milk required of them.
The Milk Board ads present the California dairy industry as a bucolic enterprise that operates in lush, grassy pastures. Some of the ads employ the slogan "So much grass, so little time." But California's dairy industry is concentrated in the dry and barren Central Valley. Here, the cows are typically kept in overcrowded, dirt feedlots. Some never see a blade of grass in their entire lives.
The ads show calves in meadows talking happily to their mothers. But the calves born to California dairy cows typically spend only 24 hours with their mothers, and some do not even get that much. Here is a video that reveals what actually happens to the calves:
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DTEGw8iFbG5I%26has_verified%3D1John Robbins
Author of The New Good Life, Diet For A New America, and many other... more
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By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer
National Park Service officials have called off this winter's long-planned and highly controversial deer kill at Valley Forge National Historical Park.
Park Superintendent Michael Caldwell confirmed yesterday that the planned shooting of 500 deer would not go forward, as officials evaluate contractual matters and a pending lawsuit by two animal-rights groups.
"We're still committed to implementing the plan," Caldwell said. "If we don't have [it] this year, then we'll begin when we can."
Yesterday, it was unclear when that might be.
A federal judge is not scheduled to rule on the legality of the plan before May 31. That means, as confirmed to the Associated Press by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Bernstein, that the first deer kill could not occur until next November at the earliest.
And there were signs that other groups may be planning additional legal action to stop deer from being shot.
"It's a victory," said Michael Harris, who prepared the animal-rights suit as director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Denver. "They were going to go out and commence this hunt this winter, and [now] we've got our opportunity to have this decided."
The Friends of Animals, a co-plaintiff, is pleased the deer have a "holiday reprieve," Harris said. He added the group "will continue to fight on their behalf until this illegal plan is fully set aside."
The plan called for sharpshooters to eliminate at least 1,500 deer in four years - 500 this winter, 500 the next, and between 250 and 300 each in the third and fourth years. That would eradicate 86 percent of a herd that park officials say has grown big and destructive.
Caldwell gave two reasons for the postponement. First, the November-to-March window for conducting the shoot was fast closing, and the park won't be able to award a sharpshooting contract before next year, he said. At the same time, he said, the park is determining how to proceed with the lawsuit.
The superintendent declined to comment on the litigation. Friends of Animals and a second group, Compassion for Animals, Respect the Environment, of West Chester, filed suit last month against Caldwell and other park service officials to stop the kill.
Animal advocates met yesterday's news with delight.
"I think the longer we can delay it and the more information we can get out, the better," said Betty Madden of Keep Valley Forge Safe, which maintains that gunfire could injure people living or traveling near the park. "There's a lot of flawed information in the plan itself. We need a new public hearing."
Caldwell has expressed full confidence in the science behind the plan, its safety provisions, and the hearing process that led to its adoption. The park maintains that deer eat so many plants and saplings that the forest cannot regenerate.
The lawsuit claims that the park study that blamed deer for ruined vegetation was flawed and that the law requires administrators to protect natural resources, including deer.
The plan to kill deer at Valley Forge has provoked enormous controversy. Some see deer as a welcome part of the park scenery. Others see them as four-legged nuisances that devour neighborhood gardens and run into backyards and onto highways, putting people and cars in danger.
The lack of natural predators and public hunting, combined with an ideal habitat, have spawned an exponential expansion among deer. In 1985, the deer population was estimated at 165 to 185. The herd peaked at 1,398 in 2003, according to park officials, and now has about 1,275 deer. Officials want to reduce the herd to 1985 levels.
The plan was for federal employees or contractors to fire silencer-equipped rifles, mostly at night, at deer lured to areas baited with apples and grain. After four years of this, officials said, the smaller herd could be maintained through contraceptives and further shoBy Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer
National Park Service officials have called... more
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