Niagara Center for Animal Rights Awareness

The dangers of keeping whales in captivity

2010-02-27T12:39:00.005-05:00

Who’s to blame?

Last week’s death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was both tragic and preventable, and should come as no surprise. This isn’t the first time a captive orca has attacked or killed a trainer, nor is it the first time Tilikum has killed a human being.

In 1991 he and two other orcas - Nootka IV and Haida II - participated in the drowning death of Keltie Byrne, a 20-year-old University of Victoria marine biology student and part-time trainer at Victoria’s Sealand of the Pacific marine park.

Byrne had slipped and fallen into the orca pool. Tilikum grabbed her with his teeth and dragged her around the pool, holding her underwater for some time. At one point Keltie, a champion swimmer, broke free and tried to climb out but all three whales took turns pulling her back in.

The girl died as Tilikum held her underwater in his mouth. Sealand closed the next year and the whales were sold off to other marine parks.

Over the years, SeaWorld trainers in the United States have sustained numerous injuries while performing with orcas, including bites during feedings, ruptured kidneys, lacerated livers, fractured bones, and near drowning.

People have even been injured at our own Marineland of Canada in Niagara Falls. In 1986, an orca dragged a trainer around the pool by his leg after he fell into the water during a stunt and an 11-year-old girl required four stitches to close a wound on her thumb after a beluga bit her during a petting session in 2000.

In a 2004 report to the United States Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), the University of California found that captive animals had injured more than half (52%) of marine mammal workers.

So why are people still permitted to interact with large, wild, potentially dangerous animals? Even the National Marine Fisheries Service has stated that just because orcas and other whales have been born in captivity or have been taught to do a few circus tricks it doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.

This also goes for zoos and circuses that use large, powerful and equally dangerous animals, such as lions, tigers and elephants. People are injured, attacked and killed every year at these places as well.

We think we’re so smart yet we do such stupid things. According to SeaWorld officials, they will continue using Tilikum because he delights audiences with his outsized splashes. Well that’s a good reason for putting the training staff at risk!

According to Jim Atchison, president of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, “He's been a part of our team and he will remain a part of our team.” I find this statement laughable, because Tilikum no more volunteered for the “job” than any other animal forced into captivity. But this means he will continue to be trained “to delight audiences” meaning another trainer could end up like Dawn Brancheau.

Now SeaWorld wants to review Brancheau's death with other facilities (including Marineland) to figure out what went wrong. Common sense should tell them that they shouldn’t be caging, and then playing with potentially dangerous animals.

Frustrated animals, prevented from exercising basic natural behaviours, segregated from other whales for days at a time, and forced to live in barren concrete tanks thousands, if not millions of times smaller than their natural environments, will become unpredictable and dangerous animals.

So who’s to blame for Dawn Brancheau’s and Keltie Byrne’s deaths? Not Tilikum. Being unable to express his frustration and anger in words we understand, he’s opted to show us. And don’t think that because he’s a predator, he was just looking for something to eat. He didn’t even try eating the bodies. This should tell us something too.

Neither are SeaWorld or Marineland (or any place that keeps wild animals captive) to blame. They’re simply trying to make a buck. If the demand wasn’t there, they’d be out of business.

So who’s to blame? If you visit or support places that keep wild and potentially dangerous animals imprisoned for your amusement, then you are.

The Vegan Party of Canada

2010-02-10T19:29:00.003-05:00

For those of you who are following me here at the Niagara Center for Animal Rights Awareness, I'd like to say thank you!

I also wanted to let you know that while I'm not abandoning this blogsite, I'm writing more blogs at my other site, the Vegan Party of Canada.

So if you haven't checked it out, please do!

Here's the link: The Vegan Party of Canada

Come join the party!

Dan

An Open Letter to PeTA

2009-10-07T17:48:00.000-04:00

Dear People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,

I’ve received a number of letters from you over the past year, asking for my financial support for one campaign or another, along with many pleas to renew my membership.

One particular letter asked me why I hadn’t renewed my membership thus far. In June, your boss, Ingrid Newkirk wrote:

“Is there something that I should know about why PETA hasn’t received your renewed support this year? If you have recently sent your 2009 renewal gift, please forgive me. If not, please let me know why.”

Well, my answer is in the form of another quote from your organization in a letter I received in September. This is from a petition you want me to sign and send to my local McDonald’s Franchise Owner:

“I urge you to make your voice heard and call on the executives at McDonald’s corporate headquarters to institute [Controlled-Atmosphere Killing] as quickly as possible. CAK would reduce suffering for the hundreds of millions of individual chickens slaughtered cruelly each year, and you’d once again be viewed as a leader in animal welfare reform – a win-win for animals and for McDonald’s.”

So you want me, a vegan, who is opposed to the exploitation and slaughter of animals for any reason, to send a letter to McDonald’s, asking them to continue killing hundreds of millions of chickens, but by using a less cruel method of slaughter?

I thought you were against the slaughter of animals, period? I even have a PeTA button that says ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS TO EAT, WEAR OR EXPERIMENT ON. When did you change from animal rights to animal welfare?

I’m not really interested in making McDonald’s look good or making them more profitable. And I’m not interested in making it easier for animal killers to do their jobs or making people feel good about eating animals because they’re “killed with kindness”.

I’m only interested in one thing: saving the animal’s lives, so I’ll continue to educate people about veganism and you can continue to make deals with the devil, but you’ll be doing it WITHOUT my financial support.

And that is why I can’t renew my PeTA membership.

Sincerely,

Daniel K. Wilson

Animal RIGHTS activist and vegan

Exotic animal owner busted for grow op

2009-10-06T14:19:00.014-04:00

Chris Morabito may find out what it's like to be one of his animals if convicted of possession and drug production after his arrest on Sunday.

Police found over 385 marijuana plants, along with a number of exotic animals, at the site of his proposed animal refuge.

Full story:

Marijuana bust was walk on the wild side

Photo of Sharon Morabito and Oliver, Niagara This Week

Morabito, along with his wife Sharon and two daughters, sought the City of Thorold's approval in 2005 to open an "exotic animal sanctuary" under the name TEARS (The Exotic Animal Rescue Society) for "Canadian travelers, school groups, special interest groups, special need associations, senior tours as well as several charity fundraisers."

The Morabito's had been known to take their rescued animals, often dressed in costumes, to air shows, parades, birthday parties and local businesses to raise money for their zoo (registered as The Exotic Animal Refuge Sanctuary until they lost their charitable status in 2007).

The animals were also used for "TV commercials, movies and special promotions," according to documents distributed by the Morabitos at the council meeting. Prior to starting TEARS, the Morabitos owned an exotic animal pet shop called Kris' Reptiles, where they sold constrictors, prairie dogs and primates, among others.

In 2007, Thorold City council, after hearing deputations from Morabito's family and friends, and a number of animal protection groups (including myself), agreed with the recommendation of the Regional Municipality of Niagara Planning Department and rejected the Morabito's application.

It is not known what will happen to the animals.

Are animals entitled to the same respect and rights as humans?

2009-09-26T21:05:00.004-04:00

Vancouver Sun - Friday, September 25, 2009

By Daphne Bramham

Photo by Vancouver Sun

I have never doubted Darwin’s theory. But when an adolescent, female orangutan swings down from a tree in the Malaysian rainforest, landing only a few metres away from me, I look into her dark face rimmed with fiery red-orange hair and am certain.

Arms’ length apart, the urge to touch her is almost overwhelming. But it’s forbidden at the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

She and several dozen others were there to be rehabilitated to the forest and to have her reliance on humans broken. Since I saw her last fall, Kara has been released into the wild.

Orangutan means “people of the forest” in Bahasa, the official language in Malaysia and Indonesia. Unique to Borneo, they are endangered because their habitat is being replaced by palm oil plantations.

Before I left Sepilok, I “adopted” two babies - Sen and Sogo Sogo. I get updates on them and can follow their progress at http://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk/.

At times, I’m slightly repelled by the anthropomorphizing that seems necessary to stave off extinction - the naming, the “adopting” and photos of the babies in diapers (which to be fair is a perfectly understandable thing with the “orphans” in the centre’s “nursery” where humans are their “surrogate mothers.”)

But they are not human. They are animals, albeit one of four species of great apes which share 99 per cent of our genes.

Yet determining our relationship with them - as with all species whether polar bears, cocker spaniels or cockroaches - requires an honest assessment of what we perceive them to be.

Are they our property as Canadian laws seem to presuppose, allowing us to kill baby seals, destroy the environment to the point that polar bears are at risk, raise chickens in cages so small they can’t turn around and use animals as spectacle even if it means that every year some die at rodeos and in zoos?

Or, as sentient beings, are animals entitled to the same respect and rights as humans?

Mid-spectrum are animal welfare advocates such as the humane societies, which support the responsible care of animals whether they are pets or used for food or work.

But calls for an Animal Bill of Rights are growing. While Canada fiddled with the Criminal Code provisions on animal cruelty only enough to modestly raise the penalties, Britain and Spain signed on to declarations giving great apes the rights to life, liberty and protection from torture.

Animal rights is a relatively new idea in the West that has gained traction largely because of increased concerns about the environment. But it’s an ancient idea in Asia where pacificism for Jains and Buddhists has long translated into strict vegetarianism.

“Non-violence applies not just to human beings, but to all sentient beings — any living thing that has a mind,” the Dalai Lama wrote in My Tibet. “Where there is a mind, there are feelings such as pain, pleasure and joy. No sentient being wants pain: All want happiness instead.”

While the Great Ape Project focuses only on extending human rights to orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees, other groups such as the American Legal Defense Fund propose basic rights for all animals that mirror those included in declarations of women’s, children’s and human rights that include freedom from exploitation, cruelty, neglect and abuse.

But that’s not all. The American Legal Defense Fund wants the right of wild animals to natural habitat and a self-sustaining population enshrined as well as the right of farm animals to an environment that “satisfies their basic physical and psychological needs” and, the right of all animals to “have their interests represented in court and safeguarded by the law of the land.”

There is much that I agree with in the various animal bills of rights. It seems inarguable that torturing or being willfully cruel should be illegal. But after that it’s tricky for anyone who eats meat, eggs and even dairy products.

It seems inarguable that we, humans, should not destroy the very planet that sustains us and so many other living things.

Yet, without a massive, disruptive and even painful reorganization of our economy and society, we’re barrelling down that road in our SUVs.

Palm oil is a good example. A sought-after industrial lubricant, it’s also in huge demand for soaps, face creams and cooking oil.

Increasing demand for it means that in Africa, palm plantations now provide desperately needed money to women’s co-operatives and direct financing for hospitals.

But in Malaysia and Indonesia, increasing demand is gobbling through the tropical rainforests without which orangutans, the Asian rhinoceros, so-called pygmy elephants and Sumatran tigers will become extinct.

Sogo Sogo’s little face smiles out at me from the photo on my desk.

Us or them?

With our bigger brains, we bear a greater responsibility to animals than declaring them equal and providing them with a bill of rights. As women and children around the world can attest, it’s often not worth the paper it’s written on.

We need to find ways to share the planet, doing the least harm possible for all of the children -human and animal. dbramham@vancouversun.com

To view the entire story with comments, click on: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Column+animals+entitled+same+respect+rights+humans/2033959/story.html

Human rights & Non-human rights

2009-09-18T06:42:00.009-04:00

By Daniel K. Wilson

District 9 is an interesting little film in regards to how we understand, view and treat non-humans. I’ve often wondered what would happen if extraterrestrials just showed up at the White House or the Kremlin one day. Would we kill them on sight out of fear? Would we cage them and experiment on them to learn what makes them tick? Would we enslave them and exploit them for their technology?

This film addresses all these questions. Even though the aliens are technologically superior to us and are able to communicate with us in a language we can understand, they are not biologically superior. And since they’re not human, they don’t deserve human rights. In this film, intelligence, language and superior technology are not enough to warrant equal consideration.

It’s the same way we treat non-humans right now. We do all the above-mentioned atrocities and even more, to non-human animals that have always shared this planet with us. Animals that maybe aren’t as smart as we are (although some are many times stronger than us and possess senses and abilities that we don’t), yet deserve compassion and respect all the same.

But people don’t see animals this way; at least not all animals. Without giving anything away, there’s a scene in the movie where a pig gets blown away during a shoot out between the good guys and the bad guys. Almost everyone in the audience laughed. If it had been a dog, those same people would’ve been sad and upset but because it’s a pig - an animal not very high on our list of favourites - they think it’s funny.

This is called cognitive dissonance, when people hold two contradictory views about something, like when it’s okay to kill and eat a pig but wrong to kill and eat a cat, or when it’s wrong to kill an alien, like in the movie, but okay to kill a cow or pig.

I’d like to think that if an alien species landed on Earth tomorrow we’d extend our hand in peace and fellowship, but knowing how we’ve treated others that are different from us in the past and how we continue to treat other animals, I’m doubtful.

Wolf killer to loons: stop picking on me!

2009-09-11T08:41:00.005-04:00

By Daniel K. Wilson

A story out of Idaho the other day caught my eye about a hunter who’s been harassed for killing one of the area’s wolves, after they were taken off the endangered species list back in May.

You can read the whole story here:
http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_77edb626-98b3-11de-afef-001cc4c03286.html

“People are loons,” said wolf killer Robert Millage. “If they want to call up and have a discussion, I'm all about having a discussion. But they call me a fat redneck and a wolf killer and compare me to Michael Vick.”

Imagine that, people calling a man who just killed a wolf a “wolf killer”. Oh the cruelty!

But I feel sorry for this wolf killer, I really do. All he did was go out one beautiful summer day with the intention of killing a wolf that had never done any harm to him, and other people - probably city folk - are upset by it.

I mean, this guy, whose full time occupation is selling real estate, was well within his right to blow away this wolf and now he wants the police to watch over him and his business because he’s scared of what people might do.

I don’t know what kind of real estate hunters they’re raising in the land of potatoes these days but it seems to me that if a person is able to point a gun at a defenceless, innocent animal and pull the trigger, that person should be able to take a little criticism.

But still, I feel his anguish. Never mind about the wolf he killed for no other reason than the desire to end someone else’s life (and it was legal remember) or prove his “manhood”, and never mind about the mate left behind (most wolves are monogamous and typically mate for life) or the pups that have to grow up without their mother.

No, let’s feel sorry for this great white hunter because his feelings have been hurt. It’s so unfair.

After all, he only did what the government said he could do – kill animals for the fun of it.

By the way, I’m being sarcastic.

No animal cruelty in pampering a race horse

2009-07-26T08:24:00.004-04:00

Niagara This Week - Wednesday, June 24, 2009

By MIKE WILLISCRAFT

In any industry, there are complete idiots.

Based on a straight percentage, look around you, you know if there are 20 people in a room, somebody will be a rule breaker. Maybe there'll be an alcoholic, a compulsive gambler, or, perhaps, a criminal.

It happens.

For those who follow horse racing, or even those who don't, you may have seen some coverage from a serious accident at Woodbine Racetrack last week. One horse died and two jockeys were hurt, one seriously.

Afterwards, comments started being kicked around about horse racing being animal cruelty. Some horribly ill-informed, if not totally ignorant, people are calling for an outright ban of horse racing.

An overreaction? Ya think?

Now, this accident was on the Thoroughbred side. I have been involved on the Standardbred side of horse racing for more than 30 years.

I've know hundreds of owners and trainers in that span and I can guarantee you, 99.9 per cent of those animals are fussed over like nobody's business, and that is on the harness racing side, which is generally looked at as the poor country cousin to the Thoroughbred side, known as the sport of kings.

More recently, it might be better characterized as the sport of Arab sheiks, with the tens of millions of dollars they have poured into the industry.

Thoroughbred lifestyles are, generally, more posh, but on both sides of the ledger, horses are pampered more than anything else.

And that would be because it is in the best interest of the owners and trainers to have their trusty steeds in prime physical and mental condition.

There would be no benefit, because it is also an intensely competitive business, to abusing a horse to a state where it was malnourished, or lacked even a shred of confidence.

And don't think psychology does not play a part in horse racing, either. Yes, physical ability means a lot, but I have trained fast horses who just didn't want to win. I had to teach a competitive nature and draw it out.

One pacing filly, she was fast and crazy – only horse to drag me over a hubrail – and was lightning quick, but she liked to have horses in front of her for company. If she hit the lead too soon, the show would slow until horses came along side, then speed up to stay with them.

For a whole summer, I trained her with a retired stud, slowly, just to get her used to tucking in behind him and then pulling out in the stretch and blowing by. After a couple hundred of those scenarios, she seemed to wake up and went on to have a pretty good career ... but I digress.

The only thing that I would ban from horse racing are the idiots who are ruining the game and some horses as they seek a competitive edge via steroids, hormones and just about anything else that can give a living animal more endurance or speed.

I have no tolerance for it, and those overseeing the game don't either. The only problem is the technology to detect what a handful of trainers are using is not keeping up, but it's close.

Penalties are also catching up, whereas, in the past, they have been mere tokens.

It’s unfortunate that the sweeping characterization of an entire sport (industry) can be made merely to fan flames of concern at a tragic time. It is odd to see how much print and broadcast attention the sport gets when something like that accident happens, or when Eight Bells met her fate after the Kentucky Derby a couple of years ago, while super horses like Somebeachsomewhere last year and others before him are lucky to see one headline for a whole summer's work.
__________________________________________________

Blogger's Note:

The reason I took so long to post this column was that I was waiting for the paper to print my letter. They never did, not that I'm surprised. For anyone interested, this is what I wrote:

Dear Mike,
When you’re wrong, you’re really wrong. But considering your newspaper promotes other forms of animal exploitation (barbecuing animals for various fundraisers, Poultry Fest Niagara, the Rotary Ribfest, farm-to-table pork workshops), and includes Marineland as one of its advertisers, it’s not surprising.

What’s cruel is the entire horse racing industry. Like the animals in a circus, race horses don’t volunteer – they’re forced to race (the reason for the whip) and many of them end up at the slaughterhouse when they’re no longer profitable. A Colorado State University study found that of 1,348 horses sent to slaughter, 58 were known to be former race horses.

In fact, horses aren’t even designed for racing. They’re made to run too fast, their frames are too large, and their legs are too small, resulting in injury and death. It’s estimated that one horse in every 22 races suffers an injury that prevents the animal from finishing the race, and approximately 800 race horses die or are euthanized in Canada and the U.S. each year because of racetrack injuries.

If the owners really cared about their animals, they wouldn’t force them to behave unnaturally, give them drugs to keep them racing when they shouldn’t be, or put their lives at risk. But horse racing is a business, and profits will always come before animal welfare.

Your bias is understandable, given your history with horse owners and trainers, but to eliminate unnecessary suffering and death, horse racing needs to be retired.

Daniel K. Wilson

4th animal dies at Stampede

2009-07-17T14:25:00.006-04:00

CBCnews.ca - Saturday, July 11, 2009

An outrider horse at the Calgary Stampede has died of an apparent heart attack, becoming the fourth animal to perish at the event this year.

Doug Fraser, a spokesperson for the Stampede, said the horse was cooling down after a race Friday night when it collapsed and died.

A veterinarian determined that the horse, from the Ray Mitsuing chuckwagon team, died of a heart attack.

It's the fourth animal to die this year at the Stampede, and the third chuckwagon horse.

On Thursday, a steer had to be put down after it suffered a spinal injury during the steer-wrestling competition.

Death sparks protest

Animal rights activists from Calgary held a protest Saturday, saying the death highlights how the Stampede is a "cruel spectacle of animal abuse."

The Calgary Animal Rights Meetup Group staged a demonstration outside the Stampede grounds at the Victoria Park C-Train station.

In a written statement, the group said the death toll at this year's Stampede is evidence that all rodeo events need to go.

The group said it would continue to stage protests in order to let the world know "what an embarrassment this spectacle is to our city."

Is a perfect world one without people?

2009-06-28T06:41:00.005-04:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Saturday, June 27, 2009

Re: Abolish violence, don't regulate it (June 16).

I read with great interest Daniel Wilson's column in which he found the organization known as PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to be not committed (or extreme) enough for his liking. Remember folks, PeTA is the group that advocates making ice cream out of human breast milk in order to ease the suffering of cows.

The scary thing about people who take animal rights to the extreme is that their vision of an ideal world is one in which there are no humans, only other animals. In Wilson's paradise, wolves don't eat deer. Instead, they frolic happily together under a rainbow. Get a grip.

Derek Witlib, Fonthill
_____________________________________________

And my response:

Dear Derek,

Don't you know it's not nice to put words in other people's mouths? I never said PeTA wasn't extreme enough for me; I simply wrote that they're heading down the wrong road, as your human breast milk ice-cream example illustrates.

If you'd read my earlier columns, you'd know that I'm not advocating for a world without humans, but for a world where humans don't exploit and kill those that are weaker than them.

And although your description of my "paradise" sounds exactly like Isaiah's vision of heaven, I wouldn't expect a wolf to become vegetarian. What makes us different from other animals is that we have a choice - they don't.

If you don't have to cause an animal to suffer and die, then you shouldn't. I'm sorry you consider this extreme.

Dan

Abolish violence, don't regulate it

2009-06-14T22:18:00.009-04:00

The St. Catharines Standard - June 16, 2009

By Daniel K. Wilson,

NIAGARA VOICES

Two recent news stories illustrate the problem with some of today’s animal “protection” groups.

The first is about the efforts of animal-rights activists to ban foie gras, a French delicacy made from geese that are force-fed a corn-and-fat mixture before they’re killed, from restaurants that serve it.

The other is in response to the Ontario government’s announcement that it won’t extend the annual deer-hunting season, to which one anti-sport hunting group applauded the Ministry of Natural Resources’ sensitivity and concerns about wildlife welfare.

Unfortunately, actions and reactions such as these threaten to undermine what the animal-rights movement is all about - that it’s unacceptable for humans to exploit or kill animals for any reason.

The MNR didn’t outlaw deer hunting; it only changed its mind about extending the season (for now). So why is a group opposed to the hunting of deer for sport congratulating a pro-hunting group?

And why are the animal-rights people only calling for a boycott of foie gras and not of all the steaks, pork chops, chicken wings and turkey sandwiches also served at these restaurants?

The production of foie gras is no worse than what happens to millions of other animals on today’s factory farms before they’re trucked off to slaughter.

But instead of educating the public that all creatures are worthy of respect and compassion, some groups are sending the message that it’s okay to kill certain animals, or spending vast amounts of money and resources to regulate animal exploitation.

The World Wildlife Fund works hard to save the polar bear while it supports the annual seal hunt (both the WWF Canada president and the Prince of Wales, a WWF spokesperson, are devoted sport hunters).

Last year PeTA, the largest animal-rights organization in the world, ended its boycott of, and became the unofficial spokesgroup for KFC Canada, when the chicken giant agreed to gas its birds before slitting their throats. According to one PeTA rep, “It’s okay to eat at KFC Canada; they’re good now.”

Even our local humane societies, whose sworn duty is to protect those who “cannot speak for themselves”, have no problem barbecuing and serving animals at fundraisers to help other, more popular animals.

As one supporter said, “…let PeTA battle [what’s happening to pigs and chickens] right now, and let us focus on the pups.”

But it’s hypocrisy to defend some animals while causing the suffering and death of others. And expecting someone else to stop your own animal exploitation is irresponsible.

Some animal-rights activists believe that if they push for stronger animal welfare laws it will someday lead to animal liberation. This however is simply not the case. Baby steps don’t work.

According to Gary Francione, a professor of law and philosophy at Rutgers University, after 200 years of animal welfare legislation, more animals are killed for food today than ever before.

The latest figures out of the U.K. also show animal experimentation and sport hunting is on the rise, despite that country’s progressive animal welfare laws.

That’s because animal welfare reinforces the ideology that animals are property and here for us to use. It says it’s okay to exploit, kill and torture animals (with good reason) as long as they have food, water and shelter.

In truth, animal welfare actually leads to more, not less animals being killed because people feel less guilty about it, thinking (or hoping) the animals aren’t suffering as much; the idea behind today’s “happy meat” and “conscientious carnivore” movements.

Choosing which animals you’ll be kind to and which animals you won’t isn’t true kindness. Pushing for more “humane” methods of killing animals really isn’t humane. And cozying up to those who profit from killing animals won’t stop the killing.

The only way to end animal suffering is to abolish all forms of animal exploitation. Those who claim to speak for the animals should bear this in mind.

Dan Wilson is a vegan, environmentalist, animal rights activist and public education director for the Vegan Party of Canada. He is also a member of The Standard's community editorial board. You can contact him at: dkw1@sympatico.ca .

Gov. Gen's show of solidarity for seal hunt offensive: animal rights group

2009-05-26T19:24:00.003-04:00

The Canadian Press - Tuesday, May 26, 2009

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean's public gutting of a seal in an Inuit community was a repugnant attempt to legitimize the sealing trade, an opponent of Canada's commercial hunt said Tuesday.

"I found it very offensive," said Rebecca Aldworth, a Canadian spokeswoman for Humane Society International.

"Obviously there is a tremendous public understanding of subsistence hunting in Inuit communities and nobody's opposing that, but to try to benefit from an Inuit ceremony in terms of defending the broader commercial seal hunt is simply unacceptable."

While visiting Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, on Monday, Jean gutted and ate a piece of the bleeding, raw heart of a freshly slaughtered seal.

Jean then wiped her fingers and expressed dismay that anyone would characterize the Inuit seal hunt as inhumane.

Earlier this month, the European Parliament voted to ban seal products, a move that was seen by aboriginals and Atlantic Canadian fishermen as an attack on their trade.
Asked Tuesday whether her actions were a message to Europe, Jean replied, "Take from that what you will."

Newfoundland sealer Jack Troake chuckled after hearing of Jean's actions.

"That's great stuff," Troake said.

"I hope the lady realizes that she's got herself into a hell of a mess. ... You've got some of these environmentalists that are going to jump on her, but I think she's strong enough. She can take that, I think."

For years, animal rights groups have intensely lobbied European politicians to implement a ban. At times they enlisted the support of celebrities like rock legend Paul McCartney in their cause.

The European legislation still needs the backing of European Union governments, which could be a mere formality since national envoys have already endorsed it.

Expected to take effect in October, the ban would apply to all products derived from seals, including fur, meat, oil, blubber and even omega-3 pills made from seal oil. But it would offer narrow exemptions for Inuit communities, though it bars them from a large-scale trading of their pelts and other seal goods in Europe.

Products derived from non-commercial and small-scale hunts to manage seal populations would also not be allowed to enter the EU.

Do small victories affect big picture in animal rights debate?

2009-05-19T10:03:00.002-04:00

The Gazette - Sunday, May 10, 2009

By Richard Foot, Canwest News Service

It was a satisfying week for animal rights activists in Canada. The European Parliament endorsed a long-awaited ban on seal products, and one of Ottawa's most celebrated restaurateurs removed foie gras from his menu, after months of harassment by protesters.

"We're quite happy about the ban. I've been working for 40 years on the seal issue," says Paul Watson, the Canadian founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, one of the most vociferous opponents of the annual seal harvest.

Meanwhile, Jason Halvorson, a leader of the Ottawa Animal Defense League's campaign to rid the city's restaurants of the controversial culinary treat foie gras, said he was thrilled by the group's most recent victory.

Do such successes mean the animal rights movement is winning its long, controversial campaigns to gain the same legal protections for animals as those ascribed to humans?

Certainly the sealers of Newfoundland, or Ottawa businessman Stephen Beckta, might think so.

Beckta is the owner of two popular dining rooms, who succumbed to months of nasty, anonymous phone calls, insulting e-mails, and noisy demonstrations outside his restaurants by animal rights activists protesting the consumption of foie gras, a traditional French delicacy made from the enlarged livers of force-fed ducks or geese.

Beckta said he gave in to the group's demands not because of any moral choice over foie gras but because he couldn't take any more threats, intimidation or sleepless nights caused by the tactics.

And he's not alone. Last year in Nanaimo, B.C., specialty food store owner Eric McLean capitulated to animal rights activists protesting outside his business by removing cans of foie gras from his shelves.

Yet over the long history of animal rights activism in Canada, it's hard to find evidence that the larger aims of such protests are ever achieved. Notwithstanding their local tactical victories, are animal rights protesters really as effective as they appear?

Consider the Canadian seal hunt, one of the longest-running animal rights campaigns in the world. For nearly half a century, protesters from Watson to Brigitte Bardot, and more recently Paul McCartney, have been trying to shut down the hunt.

They came close in the 1970s when Europe banned the import of products from the youngest seals, known as whitecoats and bluebacks. The commercial hunt nearly collapsed, but 20 years later rebounded as worldwide demand emerged for the oil and the spotted fur of older seals. About 300,000 seals are now harvested in Canada every year.

David Barry, the seal network co-ordinator for the Fur Institute of Canada, says the latest EU ban, while problematic for the industry, doesn't mean it's over. For one thing Canada can still export seal products to China, Russia and other nations outside the EU; there are also exemptions in the ban that allow the culling of seals for conservation purposes.

"This won't bring sealing to an end," he says. "The activists could have had an influence on the manner in which sealing is conducted - and they still could - if they want to talk and work with the people in the industry. But if they continue to just take a fundamentalist position against people who live in the same ecosystem as the seals, then they'll never achieve an end to this activity, because these people rely on this for their living."

In other campaigns, foie gras may be off the shelf of Eric McLean's food store in B.C., and off the menu of Beckta's restaurants in Ottawa, but it remains in supermarkets and restaurants elsewhere in Canada and the around the world.

For decades animal rights activists have protested the use of animals in laboratory experiments. Most recently in California, a scientist at UCLA had his car firebombed for the same reason. Only a year after 9/11, the FBI even labelled animal-rights militants one of that country's most serious domestic terrorist threats. Yet in spite of such concerns, laboratory mice continue to be used by scientists at university campuses across North America.

In 1989, activists destroyed two meat markets in Vancouver to protest World Laboratory Animals Day. Two years later, animal rights protesters set fire to a fish-importing company in Edmonton - ironically killing many of the live lobsters and crabs inside - and causing $46,000 in damage. But Canadians didn't stop eating meat or fish as a result.

In one of their greatest achievements, animal rights groups succeeded in convincing the government of former prime minister Tony Blair to ban England's traditional fox hunts. But now, several years later, public opinion is changing on the subject, according to a recent BBC report, and the Conservative opposition is considering revoking the ban if it wins the next election.

Even the whaling campaigns waged by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and others have not produced a complete end to the whale harvest. Whalers from Japan and Norway each still harvest about 1,000 whales a year. That's a big change from the 20,000 whales killed annually during the 1970s, but also proof that eradicating even the most controversial animal industries is a tough, if not impossible, challenge.

"We are fighting an uphill battle," says Watson. "But we just have to keep pushing on."

Barry says one of the shortcomings of the animal rights movement is its propensity to extremism and fundamentalism. If anti-sealing groups were genuinely interested in the welfare of seals, they would have accepted invitations from the sealing industry and the federal government in 2005 to iron out a set of "best practices" for the harvest.

Instead they sought an outright end to seal markets in Europe and the ban there now includes the loophole allowing Canada to cull its seal population without any cruelty restrictions on how those animals are killed.

But Watson says principles are principles, and the ultimate goal of his campaigns is not negotiation, compromise, or even victory.

"We do what we can with the resources that are available to us," he says. "We don't focus on whether we're going to win or we're going to lose. We do what we think is right, because it's the right thing to do. If we don't succeed, well, then it's going to affect all of humanity.

"The goal is the protection of our oceans, and if the oceans die, we die. It's that simple."

Seal the deal and this annual hunt

2009-05-07T07:17:00.002-04:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Thursday, May 7, 2009

Posted by GREG WESTON

While federal politicians are publicly turning the air blue over the European ban on Canadian seal products, it's a safe bet most would be just as happy if the boycott finally killed the controversial annual slaughter on the ice floes.

They may well get their wish.

While the 27 member countries of the European Union long ago ceased to be prime markets for Canadian sealskin, they are nonetheless home to the world's leading fashion houses.

If seal fur is taboo on the runways of Paris and Rome, you can bet it won't be in big demand elsewhere in the western world, either.

Even without the European ban, the two largest remaining international markets -- Russia and China - have been drying up to the point of threatening the viability of the entire industry.

Like virtually all federal politicians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to go to the wall to help the Newfoundland sealers, and fight the European ban.

Why bother? The issue certainly isn't to save the Newfoundland economy, which, last time we checked, is now awash in oil revenues.

Nor is to protect the livelihoods of the sealers, most of whom are fishermen trying to make a bit of spare cash in off-season. We are not talking the difference between prosperity and starvation here.

Various official reports on the industry indicate that at its peak, seal pelts were selling for around $100, up to 6,000 sealers were taking their quota, and total sales were over $15 million.

The St. John's Telegram reported this week that pelts are now selling for only $15, "the lowest it has been in years."

As a result, over 70% of all the usual sealing crews decided this year's seal slaughter wasn't worth the effort and stayed home.

Not surprisingly, the big winners have been thousands of young seals.

The Telegram reports that a full month into this year's hunt for a government-imposed quota of about 240,000 seals in the region, fewer than 40,000 have been killed.

Do the math, and ending the seal hunt altogether would cost a few thousand sealers roughly the equivalent of less than two weeks of unemployment insurance payments.

None of this is to dismiss the financial worth of the sealing industry to mainly low-income off-season fishermen. Every dollar is important.

Indeed, if the seal hunt were just another harvest, the Canadian government would be remiss if it didn't try to protect the industry from the European Union boycott.

But as every Canadian politician knows only too well, the annual carnage of cute on the ice floes off Newfoundland is hardly ordinary.

For over 100 years, the clubbing and gutting of seals has provoked raging debate in this country -- some of it factual; a lot of it emotional.

For instance, killing those cuddly white baby seals is already banned.

Yet, anti-sealing campaigns almost invariably feature white pups being clubbed to death and skinned, their carcasses dragged across the bloodied ice on the end of a pick.

Reality is, even if it could be proved conclusively that slaughtering seals of any age is perfectly humane and ecologically necessary to control their numbers, a picture of the kill will always be worth more than a thousand words of rationalization.

That's why the Harper government is wasting time and money fighting the European ban as an international trade issue.

Even if Canada wins, so what? Anti-sealing organizations are already using the Internet to promote an international boycott of Canadian seafood exports, and even tourism to this country.

With any luck, a dying market will kill sealing before it seriously bloodies the whole country.

Don't use the Bible to justify cruelty

2009-04-21T07:55:00.002-04:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Tuesday, April 21, 2009

By Daniel K. Wilson, NIAGARA VOICES

“‘Do not kill’: These words refer not just to the killing of a person, but to the killing of anything which is alive. This commandment was written in the people’s hearts even before it was heard on Mt. Sinai.” - Leo Tolstoy

It seems that whenever I’m leafleting, tabling at some event or speaking about animal rights or vegetarianism, there’s always someone who will use the Bible to justify our mistreatment of animals.

They usually say something like, “Well, that’s what the animals are here for,” but occasionally it’s a little more to the point: “That’s why God put them here.”

Although I find it hard to believe that an all-loving Creator condones animal cruelty, I do know where this particular view comes from:

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” - Genesis 1:26

Now to some people, including many animal-rights activists, having dominion means that we are stewards of the earth, and that we’re responsible for the animals in the same way a leader is responsible for the people he or she governs.

We have no more right to hunt, kill or experiment on animals than Stephen Harper has the right to hunt, kill or experiment on Canadians, or so they argue.

But a lot of other folks interpret dominion as exploitation: that we can use animals in whatever way we see fit, and why not? The Bible isn’t exactly the most animal-friendly book around.

Sure, God commanded the Israelites to let their animals rest on the Sabbath but aside from that, there really isn’t much about being nice to them.

The Bible does however, describe in graphic detail, how animals are to be killed for peace offerings, sin offerings, burnt offerings and other sacrifices “to make a sweet savour unto the Lord,” and although the Hebrews were instructed not to eat certain kinds of animals like pigs, vultures and mice (because they were considered unclean), the book of Leviticus lists a multitude of animals that could be eaten.

In the story of the flood, every living creature not in the ark was destroyed and when God told the children of Israel to attack their enemies, He insisted that all the animals of their enemies be killed as well, along with every man, woman and child.

Some animal activists, along with some Christians, have even suggested that Jesus was a vegetarian, although there’s no evidence of this, and if Jesus was concerned about the well-being of animals, nobody bothered to record it. Nowhere in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount does it say, “Blessed are they who protect the animals from unnecessary suffering.”

And while life in the Garden of Eden was apparently meant to be a vegetarian one,

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” - Genesis 1:29,

I think it’s a mistake for activists to try and use the Bible to promote animal rights, as most references to animals have to do with how they are to serve us, alive or dead.

But just because the Bible isn’t compassionate towards animals doesn’t mean that we can’t be. The good book also sanctions war, slavery, polygamy, the killing of homosexuals and the oppression of women, all of which are quite unpopular today.

If we stop using the Bible to justify animal exploitation, and started promoting kindness and respect for all of God's creation, we might just acheive something most of us thought was impossible - peace on Earth.

Sanctuaries don't use their animals for profit

2009-04-20T07:11:00.003-04:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Saturday, April 18, 2009

It has recently come to my attention that The Exotic Animal Rescue Society is back soliciting donations from the public at local Canadian Tire stores.

Be careful before you consider a donation. Sanctuaries do not breed animals, use animals in television/video, demand "public performance" for donations, nor do they keep animals housed in unnatural environments or displayed for public viewing.

This approach is an impediment to education about positive human and non-human relationships. These animals should be removed to recognized sanctuaries where they can live out the remainder of their lives free from exploitation.

Dylan Powell,
St. Catharines
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How You Can Help

Call or write Canadian Tire on Welland Avenue in St. Catharines and let them know that you won't shop there as long as they allow exotic animals to be kept on display in the store. You can also call Canadian Tire's Head Office and tell them how you feel too.

Canadian Tire:
459 Welland Avenue
St. Catharines, ON
L2M 5V2
(905) 688-0488

Canadian Tire Head Office:
1 800 387-8803

'You might as well not even have the legislation'

2009-04-16T07:09:00.002-04:00

The Canadian Press - Monday, April 13, 2009

BY COLIN PERKEL

Horrific incidents of animal cruelty that have essentially gone unpunished or resulted only in slaps on the wrist demonstrate the weakness of federal legislation enacted one year ago, animal-rights activists say.

In one notorious case, a New Brunswick man was acquitted in February of charges for killing five pomeranians he didn't want with a hammer.

Since the animals were considered his property, the court decided he had the right to dispose of them as he saw fit, although he was ordered to pay $50 for injuring a dog that survived the hammer blow.

"Most Canadians do not view animals the same way that people did in the Victorian era," said Melissa Tkachyk of the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

"They do not agree that killing an animal with a hammer is the same as vandalizing a person's car."

In another case, a St. Catharines man dropped a kitten from a fifth floor balcony, then ran her over with his car. Charges were dropped because the kitten was considered marital property in a domestic dispute and his wife couldn't testify against him.

Critics complain that Bill S-203, which received Royal Assent last April 17, has done little to protect animals and say such incidents underline a crying need to put teeth into the law.

The legislation enacted last year, essentially the same as property-offences law enacted in 1892, beefed up penalties for animal cruelty.

However, it contains no standards of care for how animals are fed or housed and securing a convictions is difficult because of the need to prove "wilful intent" to cause suffering to an animal.

Simply proving an animal suffered is almost impossible.

Liberal MP Mark Holland called the updated law "placebo" policy.

"Those that are committing animal-abuse offences are essentially able to do so with impunity," Holland said.

"I've just been really exhausted with talking to SPCA officers who go into homes and situations where they see animals that have been tortured and abused and can do nothing."

Holland has introduced a private member's bill that would create a separate offence for killing an animal without lawful excuse regardless of whether it could be proven the animal suffered.

Across Canada, fewer than one-quarter of one per cent of charges under the animal-cruelty provisions of the code result in convictions.

"You might as well not even have the legislation," said Sean Kelly, chairman of the investigations committee for the Nova Scotia SPCA, who called the law useless.

He said he had heard of only a single conviction under the Criminal Code, and that one involved an extreme case of a man who abused 129 animals.

"When it comes to companion animals, it's just not heard of," Kelly said.

In another case last June, an Ontario man abandoned a two-year-old dog on a bush road after blinding her with a gunshot to the head but was acquitted of intent to unlawfully injure a dog.

Last month, a Nova Scotia woman was fined $5 for drowning a pair of newborn kittens in a bucket of water.

"The Criminal Code should recognize that animals experience pain and suffering," Tkachyk said.

"Animals are sentient - it's time to reflect this basic fact in our legislation that is supposed to protect them."

Ontario politician Mike Colle, who pushed the province to beef up its animal-welfare act last month, called the federal legislation a "paper tiger" that didn't give humane officials or inspectors better tools.

The legislation does not even outlaw breeding, training or selling animals to fight each other, he said.
- - -
Animal cruelty law called useless. Some recent cases:

Nova Scotia woman drowns two newborn kittens -- fined $5.

Northwest Territories man leaves dogs outdoors to freeze and starve to death -- no charges laid.

St. Catharines man drops kitten from a 5th floor balcony, then runs it over with car -- charges dropped.

New Brunswick man kills five pomeranians with a hammer -- absolute discharge.

Ontario man shoots, blinds and abandons dog on bush road -- acquitted.

Quebec man found with more than 100 dogs crammed in tiny, filthy cages -- 180 hours community service and $3,200 fine.

European Union vote could lead to tight ban on Canadian seal products

2009-03-02T18:01:00.002-05:00

The Canadian Press - Monday, March 2, 2009

The European Union took another step toward a ban on Canadian seal products Monday as a parliamentary committee rejected a proposal to label the products instead.

A vote by the EU parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee endorsed a bill that would impose a ban on the import of all seal products to the 27-member union. It voted 25-7 in favour of the ban.

The same bill granted an exemption to Canada's Inuit to continue to trade seal products "for cultural, educational or ceremonial purposes."

The decision drew immediate reaction from those for and against Canada's East Coast hunt, which is the largest in the world. Over the last three years the total allowable catch has been set at between 270,000 and 335,000 seals annually.

"I'm very disappointed that elected officials in Europe are going against World Trade Organization rulings and legal opinions," said Rob Cahill of the Canadian Fur Institute. "It's not over, but I think this is a real setback."

Cahill said it was clear that years of lobbying by anti-sealing and animal rights groups in North America and Europe had gained traction with a number of politicians.

"Those campaigns are very strong in Europe ... and I think it's just the culmination of many years of that movement coming into place," he said.

Meanwhile, those opposed to the hunt were heralding the news as a strong indication the battle is being won.

"It's a fantastic step forward in the campaign to stop commercial seal slaughters around the world," said Rebecca Aldworth, director of Humane Society International Canada.

She said the committee vote "will carry a lot of weight" when the EU assembly votes on a bill, which could come as early as April.

In order to become law, the bill must be approved by the entire EU assembly and EU governments.

The committee decision follows an intense lobbying effort in recent weeks by Canadian politicians looking to convince the European body that the commercial harp seal hunt is humane.

The committee endorsed plan brands seal hunting as "inherently inhumane" and calls for the EU to heed public calls for a ban.

"It's clear they haven't taken into account information from Canada to the contrary of some of the things that they (opponents) continue to say as being facts about the hunting of seals," said Cahill.

Federal officials have estimated an EU ban would chop half the annual value of the hunt, which currently stands at $13 million.

Nordic EU countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland have opposed such a ban, and legal experts say it could violate world trade rules. Seals are also hunted in Namibia, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

British lawmaker Diana Wallis, who is drafting the EU assembly bill, had recommended the tough labelling rules - instead of a ban - as the way to ensure sealing countries adhere to EU animal welfare rules. But lawmakers in her committee rejected her compromise and opted for the ban instead.

She warned such a ban could lead to legal problems under world trade rules.

"My fear is that a ban will just leave the European public still seeing the same pictures on their TV screens of the Canadian seal cull next year as they see this year," Wallis said after the vote.

The EU has banned the import of white pelts from baby seals since 1983.

Several European Union nations, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, also have their own bans on all seal products. The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972.

Cahill said he hoped many of the countries who hunt seals would come forward during the next step in the EU's process to help keep the bill from passing.

In fact, EU members including Denmark, Sweden and Finland have opposed a ban.
But Aldworth contends Monday's vote was a "positive indication" that the end to Canada's commercial seal hunt is in the offing.

"I think this is a very historic moment in the campaign to stop commercial sealing in Canada," she said.

- With files from The Associated Press

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Anglers net fish and funds for charity

2009-03-01T07:56:00.003-05:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Saturday, February 28, 2009

By TIFFANY MAYER

It’s the kind of wound that has the makings of good fishing hole lore.

Especially if it leaves a scar.

As Lindsay Smith pressed a bloody kleenex to his thumb to soothe the bite marks from a fish he caught Saturday morning, he imagined the potential his injured finger held.

He could really get people hook, line and sinker, if he wanted to.

“It was a huge pike, a 10-pounder, and it had my whole hand in his mouth,” Smith said with a grin while an equally proud-looking pike lied in a yellow bucket at his feet.

But that’s not exactly what happened.

The St. Catharines man headed onto a frozen Martindale Pond Saturday morning to reel in the big one at a charity ice-fishing derby.

Nearly three hours later, he netted a three-pound, 23-inch pike. But when the avid angler went to take the hook out of its mouth, the feisty fish got revenge.

“He kind of flopped and clamped,” onto Smith’s thumb.

It took the help of a fishing buddy to pry the pesky pike off his finger.

“Their teeth are so sharp, once they clamp on you, you need help opening their mouth. I should know better but I thought I could get the hook out,” Smith said.

Smith was one of nearly 50 people who participated in the derby with the hopes of snagging prize-winning pike or perch.

Organized by 17-year-old Bowen Sandercock, the annual event served as fundraiser for The Heart and Stroke Foundation.

The Niagara-on-the-Lake teen started the derby three years ago in honour of Bradley Perzul, a Niagara Falls man who died two years ago after a heart transplant.
_______________________________________________

Blogger's Note:

My problem with this story isn't that people are trying to raise money for charity, it's that in doing so, they're harming others. Why can't people come up with ways of helping people without causing suffering and death to other animals?

The reporter also makes it sound as if the fish, after enduring the pain of having a hook stuck through its face and struggling to survive inside a plastic pail, was having as much fun as the kid who caught it.

The other thing is that when a newspaper runs a story like this, they never cover the other side of it. In not doing so, it reinforces the belief that this is okay, because no opposing voices are heard.

If they ran a story about a group of women who decided to go topless at a street corner to raise money for charity, the newspaper would also report that certain people were opposed to this kind of exploitation and objectification of women. If they didn't, there would no doubt be letters from members of the public accusing the newspaper of sexism.

But when it comes to animal exploitation, as in the fishing story above, this never happens. Newspapers need to be more objective when covering such issues.

"How smart does a chimp have to be...?"

2009-01-17T10:49:00.004-05:00

The Weston Town Crier - Thursday, January 15, 2009

By Elizabeth K. Daly

WESTON - You have the right, dear reader, to ignore this article, along with a lot of other rights you may never have thought about, like the right not to be held captive in a laboratory, not to be experimented on, not to have cosmetics and household cleaners tested on you, and not to be killed.

You never had to earn these rights; to enjoy them you never had to prove a thing. All you needed was the good fortune to be born a human being.

If you were, these rights were automatically yours, even if you were born disabled, handicapped, diseased or mentally deficient. In the midst of whatever complaints or grievances you may have in life, never cease to be grateful for those rights.

What are rights anyway, and how does anybody come by them? Whatever they are, they are deemed to be absolute and "inalienable," as Thomas Jefferson put it. But in fact they vary so much from one era to another and from one society to another that they have to be regarded as culturally agreed upon privileges.

The same Thomas Jefferson who asserted man’s "inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was a slave owner, whose slaves were deemed to be mere property with no rights at all. From the inception of our country to the Emancipation Proclamation, that viewpoint was commonly held by well-bred ladies and gentlemen and ordinary citizens alike.

From today’s vantage point, it is clear that slaves were people, who in fact had rights, but whose rights were violated by the society of the day. We look similarly on the victims of the Holocaust, of Stalinist Russia, of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, of contemporary Africa’s genocidal wars, and of dictatorial regimes in general.

We don’t see those victims as people without rights, but rather, as people whose rights were violated and denied, and we see that violation and denial as a heinous crime. If and when the victims’ status changes and their rights are accorded, they are not granted new rights; rather, their society finally comes to recognize the rights that were theirs all along.

Cultural evolution of this kind does occur, and that is what gives hope for the future to those who can see, even now, that animals have rights. Why are animal rights at present so ubiquitously violated?

Two commonly cited rationales for that violation are 1) that animals are inferior to humans and 2) that animals are so different from humans as to be unable to experience acute suffering.

It is entirely unclear why humans, as the kingpins of evolution, have the moral right to abuse creatures presumed to be beneath them in the evolutionary scheme of things, but the very premise of human superiority could use some re-examination. Our superiority is far from total, as we smugly like to think.

Who’s superior to whom?

Think of how many types of animals are superior to humans in their ability to run, climb, swim, burrow, fly, or in some cases, to remember; in their agility, speed, strength, endurance, and capacity to circumnavigate the globe in the air, on land, or on and under the oceans; in their keen senses of sight, hearing, smell, or of echo-location; in their ability to survive and thrive in the harshest environments – deserts, rocky mountain slopes, jungles, the North and South poles, and the depths of the oceans.

In beauty, many are equal if not superior to humans; think of horses, zebras, the golden tamarin monkey, lions, tigers, leopards, ocelots, panda bears, gazelles, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and many others.

What the animals lack is written language and advanced technology. But even here, much research has shown that they communicate clearly with one another (beyond our ability to comprehend) and with specificity, using not only a large subtle repertoire of vocal sounds, but also complex body language and variable body odors. Some of their constructions, unaided by computers or construction manuals, are marvels of engineering. Think of a birds’ nest, a beehive, a spider’s web, a beavers’ dam, a prairie dogs’ underground town.

Those that live in packs or herds have a social order and a system of hierarchies that rival human societies in their complexity. In some packs and herds, not only parents, but the whole herd, help nurture the young and teach their culture, perpetuating it from one generation to the next, as humans do. Some animal societies – elephants, for example – have rituals for celebrating birth and mourning death. And many have been shown to create and use simple tools.

These similarities to humans are highly significant, because they give the lie to the other commonly cited rationale for denying animal rights, namely that animals are so different from us that they are incapable of feeling pain in the same way or of experiencing true suffering.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Many studies have documented the anxiety, severe depression and terror of laboratory animals, especially primates. Indeed their capacity to suffer is one more of their marked similarities to humans. Some primates have been taught to "speak" a human language through sign language, and these primate "speakers" have been reported to express the full range of "human" emotions – joy, sadness, remorse, fear, anxiety, love, hate, even humor. Some have demonstrated feats of intelligence previously thought to be uniquely human – to count, to do rudimentary calculations, to practice deception, to learn human sign language solely from a primate parent proficient in it.

Thou shalt not kill

All the similarities between humans and animals, and especially between humans and primates, are a two-edged sword for the deniers and supporters of animal rights. For the deniers, the similarities are a supreme convenience, making animals a good stand-in for humans in experimentation. What they conveniently forget is that rights are deemed to be absolute and inalienable, and have nothing at all to do with convenience.

For the supporters of animal rights the similarities place animals, especially primates, under the protection of our own ethical taboo against killing. How can it not apply, they ask, to our own closest relatives, members of our own hominid family? Those of a religious bent might ask the question a little differently – are we not all God’s creatures, all entitled to His mercy?

Other civilized nations are more advanced than the U.S. in acknowledging this ethical taboo. Such "backward" nations as Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Japan have banned primate research in their countries, and Spain has gone one step further. In June 2008, the Spanish parliament explicitly acknowledged the rights of the great apes to life and freedom; legislation spelling out the practical implications of these rights is expected within a year.

The European Union as a whole is also ahead of us in banning safety testing of cosmetics on animals. The ban takes full effect in 2009, and it applies not only to testing, but also to the sale, within the European Union, of cosmetics tested on animals.

In the U.S. similar measures are pending, but support is needed to make them succeed. A bill before the House of Representatives, called the Great Apes Protection Act, or GAPA (H.R.5852), would ban most primate research in this country and would release primates currently in U.S. labs to sanctuaries.

There is also a petition before the Federal Drug Administration, called the Mandatory Alternatives Petition (MAP), that seeks compulsory non-animal testing for products, wherever non-animal alternatives are available. It was submitted in November 2007 by a coalition of organizations that advocate humane treatment of animals.

Anyone in Weston interested in speeding up these measures should write to Congressman Edward J. Markey, 2108 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, urging him to support GAPA, and to the commissioner of the FDA, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, MD, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville MD 20857, urging the FDA to comply with the MAP petition.

The title of this article, "How smart does a chimp have to be …?" is a truncated quotation from the famous scientist and writer Carl Sagan. The full question he asked was, "How smart does a chimp have to be before killing him constitutes murder?" While our country is pondering the question, the rights of chimpanzees and of countless other, even more "inferior" animals, are being excruciatingly violated every day. It happens not only in laboratories, but also on factory farms, in puppy mills, circuses, and other venues, too.

Animals are badly in need of our recognition of their rights. We are also in need of it, for the sake of our own consciences.

For a more thorough exposition of the legal concept of animal rights, see "Drawing the Line" and "Rattling the Cage," both by Steven M. Wise. For current news and information on this topic see the Web site of the Animal Legal Defense Fund at "www.aldf.org"

Elizabeth K. Daly is a longtime resident of Weston and an activist for animal rights.

Man, what a stupid species

2009-01-06T19:53:00.002-05:00

Toronto Sun - Friday, January 2, 2009

BY PAUL BERTON

Human death is tragic, but the glaring reality is there are plenty of us on the planet. So many, in fact, that we're fighting over the few remaining open spaces, and we're the biggest threat to most other species, and indeed the planet itself.

Disease, wars, natural disasters and stupidity have killed millions of humans, often tragically, but can any of it even compare to the extinction of a species?

In Canada, for example, we've ridded the place of the sea mink, the Dawson caribou, the passenger pigeon, various kinds of wolves, a variety of fish, and a smattering of other creatures big and small.

Many species have been eradicated due to human hunting, for food or simply for sport, or because we seem to need more space to live than any other creature and are unwilling to share it or use it responsibly.

And we're not done yet.

Recently, a group of scientists known as the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada added a variety of species to the growing list of animals and plants in this country that are threatened or endangered. Among them: The snapping turtle, which suffers the same problem as wolves and other animals -- people fear it.

Worldwide, even the cute ones, such as panda bears, are having trouble surviving in a world increasingly populated by humans. Some are simply in the way. Others are out of sight and out of mind, obscured not by our need for survival, but our need for, well, money.

All of them may be doomed by what we're doing to the planet itself. We're not just hunting these animals, chopping down the forests and paving the grasslands -- that's old-fashioned. We've adopted far more insidious methods: Poisoning the air and water.

We continue to try, usually with disastrous results, to manipulate nature. We're changing the climate.

And we may well yet just blow the place up; submit the planet to nuclear Armageddon, from which only a few species might be lucky enough to survive.

It's food for thought during a week of resolutions.

Good deeds stained with animal blood

2008-12-23T18:14:00.004-05:00

Countless worthy causes are based on the grilling and eating of animals

The St. Catharines Standard - Tuesday, December 23, 2008

By DAN WILSON

"So while you're home today eating your sweet, sweet holiday turkey, I hope you'll all choke ... just a little bit." - Kent Brockman, Channel 6 News

That charming little quote is from The Simpson's, and while I consider it to be one of the funniest shows on television, I honestly have no desire to see anyone suffer ... not even a little bit.

I would, however, like people to think about the choices they make and why they do the things they do, especially when it comes to the way we treat others in the pursuit of own individual interests.

Christmas easily comes to mind. It's a time of sharing, family gatherings and being thankful for what we have.

We spend the days and weeks leading up to Christmas looking for just the right gifts for family and friends, feeling all good inside about how nice and thoughtful we are.

Perhaps we even do some volunteer work to ease the suffering of those less fortunate.

Then on Christmas Day, after all the presents are exchanged and the smell of homecooking fills the house, we take our places at the dinner table, say a little prayer, and feast on the slaughtered remains of some defenceless turkey, goose or pig.

In the name of peace, love and goodwill towards others we cause or sanction the unnecessary suffering and violent deaths of other animals, and think nothing of it.

Either we don't consider the consequences of our actions or we simply don't care.

Maybe it's just that the taste of another animal's flesh is more important to us than the life of that animal.

Consider all the organizations that collect and distribute turkeys around Christmas (and Thanksgiving) to give to those in need.

Sure it's great to give food to those who can't afford it, but what's wrong with giving rice, pasta, potatoes or canned vegetables instead?

Why does a good deed have to be stained with the blood of an innocent animal?

But that's the way we are, and not just around the holidays. All year long, and for countless worthy causes, we'll cook up, barbecue or grill other animals to help our own kind -- your friendly community rib-fest, wing-fling, fish-fry or beef-on-a-bun.

This type of prejudice is called speciesism, meaning when one species (ours) puts its own interests above the interests of all other species so it can do whatever it wants to those other species.

We defend our discrimination in many ways, like saying animals aren't capable of complex thinking, using language or contemplating death the way we are, as if these reasons justify cruelty and exploitation.

Did you know that turkeys are clever, cunning and extremely friendly creatures? Did you know they blush? They also become extremely stressed just before slaughter, which apparently makes their "meat" tougher because of all the adrenaline that's released into their bodies.

And did you know that a few years ago a pig, someone's pet, saved the life of a woman who was having a heart attack? It's true. LuLu, sensing her owner was in trouble, risked her own life by leaving the house, running into the street and lying down in front of traffic until someone finally stopped, followed LuLu into the house and called 911.

Some eight million pigs and another three million turkeys are slaughtered for food each and every day around the world. Maybe if they were more like LuLu, we'd think twice about eating them.

And maybe if we got to know a few cows, chickens and turkeys the way we know cats or dogs, we'd treat them better, too.

It's as if we suffer from some sort of moral multiple personality disorder -- nice to some animals, even creating laws to protect them from abuse, and cruel and indifferent to the rest.

We need to start practising what we preach. If it's wrong to make one kind of animal suffer, it's wrong to make any animal suffer.

So in the spirit of Christmas and with a new year just around the corner, may I offer a suggestion: If you feel bad for the animals that are killed to be your food, or a little guilty for causing so much pain and suffering, then do something about it.

Make it your New Year's resolution to stop eating animals. It's not only good for your health; it's good for theirs too. If you truly want peace in the world, take the first step: go vegetarian.

Or as Bart might say, don't have a cow, man!

Dan Wilson is a vegan, environmentalist, animal rights activist and public education director for the Niagara Centre for Animal Rights Awareness. He is a member of The Standard's community editorial board. Contact him at dkw1@sympatico.ca.

Our laws are too lenient to deter cruelty to animals

2008-12-18T18:37:00.002-05:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Wednesday December 17, 2008

Re: 'Who could do this?' The Standard, Dec. 10.

I am a cat lover and I was absolutely horrified and appalled when reading this article.

How someone could possibly dream up torture of this nature and then carry it out on a defenceless animal is beyond my comprehension.

This truly takes a very sick person. My heart goes out to Carrie Hawkes and her son, Devon. I know what it's like to lose an animal, after all, they become part of your family. My only hope is that they catch this person or persons and that justice will be carried out.

Unfortunately, our laws are far too lenient and don't really deter this type of behaviour.

It's about time that something was done to send a message out to the persons who carry out these horrendous acts -- maybe an eye-for-an-eye approach. A hand slap just isn't going to do it.

Roberta Librock
St. Catharines
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Blogger's Note - What happened to this cat, as bad and sick as it was, is really no different than what happens to millions of other defenceless animals - cows, chickens, pigs, etc. - each and every day. Unfortunately, there are no laws preventing this. Indeed, it's an accepted, even honourable part of our culture. It's also big business (not to mention the killing of animals for fashion, scientific research and recreation) but not too many people are calling for an end to this. It's too bad all the self-proclaimed "animal lovers" don't speak up for these animals as well.

"If one person is unkind to an animal, it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people." - Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines, 1964

New faces surface at Marineland

2008-12-11T19:49:00.003-05:00

Wildlife group opposes addition of eight Russian belugas to roster of animals

The St. Catharines Standard - Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Posted By MARC KILCHLING, SUN MEDIA

Arctic Cove at Marineland had a few new residents move in over the weekend.

Eight Russian belugas - all females - landed in Hamilton Saturday morning after a 13-hour flight aboard a specially modified Aeroflot IL-76 jumbo jet.

From the airport, they made the trip down the QEW to Marineland inside water-filled tanks hauled by tractor-trailers.

"There are two in each tank; they keep each other company," said John Holer, owner and founder of Marineland.

The new additions bring the total number of the belugas at the aquarium to 30.

"We have a large demand of people who want to feed and pet the belugas," Holer said.

Belugas are the friendliest of whales, he said, particularly when dealing with humans.

So far, only one of the eight has shed its youthful grey colour and turned the milky, white colour for which belugas are known.

Belugas are native to Arctic areas. This latest batch of two-and three-year-olds originally came from the Pacific Ocean off the east coast of Russia. They have been housed in a beluga aquarium in the Black Sea since being taken into captivity a couple of years ago.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature last year downgraded the threat of extinction for belugas and estimates the global population at 150,000.

Rob Laidlaw, executive director of Zoocheck, a national wildlife protection charity, says he is "astounded" by the arrival of the belugas.

"Most aquariums have two, three or maximum five belugas. To have 30, that's unheard of," the biologist said. "They're basically floating marshmallows when in captivity."

Holer said it's more realistic for a child to be able to see and learn about the wildlife by viewing it up close and in person.

"This is the best education you could have."

Laidlaw said people don't want to learn about animals, "rather they want to be entertained."

Although the majority of the belugas at Marineland were born in the wild,

Marineland has been managed to breed a number of the whales, with Eve and Gemini born this past summer.

Over the next few months, the eight new whales will be closely monitored by Marineland's team of veterinarians. For now, they will remain in an isolated area of the Arctic Cove playground while they get accustomed to their new habitat.

None of the belugas have names yet, a task Holer leaves to the individual trainers.

But by the time he opens for business next May, Holer expects the belugas will be ready to entertain the multitude of visitors that flock to the park throughout the summer.

Police looking for cow killer in cold case

2008-12-09T07:08:00.004-05:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Tuesday, December 9, 2008

BY PETER DOWNS

It’s been two years since the last crime, but Niagara police are hoping the public will help them track down a serial cow killer from their cold files.

Four cows - including one that was pregnant with twin calves - were killed by someone who used a crossbow to fire arrows into them.

“It’s a real weird one,” Niagara Regional Police Det. Sgt. Brian Smith said.

The killings took place over a period of five days from Dec. 10 to 15, 2006, at a farm on Effingham Street near the border of Welland and Pelham.

The animals would have suffered painful deaths in the gruesome attacks, Smith said.

“Some of them didn’t die right away. They died as a result of their injuries, but it took a little while,” he said.

A similar cow killing also involving a crossbow two or three years before the latest incident remains unsolved, Smith said.

The first crossbow attack happened on a farm in nearby Wainfleet, where a single cow was killed.

It’s possible the killings are linked, Smith said.

“Personally, I would say yes, because there hasn’t been anything else even similar.

The chances of those two being completely independent of each other would be hard to believe,” he said.

The property where the four cows were killed two years ago is owned by an 80-year-old man who runs a hobby farm, Smith said.

“We don’t believe this guy was targeted in a revenge thing.... He just happens to have this isolated farm in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

Based on where the arrows hit the cows, police don’t believe a skilled hunter was responsible for the kills.

“They were pretty well random,” Smith said.

Investigators have very little information to go on, but are hoping a large knife found near the dead cows may lead them to the killer.

They believe the knife was brought to the scene by the crossbow attacker.

The knife - made by the J.A. Henckel company - has a 20-centimetre blade and distinctive markings on its black handle.

Engraved in the handle are the initials “PR,” followed by the numeral 2, indicating it may have come from a restaurant or butcher shop, Smith said.

“I think that’s going to crack the case if somebody can tell us where that knife came from,” he said.

The disturbing case has troubled Smith since it landed on his desk two years ago.

“We thought we’d throw something out there and give it one last-ditch effort to solve it,” he said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Smith at 905-688-4111, ext. 3345, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. Anonymous tipsters can also reach Crime Stoppers online at http://www.crimestoppersofniagara.com/ or by texting a message to CRIMES (274637) with the text reading:tip309 and the message.
_______________________________________________

"If one person is unkind to an animal, it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people." - Ruth Harrison

An Introduction to Bunny-hugging

2008-10-30T19:04:00.005-04:00

We are kind to a select few animals, and horribly cruel to many others

The Standard - Thursday, October 30, 2008

BY DANIEL WILSON

“All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.” – Peter Singer

When little Claudio died in his mother’s arms a few months ago, his mother behaved like any mother would upon losing her baby: she grieved. For several days, Gana, a gorilla at Germany’s Muenster Zoo, carried and stroked her dead son, trying to revive him.

Dr. Bill Sellers, a primatologist at Manchester University, says gorillas can experience pain and loss similar to humans, “but of course it’s extremely difficult to prove scientifically.”

Still, a growing number of scientists are recognizing what pet owners have known all along, that animals have feelings - perhaps not exactly like us - but they have them nonetheless.

Some animals have demonstrated a wide range of emotions, including grief, guilt, revenge and even altruism. Elephants have risked their own lives to help other animals. People have witnessed buffaloes sliding across the ice, apparently for the sheer pleasure of it. Captive dolphins have been known to “get even” with abusive trainers and farmers tell of cows calling for days when their calves are taken away.

Dogs are even prescribed anti-depressants these days; further evidence that animals have emotions.

According to Marc Bekoff, a biology professor at the University of Colorado, “If we feel jealousy, then dogs and wolves and elephants and chimpanzees feel jealousy. Animal emotions are not necessarily identical to ours but there’s no reason to think they should be. Their hearts and stomachs and brains also differ from ours, but this doesn’t stop us from saying they have hearts, stomachs and brains. There’s dog joy and chimpanzee joy and pig joy, and dog grief, chimpanzee grief and pig grief.”

So why aren’t we nicer to animals? If they share many of the same feelings that we do, wouldn’t they want to avoid pain, suffering and death, like we do?

Of course most people will say they love animals. But our actions speak louder than our words. We’re really only kind to a select few, and unspeakably cruel towards others.

We hunt and kill animals for “sport”, lock them in cages for our amusement and torture them for scientific curiosity. We even consume their flesh and wear their skins.

If such atrocities were committed against our own kind, we would be repulsed and outraged, yet we have no problem doing these things to other sentient animals, provided we don’t have to think too much about it.

Enter the animal rights activists, those annoying bunny-huggers whose mission in life is to remind us of how barbaric and nasty we are to animals; always trying to make us feel guilty for enjoying our steaks, wearing our leather jackets and going to the circus.

As you may know I’m one of those bunny-huggers, but my goal is not to make anyone feel bad. It’s simply to try and end the suffering that we humans have created.

My hope is that by educating the public about how we treat animals, people will choose compassion over cruelty; that just because we can exploit and kill others doesn’t mean we should. Live and let live.

But discussing animal rights is a touchy subject. Some people get offended, even belligerent, when it’s suggested that the animals we use suffer as we do. Others argue that if you’re defending animals, you’ve turned your back on your own kind.

I don’t see why we can’t do both. A lot of animal rights people, including myself, support organizations aimed at reducing human suffering too. My circle of compassion is big enough to include humans AND animals. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. A mother doesn’t tell her children, “Sorry kids, but I can only love one of you,” and neither should we.

And it’s not that I love animals more than people; I just don’t want to see anyone suffer. A parent who stops his child from kicking the family cat doesn’t love the cat more than the child, he just wants his child to grow up to be a kind, caring and compassionate human being.

That’s what I want too. I want us to be kinder than we currently are.

Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation, and its moral progress, can be judged by the way it treats its animals.”

The advances we've made as a species don't mean much if we still enslave, exploit and murder those that are weaker than us. I know we are better than this. I believe we can, and should, extend our circle of compassion to include the animals.

Dan Wilson is a vegan, environmentalist, animal rights activist and public education director for the Niagara Centre for Animal Rights Awareness. He is a member of The Standard's community editorial board. Contact him at dkw1@sympatico.ca.

Missed the point

2008-10-18T08:15:00.002-04:00

Niagara This Week - Friday, October 17, 2008

Re: The breast of intentions (Oct. 3).

http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news/article/209522

I'm afraid Mr. Williscraft missed the point PETA was trying to make with their latest publicity stunt, asking Ben and Jerry's to use human milk instead of cow's milk to make their ice cream.

Granted, PETA's campaigns can be wacky and confusing to some, but there's a method behind their madness and it's not about what's in cow's milk.

It's about how the cows are treated. Most dairy products in our grocery stores come from animals in intensive confinement facilities - factory farms.

These animals never see the light of day, feel grass beneath their feet or breathe fresh air.

In Canada alone, approximately one million cows are kept in enclosures so small they can barely lie down or turn around.

Their horns are cut off and their tails are "docked" without anesthetic and the calves are removed from their mothers days after birth - the females to replace older cows destined for slaughter, the males to be turned into veal.

That's why PETA is against dairy products. Perhaps they should've recommended soy, rice or almond milk to Ben and Jerry's, but then again PETA loves to be controversial.

If Mr. Williscraft had written about the reasons behind PETA's request to have Ben and Jerry's discontinue their use of cow's milk, his column might not have been as funny, but the misery and suffering the cows endure so people can have their ice cream is no laughing matter.

Daniel K. Wilson
Niagara Center for Animal Rights Awareness
St. David's

Circus animals banned from town

2008-10-12T18:05:00.002-04:00

yorkregion.com news - Saturday, October 11, 2008

Lions, tigers and elephants aren’t welcome in Newmarket.

Remember the runaway elephants when the circus came to town several years ago?

A proposed bylaw would ban such animals within the town.

Councillors will decide next week on banning exotic animals in the town and its facilities.

“I don’t believe my children or any other children gain anything but a skewed view when animals are poked and prodded to do things that are unnatural,” Councillor Joe Sponga said.

“To me, it’s just not entertaining.”

After reviewing a host of resources, including the Endangered Species Act and the Ontario SPCA, staff advised defining a wild animal would be too vague, leaving the bylaw open for challenge.

Instead, a list of prohibited animals was created and attached to the bylaw. The list includes endangered or protected and venomous or poisonous animals.

Animals are listed under three categories: mammals, reptiles and birds.

Animals that made the list are banned even on a short-term basis, unless an exception is granted.

Events in town will require a booking request to be reviewed by town staff before permission is granted. A policy for appealing the decision is also included.

But this doesn’t mean the town can’t have events.

“There can still be a circus, but with no animals,” Mr. Sponga said.

The idea is to ban the use of exotic animals for entertainment purposes, not to eliminate everything involving animals.

For example, Newmarket could still hold an agricultural fair because there is a clause stating animals will be allowed for educational purposes.

Exceptions are also made for veterinary hospitals, police matters, educational facilities, film or TV productions, wildlife rehabilitation centres and research facilities.

The prohibited list includes:

Cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, deer and elk
Pandas, wolves, tigers, lions, skunks, mongoose
Bats, sloths, armadillos, hares, kangaroos, possums
Chimps, gorillas, monkies
Elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus
Alligators, lizards larger than 2 metres, snakes larger than 3 metres
Ducks, geese, swans, ostriches, eagles, owls

For a full list, visit www.newmarket.ca

What do you think of the town’s move to eliminate the use of wild animals for entertainment purposes? E-mail your responses to tlatchford@yrmg.com

Residents bare claws over bylaw

2008-10-09T19:09:00.002-04:00

Niagara This Week - Wednesday, October 8, 2008

BY MARCEL VANDER WIER

Lincoln council votes to defer decision on changing rules on feline care

About 100 cat lovers bared their claws to fight the implementation of an animal care and control bylaw at Lincoln council Monday night.

The ruling as it related to felines was eventually deferred to a future meeting.

The bylaw was poised to implement rulings to restrain cats from running at large, similar to the rules applied to dogs.

Tempers flared with residents shouting out "shame on you" at councillors from the chamber seats when Mayor Bill Hodgson said that his council had "probably made a mistake bringing it forward."

Reasons included a "meaty agenda, including the YMCA," that had been on the table Sept. 22. "I can only apologize."

Councillors listens to their constituents, he told the gathered crowd. He said that the bylaw would be referred to staff so all comments received can be reviewed.

"We're going to get this right," he assured residents.

Resident Derrick Morrissey, representing his 19-year-old cat, told council he was "shocked" that portions of the bylaw were going to be deferred.

"I'm here to stop this going forward from here on," he said.

He said committee members were failing their citizens, adding that the whole system was "rot," and full of "ambiguity and corruption." Committee members "broke the trust of the public," he said.

Coun. Peter Randall took exception to his comments, calling what was occurring before everyone's very eyes "democracy in its finest."

"People are passionate about this subject," he said. "That doesn't mean we succumbed to pressure."

Resident and self-described animal-lover Annette Schulz presented her thoughts on potential revisions to the bylaw.

"I see chances for improvement," she told councillors.

Her suggestions included alterations such as: no unaltered cats may roam at large, restricting the Humane Society to collect only fixed cats, and tickets for failure to scoop feces.

Having cats outside serve a valuable function, she added, included the repelling of rodents.

Her comments were met with extended applause from the constituents on hand.

The outpouring of submissions to the Town of Lincoln was unprecedented. Coun. Wayne MacMillan said in the past week he has been called all of "cat hater," "cat murderer" and "a supporter of cat genocide."

He called those comments absolutely false, and said he resented the terms directed at him.

"This may surprise everyone," said Coun. Rob Foster. "But we do listen to the public. Let's be frank. We decided to take this back and have a real good look at it."

"It was mandated by the province to update the bylaw," he reminded constituents.

"We don't just go out and randomly make up bylaws."

I'm sure PETA's ice cream request had the breast of intentions

2008-10-05T08:26:00.000-04:00

Niagara This Week - Friday, October 3, 2008

BY MIKE WILLISCRAFT

Imagine the look you'd get if you popped into Teddy's Sports Bar and asked the waitress for a breast milk and Kahlua?

Now, as you read that, you may, indeed be having one of several like reactions:

1) You may be looking for a barf bucket;

2) What is the editor smoking?

3) Is that a typo?

4) Is it April Fools?

5) Yeah, you'd do that if you want a punch in the nose.

6) Wow! Teddy's is on the cutting edge of food service trends.

If you're following at home, #6 would be the correct answer.

The good folks at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have made a request of ice cream manufacturers Ben & Jerry's to make their products with human breast milk, as opposed to that of our four-hooved, traditional milk suppliers.

Huh?

No, you read it right. You may want to go back and scan again, but it's right. Heck, it was on the Internet, so it must be right, eh?

Actually it got quite bit of press and air time in the last 10 days.

While I think the request is ridiculous, that is not to say it has no merit at all.

There are a lot of concern with the hormone laden end-products in the dairy sector mainly in the United States. Canada has much more stringent guidelines in terms of what cows can be given in order to produce more milk. In the U.S., beef and dairy cattle, as well as poultry can get regular doses of a host of substances not allowed in Canada.

These substances can bolster milk production or make the animals meatier, much faster than traditional methods. One could say they make the food chain more efficient.

The notion of breast milk as an ingredient in day-to-day products met with a variety of comments - many not suitable for this publication - during a family function over the weekend.

I am quite certain our readers are bright enough to conjure their own punchlines.

At any rate, I had to chuckle at the subdued response from a B & J spokesman after the request went public. "The company applauds PETA's creative approach to bring attention to an issue, but believes that a mother's milk is best used by a child."

Now, that quote in the wire story carried across the U.S. was not a direct quote, most likely because it would have included belly laughter as part of the quote if it were to be accurate.

But, there are innovators who will to take a shot at variety and notoriety.

Take Hans Locher. Here is a Swiss born chef who decided to start making recipes in his establishment using human breast milk.

His restaurant, Storchen, in the village of Iberg, Switzerland, near the resort of Winterthur, used the milk in a variety of dishes. He obtained the milk after advertising in German newspapers looking for donors. The initial response was positive.

If you have ever been to Switzerland, or West Lincoln for that matter, dairy farmers take great pride in their vocation. It is hard to believe being usurped by human breast milk would not "sour" them.

Without going too far down the road of sublime and travelling right into the ridiculous, it should suffice to say there is a litany of reasons why this would not be appropriate.

On the health front, any mother knows, what they eat is what their infant eats.

How would donors be screened? Could drug use cause a problem. I would have to think so, but it is almost too silly to think about.

Mr. Locher was paying about $24 CAD per litre of breast milk, so it wasn't cheap.

I think I'll just stick with my good old cookies and moo juice, thanks.

Help Stop Cruelty to Animals

2008-09-21T11:11:00.004-04:00

The Huffington Post - Saturday, September 20, 2008

BY KATHY FRESTON

Maybe it's because I'm worn out by the political bickering and the worrisome news about the market being in a tailspin, but I just clicked on a link to a breaking story about pigs being tormented, raped, and beaten in an Iowa slaughterhouse. I normally protect myself from seeing such things, thinking that I don't need to watch graphic videos of animal abuse since I'm already vegetarian and the videos are too upsetting.

This video brought me to tears, but I'm glad I watched it. It reminded me that I should keep prodding myself to stay awake and aware of abuse and injustice. The truth hurts, but it can also heal - if we take it personally and take steps to make a difference.

Workers at the Iowa plant - which supplies pigs to Hormel and other companies - hit pigs with metal rods, kicked them, and ripped across their backs with clothespins. They sprayed paint up pigs' nostrils and in their eyes and slammed piglets onto the concrete floor. The undercover investigator saw a supervisor ram a cane into a pig's vagina and shove a metal rod up pigs' anuses. Workers bragged about hurting animals and urged the investigator to abuse pigs. One worker told the investigator, "You gotta beat on the bitch. Make her cry." The investigator was instructed to pretend that a pig scared off a willing, voluptuous 17- or 18-year-old girl, and to beat the pig for it.

No one wants to see and hear such vile things, but we can't ignore them either. This kind of cruelty is a reflection on our country, our sense of pride for being decent people. If you think the video is too disturbing to watch, you'll know why we must not support such abuse. Who are we as a country if we aren't acting - and eating - based on our most basic principles of decency? Who are we if we passively choose to eat bacon or pork chops rather than push ourselves just a little to try new, more humane, foods instead?

Businesses will not do the right thing on their own - they just won't. Profit will trump animal welfare in most every case. It is up to caring people to push for change, and to be the change we want to see in the world.

We can all bring about positive changes by not buying products that harm animals, by eating a more plant based diet. We can reject cruelty simply by eating veggie dogs rather than hot dogs, or substituting tempeh, or Fakin' Bacon, for bacon. If you live in California, you can vote in favor of Proposition 2, the statewide initiative that would make it illegal for farmers to cram pregnant pigs in small gestation crates and calves into veal crates, and to force six or seven hens to live in tiny cages where they can't do anything that is natural to them.

No matter where you are in the world, you can do something to make a difference for animals.

As Edmund Burke once said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Will Stand Trial

2008-09-14T13:17:00.005-04:00

Born Free USA united with Animal Protection Institute (Born Free USA), along with three other animal protection organizations and a former Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (Ringling) employee, is suing Ringling for violating the Endangered Species Act by cruelly mistreating Asian elephants. The trial is set to commence on October 20, 2008.

The Asian elephant is currently listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), meaning that any acts that would “harm, wound, injure, harass, or kill” an Asian elephant in the wild or in captivity are prohibited. The lawsuit alleges that a number of routine practices by Ringling are in violation of the Endangered Species Act, including the forceful use of a bullhook and the chaining of elephants for most of the day and night. We have amassed a wealth of evidence to support these claims.

Bullhook Use

A bullhook, or ankus, is made of wood, metal, or other substantial material. It is approximately 2 to 3 feet long, and at one end is a sharp steel hook and poker. It is used to poke, prod, strike, and hit animals to “train” them - all for a few moments of human amusement.

We have video footage of Ringling employees repeatedly hitting elephants with bullhooks, as well as video footage of the daily hitting and “hooking” of the elephants to make them stay in line, move in a particular direction, or perform on cue.

In addition, we have Ringling’s own internal written documents that discuss the mistreatment of the elephants. For example, Ringling’s animal behaviorist reported “an elephant dripping blood all over the arena floor during the show from being hooked.” In an internal email, a Ringling veterinary assistant reported that “[a]fter this morning’s baths, at least 4 of the elephants came in with multiple abrasions and lacerations from the hooks.” After the release of this information to the public, Ringling moved to prohibit the release of any additional information to the public provided via discovery.

Chaining

Chaining is one of the most common methods used to confine elephants in captivity. It severely restricts an elephant’s movements, eliminating its ability to lie down, walk, or socialize with other elephants. The severity of these restrictions can result in neurotic psychological behavior, physical injury, and even the death of captive elephants.

Newly obtained evidence based on the circus’s own documents reveals that Ringling keeps elephants virtually immobilized in chains for the majority of their lives. Internal records show that the elephants are chained while confined in boxcars for an average of more than 26 hours at a time, and sometimes for as much as 60–100 hours, as the circus moves across the country.

In addition, former Ringling employees will be testifying about the mistreatment they witnessed while working for the circus, all of which corroborates the claims alleged in this case.

* The lawsuit is before the Honorable Emmet J. Sullivan in federal district court in the District of Columbia and is being handled by Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, one of the country’s preeminent environmental law firms.

You Can Help

Please donate to the Elephant Defense Fund and help ensure that we win our lawsuit. With your support, we will do everything we can to end the mistreatment of elephants in circuses and traveling shows. We must not fail.

Picture respect for animals

2008-09-07T10:10:00.003-04:00

globeandmail.com - Saturday September 6, 2008

BY VALERIE ROLFE LUPINI

Victoria - Showing the photo of the two monkeys in a Chinese zoo dressed as a bride and groom, and writing as part of the caption that they are "tak[ing] part" in the ceremony, implies that it's fun, voluntary and acceptable (Day In Photos: Best From The Past 24 - online, Sept. 5).

These are wild creatures in captivity that are not only dressed in costume, but tethered with chains around their necks. It's sickening.

Sure, use the photo, but use it to draw attention to the fact that animals continue to be mistreated and objectified for our amusement.

When people start to view animals who are dressed up and crudely tethered as unhappy victims of the zoo and entertainment industries, then we'll make great strides in what we loosely term "civilized society."

Circus animal question

2008-09-06T10:17:00.001-04:00

The Eureka Reporter - Saturday September 6, 2008

Dear Editor,

A friend called to invite me to join in on protesting the circus in McKinleyville last Tuesday. I declined. I’d never been to a circus and I wanted to witness the conditions of the animals first-hand.

Before going in, I spent about 20 minutes watching people walk past the picket line. I saw a lot of sadness among the parents and children. I grew up believing the circus is supposed to be a happy event.

I bought a $16 ticket and went through the gate. First, I saw two camels in a pen. They looked depressed. A man was trying to put a harness on one. It became agitated and was drawing attention. The gatekeeper told him this was being watched. The man was able to get the harness on and a few minutes later the camel calmed down and was eating hay.

I went into the big tent for the show. It was dark with flashing colored lights - a party atmosphere. The children had cheered up. Workers moved down the aisles selling light sticks and cotton candy. The acoustics were bad, adding to the hypnotic effect of watching women acrobats in bikinis and a contortionist putting his body through a tennis racket.

I went out in the sun, visiting the burro pen. I spent about five minutes watching the burro repetitively rocking itself against a strap holding up the tent. Lastly, I visited the hippopotamus pen. No human-hippopotamus contact was possible. A lone hippo lay face-down in a pile of hay.

As I was leaving, a little boy, probably sugared up, was having a meltdown. His mother gave him the choice of going back in the tent or home. And if they go home, he’s not going to get to watch any videos because they paid a lot of money to come to the circus.

I think the central disagreement between circus-goers and protestors is around the question: “Are animals here for human entertainment or do they have a right to live their lives in their native habitats?” Everyone will have to answer this question for themselves.

Douglas Tabler
Freshwater

We continue to deny animals their freedom

2008-09-05T10:23:00.005-04:00

Animals are deprived of a right we cherish so much we go to war for it

The Standard - Thursday September 4, 2008

BY DANIEL WILSON

captivity, n., the state or period of being held, imprisoned, enslaved or confined; servitude or bondage; imprisonment - Webster’s College Dictionary

Until very recently in our history, a lot of caring, compassionate and fairly intelligent people have enslaved other caring, compassionate and fairly intelligent people for a multitude of reasons.

Not long ago, individuals from other cultures were caged and put on display for entertainment and scientific study. Exploitation and confinement of human beings by other human beings continued into the 20th century as some circuses and carnivals exhibited so-called “freaks of nature” including the lion-faced man, the 602-pound woman, conjoined twins and other people born without various body parts, or perhaps possessing too many. Even little people, or "midgets", were degraded for the amusement of others.

Although remnants of these shows still exist, both around the world and close to home, they are for the most part despised and even considered a violation of human rights by today’s more “enlightened” society.

So when the circus rolled into Niagara Falls this summer, a lot of caring, compassionate and fairly intelligent people went to see the elephants and other animal acts, with little concern about their exploitation and confinement. And while a small number of activists attempted to raise awareness of the plight of animals in circuses, they were mostly dismissed as well-meaning but misguided extremists.

Circus patrons assume the animals are treated humanely. Otherwise, they reason, the circuses wouldn’t be allowed to keep them. The Shriners, who organized the event, also claim they have never witnessed animal abuse while the circus is in town. One Shriner, who asked to remain anonymous, said he didn’t know how the animals are treated. “We don’t see the mistreatment; we’re just trying to make money for the hospitals.”

Indeed, it’s hard for the Shriners to know if the animals are, or have ever been abused, given that the circus is only in town one or two days a year. But animal activists maintain that suffering comes in many forms.

They argue that keeping elephants and other animals chained, tethered or caged for long periods of time, such as when the circus is on the road, is a form of abuse.

Critics also point to undercover videos taken by animal rights groups as evidence of animal cruelty. Footage includes trainers striking the animals repeatedly with various implements, including baseball bats and bull hooks.

But do all circuses abuse their animals? It would seem counter-productive to jeopardize the well being of their star attractions. Or has the unregulated trade in exotic animals made it that much easier to replace them?

According to John Sakars, a local activist trying to educate the public about animal exploitation, “Because the circus is profiting from the animals, they have a vested interest in saying what they have to say to get the people in the doors.” John adds that, “For every act of cruelty caught on camera, how many are not?”

Since the training of elephants, bears, primates and other wild, performing animals takes place behind closed doors, the public may never know which circuses abuse, or don’t abuse their animals.

But as John points out, “Even if they’re not abusing the animals, I’m against animal circuses. Use without consent is slavery.”

And that’s the most compelling argument by those who are against using animals in circuses and other venues. It’s also something that each of us cherish with every fiber of our being: freedom.

We value it more than anything; we even go to war to protect it. Yet we deprive animals of it every day, often claiming they are better off in captivity, where they don’t have to face the daily struggles other wild animals do. But captivity isn’t something that any of us would desire. It’s where we put criminals to punish them.

Whether in circuses, marine parks or zoos, we accept, even support, the captivity of other animals for entertainment. We deny them the very freedom we value so much. We “trust” that they are happy and treated properly and hope there are laws in place to protect them.

But wouldn’t the animals be happier if they were free, as nature intended? And how would we like it if we found ourselves in their place?

For an American soldier who was held hostage during the first Gulf War, he viewed his time in captivity this way. When asked if he had been abused, he responded: “Well, they took me from my home and family and freedom, and there is no greater abuse to anyone.”

Gana the gorilla: grieving mother?

2008-09-01T11:37:00.002-04:00

Scotsman.com News - August 24, 2008

BY RICHARD BATH

It was a poignant scene which reduced many onlookers to tears. Gana, an 11-year-old gorilla at Germany's Munster zoo, cradled her dead three-month-old son, unable to accept that he had died in her arms. Yet no matter how tenderly she nudged, caressed and cuddled the lifeless form, there was no movement from Claudio.

She carried his corpse everywhere, guarding the little figure so zealously that wardens at the zoo were unable to retrieve the dead baby gorilla for four days. But it wasn't her anger that left a lasting impression; it was the rawness of a mother's pain.

So clearly inconsolable, bewildered and shattered, her face displayed a range of emotions that we once thought of as uniquely human. This week she was a grieving mother first, an ape second.

Gana demonstrated, movingly, just how alike gorillas are to us. They live in sophisticated social groupings with complex, hierarchical structures and are known to mourn the loss of their young. The American anthropologist Dian Fossey, who devoted her life to the study of lowland gorillas, even witnessed them burying their young by shovelling leaves over their corpses.

The DNA of gorillas and humans is 99.9% identical, yet it is one thing to accept in theory the extent to which we are related to the great apes, quite another to witness it. "Many of the visitors were terribly shocked," said the director of Munster zoo, Joerg Adler. "This, perhaps, is one of the greatest gifts that a zoo can bestow: to show that 'animals' are very much like ourselves, and feel elation and pain. Gana lost a child, but I think in that loss, she taught people here so much."

Is this really true? Do we actually believe that gorillas are so similar to us that there's an equivalence in our feelings? Or are we just fooling ourselves? Did Gana simply show us that apes are sentient beings worthy of being treated as such, rather than as dumb animals?

Like virtually all our cultural mores, our attitude towards animals has been defined by faith. Religions differ profoundly in their approach to their relationship with animals: the Hindus believe all animals have the capacity to be reincarnated as a human; while India's Jains go further, believing that all living beings possess a soul so all life is considered worthy of respect, even the life of a fly, which is considered sacred.

Traditionally, Christianity is diametrically opposed to that view: humans are the only beings to enjoy free will, the only beings to possess a soul (even though the Latin for "soul" is "anima", the derivation of animal). "Thomas Aquinas and the scholastic tradition said very clearly that animals have not got souls and this has been used in the past to justify the exploitation of animals on the basis that they are just things," says John Austin Baker, the former Bishop of Salisbury and a prominent animal rights activist. It remains the prevailing view in the West. In one survey, just 19% of British vets agreed that animals have souls.

Yet there has recently been a profound sea change in Christian attitudes to animals. In 2000, Pope John Paul II created uproar in the Catholic church by decreeing that "also the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity for our smaller brethren." Society's attitude towards animals is also changing, and there is little doubt why. Darwinism was the first scientific challenge to the concept of the dumb animal, but ever since The Origin Of Species holed the creationist myth beneath the waterline, the weight of scientific evidence suggesting animals have a previously unsuspected range of emotions has stacked up.

Instinctively, we know that Greyfriars Bobby possessed sentiments such as loyalty, devotion and the pain of loss, but more quantifiable animal emotions are also being revealed. Just last week came evidence that chimpanzees who have spent time in vivisection laboratories suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder exactly as humans would.

In 2004, researchers at the Babraham Institute at Cambridge University proved that when sheep were isolated from their flock they experienced stress, while showing them pictures of sheep reduced their stress levels. Dr Lynne Sneddon at the University of Liverpool has published research which comes close to proving that fish feel pain, while Prof Kevin Laland of St Andrews University showed that fish have long-term memories and sophisticated social skills."

We are living through an ethical revolution when it comes to animals," says theologian Andrew Linzey, an expert in the ethics of animal welfare at Oxford University. "We are shifting from seeing them as objects, commodities, resources, to seeing them as beings in their own right."

While there are obvious differences, the debate on the degree to which animals are sentient beings is in some ways reminiscent of the process that brought the end of slavery and the emancipation of women. Slavery began to unravel in 1772 when black slave James Somerset successfully argued in a British court that he was a sentient being who should be accorded rights rather than viewed as property. Campaigners seeking female emancipation followed the same tactics, establishing a wife's right to be a being in her own right, equal with her husband when it came to important functions like voting and divorce.

One sure sign that society's attitudes towards animals are changing is the creeping use of a politically correct vocabulary of parity to describe the relationship between man (or "human animals") and animals ("non-human animals"). In American officialdom and at England's DEFRA, the word "pet" has been replaced by "companion animal", suggesting some sort of meeting of equals.

This creeping de facto change of the status of animals is being consolidated by a series of law changes which may have profound long-term consequences. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 doesn't just require pet owners to give their animals a suitable environment, a healthy diet and protection from injury and disease, but also to cater for their pet's emotional needs, including "the desire to exhibit normal behaviour patterns" and be "housed with, or apart from, other animals". Failure to comply can carry a £20,000 fine and/or a custodial sentence.

If attitudes towards animals in particular and great apes in general are changing, as shown by the ban on fox-hunting and medical experiments on gorillas, chimpanzees and orang-utans, we are still lagging behind some nations. The EU accepted as long ago as 1997 that sentient animals are those which can not only suffer physical pain but mental trauma, an important legal precedent. In New Zealand in 1999, a coalition of scientists and lawyers only narrowly failed in its attempt to get parliament to go one step further by extending rights to large primates. In Spain, it will be two months tomorrow since the country's Parliament passed a law giving great apes a whole range of legal rights.

The trend is exacerbating our tendency towards anthropomorphism – the allocation of human traits to animals.

Occasionally this has tragic results. Timothy Treadwell wanted to prove that bears inherently share our values of loyalty and friendship, so went to live among them in Alaska. It was a triumph of hope over expectation that lasted 13 years until Treadwell and his girlfriend were eaten alive, a story that inspired Werner Herzog's award-winning film, Grizzly Man.

This anthropomorphism extends to regarding an animal's death as we would the death of a human being. Researching her book, Goodbye Dear Friend: Coping with the Death of a Pet, author Virginia Ironside discovered endless epitaphs, like this one, published in an 'In Memoriam' column in Dog's Today: "Shayne 1972 – June 90. I can't believe it's two years since you left me, but in my heart you live on for ever. We have 18 wonderful years together. You helped me grow up and taught me so much with your love. We will be together soon, wee man. Wait for me, son, love Mum XXX (Michelle)"

But there are moral problems with the prevailing trend. If we no longer see animals as our property to do with as we wish, then it becomes very difficult to sustain the case for killing and eating them. That is certainly the case for many of the 12.5 million British vegetarians who refuse to eat meat. Inspired by Australian activist Peter Singer and his seminal 1975 tract Animal Liberation, animal welfare organisations have long argued that our level of civilisation is determined by the degree to which we treat animals as equals.

For the silent majority to whom the ideas of animal rights activists such as Singer are anathema, the ending to Nim's story was telling. So, too, is a detail of Gana's story which emerged in Munster this week. Far from being the ideal of the doting mother, last year she rejected her six-week-old daughter Mary Zwo, who is now a star attraction at Stuttgart zoo.

Would most human mothers in similar circumstances do likewise? For the moment, it seems, some animals are still created more equal than others.

Animals removed from closed zoo

2008-08-24T09:58:00.004-04:00

The London Free Press - Saturday August 23, 2008

By KRISTA SEGGEWISS

Wildlife authorities and police raided an infamous London roadside zoo yesterday, carting away unknown numbers of animals.

Members of the London Humane Society, Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and police swooped down on the Lickety-Split Ranch and Zoo to search for and rescue native species such as deer or foxes under Ontario's Fish and Conservation Act.

Officials had no power to seize exotic animals under the provincial law, however, and at least one zebra and a donkey were left behind.

The ministry wouldn't disclose what types of animals or the number carted away in a trailer to a safer place.

"We had reason to believe there were some animals that fall under the description of wildlife that were in captivity illegally," said Russell Brandon of the ministry's Aylmer office. "It is our belief there is no licence."

Lickety-Split owner Shirley McElroy had a zoo licence from 1996 to 2006, but failed to renew it in 2007, prompting yesterday's ministry action.

Officials had to tranquilize one deer to remove it from the property.

The zoo has a spotty history.

Earlier this year, McElroy was fined $4,000 for having two lynx captive with no licence.

Lickety-Split grabbed international headlines in 2006 when pictures surfaced of Tyson, a kangaroo cramped in a small cage. Tyson has since disappeared from the property, without explanation.

Lickety-Split has been closed for more than a year.

The zoo owner was nowhere in sight yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

The grass was overgrown on the property, and rusted machinery, strewn wires, truck parts, empty trailers and tires littered the site.

"It's the worst case of animal husbandry I've ever seen," said activist Vicki Van Linden of Friends of Captive Animals. "We need to pass Bill 50 to give greater protection for all animals in Ontario."

The bill, proposed Ontario animal welfare legislation, introduced in April, would allow officers to search a property without a warrant if they have reason to believe an animal is in distress.

Yesterday's raid on Lickety-Split was done with a warrant.

Londoner Florine Morrison remembered taking her daughter to the zoo more than 15 years ago and seeing a black jaguar in a tiny pen with no shade, cowering in the corner to stay cool.

"They squirted him with a hose to make him get up for the visitors. I thought that was so cruel," said Morrison, a member of the London Animal Alliance.

"It's important for the city to make the McElroys follow the same rules as the rest of London."

Because the zoo no longer has a licence, it should be subject to a city bylaw that prevents people from keeping wild animals, Morrison said.

Farmer wants Grimsby to allow coyote hunting

2008-08-12T19:34:00.004-04:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Thursday August 7, 2008

POSTED BY MONIQUE BEECH

West Lincoln farmer Ken Durham keeps his dairy cows in a barn, safe from hungry coyotes.

Still, he’s heard the accounts of coyotes attacking 181-kilogram calves on Mud Street just south of Grimsby.

The 68-year-old has found sheep skulls on his 30 Road property - even though there’s no sheep around.

He hears howling at night.

“We know they’re there,” Durham said.

“We know they’re out taking chickens from piles of chicken manure and chasing wildlife out there whether it’s a skunk or raccoon. There’s just too many.”

Durham wants the Town of Grimsby to do something about it.

Durham recently asked Grimsby town council to consider lifting a ban on discharging firearms from the south boundary (Mud Street) to the top of the escarpment.

He’s able to shoot coyotes in West Lincoln, but once they cross the road into Grimsby, they’re home free, the 68-year-old dairy and cash crop farmer said.

This year, Durham and a group of farmers and hunters shot 63 coyotes in Lincoln and West Lincoln between January and March.

“We know when we hunt they go across the border between Grimsby and West Lincoln. They can turn around the field and look back.... They get to know where they’re safe.”

Currently, the town’s firearm bylaw, which dates back to 1976, prohibits guns from being fired within its boundaries, with a few exemptions.

One is for a property owner or someone he has appointed in writing to act as his agent to “shoot pestiferous birds or animals,” but not within 150 yards of a building.

“That would prevent anybody from the urban area from shooting a firearm, but it would basically allow it up on the escarpment,” said Grimsby town clerk Kathy Vout, who has received one complaint about a coyote this year.

Vout said a public meeting will likely be called to address any possible changes to the bylaw.

The bylaw may have to be clarified, Grimsby Mayor Bob Bentley said.

Bentley said wild dogs, coyotes, foxes and cross-breeds can all be found on the escarpment.

“If we were to go ahead and create a bylaw that it’s fair game to shoot certain things, without really understanding the DNA of the creatures that are stirring up there, I don’t know that we could do that effectively,” Bentley said.

Town staff are looking at the bylaw and consulting with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture, he said.

Bill Murch, a spokesman for the MNR, said it’s up to the town to determine what to do with its bylaw.

Various municipalities in Ontario have different rules when it comes to firing a gun, Murch said.

This isn’t the first time coyotes, or what could be wild dogs or a cross of the two species - has been an issue in Grimsby.

In 2004, council hired a wildlife control company to recommend how to discourage coyotes from wandering into town after 12 to 16 of the animals were spotted roaming town streets.

Bill Dowd of Humane Wildlife Control in Hamilton, who made the recommendations, said there’s several non-lethal ways of handling a coyote problem, such as getting rid of road kill and extra care in cleaning up park areas.

Dowd said people in rural areas, outside urban boundaries, are within their rights to protect their properties.

“I think every situation is unique why they want to shoot their animal. Is it coming around their property? Is it killing livestock?”

Coyotes became a problem in Grimsby, in part, after a surge of development that left behind piles of dirt and cut trees that attracted field mice and brought coyotes into town, Dowd said.

Last year, Niagara farmers made 88 claims to the province for compensation as a result of 123 animals killed or injured by predators like coyotes, according to provincial statistics.

The province handed out about $18,000 in compensation last year, up from $16,000 in 2006 for 63 claims and 103 animals injured or killed.

- with files from Matthew Van Dongen

No more TEARS for Niagara Region

2008-07-26T15:51:00.003-04:00

Niagara This Week - July 25, 2008

BY PAUL FORSYTH

Niagara's regional government has closed the file on a proposed animal sanctuary in Thorold, saying it no longer needs to be involved because proponents of the sanctuary known as The Endangered Animals Rescue Society (TEARS) no longer plan to create a public, commercial sanctuary.

At a meeting July 16, regional politicians agreed that the proposal no longer requires an amendment to regional policies and that proponent Chris Morabito should seek permission from the City of Thorold for a private, small-scale sanctuary.

The region appeared poised to turn down the application last fall, with regional staff saying the sanctuary -- which could house animals such as primates, cougars, lions and reptiles - didn't meet regional and provincial planning objectives, and because the City of Thorold had turned down related applications.

Regional staff also said last fall that work had been done on the TEARS property along Highway 406 such as installing animal cages, building an earth berm, removing trees from a woodlot and installing portable buildings without getting necessary approvals or permits.

Plans have now changed so the sanctuary would only be a private one, said regional staff.

Wild Animals in Captivity

2008-07-25T16:23:00.000-04:00

Talkback - School Library Journal - July 25, 2008

Zoos seem to be a part of most kids’ lives. But Rob Laidlaw’s book Wild Animals in Captivity (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) uncovers the bleak conditions at so many zoos around the world and forces readers to ask whether they should be there at all.

For the complete interview, please go to:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=talkbackCommentsFull&talk_back_header_id=6544850&articleid=CA6581087

3 Ways to be the Revolution

2008-07-23T18:47:00.003-04:00

Vegan Freak - Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World

Posted July 20, 2008

We’re a movement dominated by professional activists - paid by large organizations - to do the bidding of those organizations. This is fine if you think that dressing up in chicken costumes makes sense, or if you believe the latest animal gassing scheme is a good thing, or if you happen to agree that Wayne Pacelle actually deserves a compensation package worth more than $230,000 annually.

But if, like me, you have doubts about highly paid activists, about so-called “victories” that still leave animals as commodities and property, and forms of activism that use one form of exploitation (sexism) to combat another (speciesism), there’s only one solution: be your own activist.

For the full story, please go to:

http://blog.veganfreak.com/blog_entries/view/3_ways_to_be_the_revolution/#When:02:46:51Z

Activism should not be left as the mere province of paid, professional activists. If we are to have the effect that we’re hoping for, we need to make the movement for veganism a genuine, grassroots social movement, driven by everyday people like you and me, working in our communities and in our lives to help create a base of vegan education and outreach.

Only by working in our lives and in the spaces that we know best can we hope to affect real change and build a genuine movement built of people who genuinely wish to change the essential relationship of domination that humans have over animals. Without a genuine pool of social activists, without people who are willing to put their own talents and skills to use, we are going to be stuck with the so-called “victories” of PETA and HSUS, victories that celebrate killing more gently. Shouldn’t we be celebrating not killing at all? Shouldn’t we be celebrating veganism? In her book The Dispossessed, Ursula LeGuin has a quote that sums up my feelings perfectly about activism. She writes:

"You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere."

The revolution is in your spirit - I know it is. If you’re vegan, something got you to go vegan, to decide that you would not have a part in the human domination of animals. You knew it was wrong, and you decided to have no part of it. Find that original fire and use it! You must be the revolution if it is to mean anything or change anything in the long run. You have to do it; no one will do it for you. Considering that, here are three things that you can do to be the revolution:

1. Use your talents and skills to educate people about veganism We’ve talked about this at length various times on our podcast, but we’ll repeat it again: every single one of you has some kind of talent that you can use to support this cause. You are a unique and special snowflake! We’re so used to beating ourselves down and to accepting that we don’t have much to offer that we often forget how we can be of use. You may think you have no skills to offer, but that’s impossible. We need everyone. We need people who can write and speak and cook and organize. We need people who can hand out literature. We need people who can sew and sing and entertain. In short, we need everyone. Get creative: use your skills to raise awareness or in support of others who are raising awareness or educating others. Which brings me to point two:

2. Work in small, consensus-based affinity groups Find a group of people who share your vision, get together, and make some change. Leverage each other’s strengths to promote veganism and to be vegan educators. For example, one of you may be an excellent public speaker, one of you may be a quiet person but a fantastic cook, and one of you may have excellent organizational skills. Why not get together, get a room at your local library, give a talk on veganism or vegan cooking, and bring some food along to convince people that eating vegan isn’t as horrendously subpar as everyone imagines? There are a million different possibilities here and a million different talents. The point is to use your creativity and your understanding of the world to make the most impact.

3. Start asking questions Why would an organization ostensibly opposed to animal suffering give an award to a slaughterhouse designer? Why would the so-called “father” of the animal rights movement say it was okay to eat animal products? Seems to induce a bit of what the psychologists call “cognitive dissonance,” doesn’t it? It is time that we all start asking questions and stop assuming that because PETA or HSUS or Peter Singer (or anyone, including me) says that something is good, it is. Think. Examine the issues. Ask hard questions. Consider the situation and the context, and think about the issues. I know that thinking is often scorned within this movement as a “luxury,” but you have to stop and think before you can act wisely. Don’t skimp on thinking: it is the most important thing you can do. Effecting change is never easy and is often inglorious, but it doesn’t have to be onerous; you can work little by little to educate others, and you can work with others to deepen your impact. We need to build a vital movement of people doing genuine, abolitionist vegan education. We don’t need another set of stupid stunts, sexist ads full of naked people, or overcompensated suits declaring yet another false victory.

PETA and KFC: “no differences of opinion about how animals should be treated”

2008-06-17T20:01:00.008-04:00

Posted by Gary L. Francione

Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has invoked Mead’s quotation to pat itself and its supporters on their welfarist backs for the agreement by the Canadian division of Kentucky Fried Chicken to “purchase 100 percent of its chickens - through a phase-in program - from suppliers that use ‘controlled-atmosphere killing’ (CAK), the least cruel method of bird slaughter available. CAK works by replacing birds’ oxygen with a mixture of nonpoisonous inert gasses to gently put them ‘to sleep.’”

In addition, KFC Canada has agreed to add what PETA characterizes as a “totally cruelty-free option” to its menu in 65% of its Canadian stores: a faux chicken sandwich that will come in a wrap with non-vegan mayonnaise. Moreover, KFC Canada has agreed to “[i]mprove its animal welfare audit criteria to reduce the number of broken bones and other injuries suffered by birds,” urge (but not require) its suppliers to make other welfare improvements, and to form an animal welfare advisory council. And PETA will be empowered: KFC will allow “PETA to review its animal welfare audit forms every six months.”

PETA, “thrilled to announce” what it characterizes as an “historic new animal welfare plan,” “enormous victory,” and “historic victory!” has officially ended its boycott of KFC Canada. But PETA warns that “the cruelty in other nations continues.”

Poor Margaret Mead must not merely be rolling over in her grave; she must be spinning at high speed.

The PETA/KFC agreement is a textbook example of the failure of animal welfare reform. Consider the following:

First, to call this a “victory” for animals is the height of irony. This agreement is most certainly a “victory.” But it is a victory for the Canadian poultry industry, which will actually enjoy greater production efficiency and profit.

In its its Analysis of Controlled-Atmosphere Killing vs. Electric Immobilization from an Economic Standpoint, PETA argues for the gassing, or “controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK)” of poultry, claiming that the electric stunning method of slaughter “lowers product quality and yield” because birds suffer broken bones and the process results in contamination dangerous to human health. The electric stunning method also “increases labor costs” in various ways. PETA argues that “CAK increases product quality and yield” because broken bones, bruising, and hemorrhaging are supposedly eliminated, contamination is reduced, “shelf-life of meat” is increased, and “‘more tender breast meat’” is produced. PETA also claims that “CAK lowers labor costs” by reducing the need for certain inspections, reducing accidents, and lowering employee turnover. CAK provides “other economic benefits” to the poultry industry by allowing producers to save money on energy costs, and by reducing by-product waste and the need to use water.

This analysis is consistent with that done by the Humane Society of the United States, which analyzed a considerable amount of data and concluded: CAK results in cost savings and increased revenues by decreasing carcass downgrades, contamination, and refrigeration costs; increasing meat yields, quality, and shelf life; and improving worker conditions. Without live shackling and electrical stunning, CAK results in fewer broken bones and less bruising and hemorrhaging. The reduction in carcass defects increases boning yield and deboned meat quality. CAK has been shown to reduce bruising by as much as 94 percent and bone fractures by as much as 80 percent. Conservatively assuming that CAK increases yield only 1 percent, a plant processing 1 million broilers per week with an average dressed carcass weight of 4.5 pounds and wholesale price of $0.80 per pound would increase annual revenue by $1.87 million after adopting CAK. (citations omitted)

And industry agrees. According to PETA’s Poultry Producer CAK Endorsements, the poultry industry widely recognizes that CAK means a better bottom line:

“Brandons haven’t just benefited from better meat quality and welfare improvements. The advantages have been seen right across the plant. … [There has been] a 50% reduction in hang-on-line employee costs. Line speed has increased [by 20%]. … [Y]ield has gone up by up to 1.5% ….” - Case study pertaining to Brandons Plc by Anglia Autoflow

“On the turkey line … each hanger places around 7.66 birds per minute in the shackles … compared to around 5.125 birds per minute in a U.S. plant. This gives a pounds-per-man-hour improvement of almost 50%, because the hangers do not have to remove the birds from the cages by hand, like they do in a traditional U.S. … live-hanging operation.” - Watt Poultry USA article concerning Amadori, February 2006

“Around 140,000 broilers per day are processed at the Flixton plant …. A company official said that the CAS was installed to improve bird welfare [and] worker ergonomics. As a side benefit, the plant now runs the line faster than before. Flixton processed only 110,000 birds per day prior to installing the CAS.” - Watt Poultry USA article, February 2006

“‘There’s less cutting and trimming on the line because there are many fewer … spots and other damage that can come from electrical stunning,’ says Henry Kuypers, production manager for the Pingo Poultry plant …. Gas stunning has allowed [the company] to produce a tender product [in] just three hours … [as opposed to] as long as 12 or even 24 hours. ‘This variable maturation period also affected product uniformity,’ Kuypers explains. - “CAS-ting Call,”Poultry magazine, October 2006

“We are starting to quantify the improvements in yield and labor, but visually we already see the benefits in wings, wing meat, and breast meat.” - Dale Hart, general manager of Cooper Farms

“[T]he CAS system improves the environment for the workers in the live receiving area, improves the ergonomics of hanging live turkeys, and reduces carcass damage.”—Watt Poultry USA article concerning Cooper Farms, November 2006
“Amadori was interested in CAS because the company wanted to improve ergonomics for the live hangers, animal welfare, labor efficiency, and meat quality. [T]he CAS has given them improvements in each of these areas ….” - Watt Poultry USA article, February 2006

“The installation of gas stunning markedly reduced downgrades due to hemorrhages and bone fractures and improved fillet color and texture compared to previous stunning with an AC water-bath unit. As in EU plants, MBA Poultry can justify gas stunning based on the contribution from incremental revenue, which more than offsets the additional capital and operating costs incurred.” - ”Future of Gas Stunning,” Watt Poultry USA, April 2005

“[M]eat quality has improved with use of the CAS, and there is less blood in the breast and thigh meat. [C]arcass bleed-out has not been affected by the switch from electrical stunning to CAS.” - Watt Poultry USA article concerning Le Clezio, February 2006

“[W]hile trying to maximize yield while processing 11,000 birds per hour, we also have to take a lot of care to ensure that the meat is unmarked. CAS has resulted in very high standards in this aspect. . . . There’s [also] better working conditions for the team.” - Richard Wenneker, of Emsland Frischgefluegel

“Meat quality has dramatically improved with no blood spots, and as a result, no trimming is required. This has seen notable benefits in an increase in yield. The cut-up operation now employs less people as a direct result of the benefits of … CAS.” -Case study pertaining to Prior Norge by Anglia Autoflow

So CAK reduces production costs and the slaughterhouses that supply KFC Canada would, in all likelihood, have switched to CAK on economic grounds anyway.

Indeed, this is the modus operandi of the modern animal movement: identify practices that are not economically efficient and that are in the process of being changed by industry anyway. Launch a campaign to bring about what would happen in the natural course of events, declare victory, and fundraise. That is exactly what is happening here.

Second, PETA has handed KFC Canada nothing short of a public relations coup. PETA has ended its boycott of KFC Canada, and is claiming to have won its KFC cruelty campaign in Canada, although “the cruelty in other nations continues,” thus signaling to the public that those concerned about animals can once again eat at KFC Canada with PETA’s blessings. Indeed, PETA and KFC are now engaged in a public love fest. PETA claims that KFC will now “gently put [the chickens] …’to sleep.’”

According to the Toronto Star article, KFC Canada president Steve Langford stated that once he sat down with the PETA people, “‘we found out that we had no differences of opinion about how animals should be treated.’” Matt Prescott of PETA stated he believed “‘that KFC in Canada is genuinely concerned about animal welfare.’” Prescott added that “‘[a]ll we want is for KFC worldwide to do what KFC Canada has done.’”

Langford is reported to be “delighted with the agreement.” I bet he is. If I were he, I would also be delighted. He has lost nothing and he has gained PETA as an unpaid public relations firm.

Third, KFC is expanding its product line, offering a new PETA-approved “totally cruelty-free” KFC faux-chicken sandwich, which will be handled along with KFC’s meat products and will be prepared with non-vegan mayonnaise (unless the customer asks that it be held). So KFC will have a non-vegan option supported by PETA.

People can now be “animal activists” by eating a non-vegan product at KFC and putting more money into the pockets of a corporation that sells death. But there is a tradition of such behavior. In a December 2006 article about Dan Mathews of PETA, Mathews and the writer went to McDonald’s to eat and the writer asked if it was okay to order a cheeseburger. Mathews is reported as saying “‘Order what you want,’. . . .’Half of our members are vegetarian and half think it’s a good idea.’”

Putting aside that Mathews eats at McDonald’s and tells the reporter to order what he wanted, and proclaims without apparent consternation that only half of the PETA membership is “vegetarian” (let alone vegan), Mathews himself ate a product - the “veggie burger” - which not even McDonald’s claims is vegetarian given that it is cooked on the same grill with meat products and handled along with animal products.

And the agreement is a victory for PETA, which long ago abandoned the animal rights approach in favor of pursuing its greater glory and the amount of its contributions. It’s all about PETA. The animals are just incidental.

The KFC/PETA “deal” demonstrates dramatically what is wrong with animal welfare. These campaigns perpetuate the confused idea that “animal rights” means putting a television in a torture chamber and do absolutely nothing to challenge the property paradigm. On the contrary, the welfarist approach reinforces the status of animals as nothing more than economic commodities. And it makes people feel better about animal exploitation. Moreover, these campaigns represent symbiotic relationships between industry and the animal advocacy movement.

To the extent that this situation illustrates the truth of Margaret Mead’s observation, it does so by reminding us that a small group of people can have a profoundly adverse impact on social progress. Many people are concerned about the ethics of animal use. But as long as the major so-called “animal rights” groups are telling them that they can satisfy their moral obligations by eating at KFC and other similar places (remember that PETA has had similar “deals” with McDonald’s and Burger King), the status quo will persist and the only progress that we will see is the increase in PETA’s bank accounts.

Forcing Beliefs

2008-06-13T21:02:00.006-04:00

Vegan Outreach, June 11, 2008

By Anne Green & Matt Ball

In her last, three-team meet (right), lifelong-vegan Ellen Green won the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m events. She also finished the year with straight-As in every advanced class, with the highest score for the year in Honors Geometry.

Vegans often hear from people complaining that we are trying to "force our beliefs" on others. Yesterday, we received an email attacking our parenting, which said, in part: The problem I have is that forcing your child to be a vegan (or a vegetarian for that matter) is bad parenting, you cannot force your own beliefs on a child. Let a child come to its own decision in its teens.

Is "good parenting" simply allowing society to impart the current norms?

Parenting is, by definition, making decisions for the child. Parents decide where the child lives; which school she attends; which religion, if any, she learns; which culture(s) and people she interacts with, and many, many other things.

Like everything else about raising a child, feeding her means making decisions. We aren't forcing our beliefs on our daughter Ellen, we are living our values. We have never forbidden her from eating animals; rather, we have explained (at an age-appropriate level) why we believe it is wrong to support killing and consuming pigs, birds, fish, etc. We would no sooner raise our daughter to view animals as food than we would teach her to hate and discriminate against homosexuals (or, if we lived 150 years ago, to keep other human beings as slaves).

Most children are naturally drawn to and have an affinity for animals; it is frightening and abnormal when a child chooses to torture, rather than befriend, other animals. We believe it is inconsistent, unethical, and yes, bad parenting not to respect and nurture this inherent compassion, but instead feed a child her friends.

When asked, 13-year-old Ellen chimes in: "So what, are you just supposed to not feed the child anything until he or she is capable of making a completely informed decision? Come on! Based on the information I have now, I would choose to be vegan no matter what you had raised me to eat, quite frankly. And I would be mad if you had raised me eating meat and waited until now to let me 'decide.'"

Of course, this discussion ignores the elephant in the room - or, rather, the pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc. The animals who suffer on factory farms and die in industrial slaughterhouses are individuals whose lives are real and complete on their own. Their lives matter to themselves - they are not just hypothetical pawns to be tossed about in the abstract. We have to answer to them for every choice we make, including what we eat, how we raise our children, and how we interact with others.

To learn more about Vegan Outreach, please visit: http://www.veganoutreach.org/ .

Vegan 'chicken' on menu as KFC Canada pledges better animal welfare to end protest

2008-06-02T21:07:00.003-04:00

Canadian Press - June 2, 2008

TORONTO - Following a five-year roasting by animal-rights activists, KFC Canada is promising improved welfare for the chickens it buys for its fast-food outlets in exchange for an end to a boycott campaign that will continue in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Canadian Press has learned that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has agreed to call off its Canadian "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign, which featured high-profile actress Pamela Anderson among others, following a signed agreement with the company.

Among other things, the deal obliges KFC Canada to begin buying from suppliers who use gas to kill their chickens painlessly, considered to be the least cruel method of slaughter.

The company is also promising to insist on other "animal-welfare friendly" measures relating to how the birds are kept, including a maximum on crowding and phasing out non-essential growth-hormones and other drugs.

Customers of the popular restaurant chain will also be able to order a vegan "chicken" item, according to the deal that followed almost seven months of at-times "sticky" closed-door negotiations.

"It's going to drastically reduce the suffering of chickens in slaughterhouses and also . . . improve the living conditions for animals while they're on the farm," Matt Prescott, PETA's assistant director of corporate affairs, said from Norfolk, Va.

KFC Canada President Steve Langford said he was delighted with the agreement.

"It will be nice to put this behind us," Langford said. "Our preference is to have nothing negative attached to our brand."

Langford said the Canadian operations, which are independent of those in the U.S., had chosen to take the situation into its own hands and talk to PETA about animal welfare.

"Once I got involved and we actually met face to face, we found out that we had no differences of opinion about how animals should be treated," Langford said. "We landed in a very good place."

PETA's campaign, which garnered international attention, has included more than 12,000 protests at KFC restaurants and outside the homes of company senior executives.

Demonstrators, who have included former "Playboy" pinup Lauren Anderson, have burned effigies of company icon, Col. Sanders. Other notables such as Paul McCartney, the Dalai Lama, and Chrissie Hynde have participated in the campaign.

KFC Canada was also thrown on the defensive three years ago when PETA released horrific video showing poultry workers torturing chickens in the United States.

The company is owned by Priszm Income Fund, based in Vaughan, Ont., which operates 465 outlets across the country. The fund has been struggling to stem a flow of red ink and shore up falling share values.

Most of the 300 independent franchisees have agreed to abide by the agreement with PETA.

"It appears as though our campaign affected the bottom line to the point where the company finally had enough," Prescott said.

"That said, I also believe that KFC in Canada is genuinely concerned about animal welfare."

While the anti-KFC campaign will now end in this country, PETA said it would continue in the U.S., the U.K. and other countries. However, it is hoping to persuade Yum Brands, which owns KFC outlets in the United States, to follow the Canadian lead.

"With KFC Canada now doing exactly what we want KFC in the U.S. to do, our members and activists will be even more energetic and invigorated about going after KFC in other countries," Prescott said.

"All we want is for KFC worldwide to do what KFC Canada has done."

Donate

2008-06-01T07:16:00.002-04:00

Changing the way our society views animals can be a time-consuming and sometimes costly process.

It involves preparing and printing brochures, reports and other educational materials to be distributed amongst the general population, including school boards and municipal councils.

The rental of billboards and other outdoor advertising can also be effective in reaching and motivating large numbers of people to become active. All these initiatives require money.

We need your help to bring these very important issues to the public. Your donation will go directly to raising awareness of both local and national animal protection issues.

However, the NCARA is NOT a registered charity and therefore cannot issue income tax receipts.

If you would like to help, please click the Make a Donation button located on the sidebar.

Thank you for supporting our work.

Upcoming Events

2008-05-14T17:43:00.007-04:00

Niagara Action for Animals’ Vegan Potluck

Friday, June 6, 2008, 7:00 pm at the Unitarian Congregation of Niagara, 223 Church Street, St. Catharines (beside Delta Bingo).

Vegan potlucks are a great way of socializing, trying new and delicious foods and participating in a free exchange of ideas while saving the lives of countless animals. The events are free and everyone is welcome.

*This will be the last potluck before our summer hiatus. The potlucks will resume in September.

What to Bring: If you bring a dish of food, make enough to serve 8-10 people. If you’re not sure what to bring, a fruit tray or veggie platter is an easy alternative to cooking or baking. Non-alcoholic beverages are also needed. If you bring a beverage, a large carton or jug of juice or flavoured soymilk will do just fine*. Also, bring a small piece of paper or index card with a list of ingredients and potential allergens (nuts, wheat, etc.) to place beside your dish. A stove and microwave are available if your food needs to be warmed. Non-disposable plates, bowls, glasses, cutlery, and cloth napkins will be provided.

*Out of respect for the church’s ban on bottled water, please refrain from bringing any to the potlucks.

A Word about Vegan Meals: In consideration of all animals, meals should be free of meat (including fish and chicken), and products that come from animals, such as eggs, honey and dairy. Also avoid using soy cheeses with ‘casein’ (a milk protein) listed as an ingredient. Providing a vegan meal will allow everyone to enjoy your food. To help you with meal ideas, there are plenty of great vegan recipe books available or you can go online to any number of vegan websites (keywords: vegan recipes).

Clean Up: Your participation in cleaning up after each event (doing dishes, sweeping, rearranging chairs, etc) would be greatly appreciated. It can take a few people several hours to clean up, or it can take all of us only 30 minutes!

See you there!

For more information, or if you need a ride, please contact Dan at: dkw1@sympatico.ca

"Animals are my friends…and I don’t eat my friends." - George Bernard Shaw

Horse racing is cruel; don't support it

2008-05-09T20:00:00.002-04:00

Editorial & Opinion - The Niagara Falls Review - Thursday, May 8, 2008

To read The Review's coverage of the opening of the Fort Erie Race Track, one would assume that winning money, hanging out with friends and drinking beer is what the track is all about. Sounds like a lot of fun - I might consider going myself, if it weren't for all the animal exploitation.

The truth is, horses at racetracks are worked hard - sometimes beaten - to win the race.

If I were to do to a dog what jockeys do to horses, I'd be charged with animal cruelty. But for some reason, this kind of abuse is allowed, even encouraged, by our society.

Some say the horses don't feel the whips. Then why use them? The answer is obvious: To make them go faster. The animals run faster to avoid the pain of the whip. It's not rocket science.

Racing horses can be deadly, too. The fact that you have large, muscular animals running very fast and on very thin legs means there will be injuries. Too often, these injuries are fatal. If an injured animal cannot be rehabilitated, or if the veterinary costs are too high, it is put down.

Supporters have argued that every precaution is taken to ensure the animals' safety but in the end, deaths are inevitable.

These animals don't volunteer. Their bodies are pushed beyond their limits and if injured, their lives are taken from them.

So maybe it's time to stop racing horses. Surely, we can find some other form of entertainment that doesn't exploit or endanger these beautiful and noble animals.

Daniel K. Wilson,
Niagara Center for Animal Rights Awareness,
St. Davids

Don't sugarcoat it: the annual seal hunt is barbaric

2008-05-02T20:11:00.000-04:00

Editorial - The St. Catharines Standard - Friday, May 2, 2008

Re: Seal hunt protest lives on propaganda, The Standard, April 25.

It's ironic to read an editorial so full of half-truths accusing others of spreading propaganda. Since when are 12-day-old seals (the age their fur begins to moult) considered adults? For it is at this age that it is legal to shoot and/or club seals.

And while eight out of 10 seals killed for their skins are babies, the sealers that kill the adults leave behind orphans too young to take care of themselves.

It's worth noting that killing seals is not a full-time job, it merely supplements the incomes of those in the fishing industry - a little extra cash if you will.

A little more knowledge on the subject and the author would know that activists also oppose other forms of animal exploitation, including the unnecessary and cruel slaughter of animals for human consumption. That's why a growing number of activists, as well as other people, have become vegetarians.

The author also mentions that harp seals are not endangered. So what? Neither are Homo Sapiens, but no one would endorse the killing of them.

And to call the killing of seals, cows, chickens and other sentient beings a "harvest" is just as misleading as the rest of the article. Apples are harvested, corn is harvested, animals are killed, butchered and slaughtered.

A number of animal welfare groups, including the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies and the Humane Society of the United States, have called the seal slaughter inhumane. I wonder why the author failed to mention this?

Some may consider slaughtering helpless babies an honest living. Our government, which cares more about revenue than anything else, certainly sees nothing wrong with it.

But please don't sugarcoat the truth - the seal slaughter is barbaric and a civilized society would have ended it long ago.

Daniel Wilson
Four Mile Creek,
St. David's

Seal hunt protest lives on propaganda

2008-04-27T20:13:00.006-04:00

Editorial - The St. Catharines Standard - Friday, April 25, 2008

Each year it's the same thing: A parade of wealthy celebrities swoop down on Canada's East coast and accuse Canadian sealers of being big meanies.

This year Farley Mowat himself has joined the fight and is campaigning hard for a European ban on all seal products, which would effectively kill the hunt.

The images are potent - defenceless animals, grim-faced sealers wielding wickedly sharp gaffs.

Check out "seal hunt" on a Google image search and you'll see what we mean. The Google seals are cute as a button - like every child's dream of a favourite puppy.

Here's the problem: They aren't real. They're propaganda.

Oh, the photos are real enough. But these seals, the little white baby harps, haven't been hunted in Canada for a generation. That was banned in the 1980s. Only adults are harvested now. We use the word harvest deliberately, because this actually is a harvest, not a hunt.

The animals are shot on the ice, killed - either with a second bullet or with a gaff - and skinned.

That doesn't sound very appealing, does it? For most of us, it isn't. We like our meat, our fish, our poultry, for certain. But we don't ever have to see it slaughtered or harvested. That happens in the privacy of an abattoir.

But funnily enough, Farley Mowat isn't calling for a European ban on beef cattle or pig farming. Why is that?

Here's why: There is a double standard, driven purely by sentiment, that allows activists to set the harp seal apart from other animals that we harvest for food or pelts.

They get away with this because seals look more like human beings than do steers, pigs, chickens, or trout.

That, and that alone, explains why culling seals is controversial.

The truth? Harp seals are not endangered - not even close. The Canadian herd is estimated at 5.5 million - three times what it was in the 1970s. The spring cull has been repeatedly investigated and found to be humane, by the Canadian Medical Veterinary Association, among others. There is nothing wrong with the seal hunt.

"Killing animals en masse simply to make a profit is totally abhorrent," says Farley Mowat.

Really? Then protest trout farming, Mowat. Go to Alberta and picket a cattle ranch - see how far you get.

But please, leave the sealers of Newfoundland and Labrador alone. They're working to earn an honest living.
________________________________________

How You Can Help

Contrary to the above absurity, baby seals are still slaughtered. It's just that the sealers can't kill them when their coats are white - they have to wait about 12 days when the seals begin to moult and their fur turns grey - then it's okay to kill them.

According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), approximately 8 of 10 seals are pups between 12 days and 12 weeks of age.

Please write to The Standard: kreid@stcatharinesstandard.ca and let the paper know how you feel about the "honest living" of slaughtering baby seals.

Ottawa to pay struggling pork producers $50 million to kill 150,000 pigs by fall

2008-04-16T20:04:00.002-04:00

THE CANADIAN PRESS - April 14, 2008

By John Cotter

EDMONTON - In what is being called an unprecedented move, the federal government will pay Canadian pork producers $50 million to kill off 150,000 of their pigs by the fall as the industry teeters on the brink of economic collapse.

The animals are being destroyed at slaughter plants and on pig farms in a bid to cull the swine breeding herd by 10 per cent.

Most of the meat is to be used for pet food or otherwise disposed of, but up to 25 per cent of it will be made available to Canadian food banks.

"The value that the market is providing to hog farmers for their breeding animals has fallen to virtually nothing," said Martin Rice, executive director of the Canadian Pork Council on Monday.

"It is due to the economic collapse of the industry. These are farms that families have spent decades building up. We cannot see relief coming. It is agonizing for them. It takes a toll."

Producers are weighed down by the cumulative impact of low prices, increasing feeds costs and the high value of the loonie. They are also facing new country-of-origin labelling rules for meat products in the United States that are to go into effect later this year.

Canada's 10,000 pork producers are mainly in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Farmers who wish to take part in the cull can apply for federal compensation payments until the end of August. Those who qualify for payments must agree to kill off an entire breeding barn of pigs and not to restock the barn for three years. The program is retroactive to November 2007 and farmers have until this November to complete the cull.

The council estimates that about 50,000 pigs have already been destroyed, with about 100,000 more to come by the fall.

To ensure that the animals are treated in a humane way, producers are being encouraged to ship their pigs to approved slaughter plants. Producers who live in areas without plants will be asked to ship their animals to a province with such a facility.

But there is nothing to prevent producers from killing the animals on their farms themselves.

"We want to minimize the amount of on-farm euthanizing," Rice said. "Before we would approve that application we would need to know how it was going to be done - that it was going to be done humanely and in an environmentally sound way."

Rice said the U.S. government's decision to require country-of-origin labelling on meat products has made a bad situation even worse.

Producers are dealing with American companies that don't want to buy Canadian hogs or meat products after years of doing business because they aren't sure how consumers will respond to such labels. The situation is squeezing the hope out of the Canadian industry, which exports much of what it produces to the United States.

"They cannot look forward to a rebound in their market," Rice said.

But as pork producers suffer through the downturn, more than 670 food banks across Canada hope to benefit from the swine cull.

The Canadian Association of Food Banks is working with the pork council to come up with a plan to distribute some of the meat to the 720,000 Canadians who depend on food banks each month.

"We are pleased that the government is allowing some of the product within this program to come to the food bank community," said Katharine Schmidt, executive director of the Canadian Association of Food Banks in Toronto. "We are working as hard as we can to see how much we can actually get into the hands of those who need it most.

"One of the food groups that food banks are always in need of is protein."

A distribution plan is being organized by industry groups and food banks on a province-by-province basis, she added.

Federal Agriculture Minister Gary Ritz has said that Ottawa will help Canada's pork sector "bring itself in line with market realities." Ritz was not available for comment on Monday.

Clare Schlegel, a hog farmer near New Hamburg, Ont., said it is heartbreaking to risk losing a farm that he and his family have spent decades building up. But now there are factors such as the price of feed going up because of the expanding biofuel industry around the world.

Competition from cheaper imported pork is also trimming the meat from his bottom line.

"We wonder ourselves why prices aren't better," Schlegel said. "The market is the market, but still, in human terms, you want to see good food put to good use. In my 30 years, I never dreamed we would be at the point where we are."

Animal activists often hurt their own causes

2008-04-12T11:12:00.003-04:00

The Niagara Falls Review - Thursday, April 10, 2008

Posted By Diotte, Kerry

I love critters as much as most people. I've grown up with cats and dogs and hamsters - and treasured them all.

Having been raised in northern Ontario where we owned a cabin (or camp, as it was called there), I also hunted grouse at an early age. I've since lost my love of that and now prefer to photograph wildlife rather than see it dead on my plate.

Stories of animal abuse make me feel sick to my stomach. I truly admire people in the field of animal welfare who try to improve the lot of our feathered and furry friends.

What I don't understand, though, is why some animal advocates become so strident in their cause that there's a backlash and they wind up crippling their case.

Most people were rightly saddened to read news about the recent drowning deaths of four Quebec sealers from Iles-de-la Madeleine. They drowned when their disabled boat was being towed and it capsized.

But hard-core animal rights activists were actually rejoicing, not unlike religious extremists who cheer terrorist attacks that kill innocent people.

Sun Media received a few letters from animal rights types expressing their outright joy that seal hunters died.

I'm not a big fan of seeing seals killed, but it's been a way of life for people on the East Coast and in the North for generations.

Anti-sealing protesters have, over the years, forced slightly more humane hunting practices, at the least.

Certainly there's more need for improvement, since seals are still clubbed to death on the ice. New regulations require hunters to also slit their arteries in the process.

People can't help but view the clubbing to death of any animal as brutal. Can you imagine the uproar if cows, pigs and sheep were killed that way? It's not the most humane way of harvesting animals. But radical animal rights people tend to sabotage their own causes by expressing outrageous beliefs and using questionable tactics to try to win their cause. Witness the recent comments of Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

As friends and family mourned the deaths of the Quebec sealers, Watson told the media he considered the killing of young seals "a greater tragedy."

Watson made those comments after hearing quotes from a sealer who said he felt helpless watching the trawler capsize that led to the death of the four hunters.

Watson, who obviously has little tact, heart or common sense, chose this particular time to send out his abrasive and cruel comments via a news release.

"I can't think of anything that defines helplessness and fear more than a seal pup on the ice that can't swim or escape as it is approached by some cigarette-smoking ape with a club," Watson said.

"These men are sadistic baby killers and that might offend some people but it is the unvarnished truth - they are vicious killers who are now pleading for sympathy because some of their own died while engaged in a viciously brutal activity."

Those comments even made the head of Canada's Green party resign from the advisory board of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

It all goes to show that if you want a better world for animals, you shouldn't act like an untamed one yourself. People listen to reasonable arguments and campaigns. But most tune out wild-eyed radicals.

kerry.diotte@sunmedia.ca

Garden Brothers Circus cancelled

2008-04-11T11:25:00.001-04:00

Low ticket sales reason for Peoria Civic Center event

HOI 19 - Thursday, April 10, 2008

PEORIA -- The Garden Brothers Circus, scheduled for Tuesday, April 29, at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Peoria Civic Center Arena, has been canceled due to low ticket sales.

All tickets purchased online or charged by phone will be automatically refunded. Tickets obtained through the box office or Ticketmaster outlets will be refunded at the point of purchase.

There are no plans to reschedule this event.

PETA hopes to stop Shrine Circus show coming to the city

2008-04-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

Thunder Bay's Source - Friday, April 4, 2008

What bills itself as the 'Greatest Show on Earth' is expected to draw some protest when it stops in the city next month.

A local group is planning to take part in a national PETA campaign against the Shrine Circus and the use of animals in their shows and so far, over 120 members have joined a local Facebook group to 'fight the circus'. The Thunder Bay chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says its planning a protest calling for a ban on the use of animals in such shows.

Organizer Kelsi Bellin says she only expects numbers to increase and she along with a group of friends are planning to stop the local event that has been coming to town for generations.

She said on Friday ''we want to abolish all animal circus acts, there doesn't need to be animals in the circus.''

However Shriner Andy Anderson, also known as Wrinkles the Clown, says he has never seen the animals harmed in any way and Anderson has been clowning since 1948. He's not taking the group seriously adding there is no truth to what they are saying.

Anderson says every animal involved in the circus is treated with respect and is cared for so they can travel and perform.

Anderson says the circus has veterinarians that travel with them and animals are an important part of the show. The local stop has raised more than $80,000 each year for the Shriner's hospital for children.

The animal rights group will hold their protest outside of the Fort William Gardens on May 24 and 25 to coincide with the show.

'Saving the earth one bite at a time'

2008-04-04T06:09:00.000-04:00

The Quinnipiac Chronicle - March 26, 2008

BY CAROLE ANN KINNAW

Although only a couple of years ago it seemed near impossible for vegans to maintain a healthy lifestyle, today many supermarkets and restaurants give vegans many tasteful options that allow them to maintain their own personal lifestyles.

A vegan is an individual whose diet omits any direct animal products, such as meat, and also omits any animal by products such as milk and eggs. Although it seems impossible to form a healthy diet around these limitations, Web sites such as www.tryveg.com show individuals how simple it is to maintain a vegan lifestyle.

This Web site's mission statement advocates vegan lifestyles as a way to show compassion to all kinds of animals by saving them from factory farms and death. Although some vegans may not agree with this reason, this Web site allows individuals to explore alternate options to all types of foods.

The Web site is divided into different groups with separate links. One link is entitled "For Your Grocery Cart." This link gives a list of all common animal and animal by products that make up a non-vegan's diet. One can click on these products and receive a list of alternative options and brands to the food product shown.

Even better, all of these alternative options are sold regularly in grocery stores, making it easy for individuals to maintain a vegan lifestyle. For example a vegan can substitute hamburgers with "veggie burgers" such as Bocca brand veggie burgers. Soy ice cream and cheese slices can also be used to replace dairy products. Although many vegetarians, or vegan hopefuls, feel as though vegetarian or vegan diets cannot provide an adequate amount of protein, they are highly mistaken. A diet that consists of beans, whole grains, and plenty of vegetables can offer a sufficient amount of protein needed in any diet.

An excessive amount of protein consumed in non-vegetarian diets, researchers say, may even be harmful and cause kidney stones, heart disease and even some cancers.

Vegetarian or vegan diets have a multitude of benefits from saving the lives of animals to an increased healthier lifestyle. With the supermarkets stacking shelves and freezers with veggie burgers and tofu hot dogs it is easy to maintain a healthy vegan lifestyle while still enjoying the food one loves.

Escaped steer shot after charging police officer

2008-03-24T20:07:00.002-04:00

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

toronto.ctv.ca

A Mississauga, Ont., community was taken hostage by a herd of cattle for nearly four hours on Thursday morning.

Four steer who escaped from a transport truck during a morning accident made their way to a residential area around Brentano Boulevard near Highway 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way.

More than 20 officers, animal control workers and farmers were involved in rounding up the nervous animals.

Police managed to contain the animals and were leading them into the back of a truck when one of them escaped.

One steer was eventually shot after it knocked a couple of residents off their feet and charged a police officer.

The animal was killed by an officer's service revolver as a last-minute defence, OPP Const. Dave Woodford told CTV Toronto.

Police said the animals caused some property damage. An ambulance was on the scene but there were no serious injuries reported.

Residents said they were shocked to see the large cattle roaming their neighbourhood.

"What made me nervous was the OPP cars had blocked us in and one (officer) was standing at my neighbour's across the street with a shotgun," said a woman named Theresa. "At first I thought maybe it was a criminal or something, not a cow."

"It was a major distraction for someone who's self-employed because it's really hard to continue working when there's four cows in your neighbourhood," Dorothy Pilarski said with a laugh.

The cattle situation caused delays during the morning traffic rush on the Queen Elizabeth Way.

A transport truck carrying the animals overturned on the highway at about 6:40 a.m. The driver of the truck was not injured in the accident.

Police managed to get the cattle off the road, closing the highway for nearly one hour in the process. All lanes were reopened by 7:30 a.m.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Naomi Parness
_______________________________________

To view readers comments, click on: Escaped steer shot after charging police officer

Circus second to nature parks

2008-03-21T09:49:00.002-04:00

The Cornwall Standard Freeholder

Posted March 18, 2008

The Standard-Freeholder made three trips to the circus this past weekend based on a tip there may be people protesting the poor treatment of animals in the Greatest Show on Earth.

No such luck. But we still got to watch the show and take some photos of the animals doing some nifty tricks.

Since no one wanted to voice their opinion of the Garden Bros. Circus, we thought we'd judge for ourselves.

Ringmaster Ian Garden noted his disappointment at the poor turnout. He's accustomed to playing to big crowds. Either the shows at the Cornwall Civic Complex were victims of March Break trips or people in the area aren't so enchanted with watching animals perform for entertainment any more.

Animals seem a lot more interesting, and possibly happier, in their own habitats, or at least in zoos such as African Lion Safari near Hamilton that attempt to simulate those habitats.

The animal residents get to roam freely within the confines of the "nature game park" on two to 20-hectare reserves, while humans must stay in their vehicles.

While we didn't see the entire Garden Bros. show, the penultimate act involved three grown-up elephants being led around inside a circus ring no more than 40 feet in diameter. Seemingly the toughest and most awkward part was when they each were directed by their handler to stand on large metal stools, maybe four or five feet wide, on all four feet.

Looks very uncomfortable for multi-ton pachyderms with legs the width of tree trunks.

The next elephant ballet had one of them lying down on its side, then another sat on its colleague's head. Why this is considered impressive is anyone's guess. It just summoned up memories of young siblings wrestling each other into submission.

Don't get the wrong idea. This piece isn't meant to diminish the accomplishments of these well-trained elephants and their handlers. Their act might seem kind of demeaning, old and tired, like it has been done before many times in many different circuses, which it probably has, but it's likely all brand new and amazing to many of the young spectators. The long hours and patience it takes the trainers and elephants to learn to work together and perfect the act must be enormous and continually testing the nerves of both.

Although it may not be the most natural of relationships between these two giants, both literally and figuratively, of the animal kingdom, getting it to work is an achievement in itself, whether you agree with it or not.

GO VEG! GET GIRLS!

2008-03-13T19:22:00.004-04:00

How do you convince manly men to give up meat? With naked ladies, of course.

MACLEAN’S.CA - March 6, 2008

BY LIANNE GEORGE

In late 2006, Johnny Diablo, a committed vegan of 23 years, opened a restaurant/bar in Portland, Ore., to prove that meatless fare could be delicious and satisfying - something guys could eat while they're hanging out and just being guys. But the venture flopped. "Even though Portland is known for being open-minded and liberal, I just could not get these guys to come in here to try the food," he says. "We do a very good job of making authentic-tasting, meat-style dishes - but in their heads, they were like, 'I can't go into a vegetarian place.' " So last month, after retooling both the space and the concept, Diablo reopened the doors, unveiling a devil-themed venue called Casa Diablo Gentlemen's Club - the world's first vegan strip club - where, as he told local media, "We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate."

Needless to say, at Casa Diablo, all of the food and drink, along with most of the dancers, are vegan. Also, dancers are prohibited from wearing stage costumes that are made from animal products (happily, there is vinyl). So far, this bait-and-switch tactic is working well on male patrons. "The girls get 'em in, then I get them to try the food with the free sampler plate," he says. After a few drinks, many of them, loosened up, gradually accept that vegan can be delicious and manly. Business is good. "We've got a lot of repeat customers," he says. "They're really happy, loving the food, loving the whole concept."

At first blush, Casa Diablo is just another example of simple, unimaginative "sex sells" marketing: slap a woman's naked body on something and watch the money roll in. But Diablo's carrot-and-stick vegetarianism pitch is actually part of a broader effort to overhaul vegetarianism's wimpy image and to break, once and for all, the historical ties that bind meat-eating and masculinity.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a pioneer in this effort, has been dangling Girls! Girls! Girls! as a reward for meat-free living for years. Its early campaigns featured such uber-babes as Pamela Anderson and Cindy Crawford, who said they would "rather go naked than wear fur." (Crawford, as an aside, went on to become the face of the fur brand Blackglama.) Over the years, PETA progressed to ever-racier approaches, like the "Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door" contest, and the spring-break inspired "Milk Gone Wild" campaign, which was banned from airing during the Super Bowl. A 30-second TV-spot released last fall, in which actress Alicia Silverstone emerges naked from a swimming pool, was also spiked by censors - then downloaded online in droves. Other recent ads have functioned as showcasing opportunities for a naked Eva Mendes and a corseted Dita Von Teese. Last week, PETA members outdid themselves in London's Covent Garden by getting a topless pregnant woman, caged and on all fours, to protest the treatment of pigs. As predicted, the press bit.

"The important thing to keep in mind," says PETA spokesperson Lindsay Rajt, "is that unlike our opposition, the wealthy meat industry, PETA has to rely on getting free advertising through media coverage of our campaigns and demonstrations. Experience has taught us that provocative and controversial campaigns make all the difference."

Indeed, PETA's nudie campaigns have proven effective in boosting click-through rates on its websites, where it posts actual information about animal suffering. Also, they're helping to rebrand vegetarianism - once considered a hippie-dippie fringe movement populated by women with excess body hair - as something cool that bombshell actress Sophie Monk would do. But not surprisingly, that has earned the ire of some feminist groups that resent the promotion of animal rights issues at the expense of women's issues. They say PETA is fighting the exploitation of one group by steamrolling another. "For me as a feminist, the means absolutely do not justify the ends," says Carol J. Adams, a feminist-vegetarian and the renowned author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, "because women are the means to somebody else's ends."

What PETA is shying away from admitting, its critics say, is that in order to convert a critical mass of people to vegetarianism, groups like PETA have learned that they have to distance themselves from feminism - even if it means subverting it. There is a deeply entrenched psychological connection between meat-eating and the male identity. "Our culture, especially in the United States, still invests a whole lot in the machismo of meat-eating," says Adams. Real men eat steak and potatoes. They hunt deer, barbecue ribs, carve turkeys. If animals rights groups are ever going to persuade male consumers to change their carnivorous ways, Adams says, they're going to have to reassure them first not only that vegetarianism is a healthy, viable and ethical choice, but also, crudely put, that vegetarianism isn't for pansies. Part of PETA's strategy is a new campaign featuring top athletes, including NFL tight end Tony Gonzales, Olympian Carl Lewis, and Ultimate Fighting champion Mac Danzig. But the best and most effective sell is still women. Naked ones.

Basically, as Adams sees it, the women in PETA's ads, like the strippers at Casa Diablo, are offering themselves up as sub-ins for meat. "One of the things about strip clubs is that they've always associated women's flesh and animal flesh," says Adams. "When I've talked to strippers and pole dancers, they've all said there's something really creepy about doing what they're doing and watching men eat these big hunks of steak."

Even creepier, Adams points out in her more recent book, The Pornography of Meat, is that in food advertising, meat has long stood in for women. "Meat advertisements often pose animals in conventional sexualized positions," she says. It's not uncommon to see a "rear shot" of a cow in lipstick, or an illustrated chicken, pulling up its feathers to reveal a delicious thigh. ("Are you a leg man or a breast man?" chicken ads from the '80s used to ask.)

"PETA is very sophisticated," says Adams. "They know what they're doing, but every time PETA uses female sexuality, it accomplishes two things: it reminds us of the kind of voice that women are allowed to have, which is their bodies. And it reminds us how difficult it is to see that animals are worthy of our care, because PETA can't even use animals themselves to represent their need to be liberated. And I would say, the reason people can't see domesticated animals as individuals is because they've been associated with femaleness."

PETA's standard response - somewhere between an eye-roll and a shrug - is to point out that women freely choose to participate in its campaigns, unlike the animals it's lobbying for, who don't get to choose their fate. "We feel that all people should be free to use their minds and bodies as political instruments to help those who have no voice," says Rajt.

In Los Angeles, an all-girl activist rock group called the Vegan Vixens is making good use of its instruments. Comprised of five women with centrefold bodies and fashion sense, the Vixens started out as an outreach group, speaking and performing at various functions with an aim to converting men to veganism. "I think there's nothing more masculine than a man who's sensitive to the animals and the environment," Vixens founder Sky Valencia told Maclean's.

Their songs, which they call "green music," include Real Men Don't Hunt and Fishnets, Oil Spill. (Sample lyric: Our bodies are hot / if you want to please me / change your habit of leather / it's just so damn easy.) They've appeared on The Howard Stern Show a number of times (if they didn't show their boobs, he'd threaten to spray a lethal substance onto mealworms), and they're regulars at the Playboy Mansion. "In between entertaining," says Valencia, "we'd kind of brainwash them about being vegan and say, 'Look how wonderful this lifestyle is!' " They have yet to convert Hef, she says, but he does seem to be adding more vegetarian options to his spreads. More recently, they launched a magazine-style TV show, and a cookbook - complete with pin-ups of themselves in organic bikinis - is imminent.

When the Vixens first launched five years ago, they received piles of angry letters from feminists who loathed their approach. But then, the tone began to change as letters started rolling in from women wondering how they keep their bodies so lean. "The sex appeal really helps out a lot because sex sells," says Valencia. "Whatever it takes to stop the abuse. And if it takes us in bikinis, that's not a big deal. We'll do it."

Johnny Diablo will do whatever it takes, too. No matter how many women have to doff their cruelty-free clothing at Casa Diablo. "Critics throw that word around a lot: exploitation. Let's look at it. How are we exploiting women?" he says. "Are we hacking off their limbs? Peeling their skin away? Putting them on a barbecue? What we're doing to animals is not exploitation; we're murdering them. It's not apples to apples. Critics like to connect it and I wholeheartedly disagree with the people who are in that camp. I call them Feminazis, and I say, 'Hey, we're Femilibertarians: do whatever you want, as long as you don't step on somebody else's hooves.' "

Far more pressing, he believes, is winning over as many people to vegetarianism and veganism as possible, starting with toughest converts: guys' guys. "You know, I'm a steak-and-potatoes man myself," he says. "I'm six foot two, 270 lb., a big-time athlete, but I just realized in my heart 23 years ago that I don't want to hurt any animals. When anybody, man or woman, when they actually see the information out there, and all the suffering, and how it's not good for your body anyway, it's not good for the earth, it's a win-win situation when you go this route." But a lot of guys, he says, are still afraid their friends might make fun of them if they found out they were going to a veggie restaurant. "It all starts with breaking down the fear. Any time someone eats in my place here, that means they didn't eat some poor creature someplace else. All I'm trying to do is save as many lives as possible and break down the myths in any way possible." Even if this means creating some unappetizing new myths on the way.

Shakeup at Humane Society

2008-03-13T08:49:00.000-04:00

The Niagara Falls Review - March 13, 2008

Posted By TONY RICCIUTO

In a shakeup at the Niagara Falls Humane Society, the board of directors has removed the general manager and an inspector from their jobs and the board itself has stepped in as interim manager at the shelter.

Its first act Wednesday: To approve Rebecca Proulx's application to adopt the Blue Heeler/Lab dog named Mace.

The changes come on the heels of a Review report last week that detailed Proulx's quest to adopt Mace and another dog - and her rejection by the humane society, despite her long list of favourable recommendations and the fact she and her husband own a farm with room for the dog to run and a heated barn where it would sleep.

The front-page article sparked criticism of the humane society in the community.

The board met Tuesday evening and yesterday, general manager Valerie Brown and inspector Don Horvath were relieved of their duties effective immediately.

Neither Brown nor Horvath could be reached Wednesday. Shelter staff did not offer contact numbers for them.

A statement released by the board of directors said its actions were "prompted by its desire to strengthen and improve the humane society's relationships with the residents of the city, their elected representatives, city staff and the humane society's employees."

The board's first priority "will remain to make the world a better place for animals."
The Review article detailed the lengths Proulx went to in attempting to adopt two dogs (one of which has since been adopted to another home).

After her application was turned down by Brown, Proulx provided her with numerous letters of reference from friends, clients and professionals in the business.

She also contacted the Fort Erie animal shelter for an assessment of her property.

All agreed Proulx's farm was more than adequate to accommodate another dog.

Proulx had already adopted two dogs from the Fort Erie animal shelter, Diesel and Oliver, and was looking to adopt another one or two dogs from the Niagara Falls Humane Society. After she was denied, Proulx contact The Review with her story.

Three sought in attack on animal

2008-03-12T19:31:00.002-04:00

The Standard - Local News - March 12, 2008

Police are seeking three snowmobilers who chased and ran over a coyote earlier this week.

Niagara Regional Police responded to a call about the incident on Monday.

At about 6:45 p.m., three people on snowmobiles where seen chasing down a lone coyote in a snow-covered field between Concession 4 and Fifteen Road. At least one snowmobile struck the coyote and ran over it, police said in a release.

The three snowmobilers then left through the fields and did not stop, police said.

Police approached the injured animal but it appeared to have recovered sufficiently to leave the area.

It is a criminal offence to deliberately harm wildlife in this way, police said, and acts of intentional cruelty can result in up to six months in jail, as well as a maximum fine of $2,000.

Police are asking anyone with information to call 905-688-4111, ext. 5421.

Say No to the Garden Bros. Animal Circus!

2008-03-09T23:41:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, the Canadian-based Garden Bros. Circus launched its 2008 season this week starting in the Toronto area.

It's no secret that circus animals endure years of physical and psychological pain and suffering to "entertain" audiences.

Animals in the circus are also unable to behave naturally and are forced to live in unnatural conditions. Elephants are chained up to 23 hours a day and while on the road they are forced to stand in their own waste while lions, tigers and primates are kept in cages so small the animals can barely move around.

Such conditions can cause the animals to develop abnormal behaviours, such as depression, aggression towards other animals (including humans) and other stress-related behaviours like swaying back and forth and bobbing their heads.

The Garden Bros. Circus has been repeatedly criticized by animal protection groups for failing to provide their animals with adequate shelter from the elements, confining their animals for great lengths of time, using harsh training methods on their animals and endangering human safety.

In 2001, a 400-pound tiger bit the fingertip off a Garden Bros. worker while the circus was in Toronto.

In 1998, Garden Bros. employees left a number of petting zoo animals in their cages by the side of a Virginia road. The temperatures inside the trucks had risen to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. According to USDA citations, part of the problem was that Richard Garden routinely hired unqualified workers. A few days later, Maryland officials confiscated other abandoned animals, including a tiger, an elephant and a rhinoceros. Shortly after those incidents, the USDA suspended Garden's licence for 15 years and fined him $12,000.00.

In 1992, Richard Garden, who also owned the Toby Tyler Circus and United Funding, was accused of cheating charities and deceiving donors across the country. United Funding was sued or banned in a dozen states for deceptive telephone pitches. The Toby Tyler Circus was cited for safety violations that resulted in bleacher collapses in Middletown Township, Pa., and Greenport, N.Y., where the 70 injured included an infant who suffered a skull fracture.

According to Clifford Bickford, a former animal welfare investigator with the USDA (the agency that regulates animal circuses in the United States): "Richard Garden has no business having any animals of any kind. His animals were as poorly kept as any I've seen."

How You Can Help

If you receive a phone call from any animal circus asking you to purchase tickets, tell them you won't support animal cruelty. Suggest they continue the shows without the animals.

If your child's school distributes circus tickets, tell the principal or school board you think it's wrong that the school supports animal exploitation and encourage them to stop.

For more information on animal circuses, please visit: Animal Circuses: Fun for Whom?

To view some interesting comments on the recent Torontoist article covering the Garden Bros. Circus, click onto: PhotoTO: The Circus Is In Town

Seal Killing Season Draws Near

2008-03-09T13:43:00.013-04:00

Once again, defying international opposition and all standards of human decency, our government is sanctioning the mass killing of helpless baby harp seals.

In the weeks ahead, hundreds of thousands of these animals will be beaten and stabbed with sharp hooks and sometimes even skinned alive -all so someone can wear a coat, a collar, or cuffs made with real baby-seal fur.

Hundreds of thousands of harp seals will be killed in a matter of weeks. Most of them will be less than 3 months old, and many will still be in their first weeks of life. The animals are so young that they will lie on the ice as their attackers approach.

Even if they know that they should flee, their motor skills aren't yet developed enough to do so. They have no chance of escaping to the safety of the water.

The carnage begins as the seals have their heads bashed in with clubs. Still conscious, they will be dragged across the ice with boat hooks. Then these sensitive, intelligent animals will be skinned, sometimes while they are still alive. The sealers will take their fur but leave the seals' bodies on the ice to rot.

Someday soon, Canada will look back on its seal hunt with shame. But until that day comes, it is up to caring people like you to come to the defense of these gentle animals.

How You Can Help

Sign PETA's worldwide petition to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper demanding a permanent end to the annual slaughter of seals.

For more information about the seal slaughter, please check out: Canada's Seal Slaughter

KFC Demo in Niagara Falls

2008-02-22T21:24:00.000-05:00

WHY: To raise public awareness of the horrific conditions KFC chickens live and die in.

WHERE: 6566 Lundy's Lane in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

WHEN: Saturday, March 1st, 2008 from 11:00am to noon.

KFC suppliers cram birds into huge waste-filled factories, breed and drug them to grow so large that they can’t even walk, and often break their wings and legs.

At slaughter, the birds’ throats are slit and they are dropped into tanks of scalding-hot water—often while they are still conscious. It would be illegal for KFC or its suppliers to abuse dogs, cats, pigs, or cows in these ways.

More than 850 million chickens are killed each year for KFC’s buckets. The birds are crammed by the tens of thousands into excrement-filled sheds that stink of ammonia fumes.

Chickens’ throats are slit and the animals are dropped into tanks of scalding-hot water to remove their feathers, often while they are still conscious and able to feel pain.

At a KFC "Supplier of the Year" slaughterhouse in West Virginia, workers were documented tearing the heads off live birds, spitting tobacco into their eyes, spray-painting their faces, and violently stomping on them.

A whistleblower at a Tyson slaughterhouse testified that birds intentionally were scalded to death, blown apart by makeshift firecrackers and had their legs broken by workers to fit them into slaughter-line shackles. Tyson is KFC’s number one supplier.

Here in Canada, two former employees of Brian’s Poultry Services, Ltd., based in Mildmay, Ontario, came forward with shocking eyewitness accounts of cruelty that took place during “catching” efforts on two farms where thousands of birds were violently gathered manually by workers and carried upside-down to the truck that would take them to the slaughterhouse.

The former chicken-catchers saw chickens crushed to death by heavy objects, bashed in the head, stepped on and kicked while others had their legs and wings broken and their joints dislocated. Many were left to suffer slow and agonizing deaths next to the truck.

For more information on the KFC Demo, please contact John at jsakars@yahoo.ca

Why have animal meat on fundraiser menu?

2008-02-22T06:50:00.000-05:00

Letters to the Editor - Niagara This Week - February 22, 2008

I recently learned that the Welland and District Humane Society is holding a dinner and dance called "For The Love Of Animals" to raise funds to help renovate their cat facility.

While I certainly commend the organization for the important work they do to help many animals in the community, considering the role of the humane society and their work to protect and care for animals I was disappointed to learn that there will be animals on the dinner menu for the event.

The centre's website states: "We speak for those who cannot speak for themselves." Webster's dictionary defines the word humane as: marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals.

Why is it that the humane society's compassion, sympathy and consideration only extends to those animals we call pets? Why aren't they speaking for the animals who are raised on factory farms and are killed by the billions to become food?

Isn't it time that we all stop and think about the double standard we live with every day?

We love our companion animals, we love to teach our children about animals and we write countless books and movies about animals, but we completely detach ourselves when we pick up a fork.

I had occasion to attend another fundraising event in Welland in 2007, the "Party For The Paws" organized by Niagara Action For Animals.

On the buffet table, there was a sign that stated "Out of respect for all animals, no animals or animal by-products were used to prepare this meal." While it's likely that not many attending the event were vegetarian, I know that the food was enjoyed by all.

Perhaps the Welland and District Humane Society - and other organizations - will take this into consideration for future events and become a better example of what it truly means to be "humane."

Kim Ansell
St. Catharines

Owner of roadside zoo fined for keeping game without a licence

2008-02-20T20:02:00.005-05:00

The Globe and Mail - Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Posted by UNNATI GANDHI

Tyson, the red kangaroo who lived a lonely existence at a roadside zoo before mysteriously disappearing last fall, is likely dead, animal-rights activists say, and a fine levied against the zoo's owner yesterday is not enough to remedy that.

Shirley McElroy, who operated the Lickety Split Ranch and Zoo in London, Ont., was fined $4,000 for having live game in captivity without a licence.

Ms. McElroy, 66, had refused to renew her Ministry of Natural Resources licence last year, court heard yesterday, but continued operating the zoo where Tyson lived in a cage the size of a garage, sheltered during the winter season by just a tin roof.

Ms. McElroy was not in court yesterday, but during her trial in December, she delivered a defiant speech about God and her own "dominion over the animals."

Calls to her London home were not returned yesterday.

Melissa Tkachyk, programs officer for the Toronto office of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, which spearheaded a long and ultimately successful campaign for Ontario's more than 40 privately run menageries to be scrutinized and policed, said this was the first time someone had failed to renew the licence to keep native wildlife in captivity.

"Unfortunately this fine had nothing to do with how the animals were housed at the zoo, and it has nothing to do with the fact that many cages were not safe for the public either," she said.

"I think it's quite telling that if she wasn't able to follow Ontario's minimum basic regulations to renew her licence, she's not likely to follow future regulations that the province is interested in bringing forward."

Tyson's plight last year caught the attention of the news media in Australia, where headlines rebuked Canada's "abysmal exotic animal laws" and called for reform. The Lickety Split Ranch and Zoo did not reopen last summer, after a blizzard of negative publicity.

Welland Humane Society to Serve Up Dead Animals for Charity

2008-02-10T14:37:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, February 16th, 2008, the Welland & District Humane Society (WDHS) will be holding their "For the Love of Animals" Valentine Dinner & Dance to raise money to help the animals at their shelter.

Unfortunately, the WDHS does not extend their compassion to all animals, as they will be serving, among other dishes, Sirloin beef and stuffed chicken.

While the organization claims to "... speak for those who cannot speak for themselves," this apparently doesn't include cows or chickens.

It seems that the Welland Humane Society only cares about certain animals (cats and dogs), otherwise they wouldn't be cooking up and eating other ones.

How You Can Help

Please call, write or email the Welland & District Humane Society and urge them to consider all animals when fundraising. Suggest that they serve vegetarian and/or vegan meals to reduce the suffering that farmed animals endure.

The Welland & District Humane Society
60 Provincial Street
Welland , ON
L3B 5W7
Phone: (905) 735-1552
Fax: (905) 735-7414

You can also write to your local newspaper so the public is aware of the shelter's 'double standard' when it comes to protecting animals.

Niagara This Week: letters@niagarathisweek.com

The Welland Tribune: tribune@wellandtribune.ca

If you'd like, send a copy of your letter to us in the comments section below.

Thanks!

Marineland's Nootka should have lived free

2008-02-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

Niagara This Week - February 1, 2008

By Doug Draper, Reporter's View

Winter, with its short days and long nights, has never been my time of year. Spring and summer, when the days are long and warm, and the world is alive in vibrant colour, have always hit the spot for me.

So in the cold gray of January, when darkness is still bearing down on us at seven in the morning, my mind sometimes takes me on a therapeutic journey back to a moment my family and I enjoyed the previous summer.

This January, one of those journeys included a morning late last August when we drove out to Provincetown, Mass., on the sandy tip of Cape Cod, and boarded one of the vessels of the Dolphin Fleet - a company that has been partnering with marine mammal experts from the Centre for Coastal Studies for more than 30 years to provide some of the finest whale-watching excursions in the coastal waters off New England.

On that journey, which took us to Stellwagen Bank - a fertile feeding ground for fish and marine mammals north of the Cape - we stood on deck in silent awe as humpback whales, one of the largest and most mysterious animals on this Earth, glided by us and as pods of dolphins danced, in synchrony, in our wake.

There was no one there hunting down these magnificent mammals, either as a source of food or as a subject of entertainment for a circus or a zoo. Stellwagen Bank is a U.S. protected marine mammal sanctuary, and it was made clear to us from the moment we left shore that we were passive guests in a sanctuary for some of the greatest creatures we have the privilege of sharing this earth with.

I thought about this journey again last week when I learned that a marine mammal, living entirely out of her natural element died on Jan. 8 at the popular Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls.

That marine mammal was an orca, known more popularly by we humans, who have a tendency to stigmatize any wild creature we don't understand as unpredictable or dangerous, as a killer whale.

Her name was Nootka, who'd been captured for a life in show business off the shores of Iceland in 1979, and had spent many of her 40 or so years on this Earth performing tricks and splashing countless thousands of onlookers, clicking their point-and-shoot cameras in the front rows of Marineland's King Waldorf Theatre.

Nootka's passing triggered enough emotion to make the blogs.

"I am so saddened by this," said one blog writer. "I remember Nootka and she was the whale I stood in line to touch and feed over at (Marineland's) Friendship Cove."

"This sucks," added another. "That whale kicked butt! Splash sessions were amazing when she was in them."

Marineland marked Nootka's passing with remarks that were a little more sedate.

"We were heartbroken," Marineland spokeswoman Ann Marie Rondinelli was quoted as saying. "We don't like to play favourites, but (Nootka) was definitely loved by everybody."

Dan Wilson, a Niagara-on-the-Lake resident who has worked for years with the Niagara Centre for Animal Rights Awareness and Toronto-based Zoocheck to raise public awareness about what he feels is the cruelty of keeping these great mammals in captivity, says he's feeling heartbroken too.

"I'm surprised when Marineland staff say they're upset each and every time a whale dies at the park," Wilson told me following Nootka's passing. "Don't they realize that the reason the animals keep dying is the very captivity they've forced upon them?"

"If Marineland really cared about the animals' well-being," said Wilson, "it would stop taking them out of the wild, cease its captive breeding program and, instead of replacing dead whales with new ones, it would replace them with more amusement park rides. People would still come and the bottom line would be the same - lots of money for Marineland. Only the animals' suffering would end."

John Holer, Marineland's founder, once told me told me he never wanted to build a park like Wonderland where "there is strictly rides, rides, rides." A close encounter with wild animals, he said, is also a big attraction for people.

Holer is right in the sense that countless thousands of people flock to Marineland each year for the amusement of watching whales and dolphins perform tricks for them in pools holding a spit of water compared to the seas they would otherwise live out their lives in.

Orcas can live 50 to 80 years in the wild but, unfortunately, Nootka could not "kick butt" enough to escape capture from the pod she was plucked away from in open seas, where she could have been left to live out a natural life - a world away from a cement tub full of chlorinated water, and free.

The entree tonight? 'Ice swine'; Feeding pigs icewine a sweet experiment

2008-02-01T18:32:00.000-05:00

The St. Catharines Standard, Thursday, January 31, 2008

Posted By MONIQUE BEECH

As a premier chef at one of Niagara's top wineries, Frank Dodd routinely braises pork in fine wine.

Recently, two pigs arrived at Niagara-on-the-Lake's Hillebrand restaurant already soused.

For more than 40 days, the pair of Berkshire pigs reared at an Ingersoll, Ont.-area farm were fed a barley soybean mixture doused in 200 mL of icewine per day.

Starting in December, farmer Kevin Rivers religiously poured his young pampered pigs a serving of a 2006 Trius Vidal icewine, which sells for $49.95 per 375 mL bottle.

Not a cheap food source.

Hillebrand donated two cases (12 bottles per case) of the sweet dessert wine, made from naturally frozen grapes, in the spirit of an experiment.

The idea came to Rivers' wife, Allyson MacDonald, a wine aficionado and veterinarian who read about Australian beef cattle producers who fed red wine to their stock to satisfy the whim of the "white table cloth" Japanese market.

The couple decided to pitch the plan to Dodd, who saw it as a chance to jazz up his restaurant's luxurious icewine dinner, which was held on Saturday.

Rare Berkshire pigs, which originated in Britain, have a reputation for taking longer to fatten, but produce juicy, flavourful meat.
________________________________________

How You Can Help

Pigs are very intelligent animals and form complex social bonds with each other. They should be treated with dignity and respect, not slaughtered because their flesh tastes good.

Please write to The Standard about this story kreid@stcatharinesstandard.ca and call or write to Hillebrand and let them know how you feel about their "experiment."

Hillebrand Estates Winery
1249 Niagara Stone Road
Niagara On The Lake, ON
L0S 1J0
Phone: (905) 468-7123
Toll free: (800) 582-8412
Fax: (905) 468-4789
Email: info@hillebrand.com

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler

2008-01-27T19:52:00.000-05:00

The New York Times - January 27, 2008

By MARK BITTMAN

Photo Credit: Gary Kazanjian

A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store - something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil. It’s meat.

The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally - like oil - meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases - more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan - a Camry, say - to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States - much of which now serves the demand for meat - contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Enviromental Protection Agency.

Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens - heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small.

But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.

What can be done? There’s no simple answer. Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the nonprofit International Food Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat.”

Then there’s technology. Israel and Korea are among the countries experimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some of the biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with some success, to turn manure into fuel.

Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of “meat without feet” - meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks.

Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s because grazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do. Still, said Michael Pollan, author of the recent book “In Defense of Food,” “In places where you can’t grow grain, fattening cows on grass is always going to make more sense.”

But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.

Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)

These problems originated here, but are no longer limited to the United States. While the domestic demand for meat has leveled off, the industrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fast as land-based methods, according to the United Nations.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly - even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag - the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

Real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, perhaps even decreased, for 40 years or more (in part because of grain subsidies), though we’re beginning to see them increase now. But many experts, including Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, say they don’t believe meat prices will rise high enough to affect demand in the United States.

“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees “a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption - one like that around cigarettes - emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”

It wouldn’t surprise Professor Eshel if all of this had a real impact. “The good of people’s bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” made a similar point: “There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled. Both demands are exerted by the same group of people ... the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. ... This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases.”

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in the Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.

Whale dies at Marineland

2008-01-24T18:11:00.000-05:00

The Niagara Falls Review – Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Posted By ALISON LANGLEY

Marineland had lost its matriarch killer whale.

Nootka died Jan 8.

She had been at the popular tourist attraction for more than 27 years.

“We were heartbroken, absolutely heartbroken,” said Marineland spokeswoman Ann Marie Rondinelli.

“We don’t like to play favourites but she was definitely loved by everybody,” she said.

The female killer whale was believed to be around 40 years old and had given birth to a number of calves over the years.

Marineland is now awaiting the results of a necropsy.

Nootka, named after the Native American tribe that lived in parts of British Columbia and Washington, was captured in Iceland in the fall of 1979.
__________________________________________

How You Can Help

Nootka is the latest victim in a long line of whale fatalities at Marineland. She was actually born around 1976, which made her approximately 32 when she died.

Female orcas are believed to live well into their eighties in the wild. However, the average age of a captive orca is only 12 years.

It is estimated that over 40 whales and dolphins have died at the Niagara Falls amusement park with approximately 25 of them dying in the last 10 years.

It is possible that Marineland will try to acquire another female orca for its captive breeding program. This would cause even more whales to be exploited and ultimately die in a completely unnatural and artificial environment.

NCARA believes it is cruel to capture and keep such highly social and intelligent animals in captivity for human entertainment. These animals belong in the world's oceans and deserve the right to experience life as nature intended - wild and free.

Please write to your local newspaper and express your concerns about Nootka's death and the captivity of whales and dolphins.

You can contact The Niagara Falls Review at:

editor@nfreview.com

and The Standard at:

kreid@stcatharinesstandard.ca

Frozen-chicken fling in the name of charity

2008-01-21T07:54:00.000-05:00

The St. Catharines Standard - Thursday, January 17, 2008

By Standard Staff

A bird-brained fundraiser in Port Dalhousie will go ahead as planned in two weeks, but the venue remains up in the air. Weather will determine whether the eighth annual Chicken Chuckin' Championships on Sunday, Jan. 27, are held on the ice of Martindale Pond or at nearby Lakeside Park.

The pond, off Rennie Park, is the preferred location of organizers, provided it's cold enough to be frozen. If ice conditions are poor, the event will be moved to Lakeside Park, as it was last winter.

The event, sponsored by the Kilt and Clover pub, challenges participants to chuck frozen chickens along the ice for points in the style of curling or shuffleboard.

Money raised by the event will be donated to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Kinsmen Club's cystic fibrosis campaign. Food donations are also being collected for Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold's food bank.

Last year's competition raised $1,010 for Community Care.

The entry fee is $20 per team of four.

Participants and spectators are also encouraged to bring donations of non-perishable food items.

Teams are urged to register before Jan. 27. The competition is scheduled to begin at noon, but participants are requested to report to the Kilt and Clover, on Lock Street, at 10 a.m.

More information is available by calling David Prentice or Paul Smith at the Kilt and Clover at 905-646-8917.
___________________________________

How You Can Help

Send a letter to The Standard expressing your concerns over using the dead remains of animals as shuffleboard or curling pieces. You can email your letter to:

kreid@stcatharinesstandard.ca

mail it to:

The St. Catharines Standard
17 Queen St.
St. Catharines
L2R 5G5

or fax it to:

(905) 684-6032

Seal industry faces 'crisis' because of import bans

2008-01-19T12:17:00.001-05:00

The Canadian Press - Wednesday, January 9, 2008

By TARA BRAUTIGAM

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Canada's centuries-old commercial sealing industry faces a "crisis" because of growing opposition throughout Europe that threatens to close vital markets, the head of the Fur Institute of Canada said Tuesday.

In a stark address to a gathering of about 100 sealers, Bruce Williams, chairman of the organization, said the future of the seal harvest is bleak if support for bans on the import of seal products continues to build in Europe.

"Unfortunately, the animal rights organizations around the world have come to realize that the easiest way to kill something - for maybe lack of a better term - is to kill the market," Williams said.

"If you can't sell the product, if it has no commercial value, then I would say that it is doomed."

Belgium and Holland have approved legislation prohibiting the sale of seal products. Germany, Italy and Austria are drafting similar legislation, prompting pressure for the European Union to adopt a ban.

While those countries aren't Canada's biggest importers of seal products, they serve as a critical shipment and manufacturing point to the larger markets of Norway, Russia and China.

Williams said there's an additional effect an EU-wide ban could have on the sealing industry.

"One thing I can tell you is that if fur is not fashionable on the runways of Paris and Milan, it's not going to be fashionable anywhere," Williams said.

"The simple reality today is the big markets are China and Russia, but they want things that are in style, and style is not dictated by those countries. It's dictated by the countries in Europe."

Even Loyola Sullivan, Canada's fisheries ambassador, acknowledged Tuesday that efforts to overcome the anti-sealing lobby in Europe would be tough.

"It's difficult because it's advanced so far," Sullivan said.

"It's got a tremendous foothold in Europe, and most people close to the situation feel that a ban by other countries is imminent, that it's gone too far. It would be unpopular now for a member of parliament in a European country to support the hunt."

In September, Canada launched a challenge to the World Trade Organization in an effort to persuade the Belgian and Dutch governments to reverse their bans, arguing their policies were rooted in misinformation spread in large part by animal rights groups. Ottawa's complaint remains before the WTO.

Mark Small, a former president of the Canadian Sealing Association and longtime sealer, said even though Canada's hunt is the most sustainable in the world, his fellow hunters may have to accept some changes in their practices, such as different measures to cull the seals.

"I'm definitely sure that, as a sealer myself, we can do a better job than we've been doing in the past," Small said. "We've got to make some compromises if we're going to protect our future industry in this province."
_________________________________________

How You Can Help

The European Union is looking for feedback from the general public on issues relating to the animal welfare aspects of killing of seals and the importing of seal products to Europe. Your opinions will help the EU in making new policies.

To participate in the survey, please go to:
http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=seals

Animal cruelty law a joke

2008-01-14T11:39:00.000-05:00

The Edmonton Sun - January 9, 2008

By MINDELLE JACOBS

Aside from horrifying Canadians, the shocking case of the pet cat microwaved to death in an alleged Camrose burglary has once again exposed to the world our shameful animal cruelty laws.

The legislation hasn't changed in more than a century, since the Criminal Code was introduced in 1892. And despite valiant attempts by people like Ontario Liberal MP Mark Holland, whose private member's bill would reform the law, there are those who are content with half measures.

Consider the piece of futility that's Liberal Senator John Bryden's private member's bill. It would increase the penalties for animal abuse but would otherwise leave the antiquated 1892 legislation alone.

Bryden's bill would up the penalty for cruelty to animals to a maximum of five years in jail and unlimited fines for people convicted of indictable offences and a maximum of 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine for summary, or less serious crimes.

But simply tacking harsher penalties on 19th-century legislation dotted with loopholes that hamper prosecutions does little to protect abused animals and underscores the absurdities of politics.

Over the course of a decade, the Liberals introduced various versions of an animal cruelty law but they all bit the dust because of election calls, prorogation of Parliament and political fence-sitting.

"Canada is so far behind other developed countries, you can't believe it," says Shelagh MacDonald, program director of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (CFHS).

"If you look at what other countries are doing with their animal cruelty legislation, (ours) is a joke."

The CFHS supports Holland's bill, which was generally supported by animal protection organizations and animal use groups when it was first introduced several years ago, says MacDonald.

Holland's proposed legislation, Bill C-373, would make it illegal to kill any animal without a lawful excuse. Only owned animals - not wildlife - are protected under current federal law. The bill would also increase penalties.

But Bryden's pathetic political baby, Bill S-203, is further along in the parliamentary process and is unfortunately supported by the Tories.

"We're very worried at this point. It will be an extremely sad day if S-203 passes," says MacDonald.

She adds it's ironic that Stephen Harper, whose family fosters cats, isn't behind Holland's bill. "He's fostering cats that most likely came from stray animals and yet he's supporting a bill that won't offer any protection to those stray animals."

The present century-old law makes it extremely difficult to prosecute crimes of neglect because it requires proof of intent, says MacDonald.

There have been numerous cases where dozens of animals have been starved to death over a long period of time and judges ruled that the farmers didn't intend to starve them, she points out.

Debate over the issue has reached absurd levels. In a position paper last year, for instance, the Canadian Sportfishing Industry Association said Holland's bill would have a "chilling" effect on anglers and hunters. It even suggested that a grandfather taking his grandchildren fishing could face criminal prosecution.

What nonsense. Under Holland's bill, people would only be prosecuted for killing animals without a lawful excuse. His bill clearly protects legitimate animal use activities like angling, hunting, farming and scientific research.

If Parliament passes Bryden's half measure of a bill, defenceless animals lose out.

Think about that the next time someone tortures a cat.

___________________________________________

For more information on Bill C-373, please visit: http://cfhs.ca/law/bill_c_373/

Teens cook cat to death

2008-01-06T11:26:00.000-05:00

The Edmonton Sun - January 5, 2008

By BROOKES MERRITT

Four teens who recently broke into a Camrose home put a cat in a microwave and cooked it to death, Camrose police said yesterday.

The horrific animal torture has sent shockwaves through the city southeast of Edmonton and incensed animal rights activists.

"In over 25 years of policing, I've never come across anything like this before," said Camrose police Insp. Lee Foreman. "It's disgusting and it's very upsetting for all the families involved."

Foreman said one 13-year-old and three 15-year-olds twice broke into a Camrose home in Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, while the owners were vacationing out-of-town.

None of the teens lives at the residence or is related to the owners, Foreman said. No other animals are believed to have been in the house.

Police allege that on the night of Dec. 30 the group entered the home, put an adult cat in the microwave and nuked it to death.

The cat was later found by a family friend who was taking care of the house in the absence of the owners.

"I cannot recall ever having seen something as disturbing as this before either," said Dr. Dick Bibby, the Camrose veterinarian who performed the grisly post-mortem examination on the cooked cat.

He could not discuss his findings due to doctor-client privilege, but suggested the cat's owners are understandably distraught.

Told of the torture by Sun Media yesterday, officials at the Edmonton Humane Society were also sickened.

"It's horrific to imagine someone could do this. Teenagers know this is twisted and wrong, and there is no excuse for such a blatant disregard for a helpless animal's life," said society spokesman Diane Shannon.

In Didsbury, where a dog named Daisy Duke was viciously beaten and dragged from the rear of a vehicle until it was near death and eventually euthanized in 2006, another animal activist said parents need to pay closer attention to their kids.

"I don't understand how parents keep missing the signals of this kind of deviant behaviour. It should be mandatory that all of these kids are psychiatrically assessed to find out just how dangerous they really are, and the police should be looking into what kind of household they are coming from," said Tamara Chaney.

Chaney started a 112,000-signature petition seeking tougher penalties for animal abusers following the Didsbury incident.

A teen who pleaded guilty to animal cruelty in the Daisy Duke case received a conditional sentence.

Daniel Charles Haskett, 19, has also admitted taking part in the dog's torture and will be sentenced in April.

Police say each of the teens allegedly involved in the microwaving face a litany of charges, including unlawfully killing an animal, causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal, breaking and entering, theft and possession of stolen property.

They are to appear in Camrose youth court at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 7.

Canada's Seal Slaughter

2008-01-01T10:05:00.001-05:00

“A sealer near us quickly clubbed every seal within a small radius to immobilize each of the pups, and then dragged the bodies to the center of his circle. One by one he flipped a seal on its back and skinned it. If the seal flipped around or fought against the skinning he'd flip it back to its stomach, club it several more times and then finish the skinning.” - IFAW Hunt Monitor

Canada's commercial seal hunt is a hunt like no other. It is a cruel and unethical practice that produces a product nobody needs. In fact, 98% of the animals killed in the past two years have been seal pups aged about 2 weeks to 3 months. This unmanageable hunt takes place over a vast area, making it impossible to carry out humanely.

Some seals are killed with a blow to the head using a wooden club or hakapik. The sealers stun as many baby seals as they can before going back to kill them. Some seals try to get away, but they are clumsy on the ice, heaving their fat little bodies with an uncoordinated flipper shuffle. Other seals are shot from a distance and then dragged from the ice onto boats using steel hooks.

Two recent independent veterinary reports on the Canadian seal hunt, as well as IFAW video footage, have documented unacceptable levels of cruelty to baby seals. This hunt is a highly competitive activity, carried out over an extensive area, and under very unpredictable conditions. Haste is the rule, as hunters rush to immobilize as many baby seals as possible in the short time available to them.

Seals are routinely clubbed or shot and left to suffer on the ice, before being clubbed again some time thereafter. Some seals are still skinned before being rendered fully unconscious and few sealers are observed checking for a blinking reflex to confirm brain death prior to skinning an animal. As one of the veterinary reports concluded: "Canada's commercial seal hunt results in considerable and unacceptable suffering.”

The Canadian government often misleads the public by comparing the commercial seal hunt to the killing of farm animals in the food industry. Unlike abattoirs, the seal hunt is an unpredictable, unmanageable hunt for wild animals, which takes place under hurried conditions. It is precisely these conditions that have led some experts to conclude that this hunt can never satisfy the requirements of a humane hunt.

Removing so many animals from any one population places the species at an unnecessary and significant risk. Over the last few years, the Canadian government has raised the annual seal hunt quotas to the highest levels in history, killing almost a million seals in just a three year period. The Total Allowable Catch quota for seals was 85,000 animals higher in 2006 than the “sustainable yield” estimated by Canadian government scientists.

The history of wildlife conservation shows that when large mammals like seals have a price placed on their heads – or hides – the end result is almost always overexploitation. To ensure that wild populations are not put at risk by human activity, a precautionary approach is needed. Yet the DFO management plan does not adequately account for either scientific or environmental uncertainty.

A recent scientific study released by IFAW also shows that in nine of the past eleven years, average ice coverage has fallen to well below levels seen over the last 37 years. This lack of stable ice is negatively impacting the harp seal population, which requires sea ice for pupping and nursing its young.

The Canadian government has indicated that it is dedicated to taking ‘real action’ on global warming. Why do they not start by ending the unsustainable and unnecessary hunt for harp seals?

Here are the top three myths told by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) about the commercial seal hunt:

Myth #1: The seal hunt is humane.

All available evidence, including veterinary reports and independent observations, indicates that each year tens of thousands of seal pups die in an unacceptably cruel manner inconsistent with contemporary animal welfare standards.

Year after year, observers report abuses such as the hooking and dragging of live seals across the ice, seals clubbed or shot and left to suffer on the ice, and seals skinned while conscious. And while all recent veterinary reports recommend reducing the suffering of seals, their recommendations have not been fully implemented.

There is no doubt that Canada’s commercial seal hunt continues to result in considerable and unacceptable suffering.

Myth #2: The seal hunt is sustainable.

Seal catch quotas set by the Canadian government are much higher than government scientists’ estimates of what is sustainable, and these quotas are allowed to be exceeded. A recent study by IFAW scientists found that the current management approach risks depleting the harp seal herd by as much as 70% in the next 15 years.

The DFO often states that the harp seal population has tripled since the 1970s. However, this ignores the fact that between 1950 and 1970 the harp seal population was reduced by as much as two-thirds from seal hunting. Since 1995, harp seals have been killed at levels similar to those that caused a dangerous decline in the past, and the DFO now admits that the population has decreased.

Climate change is also presenting a new threat to the harp seal population by negatively impacting their breeding habitat. Increasingly, poor ice conditions off the east coast of Canada are causing higher than normal seal pup mortality. For example, government scientists estimate that in 2002, 75% of the seal pups in the Gulf of St. Lawrence died due to a lack of ice before the hunt even began. Yet the government continues to set total allowable catches for harp seals above sustainable levels, putting the population at increased risk.

Myth #3: The seal hunt is closely monitored and well managed.

The seal hunt involves thousands of sealers competing for a limited number of seals during a short period of time. Sealers are concerned with clubbing or shooting as many animals as quickly as possible instead of checking to see if a seal is dead before moving on to club or shoot the next one.

Year after year, IFAW hunt observers encounter seals that have been clubbed and left to suffer on the ice, bleeding profusely, crying, breathing and attempting to crawl. These are not “reflexes” as the DFO claims, which are easily recognized and familiar to experience seal hunt observers.

During 2006, the DFO claimed to have had 12 monitors for the Gulf hunt, the largest enforcement effort ever. Yet sealers in one region were allowed to take three times their quota without any consequences. In fact the Total Allowable Catch has been exceeded in four of the past five years.

For more information, please go to: http://www.stopthesealhunt.ca/

How You Can Help

1) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to let the public know how you feel about the Canadian seal slaughter.

2) Urge the Prime Minister to to end this barbaric and unnecessary hunt as soon as possible.

You can send your letter to:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper

Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington Street.

Ottawa, ON

Canada

K1A 0A2

Fax: (613) 941- 6900

Email: pm@pm.gc.ca

Animal sanctuary bid hits dead end; Thorold, Region staff advised against refuge

2007-12-16T09:07:00.000-05:00

The St. Catharines Standard Local News - Saturday December 15, 2007

Posted By TIFFANY MAYER

Supporters of a proposed animal sanctuary in Thorold might shed some tears to know those plans have been scrapped.

The Endangered Animal Rescue Society (TEARS) doesn't intend to reapply to the city to turn wooded property at Kottmeier and Holland roads into a sanctuary for sick, old or abandoned exotic animals, including reptiles, primates and lions.

This despite the organization pledging it would after council rejected its initial application in July to build the refuge.

TEARS' Chris Morabito said Friday he didn't see the point after staff reports from the city and the Region advised against giving the plans the green light.

"The planning departments for the City of Thorold and Niagara Region do not want it," Morabito said. "They are the experts in the exotics. They feel the land doesn't qualify for it so we respect their decision."

The land where Morabito and his family planned to house the sanctuary was identified by city staff as prime agricultural land and home to the ecologically sensitive headwaters of Twelve Mile Creek. A woodlot on site was also deemed an environmental conservation area.

Animal welfare groups, including the World Society for the Protection of Animals and Zoocheck, had spoken out against the sanctuary over concerns the proposal sounded more like a roadside zoo than a sanctuary.

The deciding factor for several Thorold councillors was that the Morabitos didn't comply with orders to stop work on the property after it was discovered they had removed trees and built animal pens without proper permits.

A political consultant for the organization said at the time the Morabitos would follow the procedures and make their pitch again.

But now, instead of building homes for the furry, feathered or scaly, Morabito said he'll likely build a family home. Selling the land to developers is another possibility, he said.

Deputy Mayor Ted Luciani, who voted against the proposal in July, was indifferent to the news the Morabitos would not try again.

"To me, it's one issue of hundreds I deal with in the course of a year. It's one issue we've dealt with and now it's time to carry on to the next issue," Luciani said.

He did, however, wonder what would happen to the animals the family had taken into their care.

Morabito said he will shop around his sanctuary proposal elsewhere. Exotic animal sanctuaries are needed, he said, so long as there is an exotic pet trade.

"There are other places in Ontario that are accepting of sanctuaries like what we want to do because they do know that people do buy these animals and that shouldn't happen," he said.

TEARS will also start charging for its services, such as picking up animals or stepping in to help other organizations that need assistance handling exotic creatures.

The Standard also received a tip the Morabitos were keeping reptiles at the Kottmeier Road site.

The city sent notification last week that they must be removed.

But Morabito said there are no animals on site and hadn't received the notice.

"I must be getting one," Morabito said. "You know before I do."
__________________________________________

How You Can Help the Animals

Please take a moment to write a short letter thanking the City of Thorold and the Regional Municipality of Niagara for rejecting TEARS' application to open up a roadside zoo in Thorold.

Let them know that you support their decision and that you would like them to go one step further by enacting a municipal bylaw to ban the possession and display of exotic animals in Thorold. Please send your letters to:

Mayor Henry D’Angela
City of Thorold
3540 Schmon Parkway, P.O. Box 1044
Thorold, ON
L2V 4V7
email: mayor@thorold.com

Peter Colosimo
Senior Planner
Planning and Development Department
Regional Municipality of Niagara
2201 St. David’s Road, P.O. Box 1042
Thorold, ON
L2V 4T7
email: plan@regional.niagara.on.ca

Controlling Navy Island Deer

2007-12-01T21:07:00.000-05:00

Six Nations bow hunters, Parks Canada work together to reduce overpopulation

The Review – Local News: Friday, November 30, 2007

Posted By ALISON LANGLEY

A cull to reduce Navy Island's white-tailed deer population is underway, in a partnership between Parks Canada and the Six Nations native reserve.

Members from several Iroquois communities are conducting an inventory of the island's natural resources, as well as reducing the deer population using only the traditional method of bow hunting, under an agreement with the federal agency.

"This could become an incubator for a new generation of hunters with traditional values and traditional skills," said Paul Williams, a Six Nations resident who chairs a committee overseeing the project. "

A sport hunter will go up to a dead deer and say, 'Look at the size of these antlers.' A traditional hunter will go over and put down tobacco and give thanks to the deer and thanks to the Creator for the amount of meat they will be able to take home to their families."

The venison will be consumed at the Six Nations reserve near Brantford.

"This is not a sport hunt. This is a strategy that's part science, part reducing the number of deer," said Kim Seward-Hannam, superintendent of national historic sites with Parks Canada.

There are between 60 and 80 deer on the 1.2 kilometre-long island on the Niagara River, according to a study conducted in 2002 for Parks Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. An island that size can really only sustain 10 or 15 deer, Seward-Hannam said.

Navy Island is located about seven kilometres upstream from the Horseshoe Falls. It is accessible only by boat and the land is maintained in its natural state. The island is considered a national historic site and visitors are not allowed to remove or damage any plants, shrubs or flowers.

Signs have been erected on the island to notify visitors of the project.

While there is a resident deer population, deer regularly swim to the island from nearby Grand Island and the Canadian mainland.

When there's a wealth of vegetation on the island, the deer population can be high.

"When the undergrowth gets depleted from years and years of eating, the number of deer that can be sustained is quite low," said Anne Yagi, a ministry biologist.

The animals basically eat "everything six feet and under," which can upset the delicate ecosystem on the island that includes several rare plant and tree species such as pawpaw and mockernut hickory, Yagi said.

Fort Erie conservationist and environmentalist Dan Andrews visits Navy Island often and says the damage caused by the animals is evident.

"The island is absolutely littered with deer. Some areas have been decimated by foraging deer and the forest floor is disappearing."

When there is no food, the deer are too weak to swim back to shore and many starve to death.

In past years, controlled hunts have been held to cull the herd.

Individuals would submit their names in a lottery-style program that limited the number of hunters on the island.

At least one local hunter is unhappy with Parks Canada's decision on the latest hunt.

"This is federal Crown land and everyone in Canada should have been given the opportunity to hunt there," said the Niagara Falls resident, who did not want to be identified.

The hunter participated in the last controlled hunt in 1997 and said he should have had the chance to return.

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters agrees the current deer population needs to be reduced, but the agency questions why licensed hunters cannot take part.
"Bow hunters will be hard-pressed to harvest the 50 or more deer it will take to begin to restore health to Navy Island herd," said Ed Reid, a wildlife biologist with the federation.

"It is hoped that in future Parks Canada will make the opportunity for Six Nations and licensed hunters to co-operate in a common conservation interest."

Reid said sport hunters also respect their quarry, and are as equally supportive of conservation projects as Six Nations communities.

Seward-Hannam reiterated the initiative is not a sport hunt, Rather, it's a collaborative project with aboriginal communities.

"They are helping us with the preservation and presentation aspects to restore natural resources," she said.

One of Parks Canada's goals, she added, is to work more closely with aboriginal communities on projects of mutual interest.

Reducing the deer population is the first stage of a larger project between the two groups.

The first phase is expected to last through January. Future initiatives include investigating ways to ecologically restore the island floor and to work together on archeological sites.

Meanwhile, research continues into the long-term effects a large deer population can have on the small area of land.

In 2005, Parks Canada and the MNR erected expansive barricades around certain areas of the island.

Known as "deer exclosures," the fences are designed to keep deer out and vegetation in.

"What we saw was a lot of regeneration of the forest in those areas and a lot of rare species coming back in," Yagi said.

According to the Niagara Parks Commission, which leased Navy Island from Parks Canada until 2003, the island's first inhabitants were natives who used it for fishing and building canoes.

They referred to the island as Big Canoe.

The French took over the island in the 1700s and used it as a naval base. At that time, the island was referred to as Ile la Marine or Navy Island.

What's Wrong with Horse Racing?

2007-11-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

"They give their lives for our enjoyment." - Ron McAnally, horse trainer, after the breakdown of Go for Wand

Horse racing is considered by many to be a harmless sport in which the animals willingly display their speed, skill and agility. The truth is that these animals suffer and die for human profit and entertainment.

The Sport of Cruelty

Also known as the Sport of Kings, horse racing is a multibillion-dollar industry rife with cruelty, drug abuse, injuries to both the riders and horses, and many horses end up at the slaughterhouse when they are no longer profitable.

Stallions are over-worked and are kept isolated from other horses for years while females are subjected to an endless cycle of pregnancy that often involves the use of drugs and other artificial interventions.

According to the New York Daily News, “The thoroughbred race horse is a genetic mistake. It runs too fast, its frame is too large, and its legs are far too small. As long as mankind demands that it run at high speeds under stressful conditions, horses will die at racetracks.”

Racing to Death

While injuries and deaths are pitched by the media as unexpected accidents, as in the case of Barbaro, the undefeated Kentucky Derby champion who was euthanized after a series of surgical procedures to repair his shattered ankle, the reality is that hundreds of other horses continue to die on the tracks while thousands of others are sold for slaughter – their meat to be used in cat food or sold to European countries for human consumption.

Horses begin training or are already racing at an early age and when their skeletal systems are still growing. This makes them physically unprepared to handle the pressures of running on a hard track at high speeds. According to one study on racetrack injuries, one horse in every 22 races suffered an injury that prevented the animal from finishing the race. Another study found that approximately 800 thoroughbreds die in North America each year because of racetrack injuries.

According to Dr. David Nunamaker, a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and the chairman of clinical studies at New Bolton Center, fatal muscle and bone injuries occur 1.5 times per 1,000 starts, which means that approximately 704 horses died while racing in the United States and Canada in 2005 - almost 2 racehorse fatalities every day.

Some 30% of these fatalities occur during, or immediately after a race, and are caused by a broken leg, back, neck or pelvis, spinal injuries, heart attack or burst blood vessels.

Serious racing-related illnesses are now endemic with approximately 82% of flat race horses older than three years of age suffering from bleeding lungs (exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage). Gastric ulcers are present in no fewer than 93% of horses in training, where the condition gets progressively worse. When horses are retired, the condition improves.

Even with improved medical treatments and technological advancements, hairline fractures and strained tendons are difficult for veterinarians to diagnose and the damage may go from minor to irreversible at the next race or workout.

Horses do not do well in surgery and further injury may occur from the disorienting effects of the anesthesia or from fighting the casts or slings. An animals’ chances of recovery is further compounded by the fact that horses need to stand while recovering whereas humans can heal with bed rest or by using crutches.

“We're upset when it happens, but it's just part of the racing game." - General Manager of Virginia’s Colonial Downs, commenting on the deaths of five horses in eight days

Sometimes the animal’s survival is simply a matter of economics. Euthanasia is cheaper than veterinary fees and other expenses on a horse that can no longer race and care for a single racehorse can cost as much as $50,000 a year.

While the owners of Barbaro spared no expense for his medical needs, their display of compassion is the exception, not the rule. Magic Man was a horse who stepped into an uneven section of track and broke both front legs during a race at the Saratoga Race Course. His owner paid $900,000 for him but since the horse hadn’t earned any money and wasn’t worth much as a stud, the owner had Magic Man euthanized.

Addicted to Drugs

Many racehorses become addicted to drugs when their trainers and even veterinarians give them drugs to keep them on the track when they shouldn’t be racing. The New York Sun reported in May 2006 that “to keep the horses going,” they are given Lasix (which controls bleeding in the lungs), phenylbutazone (an anti-inflammatory), and cortiscosteroids (for pain and inflammation). Those drugs, although legal, can also mask pain or make a horse run faster.

Morphine, which can keep a horse from feeling any pain from an injury, was suspected in the case of Be My Royal, who won a race while limping. In 2002 a trainer was suspended for using an Ecstasy-type drug in five horses while another was kicked off the racetracks for using clenbuterol. The previous year a New York veterinarian and a trainer faced felony charges when the body of a missing racehorse turned up at a farm and authorities determined that her death had been caused by the injection of a “performance-enhancing drug.”

According to a former Churchill Downs public relations director, “There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day. With so much money on the line, people will do anything to make their horses run faster.”

From Racetrack to Slaughterhouse

Few racehorses are retired to pastures for pampering and visits from caring individuals. Ferdinand, a Derby winner and Horse of the Year in 1987, was retired to a farm and then changed hands at least twice before being “disposed of” in Japan.

A reporter covering the story in 2003 concluded, “No one can say for sure when and where Ferdinand met his end, but it would seem clear he met it in a slaughterhouse.”

Exceller, a million-dollar racehorse who was inducted into the National Racing Museum’s Hall of Fame, was also reportedly killed at a Swedish slaughterhouse. A 2001 Colorado State University study found that of 1,348 horses sent to slaughter, 58 were known to be former racehorses.

The Whip

Another cruel yet acceptable practice is hitting racehorses with whips, apparently to make the horses run faster. An investigation by Animal Aid in the U.K. found that racehorses in a state of total exhaustion and out of contention were often beaten. The whip was used on the neck and shoulders, as well as on the hindquarters. According to the report, horses were observed being whipped 20, or even 30 or more times, during a race.

Whipping horses can be extremely painful and stressful for the animals, and in many cases reduces their chances of winning the race. One particular study, conducted between October and November 2003, found that 40 out of the 161 races surveyed(around 25%) had been won by horses that had not been whipped.

How You Can Help

“It’s nearly impossible to eliminate injuries to horses because the animal itself is a fairly frail structure.” - Bob Elliston, president of Turfway Park in Florence, Kentucky.

Actually, it's quite easy to eliminate the suffering these animals endure. You can refuse to support your local racetracks and lobby against the construction of new ones. You can also educate your family and friends by telling them about the tragic lives racehorses lead.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/horse/ALL//unsporting.htm

http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=65

Vegan Story on Yahoo!

2007-11-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

Some encouraging news for those of us who wish the mainstream media would report on more vegan/vegetarian issues.

Today, Yahoo Canada Lifestyles featured a story on vegan baking, and how it's come a long way from the whole-wheat flour and fruit-based sweeteners of the 70's.

To view this story, click on the link below:
Vegan baking today tastes better than it sounds

Animal sanctuary bid buys more time

2007-11-03T10:31:00.000-04:00

St. Catharines Standard Local News - Thursday November 1, 2007

Posted By MATTHEW VAN DONGEN

A group hoping to build an animal sanctuary in Thorold has more time to convince regional councillors it's a good idea.

The Endangered Animal Rescue Society (TEARS) has already been turned down by the City of Thorold, but plans to submit a new application. The group also needs a regional policy plan amendment.

On Wednesday, TEARS spokeswoman Tracey McCarthy asked regional councillors to support the amendment.

"This is a sanctuary for exotic and endangered species, a place for them to heal from abuse, to rehabilitate," she said in a presentation to the public works committee.

In a report, regional staff recommended refusing the amendment, noting the proposal "appears more like a commercial zoo than an animal sanctuary."

The report also noted unapproved construction and changes to the Thorold property at Kottmeier and Holland roads have resulted in stop work orders.

McCarthy admitted the organization erred in forging ahead without proper approvals.

She said TEARS is willing to work with municipal and regional staff to make the proposal workable.

She also gave a package of new information to councillors, which she said addressed staff concerns.

St. Catharines Regional Coun. Bruce Timms called the proposal "a great project that got ahead of the process."

Councillors supported his motion to defer a decision on the amendment until councillors and staff reviewed the new information.

Urgent! Please write to the City of Thorold and the Regional Council today asking them to reject TEARS' application to open up a roadside zoo in Thorold once and for all. See Letters Needed: No Roadside Zoos in Thorold for more information. Please address your letters to:

Mayor Henry D’Angela
City of Thorold
3540 Schmon Parkway,
P.O. Box 1044
Thorold, ON
L2V 4V7
email: mayor@thorold.com

Bruce Timms
St. Catharines Regional Councillor
Regional Municipality of Niagara
2201 St. David’s Road,
P.O. Box 1042
Thorold, ON
L2V 4T7
email: timms@brucetimms.com

Peter Colosimo
Senior Planner
Planning and Development Department
Regional Municipality of Niagara
2201 St. David’s Road,
P.O. Box 1042
Thorold, ON
L2V 4T7
email: plan@regional.niagara.on.ca

Adele Arbour
Director of Planning & Building Services
Planning and Building Services Department
City of Thorold
3540 Schmon Parkway,
P.O. Box 1044
Thorold, ON
L2V 4V7
email: aarbour@thorold.com

Canada's Position on Cat and Dog Fur Imports

2007-11-03T08:55:00.001-04:00

A reader who visited our Fur Trapping page a few weeks ago wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressing his concerns about cats and dogs being slaughtered in China for their fur, and then exported to Canada.

The following is the response from the International Trade Minister:

October 29, 2007

Dear Mr. _______:

The Office of the Prime Minister has forwarded to me your correspondence of October 23, 2007, in which you raise concerns regarding the import of cat and dog fur. I appreciate the concerns expressed by fellow Canadians regarding the treatment of cats and dogs and the alleged use of their fur in clothing and other consumer items.

I am, however, concerned that adopting a Canadian import ban on dog and cat fur could undermine Canada's position against the implementation of foreign import bans on Canadian seal products.

The fur trade is a significant contributor to the Canadian economy and provides income for over 65,000 Canadians. In 2005, Canada exported approximately $361 million of fur products, including seal fur. The income derived from the export of seal fur, which is harvested through ecologically sustainable and responsible practices, is important to many aboriginal communities and others in remote and rural regions.

In fact, for sealing communities in Atlantic Canada, the hunt can contribute to up to 35% of their annual income. Furthermore, Inuit communities were hardest hit by the 1983 seal import ban imposed by the European Economic Community and the resulting global collapse in seal prices, despite the exceptions made for aboriginal hunters. Losing one of their few earned income options has serious economic and social effects on these communities.

I wish there were a more straightforward solution to the problem at hand but, unfortunately, imposing a trade ban on cat and dog fur, while responding to the concerns of one group, would have unintended, but serious economic and social consequences for another segment of Canadian society. Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns.

Sincerely,

The Honourable David L. Emerson, P.C., M.P.

Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics

c.c.: The Rt. Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.

Please send your own letters to our government officials letting them know how you feel about this issue. See Fur Trapping and Ranching for more information. Thank you.

Animal Circuses: Fun for Whom?

2007-11-02T19:37:00.000-04:00

Animal circuses have been entertaining the public for years, and conjure up images of humans and animals working together in a safe environment to amuse and astound children of all ages.

But circuses are no fun for the animals, who must endure fear, pain and psychological suffering for our pleasure.

Although the brutality of animal circuses has been hidden from the public's view for many years, a number of recent undercover investigations into some of North America's most popular circuses has revealed a dark yet pervasive reality of animal abuse, harsh training methods and poor animal welfare.

Animal Abuse

According to an elephant trainer in 2002: “If I get any defiance [from the elephants], I’ll beat the hell out of them. [The elephants] will disobey in public because they know I can’t hit them with a stick as much.”

Indeed, many circus animals have been beaten or abused in some way to make them perform. Steel rods, whips, bull hooks and electric prods, used to train and control the animals are considered 'tools of the trade'.

At a performance of the Tarzan Zerbini Circus in Lethbridge, Alberta in 2001, it was reported by the local newspaper that 80 patrons watched in horror as an elephant handler took three elephants back stage, lined them up in a row and started beating the middle one on the head with a club.

When interviewed, the owner of the circus explained that the witnesses "saw the wrong thing," that the handler was only gesturing to the elephant, not clubbing it, after the elephant had done something wrong. There was no investigation and no charges were laid.

Food and water deprivation, shackles, ropes and solitary confinement are also used by circus staff to make the animals perform or punish those who perform inadequately.

Cruel training methods and punishments have also been linked to human safety and is a major reason for accidents in elephant keeping. The use of physical punishment towards elephants is believed to build up 'resentment' in the animals, which may lash out at their handlers at some opportune moment.

As a former elephant trainer who testified before the USDA Investigative and Enforcement Services in July 2000 explains: "I can tell you that they live in confinement and they are beaten all the time when they didn't perform properly. That makes them dangerous and they want to get away."

Poor Animal Welfare

Wild animals in circuses also suffer from poor living conditions, prolonged confinement, isolation, insufficient stimulation and an inability to exercise natural behaviours. The stress of captivity can cause psychotic behaviours and aggression in some animals, while others become depressed and non-responsive.

For example, circus elephants can spend up to 95% of their lives in chains or tethers. Studies have found that confined elephants behave more aggressively towards humans and other animals than elephants that are able to move around freely. Crowded conditions and confinement, particularly amongst mammals, are also associated with adrenal hypertrophy and psychotic behaviour.

Circus lions and tigers are kept in beast wagons, small cages on wheels where the animals are forced to eat, sleep and defecate. These cages are designed for transport only and are inadequate as permanent housing since they offer no outlet for the animals’ instincts to explore, play, or hide away from the public when stressed. Still many performing cats spend the majority of their time on the road inside them.

While traveling from town to town, circus animals are kept in unheated or overheated vehicles, transport trailers and railroad boxcars with little or no ventilation for long periods of time.

On July 13, 2004, a two-year-old lion with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus died while traveling through the Mojave Desert in the U.S. in a poorly ventilated boxcar with no water. It is believed the lion died of heatstroke and dehydration.

Risks to Humans

Traveling acts that feature wild performing animals pose serious dangers to human health and safety as well. A significant number of people, including members of the public have been injured and killed by wild performing animals in traveling shows.

In 1999 a 23-year-old man was killed after being kicked in the head by a circus elephant in Timmins, Ontario. More recently, an elephant with the Shrine Circus trampled a trainer to death in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 2005. It is estimated that over 100 people have been killed by elephants worldwide since 1980.

Wild performing animals, such as elephants, pythons and non-human primates can also carry diseases harmful to humans, including tuberculosis, salmonellosis, hepatitis and the Ebola virus. Almost 90% of all macaque monkeys are infected with Herpesvirus simiae, or herpes B, a virus that is harmless to monkeys but often fatal to humans.

Circus Animals & the Law

Many circuses, including ones leased by the Shriners, have been cited in violation of a number of requirements for standard animal care by the United States Department of Agriculture and U.S. Humane Society.

These include failure to provide veterinary care, adequate shelter, nutritious food and clean water, as well as failure to handle animals in a manner that prevents trauma and harm. They have also been cited for regularly hiring inexperienced employees and failing to ensure public safety.

Unfortunately, circuses that neglect or abuse animals are rarely charged or punished and there are no federal laws specifically protecting performing animals in Canada. Only the province of Nova Scotia currently has standards for exhibiting circus animals.

Still, animal welfare is difficult to enforce since the circus is only in town for a day or two and local humane societies have neither the resources or appropriate training to deal with animal circuses or exotic species.

The Criminal Code of Canada, which hasn’t been seriously updated since 1892, does not address problems relating to the care, housing and training of performing animals. The Criminal Code is also punitive rather than preventative, and the very weak animal cruelty statutes are based on human misconduct to animals and not on the animals’ well being.

The End of Animal Circuses?

As more people become concerned about animal welfare, ticket sales at circuses with performing animals will continue to decline. On September 17, 1999, The Indianapolis News reported that “Attendance continues to dwindle when Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to town.”

Two years later, on August 17, 2001, the Wichita-Eagle wrote that Ringling had failed to secure a date at the Kansas Coliseum because of concerns about its declining circus attendance. Other circuses are also experiencing low turnouts so it is not uncommon today to see half empty arenas and shortened tour schedules.

This change can be attributed to the growing belief that animals should not be exploited for human entertainment. In an editorial on April 5, 2005 by the Philadelphia Daily News: “The circus elephants are coming to town next week, bringing an outmoded and problematic form of entertainment to all Philadelphians. Here’s hoping that this is the last year such an antiquated spectacle is welcomed within our city limits.”

Non-animal, or ‘all-human’ circuses are becoming increasingly popular and are seen as a more humane way to entertain the public. They feature acrobats, daredevils, illusionists and other talented performers displaying amazing feats of skill, precision and teamwork, instead of forcing wild animals to live and behave unnaturally.

Circuses like the Canadian-based Cirque du Soleil, which combines brilliant choreography and provocative music with stunning acro-gymnastic performances and dynamic displays of co-ordination and strength prove that animals are not needed to put on an exciting show.

A number of municipalities across North America have banned or severely restricted performing animals in circuses, traveling shows and novelty acts and both the Lion’s Club International and Kiwanis International have recommended to their local chapters not to use wild animal acts as fundraisers.

Even Shrine Clubs have been re-evaluating their policies on animal circuses. In 1997, the New Brunswick Shriners announced they would no longer use exotic animals in their circuses citing the negative publicity over the treatment of circus animals as one of the factors.

A few years later the British Columbia Shriners went ‘animal-free’ and in 2002, the Shriners of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island announced that they would be looking into alternatives to animal circuses for their fundraising initiatives.

These and other Shrine Clubs across Canada and the U.S. continue to help their communities by using non-animal alternatives such as their Christmas Fantasy Show, which features magicians and clowns for the children.

This trend will continue as more people learn about the true nature of animal circuses. Entertainment doesn’t have to include animal exploitation.

How You Can Help

Every ticket purchased for the circus supports the suffering, exploitation, and in many cases, the abuse of wild performing animals. Your decision not to attend circuses that use animals may be the most effective thing you can do to help them.

You can also share your views with family, friends and your community. If the public puts enough pressure on animal circuses to go 'animal-free', the circuses will have to adapt or risk even further declines in attendance.

If you want to become more active, you can contact your nearest animal rights group to learn what initiatives are being taken in regards to animal circuses. Perhaps you can join them the next time they distribute leaflets while the circus is in town.

Writing letters to your local newspaper(s) before the circus comes to town is an excellent way of expressing your concerns to a large number of people. See Writing a Letter to the Editor for tips on letter-writing. While you're at it, you can contact your local politicians urging them to enact laws prohibiting animal circuses in your area.

You can raise the issue today with Premier Dalton McGuinty and Monte Kwinter, Minister of Community Safety. Let them know that the exploitation of wild performing animals is archaic and cruel, and that being in close contact with such animals puts families at unnecessary risk. Ask them to enact legislation to protect these animals from further suffering.

Dalton, McGuinty, Premier,
Legislative Building
Queen's Park,
Toronto
M7A 1A1
Fax: (416) 325-3745

Dalton.McGuinty@premier.gov.on.ca

Monte Kwinter, Minister of Community Safety
25 Grosvenor Street
18th Floor
Toronto, ON
M7A 1Y6
Fax: (416) 325-6067

mkwinter.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

This column's for you, Beautiful Joe

2007-11-02T11:26:00.000-04:00

Niagara This Week - Friday November 2, 2007

By Doug Draper, Reporter's View

When I was a kid growing up in Welland, one of the books on a shelf in my family's home was titled after a dog named Beautiful Joe.

Since two of my best childhood friends happened to be dogs -- a beagle named Jeff, who lived at our house when wanderlust didn't have him chasing rabbits halfway across Welland and Port Colborne, and a Lassie-like collie named Jamie, who was a prize of the Jones family across the street -- I was drawn to the book immediately.

But it was a tough read. Beautiful Joe was a novel, based on a story of a real dog from Meaford, Ont., whose ears and tail were axed off by a cruel master before being taken in by a family that did all it could to erase the abuse with kindness and love.

If the story sounds familiar, it should. There was a widely publicized story this spring of a puppy in Windsor, Ont., named A.K. by the humane society people who rescued him. The pup was found "whimpering on a balcony" of an apartment after someone with a heart of stone cut off his ears.

Yet more than 100 years after Canadian author Margaret Marshall Saunders received an award from the American Humane Society for raising awareness about animal abuse through telling the story of Beautiful Joe, one Ontario government after another has done next to nothing to toughen animal abuse laws that have long been among the weakest in North America.

To this day, any animal can be mutilated to the point of death in Ontario and the most the perpetrator can expect is six months in jail and a $2,000 fine under the federal Criminal Code, compared to far stiffer jail terms and fines they would face in many other jurisdictions.

The province of Ontario has no anti-cruelty legislation of its own and more often than not, all animal abusers get is a slap on the wrist.

Take the case five years ago of two young men in Toronto who filmed themselves skinning a cat alive in the name of art. To quote from a graphic account in a September 2002 edition of The Toronto Star: "The duo had grabbed the stray cat off the street, then hung it by the neck, punching, kicking and stabbing the helpless animal before it was skinned alive, had an eye gouged, an ear pulled off and was slit open as it moaned in agony."

In many other jurisdictions on this continent, this duo would have faced hefty fines, serious jail time and a ban of having anything to do with animals for the rest of their lives.

But not in Ontario, where our lawmakers care so little that the judge presiding over this particular case felt comfortable saying: "There are worse ways that this cat could have died," before sentencing one of these creeps to 90 days in jail, to be served on weekends, and let the other one go for time already served.

No wonder we continue hearing about one episode of animal abuse after another in this province, including such recent ones in Niagara as Queen Waldorf, the German shepherd found near Chippawa Creek in Niagara Falls with weights tied to a rope around her neck, and Lady and Tramp, the two snow white shepherds found almost starved to death near the outskirts of St. Catharines.

It wasn't until the A.K. case that Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty made a pre-election promise to strengthen animal abuse laws in the province, a promise Conservative leader John Tory, who advocates penalties of up to two years in jail, $60,000 in fines and a lifetime ban on pet ownership, rightfully described as a "forgive-me-for-not-acting-for-the-last-four-years announcement."

Indeed, McGuinty's Liberal government of the past four years, like its Mike Harris/Ernie Eves Conservative and Bob Rae NDP predecessors, never made the connection, shown in countless studies by police departments (including the FBI) and other researchers across North America, that there is an almost one-to-one relationship between someone who will kick a dog or cat and go on to commit violent crimes against people.

Up to now, elected leaders in this province have shown little recognition of the possibility that part and parcel of living in a civil society is showing respect for those most vulnerable among us, including animals.

Saunders put it this way, through the eyes of Beautiful Joe: "Thoughtfulness toward lower creatures (makes) people more and more thought toward themselves."

McGuinty had a habit of breaking promises during his first four years. Those of us who believe it's time for Ontario to jump from the 19th to 21st century when it comes to laws for protecting animals should make damn sure his pledge to set tougher laws against animal abuse is one he doesn't break.