SeaWorld only spends 0.0006 percent of revenue on animal rescue and rehabilitation
Reply
Monthly Archives: January 2014
Never Mind, Idaho Does Suck–Worse Than Ever
[Drop those champagne glasses, Idaho doesn’t deserve praise just yet. Although an Idaho judge decided to halt the slaughter of two packs in the Frank Church wilderness area, some of their lawmakers won’t be satisfied until they’ve killed most of the wolves in the rest of the state!!]…
http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/lawmakers-2m-aimed-to-kill-more-than-500-wolves/24142924
Lawmakers: $2M aimed to kill more than 500 wolves
Associated Press
POSTED: 3:29 PM Jan 27 2014
BOISE, Idaho –
Republicans promoting Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s proposed $2 million fund to kill wolves say they hope the cash helps eliminate more than 500 of the predators in Idaho, reducing numbers to 150 animals in 15 packs.
Rep. Marc Gibbs of Grace and Sen. Bert Brackett of Rogerson Monday told the House Resources and Conservation Committee the cash set aside with Otter’s proposal will bolster Idaho’s predator arsenal.
Idaho now has about 680 wolves, according to state Department of Fish and Game estimates.
Brackett says the priority is to keep wolves delisted, even with these proposed killings.
He said provided Idaho still has 150 wolves – the minimum required in a 2002 plan approved by the Idaho Legislature – “we’ll have a defensible line of defense” against renewed federal protections.
Victory For Idaho Wolves!
|
Earthjustice went to court to stop Idaho from exterminating the Golden and Monumental wolf packs in central Idaho’s Frank Church—River of No Return Wilderness.
And we won! The Idaho Department of Fish and Game announced that it is halting its wolf extermination program as of today.
This will stop the wolf killings and restore the natural balance between predator and prey in the Idaho wilderness area.
|
||||
|
Last chance to stop bowhunting in Cayuga Heights
PUBLIC HEARING – Weds, Jan. 29th, at 7 PM
Marcham Hall, 836 Hanshaw Rd, Ithaca, NY
Across from Community Corners, same building as the police station
Dear friends,
In December, we wrote to you about a new proposed law that will allow bowhunters and their deadly weapons into Cayuga Heights. Since then, the Cayuga Heights board of trustees has held two public hearings and made small adjustments to the law, which you can see in its latest form here: http://www.cayuga-heights.ny.us/doc/PLL-A-2014.pdf . Before they pass this new draft of the law, they are required to hold another public hearing, happening this Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 7 PM at the Village Hall (address above). Please attend. Even better, speak out. Better still, encourage others to join you.
This new law will allow deadly crossbows and compound bows to be discharged in residential neighborhoods — outside of hunting season, at all times throughout the year, including Summer, and even at night. In other words, there will be no time of year that it is safe for the people and animals in and around Cayuga Heights.
Every hunting season, stories come out about dogs, cats and other “non-target” animals being wounded and killed by hunters. In a recent TV news story from Wisconsin, a woman tearfully described how she found her poor dog under a hunter’s tree stand, dead from a mortal wound from an arrow. The dog was left there for 3 days, to painfully die in a pool of her own blood. Please watch and share this news story, as it demonstrates the kind of tragedy that can easily unfold when hunters are introduced into a densely settled community like ours: http://tinyurl.com/kw3ryo9
Bow hunting is notoriously cruel. Numerous studies show that more than half the deer who are shot with arrows are never retrieved, running off to painfully bleed to death or live with a debilitating open wound. Their prolonged agony and deaths are no less horrific than the one the Wisconsin woman’s dog experienced. Desensitization to the killing of deer leads to other forms of desensitization and violence. Let’s teach our community’s children to respect wildlife and other animals, not condone their killing.
And what about the children? At the Jan. 13 meeting of the Village government, Cayuga Heights trustee Stephen Hamilton identified the most likely area where bowhunting will occur, based on available open space: A piece of land between Cornell and Cayuga Heights. A citizen in the audience commented that there is a daycare center in that area. This appeared to be of little concern to Mayor Kate Supron (former co-president of the Cayuga Heights PTA) or her fellow trustees. However, during the discussion, trustees Liz Karns and Diana Riesman expressed their preference for having deadly weapons discharged by professional contractors overseen by the Village government. It is yet to be seen whether they will vote in favor or against the law.
Mayor Kate Supron is obsessed with killing. How else can you explain this latest move when nearly 100% of the does in Cayuga Heights are now sterilized? Numerous residents are commenting on how they have noticed fewer fawns this year, and less deer browsing. After paying $150,000 of taxpayers’ money to sterilize an estimated 95% of the does in 2012, the Village spent nearly $3,000 per deer to sterilize the remaining 12 at the end of 2013. So how does the mayor justify killing these same deer? The answer is, she has no justification other than her opinion that there are still “too many deer.” She contends there should be only a fraction of the deer that the village currently has, yet she refuses to allow the sterilization program play out long enough to achieve the desired result. She also refuses to address questions from her constituents about how she plans to prevent fertile does in surrounding areas from moving in to take the place of sterile does who have been killed by the bowhunters she now wants to allow in. Sadly, as we have seen over and over again, logic, reason, science and ethics have no role in the Mayor’s agenda.
This new law poses a threat to ALL of us, not just those who live in the village. Most of us drive on Cayuga Heights roads, many of us take walks, jog or ride bikes there. Hundreds of people live in proximity to the village border. The safety of their families and companion animals are threatened by the discharge of deadly weapons that could just as easily maim or kill a human as a deer. These neighboring residents are just as likely to have bowhunters trespassing on their land, and injured/dying deer show up in their yards, as Cayuga Heights residents.
The opposition is growing. Earlier this month, an open letter protesting the law, signed by 44 residents, was sent out to people who live in and around Cayuga Heights. Please join these engaged citizens and be a voice for safety, non-violence, and common sense!
Thank you for staying involved throughout this long struggle. We know it hasn’t always been easy, but there is no denying that our work together thus far has prevented the mass-slaughter of the Cayuga Heights deer, and all the violence and ugliness that an annual wildlife killing program would bring.
Your friends,
Jenny, James and Eric, on behalf of CayugaDeer.org
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Attend Wednesday’s hearing and speak out! Please also encourage others to join you, especially those who are most affected by this new law, and may not realize the potential risks to their safety.
If you can’t attend, please take a moment now to send a quick email to the trustees expressing your opposition to this new law. It can just be one sentence, the important thing is that they hear from people who are against the new law before they vote on it on Wednesday night. Their addresses are: mayor@cayuga-heights.ny.us; rrobinson@cayuga-heights.ny.us; psalton@cayuga-heights.ny.us; ccrooker@cayuga-heights.ny.us; ekarns@cayuga-heights.ny.us; driesman@cayuga-heights.ny.us; shamilton@cayuga-heights.ny.us; jsteinmetz@cayuga-heights.ny.us
CITIZENS FOR SAFE, ETHICAL AND RATIONAL APPROACHES TO REDUCING DEER-HUMAN CONFLICT
[Here’s an example of the unethical and irrational]:
Speak For Wolves: Yellowstone 2014
Roosevelt Arch – North Entrance Yellowstone National Park (Gardiner, Mt)
Speak for Wolves: Yellowstone 2014 is essentially about hope. It’s an opportunity for the American people to unite and demand wildlife management reform and restore our national heritage. On June 28-29, 2014, thousands of Americans will meet in Arch Park in Gardiner, Montana to hear why we need to reform wildlife management, at both the state and federal level, and how we can do it.
There are five main principles behind reforming wildlife management:
1. No killing of predators–period. The best available science suggest that predators, including wolves, are a self-regulating species. In other words, predators don’t overpopulate; instead their populations naturally fluctuate, as do prey or ungulate populations. “Managing” predators is code word for killing them, and it is not necessary, and no longer to be tolerated. Non-lethal measures can be effective in rare instances where there are actual…
View original post 469 more words
Beware the Wereman
Image
The Guns of Mid-Winter
When I wrote my book, Exposing the Big Game, its subtitle, Living Targets of a Dying Sport, was appropriate. But like so many things in this rapidly changing world, by the time the book came out, that subtitle was becoming obsolete. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the sport of blasting birds, murdering deer, culling coyotes and plunking at prairie dogs—in a word, hunting—is seeing a seemingly inexplicable resurgence.
Lately we’re seeing longer hunting seasons on everything from elk to geese to wolves, with more new or expanded “specialty” hunts like archery, crossbow, spear (and probably soon, poison blow gun) in states across the country, than at any time in recent memory. Meanwhile, more Americans are taking up arms against the animals and wearing so much camo—the full-time fashion statement of the cruel and unusual—that it’s starting to look ordinary and even, yuppified.
So, when did cruel become the new cool and evil the new everyday? Are the recruiting efforts of the Safari Club and the NRA finally striking a cord? Did the staged “reality” show “Survivor” lead to the absurdly popular thespian cable spin-offs like, “Call of the Wildman,” “Duck Dynasty” and a nasty host of others? Is “art” imitating life, or is life imitating “art?” Did the author of the Time Magazine article, “America’s Pest Problem: It’s Time to Cull the Herd,” ratchet up the call for even more animal extermination?
Whatever the reason, I don’t remember ever hearing so many shotguns and rifles blasting away during the last week of January. By the sound of the gunfire, coupled with the unseasonably dry and warm weather here in the Pacific Northwest, you’d swear it was early autumn.
Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2014. All Rights Reserved
Grand Teton National Park wolf death shrouded in secrecy
By Mike Koshmrl Daily | Posted: Friday, January Jackson Hole 24, 2014 12:15 am
Even though hundreds of Wyoming wolves having been killed over the years during hunting seasons and for attacking livestock, until Monday not a single one had ever been purposely killed in Grand Teton National Park.
But that’s about all one can learn about the wolf that was shot in the park four days ago. Virtually no information is being made available about the animal that was shot and killed on private land within Grand Teton.
“Since present-day Grand Teton National Park was created in 1950, this is the first intentional killing of a gray wolf,” Grand Teton spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said.
What is known, according to a statement the park issued the next day, is that the wolf was 2 years old, was not wearing a radio collar and was accompanied by three to four pack mates.
After firing the lethal shot Monday morning, someone notified the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Grand Teton rangers at 10:30 a.m. that day.
Pending completion of the investigation, no other details are available, Skaggs said.
“We’re hoping to have a determination relatively soon,” she said.
Neither outfitters nor conservationists nor residents of Moran, Kelly and the Pacific Creek subdivision phoned by the Jackson Hole Daily had heard any other details about the incident.
Skaggs said she was not allowed to confirm if the lobo had been shot in defense of pets or property. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, which is conducting a concurrent investigation, was also unable to release details.
“This falls under that state statute we have,” Game and Fish spokesman Mark Gocke said. He was referring to a law that prohibits the release of information related to wolf hunting.
“We did go out and investigate it and through our investigation determined it falls within that statute,” Gocke said. “At that point I can’t speak to it any more.”
In full the statute states: “Any information regarding the number or nature of legally taken within the state of Wyoming shall only be released in its aggregate form and no information of a private or confidential nature shall be released
without the written consent of the person to whom the information may refer. Information identifying any person legally taking a wolf within this state is solely for the use of the department or appropriate offices and is not a
public record.”
Wolf hunting is never legal in Grand Teton National Park, including inside privately owned inholdings, Skaggs said.
TRUE cost of the season’s must have fur-trimmed Canada Goose coat
‘Chilling cruelty, unspeakable suffering and corporate denial’: the TRUE cost of the season’s must have fur-trimmed Canada Goose coat
By Laura Collins 23 January 2014
They have made America their new frontier, forging into the US clothing market to become one of the season’s most recognisable brands with sales of Canada Goose outerwear expected to top $30million this year alone.
In a high profile year in the States, Kate Upton has appeared on the front of Sports Illustrated in one of their fur trimmed, down jackets and nothing much else.
It isn’t the only firm to market such coats, yet Canada Goose has rapidly established itself as the label of choice for the well-known and the well-heeled braving the frigid weather blown in on the polar vortex.
But today MailOnline can reveal that allegations of chilling cruelty and unspeakable animal suffering have been repeatedly levelled at this family business turned multimillion dollar concern.
Scroll down for video
+11The real cost of a $600 coat: Campaigners claim the coyotes that are trapped and skinned for their fur to trim the hoods of Canada Goose coats can be in pain for days. It is unclear whether these images are from Canada Goose trappers but the firm does use the same leg holds
+11Exhausted, alone and all out of fight, this Coyote awaits its inevitable fate having been caught in a trap by its right hind leg
According to animal rights activists, behind every fur trimmed hood and down stuffed coat is a brutal reality of Coyotes trapped and left to suffer in the wilderness.
Many of today’s ethically aware consumers would never dream of buying a full length fur. But in an odd quirk of the current trend for this style of garment those same shoppers pull on a coyote trimmed coat without a moment’s concern for the origins of that little flurry of fur.
Lindsay Rajt, Director of Campaigns for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said: ‘Canada Goose uses exclusively Coyote fur on the trim of their coats and those animals are trapped in a way that is just inherently cruel.’
As a company founded and grown in Canada, Canada Goose makes much of their support of North Canadian communities in which, their publicity states, Coyote trapping has been ‘a way of life for hundreds of years.’
According to a spokesperson for the firm: ‘The trapping of fur-bearing animals is strictly regulated by the provincial and territorial wildlife departments in Canada.
‘We purchase coyote furs from certified Canadian trappers, never from fur farms or endangered animals.
+11Kate Upton going ‘Polar Bare’ on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s 2013 Swimsuit edition, wearing a smile, a white Canada Goose parka and not much else
But PETA has dismissed the standards as ‘window dressing.’
Mr Rajt said: ‘The company’s reference to AIHTS standards is meaningless and a way of placating and silencing people with valid concerns.
‘Leg hold traps are still legal in Canada. Mother animals will chew off their limbs in order to get back to their young. The trapped animal might be there for days before the trapper comes and finds them, they are frightened and starving and in pain during that time. And then they’re bludgeoned or strangled to death or shot.’
+11A trapped Coyote howls in pain, its right forepaw held tight in the jaws of a leg hold trap – legal under the AIHTS but cruel according to PETA
+11Trapped Coyotes can struggle to get free for days until the hunter returns to check his traps. Mother animals separated from their young attempt to chew off their own limbs in a bid for freedom
Ms Rajt revealed that PETA is this week appealing to Canada Goose to abandon their use of fur in favour of synthetic alternatives and to dump their use of real down stuffing.
She said: ‘PETA is reaching out to Canada Goose to urge the company to switch to innovative, synthetic fur like their top competitor Helly Hansen, which has been fur-free for many years.
‘Additionally, we are asking that Canada Goose dump down and opt for revolutionary synthetic technology like the one recently developed by The North Face – Thermoball, which mimics down but offers superior versality.’
Ms Rajt claimed: ‘We have been trying to meet with this company, we’ve been trying to engage with them since 2006.
‘The CEO originally agreed to meet with us in 2008 to discuss trapping policies and methods but just never confirmed that meeting and then failed to make himself available to any of our follow ups.
‘It is a challenging company for us to work with.’
+11Meg Ryan pictured last month in New York’s West Village. Canada Goose’s concerted effort to win the US market has seen it become a celebrity brand of choice
+11Andrew Garfield and girlfriend Emma Stone in their Canada Goose parkas on a shopping trip in New York
+11Actress Clare Danes wearing her Canada Goose parka with its distinctive Coyote trim while braving the New York chill
But according to a spokesperson for the company: ‘We’ve corresponded with PETA on numerous occasions and it quickly became evident that they were not interested in a constructive conversation.’
Canada Goose was founded in 1957 and has enjoyed remarkable success and rapid growth across the past decade when it started marketing it’s ‘truly Canadian’ ethos to Europe.
‘We’ve been trying to engage with this company since 2006…It is a challenging company for us to work with,’
PETA Director of Campaigns, Lindsay Rajt, on Canada Goose’s refusal to meet
PETA Director of Campaigns, Lindsay Rajt, on Canada Goose’s refusal to meet
Today the company employs more than 1000 people and sells its products in more than 50 countries across the world.
It continues to manufacture its coats in Toronto and Winnipeg but recently opened its first US Headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Last year it became the official sponsor of the Sundance Film Festival and US Equity firm, Bain, recently bought a majority stake in the hitherto entirely Canadian enterprise.
+11Real fur real suffering: Canada Goose President Dani Reese flanked by his company’s distinctive outerwear. He says the company uses Coyote fur ‘because it works’
+11The extreme weather outerwear is manufactured in Toronto and Winnipeg though US Equity firm, Bain, now owns a majority stakehold
+11Founded in 1957 the family company Canada Goose now employs more than 1000 people and sells its garments in more than 50 countries
Canada Goose President Danni Reiss is very clear in his assessment of the importance of the US market to his brand. He said, ‘The States is a market with one of the greatest potentials in the world. The US is growing faster than the overall company.’
Speaking in a corporate video Mr Reiss explained: ‘We use Coyote fur for a number of reasons. Number one, Coyote fur works – it’s functional, it provides warmth around the face in a way no synthetic fabric can. It does that in the coldest places on earth and it is important to realise that sometimes urban centres and cities can feel like the coldest places on earth.’
Coyote fur doesn’t freeze, doesn’t hold moisture, retains heat and is biodegradable.
Ms Rajt dismissed the necessity of real fur saying: ‘They actually do have some faux fur trim products and there’s a market for that. There’s no reason why they couldn’t switch completely.’
A spokesperson for Canada Goose said: ‘We understand PETA’s concerns and we respect the right of people to choose not to wear fur, however, we know PETA does not respect our ethical, responsible use of fur so further conversation won’t be productive.’
But Ms Rajt insisted: ‘I just don’t believe that half the people wearing these coats understand what’s really involved in the making of them. And I just don’t believe that they would make that same choice if it was an informed one.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544075/Revealed-Chilling-cruelty-unspeakable-suffering-corporate-denial-Is-TRUE-cost-seasons-Canada-Goose-coat.html#ixzz2rYL8KOiR Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Dolphins Know How to Use their Big Brains
Image
Exposing the Big Game 