Reader’s View:

Written By: Michelle Kretzer, Norfolk, Virginia | Oct 25th 2020 – 10am.

• https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/letters/6725771-Readers-View-Hunting-tears-apart-animals%E2%80%99-families

Perhaps the News Tribune’s Samantha Erkkila had a hard time explaining hunting to her daughter because children have a natural empathy for animals and aren’t going to understand why hunters want to gun them down for entertainment. (Erkkila wrote a column Oct. 9, headlined, “Explaining death to a toddler on the grouse hunting trail.”)

Since Erkkila clearly cares about her own child, perhaps she should consider that animals love their babies, too. And when a hunter kills a grouse, they may be robbing her chicks of their mother or tearing a family apart.

Hunting may have been necessary for cavepeople, but most of us can now find just about any food we like at our local grocery store. With a plethora of healthy fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and even tasty vegan meats at the ready, we don’t have to kill animals to survive. And we certainly don’t have to teach our children that violence against animals is acceptable and that taking their lives is fun.

Michelle Kretzer

Norfolk, Virginia

The writer is with the PETA Foundation.

OCTOBER 23, 2020 BY DONNY MOSS — LEAVE A COMMENThttps://www.facebook.com/plugins/share_button.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Ftheirturn.net%2F2020%2F10%2F23%2Fhumane-society-project-chimps-sharon-lee-patrick-

The News https://theirturn.net/2020/10/23/humane-society-project-chimps-sharon-lee-patrick-hsus/

Over 30 animal rights activists staged a protest at the New York City home of Sharon Lee Patrick, a member of the Board of Directors of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), over the organization’s refusal to improve the living conditions of the 78 chimpanzees in their care at Project Chimps, HSUS’s sanctuary in Georgia.  At Project Chimps, the animals are held in concrete rooms for all but 10 hours a week.https://www.youtube.com/embed/MApMCWHPPkQ?feature=oembed

“Project Chimps is supposed to be a sanctuary, not a warehouse,” said Edita Birnkrant, the Executive Director of the animal rights group NYCLASS and co-organizer of the protest. “The Humane Society needs to build additional outdoor habitats so that the chimps are moving around freely in the fresh air instead of pulling out their hair in concrete prison cells.”

In May, 2020, 22 former Project Chimps employees and volunteers sent a letter to Project Chimps board director Bruce Wagman to voice their concerns about poor veterinary care, infrequent access to the outdoors, overcrowding, rushed chimpanzee introductions, a lack of sufficient enrichment and other forms of neglect and deprivation. Project Chimps dismissed their concerns in a three sentence response and described two of the former employees as “disgruntled” in a lawsuit that it filed against them after they posted evidence of the abuse on HelpTheChimps.org.

Left: Eddie, who was injured during a fight due to overcrowding (photo taken in Sept., 2019). Right: Panielle, who is underweight in this photo due to neglected intestinal parasites (Photo taken in late 2019).

The protest comes less than a week after the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) issued a public statement demanding that HSUS and Project Chimps provide the chimpanzees with daily access to the outdoors. NhRP, animal rights organization that seeks to upgrade the legal status of animals, took the unusual step of speaking out publicly about the welfare conditions at Project Chimps after HSUS dismissed its concerns about Hercules and Leo, chimpanzees who ended up at Project Chimps after NhRP liberated them from a laboratory in New York.

The Nonhuman Rights Project issued a public statement demanding that Project Chimps provide its clients, Hercules and Leo, with daily access to the outdoors. Full statement.

After being liberated from a lab in New York, Hercules and Leo were relocated to HSUS’s Project Chimps, which describes itself as a sanctuary

NhRP is not the first animal rights organization to publicly criticize HSUS over the mistreatment of animals at Project Chimps. On July 31st, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued its own statement after reviewing the evidence.

On July 31, 2020, PETA issued a public statement regarding the welfare conditions at Project Chimps

On July 9th, National Geographic published an in depth, investigative story about the animal cruelty allegations. While it includes statements from both sides, the story paints a grim and disturbing picture of animal welfare that corroborates the allegations of the whistleblowers.

National Geographic investigative story about animal mistreatment at HSUS’s chimpanzee sanctuary, Project Chimps

Sharon Lee Patrick is the fourth HSUS board member targeted with protests. Since July, 2020, animal rights activists have protested at the Santa Monica (CA) home of Steven White; at the Sag Harbor (NY) clothing store owned by Brad Jakeman; and the San Francisco home of Susan Atherton, the co-chair of the board.

During a protest at the NYC home of HSUS board member Sharon Lee Patrick, activists distributed hundreds of flyers to her neighbors

Grass roots animal rights groups around the country, including Stop Animal Exploitation Now and Progress for Science, say they will continue to hold HSUS board members accountable until they acknowledge the welfare violations at Project Chimps and commit to addressing them. They are posting updates on the campaign and calls to action on the Facebook pages Do The Right Thing and Protesting HSUS Over Cruelty at Project Chimps

TheirTurn is documenting the grass roots campaign to hold HSUS board members accountable for mistreating the chimpanzees in their care at Project Chimps