Summer solistice 2019

In the southern hemisphere this is the shortest day of the year, the longest night, the pause, the time of in-going and renewal, the beginning of winter. Here in the northern hemisphere this is the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer, the dance, the lingering and going about. Wherever you are, whatever species you encounter as you go along your way today, be kind.

Unfortunately, the Summer Solstice is also the beginning of the 10 day Yulin dog meat "festival" during which thousands of dogs and cats are bludgeoned, blow-torched, skinned, and boiled alive for a 10 day drunken "feast".

Please help shut down the Yulin!

Sign the HSI petition and pass the link around. Thank you.

Rest in peace, Sudan. I am so sorry.

Sudan, the last northern white rhino has died. His death leaves only two females of his subspecies alive in the world, his daughter and granddaughter and they are too inbred to conceive.

RIP Sudan :-(

Poachers and the black market animal horn trade is responsible for this pending extinction. And why? Because there is still a market for rhino horn on the bullshit folk or traditional Asian "medicine" market. Horns are believed to give a sexually impaired man big stiffies. It's a lie. Traditional "medicine" so-called doctors and herbalists add Viagra to the mix and sell the compound to fools and now the northern white rhino has paid the ultimate price. For this same reason, elephants are in line to go extinct as well as all the other horned animals in the world.

I just can not comprehend why we have not yet internationally stopped this criminal, immoral, unethical, cruel, deceptive trade. Oh, that's right! Unscrupulous shit-heel politicians are making money on it. The situation has reached such a critical juncture I seriously entertain the idea that idea that dealers and poachers should be sentenced to death and buyers should receive massive fines and serious jail time. Oh, and maybe give shit-heel politicians some or all of the penalties too. There's an idea.

Last moments of Sudan's life

Rest in peace, Sudan. Words cannot convey how sorry I am for what my species as done to yours.

Freedom, sweet freedom!

These animals are tasting freedom for the first time pic.twitter.com/zd1yfQh9kz

— The Dodo (@dodo) May 21, 2017

Dulary update update

Dulary and Tarra get to know one another.

May 1, update
Meanwhile, back at the Elephant Sanctuary, after 41 years of confinement, it only took Dulary a little over 4 hours to decide at that it was okay to step out of the trailer and meet her new sisters Tarra, Delhi and Misty who stood nearby the whole time eagerly waiting to show her around. An elephant in the wild can easily take a hundred mile stroll before breakfast so what a thrill it must be for her, after a lifetime of concrete, bars, and leg chains, to walk freely with friends along the lovely, lovely, rolling miles of soft, sweet dirt elephant trails. I can't wait to hear about Dulary finding the lake. She is water bug. I would love to work at the sanctuary. Full report at Dulary's Diary.

Mouse moving day

There's a mouse in the house, in fact several. They are in the garage and beginning to get into things so today I bought a humane live trap and filled it with goodies. There's all the makings for a get down mouse party; cheese, a little cup of peanut butter and a tiny bowl of water to wash it all down with. It's time for them to go.









I got the Tin Cat. I wish it were a little bigger but it will be okay for a short stay. Also, it's a bummer that it's still so cold out. I hope they do alright out in the wild. It's a hawk eat mouse world. I'd rather not do this at all. I've got nothing against mice. The way I see it, they have as much right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the rest of us on this planet. I just prefer they enjoy themselves somewhere else.

I've only used a mouse trap once before, a long time ago, when I was in the Krsna Movement. I was living in a cabin on the farm commune in West Virginia. It was a very funky building with foam insulation. Sane people blow the foam inside the walls but here the brahmachari's, under order of the evil, crippled tyrant who ran the place, sprayed the insulation directly on the walls (to save time). It was a polyurethane cave. The walls were motley, bubbly, crusty and yellow from wood smoke. I moved into a tiny room already occupied by a mouse who crunched on the foam all night. I couldn't sleep so eventually, against my better judgment, I set a conventional trap and in the morning there was a tiny, little nose under the spring. I felt absolutely horrible. The Tin Cat, while probably not a fun place to find yourself, is at least something both the mouse and I can live with.

International Animal Rights Day

To live is so startling
it leaves little time
for anything else.
-- Emily Dickinson


Ethics and society.

December 10th, is International Animal Rights Day. Light a candle. Write a letter. Make a donation. Sign this petition. Give your pet an extra pat.

McDonald's scalds chickens alive to make their McNuggets. Labs and schools dissect animals while they are still alive and fully conscious. Unimaginably cruel tests that are redundant, unnecessary or merely padding for an institution's research budget continue to be performed on animals around the clock. If you don't believe in this, sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights . Contrary to public assumptions, vivisectionists are not strictly regulated. The reality is that in the lab virtually anything goes, and animal researchers are a law unto themselves. For example, New York's Columbia University is guilty of committing grotesque abuses to animals in their laboratories including routinely performing invasive surgeries and leaving the helpless, suffering animals to die in their cages without any painkillers.

In labs worldwide, animals are cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years, although studies show that
because of vast physiological variations between species, human reactions to illnesses and drugs are completely different from those of other animals. This is beyond barbaric.

Today's non-animal research methods are humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments, yet change comes slowly and many researchers are still unwilling to switch to superior technological advances. Animal experimentation is not only preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year. read more

Mad Alex and my right arm

Poor Alex! He has gone mad because his owner Big Fat Del (my neighbor) never lets him out of his cage any more. I took care of Alex last week when Big Fat Del the drunk was out of town. Alex strikes as soon as anyone gets near his cage. I could barely get his bowls out to clean and refill them. He did manage to draw blood once when I, sentimental fool, hand feed him some peanuts. I thought he would instinctively understand that I am his friend. He understands all right. For all the mushy love ya's, Alex knows which side of the bars I'm on, Big Fat Del's and no smiles or peanuts change that.

These days, besides being in a boiling rage, Alex is now also bulimic. He eats then makes himself vomit. I keep telling Big Fat Drunk Del's wife that Alex should go to a sanctuary. She nods and says pathetic things like, "Well, Del used to let Alex out". I say send Alex to a sanctuary and put Big Fat Del in the cage with no booze. Fair is fair.

Oh well. The world will have to take care of itself for a few days. I'm off to Reno to talk to the doctor who will be doing the surgery on my neck and elbow this Thursday. He is going to remove the bone spurs on the worst of the 3 ruptured disks in my neck and re-route the nerve in my elbow as the pressure on it is beginning to cause some permanent damage. I am, after all, rather fond of my right arm.

Australia's secret shame

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have called a 45-day moratorium on the campaign against mulesing mutilations and live-sheep exports to allow the Australian Wool Growers Association time to reach an agreement with its members. According to AWGA chair Chick Olsson, talks with PETA have established "workable criteria, that will ultimately benefit all, wool growers, retailers and consumers as well as animal welfare concerns."

I certainly hope so. Mulesing is the process of cutting flesh from the bodies of unmedicated sheep. It defines barbarism but not if you go by Woolisbest sanitized version of the process. Like most propaganda, their argument is based on fact, but like all propaganda, it squints at reality, obscures the argument and omits crucial facts. PETA offers a far more realistic view of mulesing.

What the industry film omits is the fact that they don't anesthetize the animal first. The sheep and lambs are aware, terrified and in a lot of unnecessary pain. They call their technique "surgical". Big whoop. Nazi "doctors"called their death camp experiments "surgical". They splice in the beatific faces of peaceful lambs hoping we will assume this is how lambs look as they are being hacked.

The agreement also raises the standard of care given sheep while shipping them to the slaughterhouse. Ironic, isn't it? As it stands, after the sheep are no longer profitable to the wool merchants, they are crammed aboard multilayered, open deck, disease ridden ships, with little or no access to food or water and must endure a weeks- or months-long journey through all weather extremes to their awaiting deaths. Along the way, sick and injured sheep are routinely ground up in a mincer while fully aware.

Unfortunately the AWGA does not represent the majority of  in Australia who are still opposed to giving up mulesing or medicating the sheep during the process. They'd rather cling to their oh-so-conveniently ignorant past. Old ways die hard. Ask the sheep.

PETA and PETCO agreement

Rat Woman, Hagwar and Buug
Invisible Theatre

Good news. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and PETCO Animal Supplies, Inc. announced an agreement today that will advance animal welfare across the country. PETA will end its campaign against the national pet food and supply retailer and PETCO will end the sale of large birds in its stores. As there really is no such thing as a "cage bird", this is encouraging. PETCO also agreed to make some changes to benefit rats and mice, including separating the animals by gender to prevent breeding. A lot of these mice end up as live food for pet snakes. Ugh. I don't respect people who do that. Anyway, now the mice will have a bit better life along the way. That counts for something.

Body screen TV protest

Bound to a wheelchair and repeatedly crossing the road in front of a local KFC, a protester in a giant chicken costume led a protest today against KFC suppliers’ abusive treatment of chickens. People passed out leaflets and held signs that proclaimed, "KFC Tortures Chickens." One man wore a body screen TV showing shocking undercover video footage of chickens in factory farms and slaughterhouses.

What is done to chickens would be illegal if it were done to dogs, cats, cows, or pigs. However, chickens are excluded from the only federal law that protects farmed animals, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. An undercover investigation at a Moorefield, W.Va., slaughterhouse that supplies chickens to KFC revealed that workers were kicking, throwing, and stomping on live birds. Recently, PETA released the findings of an undercover investigation of a slaughterhouse operated by KFC'’s number one supplier, Tyson Foods, and found that workers were ripping conscious chicken's heads off, slaughter machinery was systematically mutilating chickens, and thousands of birds were being scalded to death after entering the defeathering tank while they were still conscious.

For more information, please visit KentuckyFriedCruelty.com.

Here's to you, Bubba.

However sentimental people may be about Muffy, proud of Rex, or vindicated rooting for the underdog, the idea of animal rights for the masses is generally considered weird or silly. On matters of life and death and what's for dinner, the minister, rabbi, priest or mullah have final say. That means the members of other species are generally shit out of luck.

Rest in Peace, old boy.

Bubba the Leviathan Lobster, as he was called, died today before making it to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. His size generated enough interest and support that he escaped the grim fate of lobsters that fall into human hands. PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) battled PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and kindness won the day. But Bubba died anyway. They don't know why. My guess...fear. I suppose that's better than being boiled alive Here's to you Bubba and all the others.

Goldie and the mustangs

Goldie

Goldie has been staying with us this week because her humans are out of town. As you can see, she's a sweetheart. Also, she would make a much better president that George Bush who recently approved a bill rider making it legal to sell wild horses and burros to slaughterhouses. Until now, the BLM at least gave lip service to protecting them via their so-called adoption program although they "adopted" many of the animals out to slaughterhouses.

Now, the shit bag Republicans have made slaughterhouse sales legal. As their front man, Bush works the down home bit every chance he gets, but when it comes to actually protecting this country's wild lands and wild life, he shows his true nature . . . a dirty, rotten poacher in a business suit.

Nevada Mustangs, further victims
of Republican cruelty and  greed.

Animal Rights Day

Sorry for the graphic nature of the photos. I know they're disturbing. It has taken me a long time to be able to face them myself. I don't generally force them on people like this but I'm posting them today in conjunction with Animal Rights Day to underscore the seriousness of the problem. Tomorrow, things will be back to normal (whatever that is.)

Today is International Animal Rights Day. Light a candle or two. Write a letter. Do something nice for a friend. Read the declaration then, please, sign it. 





Slaughterhouses are also torture chambers. Here's an excerpt of a slaughterhouse employee published by the Washington Post:

"The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren't.

They blink. They make noises, he said softly. The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around. Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. They die, said Moreno, piece by piece..."

International Day for Animal Rights

Friday, December 10th, is the 7th annual International Animal Rights Day (IARD). People all over the world will be gathering in candlelight vigils calling for the recognition of the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights. Count me in. I'm lighting a candle or three in my little room.

UDAR excerpt:
"Ultimately, the rights of animals threaten the freedom of some human beings to use them as they see fit, or to further their own particular ends. The arguments against the rights of animals withstand neither logical nor ethical scrutiny because they are the rearguard action of a defeated, specious philosophy.

The rights of human beings have been won at the expense of the privileges of the rich and the powerful, and in the face of their resistance. The source of resistance to this emancipation of animals is not reason or justice, but a false notion of human self-interest."

So? A candle. Big whoop. What difference can it possible make? But, in spite of this mocking inner voice, I'm doing it anyway, joining in spirit with others who believe that in an ethical and humane society animals need and deserve rights as well.

UDAR excerpt:
"Science, as much as experience, teaches us that it is no longer possible to assume that animals are mere machines, or bundles of instinct and reflex: they may flourish in freedom or languish under oppression just as we do. We may no longer seek refuge in ignorance."

"There will come a day when such men as myself will view the slaughter of innocent creatures as horrible a crime as the murder of his fellow man. Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and
its beauty". ~ Albert Einstein