Heart 4 Animals

From a front page story in the New York Daily News to coverage on CNN and articles on the world’s most popular blogs, including The Huffington Post and Perez Hilton, our new Ringling Bros. investigation has been capturing attention around the globe—awakening the world to the abuses that happen behind the scenes at “the saddest show on Earth!”

The shocking and eye-opening undercover video, which we released last Wednesday, shows Ringling employees as they beat and whip elephants and tigers so that they will perform “tricks,” and the video has now been viewed more than 250,000 times on PETA’s Web sites alone. Hundreds of thousands of people are seeing with their own eyes the beatings that Ringling’s animals endure night after night, month after month, and the cruelty is undeniable.

And tens of thousands have been motivated to act because of this video. Since the release of our Ringling investigation a little over one week ago, more than 55,000 people have written to the U.S. Department of Agriculture asking that it seize Tonka and the other elephants who are beaten by Ringling with sharp bullhooks. On behalf of all animals used in circuses, I’m pleased to announce that the USDA has launched an investigation into “the saddest show on Earth.”

A representative of the USDA said, “We take the protection of animals very seriously” and “We will initiate a thorough investigation and provide the findings as soon as available.”

This much-needed attention and call to action against Ringling’s routine beating of elephants with bullhooks is a huge step toward ending the cruelty once and for all, but there is still more that we can do. We must keep the pressure on the elephant-beating circus so that one day, Tonka and her friends can roam free in a spacious sanctuary rather than continue to live a sad, painful, and fear-ridden “life” with shackles around their legs and bullhooks dug into their skin.

Please help Tonka and her peers by writing to the USDA now and demanding that it seize Ringling’s elephants. Also, please remember that if you attend any circus that uses animals, you are supporting the suffering we documented inside Ringling. Please, don’t attend animal circuses.

To keep up to date on our campaign against Ringling and to learn the outcome of the pending lawsuit against the circus as soon as it’s announced, visit RinglingBeatsAnimals.com.

Kind regards,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President

Source: People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals

With these soaring summer temperatures, please don’t leave your poor pets in your car, even with the windows semi-open.  The air inside a car very quickly rises to extremely high temperatures in the sun, and even in the shade when the sun moves overhead as time passes.  If you sit in the car with the windows even 3/4 open, you will find it excruciatingly intolerable, so please, leave your pets well ventilated at home, with lots of fresh cool water and spare them the misery of heat trauma (and even death) in the hot car.

How You Can Help
> Call your local SPCA if you see an animal suffering from trapped heat in a car. (The Royal Canadian Mounted Police charges drivers a fine of CAD$100 for animals left inside a car.)
> This Summer, Be an Angel to a Neglected Backyard Dog .

Whale found impaled by cruise ship at port. See  http://www.cli.gs/4NVQzZ

[QUOTE] from cbc.ca

Christianne Wilhelmson, the managing director of the marine conservation group Georgia Strait Alliance, said incidents like this are all too common.

“It’s kind of a tragic example of what happens when ships meet whales … There’s more and more tanker traffic, there’s more and more cruise ship traffic and what you have is an animal that’s trying to make its way through all this.”

Wilhelmson said that traffic generates a lot of noise underwater, which confuses the whales.

“They can’t talk to each other, they can’t hear their environment. We’re going to have more incidents like this,” she said.

“It’s very possible that what happened here is the animal just had no idea the ship was there and this tragedy happened because of that.” [UNQUOTE]

Personal comment: I feel very sorry for all the animals in the wild - e.g. elephants, lions and orang utans living in the jungles, forests; polar bears and seals on the rapidly melting glaciers;  dolphins, whales and sea creatures in the polluted seas as Man continues his inexorable encroachment on their natural habitats.  Please support non-profit organizations which try to save these animals, e.g.
> World Society for the Protection of Animals > World Wildlife Fund .

Speak Up to Help Suffering Cats and Kittens

Healthy, energetic cats—and in some cases, kittens—are used in horrific training exercises at some medical facilities across the country. Learn how you can help adorable felines now!

Ringling Beats Animals: PETA’s Breaking Investigation
PETA went undercover inside Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and found that workers beat elephants and tigers. See the video and take action on RinglingBeatsAnimals.com.

‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley KOs Dogfighting
Champ “Sugar” Shane Mosley is a fierce opponent in the ring, and when it comes to cracking down on dogfighting, he’s just as tough. Check out his new PETA ad!

Win the Vegan Brunch Cookbook!
Vegan Brunch: Homestyle Recipes Worth Waking Up For is the new cookbook by bestselling author and chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Win a copy now!

Source: People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals .

The following message is an appeal for help from the World Society For the Protection of Animals:

As a fellow animal lover, I know you’ll be moved by the desperate plight of Israel’s working horses.

They spend their lives doing backbreaking work and being mistreated and abused by their masters, only to face a future of neglect and starvation.

Emaciated, weak and often suffering from painful injuries, they may not survive long without your help.

Your gift of just $5 a month will go a long way towards changing the lives of these horses and other suffering animals around the world.

Berty’s story

As a circus horse, Berty spent many years being tormented and humiliated, forced to parade around the ring with a lion on his back for the amusement of the audience.

When Berty’s body became too weak for the circus ring, his owner sold him on as a work horse. Already exhausted from the physical demands of circus life, Berty eventually became unable to pull the impossibly heavy loads his new master demanded. Considered useless, he was deprived of proper food and care.

Fortunately, thanks to a partnership between the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and Pegasus, an organization that specializes in the care of horses, Berty was taken to a rescue facility where he is now living free from pain.

Sadly, stories like Berty’s are all too common. There are hundreds of working horses and donkeys like Berty that are mistreated and abused by their owners, who work them hard their whole lives only to neglect them when they are too old and tired to be useful.

There is hope for these horses. WSPA has partnered with Pegasus to save abused equines and educate owners on proper horse care.

In the last year, more than 150 working equines have been rescued. With your support we can help save even more.

Please make your urgent donation now and help us prevent more horses and donkeys from suffering.

This is how much your monthly gift can do:

• $5/month could de-worm two rescued horses or donkeys
• $10/month could vaccinate three horses
• $15/month could pay for antibiotics for four equines
• $20/month could rescue a horse or donkey from abuse

Just 70 cents a day could save a horse like Berty.

Or, you can make a special, one-time donation now to help these horses. Thank you for your support. I know that together we can show these horses that people are capable of kindness.

Silia Smith
Regional Director,
WSPA Canada

P.S. These animals work hard for their masters their whole lives. Please help us give them the rest and care they deserve so that they can live out their days with dignity when their working lives are over.

With the health risks like salmonella, bird flu, e coli, mad cow disease, H1N1 (or swine flu) virus, it is all the more important that you be informed about the food that you and your family eat. Find out more :

> Factory Farming > McDonalds > Wendy’s > Veal & Foie Gras

Join The Cove on Facebook .  Follow The Cove on Twitter . 5 Things U Can Do Now .

See the original message at link: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/AFN0g/zJHM/AEhtF.

The Time Has Come to Recognize Bullfighting as an Inhumane Form of Entertainment. Prior to every event, bulls are intentionally debilitated by having sand bags dropped on their backs, their horns shaved to throw off their balance and are drugged to reduce their strength.

Every year 250,000 bulls die slow and torturous deaths as a result of the bullfighting industry.

Spain’s annual bullfighting season got underway just this week. Help end the inhumane treatment of bulls by banning bullfighting today. »

While many of us imagine the matador piercing the heart of the bull with one quick movement, in reality, the bull is repeatedly stabbed, skewered and slowly weakened as it bleeds to death.

In today’s modern society, bullfighting is no longer an acceptable form of entertainment. In fact, there are millions of Spaniards and people around the world who strongly condemn bullfighting and are actively working to stop the brutality against the animals.

Help stop the gruesome killing of hundred of thousands of bulls each year. Sign the petition urging Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to abolish the cruel and barbaric sport of bullfighting.»
Thanks for taking action!

Samer

ThePetitionSite.

Each summer, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus carts dozens of elephants and other animals around some of the hottest parts of the U.S. in sweltering, poorly ventilated boxcars. The journey can be exhausting, disorienting, and extremely stressful, and the destinations bring more misery.

Circuses are invariably sad, deadly places for animals, and Ringling is right up there with the worst of them. The circus removes baby elephants from their loving mothers and forces them into a life of punishment, debasement, and extreme loneliness. PETA’s circus monitors have videotaped how Ringling keeps elephants in line during their walk from the train to the venue by striking and hooking them in sensitive places with a steel-tipped bullhook. Investigative footage of elephant trainers in other circuses—including one who is the son of a former Ringling trainer and the brother of a current Ringling trainer—show how trainers sink the sharp metal into the elephants’ sensitive skin, causing them to bellow in pain.

With your caring support, PETA is diligently working to end these animals’ torment.

Right now, a federal district court judge is set to rule on a lawsuit filed by a former Ringling employee and several animal welfare groups alleging that Ringling’s treatment of elephants violates the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The evidence of cruelty to animals that PETA’s staffers have collected by following the circus from city to city was used in court proceedings and during evidence gathering in the suit, which charges Ringling with “harming, harassing, and wounding endangered elephants,” including shackling them for long periods of time so tightly that they cannot take even two steps in any direction and routinely striking them with bullhooks. PETA’s footage of Ringling substantiates the abusive use of bullhooks, reveals the bloody wounds left in their wake, and shows lame elephants.

No matter how the judge rules, this lawsuit has succeeded—by shining the spotlight on the constant abuse and deprivation that these poor, enslaved animals suffer for Ringling’s coffers. Evidence presented in court revealed that Ringling keeps elephants chained, sometimes for as many as 60 to 100 hours straight on extended trips. This is absolute agony, considering that in the wild, elephants walk up to 30 miles a day. Elephants don’t understand why they are made to perform silly, physically painful tricks over and over again, day in and day out. So Ringling beats them until they comply.

PETA is telling the elephants’ side of the story—the one that Ringling doesn’t want people to hear. And our pressure is working. Ringling hasn’t been able to hang on to a national sponsor in years because of the information that we’ve provided each of them. Cities around the country have also banned circus acts after receiving our information. And more and more families are choosing humane forms of entertainment instead because of our ads and pickets.

Incredibly, some cities do continue to roll out the red carpet for Ringling. New York City officials have welcomed Ringling to Coney Island for several months this summer, thanks to a land donation from Taconic Investments. PETA has already contacted the city and Taconic to advise them of Ringling’s lengthy history of animal abuse, and we’ll be leafleting outside every show in Coney Island for the rest of summer. Please help us stop Ringling’s expansion by doing the following:

1. Send an e-mail to the CEO of Taconic Investments to let him know that you’ll be boycotting Ringling at Coney Island this summer. Urge him never to allow a circus that uses animals to perform on the property again.

2. Make a donation to PETA today. Please know that it will help sustain our efforts to end the abuse and exploitation of elephants and all animals.

Ringling’s nightly show lasts just a couple of hours. The abuse of these animals lasts their whole lives. Thank you for making sure their suffering isn’t forgotten once the crowds go home.

Kind regards,

Ingrid E. Newkirk

President.

Hayden Panettiere (cheerleader in HEROES) :
Standing up for dolphins and whales in The Cove: “I just grew up a big fan of animals. If I could work with animals for the rest of my life I’d be the happiest person. So that’s why…” more at http://su.pr/1QQmjI

Raids in 6 states show dogfighting is widespread at http://su.pr/2H0Voy .