Friends of . . . carriage horses

In New York City, Friends of Animals has long waged war against horse-drawn carriages. And, given the numbers of tourists who find carriage rides romantic and fun, as well as the numbers of horses involuntarily involved in this inhumane and unnecessary industry, that war was and still is warranted.

Traditionally -- in my experience, anyway -- proponents of horse-drawn carriages (often the owners of both, actively guarding their livelihood) insist the horses want to work and are well taken care of. But I've talked with people who have seen the deplorable stables where these carriage horses are housed, and I've seen the horses out pulling carriages in very cruel weather and/or with dreadful street conditions.

It's all about money -- money that's made on the backs of the horses.

And that’s why, when I heard from Edita Birnkrant, the New York director of Friends of Animals, I immediately wanted to share her story of yesterday’s demo in NYC. The photo here shows Lee Hall, FoA’s VP of Legal Affairs, taking part in the event.

(The first and only time I met Lee was in Philadelphia, a couple years ago on Valentine’s day. She was doing the same thing then: demonstrating against horse-drawn carriages. That event introduced me to how FOA “demonstrates”: without chanting, yelling or insulting passersby. Instead, participants protest by quietly holding signs.)

Here are excerpts from Edita’s report on yesterday’s public outreach event and demonstration that Friends of Animals held at the carriage horse hack line from 11:30 am-3 pm.

The carriage horse industry was holding a media event in which they had not only frightened the poor mini-horse involved, but also another horse they claim they are “retiring” to the forced labor camp they call a “sanctuary” in Massachusetts. They unloaded these horses from a trailer and trotted them around on the street and allowed the public to surround the mini-horse and grab at it, as if they were in a petting zoo.

The carriage industry was there with their bizarre signs about sharing the road with horses, who “paved the way,” and most of them were incredibly hostile to us as we handed out our flyers. The police had to get involved when one of them shoved one of our volunteers. Overall, they were infuriated that we ruined their event, outnumbered them, and of course, outclassed them.

In my interview with NY1, I rebut the claim about the industry “retiring” their horses, stressing that the state ban legislation that’s pending would place horses in a true sanctuary, where they can’t be exploited for commercial gain or forced labor. I also pointed out that no horse chooses to pull carriages in NYC, so “retirement” is an absurd term to use.

It was a worthwhile day of action during which many tourists changed their minds about taking carriage rides, hundreds more took our flyers, and we ruined the carriage industry’s efforts to delude the media and public into believing they “retire” their horses anywhere except the slaughterhouse.

For details on the entire situation of carriage horses in NYC, see the latest issue of FoA’s Act*ion Line magazine, which includes Birnkrant’s article, “The Campaign to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages Goes to the State Level; New York Senate Assembly Bill Seeks to End Exploitation.”
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Some "sport"

The quote of the day in last Sunday’s New York Times was, "It's hard to justify how many horses we go through. In humans you never see someone snap their leg off running in the Olympics. But you see it in horse racing." (Dr. Rick K. Arthur, equine medical director for the California Racing Board).

That quote should be an indication of the story content under this headline: “Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys” and this subhead: “Drugs, Lax Oversight and Growing Casino Purses Exact a Nationwide Toll.”

Here are excerpts from the story, which began on page 1 and spilled to two full pages inside, including color photos of injured race horses before or after being euthanized.

The main point to be made about this situation is that the jockeys choose to ride horses for a living; the horses have no say in any of it. So, besides horse-drawn carriages and war horses, this is one more example of horses having to serve humans – or more specifically in this case, humans’ greed.

* . . . On the ground next to him, his frightened horse, leg broken and chest heaving, was minutes away from being euthanized on the track.

* On average, 24 horses die each week at racetracks across America.

* (In 2008, after Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles broke two ankles . . . and was euthanized, the racing industry promised to make horseracing safer.) But . . . “industry practices continue to put animal and rider at risk.”

* All too often at racetracks, “trainers who illegally pump sore horses full of painkillers to mask injury – and then race them – are neither fined nor suspended and owners of those drugged horses usually keep their winnings.”

* As many as 90 percent of horses that break down had pre-existing injuries, California researchers have found.

To describe horse racing as a “sport” is a cruel joke. It is a crime.
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(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/death-and-disarray-at-americas-racetracks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120325)

Real snake has lock on scariness

It may have seemed that Nagani, Voldemort’s huge venomous snake in the Harry Potter series, was the scariest snake imaginable. And in fact that’s true – because a real live snake – from 60 million years ago – is much scarier to contemplate.

That 48-foot long reptile, whose diameter was the size of a manhole, weighed more than a ton. It lived after the dinosaurs and on a different continent, when rain forests were just beginning. Its scientific name, “Titanoboa,” sums up its size and methodology.

For more about this UN-cuddlesome creature, check out the full story at NewJerseyNewsroom.com.
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An advocate's sanctuary 'for the animals'

With an image like that on the front page, who wouldn't read the rest? The Animal Protection League Activator is a solid newsletter every time, but this photo and the accompanying story make it irresistible.

It's hard to decide whether the pig or the woman looks happier, but isn't it great that they both do? He is Brutus, while she is Debbie Kowalski, and they're each a part of For the Animals Sanctuary, in Blairstown.

Brutus wouldn't look like that without Kowalski; nor would the other animals there who were all rescued from the food farming trade. Kowalski, a nurse, began as an animal advocate after seeing what happened to animals in the vivisection industry. From the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty site she moved into veganism and on to co-found Caring Activists Against Fur with Julie O'Connor, who still leads that organization.

The sanctuary was Kolawski's next stop -- and she's still there, most recently saving a mother and her calf from the milk industry.

The sanctuary's website is www.ForTheAnimalsSanctuary.org. Warning: you’ll want to visit the place once you see pictures of the animals there.

For those not familiar with the APLNJ newsletter (bottom of home page, aplnj.org), its remaining space includes a rundown on “Legislative Assault on Wildlife”; a vegan recipe; extensive information about New Jersey’s black bears and steps toward protecting them; and excerpts from “2010 slaughterhouse figures for the US,” including the following:

• Pigs: 133.9 Million
• Turkeys: 276.2 Million
• Chickens (Meat): 9 BILLION 210.4 Million
• Cattle/Calves: 39.2 Million
TOTAL for land animals alone: 10 BILLION 152.8 Million
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(Note: photo courtesy APLNJ)

2nd lab animal dies in ‘pattern of negligence’

(Tsk! Those pesky, forgetful lab employees. They did it again. Another lab monkey gone. . . . Oh, well, plenty more where s/he came from!)

For the second time in five months, a monkey in the dubious “care” of Bristol-Myers Squibb has died. This one, because s/he was restrained and left unattended, according to the story in the Trenton Times yesterday.

The earlier death in a BMS lab occurred when a monkey was left in a cage that was put through the wash cycle. Scalded to death. Hard to believe, right?

The pharma giant was cited by the US Dept. of Agriculture in an inspection report, and a company spokesperson confirmed the Dec. 17 death. She indicated employees “failed to follow established company policies and procedures designed to protect animals in our care.”

BMS’s “care” means the company uses primates to test pharmaceuticals – “a practice that has been repeatedly denounced by animal rights activists,” according to the TimTimes.

Once more, this lab animal death was reported to the media by Michael Budkie, executive director of SAEN (Stop Animal Exploitation Now), which has filed a complaint with the USDA, demanding additional citations and punitive action.

The USDA enforces the 1966 Animal Welfare Act, which the Times reports “is the only federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition and transport, and by dealers, according to the department’s website.”

“When you start to see multiple primate deaths this becomes what can only be described as a pattern of negligence,” Budkie said.
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(NOTE: go to www.nj.com/pets and scroll down for a list of 14 “pets” and information about a New York art show featuring animals in images, literature and music.)

This show must NOT go on

Exotic and wild animals in circuses – that’s bad enough. But those same animals forced to travel the country in squalid and cruel conditions – that’s too much. Please call, fax or email your Congressional representative tomorrow -- Tuesday, March 20 -- and help save wild animals from the traveling circus life, an awful life for all involved.

The Performing Animal Welfare Society (or PAWS,www.PAWSweb.org) is working with Animal Defenders International (ADI) to mount a mass broad-based support campaign, declaring, “The show must not go on!” We can help toward that goal by urging legislators in the House of Representatives to act positively on H.R. 3359, the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act (TEAPA).

This life-saving bill is in the Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives – reports PAWS, describing it as “the committee where most animal protection laws are assigned, and all too often, die.” Unless we act tomorrow, that bill may never make it out of committee.

According to the PAWS website, “Traveling circuses cause suffering to exotic and wild animals," as follows:

* Limited space. The animals' living spaces are always small and the animals’ ability to move around is severely restricted.

* Extended hours inside vehicles. Not only are circus animals forced to travel great distances, but they must also be loaded well before the circus is packed to travel to the next location. The animals must then wait in their vehicles while the circus is set up, before they can be unloaded. Set up time can take as long as 24 hours, even on short journeys.

* Lack of free exercise and restriction of natural behaviors. Circuses may pitch their show in any spot they can find – on roadsides, in fields, on a concrete parking lot. The animals’ needs are not taken into consideration.

* Stress from abnormal conditions. Solitary animals are housed alongside other animals; prey species are kept in sight of predators; family group animals are isolated. Any of these circumstances can cause psychological suffering, and sometimes even insanity.

* The tricks these animals are forced to perform require extreme physical coercion and violence, including the restriction of food and/or water, use of bull hooks, stun guns and other electric shock devices, as well as metal bars, whips, and intimidation.

These conditions cause the animals to be prone to health, behavioral and psychological problems. The extreme levels of stress that circus animals endure can make an already dangerous animal even more dangerous, a scary thought when you consider their close proximity to the public. These situations have resulted in human injuries and even deaths.

Please call, fax or email your Congressional rep tomorrow. Support H.R. 3359!
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***** visit www.nj.com/pets for a mix of info and opinions about pets.

Afternoon of the mobbin' robins

What brings them out, all together? Is it the time of year or month? the weather (this was a sunny, warm, premature spring day)? Could it have been pre- or post-rain (by a few days in each case)?

Or, as I think I asked last year around this time, did one of the robins call a convention in Village Park? It looked that way: they were there in droves (or whatever robin mobs are called), all over the ground on one side of the fenced baseball field. That was empty at the time, so they weren't at risk -- except maybe from a couple bike riders.

There were too many of them to even think of feeding (and I refuse to carry worms around as I do nuts for the squirrels). Nor did they seem to wish for anything, except to be right where they were, doing just what they were doing: enjoying the beautiful afternoon.

After that, they could fly home and tell the wife and family* all about it.
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* We badly need a naturalist here. would there be robin families yet? do they eat worms? (I "know" only that they're ground feeders.) What else is on their menu? What's a robin mob called? And what were they really doing there?