now if only we could get the Seattle City Council and the Mayor to care about elephants!
Mayoral Hopefuls Express Support for Animal Rights
The mayoral candidates participating in a forum on Monday on animal rights all did their best, in various ways, to prove themselves animal lovers…Animal rights have emerged recently as an unexpected tinderbox in the mayoral race, primarily around the issue of New York’s horse carriages
The Food Empowerment Project is a great place to learn more about how your food choices can indeed change the world – check it out…
From all-creatures.org:
Originally Posted: April 24, 2013
FROM Kinship Circle
ACTION
While Huntington Life Sciences (HLS) has teetered on the edge of shutdown, straddled with a $100 million debt, some financier always seems to bail them out.
Ask US Bank to end its association with HLS and terminate the current loan agreement.
Sign an online petition (copy/paste URL into your browser):
http://www.kinshipcircle.org/action_center/letter_new3.asp?LetterID=2004#autoletter
And/or better yet, make direct contact:
Go here for LOTS of direct contact information:
Downloadable PDF or go here: http://www.kinshipcircle.org/action_center/letter_new3.asp?LetterID=2004
INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS
US Bank loan lets HLS kill more animals
Huntingdon Life Sciences faced financial ruin. But US Bank’s $120 million loan kept them open to poison dogs, cats, monkeys and more animals in tests for pesticides, sweeteners, diet pills… So today animals still collapsed, frothing at the mouth. Dogs who didn’t get enough anesthesia “whimpered and moved” while cut apart.
US Bank is currently Huntingdon’s top debt-relief source. Though made aware of 7 investigations that reveal habitual animal abuse and fraudulent science, the bank approved this mega loan. Apparently US Bancorp doesn’t see animal cruelty as reason to blacklist a company, as it does with illegal gun sellers, gambling websites, etc. Like hundreds of other firms that dumped HLS, US Bank has access to footage and documents about techs who punch beagle puppies, dissect live animals, falsify data and botch experiments so badly that animals seize and die on the spot.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty UK launched a global campaign in 1999, with unified U.S. action a few years later. Anti-HLS efforts target the lab’s infrastructure: Financiers, customers and suppliers are strongly urged to dump HLS in ongoing letter/phone/email campaigns and live protests. Any company with ties to HLS is exposed to evidence of animal abuse.
Dear U.S. Bancorp Executive Officers and Employees,
It is refreshing to know that a corporation as large as U.S. Bancorp rejects business from illegal gun sellers, gambling websites, pornographers, and other enterprises judged corrupt or immoral.
Please add animal cruelty to your criterion for blacklisted companies. I was genuinely surprised to learn that U.S. Bank National Association approved a $120 million loan for Huntingdon-Life-Sciences. This controversial research laboratory, with facilities in England and New Jersey, is on record for: Multiple violations of animal welfare law in the United States and England, personnel cited for animal cruelty and on- site drug/alcohol use, and payoffs to the U.S. Agriculture Department for fraudulent records and animal welfare noncompliance.
Investigative footage that spans more than a decade shows animals who vomit, stagger, seize and collapse. Veterinary inspection is rare. H-L-S violence first went public when a UK Channel Four TV series, Countryside Undercover, broadcast reports from the lab’s Beagle Unit. A U.S. probe revealed dogs killed when dosing tubes misdirected into their lungs (rather then stomachs) choked them in poison. During post-mortem dissection, a tech cut apart the chest of a still conscious monkey. Another was filmed punching beagles: “A worker swung a puppy by the scruff of her neck…and continually punched her as she screamed,” the investigator noted.
In 2005, two H-L-S workers left their jobs distressed over suffering seen for 12 months. Their testimonials also described coworkers who “grab dogs by the scruff, shout and swear, swing and slap them.” They witnessed: Dogs barely anesthetized for painful procedures like bone marrow extraction; staff needle-jabbing contests; and routinely forged records to hide slip-ups.
In 2008, Animal Defenders International publicized H-L-S logs about inhalation tests with monkeys cinched in chairs to breathe in toxic fumes. The animals were so stressed, some suffered rectal prolapse and many self-mutilated to cope. One gnawed off an entire finger. Another shredded her face and had to eat via tube. Animals died in agony from collapsed or obstructed lungs.
Pharmaceutical firm Novartis withdrew sponsorship of an H-L-S study altogether, after disclosure of botched xenotransplantation tests in which pig hearts were stitched to the necks of hundreds of monkeys. The Daily Express exposed evidence of monkeys “screaming, reluctant to move, salivating, huddled with severe tremors on torso and head, collapsing, gasping.”
Biotechnology has evolved with breakthroughs in human-based methods relevant to human conditions. Conversely, animal tests mislead researchers due to metabolic, anatomic, physiological and psychological discrepancies between species. Erroneous animal data may speed new drugs through clinical trials to market, but lead to unforeseen adverse drug reactions in the general population. U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists ADRs as the fourth top cause of death, with over two million victims each year.
If a companion animal shares your home, you know how frightening pain is for your furry friend. The animals at H-L-S are no different, except pain is amplified. I urge you to join Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Citibank, Bank of New York, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Barclays Plc, Stephens Inc. and hundreds more firms that severed relations with H-L-S. I encourage you to explore any cause-for-termination language in the current loan agreement as well.
I realize you may receive letters similar to mine, but these words accurately express my thoughts. Thank you for your valuable time. I look forward to any feedback you can provide.
Sincerely,
YOUR FULL NAME
ADDRESS, CITY, STATE
COUNTRY
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
Other information you may find useful for your activism
Find area codes
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Charges against Amy Meyer have apparently been dropped. Hmm.
I am betting Auschwitzian walls are going to be going up around the Smith Slaughterhouse in no time at all.
Twenty-five year old Amy Meyer was arrested and charged with violating Utah’s new “Ag Gag” bill that makes it illegal for citizens to record the abuse of animals. 
She went to the Smith Meatpacking Slaughterhouse in Draper, Utah, because she had heard that anyone could see what was going on right from the street. While she was there, she saw cows fighting to get away, a downer cow carried off on a tractor lift, and ground flesh being spewed from a chute on one side of the building. While filming this with her cell phone, she never set foot in the slaughterhouse area, and remained at all times on public property. She was arrested and charged with agricultural operation interference. She is to go to court on May 23rd. If convicted, she faces up to six months in jail. By the way….the Mayor of Draper, Darrell Smith, co-owns the slaughterhouse. But that wouldn’t have anything to do with anything, would it?
Please call the following people and express your support for Amy Meyer and slaughterhouse transparency. I am guessing you can think of many ways of expressing this. And then write two quick emails. Please try to stay respectful and polite — don’t make people remember our rudeness rather than our rightness. These are EASY CALLS. No one is going to start arguing with you (and do you care?) 
Utah Governor Herbert
Phone: (800) 705-2464
Draper Mayor Darrell Smith
Phone: (801) 576-6513
Draper City Prosecutor Ben Rasmussen
Phone: (801) 576-6545
Members of the Utah legislature
http://le.utah.gov/Documents/find.htm
Please call the Dale T. Smith and Sons Meat Packing Company and express your disapproval of their mistreatment of animals and their decision to press charges.
Phone: (801) 571-3611
mail@smithmeats.com
This past Saturday NARN held a demo outside the UW National Primate Research Center. The demo was organized to coincide with World Week for Animals in Labs.
Hidden inside this dark, unmarked, sunless building, 700 primates live and die for research, subjected to painful surgeries and traumatic procedures until their usefulness is over. The Blue Building at 3000 Western Ave is the main facility for the UW National Primate Research Center, the largest of eight across the country.
About a dozen of us spent a few hours with signs and fliers and shared info with passers-by. Many people were shocked to learn that wasteful and cruel experiments were happening in their neighborhood. The beautiful sculpture park is across the street, and no one suspects cruelty is around them.
The University of Washington spends millions of taxpayer dollars conducting needless tests that haven’t resulted in any contribution to humans or animals. Harvard recently decided to close its primate research center and it’s time for UW to do the same.
The UW has even been cited with safety and cruelty violations including letting a monkey starve to death, and performing unauthorized surgeries. The UW breeds monkeys and removes babies from their mothers soon after they’re born.
We demo to let the public know about these atrocities but we also demo to let animal abusers know their deeds aren’t going unnoticed.
What can you do?
Please send a polite letter requesting the UW reevaluate its policies regarding animal experimentation and commit to long-term reduction of the use of any animals for science.
Michael Young, President
301 Gerberding Hall, Box 351230
Seattle, WA 98195
206-543-5010
pres@uw.edu
The University of Washington Board of Regents
139 Gerberding Hall, Box 351264
Seattle, WA 98195-1264
206-543-1633
regents@uw.edu
If you’re a UW grad, you can also contact the alumni association and tell them that you won’t join them (or that you’ll be cancelling your membership) unless the university agrees not to use live animals in their research.
UW Alumni association
Box 359508
Seattle, WA 98195-9508
206-543-0540 or 1-800-AUW-ALUM
Fax: 206-685-0611
uwalumni@uw.edu
If you attend or are employed by the UW you can anonymously report any incidents or patterns of abuse or neglect of animals in the care of the university. Provide as detailed observations as you can, with dates, locations, animals involved, their serial numbers (if possible) the condition of the animals, and what incidents occurred to uwkills@narn.org.
We will protect your identity and initiate the investigation. You can also contact us to let us know what experiments are going on, who the researchers are, and what the animals go through. If you’re a student, please join or volunteer for Campus Animal Rights Educators (CARE) at the UW campus.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/science/science-study-shows-monkeys-pick-up-social-cues.html?_r=0
This story is a great example of not only how monkeys and humans are influenced by social cues, but of how you can do behavioral research outside of a laboratory. The researchers learned this information, not by putting monkeys in cages, but by going to their natural habitat.
We may not like to admit it, but as social creatures, we are highly influenced by what others do. Why do particular food trends come and go? Why do we wear particular styles of clothing? Many people base their own behaviors on what’s perceived to be trendy, popular or “normal”. When celebrities go vegan, it is a win for the animals, not just because one more person has decided to stop contributing to animal absue, but because they make being vegan more “in style”.
This study also adds to the wealth of information of how similar monkeys are to us. What we still need to learn is an animals value shouldn’t be based upon their similarity to us, or their perceived intelligence. Chickens, cows, pigs, etc are just as important and deserving of life as monkeys, whales, dolphins, seals, and elephants.
Ag-Gag bills have been introduced in nine states this year, and became law in three last year. They don’t just target undercover investigators, but other whistleblowers and journalists. Some of them criminalize anyone who even “possesses” or “distributes” photographs and YouTube videos. Under the model bill devised by Agribusiness and ALEC, investigators, whistleblowers, journalists and anyone who shares the footage they obtain are labeled terrorists.
Please write this oh-so-quick letter below, or a variation thereof, sign it, and send it to ALEC.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
THIS CAN BE DONE. Don’t skim though this and think, hmm…yeah…mm…will do it later…I’ll just…and then think about other things. READ THIS and do it NOW. There ISN’T any better use of your time for the next 5 minutes. I’ll be honest: ten, because I want you to get a piece of paper and write a paper letter. (If you have forgotten how to write because it has been such a long time, or if you want to do BOTH, you can also email the minister directly at mosefgoi@nic.in).
The Indian Minister of Environment and Forests, Shrimati Jayanthi Natarajan, is considering a ban on dolphin captivity in India, with a decision to be made in the coming weeks. India has no dolphins at present, but there are numerous proposals to begin, and it must be stopped before the whole subcontinent is opened to such a trade in misery. (What a great reasons for the Taiji drive fisheries to continue!) We need an OUTPOURING, an AVALANCHE, a DELUGE of letters from everywhere, to convince her that a decision to ban captive dolphins is right, and that people the world over are behind her.
PLEASE MAIL YOUR LETTERS — your friends’ letters, your relatives’ letters, your kids’ letters and drawings –TO YOUR LOCAL INDIAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.
A list of embassies can be found here.
LETTER TEMPLATE:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing you to express my sincerest gratitude that the Indian Minister of Environment and Forests, Shrimati Jayanthi Natarajan, is considering a nationwide prohibition on dolphin captivity.
It is known that dolphins suffer in captivity. They are extremely intelligent, self-aware beings with emotions, feelings and close relationships to one another and their ocean home. Removing dolphins from the sea and putting them into small tanks or sea pens is removing a huge part of who they are as dolphins and forcing them to endure a life of misery.
India is a culture of compassion. In a world where animals are treated so poorly, India represents a beacon of hope. By enacting a total ban on captivity, not only will thousands of dolphins over the years be spared a life of torture and misery, but people will be encouraged to think about who dolphins truly are – as beings who deserve our respect.
As Mahatma Ghandi famously said, you can judge a society by the way it treats its animals. The Minister has the chance to show the world how compassionate and kind India truly is by denying dolphin-exploiting industries to become established within their borders. I hope she makes the right choice.
Yours truly,
(Your Name)
The New York Senate UNANIMOUSLY passed a bill prohibiting the possession, sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in New York. This action seeks to help avert the threatened collapse of shark populations worldwide, caused by the demand for shark fin soup — a tasteless but expensive Chinese delicacy and status symbol usually served at banquets and celebrations.
This legislation is not only bipartisan but also has the support of every Chinese American legislator in the state.
Similar legislation recently passed in Maryland and already exists in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.