Category: Tactics

Proposal for an Accord between Animal Advocates and the Biomedical Research Community

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

Animal advocates hopeful of reaching an accord with the biomedical research community recognize that some biomedical research, testing, training and education using animals will continue in the foreseeable future. The biomedical research community has already agreed in principle that scientific use of animals should be subject to rigorous scientific review including serious consideration of non-animal alternatives and, if approved and funded, conducted in a manner which ensures that the smallest possible number of animals are involved, of species with the lowest potential for pain and suffering, and that such animals should be provided with optimum housing, handling, and care. However, we have identified areas in which both animal welfare and science might be improved in the practices of scientific institutions, in the regulation of animal use by public agencies, and in the federal Animal Welfare Act’s definition of “animal.” Read more

Chicago mayor Emanuel replaces pit bull-friendly animal control director Cherie Travis

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

    CHICAGO–Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel on March 21,  2012 abruptly appointed two-time Chicago Animal Care & Control acting director Sandra Alfred to replace incumbent executive director Cherie Travis,  effective immediately.
Travis,  appointed by previous mayor Richard Daley,  had headed Chicago Animal Care & Control since November 2009.  Alfred had been deputy director of Chicago Animal Care & Control since 2001,  after spending 12 years with the Chicago Department of Health.  Emanuel,  formerly chief of staff for U.S. President Barack Obama, praised Alfred as “a champion for animal rights and advocate for animal care,”  who “knows every facet of the department and is a natural choice to lead the department’s efforts.”  Emanuel did not explain why the change was made.  “We simply decided to go in another direction with the leadership,”  mayor’s office spokesperson Sarah Hamilton told media. Read more

Failure of Armenian s/n program brings NYC success

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

NEW YORK CITY–Newly released New York City Center for Animal Care & Control shelter surrender numbers gave Companion Animal Network founder Garo Alexanian cause for celebration on February 4, 2012–and a message for Yerevan,  the capital city of Armenia.

“After five years of virtually unchanged numbers of dog and cat surrenders to the CACC,”  Alexanian said,  “the total dropped by 15%,”  or nearly 6,000 animals,  “during 2010,  the first full year that we operated our Low Cost Vet Mobile,  and fell another 9% in 2011,  our second full year.” Read more

Editorial: Evolving an ethical response to mice & rats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Editorial:  Evolving an ethical response to mice & rats

Probably the most ethically vexatious of all mammals,  if not all sentient beings,  are mice and rats–who are also by far the most numerous,  problematic,  and at times the most deadly of all non-insect pests to human beings.

–

From the origins of food storage,  well before the beginnings of agriculture,  mice and rats were the most ubiquitous and successful of food thieves.  We owe our long association with dogs in great part to the role of dogs as rodent hunters,  attracted not only to our refuse but to the chance to eat the mice and rats who were already feasting on it. Read more

Agreement Raises Flags for Egg-Laying Hens: A Chicken Activist’s Perspective on the "New Deal"

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Agreement Raises Flags for Egg-Laying Hens:  A Chicken Activist’s Perspective on the “New Deal”
by Karen Davis,  PhD,  founder & president of United Poultry Concerns
.

The January/February 2012 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE included a full-page ad headlined “It’s Time to Ban Barren Battery Cages Nationwide,”  urging readers to ask Congress to support the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012.
The ad told us that “All the groups that have been leading the fight to ban battery cages-such as those listed below-actively support this legislation, because it’s the best opportunity to help the largest number of farm animals.” Read more

Editorial—The "Animal Rights Agenda" 25 years later

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2012:

The “Animal Rights Agenda” 25 years later

 

“Politics of Animal Liberation” was the formal title of an ad hoc document prepared in 1987 by ANIMAL PEOPLE president Kim Bartlett, Animal Rights International founder Henry Spira, feminist theorist Marti Kheel,  and others who formed an animal rights caucus at that year’s Green Party national convention.  Spira,  who died in 1989,  Kheel,  who died in November 2011, and Bartlett sought without success to win inclusion of the principles outlined in “Politics of Animal Liberation” in the U.S. Green Party platform.

Bartlett,  then editor of the Animals’ Agenda magazine,  subsequently published “Politics of Animal Liberation” in the magazine as a discussion document,  but little discussion followed.  Apparently not controversial with Animals’ Agenda readers,  “Politics of Animal Liberation” was never formally presented to animal rights organizations for ratification. There has never actually been any mechanism through which the many different organizations representing what they perceive as the animal rights cause might have adopted a collective mission statement.  Yet in the years since 1987, “Politics of Animal Liberation” has been extensively reprinted around the world by people on all sides of the issues as “The Animal Rights Agenda,”   and remains widely accepted as such. Read more

PETA view more nuanced than Christian Science Monitor report that it favors horse slaughter

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2012:

PETA view more nuanced than Christian Science Monitor report that it favors horse slaughter

WASHINGTON D.C.–Perhaps PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk played
the horse slaughter issue for publicity,  and perhaps she was just
misrepresented.

Either way,  though,  the PETA position on the November 18,
2011 USDA budget bill rider that lifted a federal ban on horse
slaughter for human consumption  turned out to be more nuanced than a
November 30,  2011 Christian Science Monitor article headlined
“Lifting horse slaughter ban:  Why PETA says it’s a good idea.”
“In an interview with the Monitor,”  wrote Monitor staff
writer Patrik Jonsson, “Newkirk said the US should never have banned
domestic horse slaughter.” Read more

What’s the difference between eating plants and animals?

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BY KIM BARTLETT, Animal People

 

A common objection posed by meat-eaters to considering a vegetarian diet is that “plants have feelings” which may be comparable to the feelings of animals, or that the result of a vegetarian diet is for more plants to die than animals and thus the net amount of killing is somehow equal.

While it is essential to realize that these arguments are virtually always made by people as a way to dismiss the idea of not eating animals without having to seriously consider the moral advantage of a vegetarian diet, the vegetarian advocate must be prepared to respond to these objections.  There are three main points to understand. Read more

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