Animal Rights Violations Part 6

May 4, 2008

I’m doing a series of animal rights violations. This is part 6 in the series. They are simply collections of true events, everyday occurrences of our seriously faulted relationship with nonhuman animals. The attempt here is to document these as animal rights violations (rather than something else) and to illustrate animal rights with real life examples (rather than complex theory).

Without further ado, here are some current animal rights violations:

“This year at the Rolex Event, two horses died during the cross country phase of the show” reports That Vegan Girl.
“According to a 2007 report released by ALDF, Kentucky ranks dead last in the nation in its laws protecting animals,” reports the ALDF.
NYC still hasn’t banned horse drawn carriages. I see them in Central Park everyday.
Hoarders: “Approximately 60 dogs—many of whom appear to be feral—and 15 cats remain with their reported tormentors.” reports PETA.
“Many of you may have heard about the recent outrage generated by a video in which an apparent North Carolina state trooper strings up his canine partner by the legs and kicks and yells at the dog” reports PETA. The trooper was fired and is now facing criminal charges.
“Apes in show biz have a short shelf life. The average performing chimp begins his career around age 2. By 7 or 8, when he’s no longer the tractable trainee he once was, he’s put out to pasture. Owners tend to not want to keep apes that have outlived their earning potential, and since apes can live into their fifties, that means they’ll require decades of care after their careers end. And that care is expensive–roughly $10,000 a year for a single ape. And while typically everyone involved with a film–from cast and crew to producers, studios, distributors, investors, and exhibitors–makes money, nothing is put aside for the animals’ future.” reports the Huffington Post.
“Lorraine Zielinski’s yellow tabby cat, Bootsie, was discovered missing on Wednesday, April 23. Three days later, Bootsie returned home with injuries consistent with a gunshot to his face. Due to the injuries as well as a severe blood infection and a fever, a veterinarian euthanized the cat,” reports the Humane Society.
“Sixty-seven cackling geese were found dead at Staats Lake in Keizer, Oregon between April 11 and 16. Laboratory tests confirmed that the geese were killed by zinc phosphide, a poison used by farmers, golf course managers and others to kill small rodents,” reports the Humane Society.
“[T]he government mislead the public. The government used partial information to justify killing mountain lions that had killed two sheep in a six month period. The government, however, refused to even limit the number of sheep hunting permits they were selling, even while they claimed the sheep population was in danger due to the predation of the lions,” reports Invisible Voices.
“As the male sea lion was coming out of anesthesia, it struggled to resume breathing and died. The animal was one of seven removed from the Bonneville Dam April 24,” reports seattlepi.

The good news:

New York banned anal electrocution as a method of killing fur animals reports the AP. However, New York hasn’t yet banned fur.
You can take action on most of these animal rights violations. Just click on the links and read the full stories for details.
NYC now has Vegan Drinks, a monthly social networking event for vegans, reported by SuperVegan and Food Fight.

To read the other parts in this series, follow these links:

If, after reading this, and the other posts in the series, you don’t see the common thread and don’t understand animal rights, please refer to these posts: