I hate typing those words. I hate knowing that sometimes it’s true.
Yesterday as I started down the one-and-a-half lane road to the sanctuary where I volunteer, I saw a small fox limping on the side of the road. I stopped my car and the fox crossed behind me. As he limped closer to my car I could see that his right front leg was a bleeding stump. It looked very much like photos I’ve seen of animals who’ve chewed off their limbs to escape leg-hold traps.
These are leg-hold traps
I called to the fox who was still limping toward my car parked on the far end of a small one-lane bridge over a gully. I thought, naively, that the fox would limp to my car and I’d open the door and he’d sit in the back while I drove him to the sanctuary so that he could be properly sedated and transported to a local wildlife rescue center. These were fleeting, desperate thoughts because I had no idea how on earth I could save this poor, suffering fox from a painful and brutal death.
When the fox was nearly to my car, he started to limp down the side of the bridge into the gully. I called to him to come back, but he disappeared under a log. I don’t think he’s going to live very long and he’ll suffer until he dies. All because some brilliant humans think that leg-hold traps are a fine way to rid their property of “nuisance” animals.
I didn’t cry, which is amazing, because I didn’t want to worry anyone at the sanctuary. I mentioned it to Terry and Dave and they sympathized but told me that without proper training and equipment it would be impossible for me to rescue that fox. They also told me that leg-hold traps and snares are legal in Maryland. I believe they’re also legal here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
I’ll never forget seeing that little fox, and that horrible bleeding leg, knowing that his fox life was cut short and there was nothing I could do.
Here’s a little somethin’ we’ve been working on for a couple of months and if you’re in the National Capital Area, please join us! BOW is kid- and dog-friendly so bring your kids and fur kids and a picnic and have a great time raising money for people and wildlife on the oil-damaged Gulf Coast. Hope to see you there!
This DawnWatch Alert features two stories aired on mainstream media last Friday night.
Two terrific stories aired on US mainstream media on Friday night, July 30, which in this age of web viewing we can still watch and let the media know how much the coverage was appreciated.
CBS Evening News did a sweet story on the Chenoa Manor Animal Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, which rehabilitates animals and the youths who come there to work with them. The story focuses on one young man from the inner city whose experiences at the farm have sparked a desire in him to pursue veterinary studies. You can watch the story online. Please take the time to comment below it, so that CBS knows the story was appreciated, and/or to send feedback – choose “CBS Evening News” from the pulldown menu.
The wonderful Jane Velez Mitchell from CNN’s Headline News Network was at it again on Friday, this time covering NASA’s use of primates in radiation experiments. You can watch the segment online.
Jane is the one major media personality who consistently includes animal issues among the issues she covers her on her show, aptly named “Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell.” She has let it be known that our comments matter, so let’s be sure never to take her or her producers for granted. Please send an appreciative comment.
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts only if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line.)
Please go to http://tinyurl.com/254ulkx to check out Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen last year by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of The Year!”
Last Saturday was the annual Montgomery County Farm Tour, an event that Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary participates in as part of their fund raising. The crowds were much smaller than usual and we all blame the weather which was around 98F with a heat index of 104F. It was hot, but we made $5,000 for the animals!
Hippos at Poplar Spring
I got there around 7 a.m. and helped clean one of the chicken barns, then went over to the pig yard to clean up the poop so everything looked spiffy for our visitors. Poplar Spring is an amazingly clean farm because the goal is to give every animal a great forever home. At least one visitor that I spoke to commented on how nice and un-smelly everything is in comparison to another farm she’d visited. Then she asked at what point do we “get rid of” the pigs to make room for more? I’m sure I had a stunned look on my face but I told her, as politely as possible, that we don’t adopt out or kill our animal friends. She didn’t seem to understand that concept but perhaps it sunk in as she visited the rest of the sanctuary.
Pretty Patsy resting on a hot day
My day was spent in the pig barn and yards making sure the visitors followed the rules and that the pigs were comfortable. Since it was so hot there were fans on in the barn and we got a nice cross-breeze, but when you weigh more than 600 pounds it’s tough to stay cool. So we used large cans filled with water and a long, thin nozzle to spray the pigs down every hour. Some of them figured out how to drink from the nozzle so we’d let them drink as much as they needed. The do have self-waterers outside but no one in the barn seemed to want to venture out. I don’t blame them.
Izzy, a piglet, having a nice waller
I really enjoy the pigs. They’re so smart and clever and they have such big personalities. I’ve seen them display affection, jealousy, annoyance, and plain old bullying, among other emotions. My favorite friend is the youngest piglet, Truman. He is so sweet and he doesn’t understand how to fight back when the older piglets pick on him. He just wants to get along with everyone and it simply doesn’t work that way with the pigs. There’s a hierarchy and poor Trumie is at the bottom of it. But he’s growing bigger and, I hope, he’ll soon be able to give back what he gets. In the meantime he’s one sweet kid to be around.
Sorry for being a bit late with this news, and thanks to Karen Dawn for the story. BTW, I attended the Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary event she mentions, and Capt. Watson is very inspirational.
“Sea Shepherd’s Captain Paul Watson, who much of the public knows as Whale Wars Captain Paul Watson, will be on Larry King Live this Thursday, July 1, at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. and 9 p.m. PT) along with Chuck Swift, Bob Barker, Fiona McCuaig, and Laurens De Groot.
Tune in or set your Tivos and DVRs — it’s bound to be a great show. Then please make sure to let the show know how much we love this kind of coverage of environmental and animal issues. Your comments matter!
Those interested in Captain Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd’s work will also enjoy an article, by Gary Smith, about the recent International Whaling Commission’s close call with ending the ban on whaling (that “compromise” being supported by the US) which includes an interview with the captain. You’ll find it on the Elephant Journal Web site.
Captain Paul’s animal and environmental interests are not limited to whales. He spoke at my New York and Poplar Spring book events, making clear his opinions on the connection between plant based eating and environmental protection. If you are in the mood you can check out this short and fun video of him speaking, in his usual engaging manner, at the New York book party:
Enjoy the show Thursday, and don’t forget to thank Larry King Live! Positive feedback encourages similar coverage in the future.
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts only if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line.)”
Just this week I returned from a five-day visit to New Orleans. It’d been five years since my last visit and I was eager to see how the area was getting along. I traveled with a friend who’d never been to the Deep South so there were a few mandatory things we had to see and do. One of those was a swamp tour.
A dragonfly flits by on the swamp tour
Now, I grew up on Florida’s Gulf coast so I’m no stranger to touring swamps and throwing marshmallows at gators to get them to come closer. But I honestly thought things had changed in all those years (more than I care to mention) and figured we weren’t stupid enough to train wild alligators to come close to boats and boardwalks so tourists could “ooh” and “ahh” and let their fat kids lob marshmallows at a gator’s head.
I was wrong.
A gator approaches the tour boat for a treat
The swamp tour we chose was recommended by a local New Orleanian and the brochure read like it was a conservation-based tour. That myth was dispelled in the first 10 minutes as the boat slowed to a stop and the tour guide pointed out the gators swimming toward the boat. So, I wasn’t surprised when he lowered a hot dog on a stick over the water so a gator would have to leap up at it. I was, however, surprised when the bag of marshmallows came out and a couple of kids started throwing them at the gators. Sure, it’s exciting and all to see alligators that close up, but with all the chatting and laughing and shouting going on inside the boat it sounded sorta like we were … at the circus.
This lasted for what seemed like forever. We finally drove off but didn’t get all that far when it was time to pull over for another entertainment break. More hot dogs on sticks, more marshmallows, more tourists yakking so loud they couldn’t hear the tour guide attempting to tell them something about the amazing animals they were gawking over, the way people gawk at lions and tigers in cages at the zoo. And it’s not as if these well-trained gators are safe from from hunters, oh no! As soon as alligators were removed from the Endangered Species List, the hunting began. “Wildlife Management Area” does not mean the wildlife are safe, it means they can be killed by hunters in specific amounts.
Another gator approaches the tour boat
But hey, the answer to all your alligator purse and shoe needs is not met by wild alligators, oh no! There are alligator farms now. Yep. New Orleans trinket shops were full of alligator teeth, and preserved heads of small gators in piles in bins for sale. Our tour guide explained, in a manner that I’m sure was supposed to be comforting, that no wild gators are dead and lying in discount bins in French Quarter trinket shops, those are all farmed alligators. Most people on the boat seemed relieved. My friend and I were disgusted.
Lesson learned and had I known in advance about the marshmallow baiting, I’d have skipped the tour, or looked harder for one that didn’t use the wildlife to entertain tourists who treated the swamp like a circus sideshow.
Today I reported for duty at the sanctuary looking forward to fewer flying bugs and some good times with my fellow volunteers, plus Terry and Dave. Every day at the sanctuary is a learning experience and today was no different, if a little bit special.
First, I didn’t work in the sheep and goat yard as usual because we had more people than we had rakes. So A.K. and I headed over to the pig barn to see if we could help Dave and L. Turns out it was “bagel day” and we got to tear bagels in half left over from last week’s annual Run for the Animals. Then we got to lob them over the fences while the pigs were enjoying their breakfast. Lemme tell ya, they really know how to enjoy their food! I love listening to all their varied sounds and grunts and occasional arguments if someone gets too close to another’s food.
So, I went down to the other end of the yard and was surprised to find my old softball throw worked well with bagels. I hit a couple of pigs with the pieces of bagel but they didn’t seem to mind. A couple of the older guys came over to the fence for hand outs but most were so busy enjoying their breakfast that, at first, they didn’t notice the flying bagels. I tried to make sure all the piglets – Izzy, Morty, Patsy, Timmy, and young Truman – got a fair share without having an argument with a much larger pig.
After the bagels were dispensed, we got to toss in the older bananas. The bananas are used to hide medicine for some of the older, arthritic pigs but all the pigs love bananas. I made sure Truman and Patsy got a couple of good pieces.
Poor Truman. He’s very young and having a tough time getting used to the order in the yard. He doesn’t have any friends yet and honestly he seems a little dejected. Patsy, on the other hand, is the picture of confidence. She gets around the older pigs to get what she wants, she doesn’t take any guff from anyone, and she never seems worried or stressed. Patsy will someday grow up and run that yard with an iron hoof. She’s too cool.
She’s also jealous.
Terry and I were giving Truman some extra attention as he’d been chased and nipped by both Morty and Izzy and seemed down. While rubbing his belly in the yard, Terry suddenly felt a nose on her leg and we turned our heads to see Patsy. Terry tried to get to her feet to move Patsy away from the reclining Truman, but Patsy pushed between us and, in doing so, shoved me to the ground on my knees! That girl is strong. She nipped at Truman who got up as fast as he could and ran away. There was no reason for Patsy to pay Truman any mind except that the humans in the yard, especially Terry, were giving attention to the new pig.
It astounds me that most people don’t bother to learn how intelligent and emotional pigs are and how much they enjoy their lives. Well, those that aren’t slaughtered for bacon at six months old after being separated from their mothers and treated like widgets, that is. You don’t even have to spend that much time with them to learn how clever they are, how they form attachments and that they experience emotions such as sadness and jealousy.
Honestly, you might as well eat the family dog. Pigs are smarter than dogs, probably smarter than horses and cows, yet we don’t eat horses in the U.S. nor do we barbecue the family canine. Why? Be honest and ask yourself “What’s the difference?”
s.
See pictures of the pigs and other sanctuary residents at Invisible Voices.
I’m sure some of you will be surprised to learn that Jack Hanna is no friend to animals as we’ve seen him on countless TV programs pretending otherwise. But read on and learn more about his thinly-veiled facade of wildlife protector. As I’ve written here many times, you can’t protect wildlife if you still eat animals. I mean, really. Think about it.
This is the latest DawnWatch Alert and it’s a good one!
Anderson Cooper can always be relied on to cover the animal impact during disasters. His show last night, Tuesday May 25, included a report in which we saw pelicans nesting, surrounded by and covered in oil. You can watch it online.
Unfortunately Cooper also did an interview about the issue with SeaWorld board member Jack Hanna. Hanna regularly shares misinformation on talk shows — I think now of his appearance on Larry King Live after Barbaro’s death. Hanna told viewers that horses are so well cared for that few race horses have to be euthanized, when in fact an Associated Press article tells us that 704 horses died racing in the US and Canada the year immediately before Barbaro’s accident. (Read a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story on horse racing deaths.) And I won’t even start to comment on Hanna’s recent appearances representing SeaWorld in the week after the orca Tilikum killed his trainer (Tilikum’s third kill) lest my blood start to boil.
On Anderson Cooper last night Hanna told us, “The only good thing that can come out of this” is that it happened near the Audubon Institute and the AZA and “you can go right down the coast there with SeaWorld and all these folks who have been familiar with all these oil spills. So if it had to happen anywhere, thank God these folks are there on standby.”
Ah yes, thank God SeaWorld is nearby. Then Anderson Cooper asked if the oil coated pelicans can be saved and Hanna answered, “Yes, they can be saved. They can be washed with Dove — I think it’s the Dove — I’m not sure what soap they’re using. But yes, we’ve proven that before in the Valdez oil spill, where the zoo worked hard up there, as well as, of course, SeaWorld.”
While SeaWorld to the rescue is a nice story that a SeaWorld board member might enjoy sharing, an article from Spiegel international carries the sad heading, “Gulf of Mexico Spill, Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds.” (My thanks go to Alexandra Paul for sharing it with us.)
No, the expert isn’t callous. Silvia Gaus, a German biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park, has 20 years of experience and she worked on the environmental cleanup of the Pallas — a wood-carrying cargo ship that spilled 90 tons of oil in the North Sea. She says:
“According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent.”
The article shares: “Catching and cleaning oil-soaked birds oftentimes leads to fatal amounts of stress for the animals, Gaus says. Furthermore, forcing the birds to ingest coal solutions — or Pepto Bismol, as animal-rescue workers are doing along the Gulf Coast — in an attempt to prevent the poisonous effects of the oil is ineffective, Gaus says. The birds will eventually perish anyway from kidney and liver damage.”
Gaus explains that is a long slow death, so she recommends euthanizing the birds quickly and painlessly, or just leaving them alone, oil soaked, in which case they will starve with less long term pain than they will endure if they are cleaned enough to attempt to get on with their lives — plus they will be saved the terror of the capture, cleaning and force feeding. The article tells us that the World Wildlife Fund reluctantly agrees, a spokesperson saying, “Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped. … Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning.”
The article ends with: “The Prestige spill killed 250,000 birds. Of the thousands that were cleaned, most died within a few days, and only 600 lived and were able to be released into the wild. According to a British study of the spill, the median lifespan of a bird that was cleaned and released was only seven days.”
In other words, Jack Hanna was apparently, as usual, talking about something he knew nothing about. While Hanna’s message was more uplifting, the public needs to know the sad truth, and hopefully the truth will bring the outrage that inspires action.
Please thank Anderson Cooper for covering the wildlife issue, but ask him to leave the commentary to the wildlife clean-up experts, not to SeaWorld spokesperson Jack Hanna who gives us misinformation. Anderson Cooper 360 takes comments at: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?10.
A Washington Post article on the wildlife effect is just heartbreaking. It tells us of dozens of turtles and dolphins washed up dead, as well as hundreds of birds so far. We read a description of a black-bellied plover, a skinny-legged shorebird, with oil on her face. We are told the bird had no way to clean the oil, unable to use her beak on her face, and was plunging her face repeatedly into a shallow depression of water, to no avail of course.
Why not send a letter to the editor at the Washington Post, read by our country’s legislators, demanding clean energy for the sake of the Earth and the animals? The paper takes letters at letters@washpost.com. Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor.
Two more links: If you missed my DawnWatch alert from two weeks back, which gave links to Fox News, Democracy Now and Washington Post coverage of our government’s exemption of BP from an environmental impact study regarding drilling in the Gulf, please check it out at http://tinyurl.com/2e62hta.
Most importantly, that alert has a link to a petition asking President Obama to reverse his plans for more offshore drilling. Please sign that petition.
And finally, we all need a laugh don’t we? Here’s a terrific take off on BP public relations ads:
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts only if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to learn about Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen last year by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of The Year!”
A really good round-up post by Karen Dawn for her DawnWatch media alert on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, where I grew up in a small, coastal Florida town. This sickens me more than I can say without becoming profane.
The biggest news for animals over the last week has been the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf. Millions of animals, including 5,000 dolphins, endangered turtles, pelicans, and countless fish live in that Gulf and are dying slow and agonizing deaths from ingesting and inhaling the oil that our species has been vomiting into their home at a rate of 200,000 gallons per day. I find myself thinking of Avatar, where humans were invading Pandora after having totally trashed Earth. Think of what the Gulf of Mexico was like just weeks ago, and what it is like now: It seems that we really are going to completely trash our planet if we don’t change our ways, and change fast.
I happened to see a screening of the movie “Fuel” last week. Winner of the 2008 Best Documentary award at the Sundance Film Festival, it is now more timely than ever. It focuses on what our dependence on oil is doing to us and the earth, and it gives clean energy solutions. Please check out the trailer below and get a copy of the DVD when it comes out on June 22.
The BP explosion came just weeks after President Obama announced plans for more offshore drilling along our coastlines, an announcement that broke the hearts of environmentalists who had thought they had elected a president with similar values. While it is hard, as an animal holocaust is underway in the Gulf, to even think of a silver lining, it seemed at first that at least this blanket of oil over the Gulf would bury those plans. Yet as oil poured into the Gulf Obama said, “Let me be clear. I continue to believe that domestic oil production is an important part of our overall strategy for energy security.”
The moratorium the administration has announced on new offshore drilling is for three weeks — until the cause of the BP explosion is determined. It doesn’t take into account that the next accident that wipes out a different ocean might have a different cause.
I have been scouring the media for animal news from the Gulf. There isn’t much. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin has been on the scene. I happened to tune in the first day she took a boat out to the spill. The boat pulled up alongside a sea turtle who we saw coming up trying to get air in the midst of the oil. At least 30 sea turtles have washed up dead so far.
The Fox News Web site has a slideshow headed, “Animal Victims of the Gulf Spill,” including some of the turtles. (My thanks to Richard Hernandez for that link.)
The Center for Biological Diversity has been following events and posting relevant press. It is a good place to keep track of what’s going on. (I thank Candaca Rocha for that link.)
I was shocked by the May 5 Washington Post story, by Juliet Eilperin, headed “U.S. exempted BP’s Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study.” It tells us, “The Interior Department exempted BP’s calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year.” It discusses the “decision by the department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP’s lease at Deepwater Horizon a ‘categorical exclusion’ from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).”
Media interviews with representatives from the Center for Biological Diversity about that exemption, and the lobby money behind it, are well worth watching. Two of the most compelling have been on media outlets on the opposite end of the political spectrum, reminding us that environmentalism, like animal protection, need not be a partisan issue.
If you are a Fox News viewer, please let the network know how much you appreciated the report and that you want to see more on the BP oil spill crisis. Fox News takes comments via e-mail at yourcomments@foxnews.com
Democracy Now brought us similar though more in depth coverage on May 7.
You can also e-mail it to your friends, by clicking on the “e-mail” link on that page.
Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman also did a radio blog on this issue, headed “BP: Billionaire Polluter.” It is well worth hearing or reading.
Please thank Democracy Now for its coverage of the disaster and ask them to keep on the story. Democracy Now takes comments at http://www.democracynow.org/contact?to=8 .
CNN’s Jane Velez Mitchell, always superb on animal and environmental issues, did an “Issues” segment in which she called for a move to electric cars.
Please recommend it to your friends (by hitting the “recommend” button) and please thank Jane for her continued commitment to animal and environmental issues — her producers need to hear how much their viewers appreciate her stance. Jane takes comments at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?106.
Animal advocates need to learn more about Salazar. His department is also responsible for the recent delisting of Grey Wolves as an endangered species. Further, the “All-Creatures” animal advocacy site has a petition to have him removed as Interior Secretary due to his support for the ranching community and participation in the mustang round-ups and decimation of America’s wild horse population.
Despite the animal annihilation underway in the Gulf, I have found relatively little information on animal news lists about the issue. I was therefore struck by Joshua Green’s superb blog on the Web site for The Atlantic, headed “No Energy,” in which he discusses what seems to be a lack of appropriate outrage. He shares the Obama quote that I shared above, Obama’s commitment to more drilling, and he writes:
“In the wake of the Gulf oil spill, the benefits of clean sources of energy are clearer than ever. What’s so infuriating about the Washington response so far is that there’s no indication the disaster has prompted Obama or anyone else to reconsider his position. In the past, major disasters shifted the terms of debate. This time, nobody is budging. … Washington eventually responds to public outrage. (Just ask Goldman Sachs.) But for now, energy can join the long list of issues on which Washington leadership has vanished.”
I hope when the animal advocacy community watches some of the interviews above, about the deals made with BP, and thinks about the millions of animals dying slowly in the Gulf, we will see some of that outrage to which the White House responds. The media has a huge impact on public thinking so please encourage the media to stay on this story.
CNN takes feedback for general news at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39. Let them know we want interviews with environmentalists such as the representatives of the Center Biological Diversity.
Please send letters to the editor to your local papers, and contact your favorite shows, asking for coverage to keep what is going on in the gulf top of mind for the public. The animals and the Earth need your voice.
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts only if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to learn about Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen last year by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of The Year!”
