California Court To Rule Whether SeaWorld Whales Are Illegal ‘Slaves’
Regardless of the slim odds of a favorable ruling, it’s a groundbreaking case in its use of the Constitution to fight for intelligent animals’ freedom. Via PhysOrg:
A California federal court is to decide for the first time in US history whether amusement park animals are protected by the same constitutional rights as humans.
The issue arises from a lawsuit filed by rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a San Diego court on behalf of five orcas named Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka and Ulises. The whales perform water acrobatics at the SeaWorld amusement parks in San Diego and in Orlando, Florida.
PETA argues that continuing the whales’ “employment” at SeaWorld violates the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits slavery. District Judge Jeffrey Miller heard arguments in the complaint Monday and reviewed the response from SeaWorld, which asked that the lawsuit be dismissed. His ruling is expected…
Yes, A Monkey Head Transplant Experiment Occurred in the 1960s
This is one of those things that would be hard to say without the video evidence. As Cyriaque Lamar explains on io9.com:
We’ve been loving the Midnight Archive’s series of macabre web shorts (previously: 1, 2). One of their more recent installments is a short documentary on the late Dr. Robert White, a neurosurgeon who successfully transplanted the head of one monkey onto the body of another …
Are Whales Slaves?
PETA is asking … Hamilton Nolan reports on Gawker:
PETA has filed a lawsuit charging SeaWorld with violating the 13th Amendment by enslaving killer whales. This could be interesting.
The scorn heaped upon this lawsuit in the court of public opinion will be roughly equal to the scorn once heaped upon the ideas of abolition and female suffrage. Somebody please have Jay Leno read some Peter Singer before he starts to discuss this news.
Mother Bear Kills Cub and Itself to Escape ‘Crush Cage’ Torture for ‘Bear Bile’
Photo: SlimVirgin (CC)
AsiaOne reports:
The Chinese media has reported on an extraordinary account of a mother bear saving her cub from a life of torture by strangling it and then killing itself. The bears were kept in a farm located in a remote area in the North-West of China. The bears on the farm had their gall bladders milked daily for ‘bear bile,’ which is used as a remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
It was reported that the bears are kept in tiny cages known as ‘crush cages’, as the bears have no room to manoeuvre and are literally crushed. The bile is harvested by making a permanent hole or fistula in the bears’ abdomen and gall bladder.
As the hole is never closed, the animals are suspect to various infections and diseases including tumours, cancers and death from peritonitis. The bears are fitted with an iron vest, as they often try to kill themselves by…
San Francisco To Outlaw Pet Stores
Kudos to San Francisco for its decision to crack down on an industry based on animal misery. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
San Francisco’s ever-active Animal Control and Welfare Commission has renewed its push for a pet sale ban in the city – only this time, it even covers goldfish. The idea is to put the squeeze on puppy and kitten mills that supply pet stores, and to discourage “impulse buys” of hamsters and other small pets that often wind up being dumped at shelters.
“Most fish in aquariums are either mass bred” under inhumane conditions “or taken from the wild,” commission member Philip Gerrie said. That leads to “devastation of tropical fish from places like Southeast Asia,” he said.
The proposed ban, which the commission just adopted after a year of study, was expanded to cover animal breeders as well as pet stores.
As you might expect, it has local merchants like Ocean Aquarium…
Rabbinical Court Sentences Dog To Death By Stoning For Reincarnation
Reports Agence France-Presse via the Raw Story:
JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court’s judges 20 years ago, Ynet website reported Friday.
According to Ynet, the large dog made its way into the Monetary Affairs Court in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, frightening judges and plaintiffs.
Despite attempts to drive the dog out of the court, the hound refused to leave the premises.
One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously.
Their preferred divine retribution was for the lawyer’s spirit to move into the body of a dog, an animal considered impure by traditional Judaism.
Video: Disturbing Abuse Of Australian Cattle At Slaughterhouses
Animals Australia and RSPCA Australia have launched a public campaign against the torture cattle endure during live export. The campaign asks the Live Export organization to reconsider the trade of living animals because of the cruel way they are treated before being slaughtered.
Note, they are not necessarily advocating vegetarianism or the elimination of slaughterhouses (although there are many benefits to reducing industrialized slaughterhouses including cutting down on pollution, increase agricultural land and reduction of animal cruelty), but they argue the unfair treatment of live animals being exported to other countries.
Warning: The video below include graphic material that may be difficult to watch.
States To Outlaw Undercover Photos And Videos Of Factory Farms
A bill before the Iowa legislature would make it a crime to produce, distribute or possess photos and video taken without permission at an agricultural facility.
In Iowa, Florida, and Minnesota, laws are in the works to criminalize the documenting of animal cruelty and health violations in factory farming. With activists nosing around, “people are scared to death that they might be found in a compromising position,” [says the] president of the Iowa Farm Bureau — it’s about “making producers feel more comfortable.” The New York Times reports:
Undercover videos showing grainy, sometimes shocking images of sick or injured livestock have become a favorite tool of animal rights organizations to expose what they consider illegal or inhumane treatment of animals.
Made by animal rights advocates posing as farm workers, such videos have prompted meat recalls, slaughterhouse closings, criminal convictions of employees and apologies from corporate executives assuring that the offending images are an aberration.
In…
Endangered Sea Turtles To Be Killed After Experiment
Green sea turtle. Photo: Wilfried Wittkowsky (CC)
Controversial news that’s causing an uproar. The Vancouver Sun reports:
Endangered green sea turtles that have been part of a University of B.C. research project for more than 10 years will be killed sometime this spring.
Bill Milsom, head of UBC’s zoology department, said seven turtles will be killed in order to complete a study into turtle diving depths. The turtles are at least 10 years old and can live to be 30.
The study was designed to measure the impacts of climate change on the animals and to help countries develop policies around fishing.
More than 85,000 green sea turtles died as “bycatch in the fishing industry” between 1990 and 2008, Milsom said. By studying diving depths, researchers could recommend how deep fish nets should be placed to avoid catching the turtles.
Asked why kill an endangered species, Milsom said “they were brought in for these experiments [at UBC]…
‘The Cove’ Sent To Every Household In Japanese Fishing Village
MNN reports:
This time last year, producers of the “The Cove” were riding high after winning Best Documentary at the 2010 Academy Awards.
Directed by Louie Psihoyos and produced by Fisher Stevens and Paula DuPre Pesmen, the film shed dramatic light on the thousands of dolphins slaughtered each year in the Japanese fishing town of Taiji. “It has the breathless pace of a Bourne movie, but none of the comfort of fiction. This is documentary filmmaking at its most exciting and purposeful,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers in a review.
This past weekend, residents of Taiji were able to give their own verdicts after a local activist group, called People Concerned for the Ocean, delivered a Japanese-dubbed copy of the film to each home…
Knowsley Safari Park Makes Changes After Photographs of Carcasses Were Released
Photographer Penny Boyd released photos of carcasses to the council and animal charities
What happens to animals that perish in a safari park? One ex-employee of Knowsley Safari Park took photos making the public aware of how the carcasses were disposed of. BBC News reports:
A Merseyside safari park was told to change the way it dealt with dead animals after an ex-employee released images of carcasses left in the open.
Knowsley Safari Park photographer Penny Boyd complained to the local council over what she believed was unnecessary killing of animals and their disposal.
An investigation by Knowsley Council found a breach of animal by-products regulations, which the park addressed.
In a statement, it said “robust new procedures” were now in place.
[Continues at BBC News]
400,000 Baby Chicks Killed By Bankrupt Poultry Farm
Photo: Dmitry Noskoff
Stephen Messenger writes in treehugger:
Poultry workers reportedly wept as they carried out their grim task — overseeing the death of about 400 thousand newborn chicks by drowning them in water or simply dumping them in rusty barrels outside where they would succumb to the freezing winter air. Around 600,000 more birds, housed at Russia’s Krasnaya Polyana poultry farm have died of malnutrition, and the lives of 3 million others await a similar fate. A $190,000 tax debt, says the farm, has forced them to declare bankruptcy, leading to this killing of chickens on a horrific scale.
The poultry farm, located in the region of Kursk, is owned by Russian parliament member Alexander Chetverikov — and he says declaring bankruptcy, which has forced the deaths of about 1 million chickens, was his only recourse after he became the target of a political conspiracy aimed at putting him in financial ruin.
Chetverikov,…
Man Cuts Off Cat’s Head With Machete And Brags About It on Facebook
Curtis Cartier writes in Seattle Weekly:
In what’s sure to be yet another blow to anyone with the name “Dameon,” Dameon Parker, a 30-year-old Olympia man has been charged with animal cruelty for allegedly luring his neighbor’s cat into his house, then cutting off its head with a machete.
The News Tribune reports Tuesday evening that a woman saw Parker carrying the kitty by the nape of its neck out to his backyard, then emerging later with a massive machete that was covered in blood and cat fur.
She apparently found the headless feline buried in the yard. But it wasn’t until Parker took to Facebook to claim victory over the helpless beast that investigators were informed of the act.
Parker’s Facebook page is still up, though it appears some of the more incriminating posts are down. The only remaining post is a plea for friends to leave one “Mary” out of the matter, followed by a…
Woman Caught By CCTV Throwing Cat In Garbage Bin Only Receives Fine
The fat lady who threw a cat into a garbage bin has avoided being sent to the slammer herself. However, Mary Bale — the perp caught by the UK’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras — has been fined 265 pounds ($420) for animal cruelty (per Reuters). She could have received a sentence of up to six months in jail — should she have?
Beer With Highest Alcohol Percentage Sold In Road Kill Taxidermy
It’s understandable that the strongest beer ever made would be sold-out within a few hours, but what’s with the road kill? Brewdog released The End of History as part of their experimental, highly-alcoholic, beers. With an alcohol content equivalent to liquor, the beer is eclectically unique with its own beer cozy. The Telegraph details:
The stunt has been condemned by animal rights groups as “cheap marketing tactics”.
Twelve bottles of The End Of History ale have been made and placed inside seven dead stoats, four squirrels and one hare.
And at 55 per cent volume, its makers claim it is the world’s strongest beer.
A taxidermist in Doncaster worked on the animals, which were not killed for bottling the new drink, with some having been killed on the roads.
Outfits featured on some of the animals include a kilt and a top hat.
BrewDog, of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, created the ale, which is stronger than whisky and vodka.
The brewer recommend…
Monkey Terrorists in Afghanistan
Monkey see monkey do? or Human do, then train monkey so less humans have to do? Chinese news source, Peoples Daily Online (人民 网) reads:
Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are training monkeys to use weapons to attack American troops, according to a recent report by a British-based media agency.
Reporters from the media agency spotted and took photos of a few “monkey soldiers” holding AK-47 rifles and Bren light machine guns in the Waziristan tribal region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The report and photos have been widely spread by media agencies and Web sites across the world.
According to the report, American military experts call them “monkey terrorists.”
As a form of cruel political means, wars are launched to meet political goals through conquest, devastation, assaults and other means.
In a sense, the emergence of “monkey soldiers” is the result of asymmetrical warfare. The United States launched the war in Afghanistan using the world’s…
BP Buys Search Term “Oil Spill” from Google
Reports Reuters:
BP Plc has bought terms such as “oil spill” from search engine providers including Google Inc to help direct Internet users to its website as it attempts to control the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
A spokesman said BP would pay fees so its own website would rank higher or even top in the list of advertisements that appear alongside search results when Internet users search on terms such as “oil spill,” “volunteer” and “claims.”
BP did not say how much it was paying for the service but U.S. President Barack Obama has criticised the company for spending $50 million on TV advertising to bolster its image during the crisis.
BP said it wanted to help people who were trying to access information on the BP website to find it more readily, rather than intending to draw away hits from other sites.
“We know people are looking for those terms on our…
Blobfish In Danger Of Extinction
Oh no! How was it possible to miss this news? Nature’s saddest-looking animal, the blobfish, is in danger of going extinct due to over-fishing. I would sacrifice a hundred rare white timberwolves to save a single blobfish. The Telegraph reported:
Scientists fear the blobfish, which can grow up to 12 inches, is in danger of being wiped out by over-fishing in its south eastern Australian habitat.
The fish, which lives at depths of up to 800m, is rarely seen by humans but it lives at the same depths as other ocean organisms, such as crabs and lobsters and other edible sea creatures.
As a result the fish, which is inedible, is being dragged up with other catches by trawler fishermen.
Who Really Won In The Supreme Court Animal Rights-Free Speech Decision?
So who were the winners from the big news First Amendment decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday? Free-speech advocates say the Supreme Court protected the First Amendment. Animal-rights advocates say it showed how Congress could pass a new anti-animal cruelty law, according to the Christian Science Monitor:
Free speech advocates praised Tuesday’s US Supreme Court decision striking down a federal law banning depictions of animal cruelty.
At the same time, animal rights groups are calling on Congress to enact a new, more targeted law, to prevent trafficking in photos and videos depicting acts of severe animal cruelty, including so-called “crush” videos.
In striking down the 1999 Depiction of Animal Cruelty Act, Chief Justice John Roberts said the law was substantially overbroad and could criminalize depictions of entirely lawful conduct such as hunting videos and magazines. The vote was 8 to 1.
“It is clear from the opinion and the size of…
