Thursday, December 31, 2009

11 puppies found in Dumpster in Selma

Eleven puppies, about 4 weeks old, were found Monday in a Dumpster in Selma, police said.

About noon Monday, a man found the puppies in an alley behind a laundromat on McCall Avenue after he heard whining coming from the Dumpster.

He took the Australian Shepherd mix puppies to the Selma Police Department, which turned them over to the city's animal shelter, police said.

A group called the Animal Compassion Team is tending to the puppies because they need round-the-clock care.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Illegal Slaughter Farms Brought Into Media Light

(From CNN)

Miami, Florida (CNN) -- Freedom's Flight is a beautiful thoroughbred with an impressive pedigree. His bloodlines can be traced to two of the greatest race horses of all time, Seattle Slew and Secretariat.

But, unlike his kinship, Freedom's Flight's racing career ended before it had even started. It was almost two years ago when the thoroughbred's leg snapped right out of the gate at Miami's Gulfstream race track. The animal's days as a cherished racehorse came to an abrupt end.

"He came from the famous Clairborne farm and ended up on one of the worst farms in America," says new owner Richard "Kudo" Couto.

That "worst" farm in America turned out to be an illegal slaughter farm in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Couto, working for the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, participated in a raid on the farm and rescued Freedom's Flight. The timing of that rescue may have saved Freedom's Flight's life. The horse was limping around on his broken leg, he had sores on his body, and you could see his bones protruding from his dirty coat.

Some 18 months since his rescue, Freedom's Flight looks more like the stunning race horse that was worth thousands of dollars than the injured horse that was sold for $50 to an illegal slaughter farm.

"Prior to his rescue, I didn't know that illegal slaughter farms existed in the country -- let alone under my nose in my own county," says Couto.

This new knowledge has motivated Couto. "It really made me buckle down and basically dedicate my life to shut this industry down. It's become personal for me," he says.

Couto suspects that there are more than 100 illegal slaughterhouses in the area. There is only one slaughterhouse that operates legally, Cabrera's, and there the United States Department of Agriculture inspectors are housed on its property.

Many of these illegal places are concentrated in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County. The roads are dirt, the vegetation thick and uninviting. This is the western fringe of Miami along the rim of the Everglades, an area considered a sort of no-man's land.

There are signs in English and in Spanish advertising animals for sale. Tarps are put up to hide what is behind the chain link fences, but most of these businesses are open to the public. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist after walking the properties and seeing the dead carcasses, the guts in the trash bins, the slaughter tables, the knives -- all of the tools of running this type of operation is right in front of you," says Couto.

CNN visited several of these establishments. At one location where a pig was being carved on one table and a chicken on the other, we asked to film on the property. "This slaughterhouse isn't as clean as you can see, try Cabrera's," said the unidentified man behind the slaughter table. Like several places we visited there was blood on the floor, dirty butcher knives and an overwhelming stench.
Every time we go in there, we have to go in there with the police -- and even the police don't want to go in there.
--Charles Danger, Miami-Dade official

Couto says it isn't the slaughtering of animals that has put him on this mission. It's the way the animals are treated.

"These animals are living in extreme filth. They're beaten. The way they're slaughtered is inhumane," says Couto.

Couto has been on a one-man crusade to shut down illegal slaughterhouses that are operating without licenses and without oversight by the health or agriculture departments. He was first exposed to what he calls the "dark underbelly" of the area when, with the Florida SPCA, he was investigating the slaughter of horses for their meat.

Motivated by Freedom's Flight, Couto left the South Florida SPCA to form his own organization called ARM -- Animal Recovery Mission.

For the past year he has used a video camera to collect evidence. Couto has simply walked right into dozens of slaughterhouses and has filmed bloody slaughter tables.

"I go in acting like a customer," he says, "I ask them, 'How much for the pig?' And they'll say 120 dollars. 'How much for the kill?' '20 bucks. We'll slaughter it for you for 20 bucks.' It's that easy."

One local agency that spends a lot of time in the area because sections of it are considered protected wetland is the Miami-Dade Department of Environmental Resources Management. Carlos Espinosa is in charge of enforcing the county's environmental regulations.

"When we come across other issues relating to other departments, we pass that information on to other departments," says Espinosa.

Couto took his story and his videos to every local agency he could think of with oversight responsibility. He tried to set up a task force with agencies in charge of violations such as animal cruelty, illegal structures, illegal businesses, permit problems and zoning issues. A sign-in sheet from one of these meetings shows many of the agencies attended the meeting, but Couto says nothing came of it.

CNN contacted Miami-Dade Animal Services Department, an agency that had a representative at that meeting. Spokesperson Xiomara Mordcovich said the agency does not deal with issues involving farm animals and directed us to the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The Police Department declined an interview. "We are not actively investigating any incidents involving illegal slaughterhouses," the department said in an e-mail. Then it referred us back to Animal Services and also to the code compliance department.

Charles Danger, director of the Miami-Dade Building and Neighborhood Compliance Department, admits that it was because of Couto's persistence that it is now putting together a multi-agency task force he called "Operation Miss Piggy and Mr. Ed."

According to Danger, part of the reason nothing has been done to clean up this area is because of fear for the safety of inspectors.

Danger says the Miami-Dade Police Department is now on the new task force, which also includes agencies such as the state health department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It comes from a lot of years of illegal operation. We have to do it together because it's not going to be easy," says Danger.

One organization that will keep tabs on the progress is the Animal Recovery Mission. Couto says he will not go away quietly. He calls his mission "redemption and revenge for Freedom's Flight and what he went through."

Monday, December 21, 2009

Sign the Petition Below



2009 State Animal Protection Law Rankings

The Animal Legal Defense Fund announces the release of its fourth annual report ranking the animal protection laws of every state and territory of the U.S.A. based on their relative strength and general comprehensiveness. This report – the only one of its kind – encompasses more than 3,800 pages of statutes, and is based on a detailed comparative analysis of each jurisdiction in which fourteen distinct categories of animal protection laws were researched. The ranking groups each jurisdiction into a top, middle or bottom tier, and includes a listing of the best five and worst five states.

“Many states and territories are continuing to make substantial progress with their animal protection laws. Arkansas, for example, was one of the worst five states last year, but jumped up to 25th overall in the country this year, due to a host of statutory improvements. Washington, D.C. and Indiana, among others, also made significant advances. Unfortunately, there are still many places where the laws are incapable of providing the legal protections that our country’s animals need and deserve,” says Stephan Otto, Animal Legal Defense Fund's director of legislative affairs and author of the report. “Yet even in those jurisdictions that have today’s best laws, there remain many opportunities for improvement. While animals certainly do not vote, those who love and care about them do, so we encourage lawmakers throughout the country to take heed and commit to working to improve these critical laws.”

You can download a PDF of this report here

and here's a state by state map:

Friday, December 18, 2009

Fearless Friday

I read this and couldn't help but to cry:

Death of a Chicken

Monday, December 14, 2009

Stats to think about today

According to the 2005-06 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 32.7 percent of adults age 20 and older are overweight, 34.3 percent of them are obese and 5.9 percent are listed as extremely obese. The potential health risks are heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and respiratory problems to name a few.

Treating obesity and its related health problems accounts for roughly 9 percent of total U.S. medical costs, according to a 1998 study — roughly $92.6 billion a year in 2002 dollars. That is one area of our health care crisis that needs to be addressed.

But yet ... the health care system in this country is working FINE. I say that we elect an official from Monsanto or Cargill to Congress and let him fix health care. That'll kill 2 birds with one stone. They get to take care of the entire food processing AND health care. Trust me, it won't hurt ... for long.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Monsanto the Monopolizer

ST. LOUIS — Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.

With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.

The whole story is here

Here's a little history of Monsanto:

As you can see from the story above, this is a LARGE corporation, wielding unheard of power about ONE thing. Food. Simply put, small farmers throughout the world, will not be able to compete with a monolith like this. Monsanto's "Our Way or the Highway" mentality is ultimately destructive for the entire farming community worldwide. There has never been a company with this much power.

Here's some little facts you may or may not know about Monsanto:

Since 1995 they've spent in excess of $8 billion (US) buying seed companies.
It is estimated that Monsanto owns 11,000 patents on seeds.
Here's a little story about their Pollution Legacy.

I'll be posting more on this later as well as tweeting it.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Wild animals are wild no matter how tame we think they are.

This story from the Huffington Post:

(AP) BERLIN -- German police say a zookeeper is in critical condition after being attacked by three tigers.

Hamburg police said Wednesday that the 28-year-old animal handler at the private Hagenbeck Zoo tripped during a performance involving five tigers Tuesday night.

As he lay on the ground, three of the tigers descended upon him, clawing and biting him.

Bild newspaper reports the tigers were driven back into their cages with blasts of water and the man was rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Police say the wounds are considered life threatening.

-- The Telegraph quotes one of the guests as saying the tamer, Christian Walliser, "didn't stand a chance" in the incident.

"They were on him in an instant," the guest said.
------------------------------------------------------------

While I feel saddened that yet another "animal tamer" has had such a tragedy befall them, let me remind people of something, a tiger is a wild animal. It will never be tame, no matter how much time you spend with it. Incidences like this occur far too often, because humans will let down their guard and think that they know an animal or because they forget how to respect a wild animal and its instincts. My thoughts are that this may not be the first time that Mr. Walliser had a "run in" with his cats, but the first time it was ever this severe.

Dr. Jane Goodall

Ok so I had intended to put a video here of Dr Jane Goodall on the Daily Show that I had seen a few weeks ago but their code is all kinds of weird, so I'll just post the link to it and you can go see it on the Daily Show's web site.


Go watch the clip here.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

What a beautiful place New Zealand must be

(Original story here)

Mopping up this morning's offal spill between Woodville and Dannevirke was not going to be a pretty job, contractors said.

The mess of blood, fat and discarded pieces of butchered animals spread 15km, and was up to 30cm deep in parts after a tailgate opened on a truck.

Commuters were asked to take a 10-minute detour, as the section of State Highway 2 was closed for the clean-up between Condoit Rd and Maharahara Rd.

A report that a car had skidded and crashed at the spill alerted police to the situation.

New Zealand Transport Agency contractors on the job said it was a "pretty bloody awful" scene, with animal heads and carcasses among the mess.

"It's not really a good day for my boys," a spokesman said.

"Offal spills have a huge amount of fat in them and that poses a risk to the public so we closed the road."

The contractors intended to pick up the worst bits with loaders, use a biodegradable detergent and put a crusher dust (similar to sand) on top of it. It could be "a bit ripe" for the next few days as there was likely to be some residue.


NZTA state highway manager Errol Christiansen said they were looking for a suitable dumpsite and the road was likely to be closed until noon.

Volunteer firefighters were called to the scene but not required.

Police are warning road users to wash their vehicle thoroughly to avoid infection.

I apologize

I haven't posted anything here in a few weeks (my other blog is suffering from me not being very "inspired" lately too)and I just wanted to say that there's a lot going on right now, I just haven't been feeling very "ranty." I've been kind of lazy and really haven't been doing much so for that I apologize. I promise that I will get back to posting more stuff on here very soon. Maybe I'll even have a virtual little Xmas present on here for the Holidays. Who knows. Keep checking back though.