OUTRAGE

In one experiment at Columbia University, baboons' eyeballs are removed and clamps are inserted through their eye sockets to block off blood vessels in order to cause strokes. In another, metal tubes are implanted into the skulls of female Rhesus monkeys to study the effects of stress on the animals' menstrual cycles. In a third, experimenters pump pregnant baboons full of nicotine and morphine and then cut into their fetuses.

A cat that makes a death-defying leap from a platform onto a hand-held pillow is a top act at the Cole Brothers Circus, but a Brooklyn senator says the feat is an act of animal cruelty. “This kind of act should never be allowed,” Sen. Carl Kruger said. “It goes beyond entertainment to animal cruelty.” Kruger said the cat leaps from a height of 50 feet, the equivalent of five stories. A spokesman for the circus said “The cat has been performing for three years and it has never missed.” *GOOD NEWS – At publication time, the news is that because of the fury caused, Cole Brothers Circus has agreed to eliminate this act from the circus. Ed

BRINGING HOME A BEST FRIEND is an article which appeared in an AARP magazine filled with some poor advice on adding a new dog to your home. The author states: You can get a pup free at the animal shelter, but you won't be sure if you'll have Toto or Marmaduke when the dog matures. If you want specific characteristics, consider a purebred. You'll pay $750.00 to $1,500.00 or more for a pure-bred dog. Spring for one with great bloodlines and champion ancestors and he may even earn a few bucks occasionally; stud fees range from $250.00 to $750.00!!! If you belong to AARP (or even if you don't) write them about this irresponsible advice at AARP, Box 2400, Long Beach, CA 90801 – Ed.

Clyde Beatty-Cole Circus dropped its elephant act, only to shuffle two elephants who are now forced to perform with the Walker Bros. Circus. The USDA had fined Clyde Beatty Circus $25,000 for causing physical harm and discomfort to the animals and for failing to provide vet care for an emaciated elephant and for an elephant that was suffering from severe chemical burns and a bacterial infection.

Under the State run “Take a Kid Trapping” program in Alaska, the leaders of Girl Scout Troop 34 in Fairbanks are teaching children aged 10-12 to trap, kill and skin beavers in the guise of flood management. The program, supported by the Alaska Trappers Association and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, also has the girls tanning the pelts to make clothing from the fur. The primary trap used – the body-crushing conibear --- inflicts terrible suffering on its victims. There are many nonlethal ways to solve wildlife conflicts – and there is no need to trap wild animals for fur. Troop 34's leaders should discard this grisly program and teach children something of true character-building value – the importance of coexisting peacefully with wildlife and compassion for all animals.

Cruelty at Iams – investigators found:

• Iams dogs dumped on cold concrete flooring after having huge chunks of their thighs cut out.

• Dogs and cats going stir-crazy from confinement.

• A worker who was instructed to hit the dogs on the chest if they quit breathing. A worker talked about an Iams dog that was found dead in his cage, bleeding from the mouth.

• A dog who limped in pain from Lyme disease.

• Cruel studies done by Iams involving sticking tubes down dogs' throats to ingest vegetable oil.

• Iams dogs with such severe tartar buildup on their teeth that it was painful for them to eat.

• Vet technicians with inadequate training and experience performing invasive tests.

• Workers who talked about a live kitten who was washed down a drain.

• Workers who talked about how they had to go home because the ammonia in the animal trailers was so overpowering that it made their eyes burn.

• Cats kept in a cinderblock room with crude wooden “resting” boards that had nails sticking out of them; one of the boards fell on a cat, crushing her to death. The investigator was there yet the lab director did not remove the boards when the cat was crushed – he removed them only when he was told that the lab was going to be cited because he knew they were illegal.

In West Palm Beach, FL, a woman who offered to use her five month old pig as bait to lure a tiger that escaped from the home of an actor who once played Tarzan was cited for animal cruelty, officials said. Linda Meredith put the pig in the trunk of her car and drove to the neighborhood where officials were searching for the tiger shortly after she heard of its escape. Meredith asked officers to grab the hind legs of the pig, named Baby, or twist its ears so it would squeal and attract the tiger. The officers declined her offer. The Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Director Dianne Suave said Meredith will be cited for transporting the pig in her trunk. “I was appalled,” Suave said. “Carrying an animal in a trunk in 90-degree heat, where it's probably 140 degrees inside, is not acceptable.” Suave said she planned to meet with county sheriff's officials to determine specific charges. Meredith said the trunk of her Cadillac is air conditioned and she was planning to eat the pig when it is full grown. “I can't believe they have the gall,” she said. “I was just trying to help the tiger find his way back home.” Following a 26 hour search, the tiger, which belonged to actor Steve Sipek, was shot and killed after lunging at a wildlife officer.

A Florida science teacher killed a sickly pair of day-old rabbits with a shovel as her stunned class looked on, then asked the students to help bury the animals, authorities said. The rabbits, which were the size of chicken eggs, probably would not have been able to survive on their own. Plant City High School teacher Jane Bender will not face criminal charges, but authorities brought two civil counts of animal cruelty. Bender told investigators that the class refused to help in burying the rabbits.

Factory Farm Operators commonly feed ground-up meat and bone, rendered fat, and even animal feces to natural herbivores like cattle. In fact, this forced cannibalism led to the BSE epidemic in Great Britain that began in the 1980s. In 1997 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibited feeding cow parts to cattle. But the ban has several loopholes – such as permitting operators to feed calves cows' blood – and has only been weakly enforced. In late January the FDA announced that it was closing some of the loopholes and would no longer allow feeding mammalian blood, poultry “litter” (chicken bedding, spilled feed, feathers and feces) or “plate waste” (uneaten meat and other scraps from restaurants) to cattle. But the agency hasn't published these changes in the Federal Register – a necessary step to put them into effect. The FDA also has no plan to stop the use of cow parts in feed for pigs and chickens – who are in turn ground up for cattle feed. Nor has it stopped the use of high-risk protein material in pet food, even though cats are susceptible to BSE. The agency did announce its intention to modestly increase feed ban enforcement but will still largely rely on self-reporting by feed processors and inspections by state personnel at a time when most states are facing severe budget constraints.

More than 100,000 cats are dissected in classrooms in this country every year. The United Kingdom prohibits the use of cats in school dissection classes. Switzerland, Norway, India, Argentina, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Denmark all prohibit dissection below the university level.

A Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia – responsible for judging cases of discrimination, prejudice and violence went duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney. Scalia is also an avid deer hunter. When asked about the hunt, Scalia had this to say: “Quack, quack.”

The truth about animal experimentation (aka vivisection). There is no money to be made from healthy people. This is why the medical and research establishments are not in the least interested in prevention. Once millions upon millions of people are sick and dying and pronounced “in need” of drugs, tests, radiation, surgeries, transplants and all kinds of medical attention and intervention, the expenditures connected with “health care” skyrocket accordingly. In 1999 alone, the U.S. spent well over two trillion dollars on “health care”.

It is estimated that just in the United States, 100 million animals of all kinds are tortured to death every year by vivisectionist mills, which operate hidden from public view in colleges and universities, hospitals, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, cosmetic and tobacco companies and by NASA and the military. In addition, millions of animals are consumed by the vivisectionist machinery in other countries all over the world. The 1999 budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington, D.C., the largest source of funding for vivisections, was well over ten billion tax dollars. Because of AIDS (the new gold mine for the biomedical establishment), we are now pouring more billions into the pockets of the very “researchers” and “scientists” who never cured cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or anything else despite having consumed hundreds of billions of our tax dollars and billions of animals just in the last few decades.

The international animal welfare community is condemning the deliberate and inhumane killing of thousands of homeless dogs in the city of Athens. It is believed that up to 80% of the estimated 30,000 to 50,000 stray dogs living in the streets of Athens have been poisoned in the past few weeks in an effort to eliminate the population prior to the beginning of the 2004 Olympic Games. It is reported that dogs are being fed food laced with rat poison, causing a slow and excruciating death over a period of several days. Videotape shot by the organization, Welfare for Animals Global, recently captured some of the more gruesome and disturbing methods being utilized on the city streets of Athens to kill dogs.