A n i m a l W r i t e s © sm

      A n i m a l   W r i t e s © sm
The official ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter

Publisher   ~ EnglandGal@aol.com              Issue # 10/21/01
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Journalists ~ Park StRanger@aol.com
   ~ MichelleRivera1@aol.com
   ~ sbest1@elp.rr.com

THE NINE ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:

1 ~ What's Next? Anthrax in Food by Robert Cohen
2 ~ Pilot Whale Massacre
3 ~ Fishing Group to Challenge Manatee Protection
4 ~ Job Opportunity
5 ~ On Animal Rights From The Animal Perspective by Jim Willis
6 ~ Dateline, September 11, Rainbow Bridge
7 ~ Excellent Newspaper Series - "Destined to Die"
8 ~ Mourn Not
9 ~ Memorable Quote

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~1~
What's Next? Anthrax in Food
by Robert Cohen - i4crob@earthlink.net
http://www.notmilk.com

Remember when America banned the import of meat from England?

The Russians have banned all meat and dairy exports from Florida, claiming that American foods carry the threat of Anthrax poisoning:

http://just-food.com/news_detail.asp?art=43857&app=1

Today's column is dedicated to three groups:

GROUP NUMBER ONE
The hundreds of government workers who read my column and visit my website each day, and the agents who have suspected me of agricultural terrorism.

GROUP NUMBER TWO
The government authorities who censored America's ANTHRAX story, and the newspapers who decided not to tell Americans the truth about the horrible epidemic, the pain, the loss.

GROUP NUMBER THREE
The hundreds of animals who were quarantined and then destroyed in America two months ago because they were infected with ANTHRAX.

Had the first two groups made truth their priority, America could very well have had time to determine an ANTHRAX strategy. Had news of the third group's fate reached Americans, we might have averted news that is today on the front page of every American newspaper.

By hiding facts from those seeking truth, one often comes face to face with the consequences of deceit.

If you tell a lie to cover a truth, you may one day find it necessary to invent a new series of lies to prevent others from discovering your original sin.

Ignorance's remedy, then, is to always look truth directly in the face.

American health regulators have feared ANTHRAX long before the most recent incidents linked to terrorism. Faced with telling the public the truth about America's ANTHRAX cattle epidemic, government officials elected to contain and then censor the story that has now become America's worst nightmare.

Yesterday (October 17, 2001), I was contacted by an investigator from USDA's agricultural bio-terrorism team. I armed that agent with the information of America's ANTHRAX epidemic.

Evidence of infected cows and cattle have all but disappeared from the Internet.

Last summer, millions of farm animals were destroyed in Europe because of a less serious disease, Foot and Mouth, also known as Hoof and Mouth. Humans do not catch Foot and Mouth from cattle, yet, millions of dollars were invested in America to prevent rumors or outbreaks. Had Americans witnessed that illness here, we might very well have all become vegetarians. USDA could not permit such a change. After all, their mission is not to protect consumers. Their primary objective is to protect meat and milk producers.

When word of ANTHRAX spread in August, American newspapers found nothing to report.

That should have been the opportunity to deal with TRUTH.

ANTHRAX is here.

Given the opportunity to face facts, Americans are versatile enough to improvise solutions.

We have not been given that opportunity.

Today, Congress is closed. The U.S. Post Office may be next. Businesses are affected. Mail room employees may soon be wearing protective Haz-Mat suits.

I have been asked by USDA not to reveal where the ANTHRAX epidemics occurred. I have been asked not to share my own creative visions of how terrorists could take ANTHRAX to a new level of terror and fear.

One does not need great imagination to know what is next.

Vegetarians of the world, unite. It is time to teach meat eaters and milk drinkers that eating the flesh of diseased animals and drinking their body fluids does not do one's body any good.

Compassion to animals has not been my major mission. Compassion to humans comes first. If I had my way, all of the farm animals would die a natural death, and no new ones would be born to feed and harm those who consume saturated animal fat, cholesterol, pesticides, antibiotics, dioxins, and the diseases of today and tomorrow.

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~2~
Pilot Whale Massacre
A Team of Environmentalists attacked when videotaping the slaughter of pilot whales
from Herma Caelen - herma.caelen@win.be

Taiji, Japan, October 10, 2001 - A team of environmentalists, two American and one Japanese, were attacked today in the coastal village of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture as they videotaped the slaughter of more than twenty pilot whales.

Hardy Jones, executive director of marine conservation organization BlueVoice.org said "we were videotaping the brutal massacre of a pod of pilot whales for webcast on our streaming website in order to generate international awareness of this cruel practice," said Jones. BlueVoice.org is based in Petaluma, California and was founded by Jones and film actor Ted Danson.

The whales had been driven from the sea by fishing boats into a small bay near Taiji. These notorious drive fisheries are part of a government supported hunt on dolphins and small whales, which kills some twenty-thousand such animals each year in Japan. "The fishermen threatened us on a number of occasions during our stay in Taiji. On one occasion they threatened BlueVoice.org director Larry Curtis of Naples, Florida and Japanese associate Sakae Fujiwara with a knife. "On several occasions the fishermen said that if we did not stop videotaping the drive fishery we would be killed,” said Mrs. Fujiwara, a citizen of Japan.

While filming the slaughter of the pilot whales the environmentalists were confronted by two fishermen who attempted to steal the teams cameras and rip out the video tapes. Threatening the BlueVoice team with a heavy rod slamming them with a construction hard hat the assailants repeatedly said they would kill the environmentalists if they were not given the tapes. "When we fended them off our camera equipment they held us against our will then attempted to force us to accompany them to an area where there were many more fishermen," said Jones. "That did not seem like a good idea so we broke free and after a prolonged struggle during which we fought them off the entire way, we made it back to our hotel."

"For several days we had kept the pilot whales alive by showing up with our cameras each time they tried to kill the pilot whales. Our appearance would cause them to shut down operations and go away to figure out what to do next. This morning they went out in a driving rain at 5:00am, perhaps thinking we wouldn't want to go out in that weather," according to Jones. But we were there and obtained shots documenting the killing of this entire pod of pilot whales, including large numbers of new born calves. One entire end of the bay turned red with blood.

"We also kept our cameras running during part of the time we were under assault," said Curtis. "We can certainly document the charges we are making. Hardy Jones has been fighting to stop the slaughter of dolphins in Japanese waters since 1979. He is a well known documentary film producer whose most recent work is appearing on national Geographic World Channels. Larry Curtis is a respected marine videographer and stills cameraman. Sakae Fujiwara of ELSA Nature Conservancy.

The video work we are doing here in Japan will appear on streaming video web sites within the next few days. The video will also be cut into a forthcoming production entitled, "A Real Horror Film." Video is available.

For additional information go to bluevoice.org and www.animalchannel.org http://www.dauphinlibre.be/futo.htm (in French)http://bluevoice.org/dolphin/save.html

Protest Addresses:

Premier Minister Japan, M.Yoshiro Mori
Fax : (0) 81-3-5511-8855
E-mail http://www.iijnet.or.jp/sorifu/kantei/foreign/comment.html

Liberal Party Japan - ldp@hq.jimin.or.jp

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~3~
Fishing Group to Challenge Manatee Protection
from Ariana Huemer - AHuemer@hsus.org
HUMANElines - A Project of the HSUS and Fund for Animals

Despite significant inroads made in manatee protection earlier this year, the Florida manatees are in trouble again. This time, the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), a salt-water fishing organization, is petitioning the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) to undo the protections recently granted to manatees, including manatee sanctuaries and enforcement of boat speed zones in manatee habitat. The CCA will be presenting a petition to the FWCC, citing increased manatee numbers, requesting that the manatees be either downlisted from "endangered" to "threatened" or be delisted altogether. However, the CCA's petition is based on shoddy data that completely ignore such crucial factors as yearly adult survival, reproduction rates, population demographics and habitat stability.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Please contact the FWCC and Florida Governor Jeb Bush and let them know that you OPPOSE the delisting or downlisting of manatees as long as the threats to manatees and to their habitat continue to grow. Let them know that any criteria used by the FWCC to consider downlisting or delisting the manatees must be reviewed by population biologists with manatee expertise. Write to:

1) Mr. David Meehan, Chairman
Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 South Meridian St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600
ph: 850-487-3796
Email: gfcmail@gfc.state.fl.us

2) Governor Jeb Bush
The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
ph: 850-488-4441
fax: 850-487-0801
email: jeb@myflorida.com .

You can also attend the Oct. 31st FWCC meeting in Key Largo to speak on behalf of manatees. Contact susannahlindberg@earthlink.net for more information.

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~4~
Job Opportunity

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The Great Ape Project - International
www.greatapeproject.org

The Great Ape Project - International is a non-profit, registered 501c3 organization working to raise the legal and moral status of nonhuman great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans). GAP seeks to include the nonhuman great apes within the community of equals by establishing for them the basic protections that only human beings currently enjoy.

REQUIREMENTS:

* demonstrated experience in nonprofit organization fundraising and management
* a commitment to gaining for nonhuman great apes the change in moral status sought in the "Declaration on Great Apes"
* a willingness to speak on behalf of nonhuman great apes in a manner that reflects their worth as individuals, while simultaneously rejecting the idea that other animals are adequate replacements for exploitation
* creativity, insight, and ability to work with people in a manner conducive to cohesion and respect
* proficiency in basic computer skills, including email, internet, and basic management programs
* phone, writing, and speaking skills
* ability to work independently, without close supervision
* initiative in planning and running specific projects

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

* Short- and long-term strategic planning
* Operational and programming activities
* Developing and maintaining sound financial practices and management
* Marketing and public relations
* Media promotion, follow up and interviews
* Fundraising, including but not limited to grant writing, special events, and direct communication with donors and potential donors
* Maintaining records and documents, and ensuring compliance with federal, state and local regulations
* Regularly reporting to the Board and its Managing Committee regarding the state of the organization, including programmatic, administrative, financial and personnel matters
* Assisting in the development, production and marketing of the organization's semi-annual publication
* Networking with and establishing sound working relationships with organizations, individuals, and others
* Maintaining a working knowledge of significant developments and trends in the field.
* Informing the board on the condition of the organization and important factors influencing it.

JOB EXTENT AND COMPENSATION:

The Executive Director will hold a full-time, salaried position. Compensation and benefits commensurate with experience. This position will be executed from one's home office.

HOW TO APPLY:

Send resume and letter of interest to:
The Great Ape Project
PO Box 532
Woodbury, CT 06798
Or via email at: gap@greatapeproject.org (no attachments: please send resume in plain text form within your email)

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~5~
On Animal Rights From The Animal Perspective
Copyright Jim Willis 2001
tiergarten@onebox.com
http://jimwillis0.tripod.com/tiergarten/

We are the animals. We have neither more nor less worth than the human animal. We were not placed on this Earth for your use, benefit, or entertainment. Most of us preceded you by millions of years. We are all, including the human animal, part of the fabric of Life and we each serve our purpose. For centuries, you have made subjective assessments of our "value" and "intelligence," and the intelligent among you have recognized that we are as "valuable" and "intelligent" as we need to be to fulfill our purposes.

While your championing of our "rights" is often noble, it is also an artificial human concept. In most instances you are simply seeking to restore to us what you have taken away - our freedom, our habitats, our inherent right to live without confinement, fear, pain, abuse, exploitation, manipulation and destruction.

We are not a replacement for human companionship. We are not your children. We are not a commodity. We are to be respected for who we are, and our animal natures and our specific needs must be taken into consideration. Every attempt to make us what we are not, human - or worse, possessions - is an insult to the sum and substance of what we are: Animals. Whenever you acquire us it is your responsibility to ensure that it is a mutually beneficial relationship for all of our natural life. You may earn our trust, respect and even love, but you "own" us by your definitions, not by ours.

It defies logic that despite thousands of years of interaction between our species and yours, humans still do not comprehend some of the basic truths - that all dogs have the capacity to bite, that all cats may scratch, that all horses must run, that cows need pasture, that wildlife belongs in the wild, that most animals need the companionship of their own kind, that if you upset the natural order the result may be extinction or population explosion, and that we all feel pain and discomfort to the same degree as you.

While we appreciate your efforts on our behalf, we urge you to look to your own history that shows lasting change is accomplished by reasonable people, by intelligent debate, by carefully considered legislation, and by compassion. Anything less may make a mockery of the goals and jeopardize that which you seek to accomplish for us.

Every use of an animal, for research, for meat, for fur and hide, for profit, for education, needs to be considered individually. Your ethics committees may debate those uses, but they frequently do so on the basis of a perceived "need" and the human assumption that humans were endowed with the right to make decisions for animals. You have usually demonstrated by your ignorance that you are not qualified to do so.

There is one basic premise from which taking a life must be considered: All Life is Sacred. Your academics may debate that, your religious scholars may argue the point, and your nonbelievers may scoff at it...however, we believe you know it in your hearts to be true, as we know it in ours. Our blood runs as red as your own. We kill for sustenance, in self-defense, from instinct and without malice. Should your reasons be any less honorable? Imagine yourself in our place, where the sanctity of life is not ideology but the very instinct of survival. It is not in our power to hold you accountable for your actions, but most of you believe you will answer to a higher authority. Your actions toward animals will not be exempt and turning away from the problems will be judged as complicity.

We are the animals. Appreciate us for who we are. Protect our habitats. Spare us pain and suffering. Stop exploiting us for financial and other gain. Pay attention to our needs and our natures. Fulfill your obligations as stewards and regard our lives as sacred as your own. In so doing, you will achieve a harmony that has been lacking in your lives, and which is abundantly apparent in ours.

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~6~
Dateline, September 11th, Rainbow Bridge
from Linda1546@aol.com

On the morning of September 11, 2001, there was an unprecedented amount of activity at the Rainbow Bridge. Decisions had to be made. They had to be made quickly. And, they were.

An issue, not often addressed here, is the fact that many residents really have no loved one for whom to wait. Think of the pups who lived and died in hideous puppy mills. No one on earth loved or protected them. What about the many who spent unhappy lives tied in backyards? And, the ones who were abused. Who are they to wait for?

We don't talk about that much up here. We share our loved ones as they arrive, happy to do so. But we all know there is nothing like having your very own person who thinks you are the most special pup in the Heavens.

Last Tuesday morning a request rang out for pups not waiting for specific persons to volunteer for special assignment. An eager, curious crowd surged excitedly forward, each pup wondering what the assignment would be.

They were told by a solemn voice that unexpectedly, all at once, over 4,000 loving people had left Earth long before they were ready. All the pups, as all pups do, felt the humans' pain deep in their own hearts. Without hearing more, there was a clamoring among them - "May I have one to comfort?" "I'll take two, I have a big heart." "I have been saving kisses forever."

One after another they came forward begging for assignment. One cozy-looking fluffy pup hesitantly asked, "Are there any children coming? I would be very comforting for a child 'cause I'm soft and squishy and I always wanted to be hugged." A group of Dalmatians came forward asking to meet the Firemen and be their friends. The larger working breeds offered to greet the Police Officers and make them feel at home. Little dogs volunteered to do what they do best, cuddle and kiss.

Dogs who on Earth had never had a kind word or a pat on the head, stepped forward and said, "I will love any human who needs love."

Then all the dogs, wherever on Earth they originally came from, rushed to the Rainbow Bridge and stood waiting, overflowing with love to share - each tail wagging an American Flag.

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~7~
Excellent Newspaper Series -- "Destined To Die"
submitted by Shell of http://www.theanimalspirit.com
FeralPlace@aol.com

The Indianapolis Star has been running an excellent, eye-opening series titled "Destined To Die." This series exposes the heartbreaking number of animals that are killed each year at the Humane Society of Indianapolis and the lack of an aggressive spay/neuter and public education program. Due to this series, Chief Deputy Mayor Michael O'Connor and Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson are now taking a closer look at the shelter and how it operates.

I encourage everyone to read these articles and then bring up the same issues with your own local shelter. Does your local shelter have a high-volume, low cost spay/neuter clinic? How much of the shelter's funding goes towards spay/neuter and public education? Do some research and make sure that your local shelters are working to their maximum potential. Don't forget -- shelters depend on public support. Don't just find fault and criticize -- become involved with your local shelter as a volunteer or donate supplies for the staff and animals.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do is make sure that your own companion animals are spayed/neutered. If you are looking to add a new companion animal to your family -- adopt! Shelters cannot possibly lower the killing rate if the general public continues to treat companion animals as disposable merchandise.

Shelter employees and volunteers, veterinarians, rescue workers, and the community must all work together to help fight the problem of companion animal overpopulation.

The most recent article from the series can be found here:
http://indystar.com/print/articles/humane17.html

Links to the entire series can be found on this page as well.

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~8~
Mourn Not
by Arthur Stringer

Mourn not him who hates his cage too well
And beats against the bars row by row,
But weep for him who learns to love his cell
And when the door swings wide, is loath to go.

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~9~
Memorable Quote

"Killing an animal to make a coat is a sin. It wasn't meant to be and we have no right to do it. A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she's truly beautiful !"
~ Doris Day

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Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
P O Box 7053
Tampa, Fl 33673-7053
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/
-=Animal Rights Online=-
&
Advisory Board Member, Animal Rights Network Inc.,
not-for-profit publisher of The Animals' Agenda Magazine
http://www.animalsagenda.org/
The Animals' Agenda Magazine: WebEdition
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
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