Turning Free-Roaming Horses Into Border Guards

December 24, 2008

Dissident Voice
by Lee Hall

It’s bad enough that the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management can’t keep its sticky fingers off free-living horses of the West.

It’s absurd enough the Bureau claims a five-figure population of free-roaming horses and burros is too big — while ranchers, covetous of any blade of grass or drop of water these horses find, graze more than five million cows, buffalo, sheep and goats on public lands.1

It’s shameful enough that the Bureau takes the horses and burros — animals the agency is responsible for protecting — away from the land to which they were born, and severs these animals’ own relationships. That it privatizes these horses and burros — more than 216,000 of them over the years — selling them at auctions and sale yards, or “adopting” them off — taking $125 per head, under current law, as the minimum adoption fee.

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Letter to the Editor: Co-existing with deer, not killing them, is the answer

December 22, 2008

Delaware County Times, Pennsylvania, US
by Lee Hall
Legal Director, Friends of Animals

To the Times:

On Dec. 15, Swarthmore College had planned to kill the deer that meander* on and around Crum Woods — some 220 acres of mostly forested land straddling the Crum Creek in Swarthmore.

At the 11th hour, advocates from the local area were advised that no permit for the shoot had yet been issued from Pennsylvania’s Game Commission.

Perhaps the state officials — or the school administrators — are recalling the danger posed by sharpshooters in suburban communities. (A bullet can travel from two to two and a half miles.)

But the bureaucratic delay might not last long. The killing could still be approved as I write, or at some point during the holiday recession, or in seasons to come.

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New York City Horse Allies Take Historic Stand

December 08, 2008

New York — On December 6th, New York City Councilmember Tony Avella joined animal-rights activists for a cold Saturday press conference to call for a ban on horse-drawn carriages.

Photos (by Edita Birnkrant for FoA and Elizabeth Forel for CBHDC): Dr. Deborah Tanzer, Adele Murphy, Christine MacMurray, and other horse advocates hold banner.

Friends of Animals and the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages told NY1, Fox News, Channels 2 and 11, NTDTV (a Japanese-English news station), the Daily News and others it’s unjust to enslave horses to the tourist business, and New York City should outgrow the tradition.

Allied advocates co-ordinated simultaneous vigils in more than a dozen other major world cities.

“We recognize cruelty to animals is no longer appropriate and the abuse that you see going on, while it might seem like some sort of holiday tradition, is far from it,” said Councilmember Avella, who has a pending bill to ban the industry. Avella joined advocates at Central Park’s Grand Army Plaza.

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Friends of Animals Year-End Appeal

December 03, 2008

We’re at a turning point in animal advocacy. Sarah Palin’s entry into the international spotlight has brought forth, from many, a resounding call: It’s high time we let free-living animals live.

It wasn’t surprising to our members, but Palin took the rest of the world aback when publicly suggesting that Alaskans will starve without a freezer full of moose.¹ I have visited Alaska often. Plant-based foods abound in stores from Anchorage to the Aleutian Islands, from Barrow to Denali, from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay. In Anchorage, I eat at the Snow City Café, whose menu features mushroom burgers and grilled vegetable panini — not moose. The only moose are a few who wander downtown occasionally.

In a pending lawsuit, we continue to challenge Alaska’s government which, under Palin, has promoted aerial wolf- and bear-killing, increasing the moose and caribou for hunters although only 14% of Alaska residents hunt.

The main issue surrounding the hunting and eating of animals is not need, but old habits. Humans can change, although changing ingrained customs does take profound care. An increasingly unbalanced climate’s impact on the web of life underscores the importance of such efforts.

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