Jeers to L.L. Bean for continuing to offer the Mad Bomber hat this season, which is lined with rabbit fur from China. Has the company gone mad? How could a company that sells fur products claim to be committed to environmental stewardship? 

“We sell products that enhance our customers’ relationships with the outdoors, and continually seek to minimize the adverse impacts that producing, marketing and distributing these products may have on the environment. We encourage wise stewardship of natural resources and respect for the environment among all of our stakeholders,” the company claims on its website. 

Since when does animal torture equate with respect for the environment?

Whether animals are trapped or farmed, it’s all unjust. Fur animals are warehoused in cages, every natural instinct thwarted. They suffer neck breaking, are stuffed into boxes pumped full of unfiltered engine exhaust, or electrocuted before being skinned. Surely a company that has been around since 1912 can come up with a material to keep its customers warm without participating in animal abuse.

Send a tweet to L.L. Bean president Christopher McCormick at @llbean and tell him you will boycott L.L. Bean until it discontinues the Mad Bomber hat. 


 

We have a cheer today for two U.S. Senators who are speaking up about the fact that American airports are still choosing to keep their runways clear by shooting birds out of the sky instead of adopting available technology that is shown to prevent bird strikes. Congressmen Jim Moran (D-VA) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) are pressing the FAA to adopt avian radar which is already being successfully used by NASA, the military, and other countries around the world, as a way to humanely and safely prevent bird strikes at airports. 

Avian radar, which can spot and even predict the presence of large birds around a specific area, still isn’t being used at U.S. commercial airports despite the fact that 3 years ago, the FAA commissioned a report showing how effective avian radar can be. Instead, airport wildlife “managers” routinely shoot and kill birds that gather around runways, claiming it’s the only possible way to keep them from colliding with airplanes that are landing or taking off. 

This is an issue that Friends of Animals is very well aware of. We have been working hard to end the mass killings of wildlife at airports in New York and New Jersey and have capture and release systems implemented instead. Last year, we filed a suit against government wildlife agencies and the Port Authority  in response to the fatal shootings of three snowy white owls at JFK Airport after learning they were among the over 9,000 birds that were shot down at the city’s airports in 2012. 

A recent ruling by a federal judge, however, decided  the government and Port Authority were operating “within the legal limits”. But the judge, while ruling against us, also found the government’s did not provide any information “describing when (if at all) a given species might be dealt with in a non-lethal way” and that the reporting requirement for when birds were shot at JFK is “disturbingly vague.” 

The fight isn’t over yet, though… we plan to appeal this decision in the 2nd circuit and are pursuing other legal options to halt the killings of wildlife at NY and NJ airports by demanding that the non-lethal methods which are already in use around the world are implemented in the United States as well.