IDA Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Demonstrations’

This year’s International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos (IDAEZ) – on Saturday, June 11 – is quickly approaching. IDA is pleased that Lily Tomlin is again supporting this global event and the actions of advocates around the world who will hold outreach events and demonstrations to educate the public about the tragic affects of confining elephants in small, urban zoo enclosures.

Lily is urging everyone to participate:

Elephants were never meant to be confined in zoos, where they are suffering and dying prematurely. Please help me share this important message by participating in the International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos on June 11, a unique event that brings the world together to stop the suffering of elephants in zoos.

Last year there were events in more than 30 cities worldwide that educated thousands of people around the world. You can help make this year’s Day of Action an even greater success by organizing or participating in an event near you.

Events are already scheduled in California, Florida, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Texas and Washington, and internationally in Canada, Spain and the UK. Click here for a full list of scheduled events. (New events are being added all the time so check the list often – or add your own event!)

If your city isn’t yet listed for an event, we can help you organize one. See the IDAEZ Get Started page for more information. IDA provides flyers and posters, issues alerts to advocates in your area so they can attend your event, and sends news advisories to the media.

The elephants need your help. Please join IDA and Lily Tomlin in putting an end to their suffering by taking part in the International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos.

For more information on IDAEZ click here or email IDAEZ@idausa.org.

IDA Staffer Hope Bohanec at MeatOut 2011

In Defense of Animals teamed up with Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) for this year’s MeatOut to feed 1,000 people vegan Tofurky sandwiches! On Saturday, March 19th, we had a fun vegan feed-in at the annual San Francisco peace rally calling for an end to the wars. We served yummy, vegan sandwiches, leaflet IDA vegan brochures, and spread the message that peace begins on your plate!

The San Francisco event featured sandwiches made with Tofurky slices, lettuce, tomato, and a non-dairy cheese spread. With every sandwich, rally-goers received a brochure explaining how a vegan diet can reduce heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, save animals from suffering on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, and conserve precious environmental resources. We got reports that the sandwiches were tasty and very appreciated.

Last year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors signed a ground-breaking resolution and officially named every Monday to be Veg Day and encourage all San Francisco residents to consider cutting the meat habit one day a week. In this spirit, rally-goers got a taste of vegan versions of meat and cheese to reduce animal products in their diet.

Join us for IDA’s Day of Online Action on Monday March 28 to ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg to cancel all plans to kill Canada geese in New York City!

For the past two years, the city has contracted with the Wildlife Services division of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to kill Canada geese. So far more than 2,800 Canada geese have been cruelly rounded up during molting season, when the geese shed their flight feathers and cannot fly away.

After being rounded up in pens, the geese are transported to mobile gas chambers where they are cruelly asphyxiated with carbon dioxide gas. It is a slow, painful and utterly unjustified death for these beautiful birds.

The city claims the geese are killed to make air travel safer, but killing geese does nothing to enhance airline safety.

For the past two years, new populations of geese have moved in to replace those killed. Repopulation by new flocks of geese is inevitable, totally undermining the effectiveness at reducing their numbers. It is abundantly clear that these repeated killings do not limit the traffic of Canada geese in the airways around NYC airports, and most likely, just increase it.

This year, everyone can speak up for Canada geese, from the comfort of your home, by participating in our demonstration on Facebook and Twitter. It’s easy to do and a great way to tell Mayor Bloomberg to stop the gassing of geese.

Here’s how it works:

Facebook Instructions – Speak up for Geese in 3 easy steps!

1. Make sure you have your protest “sign“. All you have to do is right click on the “Canadian Geese” image and choose “Save” to get this “sign”. Replace your profile photo to your “sign” and keep it up all week!

2. Follow this link and “Like” Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Facebook page. This will allow you to post comments on his page – under his posts. He has recently changed his profile to block comments, posts and tags but you are still able to respond to his posts. So even if what he posts has nothing to do with Geese – you can still leave a comment on his page letting him know that as a voter – you expect him to represent you and save these geese! Here is a sample comment that you can use :

The senseless gassing to death of hundreds of Canada geese must be stopped immediately! Make NYC’s airways truly safe by coming up with a plan that is humane and effective at keeping geese out of the pathway of airplanes. Other cities are doing it. NY can too!

3. Post a comment! Remember that your comments will be seen by followers of all ages and comments that include profanity or can be interpreted as “abusive” will probably be removed before the general public gets a chance to read them and may result in your profile being reported and/or deleted by Facebook. IDA is not responsible for any comments you may leave or action that results.

Twitter Instructions – Speak up for Geese in 3 easy steps!

1. Make sure you have your protest “sign“. All you have to do is right click on the “Canadian Geese” image and choose “Save” to get this “sign”. Replace your profile photo to your “sign” and keep it up all week! You can also change the background of your Twitter page to show this sign too!

2. Follow this link and “Follow” Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Twitter Page. This will allow you to Tweet targeted comments to his page using @ and #! Here’s an example of what that looks like :

#@MikeBloomberg  Make #NYC’s airways truly safe by coming up with a plan that is humane and effective at keeping geese out of the pathway of airplanes. Other cities are doing it. NY can too! @IDAUSA

By adding the @ before his name and IDAUSA (our Twitter Page so that he can see that all the comments are originating from the same action) – this will send your Tweet as a message to Mayor Bloomberg’s page. The #s help make your Tweet go viral by showing up in a search page for other people also tweeting about that topic. By putting a #in front of NYC or NewYork City – you are increasing your chances of getting other New Yorkers to Tweet your message too and joining your demo!

3. Tweet! Because Twitter is a constantly moving message system – you’ll want to Tweet your messages to Mayor Bloomberg a few times that day to make sure your Tweet doesn’t get buried. But remember messages and Tweets that include profanity or can be interpreted as “abusive” may result in your profile being reported and/or deleted by Twitter. IDA is not reasonable for any messages or Tweets sent or action that results.

We’ll have a staff person on IDA’s Facebook all day to answer any questions you might have that day! Don’t forget to also send a message via this alert too!

Thank you for speaking up for the Canada geese in NYC. Their survival depends on your voice!

There were 68 of us at the BarkWorks pet store in Thousand Oaks on Saturday, February 13. We marched back and forth directly in front of the store, inside the mall. BarkWorks has six of the 100 stores in Los Angeles that sell dogs and cats from puppy mills.

IDA, the Companion Animal Protection Society and other groups in Los Angeles are working on legislation with local officials to ban this inhumane animal commerce. This legislation would require that pet stores only show animals from the city’s six animal shelters and rescue organizations, not puppy mills.

During the march a woman approached me and told me about a friend of hers who had purchased a dog from BarkWorks. Shortly thereafter the puppy became ill. She wouldn’t return the dog to the store because by then she had falling in love with the puppy.  So she paid out $4,500.00 to save the puppy’s life. Of course, most puppies in the same situation would not have had such wonderful (and able) guardians to pay for their treatment.

If you live in (or are visiting) Southern California and would like to help with pet store demos, please e-mail Bill Dyer: bill@idausa.org.

After more than three years of campaigning, I am thrilled to announce that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has finally ruled to block the National Marine Fisheries Service’s killing of federally protected sea lions on the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington. In Defense of Animals (IDA) working with a grassroots group the Sea Lion Defense Brigade (SLDB) have organized against the state-sanctioned sea lion killing while the lawsuit that challenged the program languished in court for years. Now all that hard work has paid off and the sea lions are safe from harm!

The court said the government failed to meet the requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and cannot justify killing protected pinnipeds. The sea lion predation of .04 to 4.2 percent of the spring salmon run at the Bonneville Dam could not be considered a “significant negative impact” when the same agencies allow fisherman to take up to 17 percent of the returning fish.

IDA congratulates the prevailing plaintiffs, The Humane Society of the United States, Wild Fish Conservancy and two private citizens. This campaign exemplifies how different organizations, working on legal and grassroots fronts, can reach a common goal for animals.

This is a huge victory for both sea lions and salmon. We are relieved to see an end to the unethical, politically motivated killing of native, protected sea lions and we hope these agencies will now address the human-caused threats to salmon recovery – over-fishing, introduction of non-native fish, dams and habitat destruction.

Since the lethal removal program began in 2008, IDA and the SLDB have worked to protect the sea lions in the Columbia River and hold agencies accountable to the public for this controversial program. Activists organized dozens of demonstrations, met with government officials, and rallied on the steps of the Oregon capital. IDA fought a court battle to free one sea lion named “Willy,” who was misidentified by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and wrongfully removed from the river.

During the 2010 spring salmon season, IDA and SLDB launched a volunteer-based vigil near the Bonneville Dam to track government trapping and killing, and educate the public and fishermen. An RV mobile monitoring vehicle called the “Sea Wolf” kept a round the clock watch over the sea lions.

Among the core campaigners, spirits are very high right now. “I’m overjoyed at the court’s ruling,” exclaimed Bethanie O’Driscoll, one of the plaintiffs and grassroots organizers, remarked after the victory was announced. “It’s been a hard fight, but anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of a sea lion will understand why it was worth it.”

“I’m not going to miss getting up every morning at 5:00 a.m. to try to scare sea lions out of the traps,” joked Julie Farris, a dedicated volunteer who spent months on site at the dam. She reminisced about how our efforts to educate the public and even fishermen really paid off. “We made inroads with people who had thought of the sea lions as a nuisance.”

Our education efforts have set the record straight. These gregarious, intelligent sea lions are a part of the river ecosystem. They belong here as much as the salmon, and should never been killed for simply eating.

This blog was contributed by Matt Rossell, a former IDA employee.

IDA Activists in Action!

Last Thursday, marine mammal activists from all over the world, in over 55 locations, stood together in protest of the Japanese government’s support of the slaughter of dolphins and sale of live dolphins for the public display industry. Events took place at Japanese Consulates and Embassies, sending a resounding message to the Japanese government and a public purposefully kept in the dark that killing dolphins and sentencing the rest to a life of captivity is shameful. How the Japanese government can knowingly allow the human consumption of dolphin meat that contains dangerous levels of mercury and other industrial pollutants is beyond reason. Or how dolphins are mercilessly captured and shipped as cargo all over the world in order to perform demeaning circus-style tricks for food in grossly unnatural, artificial, and highly confined environments.

There is hope for dolphins and other cetaceans through public education and growing interest in finally bringing to an end the appalling dolphin roundups in Japan

Stay tuned for more updates. And if you haven’t already done so, please watch Oscar Award-Winning Documentary, The Cove and Animal Planet’s Blood Dolphins.

Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com

Emily Deschanel, the award winning star of the hit television series Bones, is endorsing IDA’s World Go Vegan Week. Emily says, “The 5th annual World Go Vegan Week is taking place this year from October 24th through 31st. This week is a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals, the environment and everyone’s well-being. A plant-based diet not only improves your health, it significantly reduces your carbon footprint and preserves resources for future generations. So please join me in creating a healthy future and go vegan for World Go Vegan Week.” Emily Deschanel

Emily is a supporter of animal rights and environmental causes and a long-time vegan. She advocates for cruelty-free makeup, organic cotton clothing and green lifestyles. Her resent wedding to writer-actor David Hornsby was a totally organic, vegan affair complete with vegan s’mores! Yum! Thank you Emily for using your Hollywood starlet status to help spread the message of a healthy vegan diet. To learn more about World Go Vegan Week and how you can participate, please click here.

Lady Gaga outdid even herself with her latest shocking “fashion” statement when she recently posed for Japan’s Men’s Vogue Magazine cover in a raw red meat bikini. Ok, you win Lady Gaga, or should I say Lady Gag-gag, we’re shocked and we’re talking about it. However, the dead animal hanging from her body certainly doesn’t win, and does need to be talked about.

Gaga has taken her “fashion” statements beyond soda cans in her hair and pearls glued to her face. Her latest flaunt has implications beyond mere material draped to her body, she has draped someone else’s body on her body and I, for one, am offended. Someone, or several someone’s, died for her statement.

Perhaps we should thank The Queen of Outlandish for giving us an opportunity to say “gross!”, as we should when we see cut up pieces of a dead animal. But beyond the gross factor, this blatant display was obviously intended for shock value. It is shocking to see bloody body parts from a tortured animal. Images of slaughterhouses and chain saws and gore are shocking; and what is even more shocking is that we eat it! Millions of animals endure extreme confinement, misery, pain and death on farms every day and it is all completely unnecessary as a plant-based diet is not only humane and healthier, it reduces our personal carbon footprint significantly.

I hope you will join IDA and go “gaga” for the compassionate vegan diet during World Go Vegan Week October 24 – 31. Let’s educate Lady Gaga on how we can end the suffering of farmed animals while taking care of our bodies and the planet. If you are interested in celebrating World Go Vegan Week with us by coordinating an event in your area, please contact hope@idausa.org.

As anyone who has done protests will tell you, circus demos can be the most difficult. Parents are on guard because they’re with their kids. They’re out for a day of fun and are suddenly confronted with protesters, perhaps where they’d least expect protesters to be. What could be more wholesome than the circus? Unfortunately, circuses with animals are far from wholesome. The animals who travel with these circuses are trucked or taken by train from city to city, spending the majority of their time in chains (elephants) or tight confinement (the other animals) when not being forced to perform completely unnatural and painful acts. So when we found out that Ringling Bros. Circus was heading to Portland for the Labor Day weekend, we were motivated to try and get as many compassionate folks out as we could to help educate Ringling’s patrons.

Ringling has a long history of animal abuse and neglect – everything from animal deaths to a list USDA violations a mile long. The most recent developments in Ringling’s long history of abuse are an undercover investigation  which showed Ringling beating elephants and other animals, and recently released, never before seen photos of Ringling abusing baby elephants.

Portland is a city of compassionate, animal-loving people. It’s a progressive town with no tolerance for abuse of any kind and this protest of circus animal abuse was certainly right in line with this city’s values. We mobilized through Facebook and e-mail and on opening night had the largest crowd ever at a circus demo in Portland – 80 people. It was inspiring. And we weren’t done there – all of the protests we held throughout the weekend were well attended – tripling the numbers of folks we had at last year’s demos.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to come out and help. Someone asked me on Sunday if I thought we were truly making a difference, and I responded that if we were absent, we certainly wouldn’t be, but I do believe these peaceful shows of force do make a difference and hopefully plant a seed of compassion in even the most hardened circus supporter.

IDA's Barbara Stagno at The Rally for Canada Geese in NYC

A rally for the Canada geese of New York City. It could have been a dream, with all those people lining the steps of City Hall, but it was real. A day before, I had prepared my talk, and wrote about how wildlife does not belong to government agencies. I asked the crowd – the then imaginary crowd – to join with me in demanding changes for how our government deals with wildlife.

When I wrote those words I had no idea that one day later, more than 150 people would join the IDA rally for the Canada geese. I couldn’t have imagined the passionate and enthusiastic voices of Councilmember Letitia James and State Senator Eric Adams, who spoke about growing up with the geese in Prospect Park…. playing with them, learning about them. Or, as Senator Adams so eloquently said, learning that, in essence, they are really not that much different from us.

When I saw that spirited crowd, I knew that it was true. That people cared deeply and had come to speak up about putting a stop to the government killing of wildlife. To demand change.

Those words I spoke on Thursday August 12, 2010, could be addressed to any mayor in any city. They reflect the feelings of communities all across America, who have had their precious birds taken from them and slaughtered.

Mayor Bloomberg made the ludicrous statement that it comes down to people or geese.

It’s not about people or geese.

It’s about ways to co-exist peacefully with the animals of this earth.

It’s not about making airline flights safer. Killing resident Canada Geese has absolutely nothing to do with airline safety, as these geese don’t fly that high! There are, however, real ways to make airline flying safer, ways that do not require us to kill – and ways that other cities around the world currently engage in.

We will not stand by while you kill the geese who were over bred to satisfy hunters, and who flew away from the hunted areas to come live in the cities where they are safe.

We welcome them in our parks where they can be protected.

If there are too many geese today in Prospect Park, or Central Park, or Flushing Meadow Park, it’s because of government mismanagement, and we will not stand by while you make excuses to wipe out these wonderful flocks that live in our parks.

The people here in front of City Hall today are sending a message. The government’s war on wildlife needs to end and it needs to end now. Humane solutions exist and we demand that they be used.

Let’s start right here in New York City, home of a diverse community of compassionate and tolerant citizens, who have welcomed millions of people from around the world to take refuge in our city.

Out of this heritage of kindness and tolerance, let us reverse the senseless killing of animals perpetrated by government and herald in a new era for wildlife.

Please take moment right now to send a letter to Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Council and Save Our Geese!