The Elephant In The Living Room is a documentary feature-length movie, produced by Michael Webber and featuring our new hero for the animals Tim Harrison, that examines the subculture of exotic animal owners and dealers in the U.S. The film takes a balanced approach to the issue, showing compassion for the animals and for a misguided human whose dysfunctional love for two lions is sure to end badly. Its main focus is Harrison’s efforts to help the lions and their owner by convincing him to let them go to a sanctuary. The story takes some unexpected twists and turns, and I’ll warn you that there is one heartbreaking scene. But this film is so important that everyone should see it.

The ownership of exotics is unfortunately alive and well in the U.S., as we know all too well at IDA. We are fighting right now to stop an elephant from being brought to a proposed pseudo-sanctuary in Maine. Despite altruistic claims, it’s just one more story about someone wanting to possess a wild animal, no matter how detrimental it is for that animal’s welfare. Like many parts of the U.S., there is no law in Maine banning the ownership of exotic animals.

The Elephant In The Room is by far is one of the most compelling and enlightening films ever made about the issue, and it’s one you should not miss. It’s not in major theaters, but you can own it on DVD (a bargain for $19.99) or Blu-Ray by visiting the film’s website and ordering a copy (it says “pre-order” because the actual release is next week). And be sure to “like” the film by visiting its Facebook page.

Disclaimer: IDA has had no involvement in the making or distribution of The Elephant In The Living Room. We just think it’s such a significant film that we’re helping to spread the word about it. Buy a copy and share it with friends or arrange a special in-home screening to educate people about this important issue.

Join IDA’s Elephant Task Force to find out what you can do to help elephants!

Sara Gruen’s book, Water for Elephants

Many people will be drawn to the movie as a lovely – though sometimes gritty – historical romance. They will watch the abuses heaped upon the animals and think about how sad it “used to be” and how much better everything is today. They will be wrong.

Elephants forced to work in circuses today, like those in the era depicted in Water for Elephants, are forced to lead unnatural, deprived lives. They suffer as Rosie suffers, year after year, with no Jacob to come to their rescue. It is no better for the other wild animals used by circuses, who spend their lives in cages and are brutalized into performing tricks for the public. They need your help.

The opening of Water for Elephants will provide us with a unique opportunity to tell people that the kind of cruelty depicted in the movie still goes on. So please save these dates: April 14 (Los Angeles premier), April 17 (New York premier), April 22 (general U.A. release).

Please plan to join IDA in bringing attention to the suffering endured by animals in the circus. You can help by coordinating or joining in events outside your local theaters to let moviegoers know that circus cruelty is not a thing of the past.

Please join our Elephant Task Force and Sign Up for IDA’s Enewsletter for more information about this opportunity to enlighten the public about circus cruelty.

The circus industry is hoping that the film will bring a shot of glamor and glory to a fading form of entertainment. There have already been efforts to use the film to generate sympathy for “Rosie” and to raise money for the International Elephant Foundation, an organization created and run by and for the circus and zoo industries. We need to inform the public that there is nothing glamorous or romantic about the kind of animal abuse rampant in circuses today.

Rather than helping circuses to flourish, Water for Elephants can and should be a catalyst for bringing about an end to the use of animals in entertainment. Elephants used in circuses, films, commercials, and other forms of entertainment are deprived of all that is natural in their lives. They have been torn from their families and subjected to unimaginably cruel training to break their spirits and make them easier to control. They are dominated through negative reinforcement, and trainers and handlers carry the constant threat of the bullhook, a steel-tipped device similar to a fireplace poker used to prod, stab, beat and intimidate elephants into submission.

Please note: Though the film portrays the circus’s treatment of animals in a negative light, IDA cannot endorse it. Unfortunately, the film’s producers did not take the book’s message to heart, instead choosing to use live animals during production of the movie. Rosie is played by the elephant Tai, who is owned by Have Trunk Will Travel, a California-based company that uses elephants for rides and for entertainment.

This blog was contributed by Deborah Robinson, IDA’s Captive Elephant Specialist.

Photo Credit : Mia Kiander

Standing atop a promontory in Taiji, Japan, I’m enduring an agonizing wait to see if today will bring another merciless slaughter of dolphins. I’ve been in Taiji for four days now and have witnessed over 60 dolphins lose their lives at the hands of the Taiji fishermen. On November 29th, a large pod of more than 50 spotted dolphins were killed, while a pod of 10 risso’s dolphins were destroyed the following day. On both occasions, babies were among the victims. I am deeply troubled that almost a year after The Cove won the Academy Award for Best Documentary the fishermen have employed a new killing method that reduces the flow of blood into the cove’s waters. They have also perfected the transfer of dead and dying bodies under blue tarpaulins so that the bodies are rarely seen as they are moved to and from the grisly gutting barge and butcher house.

On previous days, I’ve watched as so-called “banger” boats round up the dolphins at sea by creating a wall of sound with incessant banging on metal pipes, which drives the dolphins into the cove. Once the net has been dropped, they are then driven farther into the cove and up onto the rocky beach beyond public sight for slaughter. In some instances, as with the pod of risso’s dolphins I observed, the pod gets separated in such a way that some dolphins are slaughtered well before others, and those awaiting their gruesome end must listen as their family members are murdered. The scene is a profound horror, and one can only imagine the terror, pain, and fear that these highly intelligent and sentient beings must be experiencing as they are hunted down and their lives extinguished.

Currently there are 50-60 captured dolphins being held in small pens to be trained for a life in captivity. They can spend months in these pens swimming in mindless circles, undergoing daily “training” sessions, in which they learn that food now comes from a human, and only after performing a meaningless trick like jumping in the air, touching a ball with their nose, or waving their fin. I cannot express how desperately sad and disturbing it is to see these incredible beings, who were living free and wild only days and weeks before, suffer such degradation and exploitation in this way. Their lives have been shattered, their freedom and families lost, and now their dignity taken too. It is heartbreaking and shameful.

As for the fate of the dolphins this day, I am happy to report that due to bad weather, they managed to get away and escape the hunters’ conniving trap. For all the dolphins who won’t be as lucky as these were, please take action to help them.

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.

The star this week : Taco Salad

A few months ago, I saw the movie Julie & Julia. Being an armchair chef, it’s surprising it took us so long to see a movie that starred food. I mean – we love food, movies, books about food that are turned into movies – so what took us so long? I admit I was charmed at first. I mean, here was a devoted, vintage-clothing-wearing, amateur foodie who wore pearls in the kitchen – one of my own personal dreams,  although in my dream, the pearls would be fake just like my “meat”. I was intrigued by finding someone who, on the surface, was a little like me.  But as you can imagine, she lost me at the infamous  “Lobster Killer” scene and I never really bounced back.

Yes, after years of meeting and knowing literally thousands of vegans from all over the world, and working at the largest animal advocacy agencies on the planet, including IDA, I can say with complete confidence that no one in the world loves food the way vegans do. We think about food constantly. We read labels with a Christmas Morning eagerness, searching for those deal breaker words: Whey, Egg Whites, Skim Milk Protein, Casein. We sit around talking about food like the gals in Sex in The City talk about shoes. We send emails to all our friends and family telling them about new products with an eagerness that can only be compared to Beatle Mania . . . or these days Bieber Mania. We love food almost as much as we love saving animals and the planet. So why not find a way to make everything vegan? All those casseroles that feed a family of four for a week, or those childhood favorites you think about from time to time when you think about mom… My husband and I are making them vegan. For as long as it takes,  we’ll be veganizing every recipe in The Betty Crocker Cookbook and sharing our tips and secrets with you. We’ve always said we can make anything fat and vegan … now we’re putting this claim to the test! Thank you, Lobster Killer, for inspiring a project that I suspect you would hate. . .

On the menuthis week : Butterscotch Brownies, Herb Roasted Chicken & Vegetables, Taco Salad, Clams in White Sauce, Caramel Sticky Rolls

Some Highlights Thus Far : Garlic Cheesy Biscuits, Osso Bucco, Buffalo Chicken Wings, Turtle Cheesecake, Stuffed Crust Pizza, Cheeseburger Pie, Tuna Casserole

Please know we have kept the original names for the recipes so you can follow along in The Betty Crocker Cookbook if you would like and that all recipes are 100% Vegan! For more recipes and to follow this vegan venture, check out MeetTheShannons.net and keep checking back here at IDA’s blog. . . we’ll be sharing tips and recipes here as well!

This is an incredible opportunity to maximize the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition’s (SJDC) efforts to stop the slaughter and urge Ms. Mizuho Fukushima, Japan’s new Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety to make public the health risks associated with eating dolphin meat and institute a ban on it’s sale without delay.

With The Cove set to be released in Japan this year, the primary goal of the SJDC will be to use the film as a medium to convince the Japanese public to oppose the cruel hunt and sale of dolphin meat throughout their country. So far, only 600 out of 126,000 million people in Japan have seen the film and those who did were completely outraged.

Our aim is to prevent the Japanese government from issuing 23,000 permits this fall and with the likelihood that dolphins will continue to be tainted with mercury and other harmful chemicals in the future, an end to the dolphin hunt once and for all.

We couldn’t buy better exposure for our campaign to stop the slaughter, consumption, and live capture of dolphins in Japan. A billion people, including media outlets around the world, are slated to tune into the event that will undoubtedly create a surge of pressure directed at the Japan Fisheries Agency to stop allowing dolphins to be slaughtered, and their mercury-laden meat to be eaten by Japanese citizens.

We are so thrilled that The Cove will be released this year in Japan, because combined with the exposure through the Oscars, the Japanese government will no longer be able hide the issues behind media blackouts.

Whether The Cove wins Best Documentary or not, this is a critical victory for getting the information to the Japanese public!

IDA is delighted to report The Cove is now an official runner for an Oscar award for Best Documentary!  As a result, we can expect the next month leading up to, and including, the March 7th Oscar presentations to expose billions of people around the world to the Save Japan Dolphin Coalition’s passionate work to stopping the cruel capture, slaughter, and consumption of dolphins in Japan. The global spotlight on The Cove will also bring necessary pressure on the Japan Fisheries Agency to make public the calamitous health risks, including mercury poisoning, associated with eating dolphin meat. This is especially true for residents in Taiji, the small fishing village where the documentary is based, and the focus of our greatest efforts to ending the slaughter.  University of Hokkaido Professor Tetsuya Endo just revealed the alarming results of a study that conclude residents in Taiji have 10 times higher mercury levels than average Japanese citizens.

The government in Japan will not be able to shield the fact that it has been allowing the poisoning of Japanese people who readily eat contaminated dolphin meat to occur. Moreover, it will no longer be able to cover up the barbaric dolphin slaughter with routine media blackouts on the issue. We hope to use the momentum of the Oscar Award nomination and potential victory to enlighten the public in Japan, so the hunting and consumption of mercury-contaminated dolphins will end, once and for all.

Special thanks to The Cove filmmaking crew, including Director Louis Psihoyos, Executive Producer Jim Clark, Producer Fisher Stevens, and the Oceanic Preservation Society for creating a winning documentary!