Willie Nelson

February 01, 2010, 10:1AM MT
Rich Crook, a veteran rapid response manager for Best Friends Animal Society, will lead the society’s effort as part of the Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH), which is on the ground in Port-au-Prince ready to help animals affected by the earthquake.

Crook will arrive Monday in Port-au-Prince where he will lead a team of veterinarians to set up a series of animal care clinics in the capital city.

“My mission will be similar to previous assignments we had in Ethiopia and Peru, but somewhat different than Hurricane Katrina,” Crook said. “We’ve learned from the ARCH assessment team that there isn’t the acute need that we found in Katrina, and we are dealing with animals that typically roam free in the city.”

Crook will work with a current on-the-ground team that includes representatives from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the American Humane Association and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. He also will work closely with the Dominican Republic Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SODOPRECA).

Crook’s mission to Haiti follows an ARCH team assessment of the situation Jan. 23-25 that included a short field visit to Port-au-Prince and meetings with Haitian governmental officials. Once the ARCH clinics are set up, Crook said the emphasis will be making sure that animals are vaccinated to stop the possible spread of disease and to ensure an adequate supply of vaccines. He expects to be in Haiti for at least a week and perhaps longer.

In the past, Crook has led Best Friends’ rapid response efforts in natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, Gustav, the floods in Mexico and Iowa, and the earthquake in Peru. He also led Best Friends’ work in the airlifting of dogs from the war zone in Lebanon and brought a deceased serviceman’s dog back to his grief-stricken family in the United States.

The ARCH coalition was co-founded by the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Key coalition members are Best Friends, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) the American Veterinary Medical Foundation, the American Humane Association, United Animal Nations, and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (United Kingdom).

We at Best Friends thank our members for their donations and interest in our efforts to help with Haiti animal relief. All donations sent to Best Friends through Haiti-specific donation mechanisms are put in a restricted fund that will be used solely for Haiti animal relief.

For ongoing updates about Best Friends’ involvement in Haiti, visit our Rapid Response group on the Best Friends Network.

How You Can Help

Text SAVE to 90999 to donate $10 to
Best Friends to help Haiti’s animals.

I’m sure you are already very savvy on all this but basically you:
·       Text the word SAVE to 90999 to give $10
·       When prompted, reply with YES to confirm your one-time gift
·       The $10 one-time donation will appear on your next mobile bill
As always , please let me know if you have any questions,

Thanks for any help with this,

Silva Battista
Co Founder
Best Friends Animal Society
5001 Angel Canyon Road
Kanab, Utah 84741
(435) 644 4896 Office
http://network.bestfriends.org

About the ARCH Coalition
Animal welfare organizations formed the Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH) in a collaborative effort to bring aid to as many animals, and in as short a time, as possible. At present, ARCH partners include: International Fund for Animal Welfare, World Society for the Protection of Animals, American Humane Association, Best Friends Animal Society, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (UK), In Defense of Animals, American Veterinary Medical Association, American Veterinary Medical Foundation, Antigua and Barbuda Humane Society, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, United Animal Nations, Kinship Circle, One Voice, Swiss Animal Protection and Petfinder.com Foundation.

Photograph (c) WSPA/IFAW

Please Act Today!

Letters needed in support of the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act and the Pet Safety and Protection Act.

Dear Humanitarian:

REFUGE FROM CRUEL TRAPPING ACT (H.R. 3710)

As the trapping season commences across the country with the beginning of fall, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) has introduced legislation to end the use of brutal traps on furbearing animals within federal wildlife refuges.

H.R. 3710, the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act, which was submitted with a total of 35 original cosponsors, helps to restore the original intent of the National Wildlife Refuge System by placing a ban on the use of cruel body-gripping traps within the refuge system.

Currently, animals living within national wildlife refuges are at risk of falling victim to body-gripping traps where they may endure excruciating pain.

More than half of our nation’s 550 refuges currently allow trapping using steel-jaw leghold traps, Conibear traps and snares. Steel jaw leg-hold traps clamp shut with bone-crushing force on an animal’s leg; the pain is so intense that an animal may chew off his or her own limb to escape on three legs.  Conibear traps are designed to crush the animal’s spinal column for a quick kill.  However, the trap often misses and clamps down on the chest or pelvis, crushing but not immediately killing the animal who suffers horribly.  Snares are among the oldest form of trap, a simple noose made of thin wire, which tightens around an animal’s neck or body as he struggles to get away.

H.R. 3710, the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act, will put an end to use of these traps within the refuge system. Body-gripping traps have been restricted in several states and leghold traps have been banned in 89 other nations. Because body-gripping traps and snares do not discriminate, they jeopardize the birds, deer and threatened and endangered species inhabiting wildlife refuges.

Bald eagles, Canada lynx, gray wolves and other imperiled species are frequent victims of traps set for other species.

A national Decision Research public opinion poll showed that 79% of Americans believe trapping on national wildlife refuges should be prohibited, while 88% believe wildlife and habitat preservation should be the highest priority of the refuge system.

Trappers, who comprise less than one-tenth of 1% of the population, already have access to millions of acres of public and private lands outside the refuge system for their activities.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Please write or e-mail your U.S. Representative today, urging him or her to cosponsor H.R. 3710, the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act. For more information about the bill, to find your legislator or to send an email please visit AWI Compassion Index.

PET SAFETY AND PROTECTION ACT (H.R. 3907 and S. 1834)

Class B dealers sell non-purpose-bred dogs and cats for research.  They are supposed to acquire the animals they sell only from other dealers, pounds, and individuals who have bred and raised the animals
themselves.  However, these dealers routinely flout the Animal Welfare Act, obtain animals through fraud, deception, and outright theft, and falsify their records.  They are notorious for keeping the animals in horrendous conditions. 

USDA spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars each year unsuccessfully trying to regulate them and has acknowledged that it cannot guarantee that dogs and cats are not being acquired illegally for use in experiments.

A National Academy of Sciences Committee report released on May 29, requested by Congress and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), concluded there is no scientific need to purchase dogs or cats from Class B dealers for NIH research.  According to the USDA, there are 10 Class B dealers selling live dogs and cats for experimentation.

Of these, one has a five-year license suspension, and six are under investigation for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. In addition, there are at least 15 investigations underway related to illegal
activities uncovered during the traceback of records.

H.R. 3907, introduced by Congressman Mike Doyle (D-NY), and S. 1834, introduced by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), titled The Pet Safety and Protection Act, will end this abuse-ridden system by prohibiting Class B dealers from selling dogs and cats for use in experimentation.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Please write or e-mail your U.S. Representative and both U.S. Senators today, urging them to cosponsor H.R. 3907 or S. 1834, the Pet Safety and Protection Act. For more information about the bill, to find your legislator or send an email please call us or visit AWI Compassion Index.

We hope you will share our Dear Humanitarian eAlert with family, friends and co-workers, and encourage them to contact their legislators.

When contacting your members of Congress, please respectfully request a response from them on the issue(s) so that you, as a constituent, will know their position.

As always, thank you very much for your help.

Sincerely,
Cathy Liss
President

Individuals: sign on to this letter & send your request & comments to President Obama and your Representatives in one easy step. click here to support the moratorium

Organizations: we still need your support! Upload sign on form here and send to ewa@equinewelfarealliance.org

A Unified Call for an Immediate Moratorium on Wild Horse & Burro Roundups

And a humane, fiscally responsible plan for preserving and protecting the iconic,

free-roaming wild horses and burros of the American West

President Obama, Members of Congress and the Department of the Interior:

We, the undersigned, request major changes to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro program. This must begin with an immediate moratorium on all roundups. While we agree that the program is in dire need of reform, and we applaud your Administration’s commitment to avoid BLM’s suggested mass-killing of horses, the plan outlined in October by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar raises numerous concerns. These include:

• Perpetuating the flawed assumption that wild horses and burros are overpopulating their Western ranges.

In reality, the BLM has no accurate current inventory of the 37,000 wild horses and burros it claims remain on public lands.

Independent analysis of BLM’s own numbers reveal there may be only 15,000 wild horses remaining on public lands.

• Continuing the mass removal of wild horses and burros from their rightful Western ranges: The BLM intends to spend over $30 million in Fiscal Year 2010 to capture more than 12,000 wild horses and burros. This stockpiling of horses continues even as an astounding 32,000 are already being held in government holding facilities at enormous taxpayer expense.

• Scapegoating wild horses and burros for range deterioration even though they comprise only a tiny fraction of animals and wildlife grazing our public lands. Far greater damage is caused by privately-owned livestock, which outnumber the horses more than 100 to 1.

• Moving wild horses and burros east off their Western homelands to “sanctuaries” in the east and Midwest at an initial cost of $96 million creates significant health concerns if animals adapted to western landscapes are managed on wet ground and rich grasses.

Removing tens of thousands of horses and burros from their legally-designated Western ranges and moving them into government-run facilities subverts the intent of the 1971 Wild Free-roaming Horse and Burro Act, which mandated that horses be preserved “where presently found.”

A 2009 DC district court case held that “Congress did not authorize BLM to “manage” the wild horses and burros by corralling them for private maintenance or long-term care as non-wild free-roaming animals off the public lands.”

We appreciate your Administration’s recognition of the horses’ value as an ecotourism resource. However, the display of captive, non-reproducing herds in eastern pastures renders them little more than zoo exhibits, further discounting the contribution to our history and the future of the American West.

We believe that workable solutions to create a healthy “multiple use” of public rangelands, protect the ecological balance of all wildlife, and preserve America’s wild horses and burros in their rightful, legally protected home can be achieved.

We are calling on the Obama Administration to reform the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Management Program.

We ask that you reverse the current course and immediately take the following actions:

1. Place a moratorium on all roundups until accurate and independent assessments of population numbers and range conditions are made available and a final, long-term solution is formalized.
2. Restore protections included in the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. Update existing laws that protect wild horses by reopening certain public lands to the mustangs and burros, thus decreasing the number in captivity. Return healthy wild horses and burros in holding to all available acres of public land designated primarily for their use in 1971. If these lands are not available, equivalent and appropriate western public lands should be added in their place.
3. Support federal grazing permit buybacks. Reduce livestock grazing and reanalyze appropriate management levels for herd management areas to allow for self-sustaining, genetically-viable herds to exist in the west.
4. Conduct Congressional hearings regarding the mismanagement of our wild herds and further investigate the inability of BLM to correct the shortcomings of the program as audited by the Government Accountability Office’s 1990, 1991 and 2008 reports.

Supported by the undersigned on November 18, 2009

Click here for a list of supporting organizations, celebrities and scientists.

2,500 Wild Horses to be Rounded Up in Dead of Winter

Dear Supporters,
Despite a significant public outcry, BLM plans a helicopter round up to remove thousands of wild horses in northwestern Nevada, an area called the Calico Complex in a remote and starkly beautiful landscape of volcanic outcrops, steep canyons and wide valleys.

It is home to over 3,000 wild horses and represents the last stronghold of the once large herds of American mustangs that roamed the west by the millions.

The attack on Calico is scheduled to begin in December and continue through the dead of winter. Calico is a challenging environment in winter when bitter winds howl and blizzards are common. If BLM were truly interested in preserving wild horses they would not run them over treacherous terrain in winter when all wildlife are simply trying to survive by expending the least amount of energy possible.

Regardless, BLM intends to round up from 2486 to 2747 mustangs, taking away from them what they value most… their freedom and the families.

They plan to release only 264 horses (80 mares, all treated with infertility drugs, and 184 stallions) back onto 1.5 million acres of our public lands, and incarcerate the rest in holding facilities already bursting at the seams.

Taxpayers pay over $100,000 a day to feed these captives who were removed to make room for more welfare cattle on public lands.

Because only 264 wild horses will be turned back into four herd areas, each herd will be genetically non-viable and left vulnerable to inbreeding.

A spokesman for BLM denies that the agency is managing our wild herds to extinction, but actions speak louder than this hollow promise.

Only token, remnant herds will remain in this, the last stronghold of the wild horses. The onslaught is scheduled to begin December 1 and continue through the end of February 2010.

The Cloud Foundation is asking you to stand up for these horse and demand that the round up be halted. It is nothing more than government sponsored cruelty.

Call (202) 456-1111 and email President Obama?Call (202) 224-3121 and email your Congressional Representatives Call (202) 208-7351 and e-mail Interior Secretary Salazar Do it today.

Happy trails,
Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director
Our mailing address is:
The Cloud Foundation 107 South 7th St Colorado Springs, CO 80905
Our telephone:719-633-3842

The real conditions that confront the project of world peace at first may seem daunting. Now with the Cold War well behind us and the first experiments with global order completed, we can look at a larger picture.

We cannot help but recognize our planet as a sick body with the global crisis of peaceful democracy as a symptom of corruption and disorder. Global peace and global democracy share a common fate.

Despite the constant threat of violence and war, despite the sickness of the planet and its political systems, never before has the restlessness for peace and freedom been so widespread throughout the world.

Consider the interminable lists of grievances against the current global order, not only against poverty and starvation, not only asserting animal rights and the need for appropriate technology, and not only against political and economic inequalities and injustices,

but also against the corruption of life in its entirety.

In addition to the grievances there are countless proposals to reform the global system to make it more peaceful and democratic. All of this global ferment and all these expressions of fury and hope demonstrate a growing and indomitable desire for a democratic peaceful world.

Every sign of corruption, every act of violence and every crisis of democratic representation, on all levels of the global hierarchy, is confronted by a democratic will to peace.

Peace and love might seem out of place in a world like ours in which the global order bases and legitimizes its power in war, degrading and suspending all democratic mechanisms.

This crisis of peaceful democracy is not specific to Euro-America or any region of the world. The crisis of representation and the corruption of the forms of democracy is a planetary condition, immediately evident in all the nation-states, epidemic in the regional communities of contiguous states, and violently expressed at the global, imperial level.

The global crisis of democracy
affects every from of government in the world.

The interminable state of global war is a condition that contributes to the contemporary tendency toward the formation of a single, monarchical system of domination over the world. Movement towards global democracy equals movement towards world peace.