Born Free USA Blog
A Victory for the Underdogs!
Manufacturer of Bird Poison Avitrol Goes Out of Business
I can’t help it: I’m always rooting for the underdogs. In our society animals are often the ultimate underdogs. But even among animals, people tend to make distinctions and assumptions that place concerns for one species over another. Often the reason for such bias is unfounded or based in misunderstanding.
Dinosaurs Are Gone! They’re All Dead! Get Over It!
A few weeks ago a team of paleontologists from the United States and Canada gave us this Mesozoic Era news flash: A careful examination of bones suggests that Tyrannosaurus rex would bite each other. Take that, Donner Party!
Help Us Win With the Body Shop!
Voting Ends Sunday as We Try To Capture $10,000 in both the U.S. and Canada
The Body Shop, with more than 2,500 stores in more than 55 countries, has helped us before, and now it's doing so again by pitting us against two other organizations in an in-store and online popularity vote that ends Sunday. The winner in each country gets $10,000! Please vote now for us in the United States and in Canada — that's right, you can do both!
I Would Rather She Was a Witch Than That Which She Is
Why I Don’t Believe in Politicians Who Don’t ‘Believe in’ Evolution
Look, I’m a Canadian, and we have our own numbskulls in public office, but if I don’t speak out against something that worries and even frightens me, I deserve the consequences, and they are profound.
Sanctuary Stay — Part 3
Born Free USA’s Lorry Marvin Exchanges Smiles With an ‘Ex-Pet’ Monkey
Come walk in my shoes as I tell another tale from my visit to the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary.
Upon our arrival on a muggy Sunday afternoon in Dilley, Texas, all I wanted to do was run to the nearest enclosure and start snapping pictures of these captivating monkeys! I stifled my excitement long enough to introduce myself to the very generous and accommodating sanctuary staff, drop my luggage in the pleasantly air-conditioned volunteer trailer, and change into clothing more suitable for the uneven earth and blaring sun. Then it was time!
Canada Has Done Something Environmentally Right!
Yukon-Alaska Border Blitz Nabs Wildlife Smugglers
Here are two news items from the same day — Tuesday, Oct. 12. The big one (in Canada, I mean) was that for the first time ever Canada failed to win a seat at the Security Council of the United Nations. The small one was that after a two-week blitz of the border between the Yukon and Alaska, wildlife officers uncovered more than 50 violations of both federal and territorial wildlife protection laws, and made 23 seizures of parts, or entire carcasses, of protected wildlife species, including walrus, black and grizzly bears, sea otter, caribou, moose, Dall sheep, eagle and bowhead whale.
Oddly, perhaps, both items cheered me.
Animal-Derived 'Medicines' Problematical
Got arthritis? Try tiger bones. Suffer from delirium? Get hold of some rhinoceros horn. Sexually stymied? Ingest a seahorse.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM, but various forms are practiced throughout Asia) has been around for thousands of years, and likely has helped millions of people feel better, but it cries out for updating in terms of compassion to all living things. Whereas at one time wild animals employed in the TCM pharmacopoeia were abundant and humans’ pharmaceutical use of them limited, today creatures are savagely and systematically exploited for dubious — if not demonstrably false — medicinal purposes, as well as non-medical applications.
The Absurd Elk Hunt Proposal in Ontario
Illustrating the Hypocrisy of Wildlife Management
We had elk. They were once found throughout much of eastern North America. Scientists at the time considered the eastern elk to be a form distinct from other elk in other parts of the continent. But, as is true of so many eastern species that bore the brunt of European settlement that moved from east to west across the continent, they were wiped out. The eastern elk is extinct, not seen in Ontario since the last one was recorded in 1893.
