A letter from PETA has prompted tennis star Andy Murray from removing references to hunting from his hotel’s website.  Here’s an excerpt: “The idea of hunting cats and dogs, such as your beloved Maggie May and Rusty, would rightly make most of us sick, and yet the animals listed on the Cromlix website have exactly the same capacity to feel pain and suffer.”

Andy Murray’s Hotel Cromlix in Scotland

Hunting is the only “sport” in which only one team knows that it’s playing.  One could argue that eating meat from free roaming animals who are hunted is more humane than eating factory farmed animals, but I can’t help but think that the majority of people who hunt do so because they enjoy killing.  And, while it’s true that the hunted animals lived freely before being killed, they often leave behind offspring who are too young to take care of themselves.  To the humans, hunting is a recreational activity, but to the the animals who are killed and orphaned, it’s a tragedy.  To learn more about hunting and to see what you can do to stop it, please visit PETA’s hunting page.

Morrissey, the former frontman for the Smiths and animal rights activist, has released a song entitled, “The Bullfighter Dies.”  Here are the relevant lyrics:  “Mad in Madrid / Ill in Seville / Lonely in Barcelona / Then someone told you and you cheered / You cheered ‘Hooray! Hooray! the bullfighter dies / And nobody cries / Because we all want the bull to survive.“

Who would believe that, in 2014, thousands of people gather in arenas in Mexico, Spain, France and Portugal and pay money to to watch men stab bulls to death?  It’s so egregious and archaic.  How can anybody possibly route for the bullfighter?  To learn more about bullfighting and find out what you can do to help, please visit PETA’s webpage entitled Bullfighting: A Tradition of Tragedy

The Associated Press reports that “more than 1,000 acrobats, clowns and other circus employees marched through downtown Mexico City on Tuesday to protest a new ban on animals in circuses,” claiming that banning  this “250 year old” tradition will leave many people out of work and will reduce the number of customers who attend the circus.  About 3,000 to 3,500 animals will be affected, including elephants, tigers, camels and hippos.  Domesticated animals are also banned.

Sign reads, “Mexicans want circus with animals” Source: AP

Animals used in circuses, like elephants and big cats, are deprived of the chance to do anything that comes naturally to them and are often beaten into submission in order to perform.  In addition, they are confined to small boxcars on trains for days at a time when traveling between cities. Please join your local animal rights group(s) to protest the circus when it comes to your town.  To learn more about animal cruelty in circuses, please visit PETA’s circus webite, Ringling Beats Animals.  Let’s hope that the ban on wild animals in circuses will open peoples’ eyes to the cruelty of bullfighting, which is prevalent in Mexico.

After the deaths of four captive dolphins used in a “swim with dolphin” concession at the Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) in Singapore, local animal rights groups are demanding that the casino free the remaining 23 dolphins who kidnapped from the South Pacific. In response to the demands, RWS, which had revenues of $2.3 billion in 2013, defends the use of dolphins, saying “Well-run zoological facilities provide strong and inspiring messages to visitors and can make a tangible difference to animal conservation.”

Photo credit: Animal Concerns Research and Education Society

Holding wild animals captive for entertainment is unspeakably cruel. The Cove, a film that documents the barbaric round up of wild dolphins in Japan, exposed the world to the world to an annual atrocity that had been hidden from public view.  As more people learn about the dolphin round up and their life of deprivation in tanks, pressure to close these concessions will mount.  Dolphins, who are among the most intelligent animals on the planet, have committed suicide in captivity.  We must continue to fight until every imprisoned dolphin is free.  To find out how you can help, please visit The Cove.

A  animal rights activist in England has threatened to dive in front of Cambridge rowers to protect baby ducklings who are being “mowed down” by fast-moving boats.  The local rowing association says that requiring the rowers to slow down for part of the seasons is “unreasonable.”

Photo credit: Duncan Lamont

Crashing into animals when it can be avoided is inexcusable, especially when it’s being done as part of a recreational activity.  Does the rowing association really think that the lives of ducks are less important than someone’s workout?  When baby ducks are nearby, slow the hell down!