After watching Blackfish, the documentary film about captive orcas at Sea World, Virgin Airlines CEO Richard Branson instructed his tour company Virgin Holidays to refrain from booking travel “with any organization that won’t guarantee that they won’t display dolphins and whales that are taken from the wild,” according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

The capture of Lolita, who is now at the Miami Seaquarim

The impact of Blackfish can’t be overstated: musicians are canceling their Sea World performances; protests are on the rise and ticket sales are declining. The whole world is watching. But we can’t be complacent because Sea World is a multi-billion dollar company that will stop at nothing to protect their biggest attraction: the killer whale shows. To be a voice for the orcas, please visit the Take Action on the Blackfish website.

HLN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell provides the advocacy community with a rare opportunity to explain why horse-drawn carriages cannot be operated humanely or safely in urban areas.

Animals exist for their own purposes. Using them to entertain us is inherently inhumane and invariably abusive, as documented in films like The Cove, Blackfish, An Apology to Elephants and Blinders, which is my documentary about the plight of NYC’s carriage horses. Please visit the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages to see how you can help bring an end to urban horse-drawn carriages.

Worldwide outrage didn’t stop the Copenhagen Zoo from killing a healthy baby giraffe named Marius “to prevent inbreeding.” Citing animal welfare and inbreeding concerns, the zoo also refused to send Marius to one of the other zoos that volunteered to take him. According to CNN, the giraffe was killed with a rifle and “dismembered in front of an audience that included children and fed to the zoo’s lions, tigers and leopards.” The Copehagen Zoo described Marius’ death as “euthanasia,” which is defined as “the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma.” But Marius was healthy. He should never have been shot in the head with a rifle.

Wild animals belong in the wild, not in zoos behind bars or in enclosures. The “conservation” and “education” claims used by zoos are inaccurate, but, even if true, they wouldn’t justify the lifetime imprisonment of animals. Please encourage people in your network to boycott the zoo and learn about how wild animals really live by observing them in the wild or by watching wildlife documentaries on TV.

Taking the lead from NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chicago lawmaker Ed Burke has introduced a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages. According to the Chicago Tribune, Burke says “They’re a nuisance, they’re a traffic hazard, it’s cruel to the animals, and we should be able to beat New York City to the punch.”

Miracle Mile in Chicago

By forcing horses to pull carriages in the streets with aggressive taxi drivers, ambulances and buses, we are treating them like motor vehicles instead of living, breathing animals. For that and many other reasons, horse-drawn carriages cannot be operated humanely or safely in urban areas. Several major cities, including London, Beijing, Paris and Toronto have already banned horse-drawn carriages, and NYC and Chicago are on the brink of doing the same. But we need to help the horses pulling carriages in other cities around the world from Boston to Mumbai. To find out how you can help, please visit the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages.

During the 2013 dolphin hunting season in Taiji, Japan, 834 dolphins were killed and 164 taken captive for aquariums and swim with dolphin concessions. In a ground-breaking editorial, The Japan Times calls for an end to the “herding, capturing and slaughtering of dolphins” in Taiji, challenging the government’s claims that the practice is a “tradition” that “adheres to the principles of the law.”

Slaughter in the Cove

Worldwide outrage, pressure from the U.S. Government, increased activism and resistance from within Japan will eventually lead to an end to the dolphin hunt. In the meantime, please encourage the people in your network to rent The Cove and to boycott aquariums and “swim with dolphin” concessions.