According to the NY Times, a city in southern China is “trying to lower the profile of its much-criticized dog-eating festival. The feasting is expected to go ahead as scheduled this weekend, but local officials have taken steps to deflect outside attention from the annual event, at which thousands of dogs are consumed.”  The article goes on to say that, “the dog meat trade has become a key target for Chinese animal rights advocates. In 2011, a group blocked a truck transporting nearly 500 dogs to a slaughterhouse and paid $18,000 to free them.”

Photo: China Network/Reuters

This NY Times article provides us with a hook to ask our dog-loving, meat eating friends why we should be any more disturbed by people eating dogs instead of pigs, cows and chickens.  As Mercy For Animals asks in its  campaign, “Why love one and eat the other?”  That said, ending or compromising any animal eating event is a victory, especially for the victims.

Lawmakers in a French National Assembly committee voted to officially change the legal status of animals from “personal property” to “sentient living being.”  The law still must pass the full Assembly and Senate.  The current law states that animals have no more rights than objects.  The 30 Million Friends Foundation collected 700,000 signatures to petition for the change. A recent poll found that 89 percent of the country approves of the change.  Since 2009, the European Union governing body has officially considered animals sentient beings under the Lisbon Treaty, but many national governments have not yet updated their laws.

Foie Gras: Product of Terroir (the land) or Product of Terror?

If animals are reclassified as “sentient living beings,” will their circumstances improve?  Foie gras (fatty liver of ducks or geese), a staple in the French diet, is so cruelly produced that it is described by activists as a “delicacy of despair.”   Is this change merely symbolic (which is better than nothing, I suppose) or will regulations be changed in animal enterprises that will actually require the businesses to treat them as living beings instead of inanimate objects?

Poachers in Kenya have killed Satao, “one of the last surviving great tuskers, bearers of genes that produce bull elephants with huge tusks reaching down to the ground.”  Satao’s murder comes on the heels the slaughter of another “legendary tusker, Mountain Bull, deep inside the forests of Mt. Kenya.”  Apparently, Satao was “so intelligent that he knew he needed to protect his enormous tusks by intentionally hiding in bushes so they couldn’t be seen.”  And, while he did survive one brutal attack with poisoned arrows, he ultimately fell victim to the ivory trade.

Elephants are among the most intelligent land animals.  They communicate with language; they visit the gravesides of their deceased family members; and, as mentioned in the article, they hide from their biggest enemy, humans. They know they’re under attack, but their ability to defend themselves against armed poachers is limited.  Find out how you can help protect them by visiting The Tsavo Trust.

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.

Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN) is calling for the USDA to fine MIT after a lab worker cleaned a cage without removing a rabbit inside of it. In December, the USDA fined Harvard Medical School $24,000 after finding repeated animal welfare violations that resulted in the deaths of four monkeys since 2011.

What right do we have imprisoning, experimenting on and killing animals in laboratories? These animals didn’t choose to sacrifice their freedom, and they didn’t voluntarily donate their bodies. They don’t belong to us. To make matters worse, we treat them like inanimate objects in labs — storing them in small cages, depriving them of socialization and the outdoors and cutting them open with no painkillers. The irony is that using animals in research is unreliable and outdated. It continues because it’s a money-making enterprise. For more information and to see how you can help, please visit Stop Animal Experimentation Now.