Animal rights activists in New York have staged four protests at the Manhattan home of Madison Square Garden president Andrew Lustgarten, demanding that he cancel a rodeo scheduled for June 2020. The ongoing protests are being organized by Animal Cruelty Exposure Fund (ACEF) and NYCLASS, animal rights organizations based in New York.

During the protest, Janet Enoch, Investigator of Showing Animals Kindness & Respect (SHARK), an organization that has been exposing rodeo cruelty for three decades, told bystanders why the rodeo is cruel: “Rodeos shock the animals to make them buck and appear wild. Rodeo contestants rake horses and bulls with spurs causing internal hemorrhaging. Rodeos use the buck strap which causes abdominal pain. In an effort to get the buck strap off, horses sometimes crash into walls often causing injury or death.  Animals should not be tortured for human entertainment.”

Agitated by the ongoing protests, Mr. Lustgarten’s neighbors are lashing out at the participants. On the evening of December 8th, a woman wearing pajamas exited a nearby apartment building and angrily confronted protesters before attempting to enter Mr. Lustgarten’s building to complain to his security team.

An angry neighbor attempts to enter Andrew Lustgarten’s building to complain about the protest.

For the past several years, ACEF has staged protests at the annual Professional Bull Riders’ event at Madison Square Garden, but the organization decided to move the protests to Mr. Lustgarten’s residence when it learned that MSG would also be hosting the rodeo.

“Calf roping,  steer wrestling, and other rodeo events are acts of extreme violence masquerading as entertainment,” said Nora Constance Marino, the President of ACEF. “Rodeos are nothing more than horrific acts of violence towards defenseless terrified animals, many of whom are mere babies torn from their mothers.”

As part of its ongoing effort to compel MSG to cancel the rodeo, ACEF launched a petition with Change.org.

Both ACEF and NYCLASS have vowed to continue protesting Mr. Lustgarten until he cancels the rodeo.

On Saturday, December 7th, several dozen animal rights activists with Caring Activists Against Fur (CAAF) and The Animals Battalion staged an anti-fur protest at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in Manhattan. In spite of pending legislation that would ban the sale of fur in NYC and the decision by Macy’s & Bloomingdales to close their fur departments, Bergdorf’s refuses to take fur off of its racks. The protest attracted the attention of thousands of pedestrians on 57th Street and Fifth Ave, the epicenter of Manhattan’s holiday shopping district.

In March, 2019, the Speaker of the New York City Council, Corey Johnson, introduced legislation to ban the sale of new fur products. In spite of widespread support among New Yorkers for a fur ban, the bill stalled after a prominent black preacher in Harlem, Reverend Johnnie Green, decried it as racist.

In op-eds published in New York City newspapers, African American animal rights activists criticized Reverend Green, who was hired by the fur lobby, for using racism to oppose a fur ban. In a Daily News opinion piece Jabari Brisport, a public school teacher running for New York State Senate, wrote “I found it insulting that the fur trade would use my community as a smokescreen. . . I’ve marched with Black Lives Matter in Charlottesville and gotten hit with tear gas by white supremacists.  I’ve been arrested while protesting a luxury housing development in Crown Heights. I know what a threat to the black community looks like. This fur ban ain’t it.”

Energized by the recent passage of a fur ban in the state of California, Voters for Animal Rights, a NYC-based advocacy group, has vowed to continue lobbying NYC lawmakers in support of the Council Speaker Johnson’s legislation.  At the same time, animal rights groups, including CAAF, Animals Battalion, Total Liberation New York and PETA, continue to target prominent retailers selling fur, including Canada Goose,  Nordstrom, Woolrich, Fendi, the Fur Source and Paragon Sports.

As part of a multi-year campaign to compel the sporting goods store Paragon Sports to stop selling Canada Goose and other coats decorated with coyote fur, NYC animal rights activists staged a night-time protest at the Brooklyn home of Zach Blank, the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Previous protests at his home took place during the day.

“We have sent him letters. We have sent him emails. We have protested his store for 2.5 going 3 years now, and he’s left us with no choice but to come to his doorstep to urge him to remove the fur from all of his racks.” said Leo Nardo, a protest organizer. “Zach Blank is directly responsible for the deaths of countless individuals who want to be with their families and to be loved just like the dogs and cats in our homes. It is 2019, there is no need to wear the stolen body parts of innocent animals.”

Canada Goose decorates the hoods of its winter coats with the fur of coyotes who are captured in steel leg hold traps and shot in the head.

In March, 2019, the Speaker of the NYC Council, Corey Johnson, introduced legislation to ban the sale of fur. “I believe it is cruel to kill an animal just for the purpose of people buying and wearing a fur coat. There is really no need for this,” said Johnson. ”In a progressive and modern city like New York, banning the sale of fur clothing and accessories is long overdue.”

In the weeks prior to a contentious public hearing for the bill at City Hall, the fur lobby hired a prominent black preacher in Harlem, Reverend Johnnie Green, to decry a fur ban as racist. “Fur has given black people standing, fortitude and strength in the face of bigotry.” In an op-ed in the Daily News, Jabari Brisport, a board member of Voters for Animal Rights, responded to this fur industry tactic: “As one of many African American animal activists who testified at the hearing in favor of the ban, I found it insulting that the fur trade would use my community as a smokescreen . . . I’ve marched with Black Lives Matter in Charlottesville and gotten hit with tear gas by white supremacists . . . I know what a threat to the black community looks like. This fur ban ain’t it.”

If the bill passes, New York City will join the state of California in outlawing the sale of fur.

After a press conference announcing a resolution calling on the New York City government to stop buying meat and other products from companies deforesting the Amazon, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams told TheirTurn that NYC schools should serve children plant-based meals to improve their health and to protect the planet.

“I think it’s so important that we engage in a real conversation about climate change and not not try to sugarcoat the issue. To talk about fossil fuel burning, to talk about tailpipes in cars and vehicles – yes, that’s fine.  But the real culprit is the overconsumption of meat, the overconsumption of beef. We were successful in NYC where we got processed meats out of our schools and a 50% beef reduction, but we need to go further. We need to get all meat out of our schools. All cheese. All dairy products . . . out of the schools.”

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is using his platform to reduce meat and dairy consumption in schools while promoting plant-based alternatives.

While Borough President Adams has, for the past several years, used his position to promote a plant-based diet for better health, the Amazon fires have provided him with a platform to promote the benefits to the planet of eliminating meat, dairy and other animal products from schools.  “Everyone is being saved when we start feeding our children the right food.”

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams holds a press conference at City Hall calling for the City to stop buying meat from companies that are burning down the Amazon in order to graze cattle and grow crops to feed them.

Borough President Adams is expected to run for Mayor of New York City in 2020.

On Friday, November 8th, Actress Elizabeth Lail participated in a ceremonial lighting of the Empire State Building to commemorate Sea Shepherd’s Blue For the Oceans Campaign.

Lail, who is best known for her role in the Netflix series You and is starring in the new film Unintended, spoke to TheirTurn about why she is using her celebrity platform to speak on behalf of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: “I think they’re incredible. Sometimes it’s so overwhelming to think about the environmental crisis and what we can do, so it gives me a lot of hope that there are organizations on the water doing the protecting, making it happen.”

Elizabeth Lail pulls the lever to symbolically activate blue lights on the Empire State Building ignited in honor of Sea Shepherd

Sea Shepherd volunteers, staff, and board members with Elizabeth Lail at the Empire State Building

Since 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been defending, conserving and protecting the seas and marine life through campaigns and direct action on its fleet of ships. In October, the Hamptons International Film Festival screened Watson, a documentary film by director Lesley Chilcott which chronicles the extraordinary life of Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson.