Owen Garrick, a businessman based in Oakland, California, ignored all of the courteous letters and emails asking for a meeting to discuss the 66 chimps abandoned in Liberia by the New York Blood Center, where he serves on the board. It should therefore have come as no surprise to him when local animal rights activists showed up at his desk wielding a banner and posters and staged a disruption in the lobby of his building.

Owen Garrick looks up from his desk to find activists with a banner and posters displaying his name and face

Only the activists didn’t visit Garrick’s place of business to talk because he had already made it clear that he wasn’t amenable. Instead, they showed up to educate his co-workers and neighbors about the moral crime he committed by leaving chimps to die and to inform Garrick that they will continue to protest until he and his colleagues at the NY Blood Center fulfill their promise to provide the chimps with lifelong care.

When protesters confronted Garrick in his office, his only verbal reaction was, “I’m going to get security.” He did, however, deliver a palpable non-verbal cue — bewilderment about how to handle a group of activists staging a loud protest in the lobby of his building during the lunchtime rush.

Owen Garrick paced back and forth as activists protested in the lobby

Owen Garrick paces the lobby while activists stage disruption

The activists suspected that Garrick was especially alarmed by the disruption being staged in his name because of his apparent effort to remain anonymous in the building. In the company directory in the lobby, his business, Bridge Clinical Research, is not listed. What is listed is a charity created by Garrick and his wife. Did Garrick intentionally leave his business off of the building directory because he is running it out of the office of his charity?

Owen Garrick’s company, Bridge Clinical Research, is not listed on his building’s directory

And why does Garrick use different suite numbers for the same office – Suite 013 and Suite LL13?

Owen Garrick runs his company out of the office of his charity

Primatologist Bob Ingersoll confronts Owen Garrick in his office

Please call Owen Garrick at the following two numbers, and ask him to reinstate funding for the chimps who he left to die with no food or water:
(510) 251-0490
(510) 835-1747

Historically, meat in China was used as a seasoning. Today, it’s the main course. The radical change in diet coupled with an exploding population has led to the rapid industrialization of animal agriculture — in a country where the humane treatment of animals has not yet entered the public consciousness. Brighter Green, a U.S. based public policy action tank, is attempting to change that.

Industrial agriculture in China has expanded with the increased demand for meat and the explosion of fast food restaurants

Using an all Chinese crew, Brighter Green produced a half hour film – What’s For Dinner? – that documents the surge in factory farms and the tragic impact they are having on the environment, public health and the animals. According to Executive Director Mia McDonald, Brighter Green is using the film as “a tool to raise public awareness about the negative impact of industrialized agriculture and the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet.”

The story is told through the eyes of a retired pig farmer, a vegan restaurateur in Beijing, a livestock entrepreneur, and residents of a city whose water supply has been polluted by factory farm waste.

In addition to exporting fast food restaurants to China, the United States has exported the fallacy that the meat and dairy-centric American diet is healthier than the traditional vegetable-heavy Chinese diet. The mainstream Chinese public has not yet connected the dots between the increase in the consumption of animal protein and the growing obesity and diabetes epidemics. The public also hasn’t made the connection between animal agriculture and the country’s food shortage, which could be curbed if the grain being fed to livestock was instead fed to the people.

Chinese people connect the dots between animal agriculture and their polluted water supply

According to What’s For Dinner?, there is hope, as vegan restaurants gain popularity in Beijing and other cities, and animal welfare organizations are increasing in number and influence. But the shift away from the newly-adopted meat-heavy diet has to occur quickly because, as the filmmakers point out, “Twenty percent of all people live in China, so what the Chinese eat and how they produce food affects not just China, but the entire planet.”

In China, the humane treatment of animals is not yet a part of the public discourse.

What’s For Dinner? is available for rent or purchase on Amazon Video.  To purchase the DVD, please contact Icarus Films.

As tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists descend upon the Fifth Avenue shopping district in NYC during the holiday season, animal rights activists are staging confrontational, educational, disruptive and highly-charged protests to curb the consumption of fur.

On December 13th, Caring Activists Against Fur demonstrated at the entrance of the Fur Source of New York, using video, posters and handouts to turn away potential customers while shaming those who dared to enter. During the two hour protest, the 15-20 customers who entered the store left empty-handed.

This woman said that she entered the store “to spite” the activists, even though they engaged with her politely before she entered.

In early December, Friends of Animals unveiled a “Flip Off Fur” billboard in Times Square and staged a highly-charged in-store protest at a retail store called Prato. According to Edita Birnkrant, FOA’s Campaign Director, the owner “flipped out,” and all of the customers evacuated the store.

https://youtu.be/n1zjWNbFRhw

Animal rights activists occupy the NYC fur store Prato

After occupying Prato, the activists staged a disruption at the Manhattan showroom of notorious fur designer Jason Wu. The employees, who locked themselves in, hid behind the mannequins as activists pasted the entrance with “Flip Off Fur stickers” and used a bullhorn to explain why they were targeting Jason Wu.

Activists paste “Flip Off Fur” stickers at the entrance of the Jason Wu showroom

Michael Dolling (left) and Bernard Jones “flip off fur” near the FOA billboard in Times Square

In late November, Jane Velez-Mitchell of JaneUnChained documented the confrontations between activists and fur wearers during a Caring Activists Against Fur protest at the luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman. While encouraging shoppers to watch the video being displayed by the activists, one man told Velez-Mitchell, “I’d like to punch you in the face.”

On December 11th, several anti-fur activists blocked Lady Gaga’s SUV as she left a gala in NYC and used a megaphone to confront her about the cruelty of her fur consumption. In less than one week, the video has been viewed by over 80,000 people and has received over 1,100 comments.

Animal rights activists in New York City blocked Lady Gaga’s SUV as she left a Billboard Women in Music gala in midtown. The protesters said that Lady Gaga appeared to turn up the volume on her radio in an effort to tune out the activists, who used a megaphone to inform her that the “50 dead animals” on each of her fur coats were either “gassed, anally electrocuted or skinned alive.”

Animals First told TheirTurn that Gaga could not escape the activists because her SUV was stuck in heavy midtown traffic and that, when the traffic did clear, her driver ran a red light.

Activists said that Lady Gaga appeared to turn up the volume on her radio to drown out the protest

Animal rights activists confront Lady Gaga about the cruelty of fur

Activists are pushed out of the way as Lady Gaga enters her SUV

In recent months, the same activists have staged provocative anti-fur protests targeting Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and Amber Rose, the hip hop artist. Media outlets in the U.S. and Europe reported on all of the protests, and videos taken by the activists have been viewed over five million times on YouTube and other social media platforms.

Kim Kardashian fur protest in NYC

As activists in New York City gathered to stage a three-venue protest to demand that the NY Blood Center (NYBC) reinstate funding for chimps who they abandoned in Liberia and the Ivory Coast, an NYPD officer criticized protesters for over ten minutes, arguing that they should target ISIS, which is killing “millions” of people, and protect Christians in Egypt instead of “talking about monkeys.”

Upon viewing this footage from the protest, The Gothamist posted a story entitled “The Best Protest Video of 2015”

Following the shocking tirade, activists staged protests at NYBC’s headquarters and at the nearby office and home of Laurie Glimcher, the dean of Cornell Medical College, who served on the board of NYBC when the decision was made to abandon the chimps.

NYPD officer says activists should be focused on ISIS and Christians being killed in Egypt.

Prior to the protest, an anonymous source at NYBC informed organizers that employees would be directed out of the back entrance. A team of activists was therefore stationed at that location in order to ensure that people exiting the building were educated about their employer’s crime.

Activists confront NY Blood Center employees as they leave the building from the emergency exit in a failed effort to avoid the protest.

At 5:15 p.m., activists marched to nearby Cornell Medical College to inform students, faculty and staff that the decision by their Dean, Laurie Glimcher, to resign from NYBC’s board did nothing to help the chimps who she agreed to abandon while she was a member. Cornell students appeared to be exasperated by the presence of loud activists chanting outside of the library windows.

Activists chant with fervor at the windows of Cornell Medical College’s library where students are studying.

At 5:45 p.m., activists marched to Dr. Glimcher’s nearby apartment, where several of her neighbors asked police officers what could be done to silence the disruptive activists.

When Laurie Glimcher’s neighbors complain about the disruptive protests, activists tell them to “take it up with Glimcher.”

Will Dr. Glimcher continue to invite disruptive protests at her home and office by defending NYBC’s decision to abandon the chimps, or will she publicly demand that NYBC fulfill its promise to provide lifelong care for the chimps whose lives they destroyed?

Please sign the Care2 petition to demand that Citigroup, one of NYBC’s biggest donors, cut funding until the organization reinstates funding for the chimpanzees.