In one of the most highly anticipated animal events of 2015, thousands of people traveled to High Falls, New York on September 5th to celebrate the grand re-opening of the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in its new location. Situated on 150 lush green acres, the new sanctuary will serve not only as a refuge for rescued farm animals but also as a living classroom for visitors and a venue for cruelty-free events, such as summer camps and celebrations.
Your Turn
Jenny Brown and Doug Abel, the founders of Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, opened the original location in upstate New York on 26 acres, but they – and the animals they rescue who serve as ambassadors to all victims of animal agriculture – have outgrown the space. The new sanctuary is six times the size and far more expensive to own and operate. Please support Woodstock Farm Sanctuary by making a contribution or becoming a member.
In mid-August, several months after news broke that the NY Blood Center (NYBC) abandoned 66 of its former lab chimpanzees on islands in Liberia, a primate rescue group called ATO based in West Africa alerted great ape advocates worldwide to the existence of yet another colony of chimps abandoned by NYBC.
Ponso is the sole survivor of a colony of 20 chimps abandoned by NYBC in the Ivory Coast
According to Betsy Brotman, the director of NYBC’s lab in Liberia and a vocal critic of group’s decision to abandon its chimpanzees, NYBC relocated 20 chimps to an island in the Ivory Coast in 1983, when they were no longer needed for research. When the local Ivorian hired by NYBC to deliver food to the chimps failed to perform his job, NYBC was, due to political unrest, unable to retrieve the chimps to bring them elsewhere.
NYBC abandoned 20 chimps and their offspring on what locals call the “Island of Chimpanzees” in the Ivory Coast.
According to a report compiled by the World Conservation Union, eight chimpanzees died or disappeared during their first three weeks on the island, and three more died during the following months. One year after their arrival, only nine chimps remained.
A local farmer and his son Germain learned about the plight of the abandoned chimps and brought them bread and bananas, a substandard diet that could not sustain many of the chimps who were already physically compromised by the NYBC experiments.
Ponso, the sole survivor of a colony of 20 chimps abandoned by NYBC, greets Ponso SOS, a relief organization created to bring him food.
By December, 2013, only four chimps remained – a male, a female and their two babies. In a two day period that month, all but the male, Ponso, perished. Germain, the local farmer, said that Ponso helped him bury the dead by tossing dirt over the graves of his family.
When word spread in August 2015 about Ponso’s plight, the Facebook group NYBC: Do the Right Thing helped raise money so that ATO could begin making relief missions to him. The following video documents the first mission:
Ideally, Ponso would be rescued and relocated to a primate sanctuary with other chimpanzees, but great ape charities say that West African governments are reluctant to issue transport permits for animals who have been exposed to diseases. Many of the NYBC chimps were infected with hepatitis. The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa only complicates the movement of primates across country borders.
Concerned citizens worldwide advocate for Ponso
The primate rescue group ATO asserts that NYBC has made no effort over the past three decades to provide these chimps and their offspring with food, enrichment and veterinary care.
NYBC executives have not yet commented publicly on the 20 chimps who they left to die in the Ivory Coast. When confronted by mainstream media about this atrocity, will they shift the blame to the government as they have done in Liberia?
Caring New Yorkers are demanding that NYBC reinstates funding to pay for the lifelong care of their former lab chimps.
Advocates in New York City are escalating their campaign to pressure NYBC executives to fulfill their promise to pay for the care of their former lab chimps. On August 30th, a group of advocates traveled to the Hamptons, a wealthy enclave three hours away from NYC, to protest at the beachfront estate of NYBC Chairman Howard Milstein.
In September, activists will not only continue to protest against Mr. Milstein at his NYC apartment building but will also begin protesting at the home and office of NYBC Board Member Dr. Laurie Glimcher, the Dean of Cornell Medical School.
By leaving 66 chimps to die of starvation, NYBC Board Member Dr. Laurie Glimcher has failed to fulfill her promise to uphold the Hippocratic Oath.
Your Turn
The survival of Ponso depends on the generosity of the local farmer Germain and the West Africa-based primate charity ATO. Please support their efforts to keep Ponso alive by contributing to “SOS Ponso.”
As Rihanna promoted her new fragrance at a Brooklyn Macy’s on Monday afternoon, anti-fur activists staged a disruption near the musician, holding up posters and chanting, “Shame on Rihanna. Fifty dead animals; one fur coat.”
https://youtu.be/fDtVqZQL_wc
Rob Banks, one of the five activists who participated in the disruption, was swarmed by security guards as he approached the stage with his poster. All of the activists continued to chant and display their posters as they were expelled from the store.
NYC anti-fur activists Rob, Jaime, Michelle, Angela and MaCa disrupt Rihanna at Macy’s.
Anti-fur disruption at Rihanna’s fragrance promotional event in NYC.
Rihanna’s fur consumption has been the subject of several news stories in recent years. In May 2015, she wore a dress with fur trim the size of small swimming pool to the annual costume gala at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Rihanna wears fur dress to the costume gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In December, 2013, the celebrity news website TMZ posted a story in which its president, Harvey Levin, attempts to educate his unsympathetic staff to the plight of animals killed for fur: “It is pure torture — skinning them alive to put a coat on your back when you can have a different kind of coat. It’s barbaric. How can anyone defend torture?”
Rihanna has been photographed wearing dozens of fur garments.
In Spite of His Promises, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio Has Not Even Tried To Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages
In a live radio interview on August 19th, Mayor de Blasio delivered a major blow to NYC’s animal advocacy community by shifting the responsibility for the bill to ban horse-drawn carriages from himself to the advocacy groups and City Council: “What I’d say to every advocate: You already have my vote. Go get the votes in the City Council and solidify the support in the City Council so we can make this change.”
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to ban horse-drawn carriages on his first day in office
On the surface, his statement sounds fair enough, but it is extraordinarily duplicitous, as it ignores the reality of how legislation gets passed in the City Council. If the Mayor wants lawmakers to support a bill, especially one that doesn’t affect their own constituents, he has to ask them – or compel them – to do so. Lobbying by advocacy groups, which is important and has been done, cannot take the place of the Mayor exerting his leadership and doing the work behind the scenes to get the bill passed.
According to Council Members, Mayor de Blasio never even asked them to support his bill to ban horse-drawn carriages
During his radio interview, the Mayor attempted to exonerate himself on the grounds that the bill lacks support in the City Council and among members of the public. What he didn’t say is that the reason for this lack of support is his own failure to lead. As Mayor, it is his job to generate that support, especially in light of the fact that taking carriages off of NYC streets was a signature component of his campaign platform.
Advocates can lobby, educate and protest, but they cannot get the Mayor’s bill to ban horse-drawn carriages passed in the City Council without his leadership
After the Mayor made his statement, several Council Members (CMs) criticized him for shifting the responsibility for the bill to the City Council, noting that he has made no effort to generate support in the Council. Bronx CM Ritchie Torres told Politico, “The Mayor is the one who sets the agenda, and he is the one who made it a priority for the city. The notion of diverting attention to the City Council strikes me as strange. To the extent that the City Council is advancing the bill, it’s doing so on behalf of the mayor — he said it was going to be a priority from day one, so the horse carriage fight is inseparable from the mayor himself.”
Brooklyn CM Antonio Reynoso echoed Torres’ remarks in an interview with Capital New York: “The horse carriage issue is definitely the mayor’s priority, and if the mayor wants to push it in the City Council, he can do that . . . I don’t think that the responsibility of trying to push this — one of his greatest priorities — is on the Council.”
In 2011, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio (now Mayor) expressed his support for a ban on horse-drawn carriages on the steps of City Hall
The Mayor has failed not only to lobby Council Members, but also to build public support; to speak out after carriage accidents were reported; and to address the misinformation reported by the pro-carriage press, the unions and the industry itself. In fact, the Mayor has done virtually nothing to generate support for the bill. His deafening silence and inaction in the face of growing opposition over the past 18 months resulted in a massive erosion of support in both the City Council and the general public – support that advocates spent years building.
Furthermore, the Mayor’s consistent refusal to address the issue in the media, apart from merely reiterating his support for a ban, enabled the opposition to control the story and to portray the local animal advocacy community as a group of misguided, uninformed extremists.
Horses belong on pastures or in the wild, not in Times Square
Perhaps even more duplicitous than the Mayor’s decision to renounce his responsibility for this bill is his insistence that NYCLASS, the local animal advocacy group leading the effort, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a TV commercial (see below) to generate public support for his bill. Why would the Mayor encourage the community to waste such a staggering sum of money, which could have been used to help other animals, in support of a bill that he already knew he had no intention of backing? Was he hoping that NYCLASS would have no money left to hold him accountable after he betrayed the community (and the horses)?
Bill de Blasio won the Mayoral election in 2013 in large part because the animal protection community brought down his chief (anti-animal) rival, Christine Quinn, and donated time and money to his campaign. The community embraced de Blasio because he said that in his administration, animal rights would move from the margins to the mainstream and, of course, because he vowed to take the horses out of harm’s way.
At some point during the past year, however, he made a calculation that walking away from his promise was more politically expedient than working to fulfill it, in spite of the fact that this decision will reflect poorly on him when, during re-election season, voters on both sides of the issue will remember him saying, “Watch me do it!”
The Mayor’s actions – and inaction – have consequences beyond the potential failure of the bill; the waste of resources; the diminished support among members of the public; and the marginization of the local animal rights community. The horses lives are as bad as ever because the city is not enforcing the laws that govern the industry.
In 2014, the ASPCA, which opposes NYC’s carriage trade but refuses to exert its power and influence to ban it, stopped doing humane law enforcement. That responsibility was assigned to the NYPD, which is unfamiliar with the law and entirely uninterested in enforcing it, thereby leaving the horses at greater risk than ever of being double-shifted, worked in temperature extremes and forced to pull overloaded carriages. When the drivers have free reign, as they do now, the horses suffer.
Your Turn
Please contact the following two people in the Mayor’s office, and demand that the Mayor fulfills his campaign promise: Jon Paul Lupo (Director, Legislative Affairs; 212-788-2971, jplupo@cityhall.nyc.gov) and Marco Carrion (Commissioner, Community Affairs Unit; 212-788-3137, Mcarrion@cityhall.nyc.gov)
If you live in or near NYC, please join the candlelight vigil on Friday night (August 28th)
Please share this article to educate others about the status of the campaign to ban horse-drawn carriages in NYC, and stay tuned for next steps to compel the Mayor to do the work required to fulfill his unmistakable campaign promise.
For the first time ever, a major international film festival has launched a category dedicated to animal rights. In October, 2015, the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) will feature “Compassion, Justice & Animal Rights,” a program that, according to organizers, provides a platform for filmmakers “to share meaningful information, stories of inspiration and tools for creating a safe and humane world for animals.”
Hamptons International Film Festival (October 8 – 12, 2015)
“The high quality films chosen by organizers will not only encourage discussion about how we view and treat animals, but will also help viewers make more compassionate choices in their day-to-day lives,” said Zelda Penzel, a longtime festival supporter who worked with organizers to create the category. “I strongly believe that these films have the potential to change hearts and minds.”
The Hamptons International Film Festival dedicates an entire category to animal rights films
The description of the program on the festival’s website is, in and of itself, a tool to educate mainstream audiences about the plight of animals: “In the 21st century, billions of animals continue to be exploited for our food, clothing, labor, research and entertainment. They are denied their basic right to life and fundamental protections against violence and cruelty.”
While 2015 is the first year that the festival has dedicated an entire category to animal rights, organizers have included animal rights films in recent years, including Virunga and Emptying the Skies, documentaries about the plight of mountain gorillas and songbirds. It was the large turn out and the engaging Q&A sessions at these screenings that convinced festival organizers to shine a brighter spotlight on animal rights.
The 2015 festival will feature three narrative or documentary films about animal rights, including The Champions, which follows the story of the pit bulls rescued from NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s dog fighting ring. The Champions has its world premiere at the festival.
Virunga won the Zelda Penzel Giving Voice to the Voiceless Award at the 2014 HIFF
For her part, Ms. Penzel, who endows the festival with an award for an animal rights film each year, is not surprised that the films about the plight of animals have been so well received. After all, she says, “Animal rights is the social justice movement of our time.”
Alec Baldwin, the newly appointed Chairman of the Board of HIFF and a longtime spokesman for animal rights issues, has indicated that he plans to lend his support to the category.
