Happy Birthday Bo Obama!

Today was his birthday, dada dadada!!

Enjoy!

Why is Reuters Putting News Releases From the United Egg Producers on Their Site as "News"?

The United Egg Producers issues a press release claiming that egg prices will rise 25% if animal welfare advocates get their way. All according to a study by some agribusiness related consulting firm. Reuters dutifully puts it on their website, which then gets picked up on my Google news page. Nice.

What if the Public Truly Probed Animal Research Funding?

This is a great short column by Martha Rosenberg. It's in response to the arrest of Yale animal technician Raymond Clark for the murder of Annie Le, but makes some important points about animal research.

There's a reason for the security that keeps Beagle burn videos from surfacing like egg farm videos. Animal research is too lucrative for the university/government/pharma complex to risk macaques on YouTube and the public judging the asinine and repetitive experiments many researchers know they live on.

Do you think Northwestern University--or the National Institutes of Health (NIH)--want to acknowledge that every year from l978 through l985 Associate Professor Dr. Charles Larson fused monkeys' necks to their skulls and deprived them food five days per week to make them cry out in a specific manner according to Concerned Citizens for Ethical Research? At a tax payer cost of $472,370? To "gain insights into some of the neurological disorders affecting vocalization?" Even as his colleagues scoffed?

...No, for animal researchers the bigger fear from Le's murder than technicians like Clark is the public seeing the heaps of unsupervised government pork behind their Plexiglas curtain. No wonder the research community wraps a "saves lives" cloak around its work whether falsified journal articles or Larson's "speech" studies.

It keeps the public from saying YOU'RE FUNDING WHAT? For how many years? With what results? about its tax dollars.

Sucks to be a Walrus Nowadays

Global warming is screwing walruses over...and it could get worse as their ice disappears.

Quote of the Week

"When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble."

--Buddha Siddhartha Gautama

Vick to Get Own Reality Show on BET

Looks like BET will have a new reality show based around Michael Vick. Wonder if he'll talk about the dogs he helped hang and electrocute to death. He'll get paid to tell everyone what a wonderful person he is. Sorry, but I think someone who kills dogs like he did can't just change. That kind of lack of compassion and cruelty is just too cold blooded.

Shame on BET.

Stupid TLC Show Called "My Monkey Baby"

Thanks to Chimpanzee Information for pointing this travesty out.

It's a TLC show about humans that adopt monkeys and treat them as their children. This is seriously weird stuff.

Monkey business is big business in the United States, where some people pay up to $5,000 to adopt a monkey of their own, often a capuchin monkey, which can grow up to 22 inches and 9 pounds. There are hundreds of videos on the Internet of proud parents enjoying their monkeys, and an estimated 15,000 monkeys live with humans as pets or surrogate children in the United States.

And in some cases, monkey babies are more than pets: They are sons and daughters. These families dress their monkeys, feed them at the dinner table and treat them like any other member of the family.

I don't care how much these people love their "babies," these are wild animals that should be with their own kind. They are not humans and it's not psychologically healthy for them to be treated that way. Remember Travis? Second of all, this exploitative show only encourages people to make stupid impulse purchases or adoptions. Who suffers? The individual primate and the species that is depleted for this "trade."

Stupid TLC. Where is the "learning" in that name?

Southwest Primate Center "Celebrates" 10 Years

This place is celebrating its 10th year with ground-breaking research into what makes us all fat. How? By destroying the health of baboons with fast food. (Fast food is bad for you? Really?)

After more than 50 years of studying the ways a fatty diet contributes to heart disease in San Antonio baboons, it might seem there wouldn't be much left to learn. Then Anthony Comuzzie started feeding them soda pop.

Comuzzie, a nationally prominent obesity researcher and geneticist at Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, recently induced metabolic syndrome — risk factors associated with the human epidemic of diabetes and heart disease — by making the baboons' high-fat diet tastier and adding a sweet drink flavored with high-fructose corn syrup. The baboons tended to guzzle several liters of the stuff with their meals.

“Without giving away the name so we don't get sued, we modeled the diet after a fast-food value meal,” Comuzzie said Thursday at a 10th birthday celebration for the Southwest National Primate Research Center, which maintains the foundation's massive colony of baboons, monkeys and chimps.

And let's not forget the required sanctimonious quote from an animal researcher

“Our primates are essential partners in medical progress, as are mice, rats, guinea pigs and opossums. Without them we would be stripped of the very tools we need to open new paths of discovery and to challenge old dogma.”

Oh brother.

Cookie and Coco: Anatomy of an Internet Chain Email

We are once again getting a lot of hits over the saga of Cookie and Coco. They are two dogs that once needed to be adopted. They eventually were (in 2007, I believe.) But, the story won't die. You can read about our coverage of it here.

People keep forwarding this chain email around. Since our site comes up number two in Google, they find out the story from this website. Or at least a version of it. Someone told us it involved Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue. Snopes has it originating in California. Either way, the story is OLD.

So, next time you see one of these "forward this to everyone you know" emails, don't. Chances are, it's either a hoax or is so old it effectively is a hoax. Now if you get one from the brother-in-law of the recently deceased Finance Minister of Nigeria, that's probably real...

Benicio del Toro Writes Letter Opposing Monkey Breeding Facility in Puerto Rico

Actor Benicio del Toro has written a letter to the governor of Puerto Rico opposing a new monkey breeding facility.

The Puerto Rican actor has penned a letter to the governor of Puerto Rico urging him to halt the construction plans for Bioculture's massive monkey-breeding facility. As you might remember, Bioculture—a company that supplies primates to laboratories—plans to capture monkeys from their homes in Mauritius, hold them captive in Puerto Rico, and then sell thousands of their babies for use in painful and deadly experiments around the world.

Australia Starts to Crack Down on Sea Shepherd Leader

The Australian government appears to be cracking down on Sea Shepherd at the request of the Japanese. Earlier this year they seized records and videos from the Steve Irwin, and are now holding up Paul Watson's visa requests.

The Federal Immigration Department has cracked down on Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson, demanding to know the anti-whaling group leader's police and court records as it reviews his visa.

Until now, authorities had let Captain Watson, who holds a US passport, come and go from his Australian-based ship on a tourist visa.

The department has told him he must satisfy exhaustive new good-character requirements to get a business visa.

I expected better from the Rudd government. Maybe the Japanese have something on him...

Kenyans Seize Huge Amount of Illegal Ivory

Kenya seized almost 700 kilograms of ivory worth millions of dollars in a night-time raid at the country's main airport. Elephants are being screwed by Asian demand for ivory. It's a mess.

From the BBC....

Officials say the sales have fuelled demand for ivory in Asian countries, especially China, contributing to a sharp increase in elephant poaching.

So far this year poachers in Kenya have killed 128 elephants for their ivory; last year 98 were killed.

In July, Kenyan authorities intercepted 16 elephant tusks and two rhinoceros horns being illegally exported to Laos from Mozambique.

Some wildlife experts have attributed the increase in elephant poaching to the presence of Chinese workers in Africa.

With demand for ivory products increasing back home, some Chinese workers on low salaries in Kenya are reported to have become middlemen in the ivory trade.

Sad About World Farm Animals Day

World Farm Animals Day was today. Perhaps it's because of gloomy October or maybe it's because I'm getting over the flu, but I felt very sad. There was a picture on the bus commemorating the event with a picture of a cow looking, dare I say it, noble and long-suffering.

But I just kept wondering if anyone besides me on that bus cared? How depressing.....

US Considers Removing Humpback Whales from the Endangered Species List

I don't feel too comfortable about this. Seems a little premature, even though the population has been recovering well.

Dolphins Threatened by Australian Oil Spill

The World Wildlife Fund has reported that dolphins and other marine life have been swimming around in an oil spill off the coast of Australia. There have not been many deaths yet, but the toxicity could lead to long-term health effects for the animals.