For me, some Canadian Animal-Protectors are Heroes! Today´s Hero: Twyla Francois & Friends

Wenceslas Hollar - Turkeys (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Food Animals (CETFA) is an investigative and educational organization established to examine intensive farming practices, including the transportation and slaughter of animals forced to exist in this system.
		Olivier and Sophie immediately after rescue Photo still from our new joint video with musician jesse thom  Dear CETFA Supporter,    When I first heard the work of Canadian musician jesse thom, I was brought to tears.  His music is haunting, ethereal and emotive, yet clear, honest and innocent.     I knew immediately that we had to work together on a project. Waiting for the Birds to Strike is the result.    The timing of my introduction to jesse was particularly synchronous.  The song jesse sent me: Waiting for the Birds to Strike arrived just after co-investigator Olivier Berreville and I returned from a Granny‘s Poultry turkey barn, where, contrary to company management assurances, we documented the same cruel and abusive loading of baby turkeys that we had two years prior (turkeys reach slaughter-weight at just a few months of age – they’re still blue-eyed and peeping).  We trailed the terrified  turkeys to Granny’s slaughterhouse in Blumenort, Manitoba feeling absolutely helpless to stop their killing.   The next day, we received a call from a supporter in the area telling us they’d found  two shivering, ragged turkeys in the ditch.  The birds must have escaped their captors during the catching.  We ran out, picked up the bedraggled bundles of bones and feathers and brought them home.    The footage in the music video shows their rescue.  Breaking through the darkness of their experience we see Sophie on Olivier’s lap in the car.  Just 2 hours later, and now home, we see Katie, exhausted, sleeping on my lap, while wee Sophie peeps for her mother, then breaking through her fear, slowly approaches me to finally stretch her head back and lay it against my shoulder in what can only be described as a turkey hug.    For months, Katie and Sophie feared our hands but would stare into our faces, searching our eyes to see if it was cruelty or kindness behind them.  Eventually, their fear of hands subsided and they sought even these out for comforting pets.   Our time with Katie and Sophie was bitter sweet and short-lived.  Katie died of congestive heart failure at just 7 months of age.  Sophie, the runt, was allowed 2 additional months because of her smaller size reducing the stress on her heart.  At 9 months of age though, Sophie left us too.   Today’s turkeys have been so genetically selected for large breasts to supply society’s demand for white meat that the birds themselves are kept in a physiological state my colleague Dana Medoro refers to as “not dying.”  They struggle with every breath from the strain their enormous bodies put on their hearts and very quickly, they simply give out.   After seeing the depth of forgiveness of these incredible animals, I hope you too will reconsider your relationship with them.  As a consumer, you have the power to change the future for birds like Sophie and Katie.  Please, stop providing a reason for companies like Granny’s to continue killing them.   Twyla Francois P.S. To download the music from this video please visit http://jessethom.bandcamp.com/track/waiting-for-the-birds-to-strike. Proceeds go to CETFA’s efforts to end animal cruelty.

Court Finds Biologist Guilty of Poisoning Cats

Image via Wikipedia

Blue Marble → Animals, Courts, Crime and Justice,

 Must Reads

 Court Finds Biologist Guilty of Poisoning Cats —By Kiera Butler | Thu Nov. 3, 2011 2:37 PM PDT pinguino/Flickr/read it: Mother Jones, please, read more there! Thank You.

“A few months back, I asked whether feral cats are bad for the environment. The answer that I got when I posed the question to the conservation biology community was a resounding “yes.” Unsurprising, since cats, officially an invasive species in the US, take a major toll on birds and other small critters. This unfortunate fact of nature has resulted in en epic battle between two very able opponents: the cat people and the bird people. In the past, the cat people have really brought it: Many of the biologists I spoke with say they’ve been harassed and even physically threatened when they’ve presented research about the effect cats have on wildlife. In 2005, research by Stan Temple, an emeritus professor of wildlife biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was cited by a panel that proposed studying cats’ impact on birds in that state. In response, he received several death threats. “You cat-murdering bastard,” one activist wrote to Temple. “I declare an open season on Stan Temple.” (Police promptly arrested the suspect.) When Travis Longcore, science director of the environmental group Urban Wildlands, filed suit in Los Angeles against the city’s TNR program, an irate blogger posted his cellphone number.” …

Starling Zinging in the Dead of Night

 

Starling Zinging in the Dead of Night

Have you ever observed a spider weave its web around a struggling fly? Have you ever watched a bird pull a worm from its hole in the ground? Have you ever witnessed a cat stalking a bird? All of the above are nature’s way in which animals live and die. These trapping, hunting, and eating behaviors are natural life and death experiences for insects, birds, and feral felines. Feral felines sometimes stalk, catch, and eat starling birds.

 Dairy farmers face many challenges, one of which is dealing with starling birds. Wisconsin horizons are often darkened by flocks of these hungry winged vertebrates. Starlings become more than a nuisance to dairymen. What they steal from feedlots is later deposited as gooey starling droppings on barnyard fences and machinery. A flock consisting of thousands of starlings simultaneously descends upon open feed troughs and then spread salmonella and other bacteria to cows as they share the cow’s rations.

The United States Department of Agriculture has created a ghastly end of life scenario for these birds.

 Death By Poisoning There is a toxin that is designed to kill starlings by destroying their kidney function. This clever biological weapon is called DRC-1339. The active ingredient, representing 97% of the product is 3-chloro-4-methylbenzamine hydrochloride. Starlings die horrible deaths from this poison. So too do feral starling-eating felines.

Yesterday (November 3, 2011), for the first time in my memory, the dairy industry prompted a compassionate cruelty-free method of ridding a dairy farm of starlings.

http://www.dairybusiness.com

 Dairy Business promoted the clever invention of Todd Weitzman, president and owner of Bird Gard. Bird Gard mimics the sounds of starlings in distress and hearing those cries, starlings do a 180 degree turn and head somewhere else. This new product neither kills nor poisons birds, and it is a welcome relief from past practices. See:

http://www.BirdGard.com

Robert Cohen