Keeping up the Good Fight

As you can probably imagine, morale within the animal protection community can get pretty low. The endless streams of requests to make calls, sign petitions, and write letters, all accompanied by heart-breaking details of ongoing cruelty and sickening pictures of the atrocities we all fight to stop, can wear us all down, understandably. Sometimes it seems like the stream won't ever end, and given Pennsylvania's abysmal record on animal cruelty (puppy mills, factory farming, lethal wildlife "management", etc...), it's often quite a challenge for activists and others who work to protect animals to not succumb to feelings of helplessness and futility.

SO... when a bill that will help animals is passed in the PA House or Senate, it's a cause for rejoicing, or at least a smile and a renewed sense of purpose - and that smile appeared on our faces here when PA HB 39 passed the PA Senate this week, with a 47-0 vote. If you're not familiar with the bill, it requires that various surgical procedures, including docking of tails, caesarian-sections, spaying and neutering, debarking (which should never be allowed at all, but that's another goal for another piece of legislation) etc... be done only by veterinarians. The bill, which was amended by the Senate, now has to go back to the House for a final vote. Because the House approved it unanimously when they had it the first time, it is expected to pass and then go to Governor Rendell to be signed into law.

Please contact your PA Senators and Representatives and thank them for supporting this bill. HB 39, while not perfect, will go a long way toward ending a lot of the butchering that currently goes on in puppy mills, in attempts to save money and avoid scrutiny of the horrendous conditions going on in these breeding factories. Use the links below to find your legislators:

PA Senate (click here and then enter your zip code into the upper-right corner box)

PA House (click here and then enter your zip code into the upper-right corner box)

There is SO MUCH MORE work to be done - we need stronger laws to protect dogs from all sorts of abuse (24/7 chaining, dog fighting, and all the things puppy millers are STILL allowed to do, thanks to the weak laws and the suspect make-up of the "Dog Law Advisory Board"), and of course, the fight continues for all the laws we need to protect other companion animals, farm animals, animals used in "entertainment," and wildlife, but we'll keep fighting and keep asking you, the VOTERS, to make your voices heard and speak for the silent victims of animal cruelty.

The End of the Pigeon Shoot - Finally?

This morning's Intelligencer Journal editorial, "In Our View," came out and said it - voicing the position held for a very long time by the vast majority of central Pennsylvanians: End Pigeon Shoots.

From the national outcry when the "sport" was demonstrated in the 1900 summer Olympics to recent days when the local Hegins Pigeon Shoot and a similar shoot at the Philadelphia Gun Club have been interrupted by protests and visits by animal cruelty officers, the time has come for legislators to listen to their constituencies, and hopefully, their consciences - and make it illegal to tie a bird down and shoot at it or release birds from cages and fire upon them as they attempt to fly away.

Any live shoot of any trapped or otherwise confined bird is NOT hunting -- and for this reason, hunters have nothing to fear, as all other forms of licensed hunting are exempt from the bills. Here's the first paragraph of the House version:

"(c.1) Use of live animals or fowl for targets at trap shoot or block shoot prohibited.--
(1) A person commits a summary offense if that person willfully organizes, operates or conducts a trap shoot or block shoot in which live animals or fowl are used as targets."

Pretty straightforward. To read the whole bill, click here.

NOW... as for the bills. Callers, get the numbers straight -- when you call your State Senator, say you want him or her to support SB 843, and for the House, it's HB1411. Below are links to use to obtain your state legislators' contact info. And, as we always remind you, please don't email -- please CALL your legislators, as calls are always taken and logged. Emails are ignored, deleted, and those read are not always logged or passed along to the legislator. Calls and faxes make much more of an impact.

Find your PA House Rep: http://www.house.state.pa.us/

Find your PA State Senator: http://www.pasen.gov/

In both web pages, you'll enter your zip code into a box in the upper right corner to find out who represents you. Once the name/s appear, click them to be taken to the legislator/s page/s to obtain contact info.

Please call and let them know you want them to support these bills. Even if you know your legislator is already on board, make the call -- it helps them to know that their current stance is supported by the electorate (you, their voters), and they can then tell their fence-sitting (or wrong-side-entrenched) colleagues, "Hey -- I'm getting so many calls in favor of banning the pigeon shoot. I think it's time we all just put an end to this. Whaddya say?"

When calling, please remind them that you're a voter, and that you'll be remembering who voted to support these bills when you cast your vote in the next election. While we, the animal protection community, have no money for big-time campaign contributions, we can turn an election through voter education -- letting the voters know who we were able to count on to put an end to an atrocity that has been a source of shame for Pennsylvania for far too long.