Just Like Us

99%.

This statistic refers to the percentage of a chimpanzee's DNA that matches human DNA. Our seeing so much in common with them has led to everything from dressing them in tuxedos and making them ride tricycles to using them for medical experiments, and a host of other horrors in between. We gawk at them in zoos, and say, "His eyes look so human!" and we watch documentaries on chimps and gorillas and we're fascinated with their intelligence.

For all our fascination with these beings, however, we treat them horribly. We torture them, we imprison them, we breed them for our use and then kill them. It's shameful, and the time has come to end the abject cruelty and wanton humiliation to which these creatures are routinely subjected. They provide little or no use to us for medical testing (their systems are different enough that very little benefit is derived from testing procedures and medications on them), and the conditions they endure in labs would make any decent person cringe in horror. They suffer a similar fat in many zoos, and in various "entertainment" venues, where isolation and abuse literally drive them insane. Just as humans are driven insane in solitary confinement, when tortured repeatedly, and given no hope for escape from various forms of confinement. Just like us. Here's how the famous heart surgeon, Dr. Christian Barnard, described his experience with chimps in a lab:

"I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a [heart] donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when we removed the body to the operating room, the other chimp wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures."

Of course, we can't count on all doctors and scientists -- and the corporations that employ them -- to be this compassionate. Especially when there's money to be made. One of the largest producers and users of primates for research is located in our own backyard, in Denver PA. Click here to find out about COVANCE, and their history of abuse. Their facilities around the world have been repeatedly cited for animal cruelty, but because their use of the animals for research has remained legal, little has been done to stop them and the many labs like them. Of course, the only people defending the use of apes (and other animals) in research are those who benefit financially from it. Citizens who defend it are simply misinformed as to its benefit to humans, as there is NO need to continue using animals for medical testing. Computer models, existing data, and human test subjects eliminate the need to use animals. PERIOD.

Might there be hope? Possibly, with your help. The Great Ape Protection Act (GAPA), which was sent to the Energy & Commerce Committee in March of this year, could put an end to much of the abuse great apes suffer in labs. If this became law, it would do some really great things -- that is if the pharmaceutical lobbies (and their puppets in Congress) don't see to it that it's amended to death. GAPA would:

• Phase out the use of chimps and other great apes in invasive research in the US (much of Europe has already done this -- AGAIN, we're behind the curve).

• Release 500+ chimps "owned" by the federal government to sanctuaries, permanently.
  

• Make it illegal to breed federally-owned chimps. Note that the NIH (National Institutes of Health) has already banned this within their organization -- that ought to tell the naysayers something, right?
  

PLEASE call your US Representative (click HERE to obtain their contact info) and ask him or her to co-sponsor HR 1326, the Great Ape Protection Act (GAPA). As we said, it was referred to committee in March, and needs to be released for a vote, without significant amendment. Great Apes CANNOT continue to be used for research -- they may share 99% of our DNA, but at a molecular level, their bodies are very different, and thus their use for studying disease and the effects of medication, etc... is of little value. There is NO reason to continue torturing these creatures.

When you call your House Rep, be brief, polite, but firm. You want him or her to support/co-sponsor HR1326, and you're aware that his or her refusing to do so would indicate (A) no concern for the humane treatment of these creatures, (B) no interest in real medical facts, which do not support continued use of these animals, and (C) that he or she is more obligated to the pharmaceutical lobbies and their corporate campaign funding than to the constituents who cast their votes. You will be asked to give your address, to show that you are in fact a constituent, but you won't have to do more than simply make a statement asking for support for HR 1326. The call will take just a few minutes, and it could help sway important votes and get GAPA passed when it comes up for a vote.

For more information, visit www.PCRM.org/GAPA.

When Worlds Collide

Very late on Sunday night, while driving my brother back to the University of Delaware (in Newark), a very large owl swooped down low, flying on the right side of my car, and I hit him. I never saw him swooping in -- my brother spotted him at the very last second, and then we both heard the horrible thud. I was sure he was dead and probably flung into the dark embankments along the pitch-black, narrow, and curvy Route 896, but we went back and found him, luckily alive and on one of the few wide shoulders of the road -- so we were able to pull over and place him in the car. I called ORCA (the Organization for Responsible Care of Animals), who told me to put the owl in a box and bring him back to Lancaster, where a wildlife rehabilitator would take him in the morning.

The owl spent the night in a box in my mom's bathtub (her cats are more low-key than mine -- mine would have been yowling and banging on the bathroom door all night), and ORCA did come to pick him up Monday morning. He had gone from lying in the box to sitting up, his big orange eyes staring straight ahead, so I was hopeful that his injuries were minor or would be able to be healed.

Later in the day, the wildlife rehabilitator, a raptor specialist affiliated with the Bird Refuge of York, returned my call (I'd left a message asking for an update, even if it was bad news). She told me the owl was still sitting in his cage, getting anti-inflammatories and fluids, and that she wasn't surprised he hadn't tried to fly up to a perch yet. She said he had no fractures she could find, and that he'd either recover, or if he had major internal injuries, he'd be gone in a couple of days, succumbing to whatever might be lurking in his head or body from the impact with my car. So we wait.

I can't tell you how awful I feel about hitting him. I know I didn't even see him, and I know my hesitation to go back and find what I assumed would be his shredded body along side the road is understandable, but I just hate that my big stupid car and I were on the road and got in his way. Most people would think he got in my way, that he was the one swooping onto the road when a car was coming and should have "known better," or that he's "just an owl." I've heard similar statements from people when accidents involving everything from deer to cats to squirrels have been discussed, so I know how many people think in these situations.

I say that we're the ones who are in the way and that we should know better. No, I can't spot every set of glowing eyes along the road at night, but I can be more vigilant. I can drive the speed limit (or below it, on roads like 896 that are posted at too high a speed limit for the conditions), and I can keep supplies for a possible collision (box, flashlight, blankets, gloves) in my car. I can avoid roads that have a lot of wildlife along them at night, if possible, and I can warn others to take these precautions, too.

If you think vigilance won't work, consider that after my collision with the owl, I saw 2 deer, a ground hog, 3 foxes, and then once back in Lancaster City, 2 cats running along and in the road. The state of hyper-attentiveness that the collision placed me in allowed me to see these creatures and to slow down (and in the case of the cats, to stop and yell "Out of the street, kitties!" at them) and prevent another tragedy. Of course, my brother, Joshua, who has an excellent sense of humor, commented that "Hey, we've still got lots of room in the car, if you hit anything else" -- when we spotted the deer. It was a good tension-breaker, because we were both feeling awful about the owl.

Anyway, I'll post whatever news I get about the owl as soon as I have it, and I ask each of you reading this to please think of the owl and ask the universe, God, St. Francis -- whomever you tend to speak to about these things -- to help him heal and fly up to that perch and then one day soon, fly back into the wild, where he belongs. And please keep your eyes peeled, especially at night, for creatures along the roads. Because they're not in the way, WE are.

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.

Representative James Casorio Calls for More Serious Animal Cruelty Charges

IMPORTANT PRESS RELEASE

07-01-09 -- Casorio Calls for More Serious Animal Cruelty Charges

By: Representative James E. Casorio (D-Westmoreland)

For Immediate Release

HARRISBURG, July 1 - State Rep. James E. Casorio Jr. said today that officials in York County should file serious animal cruelty charges against a dog owner who allegedly shot three of his dogs.

The owner, Carl Herbert Kline of Seven Valleys, Pa., allegedly shot three of his dogs inside his home while intoxicated. Two of the dogs were killed and dumped in a cornfield; the third was found bleeding in a crate. Kline has been initially charged only with "discharge of a firearm in an occupied structure," and is currently free on bail.

"The complete lack of responsibility and respect for life demonstrated in this case merits very severe animal cruelty charges at the very least, yet the initial charges do not even acknowledge the most serious aspect of the crime," Casorio said. "This person deserves a long, long prison sentence, not a slap on the wrist."

While the incident is still being investigated and additional charges could be filed, Casorio said the case unfortunately is indicative of the response in many areas of Pennsylvania to animal cruelty.

"Too often, charges against people who kill or injure animals intentionally are either never brought, or are treated as an afterthought," he said. "But more and more people have had enough. They are demanding that we get tougher with criminals who kill and abuse animals not just because of the innocent lives of animals that are destroyed, but also because these crimes are indicative of the potential for serious crimes against people.

"A person who can get drunk, shoot his own dogs inside his own house, then dump them in a field obviously has little regard for the safety or welfare of anything -- or anyone -- around him, and is a danger to society."

Casorio said it is frustrating for state officials and the public who are pushing for improved animal welfare and cruelty laws in Pennsylvania when those laws are not used to punish to the fullest extent possible the people who break them.

"These are serious, disturbing crimes, and need to be treated as such," he said.

Casorio, D-Westmoreland, was prime sponsor of Pennsylvania's improved commercial kennel law (Act 119 of 2008), which institutes new health and welfare requirements for dogs in large, commercial kennels in Pennsylvania, and improves enforcement against the owners of these kennels where dogs are mistreated or neglected.

###

Please take time to contact Rep. Casorio (click here) to thank him for taking this stand. We must support the legislators who support animal protection. Please also contact your legislators to ask them to add their voices to this call for more charges and stronger penalties. To find your legislators, click here:
http://www.lohvpa.org/legislation.html#findlegislators

Penalties for Animal Cruelty

Our current poll asks if PA's animal cruelty penalties are sufficient. Right now, it's 100% saying no, they're not. What are they, you ask? Well, as of 1995, when PA made animal cruelty (some forms thereof) a felony, here they are:

Animal cruelty is only a felony if (A) the victim is a zoo animal (for the 1st offense) or (B) if it's the second offense and the victim is a dog or a cat. Even then, it's only a 3rd degree felony. Also, the cruelty must be determined to be deliberate, so something that the perpetrator's attorney can make look like it was accidental, borne out of ignorance, or unintended will allow the person to escape serious penalty. First offenses on dogs or cats are considered misdemeanors (virtually no penalty or fine whatsoever). So in PA, if you want to beat your dog or throw a litter of puppies in the trash, you can only do it once and not really pay the price for your sadistic behavior. Second time, if they catch you, you may be in trouble.

Read a current article about the demand for tougher penalties by clicking HERE. (thanks to North Penn Puppy Mill Watch for sending the link)

The maximum jail time for a 3rd degree felony conviction is 7 years, and the maximum fine is $15,000. As we've seen in recent puppy mill cases, the sentences are much lighter -- in terms of jail time (virtually none is ever given) and fines (they're rarely over $1000 per incident). MOST of the cruelty cases that make it to court in PA end up being treated as misdemeanors, which is why while it LOOKS like a lot -- 7 years, $15,000 -- you never see that happen. It's all hinging on the abuse/cruelty being intentional -- and a good defense attorney and a "yeah, it's just a dog" judge will combine to assure the abuser a very light sentence.

So, yes, PA's animal cruelty laws are NOT sufficient, nor is the zeal with which judges apply them as they are. The "it's only an animal" mindset is quite prevalent, even in the minds of judges, who should know better. As stated in an earlier post, even if you don't care about animals, the studies prove over and over that people who are cruel to animals will eventually turn that sadism on people -- in the form of domestic abuse, crimes that involve assault or weapons, and in extreme (but sadly, not rare) cases, murder. A capacity for cruelty NEVER remains something that someone only exhibits toward animals.

PLEASE contact your legislators -- in the PA House and Senate -- and let them know that you want PA's laws to be tougher. And when there's a cruelty case in your area, contact the judge to let him or her know you want the toughest sentence possible to be given if the person is convicted. You also want to remind the judge that a lenient approach in determining the intent of the abuser won't be tolerated by the voters. That's the up-side of PA having judges be elected, rather than appointed. The voters get to speak and have an impact on the judicial branch of our state government.

Not sure who your state legislators are? Visit our legislation page for links to find out:
http://www.lohvpa.org/legislation.html#findlegislators

To find contact info for a judge who'll be deciding an animal cruelty case in your area, simply Google his or her name, and you'll find the number for their offices. A call to the judge (NOT an email) is best -- and you'll probably end up talking to an assistant, and that's fine -- the point of your call WILL be passed along.

Can you protect animals if you eat them?

This is a huge question within the animal protection community. It's so tempting to say, "No way!" but then we risk losing a whole lot of voters who support things like puppy mill legislation, factory farming regulations (to make life better for the animals being raised for food), and those whose main concern is wildlife. For example, we currently have hunters in our membership, people who want to see that puppy mills and wildlife management using lethal means are stopped. We also have people who do dog rescue and run animal shelters, but they pack a ham sandwich for lunch, and feel no guilt about it. Nobody in the LOHV -- in PA or any other state -- wants to lose those voters, even if we can't all agree on the menu.

That said, we certainly encourage vegetarian and vegan eating habits. That's right, I called them "eating habits." I refuse to call these things "lifestyles," because to me, a lifestyle is taking vacations every year or spending money on pedicures or having a maid. Someone who spends the winter where it's warm and has pristine pink toenails peeking through the sand and knows her house will be clean when she gets home has a lifestyle. Me? I'm just a vegan, someone who chooses not to eat any animal products. I was a vegetarian for more than 20 years, and recently did away with all milk and eggs, too. I had pretty much phased them out in recent years, but in the last few months, I've been being as much of a purist as I can be.

I say "as much as I can be" because sometimes you don't know for sure what's in something you get in a restaurant or that's served at someone's home, and you can only grill (so to speak) the waitress or your host so much. Unlike some of my colleagues, I won't send back a plate of pasta if someone sprinked about 50 grains of parmesan cheese on top. Even when I asked that it be omitted when I placed the order. Why? Because I just don't have it in me to make someone who's working for tips cart my plate back to the kitchen. The cow's not coming back to life, and I can make my point when I place my order, letting the staff know that more animal-free choices would be appreciated. I can write to the owner, and I can let the manager know before I leave. There are plenty of ways to nudge more restaurants toward a more inclusive menu without being a pain in the @ss.

Of course, I could also only eat in vegan restaurants, but given that this is Lancaster, the pickens are slim.

Now, make no mistake -- the League of Humane Voters is largely staffed by vegans, but we're purposedly inclusive because animal protection legislation is something every human should support -- whether you care about animals or not. Every single serial killer has a background of animal abuse. Kids who beat their dogs or hang kittens by their tails grow up to beat their wives and abuse their kids -- this is proven by study after study. Someone who can aim for an animal and run it down with their car as it scurries across the street will sooner or later take that sick anger out on another human. The more intervention that occurs when people are charged with and convicted of animal cruelty, the better. By intervention we mean not just incarceration and fines, but psychological help. People who purposely abuse animals are sick. That's that, and only good laws will assure us that animal abusers are dealt with properly and that they don't take the next step -- harming fellow humans.

So it benefits us all to have everyone at the table, regardless of what's served on the plate in front of him or her. The more members we have, the more of an impact we can have and the better animal protection laws will be. We welcome animal advocates of all stripes, from people who only care about their pets to committed activists who worry about all animals unfortunate enough to be caught up in providing food, clothing, labor, or entertainment for people. There are thousands of people who fall in between these two ends of the advocacy spectrum, and we enjoy having them all as voters who make their choices on election day based on a candidate's record on animal protection. It's that simple.

We hope you'll join us, and help give voice to the voiceless -- the animals who can't tell us they're scared and suffering, but who suffer just the same. We can ALL work together to make a difference, and I look forward to welcoming you to our next LOHV meeting (stay tuned to this blog for the date, when we've got one set up) and to adding you to our membership so you can be kept informed about legislation and elections that will have an impact on animals and the environment.

Welcome!

For more information about us, please visit http://www.lohvpa.org/.

Memories (sing with me now...)

Just this morning I received a note from a former colleague who's big into nature education for kids, wherein she asked how I got involved with crows. See, I'd sent her an email with some leads to Lancaster-area schools that might be interested in her train-the-teacher stuff to help teachers become better at enlightening kids about nature, and mentioned that I'd done some presentations about crows for kids at one of the places I'd told her about. She wrote back to thank me for the leads, and in that email she posed her question.

That got me thinking (yeah, I know, AGAIN) about the crows and how they started the League of Humane Voters in Central PA. For those of you who don't know the story, it's a nice one -- about how grassroots efforts pay off, how an issue that gets a lot of people upset can bring those same people together to do some good (and not just complain), and how one bad thing can be turned into lots of good things if people respond to the presence of negative forces in a positive way.

Just a few years ago, after frustrating failures in trying to move the 30,000+ migratory crows who find their way to Lancaster each year (as they have for centuries -- we have news items from the 1800s to prove it), several municipalities decided to hire the government to come in and poison the crows. The goal was not to poison each and every one of them, but to kill enough of them to scare the rest away. It was expensive, cruel (the poison could take up to 3 agony-filled days to kill), and put non-target species at risk. The toxin in question was also a dangerous one to allow into the groundwater and soil, with stacks of scary data compiled on it, much of which was not in the government's analysis as provided to the municipalities. Local officials were told it was safe and humane, but they were misinformed.

That said, I got really upset when I read about the plan to kill the crows. I started calling every bird group and wildlife-protection organization I could find, which resulted in calls and letters from all over the country (and some from Japan and the UK) finding their way into our newspapers, and calls came in from ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and animal advocates around the world, offering expert advice on how to better move the crows, in a non-lethal way.

One call that I received proved to be the most helpful. Two people from New York, who had started the League of Humane Voters there (and had seeded several other chapters in other states) suggested that the number of upset people locally could be a good start to forming an LOHV chapter here. We held an open meeting for all those concerned about the crows and a surprisingly large group of people showed up. We packed into a room at Carr's restaurant (thanks to a wildlife rehabber who was also a waitress there), and Peter and Anne Muller came down from NY and gave their LOHV presentation. They explained how just a small group of people could organize and reach out to voters, and then alter the path of legislation and elections. Virtually everyone there signed up to start an LOHV in Lancaster, and the Central Pennsylvania Chapter was born.

Within the year, the members of the LOHV and I had made so many trips to municipal meetings to talk about not poisoning the crows that I became known as "the Crow Lady" and the papers started printing articles that told both sides of the story. Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray was the first of the leaders to say "No more!" to the poison (his predecessor had actually signed on to the poisoning plan), and the other townships followed suit. The Crow Coalition was formed, with members from the LOHV and representatives from each of the municipalities, and we set about moving the crows that winter, using only non-lethal tools -- loud noises and light -- and were very successful. We relied heavily on citizen volunteers, and we were grateful and encouraged by the number of people willing to go out in the cold evenings to fire "screamers and bangers" (the pyrotechnics used to nudge the crows out of undesirable roosting locations).

In the meantime, the Central PA LOHV has grown, thanks to other galvanizing issues -- puppy mills and factory farming, mainly -- and our chapter has gone from hundreds to thousands of members. We helped spawn a chapter in the Greater Philadelphia area, and then another in Lehigh County. So I say the crows started the LOHV in PA, and they did -- and the dogs and countless farm animals helped grow it. We were giving a voice to the voiceless, by empowering voters, and the idea took hold.

My favorite part of the whole thing is that a bumper sticker that I made myself (it said "Killing Wildlife is Cruel and Stupid - visit www.lancastercrows.org") was what put me together with the first few people who worked with me to put the meeting at Carr's together and to get more people involved. It turns out people saw the sticker and visited the site, emailed it to their friends, and also got in touch with me via the site. People who didn't realize others were against the poisoning now had a way to find each other and that made it possible to form a group of people who wanted to make things happen (or in this case, NOT happen).

So the smallest thing can make a big difference. A bumper sticker sent people to the web, and some phone calls, begging for help, turned up lots of advice and the idea for an LOHV chapter. The crows were no longer poisoned, and a way to inform and activate voters on many wildlife and animal-related issues was born. All I can say is, "CAW!"

The Things People Worry About

This past Monday night, Keith Olbermann, of MSNBC's Countdown program, included Lancaster PA in his "Worst Persons in the World" feature. It seems an LA Times article about the abundance of surveillance cameras in Lancaster City made us out to be George Orwell's nightmare, because we're spying on each other in an attempt to reduce crime, sacrificing personal privacy for what's probably an imaginary sense of safety.

This got me thinking. First, I'm not totally in favor of the cameras, for that very well-known Orwellian reason -- I don't like the idea of me or anyone else being "watched" by the government or law enforcement, or even a corporation (as we are in Lancaster, where the Safety Coalition, which puts up and monitors the cameras, is largely funded by corporations and corporate bigwigs who put up cash as individuals). On the other hand, I know of multiple crimes that have been solved on my own block thanks to the cameras -- one was a duo of moron girls who were wearing hoodies and masks and holding up people with a b-b gun. I have no guilt over denying those two mean-spirited nitwits their privacy, thank you. The cameras are also aimed at the streets, not into windows or back yards (as far as I know), so as someone whose street is video-taped constantly, I have yet to feel any loss of privacy. No, I can't nip out onto my front step in the nude to grab the newspaper, but I wasn't planning on that anyway.

So what does this have to do with the mission of the League of Humane Voters? After all, this blog is supposed to be about the legislative changes we work for, to improve the lives of animals. Well, here's the link, at least in my mind. The furor over the cameras got me thinking about what bothers people and why, and what, if anything, people are willing to do when something bothers them.

Recent news (heck, not just recently, this sort of news is perpetual) has shown us the depths to which humans can sink when it comes to cruelty, especially to animals. Days-old puppies tossed in the garbage. A puppy miller's "vet" chops off a puppy's tail without anesthesia. Dogs found with broken legs, lying in the gutter, cats set aflame, injured farm animals beaten by slaughterhouse workers, laboratory chimps tortured over and over to obtain useless medical data -- it's everywhere, every day, and when it comes to dogs and farm animals, it's happening every day within a stone's throw of the hated, privacy-stealing, uproar-causing cameras in Lancaster City. It's even happening IN the City, where dog fighting is an ongoing (I see chewed up pit bulls on the street all the time) but generally ignored problem.

But what do some people in Lancaster County and most of our legislators worry about? When it comes to the issues of puppy mills in particular and animal cruelty in general, they worry about people's livelihoods. Many legislators don't want to be seen to thwart anyone's ability to earn a buck, unless it's a union worker or someone on minimum wage. For those poor souls, it's tough luck, because corporate bottom lines reign supreme. When it comes to the "entrepreneurs" running puppy mills, however, it's mostly a hands-off approach. Don't risk any guy in a straw hat losing his business, even if he's earning money by breeding dogs to death, creating sick, inbred puppies, torturing dogs on a daily basis with do-it-yourself-at-home "medical procedures", serving bug-and-feces-covered food, providing freezing cold or steaming hot facilities (depending on the season), and ignoring noxious fumes from poor ventilation. But hey, you get a few hundred dogs in one place, and you're bound to have a mess, right?

Right. And that's why nobody should ever HAVE a few hundred dogs. Huge breeding operations cannot be run safely or humanely. It's just not possible. And it's wrong to treat dogs, who we call "man's best friend" on the one hand and then churn out in sick, twisted droves on the other, like a product. They're not products, they're creatures with a full nervous system, capable of feeling pain, anguish, panic, and an array of emotions that anyone who's ever known a dog can attest to. Does any legislator with his own dog think that the dog crouched in a cage (from which she's never, or rarely released) on some "farm" is feeling anything less than his own pet feels? Those sad eyes when you leave, those joyful leaps when you come home, the dog barking to protect the house or to alert his family to fire or an injured child -- these phenomena are not myths or sappy stories, they're true. And the dogs tortured every day in Central PA's puppy mills are being ignored -- by legislators who care more about the "farmer" earning a living than about the fact that he's a greedy sadist who needs to lose his or her kennel license (if they even have one) and look for another line of work. Worse, these legislators are ignoring their constituents, who overwhelmingly support stamping out puppy mills and cracking down on breeders who breed too many dogs to do it right. The voters aren't out to stop dog breeding (and that's not our intention, either -- we're realists), but they do want the torture to stop and the sadistic greed that causes it to be punished.

HB 39 languishes in committee (see my previous blog entry), the dog tethering bill continues to be an uphill battle, and the Puppy Mill law passed several months ago had so few teeth and was so badly neutered (pardon the expression) by the PA Senate that you could run 500 hundred big dogs through the holes it created for greedy sadists to exploit for their own continued gain.

And now some thoughts for the voters, especially those who care about the puppy mill issue but have never called their House rep or PA Senator: A legislator who can turn his or her back on these atrocities and continue to worry more about some "farmer" losing his income is the same person who'll deny funding for human concerns too -- services for the poor and their children, education, health care, initiatives to clean up the planet, green energy, open space protection, and more -- things that matter to everyone, and on which the voters' needs and desires are clear -- and also usually ignored.

So let's put up some cameras in Central PA's countryside. Focus them on the barn where barking dogs can be heard (but are never seen), where suburbanites from all over the country (and Joe Biden, our own Vice President) pull up to buy a puppy, where dogs are bred for pet stores, where torture is happening right now, at the hands of a greedy, sadistic "farmer" who sees dogs as a cash crop. I won't feel a moment's guilt denying privacy to those mean-spirited nitwits, either.

Bottlenecks - WHY?

Animal cruelty legislation should be a no-brainer. Who would want to be known as the legislator who was in favor of performing painful medical procedures on dogs without anesthesia or antibiotics? Who'd want to be the person who looked the other way when the chance to stop real, tangible, proven suffering presented itself?

In the following article, "Anger Over Dog-Cruelty Bill Could Freeze Legislature", it seems that Dominic Pileggi, Republican and PA Senate majority leader is doing just that -- looking the other way on a chance to stop horrific medical procedures being performed by puppy millers looking to avoid scrutiny and save money. According to Thomas Caltagirone, Democrat, and head of the Judiciary Committee (and supporter of HB 39), the bill first waited way too long in the hands of the Senate's Agriculture Committee (chaired by Senator Mike Brubaker) and now it's being held up in the Judiciary. He considers it a stalling tactic.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/state/20090620_Anger_over_dog-cruelty_bill_could_freeze_legislature.html

Why would anyone want to stall or stop this bill? HB 39 requires that only a veterinarian can perform procedures such as caesarian sections (surgery to remove puppies from a pregnant dog), de-barking (which the LOHV favors outlawing entirely -- would you cut out a child's tongue if he or she was too noisy or kept making sounds that gave away the fact that you were running a sweatshop in your backyard? That's the reason so many millers de-bark their breeding dogs), and other procedures.

It's funny (not funny "ha ha") that when we're doing outreach events to the voters, they're often incredulous that things that should be illegal already are not. "You mean it's legal now to tie a dog outside 24/7 in PA?" Yep, it sure is, thanks to the same sort of delays on voting on the dog tethering bill, which has appeared in multple forms for the past few years. "You mean it's not illegal to sew up a dog with fishing line after cutting out her puppies, just to save money?" Nope, it's not illegal -- and it remains perfectly legal to do so, thanks to the sort of purposeful bottleneck currently being created in the PA Senate.

Contact your PA Senator today to ask that this bill be moved along and be voted on immediately. Here's a link to find your PA Senator's contact info -- all you'll need to do is insert your zip code in the box in the upper right of the resulting window, and you'll find out who your PA legislators are, and you can then click on the senators' name/s to obtain their phone numbers.

http://www.pasen.gov

Remember, calls work MUCH better than emails -- which are often deleted without being read, if the topic is one that the legislator and/or his staff would rather not deal with. Nice, huh? Taxpayers pay for the computers and software used to ignore the wishes of the voters.

Welcome to the League of Humane Voters, Central PA Chapter, Blog!

This blog is intended to keep our members up-to-date -- about pending legislation, candidate endorsements, current court cases involving animals and the environment, and local politics as it pertains to factory farming, puppy mills, zoning, and other issues that affect animals and the planet.

More than one of our core members will be contributing here, so look for various perspectives and a variety of sources of news and information. And don't forget to visit our website:

www.lohvpa.org

Welcome, and please check back frequently for updates! I can't promise a daily entry, but we'll do our best to keep you informed and interested!!

-Laurie