California

You Can Help Stop the Slaughter in Shelters Now

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , ,

On January 10, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a plan to invest $50 million over five years to turn his state into a no-kill animal shelter state. You DO NOT have to live in California to help make this happen, or to make it happen in your state, too.

Back in the 1990s I was the Director of Public Relations for New York’s City’s Center for Animal Care and Control. The CACC ran the city’s animal shelters, and I saw first-hand what happens behind closed doors in those death camps. Animals brought into the shelters have three days in which to be adopted. What happens after three days? These innocent, healthy, adoptable animals are taken to what’s called the “kill room.” They are held down and injected in the neck with a drug that causes decompression of their heart and lungs. The animals die slowly and in pain and terror. The poor, lifeless bodies are then dumped in a pile in a refrigerated room and later thrown onto garbage trucks and sent to rendering plants, where they will be ground up for fish food sold in the Pacific Rim countries. It’s brutal, it’s sickening, and I witnessed it with my own eyes. I witnessed the same thing in Los Angeles.

It doesn’t have to be that way. No-kill shelters, only “euthanize” animals who are terminally ill, irremediably suffering, and cannot be rehabilitated. No-kill shelters strive to find permanent homes for all the dogs and cats they take in.

Governor Newsom’s budget proposal to turn California into a no-kill state must pass. To do so, it needs the support of the California state legislature. This is where you and I come in. Remember, you don’t have to live in California to contact these legislators listed below and urge them to support the California for All Dogs & Cats proposal.

This has nothing to do with politics or being red or blue, Republican or Democrat. Send a message to legislators that compassionate citizens refuse to be a party to the mass slaughter of animals. Here’s a link to a list of California state legislators with their contact information. Take a few minutes to send an email, make a phone call, or mail a letter telling them to support no-kill animal shelters and save the lives of innocent animals. Then, contact your own state legislators and urge them to pass a similar bill. Healthy, adoptable, loving animals are being killed by the thousands or millions in your state, too.

Spread the word, stop the slaughter.

New California Law Takes Aim at Breeding Mills

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , , , , , , ,

Here’s a photo of me and Muttley, rescued from a municipal shelter in the nick of time, and a member of my family for ten years.

On January 1, 2019, California became the first state to prohibit pet stores from selling dogs, cats, and other mammals unless they were acquired from a shelter, rescue group, or public animal control agency. Under the new California law, pet store operators must be able to prove the origin for animals in their store or be fined $500 per animal.

Most animals sold in pet stores come from mass-breeding facilities that churn out hundreds of thousands of animals every year in deplorable conditions. At these “puppy mills,” “breeding stock” are artificially inseminated again and again to keep them permanently pregnant or nursing. Due to stress and physical exertion, their lives are often short. Their young are typically taken away at a very early age, packed into crates, and trucked or flown hundreds of miles – often without adequate food, water, or ventilation – to brokers, who then sell them to stores. Some of the animals don’t survive the grueling journey.

This is a serious and long overdue blow to those evil breeding mills. Animal advocacy groups have fought and uncovered horrific conditions at breeding mills for years, including those at Holmes Farm, a huge Pennsylvania animal mill that supplied PetSmart, Petco, and others. Undercover video taken there documented that animals were kept in stacked plastic bins, denied veterinary care, and routinely frozen alive and gassed by the dozens. Holmes Farm was raided by agents of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is now under federal investigation.

Another good reason to put these breeders out of business? Purebred dogs and cats suffer from significantly higher rates of physical abnormalities and congenital defects. Over-breeding has saturated gene pools with those for deafness, heart ailments, and other physical disorders. The healthiest and most robust dogs and cats are mixed-breeds, or mutts, and they’re oh so cute besides. Every animal is beautiful in his or her own right, not just those with AKC-certified bloodlines!

California is the first to have such a law enacted statewide, but there are similar laws restricting pet store sales in towns and cities across the country. If where you live isn’t on the list, I urge you to contact your state and local legislators to push for similar legislation.

As good news as the California law is for putting an end to breeding mills, it’s still not cause for celebration. Don’t forget that every time someone buys an animal from a pet store, they are condemning another in a shelter, waiting to be loved, to death. Pet store animals will be there until someone buys them, but shelter animals are given a only a brief window of opportunity to be adopted; those that aren’t are put to death. As Public Relations Director for New York’s Center for Animal Care and Control I witnessed beautiful, healthy dogs and cats held down, injected with an asphyxiating drug, and tossed into a refrigerated room to be taken away by garbage trucks. It’s heartbreaking and sickening. Make shelter animals your first choice in adoption, and, remember, always have your animal companions spayed or neutered.

Peace for ALL the animals with whom we share this planet!

 

California Bans Cosmetics Tested on Animals

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , , , ,

Thanks to SB 1249, the Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act, just signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, cosmetics tested on animals will no longer be allowed to be sold in California. Beginning in January 2020 (why not 2019?), to do business in the world’s fifth-largest economy, cosmetics manufacturers will have to stop subjecting animals to unspeakable cruelty and death in testing their products and their ingredients. This is not only good news for animals and those who care about animals, but for consumers as well. Using animals to conduct safety testing is flawed science, because differences between species, and even between animals in the same species, are subject to variances in absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of chemicals, and lead to flawed and generally useless results regarding humans.

Even though animal testing is NOT required by law, companies still choose to torture, maim, and kill animals by the hundreds of thousands each year in the United States, even though there are much better alternatives to animal testing.  The animals most frequently used for these horribly cruel tests are mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, monkeys and beagles. Yes, because of their docile nature, beagles, like my friend Snoopy, are also often used for testing. In tests of cosmetic products and ingredients, animals suffer through painful and often bizarre tests for skin irritation, eye irritation and any kind of toxicity. In these tests, the animals have chemicals forced down their throats, into their eyes and onto their shaved skin to document their reaction. Lethal dose tests, in which large amounts of a test chemical are forced through a tube down the throats of animals are conducted to see how much and long it takes for the animal to die. These animal tests result in immense pain, distress, blindness, swollen eyes, sore and bleeding skin, internal bleeding, organ damage, birth defects, convulsions and death. In a barbaric procedure called the Draize test, a solution of products is continuously dripped into the eyes of rabbits. The rabbit’s head is held in a restraining stock and clips placed on the poor animal’s eyelids to hold them open during the test period, which can last several days. The results are typically intense burning, itching, pain, and often blindness. The animals can’t do anything to stop their suffering because they can’t free themselves from the gruesome restraining stocks. In a Draize test for skin irritancy, the test substances are applied to the animal’s skin after it has been shaved and scraped raw. The suffering these animals are put through is too ghastly to comprehend. Animals that survive such tests are killed when the tests are done, their destroyed bodies thrown in the trash. Laboratory animals are not protected under the Animal Welfare Act.

Alternatives to using animals in testing include:

  • in vitro (test tube) test methods and models based on human cell and tissue cultures
  • computer models and simulations
  • stem cell testing methods
  •  the use of cornea-like 3D structures, which are produced from human cells. These human skin cultures can be grown specifically for cosmetic testing. This is a much more accurate alternative to pouring caustic chemicals into the eyes of terrified and suffering animals.

For more alternatives to animal testing go to https://www.neavs.org/alternatives/in-testing

California is not the first to ban the use of animals in cosmetics testing – animal testing has been banned in the European Union, India, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey. How sad that the United States has not seen fit to end the suffering and torment of testing on animals. Let’s hope California’s compassionate choice will lead the rest of the nation to put a stop to the horrific violence done in the name of human vanity. Please take a moment to let decision-makers know that no cosmetics product or ingredient is worth inflicting suffering on animals. Act now to stop cruel cosmetic tests on animals in the U.S. by going to this web site (https://support.peta.org/page/1879/action/1)  and scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Presented below are two links that offer a list of companies who test on animals and those who don’t. But to ensure an absolute cruelty-free cosmetics collection, always look for the signature “cruelty-free” bunny logo.

Companies that DO:  https://www.peta.org/living/personal-care-fashion/beauty-brands-that-you-thought-were-cruelty-free-but-arent/

Companies that DO NOT: http://features.peta.org/cruelty-free-company-search/cruelty_free_companies_search.aspx?Donottest=8

To learn more about California Bill SB1249 watch this video, produced by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfAdPJMvMdk&feature=youtu.be

Peace to ALL the animals with whom we share the planet!

California Hospitals and Prisons Now Offer Vegan Options

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , ,

Dining out recently with my manager and co-author of my forthcoming memoirs, I had to have him take my picture with this great “Star Trek” poster. I love the message – Vulcans respected all forms of life, as should we all.

I am so pleased that California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a landmark bill that guarantees the state’s hospital patients and prison population a vegan option at every meal. “Whether to protect animals, our climate, or our health, those of us who choose to eat a vegan diet can celebrate today with Gov. Brown’s signing of SB 1138,” says State Senator Nancy Skinner, sponsor of the bill. “SB 1138 ensures that people in hospitals, healthcare facilities, or prison have access to plant-based meals.” Co-sponsoring the bill was the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Social Compassion in Legislation. State law will now require licensed California health care facilities and state prisons to make vegan meal options containing no animal products or by-products, including meat, poultry, fish, dairy, or eggs.

A vegan diet not only saves the lives of animals but promotes better health. I became vegan over twenty-five years ago after reading the books The Case for Animal Rights by Dr. Tom Regan and Diet for A New America by John Robbins, and by watching videos showing animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. So gruesome were the images I saw, I could barely keep watching, but I had to know the truth behind what we eat. Everything I read and saw not only confirmed to me that all animals have the capacity to suffer, and they do – horribly, but also that animals have complex emotions and are much smarter than most people realize. I decided I simply couldn’t continue to participate in something that inflicts such fear, pain and suffering upon poor, innocent animals.

Pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, and other animals raised for human consumption are horribly abused in factory farms and slaughterhouses, their throats cut, and their still living bodies hung upside down to bleed out, after which their corpses are cut up and delivered to meat packing plants. Fish are pulled from oceans and lakes and cut apart or left to die of suffocation on the bloody decks of fishing trawlers. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated by a machine known in the industry as a “rape rack,” and kept pregnant their whole miserable lives, pumped constantly for the milk created for their babies until they collapse from brittle, calcium-depleted bones. When their milk production declines, the poor cows, crying for their babies, are shipped in hot, crowded trucks and boxcars to the slaughterhouse. The cow’s female babies are destined for the “rape rack” just like their mothers, but her male babies are taken away, umbilical cord still hanging, and shipped off to veal farms. There they are chained by the neck so they can’t move and fed an anemic diet, so that their flesh is tender and white when they are slaughtered, still in infancy, to be processed as veal.

Dairy is an extremely cruel industry. I drink almond or soy milk and enjoy vegan cream cheese, vegan mayonnaise, and other vegan cheeses. I could go on and on. Google vegan substitutes for ANY animal product and you will find awesome alternatives. To learn more about opposing animal cruelty and choosing compassion (and better health, as well), please visit adaptt.org and get the brochure “Why Vegan” from veganoutreach.com

If you’re interested in watching some awesome documentaries about how to start the process towards veganism, see “Cowspiracy,” “Forks Over Knives,” and “What the Health.” For an even larger selection, go to https://nutriciously.com/best-vegan-documentaries/

A well-balanced vegan diet can easily provide all the nutrients we need to thrive. Government health experts worldwide are finally catching up with the large body of scientific evidence demonstrating that a vegan diet is not only a viable option for people of any age, but that eating plant foods instead of animal-based foods can confer significant health benefits, including reduction in incidence of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attack, stroke, and cancer.

Taxpayers benefit from the new law (studies show vegan meals cost about 50% less than meat entrees), patients and prisoners benefit, and most importantly, millions of animals’ lives will be saved.

Let’s urge every state to follow California’s lead and offer vegan meal options in every hospital and prison. In fact, let’s broaden the law. With childhood obesity a major issue in America today, isn’t it time schools were required to offer a vegan option, too?

Peace for ALL the animals with whom we share the planet!

In Times of Natural Disaster, Animals Need Help, Too

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , ,

Once again, major wildfires in California are wreaking havoc on both wild and domestic animals. Some fires are moving at the rate of 50 miles per hour, consuming everything in their paths. Fleeing animals can’t outrun the flames and are being burned alive or suffocating from smoke inhalation. My heart breaks because they are confused, frightened, and have no place to go. More than anything in the world, I wish I could save them all.

During the wildfires last December, I volunteered at the Last Call animal shelters, trying to reunite lost cats and dogs with their owners. I also helped dozens of volunteers wash animals being brought in completely covered with ash. We flushed out their eyes with warm water since animals are incapable of doing that for themselves. The animals were crying and shaking; it was so very sad. We did what we could by giving them loving kindness and comfort.

I urge anyone who can make the time to volunteer at your local animal rescue. Even in non-emergency times and locations, animals need you to help them find safe and loving adoptive homes.

Lost homes can be rebuilt but lives lost are gone forever. As you read this, poor animals are dying by the thousands in fear, pain, and misery.

All of us must be stewards of the earth’s animals. They are so innocent and need us to love them, protect them, adopt them, and NOT to eat them.

Peace to ALL the animals with whom we share this planet!

San Francisco Bans Fur Sales, Plus a Guest Essay by Priscilla Feral

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , , , , ,

A candid photo from 1975, taken on the steps of City Hall while shooting on location for the police drama The Streets of San Francisco. San Francisco is a beautiful city. I’ve been there many times. Soon the city will be even more beautiful when the ban on the sale of fur takes effect on January 1, 2019. San Francisco joins a growing list of cities across America that are banning the products of a cruel and bloodthirsty trade.

Priscilla Feral is a longtime friend and President of Friends of Animals. This past week, Priscilla published an op-ed piece in the New York Daily News calling on the nation’s fashion capital to join the ban. Priscilla and I agree it’s about time.

 

Torture goes out of fashion: Momentum builds for a ban on NYC fur sales

by Priscilla Feral

New York City prides itself on being a fashion capital, with designers who create the most innovative looks on the world’s stage. Now it’s time for the city to truly become fashion forward — to take its lead from powerhouse designers such as Stella McCartney and Michael Kors, and cities such as San Francisco, Berkeley, and West Hollywood, all of which are making the most important fashion statement of all by banning the sales of fur.

Furs is not fashion. Compassion is. More than 60% of Americans find killing animals for fur amounts to cruelty, according to an Angus Reid survey.

The signs that fur is over are everywhere.

Not only have McCartney and Kors shunned fur, as have Gucci and Versace, but so have New York City-based fashion houses Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and Hugo Boss.

Manhattan’s fur district has steadily declined. Where 450 fur factories once operated, now just a handful do – evidence that society’s desire for a product that depends on the slaughter and suffering of 50 million animals a year has waned. It’s been six years since an essay about the district’s demise was headlined “Last of the Furriers.” That is nothing to lament.

Fur is not only cruel to animals, but its production is toxic. Each mink skinned by fur farmers produces about 44 pounds of feces, which adds up to 1 million pounds produced annually by mink farms. Fur farm byproducts can leach into waterways.

Meanwhile, vegan fashion is in vogue. Faux fur revenues reached $250 million in 2010, with a predicted growth rate of 30% a year. And buyers are turning to cruelty-free fashion with gusto.

Why then should the city continue to prop up a declining, polluting, cruel industry? Neither the federal government nor the state of New York has regulated the sale of fur products except for the sale of dog and cat fur, which is generally prohibited under federal law.

Until the federal or state government decides to regulate the sale of fur products from other animals commonly used in the fashion and apparel industries, New York City is free to limit the sale and distribution of these products.

Thus, we have proposed City Council legislation to amend the administrative code of the city of New York in order to prohibit the sale, offering for sale, display for sale, trade, gifting, donation, or other distribution of an animal fur product. We have already spoken to several Council members who are supportive and expect to introduce legislation this fall.

Critics might say New York City will lose money. But there are a variety of immoral ways to earn revenues – and we should always shun them.

As San Francisco noted in its fur ban legislation: “The sale of fur products in San Francisco is inconsistent with the City’s ethos of treating all living beings, humans and animals alike, with kindness.”

The New York City Economic Development Corp., in its Fashion NYC2020 study, called on the city to become a hub of fashion-industry innovation. A fur ban gives designers and retailers in the city this very opportunity to be leaders in vegan fashion, build a commitment to protecting the environment, and send a message that animal suffering and slaughter for the sake of expensive clothing – only affordable to the 1% percent anyway – is over.

 

Los Angeles Bans the Use of Wild or Exotic Animals in Entertainment

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , , ,
Protesting in Los Angeles against the use of animals in entertainment.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously on April 25, 2017 to ban the use of wild or exotic animals for entertainment or amusement, passing a motion by Council member David Ryu that affects circuses, other wild animal shows, displays in public areas such as sidewalks and parks, and rentals for parties or events. Los Angeles becomes the largest municipality in the United States to take such action.

I am so very thankful to the City Council for this ban! I can only hope all cities across the country – and the world – follow in Los Angeles’ footsteps.

Animals aren’t actors, spectacles to be imprisoned and gawked at, or circus clowns. Yet thousands of these animals are forced to perform confusing and silly tricks by using physical punishment such as hitting them with bull hooks or tormenting them with electrical prods. These poor animals are hauled across the country in cramped and airless railroad boxcars or tractor-trailer trucks, kept chained or caged in barren, mind-numbing, filthy enclosures, and separated from their families and friends, all for the sake of human “entertainment.” Most of these animals live shortened life spans; many die still in chains.

Now – at least in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and several counties in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Idaho, and North Carolina – this sort of animal abuse won’t be allowed to continue. That’s a huge step in the right direction!

I would be grateful if all who read this post, even those who don’t live in L.A., could take a moment to email the members of the Los Angeles City Council to thank them for their vote and urge them to follow up by drafting the strongest possible ordinance. Feel free to copy mine, or use your own words. Email addresses are listed at the bottom of this post. Thank you!

Dear Council Member,

Thank you for your courage and compassion in voting in favor of the ban on using wild or exotic animals for entertainment in the City of Los Angeles. I urge you and the rest of the Council to draft and approve the strongest and most widely-reaching ordinance to effect this ban.

L.A. City Council members:

David Ryu:
councilmember.ryu@lacity.org

Nury Martinez:
councilmember.martinez@lacity.org

Paul Krekorian:
councilmember.krekorian@lacity.org

Bob Blumenfield:
councilmember.blumenfield@lacity.org

Paul Koretz:
councilmember.koretz@lacity.org

Marqueece Harris-Dawson:
councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org

Curren D. Price, Jr.:
councilmember.price@lacity.org

Herb J. Wesson, Jr.:
councilmember.wesson@lacity.org

Mike Bonin:
councilmember.bonin@lacity.org

Mitchell Englander:
councilmember.englander@lacity.org

Mitch O’Farrell:
councilmember.ofarrell@lacity.org

Jose Huizar:
councilmember.huizar@lacity.org

Joe Buscaino:
councilmember.buscaino@lacity.org

 

Peace for ALL the animals with whom we share the planet!