Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has started their ninth Antarctic campaign to defend whales in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. They hope their latest campaign, Operation Zero Tolerance, will be their greatest success in challenging illegal whaling.

The direct action marine conservation society cannot carry out their work alone. Beginning tomorrow, Monday, Nov. 19th, the organization is encouraging those who believe in their work to participate in a special fundraising challenge by pledging just $9.

This year’s campaign, which lasts 3 months, is not yet fully funded. Help the Sea Shepherds stay between the whalers and their prey for as long as they can. $9 is less than the price of a couple of Venti Starbucks drinks.

If you have the funds to spare, you can run with the theme of “9″ by donating $9, $99, or $999. Even as little as $5 can help the organization with its efforts.

The goal is zero kills. Help support the whales.

Mercy for Animals’ undercover investigators have again brought to light animal cruelty at Butterball turkey facilities in North Carolina. According to the nonprofit organization, abuses documented last month included:

• workers kicking and stomping on birds, dragging them by their wings and necks
• throwing turkeys onto the ground or on top of other birds
• serious untreated illnesses and injuries, including open sores, infections, and broken bones

This new footage comes on the heels of a guilty plea, in August, for felony animal cruelty by a former Butterball employee. The latest footage echoes the cruelty of last year. Butterball is the world’s largest producer of turkey meat, responsible for “30 percent of the 46 million turkeys who are killed for Thanksgiving.”

Ahead of the holiday, MFA felt strongly about promoting awareness of the footage. In the initial days following its release, their main website, MercyForAnimals.org, redirected to a special investigations site, ButterballAbuse.com.

MFA encourages leaving turkeys, as well as other animals, off your holiday menus. Get some great ideas at ChooseVeg.com.

Celebrate life this holiday by not taking it. Reportedly, more than 45 million turkeys will be killed for Thanksgiving day meals. (Source: PETA)

Instead, start a new tradition with Farm Sanctuary. Your $30 gift helps the organization care for the rescued animals, the few of many.

You can help so many more, by choosing to leave turkeys and other animals off your plates.

Tomorrow, Farm Sanctuary will have their NYC Walk For Farm Animals. The organization holds walks in several cities around the U.S., including Atlanta, Boston, and Portland. Walkers for NYC have already raised more than $65,000 to help Farm Sanctuary promote their efforts on behalf of animals.

For all the years as a vegetarian, and even when I initially became vegan last year, I had no idea farm sanctuaries existed. The first two I visited were Catskill Animal Sanctuary and Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Check out my albums on Facebook for Woodstock and Catskill!

In August, I got the opportunity to visit Farm Sanctuary for the Country Hoedown. In Watkins Glen, Tweed and all the other animals carved out a little place in my heart.

Tweed and I

While I won’t be walking in Central Park tomorrow because I will be en route to a half marathon, I couldn’t pass up the chance to spread the word. Veganism isn’t just about what’s on our plates; it’s about what’s off them as well. Sanctuaries help people make the connection.

My goal has almost been met thanks to some generous contributions from Jake Johnston of PlayWithMyFood, Evan O’Brien of the Vegan O’Brien Baking Company, and Gretchen Primack, co-writer of The Lucky Ones.

Farm Sanctuary relies on your donations to help provide for the animals! All contributions are appreciated. Click to support!

Thank you Gretchen!

Premiering tonight on the National Geographic channel is Animal Intervention. The series kicks off tonight at 9pm following, ”animal advocate crusader Alison Eastwood, animal expert Donald Schultz, and activist Billy McNamara.” Listening to a recent episode of Our Hen House has made me excited and curious about this show.

On episode 140, Jasmin and Mariann interviewed Delcianna Winders, the Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement for the PETA Foundation. In the interview, they discuss how the law is being used to rescue wild animals from poor living conditions.

Animal Intervention has the opportunity to raise awareness. While you’ll have to have premium channels to view the show, which limits the potential reach, fans of the network, fans of hoarding shows, or even those drawn in my the cast’s pretty faces, will hopefully gain new perspective on the misuse of animals.

It’s Cow Appreciation Day! OK, only so at Chick-fil-A where if you dress up like a cow, you can get a free meal.

There’s a degree of irony that Friday the 13th, with all its associations to bad luck and horror, be the day chosen for this marketing event.

Chickens are one of the worst abused animals and switching to the consumption of their meat is a lateral move for human health and a downward move for compassion.

Want to really show appreciation for cows? Kick the meat addiction. Refrain from eating them and their farm friends.

So, my apologies for being a little behind on this topic. When I first heard about the controversy being caused by Urban Decay’s decision to sell in China, it came via a Leaping Bunny press release. Now it seems clear, but I’m used to so much double-talk that some of the wording seemed questionable. So my initial response was, “Trying to determine for myself what this means and whether I care. These symbols have such a degree of fluidity to them. Not everything with a leaping bunny is even vegan.”

To sum up the press release plainly, the Chinese government requires companies selling products to allow testing of those products on animals. If it’s sold in China, it’s not cruelty-free. Even if the ingredients are vegan, the use of animal testing makes the product as a whole not vegan. Urban Decay will no longer have vegan products even if they continue to use the Marley Footprint, which was created to denote vegan products.

If you’ve read my posts and articles, you’ll know I’ve been married to Urban Decay for a while. Having worked in a major retail cosmetics store, it was my go to brand, my rock. Marriages aren’t always easy; we don’t always love what our partners do. I didn’t love it when the primer was found not to be vegan anymore; I wasn’t in love with every color in the vegan palette; wished they’d come out with another all Marley Footprint stamped palette or some other vegan kit (seriously, it’s like only getting a piece of ass on your anniversary while  your partner is out trolling for hookers every night). I was grateful though.

UD’s Facebook announcement that they will be selling in China was the final straw. Some people may not understand that it wasn’t the actual idea that they would be, oh I’m sorry, that “the Chinese government may conduct a test using [their] products,” testing on animals that has upset me the most. Trying to think of every possible angle, I considered ways it could be beneficial in the long run…all of which fail because in essence, we’re really only handing over our ethics for profit.

It was the statement, “Because of China’s policies, this has upset some of our loyal fans who are also animal rights activists,” that really burned me. Having worked in retail, I have first hand experience that not all people wanting cruelty-free products are “animal rights activists.” They’re simply compassionate people who don’t want useless tests conducted on living animals, which include rats, bunnies, and dogs (yes, they test on Snoopy!). Animal rights activism has such an extreme connotation that it concerned me for years to be associated with it: ‘Oh no, I’m not one of them.’ It conjures up images of people all in black, releasing animals and setting fire to labs. Um, I bake vegan cupcakes…but I’m an animal rights activist.

The wording challenges the everyday Jane to associate themselves with such extreme labeling and to question, since they are not on that end of the spectrum, whether this is something they should care about. It is. Urban Decay has been a successful company being cruelty-free; they’ve actually built their company on the faith of people, not just veg*ns, who oppose animal testing. As Erin Red says, ‘I don’t like those products enough to go back on my ethics.’

Last weekend, I got the chance to chat with Melisser Elliott of Cruelty Free Face, as well as see her makeup demonstration, at The Seed: A Vegan Experience. Melisser only uses products that are vegan and cruelty free. Bummed to say the least about Urban Decay’s, and other companies, decision to move into a market that requires animal-testing, she wasn’t fazed. She whipped out a makeup case proving we don’t need UD as much as they seem to think they don’t need us. She even applauded LUSH for taking a stand against animal-testing.

Melisser’s favorite brands include OCC, Manic Panic, Zuzu Luxe, and Barry M. Check out her site for more info and video tutorials. Also, grab her book The Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life.

Click the image below to Vegan Outreach. Donate by June 30th and they will match…then double. Minimum donation is $10…but right now it will count so, so, so, so much more!

Tomorrow, April 24th, the new children’s book by Ruby Roth will be released. Entitled Vegan Is Love, Ms. Roth’s second book is drawing attention from both pro- and anti-veg camps.

Praise and criticism come simultaneously regarding whether encouraging kids to adopt a plant-based diet is healthy and whether it is healthy exposing to children to the graphic images depicted.

It is a misconception that vegetarian or vegan diets are unhealthy for growing children. These diets, when well planned, can be as healthy or healthier than those including meat. What begs the most consideration is whether kids should be exposed to the animal abuses that foster a plant-based diet.

The illustrations look very well done, even if disturbing to a degree. The shock value of seeing what goes on behind the closed doors of slaughterhouses and animal labs, is tremendous; it’s also not for kids.

My stance is that it’s very important, for those of age to seek out information, to be made aware of animal issues. One of the number one things I hear amongst adults is confusion and misguidance. Parents influence their children greatly. Inform the parents who can be guides.

Read more:

ABC

MSN

VegNews

DailyMailUK

Horse drawn carriages can bring about a sense of nostalgia. Horses have been utilized for transportation for centuries. However, New Yorkers for Clean, Livable & Safe Streets (NYCLASS) and PETA want you to take a step into the future.

In 2008, Duncan Riley wrote for The Inquisitr, “Thousands of years of human history, and now PETA wants to ban horse drawn carriages? WTF?…Just when you think you’ve seen PETA go to extremes, they out do themselves once again.”

While horses were necessary to our ancestors lives, where cars are present, they have effectively made horses obsolete as a means of transportation. Horse drawn carriages still persist though. For the Guardian UK, SE Smith noted that “…in New York, as in a handful of other locations around the world, horses still work in urban environments, and purely for entertainment purposes.”

What separates carriage horses, though a prominent piece of the argument against their utilization in urban areas, is not how they are housed. That they are forced to travel amongst cars, in jeopardy of being hit. With this in mind, I was passing by a set of police horses in downtown NYC a few weeks ago and thought, “What makes them different?”

While these horses are likely kept in better conditions than carriage horses and they only have to carry the weight of one officer, rather than a heavy cart, they still travel on the mean urban streets, antiquated and likely ineffectual in our era.