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| Lynx Issue 36: GE Protest Review, Adopt a Box, Gosling Rescue |
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| Friday, 14 August 2009 00:00 |
In this week's edition:
Giant Eagle Southside Protest Review Thanks to everyone who made it out to our protest at the Southside Giant Eagle! We once again received manager attention and leafleted to many passersby during our protest as well as the walk through Carson Street afterwards! Please stay tuned for our next scheduled protest against Giant Eagle. In the meantime, please help us with our extension of this campaign in networking with Giant Eagle competitors to agree not to promote circus animal cruelty. Click here for our action alert. VFA Gosling Rescue – Please Donate to local Wildlife Rehabber Who Assisted! A special rescue was made on VFA’s most recent trip to Brady’s Run Park. Several volunteers were present to collect information on the number of geese as well as the insufficient and downright non-existent attempts of non-lethal management made by Beaver County to avoid the hunting of semi-tame Canada geese. During our walk, the single identifiable flock of Canadas returned to shore and aside from some protective parents of goslings, were rather comfortable walking within a few feet of us. Among the small crowd, a gosling with a pronounced limp and siblings picking on them was spotted. The gosling was deterred from the flock and captured – a look at the leg in question revealed two separate areas of fishing line injury, as well as an embedded and gigantic rusting fishing hook. After a trip to a licensed wildbird rehabilitator, the fishing line was cut and the rusted hook removed. The gosling’s walking improved immediately and they were set for release! At the suggestion of the rehabber and due to the potentially pending hunts at Brady’s Run Park, they were released on a safe private property with other Canada Geese. Unfortunately, fishing tackle injuries are a common occurrence with waterfowl thriving in areas designated for fishing. While park visitors of the human variety may be complaining about stepping in geese droppings and park overseers are responding with little consideration or intelligence in humanely addressing the issue, the geese have yet to reveal plans for an uprising against the humans responsible for discarded fishing paraphernalia causing frequently fatal infections and amputations. Due to the rusting of the hook, it was apparent the gosling had grown up with this injury, and is lucky to have survived. In appreciation for this assistance, please donate to the rehabber who helped us out! Monetary donations can be sent to: Wildbird Recovery 120 Forsythe Road Valencia, PA 16059 www.wildbirdrecovery.org Thank you for your generosity! More pictures of this journey are available here Adopt a VFA Veg Box! Want to be part of our Veg Pittsburgh Campaign efforts? We are currently looking for volunteers to ‘adopt’ our newspaper boxes containing vegetarian starter kits throughout the city. All newspaper boxes are spayed, neutered, and vaccinated – we just need you to check and refill the literature in them! Boxes in need of loving guardians are currently needed for three locations: - OAKLAND: 460 South Craig Street, outside of Kiva Han. - SOUTHSIDE: East Carson, between 18th and 19th Street, across the road from Fat Head’s. - SQUIRREL HILL: Murray Avenue, outside of Barnes & Noble. If these are areas you frequent and you would be interested in helping us out, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for details and we will send you maps with the boxes’ exact locations. Please include which box you are interested in adopting and how often you’d be able to check on it. If you don’t frequent these areas but would still like to support our Veg Pittsburgh Campaign, fear not because you can still help out! Currently the information included in the boxes is approximately $75 a month. At $25 increments, you can keep one, two, or three newspaper boxes full of literature! Since ordering literature in bulk is ideal, any amount donated towards this project is also appreciated! http://www.vfaonline.org/campaigns/vegpittsburgh.html Plea Deal Reached in Tiger Ranch Case Ex Owner of Tiger Ranch, Lin Marie, pled guilty to 12 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty as well as 2 misdemeanor counts of tampering with public records in a plea deal reached July 13th, 2009. The 12 counts of animal cruelty represent the 12 cats first found in the ‘death room’ located on the property of Tiger Ranch during a March 2008 rescue, while the two charges of tampering regard the forging of veterinary signatures on rabies certificates. As part of the plea agreement, Lin Marie conceded to sign over the surviving animals rescued from her property, as well as pay restitution in upwards of 200,000$ for the animals’ care since the rescue. She faces up to two years for each misdemeanor count. Please attend sentencing on October 5th, 2009, at Allegheny County Courthouse. Time TBA. Also, click here for our adoption alert if you are interested in adopting some of the bravest and most lovingly appreciative felines we’ve had the opportunity to get to know! Petland: Victories and Tragedies Some exciting news to report in the national campaign against Petland and pet stores supporting puppy mills: the Petland in Cleveland Heights, OH went out of business and closed down on June 21st! The local organization Concerned Citizens Against Petland have been waging a campaign against this Petland for over 3 years, with actions that included demonstrations, leafleting, letters to the editor, multiple Cleveland Plain Dealer “Animals in the News” columns, community mailing with puppy mill information, and walking door to door to educate the community about the store when it first opened. It looks like their efforts have finally paid off with great success! Congratulations to Cleveland’s Concerned Citizens Against Petland on this victory! On the other end of the scale, you may have seen the sad news reported last week that a Petland employee in Akron, OH drowned two rabbits on Petland’s time clock. Since then, the Petland has been permanently closed (hooray!) and the employee responsible, Elizabeth Carlisle, is being prosecuted for animal cruelty. While this may seem like an isolated incident, we see it as the natural result of what happens when stores are allowed to sell animals and treat living beings as expendable merchandise items. It serves as a somber reminder of why we must not back down in the fight against Petland. Let’s work together to close down the Petland in Pittsburgh and match Ohio’s success. Pittsburghers Against Petland holds monthly protests outside the East Liberty Petland on the footpath of Penn Avenue at the entrance to the shopping center on the first Saturday of every month. Please join them whenever you can. For more information, check out Pittsburghers Against Petland's site Partying Polar Bears! Just a quick note that Polar Bears Against Palin celebrated Sarah’s last day in office July 26th. For information on Palin’s atrocious record with animals and nature check out our Sarah Palin leaflet |