AMAZING VICTORIES IN 2008

Let’s celebrate our victories for 2008 and may they serve as inspiration and motivation for the work to be done in 2009.

- Illegal Logging Ban Enacted. The United States became the first country in the world to prohibit the import and sale of illegally-sourced wood and wood products. Siberian tigers, orangutans and many other species dependent on forest habitat around the globe will benefit.
by WWF

- Clean Energy Tax Incentives Extended. The U.S. Congress extended tax incentives that encourage individuals and businesses to install renewable energy systems and build energy-efficient buildings.
by WWF

- Sumatran Elephant and Tiger Habitat Protected. Indonesia committed to doubling the size of a national park that is one of the last havens for endangered Sumatran elephants and critically endangered Sumatran tigers.
by WWF

- 50 Million People Switched Off Their Lights for Earth Hour 2008. WWF activists were among the estimated 50 million people around the world who turned off their lights for one hour on March 29, 2008, to demonstrate their commitment to slowing the effects of climate change. Sign up to join us for Earth Hour 2009
by WWF

There is still a lot of work to do and the WWF has a list of campaigns where we can all be a part of and help reach the ears and eyes of the world. Visit World Wildlife Fund.

- Donna Karan dumps fur! Thanks to the hard work of PETA’s staff, members, and volunteers and after nearly a year of pressuring designer Donna Karan to drop fur from her designs—by protesting outside her boutiques, crashing her runway show, and exposing her cruel use of fur online—Donna Karan has announced that all her Fall 2009 lines will be fur-free and that she has “no plans” to use fur in the future. Well done, everyone!
by Peta

For more ways to help and getting active visit Peta’s Action Center.

- Four years have passed since the devastating Asia tsunami of December 26, 2004 — the biggest emergency response in Save the Children’s history.

Today, our primary focus is on helping families become more self-sufficient and enabling children to succeed in school. Thousands of children affected by the tsunami are attending schools. And many of these children are also benefitting from our health, nutrition and child protection programs.
by Save the Children

Last night, I got sucked into watching a few documentaries with overly dramatic titles about insects. I sat in awe for nearly three hours watching ants raise caterpillar larvae as their own, spiders weave thick squares of web to use in a tool-like fashion to capture their prey from the rain-forest floor, and mayflies and cicadas as they shed their skin and emerged from the water and dark underground to start the last and most brief part of their life.

Insects develop complex relationships, care for their young, and work as teams much as we do. When you see a spider or ant running across the floor, it’s likely that they have somewhere important to be in order to complete something that they set out to do that day, just as we run errands and have order in our daily lives. However, often when we see them, we treat their presence as an intrusion, and many people even resort to inhumane methods for dealing with these encounters.

Cockroaches probably bear the brunt of our negative reactions more heavily than most insects. While you certainly don’t want your living space to turn into a cockroach haven, there are humane and affordable methods for discouraging them. Inhumane poisons and traps will do nothing for long-term control and will have you spending more time and money than solving the problem once and for all in an effective and humane manner. With a little time, you can have your environment cockroach-free, and no one has to get hurt. The following is a strategy that I used a couple of years ago, and it worked perfectly.

First and foremost, you must work on prevention. Keep all dishes washed, take trash out frequently, and make sure that unrefrigerated companion animal food is tightly sealed and put away when your animal companion is not eating. Keep countertops wiped down with a vinegar-and-water solution, and sweep, mop, and vacuum regularly. Now for the actual cockroachproofing, you will need the following:
• Non-toxic white glue
• Caulking in either white or clear (available from hardware stores)
• Stoppers for all your drains that do not already have built-in stoppers
• Dried whole bay leaves

Start with one room at a time, and begin with places where you have seen cockroaches. Put stoppers in all your drains—sinks and bathtub―when not in use to prevent roaches from coming in via your drainpipes. Also be sure to repair leaky faucets and pipes, as roaches are attracted to water.

Seal up all gaps between floorboards, under counters, around sink plumbing and windowsills, and near fuse boxes. For larger gaps, use the caulking, and for smaller gaps, use the glue. This will take some time, but if you just work on it for a little while each day, you will have it finished in no time.

Add dried bay leaves to your kitchen drawers and cabinets, too, as they are a great natural repellent and will leave your kitchen smelling wonderful!

P.S. If after your cockroachproofing you find any little guys who got stuck inside, help them out and use something like this to humanely remove them from your living space. Click here for more tips too.

[by Mylie]

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* Give purchasing preference to suppliers that use controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK)—the least-cruel method of bird slaughter available. By the end of 2010, the company will purchase 5 percent of its turkey meat from suppliers that use CAK.
* Give purchasing preference to suppliers that don’t use gestation crates—restrictive metal enclosures that confine pregnant pigs. The company will also increase the total amount of pig meat that it purchases from crate-free suppliers by 5 percent each of the next three years, for a total increase of 15 percent.
* Give purchasing preference to producers of cage-free eggs and increase the amount of cage-free eggs that it sells to 4 percent by the end of 2009 and 5 percent by the end of 2010. The company will also work toward increasing that amount to 10 percent within the next 5 years.

Winn-Dixie is following in the footsteps of other major grocery and restaurant companies that have recently made animal welfare improvements following discussions with PETA, including Safeway, Harris Teeter, Burger King, Carl’s Jr., and Hardee’s.

While this agreement doesn’t mean that the eggs and meat sold by Winn-Dixie—or any other company—are produced without causing animals to suffer (visit PETA’s Web site Meat.org to learn more), Winn-Dixie has begun to phase out its suppliers’ worst abuses, which is a real victory for animals.

Please use Winn-Dixie’s online customer service form to thank the company for improving the lives of animals killed for its stores.

Thank you for all that you do for animals!

Sincerely,

Brooke Jones, Activist Liaison
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

One of PETA’s undercover investigators was documenting the horrific conditions on a Tyson Foods factory farm as woekers walked among more than 18,000 peeping baby chicks. As they walked, the workers grabbed sick birds and threw them onto a heap of dying chicks. Disgusted, our investigator asked if he could have two of the discarded babies.
Kokun, a hen, and Potpo, a rooster, were only a few weeks old. PETA immediately took them to a veterinarian, who diagnosed them with a respiratory illness caused by the noxious fumes in the severely crowded warehouse. The vet gave the chicks a guarded prognosi.
After a few days of rest at PETA’s headquarters, Kokun and Potpo went to their permanent home at a nearby sanctuary and soon began to recover. In time, the chicks were able to go outside, sun themselves, preen, and investigate their new home and exciting back yard.
Kokun and Potpo are very affectionate to each other and to their caregiver. The birds run th their caregiver every time she walks out to the birds’ little yard. When she stoops down, the birds jump up on her back and shoulders!

These young chickens are the lucky ones who escaped the misery of a factory farm. With your help, PETA can open the world’s eyes to the plight of these smart, sensitive animals so that millions more chickens will be able to enjoy their lives.