The Death of Lucky (a tribute to Giggles, also murdered by the callous idiocy of humans)

The Death of Lucky
NATHAN J. WINOGRAD

Lucky's life was brutally cut short by idiotic and myopic wildlife regulations dictated by the self-interest of humans. This is what we call the great American civilization?

Lucky’s life was brutally cut short by idiotic and myopic wildlife regulations dictated by the self-interest of humans. This is what we call the great American civilization? To animals the human race is far worse than a global Nazi tyranny. 

Guest Blog by George Washington University Animal Law Professor Joan Schaffner  | Contributed by Ruth Eisenbud in memory of Giggles, another fawn who shared the fate of Lucky.
Last month near Condon, Montana, two people witnessed a hit-and-run accident where four deer were struck by a car. The two stopped to pull the body of one of the deer off the road only to find that a fawn that had been in utero had been expelled from his mother in the accident.
The pair rescued the fawn and took him to their home.  Because he was breathing very well and already trying to stand up, they took the fawn to a companion animal rescue in Eureka, where he managed to take a bit of food, then curled up and went to sleep in a laundry basket with one of the resident dogs.  Given his amazing story of survival, the fawn was named, Lucky.Unfortunately for Lucky, the pair next decided to do what they felt was the right thing: They called the game warden with the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) to see if there were a rescue/rehabilitation location that could help Lucky.
The Editor says:
IF YOU CAN MANAGE NOT TO PUKE OR BLOW A FUSE ONCE AGAIN ASKING THESE MORONS IN GOVERNMENT FOR THE OBVIOUS...then do sign the petition to the Montana FWP asking them to reconsider this policy and develop one that does not falsely protect public health at the expense  of innocent, orphaned wildlife. You can do so at http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-killing-orphaned-deer.
The next day the warden came to take Lucky – not to help him, but to kill him. Although his then-guardians pled with the warden for more than an hour, the warden explained that FWP’s policy left him no discretion, that all orphaned deer must be killed as a matter of policy. Lucky was put to death.FWP policy dictates that all orphaned deer (and certain other animals) who are not able to be returned to the wild be killed. Although there is a wildlife rehabilitation center in Helena, Montana, the center refuses to take in bats, skunks, raccoons, elk, moose and deer “under any circumstances, due to risks related to disease, public health and welfare.”  This refusal is dictated by state policy for hooved animals that “prohibits the rehabilitation of ungulates  at the centralized Wildlife Center in Helena or by any third party.
”FWP claims that, “The policy is necessary because Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a fatal neurological disease that affects deer and elk, is spreading in the United States and Canada. Although it has yet to be documented in wild populations in Montana, CWD is found in nearby states and provinces, and an infected animal could spread CWD from a holding center back into the wild.”  But that excuse doesn’t wash. FWP “tested more than 1,300 deer, elk and moose collected during the 2010-2011 hunting season and did not detect chronic wasting disease in any of the animals.”
In fact, there have been no reported cases of CWD in Montana and a test exists to detect it. FWP policy could simply be that all rescued animals be tested for CWD.Lucky was born under very tragic circumstances, yet was miraculously saved by caring Montanans – only to be indefensibly killed by the government.
Lucky isn’t the first baby deer to be killed needlessly. But we can try to ensure that he is one of the last. His tragedy should be a call for reform so that his death will not have been in vain.

Giggles, the fawn, removed and killed by armed commando that raided animal shelter
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan J. Winograd is a graduate of Stanford Law School, a former criminal prosecutor and corporate attorney, has spoken nationally and internationally on animal sheltering issues, has written animal protection legislation at the state and national level, has created successful No Kill programs in both urban and rural communities, and has consulted with a wide range of animal protection groups including some of the largest and best known in the nation. Visit his blog here.



Giggles, the fawn, removed and killed by armed commando that raided animal shelter

When will this madness stop?

This happened in Wisconsin. And it makes me sick. It doesn’t get worse than this. How nauseating and moronic, not to mention pitiless toward animals, can regulations governing the life and death of wildlife get? Not to mention the stupid and uncompassionate people who enforce them.  Who are the politicians who pass such laws? As my fellow animal defender Natalia Jarnstedt puts it, with justifiable rage, “These morons killed the fawn “just because” it was kept at a regular shelter, not a rehabber – it’s their policy! Killing fawns and breaking compassionate people’s hearts is their game!” I have to agree. And what a waste of police and social resources!—Patrice Greanville

Outrage grows as word spreads about baby deer’s death in freak raid (Video)

A ripple of disbelief and rage is spreading across the nation as word spreads about a bizarre raid on the Society of St. Francis in Kenosha, Wis., reported Thursday’s WND News.

The raid, complete with multiple squad cars and several armed officers from the state Department of Natural Resources, was organized after DNR officials received a tip about a two-week-old fawn who was being cared for by the no-kill animal shelter.

The young deer, named “Giggles,” was being cared for by the rescue agency until she could be transferred to a wildlife shelter.

But Giggles never had the opportunity to be transferred because the DNR agents who descended upon the shelter killed her instead.

A shelter employee stated:

“I was thinking in my mind they were going to take the deer and take it to a wildlife shelter, and here they come carrying the baby deer over their shoulder. She was in a body bag,”

Giggles the 2-wk-old fawn
Giggles the 2-wk-old fawn
Photo credit: 
Via WND News

DNR Supervisor Jennifer Niemeyer defended the agents’ actions, stating that the fawn was killed because she posed a potential danger of disease and danger to humans.

The shelter intends to file a suit against the DNR because they seized Giggles without a court hearing.

No word on how the potential for disease from a baby deer is any greater to the general public than to hunters who handle their “kill,” or to police and/or wildlife officials who remove deer carcasses from the road after they have been killed by a motor vehicle.

ADDENDUM

The Associated Press version

Wisconsin DNR defends removing fawn from shelter, killing it
Associated Press
POSTED:   08/02/2013 12:01:00 AM CDT | UPDATED:   72 MIN. AGO

KENOSHA, Wis. — Wisconsin wildlife officials defended their decision to remove a fawn from a no-kill shelter and euthanize it, saying state law requires such action to prevent the spread of disease.

The fawn, named Giggles, was brought to the St. Francis Society shelter near the state line by an Illinois family who believed the animal had lost its mother.

Shelter workers told WISN-TV the fawn had been there about two weeks when armed Department of Natural Resources agents showed up with a search warrant and took the animal. The DNR began investigating after receiving two anonymous calls about the deer.

Wisconsin law prohibits people from taking animals from the wild or keeping a wild animal without a permit.

Shelter employee Ray Schulze said he told DNR agents the fawn was scheduled to go to an animal preserve in Illinois the next day but they took Giggles anyway.

“Then here they come, carrying the baby deer over their shoulder, like a bag of — she was in a body bag,” Schulze said. “I said, ‘Why did you do that?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s our policy.'”

DNR Warden Supervisor Jennifer Niemeyer told the television station that state law requires animals like the fawn to be euthanized because they could spread disease.

DNR spokesman Bill Cosh told the Associated Press on Friday that the main concern with deer is chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness that affects the nervous system. CWD has been found in 17 states. To help prevent its spread, state and federal laws bar moving deer illegally taken from the wild to rehabilitation facilities in other states without authorization.

“These are always difficult situations for both parties involved, and we are empathetic to the fact of what happened because we know in our heart of hearts, they tried to do the right thing,” Niemeyer told the television station.

She said the fawn was not killed at the shelter, but tranquilized and euthanized later.

“I don’t care where they would have killed her, it would have been wrong,” shelter President Cindy Schultz said.




Death of Indian Working Elephant “Bijlee” Starts Global Movement

We kill them by the thousands for their ivory or for “sport”; exploit them in circuses, and work them mercilessly to death. And we’re robbing them of their ancestral ecosystems in both Asia and Africa. Surely a record we can be proud of.

Bijlee

After decades of exhausting work for her masters, Bijlee was abandoned after her acute and very painful arthritis and other conditions prevented her from working. She was found by animal charities lying in a ditch by the side of a road. As usual this is totally preventable suffering. 


by Jordan Carlton Schaul of University of Alaska on June 30, 2013
Source: National Geographic Newswatch

It was legendary Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan who essentially, with intention or not, launched this campaign to help working elephants through his tweeted and compassionate appeal to animal welfarists.
 
Early last week, Mr. Bachchan requested welfarists and the like, to come to the aid of one suffering begging street elephant (a type of working elephant) named “Bijlee” and it seems to have started a whole movement to end the working Asian elephant practice. 

On June 26th,  News Watch published a tribute to Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan by India’s largest wildlife conservation and animal welfare organization, Wildlife SOS.

The tribute recognized the Bollywood icon for bringing attention to one 54 year old suffering female Asian elephant — “Bijlee”— who was fighting for her life in critical condition on the side of the road in a suburb of Mumbai, India. First on the scene was the Indian charity Animals Matter To Me, followed by countless other groups including Wildlife SOS.

[pullquote] Elephants continue to be exploited on the streets of India where they are forced to beg on the streets, in temples and perform in marriages or circuses.  [/pullquote]

Unfortunately, Bijlee died early Sunday morning after her condition progressively deteriorated. “In her last day she remained in a recumbant position and was only able to be repositioned with the help of a crane,” according to Wildlife SOS Senior Veterinarian Dr. Yaduraj. A postmortem examination will be conducted shortly.

[pullquote] Our thanks to National Geographic Newswatch for this report.




ANIMALS IN THE MEDIA—Guy with emphysema casually suffocates a fish

The irony apparently escapes
the makers of this spot for Astra Zeneca’s Symbicort©
A guy who can’t breathe very well makes fish gasp for air

By Patrice Greanville

symbicortSpot

Click to enlarge

Ahh, what do we have here today? Nothing out of the usual: Just the banal oblivion of advertising copywriters and their employers when it comes to animals. The guy in the spot is just teaching his kid how to fish.  What could be wrong with that? He catches a fish and, after hooking him, very PC, he actually releases the animal. That ought to be applauded, wouldn’t you say? (I do. Every bit counts.)  So it seems like all’s well in Leave it to Beaverland. But is it? 

Try empathy
Folks, let’s change the script. Let’s try putting ourselves in the fish’s place. Let’s empathize with his plight.

How would YOU like to have someone —while you’re just going about your business—put a big hook through your lips and drag you into a chamber devoid of any air, and hold you there for what seems like an eternity (ever heard of waterboarding–it must feel like that) while the fellow rattles on some incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo, only to be delivered later to  the replenishing atmosphere, whimsically,  in the nick of time? Would you consider that suffering? A callous act? I would. And I would be pissed. Of course, animals can’t retaliate against us. Our advantage is so enormous that—unless we go looking for trouble— it dwarfs anything an animal might be able to do by a stroke of miraculous luck. Being oblivious to the suffering of animals is a facet of what we now call speciesism.
[pullquote] Pretty odd that a medicine to help a man breathe better has the same man denying another creature the right to breathe. [/pullquote]

So think. Sport fishing, like hunting, are extra layers of needless atrocity we inflict on the sentient world. Mainly because we can. Let’s face it: Fish don’t grow on trees, they’re not vegetables (like Reagan said of Ketchup) and they are being extinguished in astronomical numbers by industrial overfishing practically everywhere…while unchecked industrial runoff and climate change kill the waters in which they live. If you  lived in a waterborne environment, how would you look upon our species?

The invisible but always present messages
Little ads like this for Symbicort© are never innocent. Nothing that the corporate system does is innocent. The corporations are not out to change the world and make it better.  They are only interested in growing infinitely and acquiring more and more wealth. They are by definition amoral entities. Those who serve them share (and reinforce) this amorality. Out of sheer self-interest (and because it aligns with their worldview) they always play to the mainstream conventions. The sanctified, still unexamined traditions that often harbor bone-chilling horrors. Problem is, in that way they reinforce the status quo and act as a conservative force. Which makes badly needed social change extremely difficult. Plus, at times the hypocrisy can be hard to take. Even when it’s standard operating procedure. When you watch the spot, I hope you don’t miss that precious windup, so typical of the repugnant double-dealing at the core of the corporate mind: “If you can’t afford your medication (b/c you are charging extortionist prices, you pricks!) Astra Zeneca “may be able to help”. Wow. That’s what I call generosity.

CODA
If you fish or eat animal flesh of any kind, please think about it. Just a few years ago there were no real good substitutes for any kind of meat.  I know because as a vegetarian I used to look for them everywhere. Today we do. And—credit to the souls who developed these products—in almost all cases they are literally indistinguishable from the real thing. This from a man brought up on French cuisine.

Meat substitutes offer us a nonviolent diet that is also a lot better for us in terms of health benefits. And if you don’t want to revise your ways about animals out of compassion, or health concerns, do re-examine your habits on account of what “meat” does to the environment. On strictly ecological grounds, meat production is one of the chief contributors to climate change, not to mention that, like open-pit mining, it disfigures the landscape in atrocious ways. Today, a serious environmentalist with a hamburger in hand is a huge, glaring contradiction. Some would call it hypocrisy.

This has been a Greanville Tweetio. Thank you for your time.

If you agree with the opinions expressed herein, please pass this article on to your friends, kin, and coworkers. 

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Patrice Greanville is founding editor of The Greanville Post, a lifetime leftist and animal liberationist. 




Planet of the Humans

Mini Editorials—
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Who are these assholes? What depraved impulse motivates them?

Too bad that by the time humanity finally recognizes these acts as crimes worthy of strong rebuke and punishment millions of these idiots will have already departed this earth—unpunished.