Karakul Lambs

Watch the 3 minute video. Any wonder why decent people get outraged?

www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-20100405-11.html

Earthlings

One of the most important films ever made. Every human being on this planet should see this movie. Please share.

Narrated by Academy Award Nominee Joaquin Phoenix and featuring music by the critically acclaimed platinum artist Moby, EARTHLINGS is a documentary film about humankind's exploitation of animals raised for pets, food, clothing, entertainment and scientific research.

Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, EARTHLINGS chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit. Powerful, informative, controversial and thought-provoking, EARTHLINGS is by far the most comprehensive documentary ever produced on the correlation between nature, animals and human economic interests.

This movie should be part of the school curriculum. It will describe the values of our society to future generations better than any book.

Earthlings 

Narrated by Academy Award Nominee Joaquin Phoenix

140 Billion Animals Slaughtered Every Year

These are the numbers of animals killed worldwide by the meat, egg, and dairy industries every year. These numbers do NOT include the many millions of animals killed each year in vivisection laboratories. They do NOT include the millions of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters every year. They do NOT include the animals who died while held captive in the animal-slavery enterprises of circuses, rodeos, zoos, and marine parks. They do NOT include the animals killed while pressed into such blood sports as bullfighting, cockfighting, dogfighting, and bear-baiting, nor do they include horses and greyhounds who were exterminated after they were no longer deemed suitable for racing.

Estimating Slaughter of Marine Animals

Most animal-rights organizations will shun entirely the matter of quantifying marine-animal slaughter. That's because, in truth, it's impossible to predict with much precision how many marine animals are killed annually for food. The world's fisheries record their catches in terms of metric tons, not the numbers of individuals that animal-rights groups are concerned about.

Killing Clock: Animals Slaughtered during the time you are reading this

Animals Slaughtered:

0 marine animals
0 chickens
0 ducks
0 pigs
0 rabbits
0 turkeys
0 geese
0 sheep
0 goats
0 cows and calves
0 rodents (excluding rabbits)
0 pigeons and other birds
0 buffaloes
0 horses, donkeys, mules, camelids

Credit to ADAPTT for this source code, Thanks.

Best Friends 

Animal Society News

Blue Cross of India: Mrs. Usha Sundaram will be greatly missed  

The co-Founder of Blue Cross of India, Mrs. Usha Sundaram, passed away this past Sunday, April 4,

April 06, 2010, 1:1AM MT

The co-Founder of Blue Cross of India, Mrs. Usha Sundaram, passed away this past Sunday, April 4, after a brief illness, with her family by her side.

Mrs. Sundaram spent her entire lifetime helping animals.  In 1959, she, along with her husband, Captain Sundaram, and their children, started Blue Cross of India by rescuing animals in need and caring for them at their home. Soon their home was filled with all sorts of animals: cats, dogs, goats, and occasionally mongooses.

In the years prior to starting Blue Cross, they had both been pilots (in the days when women did not become pilots, especially not in India).  From 1945 to 1951, they flew together piloting the plane of the Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Blue Cross moved out of their home and became the first of the modern-style animal shelters in India.  The kindness and compassion of Mrs. Sundaram spread very far afield, as the work that she and her husband (who passed away in May, 1997) began, has been carried on by their son, Dr. S. Chinny Krishna, the Chairman of Blue Cross.

Long before any other similar program in the world, forty-five years ago, Blue Cross began, and continues today, their ABC (Animal Birth Control – TNR) program  for community animals. It is a successful, model, no-kill program that has resulted in the elimination of cases of rabies in the city of Chennai, as well as saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats.

It would be difficult to overstate the impact that Blue cross has had on the global no-kill movement. The ABC program has been formally adopted into the national law of India and has been taken up by animal welfare groups in many countries.

Blue Cross is one of the largest animal sanctuaries in the world with five separate shelters—caring for dogs, cats, cows, pigs, monkeys who were lab animals, and other animals.

Mrs. Sundaram was especially fond of cats, and in 1999, she and other family members donated a 600 foot cattery, a beautiful area with trees and a covered shelter, to the Blue Cross center at Guindy, in Chennai.

She and her family were instrumental also in the passing of many ground-breaking laws to safeguard animals in India—and in working with others to establish one of the most enlightened legal animal protection frameworks in the world.  These measures built on the protection given to animals by the Constitution of India, as well as the tradition of reverence for animals that has been in existence in India for thousands of years.

During her lifetime, she made substantial donations to the Blue Cross centers at Adyar and Guindy for the cat and dog shelters. After she passed away, her eyes were donated, following her wishes, to the Shankar Netrayala eye bank, and two persons will be able to see again thanks to this gift.

Mrs. Sundaram was a pioneer in the field of animal welfare, and the love, kindness and compassion that she extended so selflessly to animals is carried on today by Blue Cross of India and by countless other organizations in India and far beyond who’ve been inspired by the work that she and Captain Sundaram began so many years ago.

To visit the website of Blue Cross of India, please click here.

Photo: Trix Wollen / Mrs. Usha Sundaram, with her son, Dr. S. Chinny Krishna (left) and Phil Wollen of Winsome Constance Kindness Trust (right) 

Thanks to Animal People Newspaper for sharing the photo.

Vegan lifestyle holds key to a spiritually-evolved society

Philip Wollen OAM: Vegan lifestyle holds key to a spiritually-evolved society

Philip Wollen OAM's Notes

Vegan lifestyle holds key to a spiritually-evolved society-Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 11:29pm

The most beautiful word ever written in any country, in any language, at any time in human history came from India. From the Upanishads 5,000 years ago. That word is Ahimsa, meaning non-violence towards any living being.

Why does this Sanskrit word dominate my every breath?
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realise I have heard these screams before in the slaughterhouses, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf. Their cries are the cries of my father. I discovered that screams are identical in any species. When we suffer, we suffer as equals.

And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear is a boy.

Henceforth, I am no longer just an Australian, male, vegan. I am an Ahimsan. We may be Indian, Australian, American, English, or Palestinian. We may be Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain (or no religion at all). But if we are to live an authentic life we must share common ground without sacrificing our other beliefs. That meeting place is Ahimsa.

My goal is to make Ahimsa a truly global phenomenon, because it describes our character enlightened, elegant and educated. Socrates was right an unexamined life is not worth living. We do not find our character on Wall Street it lives on the Road to Damascus.
Imagine the day when we can say in the UN: India is the Ahimsan country where bloodshed is banned. India is the only country in the world where animal rights are enshrined in the Constitution? Animal Rights are now the greatest social issue since the abolition of slavery. India is the canary in the mineshaft. If Ahimsa dies in India, its birthplace, the world is profoundly lost. The game is over. Sadly, India has blindly followed the West in her hideous tastes for the flesh of murdered animals. Isnt it ironic - it was Gandhi who said, "A nation is judged by the way she treats her animals."

So I plead with you. India must not become a photocopied clone of the West. She must protect her civilised values. The moral high ground is vacant. India can change the world. But she must speak out and act courageously.

There are only 13 million Jews in the world. But they play a vibrant role in world affairs. Tibets population is only three million. But who hasnt heard of the plight of the Tibetans under the boot of Beijing?
But there are over 600 million vegetarians in the world, most of them Indian. That is bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia combined! If we were one nation we would be bigger than the 27 countries in the European Union!

Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous huntin, shootin, killin bombin cretins who believe that violence is the answer when it shouldnt even be a question. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a few committed people can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has."

The writer is an Australian
philanthropist, vegan and the founder of the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust

Dr. Ian Gawler receives the Kindness Medal

Click on link for more photographs

2010 Kindness Trust Medal recipient: Dr Ian Gawler

Founder of The Gawler Foundation - Australia