On Loving Animals...

We are at the cusp of another year, and we do not know with utmost certainty what the new year will bring to animal welfare. Chances are, there will be more of the same---heart-warming rescues-- continued protests against the circus, the fur industry, the farm industry, puppy mills, animal experimentation, and hunting. The year 2011 is going to be a stew of unspeakable cruelty mixed in with chunks of sweet animal liberation. Even with morphing specifics, the issues will follow a general, well-trodden path. The route straddles a great divide between good and evil. We are on a continuum, and no one intends to jump off. I can tell you one thing for certain; there will not be a cruelty-free world in 2011. For as long as humankind is around, there will be animal cruelty. Humankind is the common denominator. As I have stated before, there is no animal-to-animal cruelty, no animal-to-human cruelty. But, there is human-to-animal and human-to-human cruelty. It is a small consolation that from t

Dear Friends of NJ Wildlife, Happy Holidays from Keep Life In the Park to you and your families. Together, we've accomplished so much for our local wildlife. In Passaic County, we showed our outrage at the murder of innocent deer in Garret Mountain and Rifle Camp Parks in Woodland Park. Due to many important follow up meetings with Freeholders, we feel confident that the remaining deer are safe for now. In Bergen County, we've prevented the future gassing of our feathered friends! We've increased the awareness of non-lethal protocol of dealing with geese in the county parks. The politicians heard us loud and clear and this was a true victory for the animals! Almost immediately following the Woodland Park deer bow hunt, the town of Holmdel began a deer bow hunt. Holmdel resident Laurie Perla didn’t waste any time in calling in the media, and worked diligently bringing non-lethal solutions to the Town Council. And, they’re listening! In Essex County, we galvanized a community

Going over the many different news reports concerning the just concluded 2010 New Jersey Bear Massacre, I am seriously distressed by the crass mentality of those who participated in the killing. A certain Cindy Partipilo commented : " Now we can just hunt however we want but I still have a problem. They say we can kill cubs and I want my 10 year old son to kill his first cub, but he doesn’t want to do it because his class adopted some computer Polar Bear Cub for their Nature and Ecology study. Now he doesn’t get it when I tell him it’s okay to shoot the black ones, just not the white ones. How do I talk some sense into the child? Can we get them to quit teaching about saving the Environment and Ecology so we can teach our children whatever we want? " Believe it or not, the Department of Fish & Wildlife (DFW) permitted the killing of bear cubs. In fact, the DFW encouraged hunters to shoot all bears regardless of their weight and age. And at the other end of the barrel,

Who is Dr. Angel Mateo? Dr. Mateo is head of the Animal Welfare Division of the Bureau of Animal Industry. This Division is tasked to implement the Animal Welfare Act or RA 8485. Dr Mateo has been occupying this position since the law was passed in 1998. Ask any animal welfare group if they have received action from this official on any cruelty case and you will be met with a flat out "No." But don't take our word for it: go and call the BAI-AWD at 924-7951 when you want to report animal cruelty and see where it leads you. How to reach Dr. Mateo? We don't know. Call and he isn't there. Text him on his cellphone 09189005784 and he doesn't reply. Write him a letter, and if after one month - if you are lucky - he will reply with a letter that simply refers your letter back to the company you are complaining about or he would refer it to another Division. None of the media practitioners have been able to reach Dr. Mateo himself for comment on the granting of an &

Dear Friends, My sincere thanks to all who came out to the demo yesterday in the Whittingham Wildlife Management Area in Fredon. We easily numbered 150 and our energy was palpable as we expressed our outrage at this hunt, not only at the few hunters who brought in the bears they slaughtered, but to the NJ Div. of Fish & Wildlife staff, whose arrogant Assistant Director of Operations, Larry Herrighty aka 'Lampchop', viewed us cowardly through binoculars. All week, they felt so threatened that not only were State Police on hand, AND Homeland Security, but some DFW officers appeared to be wearing green bullet-proof vests. Excuse me - we are NON-VIOLENT. THEY HAVE THE GUNS! This is not the end but only the beginning of much ongoing dedicated work to ensure that NJ legislators, 'get the message' LOUD AND CLEAR: that we are not going to forget this; that we are going to hold them accountable; and that we will VOTE THEM OUT. We are going to expose the New Jersey Outdoor Al

This video was filmed in 2009, just before Gov. Christie took office. Even then, it was obvious to many that he would support and abet the hunting of NJ's black bears. In December 2010, we heard him state that the ongoing hunt, his chosen measure for controlling the alleged bear population growth, is based on Science. Gov. Christie's Science consists of the duplicated reports of human-bear encounters by the Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), and reports stating that nearly 100% of the residents of bear country are securing their garbage by using bear-proof garbage bins (DFW). If this is true, then I am Neil Armstrong and I walked on the Moon. If truth be known, this hunt is a gift to the Governor's political supporters, a massacre, a program of extermination, and a joyride for the blood-lusting hunters. The Governor, and his pathetic Yes-Man Bob Martin of the DEP, are not interested in empirical and scientific evidence, like this video, where we can witness the non-aggres

Monday, the 6th, marked the first day of a scheduled 6-day "bear hunt," and I joined a handful of protesters at the Whittingham Wildlife Management Area in Newton, New Jersey. It is located along Route 206, just north of Andover. The Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) manages this controlled area, and this is where they located one of their four weigh stations. Hunters are supposed to haul their kills to these stations for weighing and tagging. Handful? Well, yeah. The DFW limited the number of protesters to 25, citing safety and crowd control. The state police and DFW rangers were in attendance to enforce this rule. But there is another, rather convenient, reason for the DFW to limit protesters. The DFW is accused of cooking the books concerning the number of bear sightings in residential areas, and a certain Professor Dr. Edward Tavss of Rutgers University proved, through an extensive study of the records, that serious anomalies, such as doubling the number of human-bear e

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/video . It usually takes an insider to show us the way through the veil of hypocrisy and past a wall of lies. Governor Christie, together with Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Bob Martin, champions a science-based "bear hunt" to control the black bear population in New Jersey. But, is it truly a hunt when hunters are allowed to bait the bears with food instead of the traditional method of stalking the prey? Where is the skill, or sportman's honor, in shooting a baited animal? Even worse, bear cubs no bigger than your average sized dog have been shot dead. What is euphemistically referred to as a hunt is, in reality, a wholesale massacre of bear families. It is a hate-based destruction of our natural treasures. This massacre, over 400 bears killed in the first three days, panders to the blood lust of the hunting community. It is as banal as that and the hunters frolick upon the blood of innocent a

Now that the cold weather has set in, I can no longer sit in Bryant Park in the mornings prior to beginning work. Gone are the days, at least for almost a year, when I can sip my coffee under a warm and bright sun and watch the early birds enjoy the beginning of a new Summer day. Even at 9am, there were already tourists in the park, snapping away with their cameras, sitting in circles on the lawn, while the pigeons and birds enjoy an abundance of food. Other office workers stopped and took in the sun. It is a morning ritual repeated throughout the city in cafes, public parks, church yards and in those office building promenades that fail miserably in their intended purpose. There is a need for people to flush their pyschologic drains before they face the withering fire of the new workday. But in these cold months, people trot across the park like it was a place of contagious diseases. Most benches are empty. The trees stand tall and cold like condemned criminals waiting to be shot. The