On Loving Animals...

Reading through the Care2 petition site on the web, I found a most welcome bit of news concerning that most hideous of fashion trends --- fur coats. It seems that there is at least a couple of bars in New York City that will reject any one who tries to enter with a fur coat on. The bouncers at the door have been instructed to inspect patrons' clothing for fur, to determine if fake or not, and to reject those that are guilty of fur. Although the name of the owner of these establishments was not mentioned, the bars were specifically mentioned as being the Revision Lounge & Gallery and the The Back Room . Both bars are located in the lower east side of Manhattan. It was reported that the owner's motivation for the ban is to support the movement against the fur industry. It's one more nail to the coffin. This innovation, this sort of trailblazing, can catch fire and spread throughout the city. Thank you for this great example and I appreciate your chutzpah and forward thi...

It has been five days since the 2011 New Jersey black bear massacre ended, and the official count of the dead amounted to 464. A more detailed accounting will be published later in the next year by the Department of Fish & Wildlife (DFW), a report that will list the different weights, gender, area of the kill, and information like such. Just like the report for the 2010 massacre, I expect that more than half the kill will be young bears weighing less than 100 pounds. I stood across the gates of the Franklin weigh station on the first day, Dec. 5 th , and watched cub after cub trucked in to be measured and weighed and for the killers to have their proverbial trophy photo taken. Yes, the one that virtually says, " Look, I killed a bear and proud of it. " The fact that most of the kills were mere cubs didn't mean less pride. And, quite frankly, I am not sure if DFW will be honest about their figures concerning the number of cubs killed. It has been argued that DFW is not...

Well, I am thoroughly upset by this year's bear trophy hunt. It's the second year we've had this mass killing in New Jersey. Last year, the hunters killed 589 bears in five days of hunting(?). Of that total, 378 were under one year old, cubs basically, with the smallest one weighing only thirty pounds. I am sorry to say that these trophy hunts are part of a 5-year bear management program, fostered by the Department of Fish & Wildlife (DFW) and under the behest of our bully governor, Chris Christie. This only means three more years of indiscriminate killings of our black bears. The DFW argues that the hunts are only one part of the program, that public education and proper garbage disposal alternatives plus some vague reference to humane methods are also part of their plan. But Jeff Tittel, Director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey, referred to this 5-yr program as a document filled with beautiful words but lacks the funding and staffing to implement all its provisos. A...