Progressive Wednesday

I wish I had something more eloquent to say except “Huh?”

Here’s a “Huzzah!” or two for the gray wolves. Why, pray tell? Well, give me a second, for crying out loud. According to the Associated Press:

Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal’s population soar, federal officials said Thursday.

An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the United States in the early 20th century.

Great, right? The Endangered Species Program works. That’s great, right? Right? Ummm:

The loss of federal protection allows the three states to move forward with plans allowing hunters to target the animals, possibly as soon as this fall.

Damn it. And we were this close to good news.

Thankfully, an organization called Earth Justice is suing the feds to keep the wolves protected. Here’s their take:

Gray wolves have come perilously close to extinction in the Rocky Mountains. Only in the past decade has the wolf population rebounded from a population of less than 50 to more than 1,300 wolves today. Visitors come to Yellowstone every year to get the chance to see and hear wolves in the wild.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued two rules that would not only reverse these hard-won gains, by killing hundreds of these magnificent predators. One rule would remove gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains from protection under the Endangered Species Act. The other rule would allow states in the Northern Rockies to kill wolves whenever wolves had impacts on wild ungulate populations.

The governors of Idaho and Wyoming express outright hostility toward wolves, and numerous counties in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have adopted resolutions declaring wolves an “unacceptable species.” Once wolves are delisted, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana could reduce wolf populations to a paltry 100 wolves per state — in other words, they could destroy 1,000 wolves out of the current 1,300-wolf population.

We’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this, this right here, is yet another example of why the government can’t be trusted to behave, and why it must be watched closely as the toddler it is by its citizens.

We’ll post more about this particular issue as it develops.

Photo c/o this dude.

A New Leash on Life

A few Wednesdays (the progressive kind) ago, we gave you five ways in which you can help provide the highest level of care and compassion to companion animals, both our own and those of others. I shared with you my favorite quote; I like it so much that I'll share it again:

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

-Mahatma Gandhi

I guess this doesn't say much about our nation's greatness and moral progress. Between three and four million dogs and cats are euthanized at animal shelters in the United States every year, while “puppy mills– pump out new dogs in conditions that, according to the Humane Society, promote over-breeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of socialization with humans, overcrowded cages, and the killing of unwanted animals.

These numbers sicken me when I think of my animals and quality of care that they get. But for Bobby and Kelly Dorafshar, it moved them to start A New Leash On Life:

A nonprofit organization designed to reduce the number of animals abandoned and euthanized in Los Angeles and to educate the public, through a series of seminars, on responsible pet ownership.

They first opened this no-kill shelter in 1997, and have joined with animal rescue veterans in Chicago to open up a branch in “The Windy City.– Together they have saved the lives of over 3,000 animals while neutering thousands more and providing invaluable public education and awareness.

While these shelters may only exist in the second and third largest cities in the country, you don't have to live there to participate. By visiting their website you can adopt, foster, or sponsor a dog, volunteer with A New Leash on Life, or make a tax-deductible donation. Whichever way you choose, for Lenny's, Vera's, and Whizzer's sake, please lend a hand.

This treatment's not just “for the dogs–

Being married to a veterinarian who absolutely loves her job means that I get some of the most interesting “pillow talk– that one could imagine. I think it could only be more interesting if she were a CIA agent. I'm not outing her; she doesn't work for the CIA (at least, I don't think). Some of what I hear about when I pretend to understand what the H-E-double hockey sticks she's talking about, are the newest treatments being developed for humans that are already being used on animals.

Last week, she pointed this one out which I found on MSNBC.com:

Human volunteers (are) testing a vaccine for melanoma – ” a potentially fatal skin cancer that strikes 60,000 Americans a year.

The human results at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center are not in yet, but a few blocks away in New York at the Animal Medical Center, veterinarians heard about the vaccine and asked to try it in dogs.

What makes this study so intriguing (other than the fact that it is curing cancer) is that the vaccine was originally intended to reduce the likelihood of reoccurrence of melanoma in patients that have already been treated for the skin cancer. But when the treatment was used on a dog that currently had the fatal disease, the dog:

Underwent complete disappearance of his tumor. Since then, more than 100 dogs have been treated– ¦ The vaccine works so well that the U.S. department of Agriculture is about to license it as a treatment of melanoma in dogs.

It'll take some time before it's deemed safe for regular treatment of human melanoma, but it's nice to know what's on the medical horizon. It's also nice to know that the newest acquisition of our family (pictured – right) will have a better chance of living a full and healthy life, and that his kind could help his partner in crime (left) do the same.

Sounds great to us; sounds deadly to whales.

Here's one of those things that might slide underneath the radar sonar of even the most conservation-minded progressive.

According to a report by the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world’s leading bodies of whale biologists, the evidence linking sonar to a series of whale strandings in recent years is “very convincing and appears overwhelming.” Despite the broad scientific consensus that military active sonar kills whales, the use of this deadly sonar in the world’s oceans is spreading.

The first time this came up was in the Bahamas when the United States Navy conducted a training exercise during which they used Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar. Shortly after, whales from four different species beached themselves on the nearby islands. These whales were there because of massive bleeding in their brains and ears. Beaked Whales, observed in the Bahamas for decades, have not been seen there since.

How load is that sonar to a whale?

Some mid-frequency sonar systems can put out over 235 decibels, as loud as a Saturn V rocket at launch. Even 100 miles from the LFA system, sound levels can approach 160 decibels, well beyond the Navy’s own safety limits for humans.

In other words, it's like standing under a twin-engine jet fighter during take-off, except that marine mammals don't have those noise-canceling headsets that air traffic controllers have.

It's easy to overlook this practice because we are, and rightfully so, sympathetic to our military. But I believe that there can exist a balance between safety and environmental stewardship, even for the brave men and women in our armed forces. And as more nations join in this practice, it becomes more important to stop it.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has put together a petition to send to the Secretary of the Navy, Donald Winter, asking him to take the following measures:

• Put rich marine mammal habitat off limits.
• Avoid migration routes and feeding or breeding areas when marine mammals are present.
• Listen with passive sonar to ensure marine mammals are not in the testing area before switching on active sonar.
• Establishing appropriate safety zones around ships transmitting sonar.
• Reduce the source level of sonar signals at nighttime and in other periods of low visibility.

These are very reasonable measures to keep our Navy safe from attack and prevent marine mammals from suffering a horrible death. So please find 30 seconds in your busy day to join me in signing the petition. Then if you want to learn more, and this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, check out this video, narrated by Pierce Brosnan. It’s heartbreakingly horrifying.

It’s Alaska, not Vietnam

Last month I asked you to join me in signing a petition to stop the removal of the Gray Wolf from the endangered species list and opening it up be hunted right back to its pre-endangered-species-list numbers. Well, in Alaska they have started a program to kill off wolves in large numbers with Vietnam-style aerial gunning. According to the Defenders of Wildlife:

Nearly 700 wolves have been killed by aerial gunning teams in Alaska since state officials resumed the aerial gunning program — shot from above or chased to exhaustion and killed at point-blank range. Now the killing threatens to spread to the Lower 48, as anti-wolf legislators push for aerial gunning to help kill hundreds of wolves in Idaho and Wyoming.

What's worse is that there have been two ballot measures in “The Last Frontier– to prevent aerial hunting of threatened wolves that have been ignored by the Board of Game, and the killing has continued.

Fortunately, these canines have a champion in the United States Congress; Representative George Miller of California is introducing legislation to close the gaping loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act that allows this cruelty to happen. He needs your help and mine. So once again, please join me in signing a letter to be sent to your representative urging them to stop this disgusting practice. It'll only take 30 seconds. They want 10,000 by Labor Day and are only a few hundred short. Let's give them that progressive push over the edge.

Why should you? The reasons are too many to list in a single post, but you can read all of the ways in which these animals are beneficial and all of the ridiculous myths about the dangers of wolves by clicking here. Plus, it wasn't okay when Michael Vick did it to domesticated dogs; it's not any better to do it to wild ones.

Picture clicked by this wolf-lover.

Redoubling our coral relief efforts

I'm an ocean lover and an animal lover. It therefore follows that I would be rather fond of ocean animals. So when I came about across this article from MSNBC.com, I started twisting my beard, an anxious habit usually reserved for watching my favorite hockey team.

Coral reefs in much of the Pacific Ocean are dying faster than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday, with the decline driven by climate change, disease and coastal development.

The study, which examined 6,000 surveys of more than 2,600 Indo-Pacific coral reefs done between 1968 and 2004, found the declines began earlier than previously estimated and mirror global trends. The United Nations has found close to a third of the world's corals have disappeared, and 60 percent are expected to be lost by 2030.

That the world's coral reefs are dying is not a surprise; we dedicated an entire Wednesday to it last March, and the statistics were staggering. But to read that those estimates were actually on the shy side, well, it motivates me to get up on my horse, literally, if need be to conserve gas, and do something about it.

But what, pray tell, can you do landlocked in Ohio or Tennessee? Well, one of the great things about the Internet is that it will allow you to travel back in time to check out our Wednesday topic: Coral Relief. It provides several great ways for you to help do your part. I know because I wrote it. Do as many as you can, because we owe it to our children leave this popsicle stand that we call “Mother Earth– in better shape than when we inherited it.

Picture taken by this coral lover 

Dog fighting is not a victimless crime

On the front page of the newspaper lately you've undoubtedly seen Michael Vick's face along with a headline accusing him of being involved in illegal dog fighting. While I, of course, wish that this story was not true, I am glad that it has brought this problem under the public microscope.

The problem, however, with this case is that it has switched from the front page to the “Sports– page, and now that microscope seems to have focused in on Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcon's star Quarterback rather than the problem of dog fighting and what needs to be done about it. Because of its lack of attention, dog-fighting statistics are hard to come by, but hopefully now a few more resources will go into finding and stopping this disgusting practice.

What con you do to help? I won't ask you to sign a petition telling Nike to drop their endorsement or to get the NFL to suspend Vick. While I think they should do those things if he is found guilty, I think that misses the point.

A few Wednesdays ago, we concentrated our efforts on stopping animal cruelty; we renew that call today. If you ever suspect that an animal you know of is involved in any kind of fighting or other abusive situation, visit Pet-Abuse.com, a 24-hour service where you can anonymously report any pet abuse that you have witnessed.

The most recent edition of DVM News provided a short list of red flags to alert those in the Veterinarian profession of possible dog-fighting cases. Here it is:

• The nature of the injuries – “ typically on the face, front legs (rarely the rear legs), chest and abdomen.
• Third-party payments, and payments in cash.
• Explanations of injuries that are inconsistent with what the veterinarian sees.
• Requests for treatment supplies for home use.

So if you're in the veterinary medical field, keep your eyes peeled and report any possible animal abusers. And if you're not, keep you're eyes peeled and report animal abusers anyway.

I hope this photographer called the police