Deep Roots: Animal Rights Blog

Indiana’s Humane Lobby Day is this Tuesday! This is your chance to have a major impact on the welfare of animals in our state!

Humane Lobby Day is scheduled to take place this year on Tuesday, February 15th, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. in Indianapolis. You will have an opportunity to meet with your state legislators to discuss animal-related legislation currently pending before the Indiana General Assembly.

If you have not yet registered (and pre-registration is required!), please follow this link: http://action.humanesociety.org/site/Calendar?view=Detail&id=103345

Here is a link for information on some of the bills we will be discussing: http://www.humanesociety.org/action/alerts/indiana/

Piranhas have long inspired many emotions in humane beings, everything from fascination to outright fear. It is not uncommon then for many people to view them as endurable and undaunted predators

However, despite this reputation piranhas are helpless against the assaults of humans.

Every year, countless numbers of piranhas are unwillingly captured and kidnapped from their natural habitat so they can be exploited and commercialized for monetary gain. David M. Schleser’s Piranhas (Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.1997) states that humans are undoubtedly the major predators of adult piranhas.

It is a common misconception that fish do not feel pain. This belief has allowed many people to justify the cruelty they inflict upon piranhas (and many other fish species). However, fish can and do feel pain and recent studies have provided the scientific evidence to prove this. A study done by Joseph Garner of Purdue University (2009) reported that these animals do experience pain consciously, rather than simply reacting with a reflex. Many other studies have resulted in similar evidence.

The ability of fish to perceive pain and discomfort makes the bid for their welfare extremely important. The desecration and ill-treatment that piranhas endure as a result of the trades that harvest and profit from them is truly horrifying.

Piranhas are hunted extensively throughout their range and then sold to local food markets. Considerable numbers are intentionally caught in nets, traps and by hooks and lines. However, numerous other piranhas are accidentally caught in lines and traps set for other intended catch.

Piranhas are also harvested directly from the wild to be sent off to the exotic pet trade. This harvesting represents an unnatural loss in the populations. Piranhas are caught from their native South America and then exported to places all around the world.

Others are killed so that they can be dried and mounted, or encased in glass. These deceased piranhas are then sold as decorative ornaments and marketed towards tourists.

The piranhas’ fearsome reputation makes them susceptible to being directly persecuted by those who deem them as dangerous or nuisance. Individuals who encounter vulnerable piranhas are likely to kill them. This is especially true of piranhas who have become trapped in receding pools after the wet season.Piranhas are also fished and killed for sport. The reputation of piranhas as blood-thirsty killers often makes them the pursuit of outdoors men who want to prove their masculinity by targeting such animals.

Protecting piranhas is important for several reasons. Piranhas are absolutely paramount to the health of many eco-systems and to biodiversity as they are extremely valuable components to the ecological communities in which they live; playing several complex roles.

Piranhas are efficient predators in both lotic and lentic habitats. Piranhas largely prey upon sick, injured, dyeing, or deceased animals. By effectively removing sick or dyeing members from animal populations, piranhas help maintain the health of the aquatic eco-systems they reside in. They essentially act as a natural clean-up crew.

Aside from their predatory and scavenging roles, piranhas are also prey items for numerous other species including caimans, birds, otters, and dolphins.

There is much about piranhas that scientists still do not know. This fact could mean that piranhas may play even more integral roles in the natural world that we are simply unaware of.

Many individuals have a thought process that views human beings as the most intelligent, superior, and enlightened lifeforms on the planet. If people are to have such views of themselves then they must use such intelligence and perception to realize that the majority of treatment that piranhas (and all other animals for that matter) receive from humans is extremely unethical and deplorable.

Humans must use their privileged position to strive to live in such a manner that is not detrimental or cruel to the other species on the earth; many of which species have been here for millions of years before humans appeared. This gives non-human species every right (if not more then humans do) to live on this planet. It also gives them the right to live free of cruelty, persecution, and from infringements on their freedom.

Protecting piranhas is also important to furthering the animal rights movement.

Being a compassionate animal rights advocate means standing up for all animals, not just the visually appealing (cute and cuddly) ones such as charismatic mammals. If individuals can be taught the value in protecting and conserving an animal like a piranha (a so called ‘terrifying cold-blooded fish’), then they will certainly be able to see the value in all other animals as well!

For more information www.savethepiranhas.com

This is a guest post from piranha advocate Matt Ellenbeck. If you would like to write a guest post, contact chris (at) deeprootssanctuary.org.

It is always so great to be able share good news. Our good news is that we were able to raise $4,000 in about a week to be able to build a new barn and rescue more chickens (and eventually other small farm animals). The construction of this barn will truly mark the next step in our evolution as an organization working to rescue at-risk animals and end animal exploitation.

We couldn’t have done it without help from dozens of people. It was truly awe-inspiring to see folks from Chicago, NYC, Portland, and as far away as Holland come together to help out a grassroots sanctuary in rural Indiana. We couldn’t have done it without all of the people who donated and helped spread the word. It really was a grassroots effort.

We heard today that the money is being transferred to our account, so we plan to get started really soon. We will keep you up-to-date on work days and progress through this blog, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and our newsletter. (Have you signed up for our free email newsletter?)

We are really excited about this next step. Are you?

As if that wasn’t enough good news, here is some more from the past couple of weeks:

• Charges were dropped against the AETA 4! As animal liberationists, we are really excited about this. Now we can go back to chalking sidewalks without being charged with terrorism (we hope).
• BP and the Coast Guard reached an agreement to stop burning sea turtles trapped in the oil spill. BP still needs to do much, much more, so don’t think this is letting them off the hook.
• Zimbabwe stopped the sale of elephants and other wildlife to North Korea.
• Obama administration argued against commercial whaling at IWC. This one truly is a victory of the masses. LOTS of people fought to make this happen. Keep taking action… it works.

I’m sure there is more good news. Feel free to share in the comments.

We just got some great news that a donor will match all donations to our Kickstarter campaign made in the next two days. That means that every donation you give will be doubled and we only need to raise about $1,700 to be able to go forward with construction and operation chicken rescue! However, we have less than three days to raise that amount, so please donate as much as you can and share this with everyone you know.

Kel asked some good questions about this campaign that might help shed some light.

Kel: can you help me understand why a chicken coop costs $6000?

Chris: Calling it a chicken coop is a bit deceiving. It is more of a barn that will be large enough to hold dozens of chickens and a few small farm animals. All of which will be rescues from abusive situations. The $6000 figure was the estimated amount to cover material costs, equipment rental, and food/care for the chickens for the first year. It didn’t make sense to us to raise money for an empty barn. We also factored in the credit card processing fees. Let me know if you have any other questions. You are right, we should have better explained where that number came from. I assure you, it was the result of a lot of research and personal experience.

Kel: What happens to the pledged funds if you don’t reach the goal?

Chris: The cards aren’t processed if we don’t raise all the funds. It is all or nothing.

If you want more information about what we are buiding and why, visit the Kickstarter project page (http://kck.st/crFbgq).

The scene is apocalyptic. Fires sweeping across the surface of the ocean. Gulls and turtles entombed in oil slicks. Oil-soaked pelicans and terns washed up on shorelines–tragic monuments to human folly and the destruction of a delicate balance. And always that stinging smell of oil that seeps into every pore and entangles sea grasses, oozes over beaches and blackens the marshlands.

Perhaps the largest marine disaster to happen in decades, and now considered the largest oil spill in the history of the United States, the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010 has led to an environmental catastrophe that continues without abatement and whose oily clutches extend from slicks on the ocean’s surface to deep swells near the ocean’s floor. Armed with mops and rags, seeming trifles compared to the magnitude of the oil’s reach, the human response to the disaster has been one of caution and vigilance. With no real solution in sight, coastal inhabitants, volunteers, even the government, can only try to redirect the slicks away from fragile coastal regions or don the tools of the domestic and use brooms and rubber gloves in an attempt to clean house. That, and wait.

While it goes without saying that the oil spill has led many consumers and legislators to question and call attention to our dependence on oil, the spill has also demonstrated to what extent our world is an ecological network, where the health and survival of one species depends on that of another; where the destruction of an environment may affect ecosystems across the planet. Carl Safina, president of the Blue Ocean Institute, has illustrated the importance of the Gulf Coast as an aviary highway and stopover for many migratory birds who depend on the food sources and breeding grounds found there. But with the toxic oil and dispersant residues permeating not only the shoreline and nesting habitats, but also killing and contaminating fish populations, the survival of bird species from as far north as the Canadian Arctic and as far south as the southern tip of South America is put in jeopardy.

We at Deep Roots Animal Sanctuary grieve for the lives, both human and non-human, lost to this terrible tragedy. While we mourn the ecological consequences of this catastrophic event and support efforts to clean-up and change energy consumption in the United States, we also recognize that habitat destruction and species endangerment is a chronic issue. That is why we at Deep Roots are dedicated to providing refuge and rehabilitation to wild birds and waterfowl. Now, more than ever, we need your help–bird species around the world need your help–to protect their livelihoods and preserve their futures.

If you would like to be a part of our efforts to rescue and protect birds and waterfowl, please visit us at deeprootssanctuary.org or contribute to our kickstarter campaign where we are raising money to build a bird rehab center.