Please don’t feed the hoarder

Yes! Yes! Yes! And yes!

This is a beautiful, heartfelt plea for rational thought in animal sheltering.
Feeling everything without thinking makes us no better than the completely unqualified.

Hunt Employee Charged with Interfering with a Badger Sett

Heroes. <3

Shaving Your Legs Is Not Feminist (But You Can Still Be A Feminist And Shave)

Shaving Your Legs Is Not Feminist (But You Can Still Be A Feminist And Shave).

Fruit Soup: Delicious, Takes 5-minutes to make

I’ve made this fruit soup a lot in the summer, actually existed off of it for several days straight, on some kind of fruit binge. But I could use a little sunshine on this chilly day, so I think I’m going to watch some Nat Geo about warm places and make a blender full of it.

2c OJ (fresh is best!)
1/2 avocado
2-3 small leaves of sage
2-3 small leaves of mint
blend
add 1/4 c chopped scallions (I like a little less than this)
blend and pour into serving bowls, then add final ingredients
1/4 c finely diced pineapple
1/2 c chopped cucumber
1/4 c finely diced tomato

I garnish it with mint & flowers when I’m trying to impress someone. Or apologize to them.

Beating A Dead Mock-Horse *

I know I’m always beating the “turn your friends vegan!” drum, but, seriously, let’s turn our friends vegan. We love them, right? We want them to be as happy about their ethical choices as we are, right? We want them to know the deep, fulfilling joy that comes along with not eating our other friends, right?!
Even though I am pretty sure almost no one reading this blog is in any need of convincing that veganism is the only acceptable diet (I really do mean the only), I’m going to post more how-to-fit-veganism-into-a-regular-life content that we can all share with our poor dairy-addicted friends.

The beautiful mother and baby at 9:00 of this video makes my heart soar!

Her encouragement for mothers to remain confident in their veganism for their babies’ health is a really special thing. So many times we are more fearful of challenging the norm than the dangers that the norm poses, and that is just inappropriate! Also, it’s not very evolved of us. With our big brains, we should be always looking forward to the very best options to optimize our brief experience on this incredible planet full of the most amazing natural resources.

Gah! What a waste of a life eating and wearing and paying for the abuse of animals is! It’s so frustrating to see a perfectly clear, abundant, gloriously joyful path to life and love, and to have to convince otherwise perfectly sane people of it! Especially when the alternative they choose, and defend as “normal” (NORMAL?!?! HMMMPPFFFFh#@%$E+$u!!!!!1!), causes so much pain, suffering, disease, darkness, defensiveness, physical and emotional torment and guilt… And those are just the risks to those choosing to live that life.
I’m not even going to get into the “lives” (if what we afford them can even be called life) of animals hurt by non-vegan humans. Let’s just talk about human people. Let’s just talk about why veganism is the only way for humans to live because it, plain and simple, benefits them the most.

 

 

* Plz don’t beat any horses. Faux or otherwise. Do go vegan though.

Is Freeing a Duck Terrorism?

Check out this great article by Ryan Shapiro. Is Freeing a Duck Terrorism?.

Howard Stern, Friend Of The Animals? Srsly?

“I was talking to Sam Simon, who educates me on things like this, and I happen to believe that you can’t lock a whale up in captivity. That is so cruel, come on, give me a break … whales are, like, almost like people in terms of intelligence and family, and then they separate them out, and it’s, like, heartbreaking. Fucking leave them in the ocean! I don’t have to see a whale that bad at SeaWorld … What kind of idiot goes to SeaWorld anyway?” Said Howard Stern.

Consider me shocked, sir!

This isn’t new or anything, but I just learned about it and I sincerely LOLed, so thought it was worth sharing.

Oh, and I also just learned that Howard Stern adopted a blind calico cat named Bella, whom he adores, and he is married to an animal rescue-obsessed supermodel and had 50 foster kittens in their home throughout 2013.
Seriously, you guys: LOL.

Alligators and Crocodiles, Oh My!

I do a lot of different things in my jobs, but my primary task is, typically, animal handling.
And I’m crazy freaking good at it, you guys.
It kind of bums me out how good I am at it; The skills I use for safely getting horrified animals to do what I need in order to medically treat them are the same types of skills that people use for getting horrified animals into slaughterhouses and research labs.

Of course I am always holding a terrified, biting dog still so we can get blood out of him to test him for heartworm disease, or inject him with Immiticide to cure his heartworm disease, or sedate him so a doctor can repair his broken leg, but to him it’s the same as if I were holding him down to skin and/or eat him alive. He fights for his life, and I am really good at making sure his efforts are futile. It’s so sad! Only you and I know I’m trying to save him, he still thinks I’m a monster.
When I am finally out of this god-awful field, I think that I might actually take up wrestling, because I think aggressive dog restraint probably has a lot of crossover with aggressive human restraint.

When explaining my weird skill set on my resume, I have to list all of the training I’ve had, the agencies that have issued my certifications, my Rabies pre-exposure vaccine status; a friend and I joked that it would be a lot simpler just to go get a crocodile handling certification and just paste it to the skills portion of my resume.

“How are your feral cat wrangling skills?”
“Pretty awesome, I’m a certified crocodile wrangler!”

You see the point/joke, right?
Eh. The moral is on its way…

Because I really do even crack jokes on my resume (seriously), in researching crocodile handling training, I learned that crocodile handlers are, much like most aggressive dog handlers, just a club of douchebags.
Turns out, and shouldn’t really be too much of a shock, most people who are willing to teach you to safely handle an alligator or a crocodile, I was very sad to learn, are complete cowboys who pretend they know something you don’t, just because they dropped out of the 8th grade to go out and make a career of poking at wild animals in swamps.

Steve Irwins these dudes ain’t.
Not even Steve-Os, really. (Steve-O is actually a really awesome dude!)

I guess the real moral is that captivity always sucks. Holding gators and crocs in cement pools is no more humane than when SeaWorld does it to whales or penguins (OMG, y’all, I think I have taken a long enough break from bitching about SeaWorld to bitch about SeaWorld some more, and I’m sure you know, things have been so bad for them lately! It’s great!).

So, as an apology to captive crocs and gators, whom I’d heretofore not considered very much, let’s check out some crocodile and gator themed stuff. Let’s appreciate their iconic power and remember that they’re suffering our lack of consideration as much as all other animals, but without the benefits of being classically cuddly lookin’ or safe to appreciate up close to enhance our sympathy for them.
And the only people who seem to want to be anywhere near them are creeps and bullies. Our giant, scaly bros need a higher quality fan club! Here, I’ll start: I’m going to buy an alligator necklace and talk about alligators more.

I’d wear any of these pretty gator necklaces, but, just like any jewelry with a whale or dolphin on it, it can be hard to find a piece that doesn’t look like the carcass of an animal has just been poached.

And this little guy takes my crocs-are-cute-friends concept to the next level!

Make gator cookies!

Or rock this cute gator wallet.

Check out this awesome, heavy-duty, COLD WEATHER gator hoodie!

Sea Shepherd Launches ‘Operation Sunu Gaal’

Sea Shepherd Australia :: Sea Shepherd Launches ‘Operation Sunu Gaal’.

Sea Shepherd has made a commitment to protect Senegalese waters from poachers with their new fifth vessel. Named for a young activist who was murdered last year while protecting sea turtles from poachers, the Jairo Mora Sandoval will carry donated fuel and a [presumably volunteer SSCS] crew to protect Senegal’s waters from illegal fishing.

If you’re not totally sure if you give a damn about Senegal’s poaching problem, look at it this way:
“Intervening against illegal fishing in a West African country is critical work for Sea Shepherd Global,” says Lamya Essemlali, Campaign Coordinator and President of Sea Shepherd France. “It is the area of the world most targeted by illegal fishing. Most of the fish stolen from Africa ends up on the plates of much richer countries that otherwise applaud themselves for the crumbs of charity that they throw to African countries. Countries like Senegal do not need charity, but rather the kind of justice possible only through effective law enforcement patrolling.”

(Why would any sane person want to eat anything bigger than seaweed out of the ocean anyway?)