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Save the UVic Rabbits!

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Photo: Bruce Stotesbury, Times Colonist

You’ve probably heard the news: the University of Victoria, suffering a rabbit overpopulation problem which is entirely the fault of people, has just begun a massive cull.

There are 1,300-1,500 rabbits, and every one of them is either a released pet or the offspring of a released pet. Most of them are tame; they’re described as being “an integral part of the…campus” for some students. The university says that it doesn’t know how many rabbits will be killed.

(From Greenmuze.com: )

Animal rights’ activist Roslyn Cassells has been working to raise awareness about the possibility of a cull and wants the University of Victoria to continue to explore options of finding homes for the rabbits. She worries that the university has been deliberately preparing a disinformation campaign to soften up the public into accepting a cull.

“As I looked further in to this, I felt the university had no intention of letting the animals live and in fact were manufacturing disinformation. The university’s desire to maintain the appearance of doing due diligence on the rabbit issue, without any genuine interest in, or intention of, diverting from their planned course of killing the rabbits,” explains Cassells in a telephone interview. “The university continually refers to its ‘attempts’ or other’s ‘failed’ attempts at resolving the problem using non-lethal means and holds this up as their justification for now promoting a kill.”

The BC SPCA is against the cull, and they are currently asking pet stores to sell only sterilized rabbits. This is a ridiculous, ridiculous situation which is caused entirely by people who are–let’s be honest–complete morons. They bought cute little bunnies at Easter time for the kids, but when the full-grown rabbits became too expensive or too time-consuming or too boring, they “set them free”, essentially dumping pets who for their entire lives have only known a house or even in a cage into a completely new world.

Most of the time, these rabbits die. Some, like the UVic rabbits, are dropped off in a spot popular for rabbit abandonment–thus, more manage to survive long enough to produce offspring. The fault is entirely completely upon humans with very little sense and very little compassion.

Do you want to help the bunnies?

Please call and email! Protest the killing of hundreds of tame rabbits:

Managing the cull:

Tom Smith
Executive Director, Facilities Management
University of Victoria
Tel.250-721-7592

Office of the President:
Tel: 250-721-7002
E-mail: pres@uvic.ca

People in the Office
Ludgard De Decker
Director, Office of the President
Tel: 250-721-7004
E-mail: ldedec@uvic.ca

Ased Said
Projects Officer, Office of the President
Tel: 250-721-7003
E-mail: presproj@uvic.ca

Shari Winter
Administrative Assistant to the President
Tel: 250-721-7002
E-mail: presadmn@uvic.ca

Nieves Forcada
Secretary, Office of the President
Tel: 250-721-7005
E-mail: pressec1@uvic.ca

Please send letters to the Vancouver Sun as well: sunletters@vancouversun.com (Re: UVic begins rabbit cull with lethal injections, May 17)

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Responses »
Tags: activism, culls, local, rabbits, UVic, Uvic rabbits

Waiting to die

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Waiting to die

This past weekend we took at drive out through the Fraser valley to check out some slaughterhouses. It was Sunday, so none were open. These cows (not sure if they were male or female) were in a pen, just the 4 of them, waiting there to die.

It was awful being there with them and being unable to do anything to save them. If we had acted to save their lives we would be stealing someone’s property. Yet these animals have lives and desires, relationships, and feel emotions and pain, just like any of us. In other circumstances they would have lived in a herd with many others of their own kind, living out their own lives.

Hidden behind grey walls

Perhaps worse, though, was driving through towns that are known for being farming communities and seeing almost no animals. I saw a handful of sheep, 3 horses, and some ducks, but we drove past huge farms that probably held many thousands of animals, completely hidden from sight.

The dominant ideology survives because it is hidden from view.

All that's left

We are hoping to work on a project of mapping the animal exploitation industries all around us. There are even 2 federally registered slaughterhouses in the city of Vancouver (both slaughter mostly chickens). Let’s work to expose the massive machine that keeps animals enslaved and people unaware.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Responses »
Tags: factory farming, local, slaughter

VeganMofo#12: BBT Cafe

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

BBT Cafe

BBT is a cute little Taiwanese cafe/restaurant hidden in the quiet neighborhood of Kerrisdale. I frequent the cafe (especially in the summer) for their refreshing bubble tea with lemon grass jelly (see VeganMofo #6). For years, this was all I would go to the cafe for since the menu contained only one very boring vegetarian dish.

However, since this spring, BBT cafe expanded their menu to include a full page of vegetarian selections! The dishes are mainly veg versions of traditional Taiwanese noodle and rice dishes. I’ve eaten my way through most of the veg menu and I’m very impressed!

Veg curry meal

When ordering the “meals” (these are the dishes with rice and side dishes) make sure you specify that you don’t eat eggs and do not want any eggs in the side dish (there’s usually usually no eggs in the main dish).

Another thing you want to watch out for is that they will always bring you your beverage in a disposable plastic cup if you don’t ask for a glass. I’ve made that mistake a couple of times.

One of the things I really like about this restaurant is that the waiters always print out a meal ticket and allow you to verify the order before sending it to the kitchen.

Stir fried "chicken" meal with fresh basil

stir fried 'chicken' with fresh basil

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Tags: BBT Cafe, bubble tea, food, local, Post Punk Kitchen, Taiwanese food, vegan, veganmofo

Local Organizations: Earthsave

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Another local organization worth knowing about is Earthsave Canada:

Earthsave Canada is a non-profit, educational organization promoting awareness of the environmental, ethical and health consequences of our food choices. We advocate the move towards a plant-based diet for environmental sustainability, better health, and compassion toward non-human animals.

Earthsave is an organization originally founded in the United States by John Robbins after the publication of his groundbreaking bestseller Diet for a New America.

Earthsave hosts potlucks and dine-outs, as well as holding the annual “Taste of Health” vegetarian food fair.

Their email newsletter almost always contains links to useful articles and information, and their print newsletter (sent out to members) has some really well-written articles by a number of smart people.

They also produce a vegetarian directory for the Vancouver area, which is also available online.

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet, or a looking for support in your transition to a plant-based diet, Earthsave might be just the group you are looking for.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Responses »
Tags: blogathon, Blogathon 2009, Earthsave, local, organizations, Vancouver

Buying local will not save the planet

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Amanda Daniel, who writes a blog called “Into the Eyes of God” sent me a link to a story in Forbes Magazine called “The Locavore Myth.”

Forbes: The Locavore Myth

The author, James E. McWilliams, starts off with:

Buy local, shrink the distance food travels, save the planet. The locavore movement has captured a lot of fans. To their credit, they are highlighting the problems with industrialized food. But a lot of them are making a big mistake. By focusing on transportation, they overlook other energy-hogging factors in food production.

Here is one challenge to the goodness of buying local:

Locavores argue that buying local food supports an area’s farmers and, in turn, strengthens the community. Fair enough. Left unacknowledged, however, is the fact that it also hurts farmers in other parts of the world. The U.K. buys most of its green beans from Kenya. While it’s true that the beans almost always arrive in airplanes–the form of transportation that consumes the most energy–it’s also true that a campaign to shame English consumers with small airplane stickers affixed to flown-in produce threatens the livelihood of 1.5 million sub-Saharan farmers.

Hmmm… had we thought of that when we were hunting for locally grown beans? I know rice is another example. It’s far less energy intensive to fly rice from Asia to Canada than it is to try to grow rice in California and ship it a much shorter distance because so much energy has to go into creating the environment for rice through irrigation – an environment that exists naturally halfway around the world.

Proponents of local food often don’t take economies of scale into account:

To take an extreme example, a shipper sending a truck with 2,000 apples over 2,000 miles would consume the same amount of fuel per apple as a local farmer who takes a pickup 50 miles to sell 50 apples at his stall at the green market. The critical measure here is not food miles but apples per gallon.

Then there’s the issue of meat:

Until our food system becomes more transparent, there is one thing you can do to shrink the carbon footprint of your dinner: Take the meat off your plate. No matter how you slice it, it takes more energy to bring meat, as opposed to plants, to the table. It takes 6 pounds of grain to make a pound of chicken and 10 to 16 pounds to make a pound of beef. That difference translates into big differences in inputs. It requires 2,400 liters of water to make a burger and only 13 liters to grow a tomato. A majority of the water in the American West goes toward the production of pigs, chickens and cattle.

The Canadian meat industry is pretty much the same as the American. We deal with essentially the same geography and irrigation issues with ranching and intensive farming.

So, what does he conclude?

If you want to make a statement, ride your bike to the farmer’s market. If you want to reduce greenhouse gases, become a vegetarian.

Yup. Enough said.

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Tags: blogathon, Blogathon 2009, environmentalism, greenwashing, local, locavore, meat, sustainability

Local Organizations: ADAV

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

The Animal Defense and Anti-Vivisection Society of BC was founded almost a hundred years ago (sorry, I forget the exact date) to oppose the use of animals in scientific experiments.

They are still around and still focused on stopping the bad science of animal testing and animal experimentation, in addition to promotion of kindness towards animals in all areas.

If you are interested in working on anti-vivisection issues in the Vancouver area, you may want to get in touch with them. They are always looking for volunteers for leafleting and tabling events, especially since so much animal testing is conducted in and around Vancouver (VGH, UBC, SFU, etc).

From their website:

The problem of animal experimentation is complex, many-sided and hard to fathom. The cruel and deadly use of animals has been legalised by politicians, justified by church institutions, described as unavoidable by science and industry, accepted without criticism by too many people not interested in the sufferings of others, and defended in every way by all those who gain profit from it. — Werner Hartinger, MD, Surgeon. ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION: ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE LAW, SCIENCE, INDUSTRY AND POLITICAL REALITY.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Responses »
Tags: AD-AV, animal testing, blogathon, Blogathon 2009, local, local organizations, Vancouver

Local Organizations: Vancouver Humane Society

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

: ChickenOUT! A VHS campaign

The Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) is another Vancouver-based organizations working to help animals.

Unlike other “humane societies”, VHS was modelled on the Humane Society of the United States, and most of their works is advocating for animals. They do fund some animal rescue and emergency care, but they help animals by changing laws and opinions.They do not operate a shelter.

I think this is a good approach to helping animals. By changing the system that produces unwanted and mistreated animals, they can potentially help far more animals.

According to their website:

The Vancouver Humane Society is a registered charity dedicated to the humane treatment of animals. We encourage individuals, organizations, and governments to take responsibility for the welfare and rights of domestic animals and wildlife influenced by human activities.

One campaign that has been their focus for the past few years is ChickenOUT! This is a campaign to raise awareness of the plight of egg-laying chickens (90% of whom are confined in battery cages) and advocate for law and policy changes that protect them. They give people information about the different labelling systems in BC for eggs and help people choose a less harmful option.

ChickenOUT! has its own website, if you would like to find out more about that campaign.

VHS also has a close relationship with Rest.Q sanctuary. They put out a joint rescue calendar for 2009, and hopefully they’ll put out another one.

VHS also was very helpful in finding a home for Hank, our rescued broiler rooster, for which I am forever grateful.

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Tags: blogathon, Blogathon 2009, charities, local, local organizations, organizations

Local orgs: Vancouver Rabbit Rescue and Advocacy

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

I thought it would be fun to write about some of the local organizations doing good work for animals.

One of the first organizations I got in touch with when I came to Vancouver was Vancouver Rabbit Rescue and Advocacy (VRRA). The local chapter of the House Rabbit Society, they operate a small shelter and care for hundreds (maybe thousands) of abandoned and unwanted rabbits every year.

VRRA cares for the rabbits at the SPCA. I used to volunteer with VRRA cleaning and feeding rabbits at the SPCA, and it was actually all VRRA volunteers caring for the rabbits there.

Rabbits are the 3rd most popular pets in North America, but in shelters they are often stuck in small, poorly ventilated rooms. The SPCA in Vancouver is no exception (to be fair, that building was never designed with rabbits in mind at all – they just weren’t such popular pets when it was built).

This also of course means that rabbits are the 3rd most euthenized pets in North America. Many rabbits come into shelters each year because they are purchased as pets for small children without any knowledge of how rabbits behave or their proper care. VRRA works to educate the public about the proper care and requirements for keeping a rabbit, plus works to stop pet stores from selling rabbits.

VRRA is always in need of donations for the care and feeding of the rabbits at their shelter. They are entirely volunteer-run with no paid staff.

For those of you with rabbits, they operate a small business selling rabbit supplies. They have the best deal on hay in town ($5 per flake). They are also a great source of information about rabbits – and may even be able to save you a trip to the vet.

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Tags: blogathon, Blogathon 2009, local, organizations, rabbits, VRRA

Local is not the answer

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

The latest email newsletter from Earthsave was waiting for me in my inbox this morning. If you haven’t signed up for it, you definitely should. There are always links to valuable stories, plus news about their upcoming events.

Local food no green panacea

One link led me to a CBC story about a University of Toronto professor who has authored a report looking at the concept of “local” food, and how it is not a solution to our environmental situation.

The problem, Desrochers says, is that food miles are based on a faulty premise. Namely, that transportation is the major contributor to a food’s greenhouse gas output.

“People who’ve never been involved in agricultural production tend to minimize the requirements,” he says. Only about 10 per cent of the energy consumed in food production is related to transportation. “So to argue that the closer you are to your food, the better, is a real over-simplification.”

“Food miles are, at best, a marketing fad,” Desrochers says in his report.

Animal products are a prime example. Even eating locally produced meat, eggs, and dairy means contributing to environmental damage and agricultural inefficiency. The carbon footprint of animal agriculture is very nearly the same, whether your chicken was raised in the Fraser valley and eaten here in Vancouver, or if he was raised in California and eaten here. Transportation adds such a small amount of greenhouse gas emissions that the benefit is negligible.

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Tags: environmentalism, greenwashing, local, locavore, sustainability

Are you being greenwashed?

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Jasmin over at Making Hay just posted a link to “Greenwashed“, an article about local food and meat consumption. It’s a really good look at how even locally raised meat is not sustainable (and actually could be worse in terms of greenhouse gas emissions).

Even grass-fed beef produces greenhouse gas emissions in the form of methane and nitrogen. Also, there is absolutely no way that we could feed our current meat habit on locally raised, grass-fed beef. We simply don’t have enough land to do that.

Animals allowed to move around expend more calories and thus consume more resources than those crammed into tiny crates and cages. Chickens not pumped full of antibiotics and genetically manipulated to reach optimal slaughter weight at 6-1/2 weeks take longer to raise — and consume more food in the process. Cows raised on pasture produce more methane (a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide) than those crammed into feedlots.

Plant-based agriculture is clearly much healthier for the earth, and thinking locally is only part of the equation: We also need to act globally. Nostalgic calls for a return to the perceived quaintness of days gone by are unrealistic, given the population explosion we’ve experienced.

Twenty-first century solutions require that we look forward, not backward. It’s time for well-intentioned environmentalists to stop looking for loopholes and embrace the necessity of a paradigm shift toward a plant-based diet.

Read through the article and please do as Jasmin suggests: “forward it to everyone you’ve ever met in your entire life.”

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Responses »
Tags: environmentalism, greenwashing, local, locavore