First Light Productions
investigative journalism
Posts by Michael Elton McLeod
SHARK keeps hammering away.
- Drawing attention to Cowtown Rodeo in New Jersey sending nine unwanted bucking horses to the slaughterhouse.
Four of the Cowtown nine.
- Upping awareness of the unconscionable sport of pigeon shooting by exposing the fact that Edward DiDonato, an outed pigeon shooter, sits on the Board of Trustees for Rider University.
SHARK says no to pigeon shooting.
For more info go here where you can also donate to SHARK or buy one of their goodies for Christmas.
The government in Jakarta, Indonesia is cracking down on the inhuman use of monkeys as street performers, a practice that has proliferated wildly in the last decade.
Jakarta street performer. (Photo: Andy Yoes Nugroro)
Locally called topang monyet, meaning “masked monkeys,” the animals are forced to wear doll masks and beg for money. Their training is based on pain and hunger and they are kept in horrible conditions, chained on short leashes in tiny cages or small dark boxes. Many are infected with tuberculosis and hepatitis which are passed back and forth between monkeys and handlers.
Jakarta governor Joko Widodo has announced plans to get the animals off the streets by 2014.
Jakarta, Indonesia.
An estimated 200 to 350 topany monyet handlers were thought to be operating in Jakarta. Since the crackdown, which involves confiscation of the animals, many have been moved to other cities.
The growing proliferation of dancing monkeys is blamed on three big ‘monkey bosses’ who rent out the monkeys to street children who turn over their profits and often become indentured.
Jakarta.
As inducement to surrender their animals to wildlife officials, handlers are being given compensation and pledges of job training.
Source: ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Shout out: narhvalur
(These are orphaned orangutans rescued from palm oil plantations (partially funded by donations to Orangutan Outreach at redapes.org) who are now being nursed back to health, trained and rehabilitated for a return to safely protected forests.)
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The law of unintended consequences strikes again (a la Dr. Oz). The FDA, in a move designed to curtail heart disease (in humans), has proposed a rulemaking that will ban trans fats in foods — at the expense of other species. Although it gets a bit technical, trans fats come from hydrogenated vegetable oils, which means these liquid vegetable oils are converted into a solid that helps extend the efficacy and shelf life of processed food, like frozen pizzas, etc.
What’s a good substitute, though? “Palm kernel oil, which is solid at room temperature and has become a popular substitute for trans fats, might work in some cases but some products might have to be dropped,”…
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While we’re eating turkey and opening gifts around a tree in our cozy homes, rangers are standing guard in the bush ready to fight. These men and women put their lives on the line every day to protect our rhinos and elephants from the evil clutches of poachers.
A few months ago, there was a letter writing campaign to “thank a ranger”. What better time to do it again, than at Christmas!Please take a moment to give them hope and inspiration. Let them know how much they mean!
Please go to the SANParks facebook page and post your messages of support and well wishes for the holiday and the new year.
The following letter from a friend and fellow blogger/photographer, Ingrid Taylar, completely annihilates Time Magazine’s recent anti-wildlife article, “America’s Pest Problem…
Dear Editor:
David von Drehle’s piece, “America’s Pest Problem,” barely touches on the crux of the issue which is our own exponentially growing population combined with our gluttonous appetite for land and resources, all of which present wild animals with fewer options. He describes our ecological role in heroic terms, without delving into the much more complicated morass of human intrusion. We encroach on wild spaces, sterilize formerly complex habitats with subdivisions and lawns, raze and trample forests to provide grazing lands for cattle, pollute water sources with our industrial production of food and materials, poison critical plants like milkweed out of existence for Monarch butterflies and bees, build roadways through critical migration corridors, produce trash to the degree that there is no feasible way to dispose of it…
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It was revealed on Monday that over the weekend, Journey, Oregon’s wandering wolf, crossed the border into California once again. He didn’t stay long before returning to the Southern Cascades of Oregon. Karen Kovacs, Wildlife Program Manager with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that the wolf was following migrating deer and elk.
Dispersal is a normal behavior for wolves, although few travel as far or for as long as Journey. He has gone over 3,000 miles since leaving the Imnaha pack in the northeast corner of Oregon in September of 2011. I remember that time well. I left the same area a few weeks behind him after attending a rural writing retreat along the Imnaha River. Driving home, I watched for OR 7 (he hadn’t earned the name Journey yet) as I made the long trip back to southern Oregon. I didn’t see him of course, but…
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The lawsuits, filed last week by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of four chimpanzees — Kiko, Tommy, Leo, and Hercules — were all promptly rejected out of hand by New York judges.
Kiko with owner Carmen Presti. (Photo- Charles Lewis)
Kiko’s hearing was conducted over the phone by Judge Ralph Boniello. Asked to rule on the claim that chimpanzees deserve to be granted rights of bodily liberty historically reserved for humans, Boniello commented, “I’m not going to be the one to make that leap of faith.”
Tommy’s case was heard by Judge Joseph Sise. “I will be available as the judge for any other lawsuit to right any wrongs that are done to this chimpanzee because I understand what you’re saying,” Sise said. He noted that the Nonhuman Rights Project made “a very strong argument,” but article 70 of New York’s legal code, which guides habeas corpus decisions, didn’t include chimps.
Leo and Hercules, owned by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s New Iberia Research Center and on loan to a laboratory at Stony Brook University, were denied habeas corpus by Judge Gerard Asher summarily without holding a hearing.
All the decisions will be appealed.
Andrea Rodricks
Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA) does not require cosmetic testing on animals, it does allow a company to take whatever steps necessary to prove product safety. This includes animal testing. Even though the FDA does advocate for alternative methods of testing, it seems to be an all too common perception that animal testing is necessary for the development of safe products. This is evidenced by the hundreds of companies that still test on animals. I have never understood why it is seen as the best way to test cosmetics. Does testing mascara on a rabbit really prove that it is safe for human use? There are plenty of alternatives to testing on animals, so it is any wonder why companies continue this horrific practice. 
The United States is significantly behind in banning animal testing of cosmetics. In 2004, the European Union(EU) banned domestic…
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Answer by Rory Young:
Ivory poaching has not decreased as poverty has been alleviated, the opposite has happened. This is because ivory and rhino horn poaching are about green not hunger!
As Africa (where the poaching happens) and the Far East (where the biggest market is) have grown economically, and especially with regards to their per capita income, the poaching of ivory and rhino horn has escalated in tandem with this economic growth.
Zimbabwe National Parks Rangers On Parade At Tashinga in Matusadona National Park.
I have received a number of negative and even aggressive dismissive comments about raising funds for anti-poaching activities in National Parks. These people have been saying that it is a waste of time and that to end poaching we need to focus on poverty alleviation. These people are wrong.
First of all, there is a massive difference between poaching for meat and the poaching of…
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http://www.predatordefense.org/exposed/
In our newest film you’ll see three former federal agents and a Congressman blow the whistle on the USDA’s barbaric and wasteful Wildlife Services program and expose the government’s secret war on wildlife.
Dec. 1, 2013 – An agency within the USDA called Wildlife Services—a misnamed entity if there ever was one—has been having their way for almost a century, killing over 100,000 native predators and millions of birds each year, as well as maiming, poisoning, and brutalizing countless pets. They have also seriously harmed more than a few humans. And they apparently think they are going to continue getting away with it.
But in our new documentary, EXPOSED: USDA’s Secret War on Wildlife, whistle-blowers go on the record showing Wildlife Services for what it really is—an unaccountable, out-of-control, wildlife killing machine that acts at the bidding of corporate agriculture and the hunting lobby, all with taxpayer dollars.
Our…
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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/awetzler/breaking_usda_inspector_genera.html#.Up_WZK6fC54.twitter
Andrew Wetzler
December 4, 2013
Responding to Congressional requests and well over a hundred thousand letters from the public, the Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General confirmed today that it plans to conduct an audit of the USDA’s controversial Wildlife Services predator control program. Every year, at a cost of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, Wildlife Services uses traps, poisons and guns to kill over 100,000 native carnivores such as bears, wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions. The audit, which is planned for 2014, will examine the following topics:
determine whether wildlife damage management activities were justified and effective;
assess the controls over cooperative agreements;
assess Wildlife Services’ information system for reliability and integrity; and
follow-up on the implementation of prior audit recommendations, such as the accountability over hazardous materials and equipment.
This audit is a much-needed development, one that will hopefully shed light on the long-documented problems with Wildlife…
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