Posted in Animal Advocacy

Eating oxen Bill and Lou is “morally preferable” to retiring them to a sanctuary, says college spokesman

Student cuddles with Bill (Photo: with permission of Nina Keck/Vermont Public Radio)

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

With Halloween just a day or so away, and a “monster” storm bearing down on the northeastern United States, a small school in Vermont is reportedly about to commit an act that, for many animal advocates, will add yet another macabre note to the week.

Green Mountain College, which specializes in what it calls “environmental liberal arts,” plans to slaughter Bill and Lou, two amiable oxen who have worked at the college’s farm for a decade. Then they will serve students the animals’ flesh.

Animal Issues Reporter interviewed the college’s Director of Communications Kevin Coburn via email, as follows. Continue reading →

Walmart Cruelty Tour interviews: Pork is from ‘depressed, stressed, and sick’ pigs, says protester

Ten-foot-tall bloody mock pig stars in the Mercy for Animals’ ‘Walmart Cruelty Tour.’
Photo: Krissy Guzman

It’s hard to keep up with Mercy for Animals (MFA) national campaign coordinator Phil Letten. On his epic “Walmart Cruelty Tour,” he’s been making serious tracks, with a stop in a different U.S. city almost every weekday since July.

Thanks to Animal Issues Reporter’s Krissy Guzman, who we’re proud to have on board at AIR as our very first intern, we managed to catch up with Letten in Texas a few weeks back.

In the towering company of a bloody, wounded, ten-foot-tall mock pig that Letten had parked outside a Houston Walmart store, Krissy spoke with the intrepid MFA campaigner and two of the demonstrators to find out why they were out there in Houston’s blistering summer heat. Continue reading →

In memory of ‘Forgotten Dog’ Daniel, let’s get animals on the agenda (Opinion)

Photo: Yvette Holzbach, Yvette Holzbach Photography

by Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

I rarely write news articles in the first person. To my mind, news is best delivered through traditional journalism, where reporters gather facts and viewpoints, present them accurately and fairly, and keep themselves strictly out of the way.

Tonight, because I can’t stop crying, and because I feel sick, I can’t keep myself out of it.

Daniel is gone. I never met him. I only wrote about him. But like hundreds of others following his story, I wanted him to make it.

Daniel is gone. So are billions of other Daniels, whose deaths were just as senseless.

Daniel is gone. And at this very moment millions more Daniels out there stagger along the same road, headed in the same direction.

I’m sick of it. I can barely stand it anymore. Sometimes I feel my head is going to explode. My heart already has. Continue reading →

Serial killers’ worst crimes are done to farmed animals ‘on a mass scale,’ says undercover investigator

Undercover investigator ‘Andy’ worked in a slaughterhouse to gather video footage for HBO’s award-winning documentary ‘Death on a Factory Farm.’
Photo: HBO

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

The Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) annual Genesis Awards can be a lovely experience. At a glittering hotel in Beverly Hills, celebrities glow in their gowns and tuxes, banquet tables offer gourmet vegan delights, and applause thunders for quotes and clips from media projects that focus on animal issues.

The event can can also be disorienting. Amidst the glitter and glow, there’s the underlying awareness of why the awards are held: to spotlight the cruelty that HSUS says is perpetrated upon animals of all kinds, every day, around the world.  Continue reading →

Puppy importer brings in ‘defective’ animals, then leaves them at vet’s to be killed, says rescuer

‘Defective’ merchandise: blind Jack Russell pups abandoned at vet’s to be killed. / Photo: Achaic Society for the Care of Animals

An individual who imports puppies—perhaps from Hungary where there are many high-volume dog breeders—recently took two Jack Russell terriers to a vet in western Greece to have them euthanized because they were blind, according to a local rescue group.

Achaic Society for the Care of Animals president Anastasia Aravantinou said she is now fostering the two pups until they find adopters.

Aravantinou explained more about the puppies and the circumstances of their abandonment in the following interview with Animal Issues Reporter (AIR). Continue reading →