Update, 5/11/09:

In an email dated May 5, 2009, SHARK updates us on its campaign against Coke:

Coca-Cola’s Feeling the Heat

Keep Pressuring Coke About Sponsoring Animal Abuse

Thank you to everyone who has contacted Coke about its sponsorship of rodeo animal abuse. We appreciate all the responses you have been sending us from the Company.

Under intense pressure the Company is now issuing yet another form letter response. In bold is the relevant change.

Thank you for contacting The Coca-Cola Company, Mrs. Hunter. We appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Like you, The Coca-Cola Company cares about the welfare of animals and supports their proper treatment. That is why the Company and our U.S. bottling will not sponsor events or attractions that feature animals unless the event organizers have policies and procedures in place to support the humane treatment of animals and provide ready access to quality veterinary care to protect the animals’ health and safety. Additionally, the Company’s trademarks may not be used to promote an event or an attraction that violates local, state or national laws or is contrary to the Company’s policy and guidelines.

We hope we have addressed your concerns. If you have questions or comments in the future, feel free to contact us again.

Tom Barber
Industry and Consumer Affairs
The Coca-Cola Company

Coke has a policy in effect that says:

“The Coca-Cola Company does not endorse or condone any practice of cruelty to animals, and the Company does not sponsor or promote events where there is a risk of physical harm to animals.”

Clearly, rodeos violate that policy.

They should have no presence in rodeos.

No matter how many times you have already contacted Coke, please contact them again. We have to remind them of their policy, and we have to keep discrediting their claims and exposing them. It is your calls, letters and e-mails that has them dancing around this issue.

Please let them know that you will not buy their products until they stop supporting animal abuse and will encourage others to do the same.

What You Can Do:

You can help the animals by sharing your thoughts about Coke’s insensitivity with the company’s CEO and President:

Muhtar Kent
President and CEO
The Coca-Cola Company
P.O. Box 1734
Atlanta, GA 30301
Phone: 770-989-3000
Toll Free: (800) 438-2653 (Get-Coke)

Please also send a separate letter to the same address to the Board of Directors at Coca-Cola.

Email Coke on their web form by clicking here.

Email Coca-Cola’s Corporate Responsibility Review directly at crreview [at] na.ko.com

Please forward any response you may receive from Coke to us at info [at] sharkonline.org, so we can keep track of what corporate lie(s) they are handing out at any given moment.

——————-

Excerpted from the latest edition of SHARK’s enewsletter:

SHARK wants to give a giant Thank You to everyone who took the time to contact Coca-Cola. We know that our letters and phone calls are having an effect. Coca-Cola is responding to our emails by sticking to their ridiculous story that they don’t support rodeo, but bizarrely, they then go into a lengthy defense of rodeo. We believe that this shows that Coca-Cola is feeling the pressure.

We are going to ask you to call Coke again and keep calling Coke this year until they withdraw their support of animal abuse and cruelty. A message needs to be sent to the corporate sponsors of animal cruelty that sponsoring animal cruelty will not be tolerated. PLEASE CONTACT Coca-Cola again or if you haven’t told them how you feel yet, please do so today! We need your support on this issue.

We also have one correction to make: E. Neville Isdell’s proper title is Chairman of the Board and Coca-Cola’s CEO is Muhtar Kent.

Please crosspost to everyone you know and to other organizations.

For more information visit: CokeCruelty.com

Contact Coke Today!

Call Toll Free (800) 438-2653 (GET-COKE)

Email Coke on their web form by clicking here: www.thecoca-colacompany.com/contactus/cokefeedback/index.html

Email Coca-Cola’s Corporate Responsibility Review directly at crreview[at] na.ko.com

Snail Mail:
Muhtar Kent, President & CEO
The Coca-Cola Company
P.O. Box 1734
Atlanta, GA 30301-1734

E. Neville Isdell, Chairman of the Board
The Coca-Cola Company
P.O. Box 1734
Atlanta, GA 30301-1734

Please also send a separate letter to the same address to the Board of Directors at Coca-Cola.

Please forward any response you may receive from Coke to us at info [at] sharkonline.org, so we can keep track of what corporate lie(s) they are handing out at any given moment.

SHARK offers proof of Coke’s rodeo love on their website, including this banner from the 2007 CFD Rodeo.

If you’re going to endorse cruelty, the least you can do is have the backbone to stand behind your decision. If it’s such a PR nightmare that you’ve got to deny the sponsorship, then here’s an idea – withdraw your support!

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This is extent of interaction allowed between piglets and their mothers “living” on modern factory farms:

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Santino the chimp with a stone in his hand. Photograph: PA

Many of you have no doubt already heard the story of Santino, a chimpanzee being held captive in a Swedish zoo who, in gathering rocks to throw at visitors to the zoo/prison, evidenced abstract thinking and planning for the future.

STOCKHOLM (AP) – A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday. Santino the chimpanzee’s anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a “hailstorm” of rocks against visitors, the study said.

“These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way,” said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath. “It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events.” [...]

Osvath said the chimpanzee had also been observed tapping on concrete boulders in the park to identify weak parts and then knocking out a piece. If it was too big for throwing, he broke it into smaller pieces, before adding them to his arsenal.

“It is very special that he first realizes that he can make these and then plans on how to use them,” Osvath said. “This is more complex than what has been showed before.” [...]

For a while, zoo keepers tried locking Santino up in the morning so he couldn’t collect ammunition for his assaults, but he remained aggressive. They ultimately decided to castrate him in the autumn last year, but will have to wait until the summer to see if that helps. The chimpanzees are only kept outdoors between April and October and Santino’s special behavior usually occurs in June and July.

“It is normal behavior for alpha males to want to influence their surroundings … It is extremely frustrating for him that there are people out of his reach who are pointing at him and laughing,” Osvath said. “It cannot be good to be so furious all the time.”

I’ll try to not rehash what others have said, but if I may, a few points:

I’ve noticed that a disturbing number of news articles refer to Santino as “belligerent,” “anti-social,” and the like. His behavior is characterized as unreasonably antagonistic and hostile, as if it’s wholly unprovoked. On the contrary; Santino’s actions are defensive, not offensive. How would you respond if, day in and day out, naked apes invaded your space, gawked, laughed and pointed at you, and occasionally even assaulted your person, both verbally and physically? (Anyone who’s taken even the occasional trip to a zoo has witnessed humans – adults and children alike – harass the animals, usually with words and noises, but also with improvised weapons.) Probably you wouldn’t like it. Probably you’d become fed up and eventually lash out. Santino is 31 years old; though I’ve no clue how long he’s been held captive in a zoo, probably it’s been years – possibly, decades. How would you handle 31 years of captivity and slow torture?

In regards to the zoo keepers’ efforts to control Santino’s “belligerent” behavior by castrating the poor bloke, I say this: isn’t the obvious answer to remove him from the gorram display? That’s the real issue at play here, not his aggression or excessive levels of testosterone.

And also: humans often invoke our superior intellect – whether this is defined as a sense of self, ability to plan for the future, ability to craft and use tools, what have you – as an ethical justification for our exploitation and enslavement of non-human animals. So what do we do when a non-human animal exhibits human-like intelligence? Why, we (try to) castrate it out of him, of course! Can’t have a dirty, filthy ape acting like a person now, can we? Oh, the irony.

I can only hope that Brother Kwan – another forward-thinking primate – escaped his captors after his own attempt at freedom. Brother, described only as “a monkey,” killed his abusive owner by throwing a coconut at the man’s head. Slave owner Leilit Janchoom died instantly.

Perchance Brother Kawn will make an appearance on a future segment of TCR’s “Monkey on the Lam“?

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Release Chimps – releasechimps [at] neavs.org
Date: Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 4:16 PM
Subject: Great Ape Protection Act Update 3/11/2009

Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories: Legislative Update 3/11/2009

Great Ape Protection Act Continues to Gain Bipartisan Support

Three things YOU can do right now to help!

The Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) is currently in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. As of today, the bill has the support of 28 cosponsors including all the original sponsors. It is vital we continue to work hard to add even more cosponsors to ensure the bill’s success.

1. If you have not already done so in 2009, contact your legislator and ask them to sign onto the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) as a cosponsor, or, if they already have in 2009, please thank them. Then ask at least three of your friends or family to contact their legislators too! Email us for legislator postcards to help make contacting them fast and easy (releasechimps [at] neavs.org).

2. Please contact the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and let them know that you no longer want your tax dollars going towards research on great apes. Tell them you want funding allocated to:

* Retire chimpanzees currently in U.S. labs to sanctuary.
* Alternatives which are not only more humane but are safer and better science.

3. Recently there has been important media coverage (ABC’s Nightline) on primates in research. As a result, thousands of comments are being posted on social networking sites such as Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc. Please add your voice to this debate with positive, informative and reasonable comments to help educate the public.

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: – SledDogAC [at] aol.com
Date: Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Subject: ALERT: Save Iditarod dogs from brutality – WRITE
To: SledDogAC [at] aol.com

Please send protest emails and forward this alert widely.

From the Sled Dog Action Coalition, www.helpsleddogs.org

Imagine the cruelties these cute sled dog pups will eventually experience in the Iditarod.

Contact information, email blocks and sample letter are below.

Please help end the barbaric treatment of dogs by sending protest emails to organizations that support the Iditarod. What happens to the dogs during the Iditarod includes death, paralysis, frostbite (where it hurts the most!), bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons and sprains.

Dog beatings and whippings are common. During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective.” “It is a common training device in use among dog mushers…”

Iditarod dog kennels are puppy mills. Mushers breed large numbers of dogs and routinely kill unwanted ones, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason are killed with a shot to the head, dragged, drowned or clubbed to death.

When they’re not hauling people, most Iditarod dogs are forced to live at the end of a chain. It has been reported that dogs who don’t make the main team are never taken off-chain. Chained dogs have been attacked by wolves, bears and other animals. Old and arthritic dogs suffer terrible pain in the blistering cold.

Most Internet service providers allow people to send up to 40 email addresses at a time. For your convenience, the addresses have been divided into groups of 40. Please email the first group first. Individual email addresses are given under the sample letter. The groups contain addresses for the Iditarod sponsors, promoters, and the sponsors of the 73 mushers who signed up for the 2009 Iditarod. Email blocks with semicolons are on
www.helpsleddogsorg/sponsors.htm .

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kinship Circle – info [at] kinshipcircle.org
Date: Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:59 PM
Subject: Greyhounds, Fur, Rodeo Shock, Cats Skinned… [Friends Of Kinship Circle]

FRIENDS OF KINSHIP CIRCLE / PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST

friendsofkinshipcircle.wordpress.com/

* KINSHIP CIRCLE DOES NOT WRITE OR RESEARCH THESE ALERTS.
* WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VALIDITY OF FRIENDS OF KC ALERTS.
* CONTACT ALERT WRITERS. PLEASE DO NOT HIT REPLY. We will not respond.

1. Trouble For Greyhounds in South Africa
2. Jamaica Wants Greyhound Races Too
3. Jason Wu Puts Aside Fur, For Now
4. Tucson Rodeo Shocks Horses
5. Guandong – Cats Skinned And Boiled Alive
6. Fight Horse Slaughter State By State
7. Prosecute Bird Killers In Florida
8. Ask For End To NYC Horse Carriages
9. World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week

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The following is excerpted from the most recent edition of SHARK’s newsletter.

—————————

Tucson Rodeo – Will They Shock Horses This Year? Or Will They Join Other Rodeos and Ban Shocking?

In 2008, SHARK exposed the Tucson Rodeo for shocking horses with 5,000 – 6,000 volts of painful electricity to make them perform.

SHARK filed a complaint requesting a criminal investigation and charges against those responsible, that was filed with the Arizona Department of Agriculture – Animal Services Division.

SHARK received great media coverage of this issue helping to educate many in Arizona about rodeo animal abuse.

In advance of the upcoming rodeo this year, SHARK has sent out two press releases (see below) to the media, the City Council and the Mayor of Tucson requesting their attention and action on this issue.

What You Can Do:

Contact the Mayor and City Council Members and request a ban on shocking the animals in the rodeo like many other rodeos in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, etc.

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My tubes are clogged with veg*n videos, so rather than post each separately, behold this handy dandy video roundup!

Via Mary at Animal Person, Blinders: The Movie is now available online, in its entirety. I’m fairly certain it’s the full documentary, anyway; with a running time of 50 minutes, I haven’t yet had a chance to watch the whole film. Tonight, maybe, while the Mr. records his podcast.
 

 
Mary urges us to watch and circulate the video; please do!

Next up: those charlatans at the Humane Society of the United States. Even as they profit off the publicity that comes from their admirable dogfighting raids and rescues,
 

 
the HSUS actively campaigns to have these rescued dogs murdered. What a warped idea of “rescue,” eh?

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This morning, Mary at Animal Person blogged about the closing of the Guam Greyhound Park, a racetrack which was “home” to about 250 greyhounds. Animal rescue groups were not consulted beforehand or involved in initial efforts to place the greyhounds; instead, the owners/management of the Guam Greyhound Park simply gave the dogs away, for free, to anyone willing to take them.

From www.guamgreyhounds.org:

On November 7, 2008 the 32 year old Guam Greyhound Park, with approximately 250 greyhounds at the racetrack, abruptly closed. The closing was in response to the results of a failed initiative on the November 4 ballot which would have permitted casino style gambling on the racetrack property. John Baldwin, owner of the racetrack, who had tried to get similar initiatives passed three times in the past six years, claimed the racetrack was losing $100,000 a month.

On November 24,the Guam Greyhound Park started a public giveaway of 150 of the racetrack’s greyhounds. Dogs were given away free to anyone who came to the track. None of the greyhounds were spayed or neutered. No record was kept of who got the greyhounds, how many each person took and no legal transfer of title was made. Obviously, no standard adoption process was in place: no home check and no information about greyhound behavior or care.

It has been reported that many people took the free greyhounds believing they would make good guard dogs. Some of the islands dog fighting “fans” took greyhounds to bait fighting dogs or to breed, thinking it would make the fighting dogs faster or quicker. It didn’t take long for the greyhounds to show up stray or in very bad circumstances. The following updates from Guam Animals In Need (GAIN) volunteers, Dave and Noni Davis, tells a vivid story of this immense tragedy. GAIN (the only animal rescue on the island) has now found these giveway greyhounds starved and even dead.

GAIN’s stories of trying to rescue these discarded dogs are striking:

We received a call from a passerby about two dogs tied to a boat in Umatac – down at the very southern part of the island. I spoke to the owner and he said he got them from the race track in the first week when they started giving them away. He took a male and female to breed them for later on and also to guard his fishing boat. They were both emaciated and when I questioned him about feeding them, he said he didn’t know how to care for them anymore, because they wouldn’t eat what he gave them. With some friendly persuasion I convinced him to sign them both over to GAIN. He wanted to be assured that we won’t use them to race and then ” make money out of them”. I informed him that they are now officially retired and will never race again.

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Over at Change .org, Stephanie looks at some of the rank sexism and speciesism – both of which are played for laughs, natch – found in last night’s Super Bowl ads. We’re talking chimps in suits, simulated animal abuse, “exotic” “pets” and nagging, insufferable potato-headed women – and that’s just for starters. (For more feminist analysis, see Feministe and geekdad at Wired.)

Instead of adding to the pile – which is too easy, really – I’d like to single out a commercial that actually made me blub-smile: Budweiser’s Clydesdales / Circus ad:
 

 
In the ad, a dilapidated, run-down traveling circus sets up camp next to a pristine, idyllic pasture. Over a white picket fence, the eyes of two horses meet – love at first sight. On one side of divide is Daisy, the circus’s “show” horse; on the other, our hero Romeo, a [Budweiser] Clydesdale. The two horses run to one other – in cinematic slow motion – and embrace. Daisy and Romeo’s loving gazes and sweet nuzzles are rudely interrupted by the circus owner, who hauls poor Daisy off into a creaky old trailer, promptly kidnapping her off into the sunset, away from the distraught Romeo.

Set to strains of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Romeo sets out in search of his love, traversing meadows, rivers, cliffs – even golf courses and city streets thick with traffic. Once Romeo catches up to the circus, he bursts into the tent in which Daisy is performing. The circus owner catches Romeo’s eye and knows what’s coming; Daisy bucks her rider, and she and Romeo escape together, ripping through the canvas of the tent for extra-dramatic effect.

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