We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.
Letter as published on
Westchester Rising
January 8, 2021
Dear Editor:
We'd like to take this time to thank Westchester Rising and wish its
readers best wishes for the New Year. Westchester Rising's editor Dan
Murphy has graciously given us the space and support to be a voice for
animals who can't speak for themselves, which was invaluable in finally
passing a ban against cruel, antiquated traveling animal acts in this county
- a years-long struggle of education and persistence, finally joining
thousands of enlightened venues the world over.
Rising and its readership have been willing to learn about such issues as
the grim reality for animals in pet shops, puppy mills and shelters; the
law-based bias of the pro-hunting NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation;
the blatant inhumanity of hunting animals in enclosures, called 'canned
hunting'; the barbaric, vicious practice of force-feeding birds to make
'foie gras'; frightened, sentient animals tortured for bizarre tests with no
oversight; farm animals jammed into squalid, tiny cages, never seeing their
parents or the light of day and worse. Please visit our website to
learn more.
We wish Rising readers a Blessed and Happy New Year. Amid our new
challenges, as people struggle and yearn for quality of life and decency, we
ask Rising readers to please also consider these voiceless beings who feel
pain and joy as we do, suffer like we do, love their babies as we do and
have done nothing wrong except being born into appalling, unimaginable
exploitation. We believe the human heart is big enough to include them
in the circle of kindness, compassion and a bright future.
Kiley Blackman
Animal Defenders of Westchester
www.ADOW.org
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