Born Free USA Blog
Happy New Year!
As 2011 dawns everyone at Born Free USA is fully energized for a new year of helping the animals in need. Although 2010 was busy, exciting and challenging, we will not rest on our laurels. Not now, not ever.
Chairman Mao’s Bird-Brained Idea
One of our four top priorities at Born Free USA is to protect wildlife in their natural habitats. We recognize that nature is an extraordinarily intricate web of connections among plants and animals, and that humans — especially starting with the Industrial Revolution — disturb that balance all too often.
Catch A Dear Friend of Born Free – On Broadway!
Usually I blog about wild animals and what can, or should, be done to protect them. Today I’d like to write about a person who has done such a lot to protect animals for a very long time: sensational British actress Joanna Lumley. She and my mother, Virginia McKenna, are close friends.
Here’s a Place Not To Take Your Kids
Imagine a zoo where monkeys are poked at by visitors as idle guards shrug their shoulders. Where the lone bear eats an empty cigarette pack, as the zoo’s other starving animals also waste away. Where the main “attraction,” a lion, loses an eye in a grenade attack. Where two elephants and a zebra are killed in crossfire between soldiers fighting a civil war. Where a mortar round destroys the entire parrot exhibit.
Trouble’s Uncaged When Zoo Animals Escape
You would think zoos are all about locking animals up. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? If only they could be free … but wait a minute!
Please Just Leave the Bears Alone!
You all know the details because the Born Free USA team has shared them with you before: Bears are forced to perform in circuses; they are forced to live behind zoo bars; they are enticed with bait and shot like “sitting ducks”; they are chased with dogs to make the kill easier for the hunter; they are poached in the wild for their gallbladders and paws; and they are crammed into tiny cages in Asia to be milked for their bile.
Zoos Should Back Off on Elephant Rides
So now it’s not enough to see elephants in small, unnatural enclosures: A handful of zoos, including the Orange County Zoo in Southern California, want to offer elephant rides!
All Living Creatures Need a Reason To Be Thankful
I just happened across Thanksgivingworld.com. Rather than exploring things to be thankful for, the website glorifies the U.S. holiday’s traditional meal, offering turkey recipes, Thanksgiving jokes, how best to carve a turkey, and even Thanksgiving poetry, including “Mr. Turkey,” sung to the tune of the childhood classic “Are You Sleeping”:
