Petition · Buttonwood Park Zoo: Please Allow Ruth & Emily to be Relocated to The Elephant Sanctuary · Change.org

https://www.change.org/p/buttonwood-park-zoo-please-allow-ruth-emily-to-be-relocated-to-the-elephant-sanctuary?source_location=petition_footer&algorithm=promoted&original_footer_petition_id=13095684&grid_position=8&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uAHuHxgAAAAAAWs%2BNcct%2BUx1jNmI3NzViZQ%3D%3D

Buttonwood Park Zoo: Please Allow Ruth & Emily to be Relocated to The Elephant Sanctuary
Sarah Maddux started this petition to Buttonwood Park Zoo Director Keith Lovett and 2 others

Ruth and Emily are aging Asian elephants living in deplorable conditions at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, Massachusetts. They endure extreme heat/cold and live in an enclosure that would be much too small for a single elephant. Both elephants, especially Ruth, regularly display behavioral patterns consistent with extreme stress.

Even by the lowest of standards, Ruth and Emily are incompatible- a violation of the USDA’s Animal Welfare Act. Emily has attacked Ruth over 30 times and has been seen ramming, biting, and tusking Ruth, leaving lacerations. In 2006, Emily bit off 6.5 inches of Ruth’s tail. The Buttonwood Zoo has documented these attacks, but instead of granting Ruth the life she deserves at the Elephant Sanctuary, they falsely claim that Ruth is now too fragile to relocate.

Ruth is 56-58 years old. In the wild, she would be coming into her own as a matriarch of her herd. Instead, Ruth was taken from her mother as early as age 1 and shipped to Bensons Animal Farm, where she was trained by a circus elephant trainer named Silvers Madison. In 1978, she was sold to Brian Watson, who used her for parties, parades, and commercials. There is substantial evidence that Watson beat Ruth. Eventually, all of his animals were confiscated. Watson then stole his animals back, including Ruth, whom he had loaded onto a trailer. After his vehicle broke down, he left Ruth at a waste transfer station in Danvers, MA. She was found two days later, still chained to the trailer. Ruth then made her way to the Buttonwood Park Zoo.

Emily was taken from Thailand at age 3. She first lived at the Southwick Zoo before being purchased by the city of New Bedford in 1968. She spent her time in an unheated barn or chained in a dirt yard. Due to her deplorable living quarters, the USDA ordered Emily sent to the Baton Rouge Zoo, where she spent 3 years. Here, she was trained by Alan Campbell. Emily was both a victim and an aggressor in a number of adversarial encounters with other elephants. When Emily’s barn was complete, she then was moved back to the Buttonwood Zoo, where she continued to be forced to perform stressful and frightening “tricks” for the entertainment of viewers.

The Elephant Sanctuary (Hohenwald, TN) welcomes captive elephants that are elderly, sick, and/or in need of a peaceful place to spend the remainder of their lives. The sanctuary provides each elephant with individualized care, the companionship of a herd, and the ability to live the lives they have earned. Ruth and Emily deserve to roam The Elephant Sanctuary’s 2,700 acres of hills, trees, meadows, and ponds but are currently confined to an outdoor space of less than half an acre.

A dedicated group, Friends of Ruth and Emily, has campaigned on behalf of these exploited elephants since 2014. They have raised awareness through tabling, petitioning in person, and meeting with zoo staff and city leaders. The Friends of Ruth and Emily have recently taken legal action against the city of New Bedford, as there is an abundance of evidence that the treatment of Ruth and Emily is a violation of the Endangered Species Act. There are fewer than 40,000 Asian elephants remaining in the wild and the Buttonwood Park Zoo is not affording Emily and Ruth the protection they deserve. Before the case is heard, it is imperative that we bring as much attention as possible to this dire issue. Ruth and Emily can’t wait any longer; they have suffered enough. Please join me in asking the Buttonwood Zoo and the city of New Bedford to grant Ruth and Emily the life they deserve at the Elephant Sanctuary!

Thank you for being a voice for Ruth and Emily,
Sarah

Please follow Friends of Ruth and Emily on Twitter: https://twitter.com/retireruthembpz

Please click here to show additional support by becoming a (free) member of Friends of Ruth and Emily: https://friendsofruthandemily.jimdo.com/free-membership/

Petition · American Association of Veterinary State Boards : Protect Pets from Cancerous Vaccinations Demand Titer Tests Exemptions & Safer Options · Change.org

Protect Pets from Cancerous Vaccinations Demand Titer Tests Exemptions & safer options
SmokeAlarmSafety.org Ban Ion Alarms started this petition to American Association of Veterinary State Boards and 3 others

According to several certified Veterinarians such as Dr. Schultz and others that have studied pet vaccinations there is a high rate of cancer that develops at injection site in dogs and cats. Many Vets believe and have proof that the ingredients and retro-viruses used in the vaccines are causing these cancers and other serious auto-immune disorders and other health issues as well as the same dose amount being injected in pets of all weights & sizes which is especially dangerous to the smaller pets. You can sign up to see the 7 part series thetruthaboutpetcancer.com/ and watch episode 3 regarding these dangerous pet vaccines.

Dr. Schultz and other Vets have done studies using titer tests that have shown dogs and cats have rabies antibodies for at least 7 years and believe a sufficient amount of antibodies remain for the life of your pets after one vaccination. Unfortunately most States and Counties require a rabies vaccine every 3 years and some Vets recommend a booster shot every year which is needlessly exposing 100’s of millions of pets to dangerous cancer causing vaccines which can either kill your pets or cause cancer requiring surgery to remove the cancer and sometimes requiring amputation of a leg costing $1000’s of dollars.

Many pet owners that are being required by law in most States and Counties to have their pets vaccinated for rabies and other diseases are opting to have the vaccines injected into the pets tail in case of an adverse reaction which would be less evasive to remove part of the tail if cancer were to develop at injection site. This petition will be sent to several Veternarian Regulatory Boards demanding that safer non-cancerous / weight to dose adjusted options to these dangerous vaccines be studied and manufactured and that titer tests be accepted as an exemption to the mandatory rabies vaccinations to protect pets from being over vaccinated with these dangerous cancer causing vaccines when suffiecient rabies antibodies are present.

For your family and pets safety sake see http://www.smokealarmsafety.org Ionization alarms that are in most homes will not wake your family up in time to escape safely and unmonitored alarms are a danger to your pets when left locked inside while you are away.

https://www.change.org/p/american-association-of-veterinary-state-boards-protect-pets-from-cancerous-vaccinations-demand-titer-tests-exemptions-safer-options?source_location=petition_footer&algorithm=promoted&original_footer_petition_id=13010811&grid_position=3&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uADT6xwAAAAAAWs%2BOBvbEL%2B9lNWY4YTkyYQ%3D%3D

Lyme Epidemic Spreads Worse Than Ever

ecowatch.com
Natural Resources Defense Council
By Clara Chaisson

In the summer of 2013, I was changing into pajamas when an irritated blotch of skin caught my eye. My rib cage looked like a miniature advertisement for Target: There was a near-perfect circle of red, a smaller, concentric ring of clear skin, and then a red dot right in the middle. Bull’s-eye.

In medical jargon this distinctive rash is called erythema migrans, and it’s the calling card of Lyme disease. Fittingly enough, I was spending this particular peak tick season in Old Lyme, Connecticut—where it was first discovered in 1975. Luckily, I knew to be on the lookout for this exact symptom, and a course of antibiotics knocked it out of my system. I experienced no further problems.

But cases of Lyme disease aren’t always so straightforward. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), somewhere around a quarter of infected people never get the bull’s-eye rash, and other early signs, like headache and fatigue, can be easy to misinterpret. If Lyme progresses untreated, it can spread to the joints, heart and nervous system, sometimes triggering problems like meningitis, arrhythmias, or Bell’s palsy. Later stages of the disease can cause symptoms that are more difficult to treat, like arthritis and memory loss.

Worryingly, more and more people are experiencing Lyme’s ravages as environmental conditions help Borrelia burgdorferi, the disease-causing bacterium carried by ticks, spread into new areas.

“It’s a huge problem, it’s growing, and we really are concerned about the lack of prevention tools that are available,” said C. Ben Beard, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases.

Unlike the tiny ticks that carry the troublesome bacteria, Lyme’s rise is easy to spot in the CDC’s incidence maps from the past couple of decades. Since the early 1990s, the annual number of officially reported cases of Lyme has tripled to 30,000, but studies suggest the actual number is 10 times higher than that. Climate change, suburban land development, and habitat change are creating conditions that not only allow the ticks to thrive, but also put more people into contact with them and their harpoon-like mouthparts.

Black-legged ticks (also known as deer ticks) feed exclusively on blood and need three meals over a two-year period to complete the four stages of their life cycle; otherwise, they starve to death (good riddance). As winters warm, milder seasons are giving the bloodsuckers a larger window of opportunity to find hosts to dine on, allowing them to survive in greater numbers. Meanwhile, higher temperatures are enabling the ticks to spread to parts of the map that have historically been too cold to sustain them. (These arachnids also depend on a high baseline of relative humidity, which explains why residents of drier regions of the country don’t have to worry about the disease.)

A black-legged tick’s four stages lifePamela Freeman

Climate change isn’t the only thing humans are causing to make the environment more hospitable to these parasites. Forest fragmentation is giving a boost to populations of white-footed mice, the primary carriers of B. burgdorferi, and suburbanization puts humans into closer contact with these and other tick-hosting wildlife like chipmunks and deer.

Almost half of all U.S. counties reported the presence of black-legged ticks as of 2015, up 45 percent from 1996. Still, Lyme is mostly a regional threat—95 percent of confirmed cases occur in just 14 states in the Northeast and upper Midwest. And within those states, Lyme is sickening more and more people. The upsurge is especially pronounced in the Northeast, where the number of counties with high incidence of the disease increased 320 percent between 1993 and 2012.

As Lyme moves into new communities, residents often don’t know how to protect themselves, and local doctors aren’t always familiar with the symptoms and best treatment practices. On top of that, bad advice on how to treat Lyme is swirling around on the Internet. According to one study, more than 30 untested alternative therapies are marketed to Lyme sufferers online, including drinking urine, sleeping on a bed of 70 magnets, and blowing gaseous ozone into the rectum. Yup. (Just to be crystal clear: Do not try any of this at home … or anywhere else.)

“The misinformation persists at almost all levels of the Lyme epidemic,” said Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

Richard Ostfeld tags a white-footed mouse as part of field research on the ecology of Lyme disease.Pamela Freeman

Combine inadequate prevention with serious—but sometimes enigmatic—symptoms, widespread misinformation, and a steady creep into new areas, and you’ve got a recipe for a population increasingly vulnerable to a Lyme epidemic. “I would characterize our preparedness as very poor,” said Ostfeld. “And that needs to be rectified.”

So, what can be done? A lot, actually. Beard said the CDC is working to educate health care providers in Lyme-prone areas on how to recognize the symptoms. The National Institutes of Health is also supporting research into more rapid diagnostic tests. The current approach detects antibodies that the immune system produces in response to the bacteria, but the antibodies can take a few weeks to show up.

Ostfeld thinks diagnosing Lyme will remain difficult for some time, and avoiding infections in the first place through tick checks, proper clothing, and potential vaccines may still be the best strategy. “What if we lived in a world in which [diagnosis] was less important because we were preventing so many potential cases of tick-borne disease?” he asked.

Last summer, the FDA fast-tracked the approval process for VLA15, a potentially safe and effective Lyme disease vaccine. (A pharmaceutical company discontinued an earlier vaccine, introduced in 1998, after some recipients claimed it gave them arthritis. Clinical data did not support these claims; the same vaccine is now used to protect dogs from the disease.)

Ostfeld, along with his research partner and wife, Bard College ecologist Felicia Keesing, is leading the Tick Project, a five-year study to see if environmental interventions can protect communities from Lyme disease. A thousand households (and their pets) in 24 neighborhoods in Dutchess County, New York, have signed up to participate. The researchers began deploying two tick control methods last summer: bait boxes that apply a small dose of fipronil—the main ingredient in Frontline—to small animals like chipmunks and mice, and a fungal spray that kills ticks. Over the next few years, they hope to find out whether these methods can effectively lessen a neighborhood’s exposure to Lyme.

On a larger scale, it will be critical to curb climate change and the other forces that drive Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses, like the Zika virus and malaria, into new areas.

“We absolutely need to be pushing our leaders at all levels of government to cut carbon pollution,” said Juanita Constible, senior advocate for climate and health for NRDC’s Climate and Clear Energy program. “We’re setting up the backdrop for ticks to take over parts of the country where they never were before.”

Constible speaks from the heart. She lives in Loudoun County, Virginia, a Lyme hot spot, and has had the disease three times in the past six years. And though she has made a full recovery after each bout with Lyme, the experiences have left their mark on her work. “It makes it a lot more deeply personal for me, and it heightens the urgency to do something about climate change,” she said. “I certainly don’t want my friends and family and coworkers to face this.”

https://www.ecowatch.com/lyme-disease-climate-change-2558718285.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=a32277fb5e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-a32277fb5e-86074753

Top 5 Most Common Food Allergies in Dogs

Top Quality Dog Food

It is no surprise that like human beings, even the animals also have food allergens. As an owner of the pet, it is expected of you to know what causes the allergy to your pet dog. Of course, you may not be able to consult the vet quite often. However, simple precaution you take to know the food allergens for the dog will go a long way to avoid the food your pet is allergic to. It might surprise you that the high-quality ingredients of the pet food also are the culprit to a certain extent.

Primarily, you should not get confused with the food intolerance and the food allergy. The sensitivity of certain food might trigger gastro or skin problems to your pet not because of allergy, but due to external environmental issues like the pollen. The food allergy is since the immune system erroneously concludes that the…

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