“During the first weekend of June, with many others, I mourn the 57 BILLION Land Animals and the 1 TRILLION Aquatic Animals who are Killed Yearly for Food!
Along with the MILLIONS of others killed for fun, fashion, research and greed! National Animal Rights Day!”
The National Animal Rights Day (NARD), established by Our Planet. Theirs Too. in 2011, is an annual day observed in the US on the first weekend of June, for the purpose of giving a voice to animals and raising awareness for their rights, until these rights are established and protected by the law.
Since the dawn of humanity, the use and abuse of non-human animals have been part of human beings’ everyday lives. We have gotten accustomed to relying on animals for almost everything we do. And while we raise our children on animal books, puppets, films and television shows, we have devised well-oiled systems, unimaginable in their cruelty, to raise, kill, and use every part of these animals for all our needs: from food, to fashion, cosmetics, medicines, house hold items, labor, sports, and entertainment. When one examines the sheer magnitude of it, it’s unfathomable.
And it’s going on every day, every hour, every moment.
In the year 2014, on planet Earth, 6 million animals are killed in slaughterhouses around the world every 30 minutes. In the United States alone, 10 billion land animals and 20 billion sea animals are killed for food every year. An additional 10 million die in laboratories, and 3 million are killed for their skin and fur. It is estimated that another 200 million are killed by hunters.
That’s 80 million living beings a day!
If these animals could talk, their chorus of cries would drown out every other noise in the world. They would come from every farm, slaughterhouse, meat market, testing lab, breeding factory, fishing pond, hunting ground, circus, zoo, religious temple, pet store, city shelter, restaurant, and dinner table, in every home on every street. These individual beings, who have a soul, a unique character, a will to live, and a natural right to do so, are just like us: they come in all shapes, colors and sizes. Some of them have feathers, some of them have fur, some of them have paws and some have tiny little legs. But they all share the very same thing we have in common too: they want to live. With their loved ones.
Happy and free.
The National Animal Rights Day was created to give a voice to these billions and billions of anonymous nameless beings. Once a year, on this day, around the US, we stop everything else, and remember them. We mourn their loss, express their pain through ours, and reach out on their behalf to anyone who has a heart to listen.
On this day we also celebrate the living animals who are part of our lives now, and the great strides that are made every year towards a cruelty-free, compassionate nation, for all beings.
This tradition will continue until the day when all animals could live on their own terms, with their families and offspring, happy and free. Until the day when these beautiful beings have equal rights to human beings on this planet. Until the day when human beings take responsibility and protect all animals, instead of harming them. Until that day, we will be here. Please join us.
I never knew that this procedure was so invasive/aggressive. I thought it was a matter of just clipping the claw. As you can see it entails to much more.
I also thought that this was done only to house cats. No, this procedure is done to tigers, mountain lions, big cats. It’s so much more. These animals are really affected by this procedure. I saw the movie and it brought tears to my eyes.
There are “big interests” here too.
Please, get informed. Research and take a look at the Paw Project website.
DECLAW SURGERY — HEALTH PROBLEMS DUE TO DECLAWING
Big cats are declawed by their owners with the intention of making the animals less dangerous to handle. Typically, the owners are private collectors who are trying to make a household “pet” out of a feral feline that is, by nature, not a suitable pet. It is rare for public zoos to have declawed cats. Unfortunately, the tiger or cougar that was cute and playful as a cub can be dangerous as an adult, whether or not it has claws. A “pet” that weighs several hundred pounds and eats twenty pounds of meat a day may no longer seem like such a good idea. These cats, victims of human ignorance or arrogance, are sometimes killed. The luckier ones find themselves abandoned or confiscated by authorities and become residents of an animal refuge. There are over a hundred such sanctuaries in the U.S. alone, housing thousands of declawed big cats.
Onychectomy, popularly known as declawing, is an operation to surgically remove an animal’s claws by means of the amputation of all or part of the distal phalanges, or end bones, of the animal’s toes. Because the claw develops from germinal tissue within the third phalanx, amputation of the bone is necessary to fully remove the claw. The terms “onychectomy” (origin: Greek ὄνυξ onycho, nail + ἐκτομή ektome, excision) and “declawing” imply mere claw removal, but a more appropriate description would be phalangectomy, excision of toe bone.
Cats normally walk with their toes bearing the weight of their bodies; each step is cushioned by the pad under the toe. Declawed cats experience extreme pain supporting their body weight when standing or walking, if the tendon attached to the retained segment of the third phalanx pulls that bit of bone under the foot. The displaced bone fragment produces a painful “pebble-in-the-shoe” sensation when they stand or try to walk.
To compensate for the pain in their tender paws, cats will attempt to shift their weight farther back on their feet, in effect walking on their “wrists,” like Naala, an African lioness shown here. The stresses caused by the abnormal posture and movement, may produce arthritis in the legs, which, in turn, may cripple the cat further and cause it more suffering.
Also, bone fragments may contain remnants of nail-forming tissue that may continue to grow deep within the foot, causing infection. The pad is often displaced backwards, toward the rear of the foot, allowing the weight of the cat’s body to push the end of the second toe bone (second phalanx, or p2), through the thinned tissue on the underside of the foot. These complications may occur in combination, invariably resulting in great pain for the animal to stand or walk.
The Paw Project’s mission is to educate the public about the painful and crippling effects of feline declawing, to promote animal welfare through the abolition of the practice of declaw surgery, and to rehabilitate cats that have been declawed.
The Paw Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 59-3782436, CA Corp ID: 26040) supported by private donations and the sale of LaLa Cards, animal-themed greeting cards. The tax-deductible contributions are used for costs of surgical care and supplies, educational programs, and anti-declawing efforts.
~~The Paw Project educates the public about why declawing is inhumane~~
Many people, including animal lovers, do not realize that declawing is a surgical procedure in which the animal’s toes are amputated at the last joint. A portion of the bone, not just the nail, is removed. Declawing may result in permanent lameness, arthritis, and other long-term complications. The practice, although common in the United States, is actually illegal in many countries. Great Britain’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons goes so far as to declare declawing “unnecessary mutilation.”
Naala is an African lioness. Born in 1995, she had been declawed and then abandoned as a cub. She is now cared for at a Southern California animal sanctuary.
In a misguided attempt to keep big cats such as lions and tigers, as pets, their owners have the animals declawed as cubs, believing that they will be protected against injury. Later, when the cats prove to be poor pets, weighing hundreds of pounds and eating 20 pounds of meat a day, they are often neglected, confiscated by animal regulatory officials, or abandoned. They often end up in animal compounds or sanctuaries.
Before finding a home at a Southern California animal sanctuary these two mountain lions had been declawed. Both experienced tremendous pain walking. When funds became available these two magnificent big cats had reparative surgery performed on their front paws. Photography courtesy Snowden Bishop.
This old male lion lives at a Southern California animal sanctuary. Declawed when he was a cub, he had increasing pain and difficulty walking as he matured due to the declaw surgery. It is not uncommon for the suffering experienced by declawed big cats to worsen as they age. Photography courtesy Snowden Bishop.
In her former role as head veterinarian at a wildlife sanctuary, Dr. Jennifer Conrad founded The Paw Project, which rehabilitates big cats, such as lions, tigers, cougars, and jaguars, that have been maimed by declawing. She has been a proactive spokesperson advocating humane alternatives to declaw surgery and has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs to educate the public about the mutilating effects of feline declawing. She has tirelessly supported legislative efforts in California to ban feline declawing, which is a practice banned in many industrialized countries throughout the world.
~~The Paw Project Official Trailer 1 (2013) – Documentary~~
~~Published on Sep 30, 2013~~
This is a David and Goliath story of one veterinarian’s battle to protect her patients (tigers, lions and even house cats) from big corporations, with their big corporate money, that will shamelessly do anything to animals to increase their bottom line. She starts a grassroots movement that is fueled by passion, but appears to be losing the battle. Then, unexpectedly, she realizes that the corporations accidentally left her a giant loophole. In a scramble to take advantage of this unforeseen gift, she leads the crusade passing legislation protecting animals from de-clawing in seven cities in just six weeks.
It Is What It Is 