ANIMALS MATTER: OUR BLUE PRINT FOR CHANGE

Animal issues have been largely ignored during the last 20 years in this great city and largely before that. Animals are suffering as a result of our failure to enact policies and legislation that would protect them and, in so doing, add enrichment to our own lives. Mayor-Elect de Blasio’s mayoral election platform called for a humane city for New York’s animals – recognizing that we need to do more to ensure that animals receive humane treatment.

Because of these long term injustices, there are many animal issues that need to be addressed. These are the priorities that need attention in the first critical days and months of the new administration:

• Ban horse-drawn carriages –  pure unqualified shut down – not dependent on the success of a totally  unrelated private industry
• Reform and restructure the municipal animal shelter system including new shelters in the Bronx and Queens
• End the slaughter of Canada geese
• Ban animals in circuses
• Companion animals – end sale  in pet shops; pets in housing; increased spay/neuter
• Enforce animal cruelty laws  – ASPCA no longer involved as of January 1st.

A protest, organised by Compassion for Animals  Coalition – an ad hoc group formed for this purpose took place on December 7, 2013   on the steps of City Hall

Participating were Elizabeth Forel / Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages; Donny Moss – film maker – Blinders: the Truth Behind the Tradition; Edita Birnkrant / Friends of Animals; Zelda Penzel / SOS: Save our Shelter Animals ; Mary Beth Purdy-Artz / In Defense of Animals; Lisa Weisberg / Attorney; Peter Muller – League of Humane Voters.

http://carriagehorsesnyc.blogspot.com/2013/11/lies-and-desperation-nyc-horse-carriage.html

Report on the event:

Our event on the steps of City Hall was a great success. Joining activists from the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, Friends of Animals, In Defense of Animals, Save our Shelter Animals, League of Humane Voters, + many other groups and activists – was Senator Tony Avella and singer/activist Nellie McKay.

Click here to listen to Senator Avella talk at the event. Animal issues have been largely ignored during the last 20 years in this great city and well before that. Animals are suffering as a result of our failure to enact policies and legislation that would protect them and, in so doing, add enrichment to our own lives.

Mayor-Elect de Blasio’s mayoral election platform called for a humane city for New York’s animals – recognizing that we need to do more to ensure that animals receive humane treatment.

Please click here to read the speeches made yesterday – scroll down.

We have pictures on our Facebook page Animals Matter – and on Meetup.

More action:

The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages and activists will protest against and educate tourists about the inhumane and unsafe carriage trade. Please let friends in New York City know:

• WHEN: Saturday December 14th –      1:00 pm to 3:00 pm
• WHERE: north/west corner of Fifth      Avenue and Central Park South at the hack line.

This is the busiest time of year when tourists line up to take rides and the horses are worked to exhaustion. No water for them! Remember – these are not “working” horses in the traditional sense of the word. They are “entertainment” horses – enslaved to make money for their owners while pulling uneducated tourists around the park. There is nothing noble about what they do. It is a frivolous and unnecessary practice and we can’t wait until it is shut down.

The drivers are supposed to give their horses a 15 minute break every two hours – this according to law – but they do not. If there is a choice of taking another ride or giving their horses a rest, the drivers will take the money.

And to make it worse, neither the NYPD, nor the ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement officers. were at the hack line. It was a free for all.

As of January 1st, the ASPCA is giving up humane law enforcement, turning over the responsibility to the NYPD.

This is the ad. placed by the Coalition and appearing on 75 NYC buses: