JOHN STOKES AND OSCEOLA

There are an uncountable number of animal-friendly animal shelters who are manned (or womanned) by some wonderful unsung heroes and to them I say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart but there are those that really go the extra mile in an unbelievable way. One of these people is a man who has designed a way for a permanently disabled eagle, named Osceola, to get back in the air. Imagine that practically your whole life has been spent in the air joy riding in the thermal air currents and viewing the earth from a hundred feet up and then suddenly that is taken from you by a poachers bullet and you will never fly again. John Stokes understands that that sort of tragedy is hard for anyone to cope with, man or beast, and he takes Osceola hang gliding in a special harness. John and Osceola are a part of the National Foundation to Protect America's Eagles and they live at the Eagle Mountain Sanctuary at Dollywood in Tennessee.

If you are interested in more you can go to http://www.eagles.org or directly to Osceolas home page at http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/3155

FREECHOOK 2000 CAMPAIGN

The Free Chook 2000 campaign is an Australian campaign which has been kicked into action to try and help change the appalling conditions in which battery hens are kept. Would you be so keen to pay a dollar less every week if you knew that the creature that has provided you with those eggs has lived all her life on a space no bigger than an A4 piece of paper. Or that her beak has been chopped off so that she can't peck at herself in distress, which happens to anybody in those sorts of conditions. Or that if she was set free, it would take her four days to get her sight back because she has never experienced sunlight. Or that her feet have been malformed and twisted by the mesh on the bottom of her cage. Maybe not. The supporters for this campaign include some big names too. They include at least seven Australian Senators, numerous members of Parliament and well known people like Joanna Lumley (British actress), Richard Adams (author) and Brigitte Bardot (actress and animal activist).

If you are interested in more or you would like to offer some support you can go to http://www.animal-lib.org.au/freechook2000

SOUTH PACIFIC WHALE SANCTUARY

Australia, New Zealand and Britian are all gunning for making the whole South Pacific a sanctuary for whales because the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, that was created in 1994, is still being plundered. I think that it is a special thing when humans (well, some of the human race anyway) can stand up and go 'hey - there are other creatures that deserve some space on this planet too' and it gets taken as seriously as it should. I believe that hose responsible for the work towards the sanctuaries include the WWF (World Wide fund for Nature) and Greenpeace.

If you are interested in more you can go to the WWF-NZ website for the whale sanctuary at http://www.whales.org.nz/oldhomepage.html or the Greenpeace Action Centre Site at http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/save/alerts/whalepetition.htm

SAN FRANCISCO SPCA

The San Francisco SPCA are wonderfully ahead of their time. They are proving that a different way of thinking can really work. These folks survive solely on contributions and donations and people are genuinely keen to help them. They don't believe that killing ferals is necessary and they have proved that it is far more effective to 'alter' them and then re-release them. No animal that ends up in their care is euthanised unless it is beyond any kind of help. If you are homeless, over sixty-five or adopting from them you can have your animals altered (fixed) for free. Aside from that they offer low-cost neutering and spaying. When you go to adopt an animal from them you are in for a treat. The cats and dogs are viewed by their prospective humans in a homelike environment rather than the caged terrified 'please help me' environments of the past. Cuddling comfortably helps people to feel positive and confident about their choices, making them more likely to adopt a homeless animal.

If you are interested in more you can go to their website at http://www.sfspca.org/home.shtml .

SO.... after these warm fuzzies, wanna rant?

OR maybe.......you think something should be added here?

OR.......is it back to the Bookshelf?

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