Please sign your organization onto this letter urging UBC to spare its endangered sea turtles. These turtles, obtained from the Cayman Islands, have been experimented on at UBC for ten years. A whistleblower recently revealed that the turtles will killed at the end of UBC’s study this spring. See the message below for how  your organization can take action to help the turtles live out the rest of their lives in peace.

PLEASE SIGN YOUR ORGANIZATION ONTO LETTER TO UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA URGING THE UNIVERSITY TO SPARE ITS ENDANGERED GREEN SEA TURTLES

UBC set to kill seven imperiled turtles by this spring

Over the weekend, a University of British Columbia (UBC) insider tipped off Stop UBC Animal Research <http://stopubcanimalresearch.org/> about the university’s plans to kill seven endangered green sea turtles currently housed at UBC. The whistleblower claimed UBC was killing the turtles because the university was closing some animal research facilities on UBC’s south campus and had no place to move the animals. UBC obtained the turtles ten years ago from a turtle farm in the Cayman Islands. Since then, the turtles have been experimented on and will be killed at the end of UBC’s study this spring.

The story was picked up by the Vancouver Sun, which ran a front-page feature on UBC’s plans to kill the turtles. See: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/kill+endangered+turtles+spring/4368965/story.html.

Other media ran stories including:

Front page of the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/05/endangered-sea-turtles-killed-ubc_n_831325.html

Global TV http://bit.ly/f48wg3

Cayman Compass http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2011/03/04/Cayman-turtles-face-Canadian-death/

As it Happens http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2011/03/02/wednesday-march-2-2011/ (CBC. Click Part one. The story begins about 18 minutes into podcast)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

*Sign your ORGANIZATION onto the letter to UBC below. To add your organization to the letter please fill out the information below and email it to Brian Vincent at stopubcanimalresearch@gmail.com. DEADLINE TO SIGN ON: Monday, March 14. We will send the final letter to media. Should you have any questions please contact Brian at 604-551-3324.

YOUR NAME:________________

TITLE:_______________________

ORGANIZATION:________________________________________

CITY/STATE (OR PROVINCE):_____________________________

COUNTRY:___________________

EMAIL:_______________________

PHONE:______________________

ORGANIZATION SIGN ON LETTER THAT WILL BE SENT TO UBC: 

UBC President and Vice-Chancellor Stephen J. Toope
Office of the President
The University of British Columbia
6328 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2

Sent via certified mail; email: presidents.office@ubc.ca; fax: 604/822-5055

Dear UBC President and Vice-Chancellor Toope: 

We the undersigned conservation, animal advocacy, and public interest organizations urge you to immediately cease invasive experimentation on the seven remaining endangered green sea turtles housed at the University of British Columbia and to allow for a team of independent veterinarians to assess the health of the turtles to determine if the animals can be placed in a sanctuary or other protective facility. If an assessment shows the animals can be moved to such a facility where they can live out their remaining days, we request UBC move forward with the rehousing of the turtles as quickly as possible.

As you may be aware, all seven species of sea turtles are at high risk of extinction. Listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, sea turtles face a host of threats. Those threats include: pollution, especially from oil spills, beach front development, ingestion of marine debris, such as plastic bags, the illegal turtle shell trade, incidental capture in fishing nets, and turtle egg and meat consumption. In addition, artificial lighting along beaches often discourages female turtles from nesting and disorients hatchlings who may mistakenly wander inland, exposing them to predation.

At a time when the international community is undertaking efforts to protect and restore sea turtle populations, it makes little sense for an educational institution of UBC’s esteem to kill members of an imperiled species. By permitting a team of independent veterinarians to evaluate the condition of the seven turtles and, if appropriate, placing the animals in a sanctuary, UBC would be showing the world it is committed to conserving one of the planet’s most vulnerable species.

Thank you. Should you have any questions please contact Brian Vincent at Stop UBC Animal Research at 604-551-3324 or at stopubcanimalresearch@gmail.com 

Sincerely,

–

Stop UBC Animal Research is a community grassroots campaign that employs peaceful, legal, and compassionate approaches to educate the public about the grim realities of research on animals at the University of British Columbia and to ultimately bring about an end to research on animals at UBC. Please visit our website at: http://ståopubcanimalresearch.org/

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PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich will kick off a series of “Is Eating Meat Ethical?” debates at Texas A&M University this Fall.

Students and community members are encouraged to attend this debate.

“Is Eating Meat Ethical?”

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Photo: Deddeda Stemler for The Globe and Mail. Image at University of Victoria.
________________

The University of Victoria has given activists until the end of the month to remove 1,600 feral rabbits from campus before the mass slaughter begins.

Urgently needed:  Land donation/lease or money donation
If you or anyone you know has land to lease or donate, please let us know right away!
Since all existing rescues and sanctuaries are at capacity, activists are looking for any plots of land where the rabbits can go to live out the rest of their lives.  This will not be a permanent land donation/lease as the land will only be needed for the lifespan of the rabbits (7-8 years) and can be returned to the donor after the rabbits die.
All of the rabbits will be spayed and neutered.

If you have land or money and are able to help, please contact Susan Vickery immediately at  ears@x-mail.net or 250-538-8003

To donate by PayPal visit www.earthanimalrights.org

Thank you!

Joanne

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From the Civil Liberties Defense Center:

• On November 17, 2009, Scott DeMuth was jailed for contempt of court, since he refused to answer questions posed to him by a federal grand jury in Davenport, Iowa. They were interested in questioning him about his knowledge of an unsolved Animal Liberation Front action in 2004 at the University of Iowa. At the time, Scott was only 17 years old and was a resident of the Twin Cities (Minnesota). Scott is a University of Minnesota graduate student and Dakota language student whose research focuses on liberation struggles and social movements in the U.S. and globally. In his work, he has researched and/or interviewed numerous activists from Native American struggles for sovereignty and land, and environmental and animal liberation movements in the U.S. The grand jury was interested in asking him to divulge the names of activists (his interviewees), which would violate the confidentiality agreements that he made with his research participants.

• Scott took a principled stand against the grand jury, and decided to go to jail rather than be party to what many attorneys and the American Bar Association (ABA) view as a dangerous practice that deprives people of basic constitutional freedoms. But it gets worse. Two days later (November 19, 2009) Scott was charged with conspiracy under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) of 2006. This indictment came just one day before the statute of limitations was to expire and was rushed through to freeze the statute of limitations, with the intent of buying the state time to issue additional future indictments. These legal maneuvers are indicative of an investigation that has gone nowhere, and prosecutors who are desperate to locate members of the Animal Liberation Front, no matter what legal acrobatics are required.

REGARDING SCHOLARLY RIGHTS:

The American Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics states:

• Section 11.01:
  “Sociologists have an obligation to protect confidential information and not allow information gained in confidence from being used in ways that would unfairly compromise research participants, students, employees, clients, or others.”
  Section 11.06:
  “Sociologists do not disclose confidential, personally identifiable information concerning their research participants, other recipients of their service which is obtained during the course of their work.”

This scholar-research participant confidentiality is the bedrock of academic research and without it the public would lose trust in scholars seeking important information (concerning, for example, social histories or institutional discrimination practices), leading to the incalculable loss of invaluable data for community preservation, public policy, and university teaching purposes. Scott is being charged with conspiracy for invoking his constitutional rights and heeding professional codes of conduct.

Sign a petition supporting Scott:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freescottdemuth/

It will also prompt you to donate money if you would like, and that is by no means necessary – signing the petition will be a start. Or you can contact your representative or senator and make sure they are aware of Scott’s case.

Excerpted from http://phdadventure.wordpress.com/2009

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freescottdemuth/

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