How to Live a Healthy and Happy Vegan Lifestyle

   After accepting the Albert Schweitzer award at Last Chance for Animals' 2017 Annual Gala, Philip Wollen delivered a phenomenal speech about the egregious treatment of animals and the destructive ramifications of their plight.  The compassionate philanthropist described the impact that our food choices have on the lives of billions— human and nonhuman alike. Wollen left the audience in awe as he thoughtfully articulated the harrowing reality of this atrocity and effectively conveyed the power that each of us hold to create meaningful change for animals. Transcript of this talk and additional information

     Carl Safina takes us inside the lives and minds of animals around the world, witnessing their profound capacity for perception, thought and emotion, showing why the word "it" is often inappropriate as we discover "who" they really are.  And yet, we are wiping out the very animals we should celebrate; we are the flood coming for Noah's Ark. Carl leaves us with a difficult question: Do we have what it takes to let life on earth survive?   Carl Safina’s work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won the Lannan Literary Award and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals.  He has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Safina is the inaugural endowed professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center.  He hosted the 10-part PBS series

People who abuse animals often do so under the incorrect assumption that animals are too stupid to know what is happening to them. But as we know, this is hardly the case, and animals show us how intelligent they are every day. Take, for example, the story of Rita the pregnant pig. Before Rita lived at Animal Place sanctuary, she was raised on a factory farm . This sort of existence is typically nothing short of horrific for sows who are confined to small crates and deprived of all their basic needs.  All this changed for Rita, however, when she was loaded onto a truck to be transported to slaughter. She was smart enough to know that she had to escape, so she took a leap of faith! Continue...

In Christianity, the lamb represents Christ as both suffering and triumphant; it is typically a sacrificial animal, and may also symbolize gentleness, innocence, and purity. When depicted with the lion, the pair can mean a state of paradise. A lamb also symbolizes sweetness, forgiveness and meekness. A lamb is a young sheep that is still weak and defenseless when unprotected and alone. Because of this, lambs are targeted by predators because they present easy prey to them. When lambs are left on their own, they either get hunted down or stuck and lost, so they need guidance. Continue

Our use and abuse of animals has demanded change for a long time.  This pandemic has shown us the life or death consequences of failing to act. A new report from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is a call to action for animals. It proposes nine policies aimed at reducing the risk of another pandemic arising from zoonotic (originating in animals) disease. The novel coronavirus, responsible for COVID-19, likely developed in bats and infected humans through an intermediate host, and it isn’t the first time this has happened. The pathogens responsible for Ebola, avian flu, swine flu, mad cow disease, and SARS all came from animals. An estimated 73% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. As for known infectious diseases, almost three in five (58%)—think rabies or salmonella– are transmitted by animals. Human activity, and the use and misuse of animals, are frequently behind the spillover of contagions from animals to humans. In response to this now glaring threat, the

A remarkable new study on how whales behaved when attacked by humans in the 19th century has implications for the way they react to changes wreaked by humans in the 21st century. The paper, published by the Royal Society on Wednesday, is authored by Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, pre-eminent scientists working with cetaceans, and Tim D Smith, a data scientist, and their research addresses an age-old question: if whales are so smart, why did they hang around to be killed? The answer? They didn’t. Using newly digitised logbooks detailing the hunting of sperm whales in the north Pacific, the authors discovered that within just a few years, the strike rate of the whalers’ harpoons fell by 58%. This simple fact leads to an astonishing conclusion: that information about what was happening to them was being collectively shared among the whales, who made vital changes to their behavior. As their culture made fatal first contact with ours, they learned quickly from their mistakes. Continue

Parenting in Animals The study of parenting in animals is fascinating both in its variety and as a reflection of ourselves and our experiences. We ask ourselves, what makes a good parent? Is it hormones, experience, or both? What effects does parenting have on the offspring, and what are the mechanisms for those effects?  Animal models for these processes are crucial for many reasons, including our ability to experimentally control the experiences of the parents and offspring, to manipulate hormonal, environmental, and neural processes, and sometimes to look into the brain itself...  Continue