IDA e-news: 3/01/06

IDA ACTION ALERTS
1. IDA Blasts CU Plans to Send Monkeys to Wake Forest for
Research
2. Police Arrest 30 at South Carolina Cockfight
3. Help Stop Aerial Gunning of Alaskan Wolves
NEWS & CAMPAIGN UPDATES
1. IDA/SHARK Starbucks-Rodeo Protest Coming to A Town Near You
2. Help Expose Cruelty During IDA's World Week For Animals In
Laboratories
3. IDA Makes the News

IDA ACTION ALERTS

1. IDA Blasts CU Plans to Send Monkeys to Wake Forest for
Research
Tell Universities that Primates Must Go to a Sanctuary, Not
Another Laboratory

IDA has long condemned the University of Colorado at Denver
Health Sciences Center (UCDHSC) for their cruel and
controversial experiments on monkeys and for holding 34 (now 48)
of these primates in sub-standard conditions after they have
already suffered so much at the hands of researchers. Our
campaign to get the CU 34 transferred to a sanctuary has
garnered strong nationwide support from the public and
influential academics, yet now UCDHSC has announced plans to
send 38 monkeys to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina for further exploitation.

Many of these bonnet macaque monkeys were used in Mark
Laudenslager's widely criticized research on the effects of
separating infant monkeys from their mothers and whether poor
mothering leads to alcohol abuse in adolescent monkeys.
Documents obtained by IDA under Colorado's open records law
indicate that even though the monkeys are to be transferred,
Laudenslager will continue to oversee the alcohol studies
long-distance from the CU medical center in Denver. Laudenslager
has already wasted $7 million in tax dollars conducting
maternal separation experiments over the course of 17 long
years. The first year of his new alcohol study has been funded
with nearly $800,000 in federal grant funds from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH).

"This is a shameless attempt by CU to dodge its ethical
obligations to these monkeys and dump its problem on another
university 2,000 miles away," said Rita Anderson of the
Committee for Research Accountability (CRA), a project of IDA.
Anderson vowed not only to continue her efforts at CU, but also
to follow the monkeys to Wake Forest, should the transfer take
place, with protests and community action. Psychologists and
other professionals have criticized the experiments for being
irrelevant to human health and a huge waste of tax dollars. CU
faculty member and well-known ethologist Marc Bekoff recently
spoke out against transferring the monkeys to Wake Forest,
stating, "The University ought to release the CU 34 to a
sanctuary and stop using these wonderful beings as pawns - mere
objects - in a heartless self-serving economic ploy."

IDA founder and President Dr. Elliot Katz, a veterinarian,
strongly agrees with Bekoff. "It would be grossly irresponsible
for CU to move ahead with the plan to send these monkeys to
North Carolina," he said. "They have suffered loss and
deprivation for years at CU, living most of their lives in a 100
year-old basement which did not even meet federal standards.
These long-suffering primates deserve a chance to live their
final years in the relative freedom of a sanctuary." IDA has
also sent letters to Wake Forest University President Nathan
Hatch and President and CEO Richard H. Dean urging them to drop
their plans or become the target of redoubled protests and
unwelcome negative media attention.

Although CU administration told IDA that the university would
require $10,000 to $15,000 per monkey before it would relocate
them to a sanctuary, they will not charge Wake Forest a single
cent for the primates. The university now says it will release
10 of 48 monkeys to a sanctuary, but it is unclear whether CU
will even pay the costs associated with their transport and
upkeep. Even if they do, 38 monkeys will continue to be used
against their will as experimental subjects.

What You Can Do:

Write to CU and Wake Forest officials and politely urge them to
transfer the monkeys to a sanctuary, not another laboratory.
Even a few sentences written in your own words will get the
point across.

- Please ask CU officials to 1) immediately terminate Mark
Laudenslager's pointless alcohol study, 2) release all of the
monkeys to sanctuaries and 3) pay for the sanctuary care of
these monkeys.

Hank Brown, President: OfficeOfThePresident [at] cu.edu
Health Sciences Chancellor Gregory Stiegmann:
Greg.Stiegmann [at] UCHSC.edu
CU Board of Regents:
- Peter.Steinhauer [at] colorado.edu
- regent.carlisle [at] colorado.edu
- regent.hayes [at] colorado.edu
- carrigan [at] colorado.edu
- tom.lucero [at] colorado.edu
- regent.bosley [at] colorado.edu
- jerryrutledge [at] adelphia.net
- regent.schauer@_colorado.edu
- gail.schwartz [at] colorado.edu

- Please ask Wake Forest officials to decline CU's offer of free
monkeys. Otherwise, IDA will focus its protests not only on CU,
but on Wake Forest as well.

Nathan Hatch, President: hatch [at] wfu.edu
Richard Dean, President/CEO Health Sciences: rdean [at] wfubmc.edu
William Gordon, Provost: gordonwc [at] wfu.edu
William Applegate, Sr. VP Health Sciences/Dean of School of
Medicine: gordonwc [at] wfu.edu
Mark Welker, Assoc. Provost for Research: wapplega [at] wfubmc.edu

Visit http://freethecu34.org to learn more.

2. Police Arrest 30 at South Carolina Cockfight
Legislators Urged to Consider Bill to Make Cruel Blood Sport a
Felony

Acting on an anonymous tip, South Carolina law enforcement
officials arrested 30 people last week at a cockfighting ring in
Marlboro County. About 20 dead and severely injured birds were
recovered from the site, as well as cockfighting paraphernalia,
guns, several thousand dollars in cash and some marijuana. Of
those arrested, eight juveniles were released into their
parents' custody and 22 adults were charged with misdemeanors.
About half of those charged had paid the $100 fine and were
free to leave within hours of being booked.

Cockfighting is an egregiously cruel blood sport on which
spectators often wager thousands of dollars. "Gamecocks" are
bred and trained for aggression, and are pumped full of
stimulants like strychnine and testosterone as well as
blood-clotting drugs to prolong their ability to fight. Their
natural spurs are sawed off and replaced by razor sharp steel
blades or curved implements called gaffs to make fights more
"exciting" for spectators. When handlers place two roosters into
an inescapable pit, the birds peck and maim one another with
their beaks and the weapons until the death of one or both of
them. Fighting birds routinely suffer gruesome injuries,
including broken wings and legs, punctured lungs, severed spinal
cords, and ruptured eyes. In addition, the events are breeding
grounds for other criminal activities, with illicit gambling,
weapons and drugs often involved.

Cockfighting has been illegal in South Carolina since at least
1887, but the penalties are too weak to act as an effective
deterrent. Last year, North Carolina passed legislation that
made cockfighting a felony offense, so now criminals have been
crossing the State line to partake in this illegal activity
where the punishment for being caught is still a mere slap on
the wrist. A bill to increase penalties for cockfighting was
defeated in the South Carolina legislature last year, but a new
bill has been introduced to make it a felony crime like dog
fighting and other "sports" involving animal abuse. If the bill
passes, the punishment for cockfighting could soon be a fine of
up to $5,000 and five years' imprisonment. This would go a long
way towards protecting birds from a lifetime of terror and abuse
and preventing associated crimes committed by members of the
cockfighting subculture.

In the wake of the bust, IDA founder and President Dr. Elliot
Katz faxed letters to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and
the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair urging these influential
decision makers to support the pending legislation that would
make cockfighting a felony in the State. Cockfighting is already
illegal in all but two states, and if the bill becomes law,
South Carolina will become the 34th state to make it a felony
offense.

What You Can Do:

- South Carolina residents: please click
http://ga0.org/campaign/SCcockfightFelony to urge your Senator
to support the bill that will make cockfighting a felony in the
State.

For more information about cockfighting, please visit
http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/sport/cock/cockfighting.html .

3. Help Stop Aerial Gunning of Alaskan Wolves
Join "I'd rather be here than in Alaska" Travel Boycott Campaign

In last week's e-newsletter, we reported that the Alaska Board
of Game plans to issue permits for hunters to kill wolves from
airplanes in defiance of a recent Superior Court decision
banning the practice. The "hunt" is scheduled to start in a
matter of weeks with 400 wolves targeted for aerial slaughter.
It is hard to imagine the brutality involved in chasing wolves
in airplanes until they are too exhausted to run anymore, then
landing and gunning them down at point blank range. Witnesses to
the massacre have seen wolves so terrified that they vomited yet
continued desperately running in fear from their airborne
attackers.

The State officials who made and endorse the decision are aiming
to drastically reduce the number of top predators so that prey
species such as moose will increase, giving hunters incentive to
purchase hunting permits and bring revenue to Government
coffers. However, managing Alaska's wildlife population to
please people whose idea of recreation is killing animals spoils
conservation efforts and engenders dangerous imbalances in
ecological habitats.

It also ignores the fact that non-consumptive tourism is a
multi-million dollar industry in Alaska that brings far more
revenue to the State than hunting does. Most people who visit
Alaska do so to see beautiful animals living peacefully in their
natural habitat, and want wildlife to be protected, not
callously annihilated by gun-toting murderers. That is why
Friends of Animals (FOA) has renewed their tourism boycott of
Alaska and is asking people to vacation elsewhere until the
State agrees to end their irrational wolf extermination program.
IDA joins FOA in this effort to leverage visitors' financial
force by sending State officials a clear message that their
lucrative tourism industry will suffer as long as they put
hunters ahead of animals and the environment.

In the early 1990s, FOA spearheaded a tourism boycott that
quickly stopped a similar aerial gunning program. They only
recently renewed their boycott after the Board of Game invented
new rules that conveniently allow them to issue aerial gunning
permits again. Their new "I'd rather be here than in Alaska"
campaign gives animal advocates and environmentalists a chance
to be creative while making a difference for animals. FOA is
asking people from around the world to send in pictures of
themselves in any location holding signs with messages such as
"I'd rather be here than in Alaska" or "Stop Shooting Wolves" to
post on their website. Pictures of people choosing to spend
their vacations in other places will show the Alaskan government
that the State will lose tourist dollars as long as they
continue their aerial wolf eradication policy.

What You Can Do:

1) Join FOA's "I'd rather be here than in Alaska" tourism
boycott by sending pictures of yourself to be posted online. The
more people that participate, the greater influence the campaign
will have on decision makers, so take pictures with your family
and friends (both human and non-human), as well as anyone you
meet along your travels, holding a sign or banner that says
"We'd rather be here than in Alaska." You don't even have to be
on vacation to submit pictures: just take them in your hometown
or anywhere you like. One person even had a picture of himself
taken sitting in the dentist's chair, showing that even a visit
to the dentist is preferable to supporting the massacre of
wolves. Visit http://www.boycott-alaska.com/submission.php to
view photos for ideas. You can send your photos to
Melissa [at] idausa.org to be forwarded to FOA.

2) Representatives or Alaska state and federal agencies will be
attending a major meeting soon that will be covered heavily in
the media. Everyone present will be exposed to the public's
comments, including threats to Alaska's lucrative tourism
industry. Please fax or mail a concise letter by March 9th to
the Alaska Board of Game stating:

- That you oppose proposals 162, 163, 164, 165 and 166
- Why you believe aerial gunning of wolves is wrong. Please
remember to be concise: two or three sentences in your own words
should suffice.
- That if one or all of the proposals passes, you will join the
"I'd rather be here than in Alaska" travel boycott campaign
against the state.

Fax your letter to: (907) 465-6094. Also please call Claire in
the Boards Support Section at (907) 465-4110 to confirm receipt
of your fax. Or mail your letter to:

Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game
Attn: Board of Game Comments
Boards Support Section
P.O. Box 25526
Juneau, AK 98802-5526

In order to make your comments as credible as possible, please
remember to be polite and professional. Also ensure that your
letter is legible and written on 8 1/2" by 11" letter-sized
paper with ample margins on all sides to allow for binding.

Please encourage your family, friends and co-workers to join
FOA's campaign to save Alaskan wolves from aerial gunning. For
more information, visit
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2006/february/friends-of-animals-b.html
or contact Melissa Gonzalez, IDA's Program Coordinator at (415)
388-9641, ext.228 or Melissa [at] idausa.org .

NEWS & CAMPAIGN UPDATES

1. IDA/SHARK Starbucks-Rodeo Protest Coming to A Town Near You
Show Coffee Giant that Corporate Sponsorship of Animal Abuse is
Inappropriate

IDA has teamed up with national animal protection organization
Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) to target Starbucks
Coffee for sponsoring rodeos. Sadly, many animals are injured
and killed every year in these violent competitions, so it's no
wonder that Starbucks Customer Relations Representatives at
first told concerned consumers that the company did not place an
ad in the 2005 Cheyenne Frontier Days Souvenir Program. Yet
following their denials, SHARK later discovered that Starbucks
has also sponsored the Miss Rodeo Washington, the Belton Rodeo
in Texas and the American Royal Rodeo in Kansas City, Mo.
Hundreds of coffee drinkers have contacted Starbucks to point
out that sponsoring rodeos is the tantamount to endorsing animal
abuse, yet the company refuses to stop subsidizing this "sport"
that epitomizes human domination over animals.

In the coming months, IDA and SHARK will be holding protests
outside of Starbucks stores in different cities throughout the
U.S., so please join us when we come to your area and help us
educate coffee drinkers about the company's disregard for animal
welfare. SHARK founder and President, Steve Hindi, has been
exposing rodeo cruelty for years, and is one of the key national
figures in the fight to end the use of animals for "sport" and
entertainment. He will lead the demonstrations and bring his
Tiger Truck, a customized multi-media vehicle with large-screen
televisions in the windows that can be seen from a distance.
SHARK will play footage of rodeo brutality for pedestrians and
motorists to see as they pass by while activists hold signs and
hand out leaflets to people on the sidewalk.

What You Can Do:

1) Participate in IDA/SHARK's demonstrations against Starbucks.
We will start with several protests in the San Francisco Bay
Area, and will announce more events in the near future. If you
are in the Bay Area, please come out and make your voice heard
at one or more of the following demonstrations:

- San Francisco (Union Square): Thursday, March 2nd & Friday,
March 3rd from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
- Sacramento: Saturday, March 4th (contact Program Coordinator
Melissa Gonzalez at (415) 388-9641, ext.228 or
Melissa [at] idausa.org for location and time)

We will provide our members with more details about upcoming
Starbucks-rodeo protests as they are determined. Contact IDA
Program Coordinator Melissa Gonzalez to RSVP and learn more.
Also visit http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/sport/rodeo/alert.html for
other ways you can help stop Starbucks' support for rodeos.
Action ideas include contacting Starbucks, signing our petition
and holding IDA and SHARK's new posters and distributing
leaflets outside of your local Starbucks.

2) The Learning Channel (TLC) recently aired a program entitled
"Beyond the Bull" that glorified this brutal "sport" in which
bulls are forced to buck beyond their normal ability through a
flank strap or rope cinched around their abdomen. During bull
riding events, bulls buck violently to remove the source of
their irritation, resulting in broken bones, backs, and
sometimes fatal injuries. Ironically, TLC is part of Discovery
Communications, Inc., which also owns Animal Planet, a network
that often airs programs like Animal Cops that encourage humane
treatment of animal companions. TLC is supposed to be an
educational channel, and therefore should not be broadcasting a
show that uncritically overlooks the inherent and inescapable
cruelty of bull riding. Please write a respectful message to the
programmers expressing your disgust with their ingratiating
portrayal of bull riding.

Discovery Communications, Inc.
1 Discovery Place
Silver Spring, MD 20910

You can also contact them via e-mail web-form at
http://extweb.discovery.com/viewerrelations .

2. Help Expose Cruelty During IDA's World Week For Animals In
Laboratories
Join or Organize an Event During the Week of April 23rd - 30th

Many Americans don't know that each year, tens of millions of
animals are dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and
blinded in hidden laboratories on college campuses and research
facilities throughout the U.S. Researchers claim that they must
be allowed unfettered access to animals for experiments in order
to find cures for human diseases, yet they refuse to address the
serious ethical problems of torturing sentient creatures in the
name of science.

They also routinely overestimate the benefits and underestimate
the dangers of relying on animal experimentation for advancing
medical science. Since the late 19th century, billions of
taxpayer dollars have been wasted studying the effect of human
diseases on animals even though different species don't respond
to diseases or the proposed cures in the same ways as humans.
The researchers and institutions that benefit financially from
animal experimentation also ignore or take credit for the
important medical advancements that have been achieved using
non-animal-based methodologies, such as in vitro (test tube)
research, epidemiological studies (to determine causal factors
of diseases in human populations) and sophisticated computer
models.

IDA helps expose the reality behind the curtain of scientific
privilege by holding World Week for Animals In Laboratories
(WWAIL), an annual weeklong series of events highlighting the
downside of animal experimentation and the alternatives to
harming animals under the guise of medical progress. IDA has
been the international coordinator for WWAIL every year since
1986, and encourages everyone to stand up for the primates and
other animals victimized for medical research by joining others
in WWAIL events during the week of April 23rd to 30th. In 2005,
WWAIL events were held in cities across the world, including San
Francisco, Boulder, Orlando, Atlanta, Boston, Grand Rapids and
Paris.

What You Can Do:

Start planning a WWAIL event today! If you would like to
organize and register an event in your community, IDA would be
happy to assist you. Visit http://www.wwail.org for more information
and to receive free materials.

3. IDA Makes the News
IDA Campaigns Garner International Media Attention

Newspapers and magazines around the U.S. and the world are
taking notice of IDA's efforts to help animals, spreading the
word to thousands of readers. In particular, several news
outlets have been quick to pick up on IDA's recent petition to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) stating that elephants
in zoos are suffering from chronic foot infections due to
inadequate living conditions. You can read these and other
articles mentioning IDA's campaigns to benefit animals by
clicking on the links below.

"Elephant care in question at Lee Richardson Zoo" (Associated
Press)
http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/2347541.html and
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/state/13925785.htm

"Animal group targets Garden City zoo" (The Hutchinson News)
http://www.hutchnews.com/news/regional/stories/zoo022106.html

"Garden City zoo could encounter lengthy process with animal
rights accusations" (The Hutchinson News)
http://www.hutchnews.com/news/regional/stories/Gardenzoo022506.html

"Group's complaint questions elephant care at Kansas zoo" (The
Joplin Globe)
http://www.joplinglobe.com/story.php?story_id=229537&c=87

"The Elephant Turf War: Humans are rushing to the aid of captive
pachyderms, and Woodland Park Zoo is in the path of the
stampede" (Seattle Weekly)
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0608/elephants.php

"Vets remove dead elephant calf; Genny C appears in good shape"
(Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060301/NEWS
01/603010306/1002/NEWS

"Rescued camel gets a Valentine baby" (DNA Mumbai)
http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1014747

Invest in Compassion: Give a Gift that Gives Back

A Charitable Gift Annuity (CGA) is a combination gift and
investment that allows smart investors to increase current
income while helping stop animal abuse and exploitation. When
you establish a CGA, you transfer cash or securities to IDA and,
in return, we pay you a guaranteed, fixed payment for the rest
of your life. You can even name someone else as the beneficiary,
or annuitant, of a gift annuity. Generally, the older you are
when your gift annuity begins, the higher your scheduled
payment. Upon your passing, or that of the last survivor of a
"two-life" annuity, the principal underlying the annuity then
becomes available to IDA.

The benefits of an IDA Charitable Gift Annuity include:
- The security of fixed interest income of up to 11.3% for the
lifetime of you and/or a loved one.
- A charitable income tax deduction for a portion of your gift
in the year it is established.
Reduced capital gains taxes (if your annuity is funded with
long-term, appreciated securities).

For more information on establishing a Charitable Gift Annuity
(including interest rate information as proposed by the American
Council on Gift Annuities), or to learn about other Planned
Giving options, please contact IDA's Planned Giving Coordinator
Nicole Otoupalik at (714) 389-2823 or via email at
Nicole [at] idausa.org .