21/09/2014 QAD Bloggers

Always Leave them Laughing

Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons and an animal rights activist, was diagnosed with terminal cancer two years ago and is on a mission to advocate for and rescue animals with the time he has remaining.

“I’ve got sun bears, moon bears, grizzly bears, Syrian bears, brown bears,” Sam tells me as we approach the Wild Animal Sanctuary a few hours later. “I have 11 bears in Dallas and 23 in Colorado—but they just had six cubs.” There are also two rescued chimps at a sanctuary in Florida, a racehorse in Virginia, and some 500 chinchillas rescued from a chinchilla ranch in California. If all goes well, an elephant will soon join the roster.”

Read the full article here.

13/09/2014 QAD Bloggers

Philosophy of Captivity

Philosopher Lori Gruen from Wesleyan University is interviewed by Richard Marshall at 3am.

To quote Lori Gruen: “The magnitude of the harms done to animals is almost incomprehensible — 60 billion suffer before they are slaughtered for food in global industrial agricultural production annually and that contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector, which in turn is wreaking havoc on animal habitats on land and in the sea. When we also consider the additional threats that other animals face from human activities, it becomes clearer that the problems are structural and remedies cannot solely rely on individual tastes. But there are some really hard philosophical questions about what, if anything, individuals can do to help curtail these harms.”

Read the full interview here.