Animal Writings

Here's the distillation of Aaron's Wissner's talk at AR2008, as I remember it:

1. You buy some mahogany moulding at Home Depot. There are a lot of Home Depot stores. There are 20 within a 50 mile radius of my house. According to their web site, they've opened 33 new stores in the last six months. So if there's not a Home Depot near you, there will be one soon.


2. Home Depot imports the wood from Brazil, perhaps through one or more third party importers / wholesalers.


3. The importers pay ranchers in Brazil for the wood.


4. There's a lot of money in cutting down trees in Brazil. But not everyone is happy about destroying the rain forest. Some people mount protests, and try to influence public opinion and policies to restrict cutting down the forest, and to prevent the gross inequities between wealthy ranchers and poor peasants. I'm leaving out many details here.


5. Some of the ranchers and/or other profiteers from cutting down trees in the rainforest hire murderers and kill Dorothy Stang, who fought on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised, and for a fair, sustainable economy. According to this web site, Ms. Stang's killer said he was hired by a rancher, and that he and a partner were offerred $25,000 to kill Stang. The web site also states that "ranchers...have killed over 750 farmers in the past 30 years," and that since Stang's murder in 2005 another 30 farmers have been murdered by ranchers.

So a seemingly innocuous purchase ends up contributing to greed, environmental destruction, slave labor, corruption, and murder.


Granted, it's not that every time 50 bucks flows out of your hand, someone gets murdered. But there are some lessons that one can infer from Aaron's presentation of the above scenario and his subsequent comments at his talk.

• Once the money flows out of your hands, you have almost no control over it. Yes, you might buy fair trade coffee at the locally-owned coffee shop. But where will the owner and/or the employees spend that money? Will they gas up at Exxon? Buy a shirt in a discount store that was made in a sweatshop? Buy a muffin at Starbucks that contains eggs from hens suffering horribly in battery cages?


• Since, in so many sectors of the economy, a relatively small number of huge multinational corporations control a majority of the market, chances are good that your money will eventually find its way to these powerful entities, where it may be used in ways that violate your sense of decency and right and wrong. We could call this the trickle-up effect. For example, a handful of companies control over half the meat industry. They rely on horrific factory farms and large taxpayer subsidies to sell cheap meat and cheese (and contribute to this country's epidemic levels of obesity, heart disease, and cancer); they emit enormous amounts of pollution into the water and ground (and are the root cause of salmonella and e coli outbreaks); through their coziness with Congress they have managed to exempt most farmed animals from any kind of federal laws that would even partially protect the animals' well-being.

So what can we do?


The first thing that comes to mind is spending less money. However, this option is not too feasible for many people, such as the unemployed and those living on social security. The individual running a cat, dog, or rabbit rescue, feeding and paying for veterinary care for animals that others abandoned or rejected, strenuously trying to find homes for those animals, doesn't really want to hear "spend less." If you've got kids, well, you know that's a huge long-term financial commitment. And the average Joe or Jane likes to go out to eat every now and then, and maybe take in a movie—not to mention go on a vacation sometimes. All that stuff costs money. At least in our current economy.

Furthermore, some spending is really an investment to ultimately save money: new furnace filters, energy-efficient windows and appliances, health insurance, and so forth. The money spent on other items, such as vitamin pills, physical exams, alarm systems, electrical generators, and new tires, may be justified in terms of its ability to improve health, safety, or peace of mind.

So there are limitations to the "spend less" option. Nonetheless, for most of us, there may be more ways than we realize to reduce our spending, because we've become so conditioned to spending, and very likely haven't given much thought to many of the alternatives.

The freegan philosophy challenges the spend / throw away / buy something bigger and better culture, and adherents to freeganism walk their talk. This page lays out many freegan practices. Granted, not everybody is going to dumpster-dive or hitchhike, but I bet there are at least a couple of ideas on that page that are definite possibilites for every reader. For example, I've been using Freecycle for the past two years; it's a great system and I highly recommend it.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Kiplinger organization, which is all about investments, business, economic reports, and so forth. And yet...check out this page. It's basically white-collar freegangelism. In its context, it's practically subversive. Actually, Kiplinger has some great ideas for spending less money.

As you probably know (or could easily find out), the web is filled with sites on how to save money. I think some are quite good. For instance, there's GasBuddy.com, which helps you find the cheapest gas in your area and offers tips on how to use less gas.


OK, so we spend less money. But if our income is the same as ever, what do we do with the money we're not spending?

If you put it in the bank, then the bank, in effect, spends it for you, through their investments. Depending on the type of account you have, the bank will invest your money in government securities, Government-Sponsored Enterprises such as Freddie Mac, corporate bonds, or other investment instruments. Basically, when your money's in the bank, you're helping to fund the government or corporations.

You could invest the money in an IRA, or in the stock market. I'm all for IRAs but you're still spending money, and, assuming you're putting your IRA money in mutual funds like most people do, you're turning over spending decisions to the fund managers. Granted, you have a choice of which funds in which to invest. So maybe you feel more comfortable investing in a "socially responsible" fund. Now, the investment company's definition of "socially responsible" may be different than your definition of "socially responsible", and in this "socially responsible" fund you may be investing in companies such as Johnson and Johnson and pharmaceutical companies. Great, you're investing in companies that perform horrid animal tests and advertise drugs every five minutes on TV. Still, at least there are some criteria that companies in "socially responsible" funds have to meet.

You might also want to choose a "green" fund. Again, the same basic caveats apply.

You may want to invest in a "small cap" fund that invests in smaller businesses. Not tiny businesses like the flower shop on the corner but businesses that are big enough to be publicly traded but aren't anywhere near the size of a Wal-Mart or Lockheed-Martin. You may feel that, on average, a bunch of smaller companies does less damage than a cabal of huge powerful ones. I think there's some logic in that. The wealth and influence is more spread out. Plus, I think the business executives who are most power-hungry, ruthless, and domineering tend to grow their companies more than the modest small business owner. But you still might be unwittingly investing in companies that engage in offshore oil drilling, animal cloning, sweat shops, you name it. Many smaller companies do business with the big behemoths, anyway.

You could invest in particular companies. That gives you a lot more control than putting your money in a mutual fund. But most people don't have the time or know-how to do this.

So when you park you money in a checking account, a CD, a mutual fund, government or corporate bonds, or the stock market, you are still, in effect spending money. Granted, most of us need to do this with some of our money so that we will not be destitute when we retire.

So is there no way out, other than socking your money under the mattress and hoping for good health and no accidents, and for kindhearted people to take care of you when you're old or sick or unable to earn money?

As Aaron points out, once that money leaves our hands, we have very little control over how it is used. But at least we can perhaps delay its inappropiate use by supporting ethical businesses as best we can. If I buy a product at an all-vegan store, chances are better than average that the owners and employees of the store will, in turn, spend that money ethically, and so forth.

Sometimes it costs more to buy products and services from ethical companies, because they're not doing things like using sweatshop labor or cutting environmental corners to reduce costs. On the other hand, an ethical business is not likely to try to gouge or gratuitously "up-sell" customers or pay outlandish salaries to its directors.

Another partial solution is to eat a healthy diet, and to generally take care of yourself. Sickness can be expensive. Granted, you can still be ill or injured due to genetics or bad luck, but you can control your diet and usually make time to do some physical activity each day, and both of those aspects of your life are major determinants of your long-term health.

One way to spend less money—directly, or indirectly through investments—is to make less money. Of course this isn't an option for everyone. But for those not scraping by...

How many of you are in a job you don't really like but it pays well? It's easy to get caught in the rut...You must make more this year than you did last year. You start eyeing things you'd like to buy: a new guitar, or tattoo sleeve, or purse, or outfit, or extra bathroom, or second home. There's a bit of a rush when you get a raise. Maybe you're putting in a lot of overtime to meet deadlines. Maybe you tell yourself, "As soon as I've reached a certain financial comfort level, maybe I'll cut back on my hours, maybe work at a less taxing job, do some more reading, exercise more, maybe travel. Maybe I'll start hiking again, or learn to play guitar." Then you get back to your laptop, even though it's 9pm...you've got a meeting tomorrow morning to prepare for...

What I'm finding with my friends who said this in their 30s and who are now in their 50s is that the mythical "financial comfort level" that is supposed to allow them to get off the merry-go-round and enjoy life a little more never happens. It keeps getting delayed, or re-defined ("Well, we just took out a second mortgage, so maybe after we get that paid off." "As soon as this project at work is done...") Or they're offered a new position at work with a 15 percent raise—can't turn that down.

If you really want a lifestyle change, you just have to do it. Two years ago I took a big pay cut to work at a job I love, and which is more in line with my ethics. My wife and I have had to make some adjustments. We eat out much less. I scan the sale papers and, all other things equal, I buy the store brand instead of the name brand. I'm scrupulous about eating leftovers and using every last drop of everything. And so on. Lots of little day-to-day things have changed.

Granted, it's generally much easier to make this switch if you're not the only breadwinner in the household, and I realize I'm fortunate in that my wife has a decent job (although her company is downsizing and moving jobs halfway across the country, so we'll see how that goes...). But there are a lot of people in this situation. I have to say, every time I learn about an individual or family who decided they could take the cut in pay in return for having more time and peace of mind, they are undeniably happy about their decision and have no regrets.

Another great time to make the decision to favor quality of life over maximum earnings is when you're young, just starting out in your career, relatively free of obligations (except perhaps for student loans), and not yet used to a certain material comfort level.

Again, I want to reiterate that I realize this option is not suitable for everyone.

But if you are at all contemplating doing something you really love, even at a cut in pay, or have been telling yourself "I really need to find a better job" but are so busy you don't even have time to get your resume together, let alone go on interviews...let me close with this:

How many of you have ever had a conversation roughly like this...

One spouse or partner to the other: Remember when we used to have picnics in the back yard? We'd make sandwiches—sometimes just peanut butter and jelly—and you and I and the kids and Baxter (the family dog) would find a nice spot in the grass, and we'd lay out a blanket...We'd be eating our sandwiches, and Baxter would be eating his dog food—al fresco—and then we'd give him our plates to lick. We'd look up at the sky and say what the clouds reminded us of. If a bird or a plane flew overhead, we'd make up stories about it. Then afterward we'd play fetch with Baxter, and then we'd all walk down to the schoolyard. Sometimes the kids would fly kites...Baxter would run around...those were great days. Man, I miss them.

How long has it been since we did that? How many years? These days it seems like we're both working so much that all we can do on the weekends is catch up on chores—and sleep. It's funny, we had less money then, and just a tiny house that we rented, and a lot less stuff, but we did so much more.

You may find that if you take that job that pays less but is much closer to home, or is much lower pressure, or is more in line with your ethics...even if you make less money, you'll adjust, and you can have those days back again. You'll have fewer material goods but will have gained some things that money can't buy.

And with less stress, you'll probably be healthier, and as a consequence you may end up saving so much money that you'll come out financially ahead, too.

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Next: A special announcement.

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008, environment, Freecycle, freegan, jobs, money, spending less, work

At the AR2008 conference, Aaron Wissner gave an eye-opening talk about the power of money, and how little control you and I have over how that power is exerted. The name of the talk--I think I have this right--was "Being Vegan Is Not Enough." A provocative but refreshingly honest title, considering the talk was presented to an audience of mostly vegans.

When one becomes vegan, and for a while afterward, there may be a tendency to think "OK, I get it now. I'm doing my best to end oppression and make the world peaceful." Wrong. Going vegan is a huge step, and and I think everyone who can do it should do it, and if that happened we would significantly reduce the amount of exploitation and human-caused suffering in the world, but it is not the end-all and be-all.

For instance, where did your purse or backpack come from? Was it made with sweatshop labor? Do you drive fast; do you ever crank up the AC when you don't need to? Are you buying food from mega-corporations that are putting the squeeze on family farmers? How much garbage do you generate?

I'm not trying to get down on anyone, or pretend that I'm any better at this stuff than anyone else. About a year and a half ago I went onto one of those sites that tells you your environmental footprint. I thought I would do great—My wife and I are both vegan, I work from home, I had recently bought a Prius (after my other car died), we have no kids, we live in a pretty small house, I do a lot of cooking...I was ready for a slam-dunk.

Well, my score was not that great. We live in a small house, but there's only two of us. Although I cook a lot, I use way too many packaged goods and convenience products. We don't have any ceiling fans. We could compost a lot more. At the time our furnace was some energy-inefficient relic from about 1970. And so on. It was sobering.

I did the test one more time, figuring in our cat, and we did even worse.

Anyway, that and some other experiences got me to thinking about my total contribution to environmental degradation, global warming, exploitation, and other bad, undesirable things. I've made some changes since then, but I know I still can do much more.

Fast forward to Aaron's talk, in which he illustrated how merely spending money—at least in our current society—may be detrimental to our planet's health and contribute to exploitation, violence, and depletion of resources. In the next post, I'll explain the thrust of the talk, in a nutshell, and share some thoughts that it triggered.

But first, let me point you to Aaron's blog: Value System: Peak Oil, Gas Prices, and The Future. It is filled with interesting ideas, and I like how it unfolds over time to reflect the author's evolution and coalescence of thinking. Of particular relevance to this post are Aaron's entries from May 22 and August 13 of this year, in which he expounds on some points that were in his AR conference talk.

More to follow...

Labels: animal rights conference, AR2008, environment, money

In the last post we talked about health: The risks from eating meat and the benefits of replacing the meat on your plate with plant-based alternatives, especially legumes, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Meat and dairy also have significant environmental costs. The United Nations recently reported that diet is a major factor in greenhouse gas emissions, even more so than transportation. Beef and fish consumption is particularly damaging to the environment, according to the UN report and other sources, such as the WorldWatch Institute.

Cows emit enormous amounts of methane—from both ends of their bodies. Cattle grazing has turned vast tracts of the West into a near-desert, decimating local vegetation and displacing native wildlife. Ranchers and sometimes the government, though your tax dollars, kill any animals suspected of preying on livestock. A leading cause of rain forest destruction is the cutting down of trees by the cattle industry.

Over-fishing, which is a direct result of population times fish consumption per person, is ruining the balance of species in the ocean. Populations of some fish are a fraction of what they once were. Cod in the North Atlantic—to take one example—used to be huge and plentiful; now they are relatively tiny and becoming more difficult to find. (Fishermen blame seals, which is ridiculous, since seals and thriving cod populations co-existed for millions of years. The bloody seal massacres in Eastern Canada each year are an attempt to make up for lost revenue brought on by over-fishing. Baby seals, too young to swim away, are clubbed to death and killed for their fur.) Giant fishing nets trap sea turtles and "non-target" fish, which are killed and discarded. As noted in the UN report, commercial fishing requires huge amounts of energy, because of the transport distance from source to point of sale. Note that many fish are killed in order to be ground up into livestock feed. So consumption of meat, dairy, and egg products may contribute to the depletion of fish and other marine life in the ocean.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are giant prison-like factories for raising and killing animals; they are the source of the vast majority of meat, dairy, and eggs, as well as non-food animal products such as leather. They generate huge amounts of pollution that seeps into the ground, water, and air.

And get this: Nearly three quarters of the grain grown in this country is fed to farmed animals. Although the numbers vary depending on what type of meat you eat and where it's from, in almost every case it requires far less land, water, and energy to produce a vegetarian dish than a comparable meat dish. Reducing your consumption of all animal products is one of the best environmental moves you can make.

I'll show you how to do that with surprisingly little effort or adjustment. First, I have one more post that looks at the widespread cruelty and suffering inherent in meat production. I'm not going to dwell on it, and there's plenty of information elsewhere on the Net (and in this blog) that goes into great detail about the misery and death in animal farming, transport, and slaughterhouses. But you should take a glimpse at what it is you support when you order or buy animal-derived foods. So bear with me and then it's on to a plethora of very doable and satisfying solutions.

To be continued...

Labels: environment, fish, seals

1 — Buy shade-grown coffee. Shade-grown or traditional coffee plantations do not cut down the forest canopy that provides refuge for over 150 species of birds, including some migratory species whose members you might see in your back yard.

Due to increasing demand for coffee, however, more and more plantations are clearing the forest, which presents a serious threat to bird species that winter in those forests or live in them year-round. Diversity of species as well as number of birds in "full-sun" coffee plantations plummets severely.

How do you know if your coffee is shade-grown? According to this article on shade-grown coffee, an increasing percentage of coffee farms in Columbia and Brazil — two popular sources of coffee — are not shade-grown. The same holds true for Costa Rica, though to a lesser degree. The article also notes that "[t]he coffees of Ethiopia, Sumatra, New Guinea, and Timor are virtually all shade grown. In Latin America, the coffees from southern Mexico, northern Nicaragua, El Salvador, Peru, Panama, and Huehuetenango in Guatemala are primarily shade grown. Furthermore, most (but certainly not all) certified organic coffees are shade grown."

Check the label or inquire at your local coffee shop to be more sure. Most coffee companies have web sites which may provide further information.

2 - Don't "deadhead" all the flowers in your garden. Removing spent flowers may stimulate more blooms, which looks pretty and which bees and other pollinators may appreciate, but leave some flowers alone so they'll go to seed — the birds will like that.

Labels: birds, coffee, environment, gardening, lifestyle

Tonight I was talking on the phone to someone I knew previously only from email. He's active in companion animal issues. We got to discussing diet. I mentioned I was vegan. He responded that he didn't eat much meat and tries to buy free-range. The conversation had progressed to the point where I felt comfortable in saying, "You know that 'free range' is mostly a crock, right?" He answered, "I know," in sort of a resigned tone. We proceeded to discuss various meat alternatives and it was all really productive.

Here's my point: The "Yeah, I know..." mini-admission...In my experience, that's typical of "progressives" buying free-range. Not too many levels down, they know they're playing a little pretend and wishful thinking. I find sometimes that they almost want that kick in the pants to get them off free-range hamburgers (often made from worn out dairy cows killed at five years old ) and onto homemade veggie burgers or LightLife Smart BBQ. There's a defeatist belief among some animal activists that once people go to free-range, they're stuck, they think "now I'm being humane, game over." But what I find overwhelmingly is something more like this: they opened their eyes briefly, what they saw was painful and disturbing, they shut their eyes again; they started something but are stalemated. They're more forthcoming, more knowledgeable, a little more honest than when they mindlessly bought whichever meat, eggs, and dairy were cheapest. And they're more amenable to vegan outreach. Perhaps they've already got momentum: they're already independent-minded enough to question the mainstream, they're already taking action in which they sacrifice for a greater good. It probably doesn't hurt that they may likely have some skepticism about corporate PR.

I've seen this phenomenon repeatedly at Green Festivals, companion animal group get-togethers, Sierra Club "True Cost of Food" dinners, and other gatherings of progressives.

Even in cases where ignorance, denial, and deceptive advertising about "happy cows" and the like conspire to perpetuate exploitative and environmentally destructive omnivorism, I find in general that the belief in bucolic pastures where farm animals bask in the sunshine and are treated like pets doesn't have a very deep hold and is easily displaced by a dose of reality — two-day old calves stolen from their mothers, male calves sold at auctions and butchered, females impregnated every year practically from childhood and forced to put out so much milk that their udders become infected and their bones become brittle, sometimes to the point where the cows can no longer stand up; newborn chicks ground up; piglets "culled" by bludgeoning — knocks off the fantasy in a hurry, and the progressive or self-styled "ethical eater" realizes that the meat, dairy, and egg industries are lethal and cruel, and often ecologically disastrous — and anything but ethical.

Environmentalists, animal shelter volunteers, "Move On" members, human rights activists, anti-war protesters, Unitarians, anarchists — these demographics present excellent activism opportunities. The politics and agendas of the individuals who comprise them very often overlap with the interests of many animal advocates, and it is very likely that from these groups that we'll get the next wave of new vegans.

There's a counterpoint to all this. Though it may be gratifying to convert someone to veganism, and while more vegans certainly help to mainstream the concept, at this still-early stage in the movement, more may be accomplished by doing outreach to the relatively intractable masses that are more wedded to meat, dairy, and eggs. Go for the difficult targets and get them to start the process rather than nudging along people who are already making changes on their own and have made some progress along the omnivore-to-vegan path. It may be more productive to get "the average American" (or Canadian, or whomever) to go from step 0 to step 1 than to persuade a progressive environmentalist / shelter volunteer to go from almost-vegan to vegan – even though you'll have no "converted to vegan" notches in your belt, so to speak.

To get your chicken-every-other-night, "animals were put here for us to use" churchgoers to try veggie chicken nuggets and have them say "Hey, this isn't bad" may represent a more fundamental transition than getting a couple of near-vegans to give up their occasional cheese pizza and honey in their tea. Even if your dubious advocacy targets hem and haw, and are so stuck in their current pattern that they don't go out and buy the veggie meat or tofu or exchange the meat sauce for marinara right away, you've got them to thinking. Changes in attitude are precursors to changes in behavior. They may start off by buying "free-range" or making some other "toe-in-the-water" compromises—but that's something, it's a change from total mindlessness. Habits—especially ones that you've done since before you can remember, that make you feel part of the crowd, that are easy, that give you comfort, to which you have emotional ties, and that are heavily promoted and "enabled" by society—are tough to break. But by dislodging these folks—which I submit make up the bulk of the populace—from their automatic, "pick up boneless skinless chicken breasts without even thinking about what they're doing" daily routines, to start them considering the ethics and arbitrariness of their diet, to engender some concern for animals, to inform them of standard farm cruelties, to educate them on non-animal alternatives, and to inspire them to begin for the first time in their lives to ask questions about the moral consequences of their food choices – that may be more profound than the talking a lacto-ovo vegetarian into giving up the once-a-month ice cream cone. You'll pave the way for some activist down the road, probably one you'll never meet, to claim one day "Hey, I converted another person to veganism."

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I mentoned above that there seems to be a fear among some activists that if people buy cage-free eggs and, in general, less cruel forms of meat and eggs (though all entail some cruelty), they'll become complacent and resistant to the vegan option. But as I alluded to in this and previous posts, there are far more people buying eggs from battery cage hens and meat from the most reprehensible, barbaric factory farms who are just as complacent if not more so. They feel no need to make even the smallest concessions to farm animals. As one person told me, "an egg is an egg." If we can't convince more conscientous consumers who are already avoiding some forms of animal cruelty to go vegan, how are we ever going to sell veganism to those who give no consideration whatsoever to farm animals' interests?

As I discuss in this current series of posts, we can and should leverage people's newfound awareness of animals' interests and humans' obligations to respect them, as we explain how all animal agriculture, including that which produced the slick package of "certified humane" eggs, violates animals' most basic interests, often violently, blatantly, and en masse. If someone is bothered by the unnecessary infliction of pain and suffering on farm animals, that greatly helps us make the case that it's all unnecessary and unjustified unless done out of compassion to help an animal or, perhaps, in self-defense.

Our ability to advocate on behalf of animals and to inspire a change in consciousness and, consequently, behavior need not and should not depend on animals remaining in the most heinous and unbearable conditions.

Labels: advocacy, environment, free-range, vegan

When they aren't shooting at species that are remarkably stable and robust in wilderness, no-hunting areas, hunters are touting their concern for the environment and for conservation (although their brand of conservation seems to be making sure there are enough animals around to shoot).

Although this is my first year on the all-volunteer cleanup crew for a two-mile section of road sponsored by Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, I've noticed an effect that more seasoned volunteers warned me about. During hunting season, the amount of litter on the side of the road, and in the woods and waters bordering the road, sharply increases.

It's not that we see more of all types of litter. The biggest rise, by far, is beer bottles. Mostly cheap stuff: Budweiser and Milwaukee's Best. We see more empty packs of cigarettes marketed to men, particularly Marlboros; the number of Newports and Capris remains about the same. There are also a lot of breakfast containers: Pop-Tart wrappers, McDonald's hash brown bags, and so forth. And of course, there are the ubiquitous—and deadly—six-pack containers.

This refuse is in addition to the usual junk that is thrown out of car windows every month: plastic bags, condoms, straws, rusty tools, string, innertubes—you name it.

Each side of the road is densely wooded and home for many species of birds. We've seen wild turkeys, woodchucks, snakes, frogs, and other wildlife during our cleanups. No doubt the undergrowth is teeming with a diversity of life. Little creeks and gulleys run throughout the woods; one can only imagine the number of individuals who depend on these water sources. The garbage ends up everywhere—on stream banks, hanging from branches, covering mouse holes, collecting around tree trunks. This is the animals' home. We cut down more of it every day, but in the dwindling remaining parts we thoughtlessly throw our rubbish, degrading and endangering the survival of all species—including, ultimately, our own.

And so, every month, a bunch of animal rights activists clean up other people's junk, including the huge amount of beer bottles and other trash that's strewn about during hunting season. The directors of the sanctuary have told us that the county considers our length of road to be about the cleanest of all the "adopt a road" sections. We don't just stoop down and pick up cigarette butts and cans. We crawl on our hands and knees to get a piece of paper under the brambles. We dig out half-buried liquor bottles. We once carried out an old lawnmower engine. We cut up six-pack rings so that even in a landfill they can't get stuck around an animal's head.

So when you come to Poplar Spring to visit the wonderful animals who have been rescued from abuse, neglect, and cruelty, enjoy the drive up, also. And, please note, there are trash cans on the premises.

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Related blog post:

Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary

The Aggression of Hunting

Labels: environment, hunting, littering, Poplar Spring, Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary