Each week the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) sends to subscribers email alerts called “Take Action Thursday,” which tell them about actions they can take to help animals. NAVS is a national, not-for-profit educational organization incorporated in the State of Illinois. NAVS promotes greater compassion, respect and justice for animals through educational programs based on respected ethical and scientific theory and supported by extensive documentation of the cruelty and waste of vivisection. You can register to receive these action alerts and more at the NAVS Web site. This week’s “Take Action Thursday” takes a look at student choice and primates kept as pets. […]

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Our thanks to Lisa Franzetta of the Animal Legal Defense Fund for permission to republish this post by Tom Linney, a staff attorney with ALDF’s Animal Law Program.

Ask anyone for their views on the cost of health care these days and you’re bound to stir some emotions. But no matter what side you are on, the good news about the current health care reform debate is that it has encouraged people to start thinking about the health care needs of this country. The bad news, most people are still overlooking the main reasons why we spend so much on health care – chronic diseases. These diseases include heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer and are among the most common and costly of all health problems in the U.S. Chronic diseases are responsible for seven of every 10 deaths and account for more than 70% of the $1 trillion spent on health care each year in the U.S. […]

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Bees buzz. But are they buzzed? Perhaps. According to scientists at the University of Haifa, in Israel, given their druthers, bees “prefer nectar with small amounts of nicotine and caffeine over nectar that does not comprise these substances at all.”

Flower nectar is mostly made up of sugar, but some plant species also produce nectar that contains trace amounts of naturally occurring compounds such as nicotine and caffeine, which, in large doses, can be toxic. (Just ask the French novelist Honoré de Balzac.) Caffeine, for instance, is comparatively abundant in citrus trees, and particularly in grapefruit flowers, which bees quite love. Nicotine, too, occurs in the aptly named tobacco tree, which also enjoys apian kudos. […]

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This week, Advocacy for Animals welcomes a new contributor, Marla Rose, a writer and longtime activist on behalf of animals. Rose has been a humane educator with a large animal shelter, the founding chairperson of the vegan advocacy group EarthSave Chicago, and an organizer for Chicago VeganMania, a showcase for vegan culture and community. In 2009 Rose and her husband, John Beske, were named Activists of the Year by Mercy for Animals. Rose’s writings can be also found at Vegan Feminist Agitator and Examiner.com, where she blogs about vegan restaurants in Chicago.

One common slogan many animal advocates are familiar with is “Fur is dead!,” always accompanied by graphic, horrifying images of tortured foxes and minks. The statement, though, can be looked at from at least two perspectives. Fur is, of course, the pelt of a dead animal, usually killed for the simple fact of its skin. A fur coat represents slaughtered animals quite plainly. I can only wonder why, though, after all these years of public outcry and education, fur is still something animal advocates are fighting against. Shouldn’t fur, at least as an issue, be dead already, left in our collective past along with other barbaric practices, like guillotines and exotic animals being killed to entertain spectators in the Colosseum? […]

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