Seen a Blackfish lately? Don't. Unless it's this one.

Lovingly tribal, spiritually-connected creatures of the oceans being torn away from their pods and put into such an unnatural and cruel living conditions, so far removed from their natural environment... 

How can we knowingly allow this to continue? 

Is it any wonder after being confined and made to do tricks solely for human entertainment that they start to hurt their captors? Just Say No to captive orcas turning tricks. And dolphins. And...

Shocking footage and riveting interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry. This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans truly know about these highly intelligent, and surprisingly sentient, fellow mammals that we only think we can control.

Birke Baehr: What's wrong with our food system | Video on TED.com

A spot on speech by a spot on kid!

Food, Inc. - Hungry For Change? - movie trailer

I am really looking forward to seeing this and also to the ensuing publicity this film gets. Hopefully it will bring about changes to the intensive (read: harmful) farming operations that are all too common in our world.

Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - Trailer and Photos

Crow adopts kitten

Anon

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too
busy to give you any time.
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than an poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no
prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics,
THEN, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog. 

Author Unknown 

Real Dancing Cockatoo!!

This is a cockatoo from a bird sanctuary/rehabilitation centre - Bird Lovers Only Rescue - in Indiana, US. Snowball, lives with his carer Irena Shultz and numerous other parrots...



While he dances more when with Irena, he still does on his own too...

One very unique NZ Parrot

Inter-species connections #1

A young orphaned hippo adopts a 100 year old tortoise as mum

I love these stories, just as I love witnessing them in my own experience. Like when my cat would lay down to sleep beside my dog, just so beautiful to behold. A hippo and a tortoise. A cat and a crow. All of these magnificent bonds that defy our limited conceptions of what makes an animal tick...

Animals - our kin

Started reading 'Next of Kin' by Roger Fouts. Stand out quote for me on page 7,

animals, like people, are best understood as individuals, no two of whom are the same.

Anyone know where I might find a list of films that show the loving bonds between animals & humans, as individuals in their own right?

Films with an 'animal' protagonist

• Animal Farm
• Babe
• Born Free
• Charlotte's Web (1973, 2006) 
• Gorillas in the Mist (1988)
• King Kong (2005)
• The Plague Dogs (1982)
• Planet of the Apes (1968, 2001)
• Watership Down (1978)

The films on the list need to be those that have treated the animals in them well - as their unique selves - as opposed to the 'traditional' methods of animal acting, that is, through coercion and hours of 'training'. If you know any more or can shed some light on the films above, please comment on this post, thanks.

Apes as Entertainers

Just heard that the Seattle Mariners made a commercial titled "The Secret" which features a chimpanzee. I edited a supplied Care2 letter into the following:

Show business isn’t what it’s cracked up to be if you’re a chimpanzee or other great ape.

Primates — like those used in DaimlerChrysler’s ad campaign for Dodge—are trained to perform through fear and intimidation. Behind the scenes, handlers and trainers have been caught doing what they all swear they don’t do—punching, kicking, and beating chimpanzees or even outfitting them with electric shock collars.

Great apes do not belong to us, nor should they be made to 'perform' in the advertising industry.

There is no excuse for that kind of abuse, especially considering the modern alternatives - such as animatronics, animation, and CGI - now readily available. You may still maintain that 'the real thing' looks better on screen than any of the alternatives, but advances in computer technology and robotics are steadily blurring these distinctions. And the essential ethical question remains the same:

"Can the decision to use live animals be justified in light of the cruel practices that make their exploitation possible?"

Please remove your commercial that features a chimpanzee from rotation immediately. Until I hear that you've done this, I will share this disturbing information with everyone I know.

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It is extremely disturbing to me that these abuses continue. With all our knowledge on the intelligence and sensitivity of the great apes, making them act for entertainment is degrading not only for them, but for us as a species.