Help Fight Against Animal Cruelty Now !
DID YOU KNOW?..
- In many circuses, wild and exotic animals are trained through the use of intimidation and physical abuse. Former circus employees have reported seeing animals beaten, whipped, poked with sharp objects and even burned to force them to learn their routines!
- Elephants who perform in circuses are often kept in chains for as long as 23 hours a day from the time they are babies.
- More than 15 million warm-blooded animals are used in research every year.
- Scientists estimate that 100 species go extinct every day! That's about one species every 15 minutes.
- If you live in Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Rhode Island, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, New York, New Jersey and Vermont you have the legal right to refuse to participate in dissection in class! In Louisiana, there is a State resolution and in Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland and New Mexico, there are Departments of Education resolutions in place that allow you to refuse to dissect, although it hasn’t yet become a law.
- Dog fighting and cock-fighting are illegal in all 50 states.
- It is estimated that on average it takes 1,000 dogs to maintain a mid-sized racetrack operation. New greyhounds are continually entering the system to replace greyhounds that grade-off due to injury, age or poor performance. There are currently over 30 tracks operating in the United States.
- Tens of thousands of wild and domesticated horses from the United States are cruelly slaughtered every year to be used for horsemeat in Europe and Asia. Since the last horse slaughter plants in the U.S. were closed in 2007, thousands of horses have been shipped to Canada and Mexico for slaughter.
- Many studies have found a link between cruelty to animals and other forms of interpersonal violence.
- Neglect and abandonment are the most common forms of companion animal abuse in the United States.
- A fur coat is pretty cool—for an animal to wear. Eighteen red foxes are killed to make one fox-fur coat, 55 minks to make a mink coat.
- More American households have pets than have children. We spend more money on pet food than on baby food. There are more dogs in the U.S. than people in most countries in Europe - and more cats than dogs.
- A child growing up in the U.S. is more likely to have a pet than a live-at-home father.
- Battered women have been known to live in their cars with their pets for as long as four months until an opening was available at a pet-friendly safe house.
STATISTICS..
- 71% of pet-owning women entering women’s shelters reported that their batterer had injured, maimed, killed or threatened family pets for revenge or to psychologically control victims; 32% reported their children had hurt or killed animals.
- 68% of battered women reported violence towards their animals. 87% of these incidents occurred in the presence of the women, and 75% in the presence of the children, to psychologically control and coerce them.
- 13% of intentional animal abuse cases involve domestic violence.
- Between 25% and 40% of battered women are unable to escape abusive situations because they worry about what will happen to their pets or livestock should they leave.
- Pets may suffer unexplained injuries, health problems, permanent disabilities at the hands of abusers, or disappear from home.
- Abusers kill, harm, or threaten children’s pets to coerce them into sexual abuse or to force them to remain silent about abuse. Disturbed children kill or harm animals to emulate their parents’ conduct, to prevent the abuser from killing the pet, or to take out their aggressions on another victim.
- In one study, 70% of animal abusers also had records for other crimes. Domestic violence victims whose animals were abused saw the animal cruelty as one more violent episode in a long history of indiscriminate violence aimed at them and their vulnerability.
- Investigation of animal abuse is often the first point of social services intervention for a family in trouble.
- For many battered women, pets are sources of comfort providing strong emotional support: 98% of Americans consider pets to be companions or members of the family.
- Animal cruelty problems are people problems. When animals are abused, people are at risk.
