Natural Environment Blog

David from PETA contacted me regarding letters PETA recently sent to the attorneys general of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. In the letters, Peta is urging the attorneys general to bring charges against BP and all other culpable parties of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico of cruelty to animals.

“Just as BP is the subject of a federal criminal investigation, causing needless pain and suffering to animals violates each affected state’s anti-cruelty laws,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “BP can compensate for the loss of human livelihoods, but it can never make up for the loss of life that it has inflicted on these states’ animals.”

According to PETA, the anti-cruelty laws of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida provide that any person who unnecessarily causes the torment or death of any animal is guilty of a misdemeanor.

The impact on the oil spill on wildlife includes:

• Some oil-soaked birds lose the ability to float and ultimately drown.
• Other birds die from hypothermia or hyperthermia after oil destroys the insulating powers of their feathers.
• Oil contamination in turtles can cause chemical burns, and kidney, liver, and brain damage can result after animals ingest the tar balls and chemical dispersants that have inundated the Gulf.
• Marine mammals lose body weight when they can not feed due to contamination of their environment by oil
• Birds become easy prey, as their feathers being matted by oil make them less able to fly away;
• Marine mammals such as fur seals become easy prey if oil sticks their flippers to their bodies, making it hard for them to escape predators

Those are just some of the affects of oil spills on wildlife. And, there’s also the affect on the food chain. For example, poisoning of wildlife higher up the food chain if they eat large amounts of other organisms that have taken oil into their tissues. This can also result in poisoning of young through the mother, as a dolphin calf can absorb oil through it’s mothers milk.

To date, more than a thousand animals-including 333 sea turtles and 41 dolphins and other mammals-have been collected dead along the coast. Whales are also expected to be among the casualties.

How Can I Help?

You can assist PETA by sending your concerns to the attorneys general in question.

About PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 2 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world.

PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other “pests,” and the abuse of backyard dogs.

PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

The benefits of choosing eco-friendly furniture and upholstery are two-fold. You can be kind to the environment, and kind to yourself. Refusing to use animal-derived materials saves land, water and food, which in turn reduces greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous chemical-use

Choosing animal derived materials for furniture may seem natural, but this may not be the case, since these materials are known to emit toxic emissions which pollute the air, the water and the soil. Often the raising of livestock for wool, down or leather can be cruel.

Leather

Considered very luxurious by many, leather is made from animal skins, and is ecologically harmful. Raising livestock for whatever purpose, meat or leather productive, requires considerable amounts of feed, land, water and fuels. The excrement produced on farms also infects the waterways.

Even the process used to tan leather is noxious and polluting, with some of the oils and dyes used being cyanide-based. The tanning of leather produces a range of different pollutants including chromium, sulphides and acids.

Wool

You can be forgiven for thinking that wool is an environmentally-friendly upholstery material, especially since the sheep from which the wool comes are not killed, merely shorn. Many people (including the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have a problem with how wool-producing livestock are treated. They argue that even if they’re not subjected to pesticide-ridden habitats they could end up being mutilated by their owners.

Animal rights protesters have made a particular example of the Australian Merino sheep, who have been bred to have wrinkly skin which results in increased wool yields. Sometimes flies lay eggs in the folds of the sheep’s skin which can result in fatal maggot infestations, so farmers restrain the sheep without pain killers, cutting out chunks of flesh to discourage flies laying eggs.

Another environmental disadvantage of wool is the amount of gas that sheep and other wool-giving animals emit into the atmosphere through burping and farting. Sheep flatulence represents ninety-percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, so you shouldn’t doubt that this is a major contributing factor towards climate change.

Down and feathers

Down is a popular filler material for cushioned furniture, and is made from an insulating layer of feathers which can be found underneath the outer feathers of ducks and geese.

Down and feathers are collected from commercial meat processing plants, which means that it is impossible to know if they were raised organically.

Some campaigners have warned that often geese and ducks are plucked while alive. Down and feathers have also been blamed for allergic reactions, although this is more likely to be due to the dust and dirty which can accumulate in bedding over a long time.

Cover finishes

Cover fabrics, such as cotton is often bleached or dyed, and releases carcinogenic dioxins into the environment. Permanent-press and stain- and water-repellent finishes can emit gas formaldehyde into the environment. Cotton covers can also have detrimental environmental effects, as cotton uses a lot of water and is treated with more pesticides than any other crop in the world. Cotton is resistant to dyes and bleaches, so half of these chemicals end up as waste in rivers and in the soil.

Adam Cairn writes on behalf of Gecco Interiors, who supply a range of eco furniture and green products.