On Monday, July 26th, a low budget animal lib film screening at Anthology Film Archives became a fascinatingly larger phenomenon. Animal welfare personalities like Moby and Russell Simmons appeared, tons of disparate vegan groups showed up to table across the entire theater (the star being a rescued beagle from Azopharma's animal testing laboratory who tabled for W.A.R.), and AR legend Andy Stepanian gave a speech in full ski mask gear about compassion in the face of animal testing horrors that made people weep openly. Needless to say, this type of thing doesn't usually happen when a low budget, non-distributed, independent film about animal rights screens in the East Village. So why did it happen this time? In a nutshell, people flocked to the sold-out show because they heard it was excellent enough to warrant such a turnout, and they realized it was way past due for a film like it to be made and seen.

Interestingly, there was never before a professionally-made narrative feature film about the growing world of animal liberation groups. Despite the sheer amount of political attention and defense budget that the Bush administration devoted to animal welfare groups, and despite the impressively unconstitutional nature of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act passed during the Bush era, scifi/horror movies like 12 Monkeys or 28 Days Later were the closest anyone's come to an ALF movie. Enter Bold Native.

The UK Telegraph reports that the United Nations International Panel of Sustainable Resource Management has a new report calling the food animal industry a major contributor to harmful climate change, comparable only to fossil fuel consumption.

Old news to most vegans, sure, but it always helps when big, trusted organizations impartial to animal-rights come out with this stuff.

Though the Telegraph trumpets "meat," it does sound like the UN report also blames the dairy industry (unlike Food, Inc.!). And it's nice to see some thoughts about systematic economic incentivizing:

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, said ... "The Panel have reviewed all the available science and conclude that two broad areas are currently having a disproportionately high impact on people and the planet's life support systems—these are energy in the form of fossil fuels and agriculture, especially the raising of livestock for meat and dairy products."

Mr Steiner said governments could encourage people to eat less meat by reforming the system of taxes and subsidies so vegetarian food is cheaper.

"Smart market mechanisms, more intelligent fiscal policies and creative policy-making are among the options for internalising the costs of unsustainable patterns. Some tough choices are signalled in this report, but it may prove even more challenging for everyone if the current paths continue into the coming decades," he added.

(The Telegraph's link-free old media approach makes it hard to provide any supporting details, and the UN IPSRM's own site doesn't seem to mention the report yet.)

Author and activist Mickey Z. will be the key-note speaker at this Sunday's Veggie Pride Parade. The parade begins at 11am in the West Village; he'll take the stage at 1pm in Union Square, where the parade ends. There will be additional speakers sharing the stage to educate the masses about the benefits of a veg diet but my vote goes to Mickey for being the most bad ass of the lot.

Mickey's books include The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet, 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism, and Self Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle--and he's published by some of the edgiest indie publishers around, such as Soft Skull Press, Disinformation Company, and PM Press. Oh, and Newsday called Mickey Z. a "professional iconoclast" and Time Out New York has referred to him as a "political provocateur."

SuperVegan: Well hello there Mr. Fancy Pants. How did you end up being the key-note speaker at this year's parade?

Mickey Z.: Wow, that's funny because I'm the furthest thing from fancy pants. I tend to wear my clothes until they fall off me. Anyway, I've known parade founder Pamela Rice for many years and she invited me to speak at the 2009 event. I ended up going on very late and reaching a much smaller crowd but Pamela said I still "stole the show." This year, well... I guess I got bumped all the way to the front of the line.

This weekend's going to rock your veggie world, if you're into that sorta thing! Veggie Prom is tonight, followed by a post-prom potluck picnic at Central Park. Finally, the Veggie Pride Parade rounds out the weekend Sunday starting at 11 a.m. in the Meatpacking district.

Hungry after all the parading, yes? Z Pizza's got vegan slices this weekend, starting today! That means no more staring in their window wishing you had friends to go in on a pie with you, and no aging pizza in your fridge. (But leftover pizza is the best, no joke!)

Jonathan Horowitz's art exhibit at a former meat locker in the Village called "Go Vegan!" looks brilliant. Have you been? What'd ya think?

At least two carriage horses have crashed in the last two weeks, Gothamist reports. It's been just a month since the City Council approved changes to the carriage horse industry that support more humane treatment of the horses, but the new legislation does nothing to protect horses from injury due to crashes. Hey, it looks like you can't make carriage-hauling safe or humane for horses unless you eliminate it entirely. News. Flash.

The LA Times blog's "L.A. Unleashed" column has a snappy animal round-up of its own: Labradoodle breeder's regrets, gray whale in Israel, and researchers hurt mice to see the looks on their faces. Guh.

The Humane Society of the United States gives us a peek into Richard Berman's absurdly shady lobbying tactics and how they threaten animals. You wanna read this!

Remember when Compassion Over Killing encouraged us to enter Dunkin' Donuts's "Create Dunkin's Next Donut Contest," and asked us to share our vegan creations with them? They've picked their favorite 12 contestants' dreamed-up sweets and will make one of those dreams come true! Vote for your favorite by next Friday, May 21 (and you'll be entered to win one of 10 prizes, too). Vegan Treats will produce the winning doughnut, which will be announced in June. I will take a box of each!

The Japanese whaling catch this year is the lowest it has been in a long time, and the whalers place the blame of the low catch firmly on Sea Shepherd.

According to the AFP:

The fleet's catch of 507 whales was down sharply on last year's cull of 680 and below the target of about 850, said Japan's Fisheries Agency, which blamed a total of 31 days of harassment by the Sea Shepherd group

"I am furious," said the whaling fleet's leader Shigetoshi Nishiwaki. Also of note in the article, is Nishiwaki's comments on how irresponsible we were to let him ram and slice our Sea Shepherd ship in half so it would sink.

He charged that the activists "say they want to protect the ocean, but they don't care about leaking oil or leaving pieces of a broken ship behind", a reference to the group's sunken powerboat the Ady Gil.

Although Sea Shepherd had removed all the fuel from the Ady Gil before it sank, Nishiwaki's comments are still reported to be hilarious.

When Andy Stepanian and Dara Lovitz gave a talk on SHAC7 and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) at NYU Law School on Tuesday, most of the audience came half-expecting to hear a legal seminar (Lovitz is the author of Muzzling a Movement). Almost no one expected to laugh or cry with inspiration before the talk ended, although almost everyone did. (We interviewed Andy before this event.)

This was not a speech or a classroom teaching. Dara spoke so candidly about the absurdities of animal enterprise terrorism laws that even the law students had to start laughing with her. Andy spoke so painfully earnestly to everyone that few had dry eyes by the end of the talk. No one walked away depressed, though, as the duo were determined to show everyone exactly how much potential we all have to effect positive change, despite how much money and effort the animal enterprises dump into making us feel powerless and small.

Dara, the lawyer, spoke first. And the takeaway of her talk wasn't "the history and overview of AETA," but rather just how impressively unconstitutional the AETA is, and how it managed to be drafted anyway. She explained very frankly how a series of unconscionably illegal laws culminating in AETA were pulled over everyone's eyes through passionately written passages. Passages about how animal activists victimize dying people who can only get a cure through animal testing. Passages that literally say that we owe so much of our lives to the selfless people in charge of the factory farm industry. And she put us face to face with how so many of our senators and policymakers are CEO's and beneficiaries of devastating animal enterprises.

Andy Stepanian is one of six activists known as the SHAC 7 who were convicted under the federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act for their involvement in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign in the U.S. SHAC's target was the notorious animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), which uses roughly 70,000 animals per year for product-testing. The strategic campaign effectively threatened the financial stability of one of the world's most profitable research laboratories, which brought it to the attention of the federal government. The FBI launched an intense investigation that landed six activists in federal court, accused of charges of conspiracy. As a result, more aggressive legislation specifically targeting animal activism, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, was passed in 2006 to safeguard animal enterprises in the future.

While no living creature was harmed by their actions, the U.S. SHAC activists were sentenced to one to six years in federal prison. To date, all but one defendant have been released. Lauren Gazzola was released to a halfway house last Wednesday. Kevin Kjonaas remains incarcerated. Their case is currently under appeal.

Andy was released a year ago and now works as a publicist. He will be giving a rare public talk about his personal experience this coming Tuesday at NYU, "Muzzling A Movement: Free Speech, Animal Protection and Terrorism Prosecutions," with the author Dara Lovitz. Cat Clyne caught up with Andy at Atlas Cafe to check in on how he's been doing and what he's been up to.

In a nutshell, what is next Tuesday's talk about?
Muzzling a Movement is a new book by Dara Lovitz coming out by Lantern Books in September. It covers the breadth of how laws have failed animals. On the prosecutorial end, laws are failing animals in the sense that animal welfare groups that are trying to prosecute animal abusers are facing increased opposition. Laws are also failing animals in the sense that new "designer" legislation is being passed to directly combat animal activism.

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


Hey Tod!  I just watched the video of Pete Bethune entering the Shonan Maru #2. Very bold!  Boarding was the one thing he could do so that the Shonan wouldn't get away with the attempted murder of him and his crew.  He originally wanted to board when the New Zealand and Australian governments didn't do anything after the Shonan sunk the Ady Gil.  Pete went for one daylight boarding attempt from our small boat, but it was too dangerous in the small boat with the anti-boarding spikes.  But he's one intensely determined guy. He stayed on the Bob Barker until we met up with the Steve Irwin.  Then he went all the way back to Australia, only to leave the safety of home, his wife and kids, to come back to the Southern Ocean and do a dangerous nighttime boarding of the Shonan.

It was definitely dangerous.  He went on a jet ski with two other people - a driver and a camera person.  Then he had to balance on the jet ski, avoid the spikes, and cut the anti-boarding net - all in the dark at 14 knots! That's pretty fast.  Unfortunately, there's no video of the actual boarding. There was a camera person on the jet ski, but apparently it was too hard to get the shot in the dark while staying on the jet ski.

The Sea Shepherd fleet has been chasing the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica for about a month now, continually fighting off attacks from the harpoon vessel the Shonan Maru No. 2. Yesterday revealed quite a bit about the players on both sides of the conflict.

The Japanese harpoon ship Shonan Maru No. 2 rammed the tiny Sea Shepherd vessel Ady Gil. The attack ripped about eight feet of the Ady Gil's bow completely off the ship. The Ady Gil is sinking and will, most likely, be unsalvageable. As the Ady Gil lurched during the ramming and the crew struggled to keep from falling overboard, the Shonan Maru No. 2 fired high-powered water cannons at the teetering Sea Shepherd members while shooting their LRAD at the Ady Gil. View video of the attack here.

At first the Japanese did not acknowledge the Ady Gil's post-attack distress signal. The Nisshin Maru finally acknowledged the signal without offering assistance to the ship sinking in Antarctica.

This behavior is getting a bit lethal for even the Japanese Antarctic crew. Even when they chucked grenades at my friends and I on the Steve Irwin two years ago, they weren't quite so brazen about trying to cause fatalities. New attacks like these suggest they're more malevolent towards humans than even we thought.

Luckily, the Japanese didn't know that Sea Shepherd has secretly acquired a third ship for the fleet this year, which has now caught up with the Japanese fleet and rescued the six crew members of the sinking Ady Gil. I'm personally quite glad my friends are now safe and not sinking alone in Antarctica.

Perhaps understandably, the people of Australia are a tad annoyed that their federal government is letting the Japanese sink a ship full of Australians with impunity.

The Australian people and the Green Party of Australia have been wonderful, level-headed supporters of Sea Shepherd, and we think they have a right to be miffed about the Australian aid given to the Japanese whalers to help them attack Australians.

Update: This post at first stated that the Ady Gil wasn't moving when the Shonan Maru No. 2 rammed and dragged the Ady's bow before ripping it off. I since removed that statement because the debate of "was it moving?" became everyone's sole focus of the attack. I'm keeping that statement off since the rest of the post seems to go unread if that statement is in, even though I stand by Captain Chuck Swift. But in case people are still curious to see if the Shonan Maru No. 2 actually did swerve to hit the Ady, here's video of the ramming from the point of view of the vessel the Bob Barker.

Japan has released its 2009 cetacean research findings after killing dozens of whales for the study. Japan, which asserts that it must conduct fatal whaling for necessary scientific research, killed 59 Minke whales off its coast this year for the scientific program. And the conclusion of this year's Japanese whaling program is that whales eat krill.

Because no one in Japan's scientific community knew that or asked anyone else on earth.

It is, however, arguable whether or not this year's findings have more scientific merit than Japan's 2008 whaling research findings. In 2008, Japan announced - after stating it had to kill hundreds of whales for this research - that injecting dead whale sperm into a cow egg does not result in a half-whale-half-cow monster creature.