Conclusion

This will be my last blog. I've had plenty of fun writing about this subject and I hope people have been inspired by my blog. I am a huge animal lover as you may have noticed. In this blog I'll just talk about some facts. 

In Canada, it is an offence under the Criminal Code to intentionally cause unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal.  It is also an offence to threaten to harm an animal belonging to someone else. Most provinces and Territories also have their own animal protection legislation. The Animal Legal Defense Fund releases an annual report ranking the animal protection laws of every province and territory based on their relative strength and general comprehensiveness. In 2014, the top four jurisdictions were Manitoba, British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. The worst four were Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Quebec, and Nunavut.

In reported animal cruelty cases, dogs are the most common victims of animal cruelty. Of 1,880 cruelty cases reported in the media in 2007:
64.5% (1,212) involved dogs
18% (337) involved cats
25% (470) involved other animals
Reported abuse against pit bull-type dogs appears to be on the rise. In 2000–2001, pit bull-type dogs were involved in 13% of reported dog-abuse cases; in 2007, they were involved in 25% of reported dog-abuse cases.

71% of pet-owning women entering women’s shelters reported that their batterer had injured, killed or threatened family pets for revenge or to psychologically control victims. 32% reported their children had hurt or killed animals. 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.

This fact isn't about cruelty bur it is interesting. 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.

To make a 40-inch fur coat it takes between 30 and 200 chinchilla or 60 mink, 50 sables, 50 muskrats, 45 opossums, 40 raccoons, 35 rabbits, 20 foxes, 20 otters, 18 lynx, 16 coyotes, 15 beavers, or 8 seals.

Shark fin soup is around $200 per serving, and the business kills 100 million sharks per year. Because it is not economically viable for fisherman to keep the whole shark, they just slice the fin off and throw the shark back into the ocean. Unable to swim, the shark sinks slowly to the bottom of the sea to die a slow death.

Like I've said before, animal cruelty is useless. It's mainly psychological and people should get help for it. More people should be reporting animal cruelty when they see it because these poor animals can't do it themselves. They can't ask for help so you have to be their voice. There are so many excuses used for animal cruelty but none are good enough. I hope to see less cruelty in the future. To make this possible we need more people to be the voice of these animals.

SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty_to_animals
http://www.americanhumane.org/interaction/support-the-bond/fact-sheets/animal-abuse-domestic-violence.html
http://facts.randomhistory.com/animal-cruelty-facts.html
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/facts/animal_cruelty_facts_statistics.html

Animals Used for clothing

Animals are used as resources to provide materials for our clothing. In the name of fashion, millions of animals are killed for the clothing industry every year. These clothes could come from fur farms or slaughterhouses. A large amount of suffering goes into every fur-trimmed jacket, leather belt, and wool sweater.

Wool:

Wool is an animal product which is widely consumed. Sheep produce only enough wool to protect themselves from the cold. Some people may not know this but wild sheep do not need shearing. However, domestic sheep today have been selectively bred to produce more wool than normal. This selective breeding has caused many illnesses, even deaths from overheating and fly strike. Sheep also experience pain during shearing. Many workers immobilize sheep during shearing in order to get all the wool from their bodies, ignoring any stress or injuries they suffer as a result.

Fur:

Fur production uses many furry animals, whether raised on fur farms or trapped in the wild. These animals are skinned for clothes. About 35 animals are killed and skinned to make a single coat and the fur industry currently kills around 30 million animals a year. Animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages. Fur farmers use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods available which includes suffocation, electrocution, gas, and poison. The use of fur is now commonly rejected due to public awareness of the misery suffered by animals on fur farms, and their cruel deaths.

Leather:

Every year, leather industries slaughters more than a billion animals and tans their skins and hides.
Many of these animals endure all the horrors of factory farming. This includes extreme crowding and confinement, deprivation, and anesthetized castration, branding, tail-docking, and dehorning (as well as cruel treatment during transport and slaughter). Most leather produced and sold is made from the skins of cattle and calves. But leather is also made from horses, sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs who are slaughtered for meat. Other animals that are hunted and killed specifically for their skins includes zebras, bison, water buffalo, boars, kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs, turtles, crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.

Alternatives and Pollution:

These days there are many clothes that aren't made from animals. There are products such as shoes,
jackets, sweaters and scarves made from synthetic materials or natural plant fibers such as cotton, hemp or linen. Also, synthetic materials are being recycled with companies now selling clothes made out of recycled plastic bottles. This is good considering how much pollution fur farms cause. For instance, each mink skinned by fur farmers produces about 44 pounds of feces in their lifetime. That adds up to 1 million pounds of feces produced annually by U.S. mink farms. One dangerous component of this waste is nearly 1,000 tons of phosphorus, which pollutes rivers and streams.

I think using animals for clothes is ridiculous. Back a long time ago it made sense because humans needed to protect themselves against the cold. Now a days that isn't a problem since we have heaters. We just use the animal's skin/fur/wool to "look good." There are alternative clothing that looks just as good as real animal clothing. I also find it sad that leather and wool productions aren't as frowned upon as fur. There are all just as cruel and they should all get equal amount of attention. Hopefully more people start turning to alternatives instead.

SOURCES: *MAY CONTAIN GRAPHIC CONTENT*
http://www.animalequality.net/clothing
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/fur/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/animals-used-clothing-factsheets/leather-animals-abused-killed-skins/

Movies That Allegedly Harmed Animals

I was inspired by Watchmojo's youtube video "Top 10 Movies that Allegedly Harmed Animals" to make this post. I will be talking about some of the movies mentioned in their video and I will leave their video at the end so you can watch. Be warned, it contains disturbing content. Two of the three movies I will talk about have been confirmed while the first is still unknown.

The Adventures of Milo and Otis

The Adventures of Milo and Otis is a Japanese adventure comedy-drama film about two animals, Milo (an orange tabby cat) and Otis (a fawn pug). It has a reworked English version that was released on August 25, 1989. When the film was first released, several Australian animal rights organizations raised allegations of animal cruelty during filming. The Sunday Mail alleged more than 20 kittens were killed during production and added that other animals had been injured. For example, a producer had allegedly broken a cat's paw to make it appear unsteady on its feet. Other scenes that were controversial were the scene of a kitten flying off a cliff and a scene of a pug fighting a bear. The film was reported to have the approval of the American Humane Society, but didn't have their officers present during filming. Many people have tried to research if any of this is true but their research always hits a dead end. I love this movie and I've watched it many times as a kid. It hurts to know that animals may have been hurt for our entertainment. I would be so happy when my mom put it in the VCR and now when I see it again I'll feel sad. I remember these scenes and I must say they look dangerous. Hopefully these allegations aren't true.

Here's at cute scene from the movie:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This movie is about Bilbo Baggins who lives a simple life with his fellow hobbits in the shire. All is good until the wizard Gandalf  arrives and convinces him to join a group of dwarves on a quest to reclaim the kingdom of Erebor. Sadly, it has been reported that many animals used in the film were harmed. They weren't treated badly on screen but off. There was the death of 27 animals. With the exception of a hobbled horse, all claims of animal injury and death are directly related to how the animals were housed and fed. The following occurred:

• A horse named Shanghai was hobbled (his legs were tied together so that he couldn't move) and left on the ground for three hours because he was too energetic for his rider.
• One horse was killed and another horse was injured after being placed with two highly strung geldings, despite concerns that the geldings would be too aggressive.
• Another horse was killed after falling off an embankment in a severely crowded paddock.
• When the horses were moved to the stables, another horse died after being fed large amounts of food that he wasn't used to. 
• Several goats and sheep died from worm infestations and from falling into the sink holes that covered the farm.
• Numerous chickens were mauled and killed by unsupervised dogs or trampled by other animals when left unprotected.

You would think that this being such a recent movie things would change. It is the most recent movie on their list but there are other recent movies that weren't on their list (*cough cough* .Life of Pi and Zookeeper). Many old movies were very harmful and shaped the laws of animals being treating in movies, so why is it still happening? This adds to the reasons why I won't be watching this movie. Who am I kidding? I won't watch it because I don't want to watch 3 full movies for a book that wasn't one of my favourite. :)

Ben-Hur 

Ben-Hur is the tale of an enslaved Jewish prince and his quest for revenge during Roman times. The chariot race scene in this 1925 movie is considered one of the most dangerous film shoots in history. In a quest for realism at the expense of life, the film recreated a full on chariot race. The scene was responsible for killing around 100 horses and even one stuntman. When an animal had a problem, instead of getting treatment from a vet they'd just shoot it instead. Even if they limped! Worst of all, most of the original footage never made it into the final movie. I find the things some people do for realistic scenes crazy. Sure we have it easier now a days with new technology but, was that movie even worth it? It didn't even have sound! I think it should have been left as a book.

I hope you enjoyed my blog and please don't feel the need to ignore these movies because of these events. Just know that some movies aren't just hard on the human actors but the four legged ones too.

Watchmojo's video *contains disturbing content* :

Bibliography: 
http://www.peta.org/features/hobbit-unexpected-cruelty/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Milo_and_Otis#Controversy_of_animal_cruelty_allegations
http://www.cracked.com/article_19548_the-5-most-horrifyingly-wasteful-film-shoots_p2.html