Sunday, June 30, 2013

Waifs of the Week - June 24, 2013 These pets are available for adoption today through Wayside Waifs.


Waifs of the Week - June 24, 2013
These pets are available for adoption today through Wayside Waifs.
Wilma is a wonderful dog! You'll fall in love with Layla! Meet sweet Sam!
Wilma
11 months
Female
Basset Hound
Hi everyone! I'm Wilma, an 11 month, 35 lb. Bassett Hound who hopes to have a family to call my own soon. I came to Wayside as a stray and, boy, was I glad to have someone take me in and care for me!
Being such a young dog, I don't have many life skills to survive on my own! While I was very timid and scared when I first got here, I've blossomed into quite the social butterfly.
I'm a friendly, sweet-natured and fun-loving dog who likes going on walks and hanging out with my human friends here at Wayside. I love being around people and have this cute (and very effective) way of snuggling up to my human friends when they're sitting on the couch, looking up at them with this adoring expression and - presto!-I'm rewarded with lots of petting and ear-scratching.
Being a young dog, I still have lots of puppy-like playfulness and energy, and so ideally my adoptive family will provide a moderate level of activity for me and some obedience training. I'm pretty friendly around other dogs, but if you have any canine members in your family you should bring them in so we can meet - just to make sure it's a good fit.
Oh, and I'm also okay with cats! One of the staff members here at Wayside took me to her home for a little outing, and she said I liked her cats. So if you're looking for a happy-go-lucky, friendly dog please come to Wayside soon so we can meet.
Love, Wilma
Adoption fee: $130
Layla
3 years / 6 months
Female  
Domestic Medium Hair
What'll you do when you get lonely, and nobody's waitin' by your side? Adopt a kitty, preferably me! Hello there. My name is Layla, just like the classic rock song. Eric Clapton wrote "Layla" about a beautiful woman and, as you can see from my picture, I'm quite the looker myself.
I'm a gorgeous, petite, long haired calico with super soft, luxurious fur. I was found as a stray, so I'm very thankful to be safe and cool here at Wayside, waiting for my forever man or woman to walk in here and fall in love with me.
People here at Wayside describe me as friendly, sweet, confident, loving and affectionate. I love being petted, especially scratches on my head. My Felineality is Personal Assistant. That means I'm a people-oriented cat who is medium brave in new situations. When we're at home together, I will want to be with you, helping you with all your household tasks, whether it's folding laundry, cooking dinner or working on the computer.
If you're looking for a pretty feline friend to put a song in your heart, come to Wayside and meet me, Layla!
Love, Layla
Adoption fee: $50
Sam
5 years
Male
Chihuahua
Please let me introduce myself: I am Sam, I am. And I am an adorable, lovable, cuddle-able mix of short-coat Chihuahua and Beagle, two breeds that blend together to make me and I'm just as unique as I can be (a Chihuahua and Beagle with the regal face of our canine's superhero, Rin-Tin-Tin).
I'm a perfect sized medium (23 pounds of me) and I'm at that perfect age (five) where I've settled into my personality and you know who I am (sweet, sweet Sam, I am).
I'm mostly tan with a sprinkling of dark color around my face and eyebrows-and you've got to look into these soulful eyes and see my distinctly marked, always-pondering "eyebrows." I've been called a "Teddy bear," although I'm not sure what that means. I want to please so I hope it's good!
I do know that I adore people and I love to be petted under my chin, on the tippy top of my head, over my ears, down my back-you could pet me until the cows come home-or until you decide that you like green eggs and ham.
I adore ear-scratching sessions, mine, of course. I thought I'd let you know that these are my favorite ways to be with you (although I would never be pushy about it! (1) standing next to you and leaning, oh, so gently in, (2) sitting next to you and leaning, oh, so gently in, and (3) laying next to you, while you're sitting and doing whatever appeals to you. Whatever it is, it appeals to me.
I'm an inquisitive, curious boy and I like to explore with you, sniffing the smells and taking in the sights. I came from another shelter quite a ways away because they ran out of room and Wayside took me in. I haven't been here long and I've already made lots of friends.
I don't know where I was before the other shelter brought me here but something might have caused me to be slightly afraid (for now) of loud noises and quick movements, nothing out of line but I would probably be better in a home with no children under five.
I can't wait to meet everyone in your family so I can show you what a precious boy I am. I'm a lovable, huggable, sweet guy with a huge heart. If you want a loyal companion who would follow you to the ends of the earth, I'm here waiting for you.
Love, Sam
Adoption fee: $130
Adoption Specials Going On Now!

Don't fur-get about our grr-eat adoption specials all summer long at Wayside Waifs! From now until August 31, 3013, all longterm (30+ days in shelter), senior (7 years and older) and black animals are 1/2 price! Find your new best friend today!  #100KChallenge

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Black Veil Brides Announce Monster Energy Outbreak Tour/Harddrive Live Tour with Bullet For My Valentine

Black Veil Brides Announce Monster Energy Outbreak Tour/Harddrive Live Tour with Bullet For My Valentine

| Jun 24, 2013 | 0 Comments and 0 Reactions | Tags: ,

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Los Angeles-based hard rockers Black Veil Brides have just been announced as part of the upcoming Monster Energy Outbreak Tour/HardDrive Live Tour that will be pulling in to cities this Fall. The tour will be kicking off on September 28th in Los Angeles at Club Nokia and will run through early November. Currently, the trek is scheduled to wrap up in Portland, ME on November 3rd with more dates to be announced in the future. Joining Black Veil Brides on the tour are the Welsh headliners Bullet For My Valentine and other acts yet to be named.
“This is hands down going to be one of our best tours ever.  We can’t wait to see our fans out in force and show Bullet For My Valentine what the BVB Army is all about,” states frontman Andy Bersack.  “Black Veil Brides are excited to be a part of this one.”
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96,000 Jeep Liberty Strollers Recalled

96,000 Jeep Liberty Strollers Recalled


Heads up, moms! Kolcraft has recalled 96,000 Jeep Liberty strollers because the inner tubes in the tires can rupture and cause the wheel rim to fracture and fly off, Today reports.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says at least 18 people have been injured by the tire blowouts — including two children standing near the strollers — resulting in cuts and bruises to the arms, legs, torso, head, or face. The recalled strollers were sold at Burlington Coat Factory, Sears, Toys "R" Us, and children's speciality stores online from June 2010 through June 2013, the news agency reports.
To find out which models have been recalled and how to get replacement wheels, read the whole story at Today.
Source: Today
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“Faux” Fur is Often Real Fur from Real Animals. Don’t Buy It.

“Faux” Fur is Often Real Fur from Real Animals. Don’t Buy It.

“Faux” Fur is Often Real Fur from Real Animals. Don’t Buy It.
Are you opposed to wearing fur? It will be an unwelcome surprise, then, to learn  that you may have some hanging in your closet.
“Fur is back in a big way,” Jezebel has announced. Winter coats sport fur trim around the hoods, but that is just the beginning. Jezebel says that designer houses’ shows previewing their fall lines were heavy on fur, including those of BCBG Max Azria, Caroline Herrera, Ralph Lauren and J. Mendel.
Sadly it looks like time to break out the red paint again. But how can we distinguish between real and fake fur coats, and between people who knowingly bought real fur and people who thought their fur was fake?
People who oppose fur buy it accidentally because some clothing manufacturers and sellers are mislabeling it as “faux fur.” Much of it is from raccoon dogs (see the picture above). Both manufacturers and sellers know that Americans are less likely to buy fur if they think it came from a dog or cat, so they say it didn’t.
The fur of rabbits and other animals also winds up mislabeled as faux fur, perhaps because manufacturers realize that there is widespread opposition to using animals for fur and want to capture more customers than they could if they admitted the fur was real. I can’t think of any other reason businesses would mislabel clothing, especially since their inaccurate labels violate federal law.
An investigation into New York City’s popular discount department store Century 21 revealed real furs masquerading as fake both in the store and online. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and New York Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal conducted an undercover probe and discovered that garments with real fur lining and others with real fur trim were labeled as faux fur or were not labeled at all.
HSUS then went online and bought three Marc Jacobs jackets from Century 21′s website, which described the garments as having fake fur trim. When the jackets arrived, lo and behold — they carried labels stating that the trim was real fur from China. HSUS had the trim on one of the jackets examined and confirmed that it came from a raccoon dog. Under New York law both manufacturers and retailers are liable for mislabeled fur according to Rosenthal, who wrote the 2007 legislation.
Woody Harrelson narrates a video for HSUS that gives some very basic facts about how living animals are turned into fur products — don’t worry, they use a stuffed animal for demonstration purposes, no images of violence to real animals:
Video courtesy of HSUS
China is the largest source of fur in the world. Fur farmers there strangle, bludgeon, and electrocute some of the animals to death — the lucky ones. The rest are skinned alive, as described in the following graphic video, narrated by Olivia Munn.
Warning: this video contains disturbing images of cruelty to animals.

Video courtesy of PETA
The only way to be sure you are not buying real fur is not to buy anything represented as faux fur either. If you think you have found an instance of mislabeling, contact HSUS.
Take Action: Sign the petition against mislabeling faux fur.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/faux-fur-is-often-real-fur-from-real-animals-dont-buy-it.html#ixzz2XjtVpjWi
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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Rat Poison Manufacturer Challenges EPA Ban of d-CON Product

Reckitt Benckiser wants to keep selling product despite risks to children and wildlife
March 7, 2013
Washington, D.C. — 
On January 29, 2013, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was cancelling registration of a dozen d-CoON Mouse and Rat Control poisons based on the risk that they pose to children and non-target wildlife like bobcats, raptors, and foxes. On Wednesday, March 6, D-Con manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser filed a challenge of EPA's decision in an effort to keep these dangerous poisons available on the U.S. market. This is the first such industry challenge to a decision by EPA to cancel a pesticide based on harm to the environment in more than 20 years.
Gray fox suffering from rodenticide poisoning. (Courtesy of WildCare by Melanie Piazza)
Gray fox suffering from rodenticide poisoning.
(Courtesy of WildCare by Melanie Piazza)
The public interest law firm Earthjustice is reviewing Reckitt’s challenge and may seek to intervene in the Reckitt action to help defend EPA’s cancellation decision. The matter will be heard by an Administrative Law Judge with EPA in Washington, D.C.
Earthjustice is also currently representing a number of groups in a challenge to many of these same rodenticides in California. Earthjustice filed comments with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation opposing continued permitted use on d-CON and other “second-generation anticoagulant” rodenticides in California on December 7, 2012. In response to those comments, California is expected to propose significant restrictions on all second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in April.
Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who is helping to lead the California challenge, had this comment in reaction to the latest development:
“Reckitt Benckiser’s goal is to keep pushing products that are poisoning our children and decimating our wildlife, despite the fact that many safe alternatives for controlling pests exist. We’re not going to sit back and let Reckitt put corporate profit over public welfare.
“The health and environmental advocates who fought to remove this dangerous poison from the market will also meet this new challenge to make sure that the EPA ban is upheld.”

Contact:
Greg Loarie, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2000
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NAACP, Medical, Public Health and Environmental Groups Urge Court to Uphold Clean Air Safeguards

Allied groups support cleaning up toxic emissions from power plants
February 22, 2013
Washington, D.C. — 
Eighteen national and state medical, public health, civil rights, environmental, and clean air groups filed a brief late Thursday with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals defending the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) against industry lawsuits aimed at dismantling those rules, and blocking long-overdue reductions in highly toxic air pollutants including mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and acid gases from existing coal- and oil-fired power plants.
Soot. (Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice)
Coal- and oil-fired power plants are the largest industrial source of air toxics; power plants account for approximately half of all the nation’s mercury emissions.
(Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice)
The groups assert the lawsuit has no basis, and should be dismissed. Under the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act, these standards already were more than a decade overdue when the EPA finalized them in December 2011 and are based on successful control measures already in place in many plants.
“With elevated rates of lung cancer, asthma hospitalizations and deaths, mercury poisoning from subsistence fishing and more, for African Americans the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards provide lifesaving protection from the myriad life-sapping toxic chemicals we have been exposed to for decades since we bear the brunt of living near coal fired power plants,” said Jacqui Patterson Director, Environmental and Climate Justice Program for NAACP. “The NAACP’s civil and human rights mission compels us to stand behind the EPA and make sure this rule is upheld as a mechanism for protecting the rights of communities to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live on uncontaminated land.”
The NAACP has highlighted the civil rights issues related to clean air, citing the fact that 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant. Also, an African American family making $50,000 per year is more likely to live next to a toxic facility than a white American family making $15,000 per year.
“Power plants spew corrosive acid gases, carcinogens like formaldehyde, and toxic metals—a long list of hazards that rain down on nearby communities or travel miles downwind,” said Janice Nolen, Assistant Vice President, National Policy, for the American Lung Association. “We need these standards to protect not only our children, but older adults, people with lung disease, heart disease, or diabetes, and the poor from toxic air pollution. They cannot protect themselves.”
Coal- and oil-fired power plants are the largest industrial source of air toxics, annually emitting more than 386,000 tons of 84 separate toxics, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel, selenium, acid gases, and mercury. Even in small doses these pollutants cause serious, often irreversible risks of cancer, birth defects, neurodevelopmental problems in children, and chronic and acute health disorders to people’s respiratory and central nervous systems including nerve and organ damage. They also cause serious harms to wildlife, including reproductive and behavioral disorders, and to ecosystems, including acidification of our nation’s waterways.
Power plants account for approximately half of all the nation’s mercury emissions. Many waters with mercury-based fish consumption advisories have no identifiable source of mercury other than airborne emissions, and many of these waters supply food to subsistence fishermen who have no other alternative but to eat contaminated fish, thereby further harming an economically disadvantaged population. Mercury exposure threatens prenatal development, infants and young children. The EPA has estimated that every year, more than 300,000 newborns may face elevated risk of learning disabilities due to exposure to toxic forms of mercury in the womb. Mercury contamination in fish also causes serious damage to wildlife.
EPA’s MATS requirements will annually prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, nearly 5,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks. Additionally, the standards will help avoid more than 540,000 days when people have to miss work because of health problems associated with power plant pollution. These “sick” days diminish economic productivity and raise health care costs.
Attorneys for the Clean Air Task Force filed the brief Thursday on behalf of the coalition of public health and environmental organizations defending the MATS rule.
Groups submitting today’s legal arguments, and their counsel, are the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Lung Association, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility, (represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center); Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Clean Air Council, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Sierra Club (represented by Earthjustice), Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, Conservation Law Foundation, Environment America, Izaak Walton League of America, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Ohio Environmental Council (represented by the Clean Air Task Force), and the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Waterkeeper Alliance.
Read the brief.

Contact:
Raviya Ismail, Earthjustice, (202) 745-5221
Maggie Kao, Sierra Club, (202) 675-2384
Ben Wrobel, NAACP, (202) 292-3386
Tom Zolper, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, (443) 482-2066
Jay Duffy, Clean Air Council, (215) 567-4004, ext. 109
Mary Havell McGinty, American Lung Association, (202) 715-3459
Kathleen Sullivan, Southern Environmental Law Center, (919) 945-7106
John Walke, NRDC, (202) 289-2406
Sharyn Stein, Environmental Defense Fund, (202) 572-3396
Stuart C. Ross, Clean Air Task Force, (914) 649-5037

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Rare Release of Florida Panther Could Help Save Species

Rare Release of Florida Panther Could Help Save Species
Florida panthers were among the first to go on the Endangered Species List back in 1973 when there were as few as 20 remaining individuals. Today they are still in great peril with as few as 100-160 in the wild, but biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) successfully released one female Florida panther into the Picayune Strand State Forest recently with the hope that she will become a successful mom.

The female panther and her brother had been raised at the White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee since they were 5 months old. The FWC rescued the two as kittens after their mother was found dead.
“This panther is healthy and has grown to a size that should prepare her for life in the wild, ” said Darrel Land, FWC panther team leader. “The goal of any panther rescue is to be able to release the animal back into the wild to aid in the recovery of this endangered species.”

The male panther will also be released soon but in a different area which will be carefully chosen to avoid conflict with other territorial males.
“One of the causes of death is interspecies aggression and putting the young male panther in a territory with other males would put him at a disadvantage,” FWC spokesman Kevin Baxter explains.

Five other kittens of similar ages have been raised at White Oak and released in south Florida.
Brought to you by the Harmony Fund international animal rescue charity.
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Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/rare-release-of-florida-panther-could-help-save-species.html#ixzz2X2mRnl5h
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