Have you heard a dog or cat barking or crying in the house for sale next door or the yard across the street? Seen no sign of the neighbors? Then call your nearest animal shelter and have it investigated -- because the animal may have been abandoned along with the house. Sound unbelievable? Sadly, it's not. Keep reading to learn more.

We all know the housing market has imploded. People are losing their homes left and right, and a lot of the time it's not their fault -- they've been taken advantage of by predatory lending practices and outright lies. And while we can say all we want that people should know better, the fact of the matter is that they don't -- and until we teach kids early on how to manage money (something that's sadly lacking in most of our schools, BTW), and make sure that adults know enough to be savvy consumers, this won't change.

Oh, and there's that little matter of Congress having given the financial industry everything it asked for when it came calling for a tightening of the rules on personal bankruptcy -- after decades of pushing credit cards with usurious interest rates. So now it's even harder for people to get out of bad situations, now that the market is fluctuating and jobs are disappearing by the thousands once again. Many people were already living paycheck to paycheck, with one illness or a divorce or job loss being enough to send them over the edge into desperation and destitution. If they have little or no equity, or if the house is now worth less than the mortgage they're paying on it, sometimes they feel their only alternative is to walk away from the house -- just abandon it and go elsewhere, hoping to find a better life.

Obviously I'm pretty steamed about all that. But you're probably thinking, well, when am I going to get back to talking about pets and animals? Right now.

I read a news item about this back in December, and thought it was dreadful -- and then a second news item showed up yesterday. People who are losing their homes in the subprime mortgage crisis are abandoning their pets. Just walking away from the house, often leaving their pets locked in closets inside to starve to death where no one can hear their cries for help.

You can read about it here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080125/ts_alt_afp/uspropertyfinanceanimal

The original story I saw was here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/realestatenews/ci_7787218..>..>..>..>..>..>This is compounding tragedy with tragedy. Sure, it's a horrible thing to lose your home, and people who are losing their homes are in deep trouble. But pets are becoming the helpless victims of a bad situation, as people just abandon them along with the house. They don't need to take out their losses on their pets.

Shelters are having trouble keeping up with the additional animals, but there are ways you can help.

First, give money if you can. Donate to shelters. Find a group that's trying to help these abandoned animals that are as much victims of the economy as their former owners, and do whatever you can to help -- if not money, then supplies or labor.

Second, if you know someone who's in a tight spot, offer to keep their pet for a while. Or offer to sponsor the pet at a kennel or vet's, if possible. It will help them and their pet, and you will have solved a huge problem for them. Maybe they had no idea where to turn for help.

Third, volunteer at your local shelter or rescue group. If you help, it frees up other people to help these animals.

Fourth, talk to your neighbors. If they're in financial trouble, ask them what their plans are for the family pet. Do your best to give them suggestions that will help. Offer any assistance you can. Sometimes you may know someone else who'd love to adopt their pet -- or keep it till they're back on their feet.

Fifth, keep alert within your neighborhood. If you hear an animal crying or howling, if you see a For Sale sign in front of the house, if there's an animal confined in the back yard with no human presence (think pet rabbits kept in a backyard hutch), or if there's a dog or cat wandering the streets and raiding garbage cans, call the local shelter or humane or rescue group and have it investigated. If you see that a house is suddenly unoccupied and know that they had a pet, ask authorities to check and be sure that the animal hasn't been left behind.

Don't let pets pay the price of a lost home. You could save a life.

Those of you familiar with my work know that I've taken on animal causes and environmental ones as special interests. Well, I've done it again, joining Parade Magazine's America's Giving Challenge. I've signed up to solicit enough donations to buy 100 acres of Australian rainforest to save it from destruction and habitat loss.

The 100 charities receiving the most donations will get $!,000; the one person getting the most donations on behalf of their chosen charity will win $50,000 for that charity. That would go a long way toward buying 100 acres! Please, won't you help me save 100 acres from development by going to http://www.leebarwood.com and making a donation? Every little bit counts, and I'll be grateful for any donations and anything you can do to spread the word!

The Challenge only runs through January 31, so there's not much time left. Please join me in saving 100 acres of rainforest -- we won't know what we've lost till it's gone, but I'm doing my best to make sure that we won't lose this!

Lee

Okay, I've been very remiss in blogging the last couple of months -- too much work, too few hours, but lots of things going on.

I've been working on my new novel, but I've also been doing a lot of thinking about the state of the Earth and the country. This being the last day of 2007, it seems as good a time as any to post my wishes for 2008 -- for the planet, for my readers, for the creatures of the Earth, and for myself.

For the planet:
May we come to our senses as a species and realize that the Earth's resources are limited. May we treat her wonders and her creatures with reverence and respect, and may we all do our share to lower the fever of global warming -- as quickly as possible. May we plant new trees, protect old ones, care for whatever part of the Earth's resources we can by lightening our footprints, and realize that the time for us to do all these things is now.

For my readers:
May you all have enough -- enough food, enough money, enough of whatever it is you need -- and may you all share any surplus so that others, too, may have enough. May you all find peace and joy in everything around you, and never lose sight of the wonder and magic of the Earth and its creatures.

For the creatures of the Earth:
May mankind realize that other lives than human have value beyond what we choose to grant them. May humans understand at last that animals are here for their own purposes, not for ours, and may we treat all species with respect, kindness, and love. May we remember that there is no glory in cruelty, nor shame in gentleness. And may all creatures find humans willing to live in harmony with them, instead of in authority over them.

For myself:
May I do something each day to help the Earth and its beings -- human and animal -- and may I remember to be kind, to be tolerant, and to be loving. May my words make a difference, and may my deeds make a bigger one.

May 2008 finally be the year in which we realize that we are all one -- that no matter what our differences, we are all human beings who share many common goals and needs. May we look at our commonalities with greater attention than our differences, and may we look upon our differences with more tolerance and understanding. 

May corporations develop consciences -- and if they don't, may people instill them within their corporate workings, so that it's no longer acceptable for a business to go overseas to despoil another nation's natural resources and impoverish its population to enrich itself and its stockholders. May corporations have to pay their fair share, and may that include the true cost of using precious and limited resources.

And may we leave fear and hatred behind, and seek love and understanding.

How many horse races have to be run in which horses are euthanized before the public wakes up and realizes that racing is a "sport" whose time has passed?

Jockeys are injured, sometimes killed. But they can evaluate the risks and decide whether this is how they want to make their livelihood. They can change careers. The horses have no choice. Jockeys also heal better. If they break a leg, they'll be out of commission for a while -- not euthanized. A broken leg is a death sentence for a horse.

Horses are killed far more frequently than makes the news. In yesterday's Breeder's Cup, a European horse named George Washington shattered his right front leg and had to be euthanized right there on the track. A screen was put up so that viewers wouldn't have to watch. Heaven forbid that people should have to watch the outcome of such a horrible injury -- it might upset their day.

It's not the first time, either -- last year's Breeder's Cup saw the death of Pine Island, and the career-ending injury of Fleet Indian in the Distaff. Last year also saw the death of Miss Pretty Promises, who had a particularly heartrending breakdown on the field (http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA052106.1A.dying.racehorses.7e1a7e5.html). And have we so quickly forgotten Barbaro, the gallant colt who gave his all to the Kentucky Derby in 2006, only to shatter his leg in the Preakness and be put down eight months later after extensive efforts to save his life? Older folks will remember Ruffian, the beautiful filly who died only hours after breaking down on the track years ago, despite surgeons' efforts to save her. She was the reason I stopped watching horse racing. What is the point if so many animals end up crippled or dead? Just so we can be amused for the afternoon, or make money on a bet?

What's truly tragic about yesterday's Breeder's Cup outcome is that George Washington was retired and put out to stud last year. When it was found that he had fertility problems, he was sent back out to run more races. No stud money, gotta have purse money. And he died for it.

Many experts say horses are run too early, too young, too long, too hard. They cite instances of drugs used to mask the pain of injuries, so that horses will keep running when they should be healing. They talk about breeding strategies that focus more on speed and endurance than bone strength and sturdiness. But the game goes on, fueled by corporate ownership of stables and the huge dollar amounts and status that come with the "mystique" of racing. Most race horses don't make money. They make pet food. Think about it.

What kind of sport is it that thinks it's okay to pit animals against one another when they might be permanently crippled or killed? It's no better than dogfighting. Too many horses are at risk. After Barbaro's very public ordeal, questions were asked about horses being bred to break down -- and whether it's time to end the sport. Personally, I think it's past time. I love watching horses run, but only under their own terms -- not at the behest of man.

Did you know that about 800 racehorses die every year from track injuries? Over 3500 more will be hurt so badly they don't finish their races. Injuries include broken legs, torn ligaments and tendons, spine injuries, broken pelvises, heart attacks, exhaustion, hemorrhaging in the lungs, broken backs, broken necks. They're addicted to drugs -- given to mask pain, enhance performance, and stop that bleeding in the lungs. Can't let 'em stop running. Sending them out to pasture is too expensive -- their care can cost as much as $50,000 a year.

If they win, that's no guarantee they'll be treated well. Alydar, second finisher in all three Triple Crown races in 1978, was found by the FBI to have sustained the broken leg that led to his euthanization from having that leg tied to a pickup truck (check out http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/act-c-stophorseracing-fs-1.html ). Ferdinand, who won the Derby and was 1987's Horse of the Year, ended up on Japanese dinner tables. Exceller was a million-dollar horse inducted into the National Racing Museum's Hall of Fame. He ended up in a Swedish slaughterhouse. There isn't even a central database to track statistics on how many racehorses end up dead after a race or after retirement.

And the ones who don't win? Sent to the slaughterhouse. That's another scandal. Now that we've finally managed to shut down slaughterhouses that "process" horses for meat to be exported, the horses themselves are exported -- trucked, without food or water, sometimes for tremendously long distances, to slaughterhouses in Mexico where the methods used to kill them are positively barbaric. And that's if they survive the trip -- horses are hard to transport and many are injured on the way there. Put them down if they break a leg? Not a chance. Then they can't be sold for meat. So they're taken, suffering, to meet their ends in a particularly grisly manner. Check out the recent story in the Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5175642.html).

Is it so wrong to want humane treatment for animals that have done so much for man? That helped us settle a country, plant our farmlands, survive? Is it wrong to want to stop an institution that abuses animals in the pursuit of the almighty buck? I don't think so.

It's time to end horseracing.

When I was a kid, I remember my parents taking me to the circus. I remember the animals, mostly, but they never seemed happy. Afraid, mostly, or anxious, or even angry, but never happy. But circuses were much more accepted in those days, because our love of the exotic trumped our care for the creatures that lived dreadful existences, cooped up in cages and boxcars, trotted out to perform their tricks for a crowd of screaming humans, and then locked up again to be railroaded or trucked to their next destination -- where they'd get to do it all again, to the tune of whips and shouts and screams of excitement from the audience.

Doesn't sound like much fun, does it? These days we know better -- or we should.

And today, in light of all the undercover investigations that have shown mistreatment of animals from elephants on down, I have to say that I would never attend another circus -- unless it was animal-free.

My town brings in a circus every year to raise funds. I'm ashamed of that, and ashamed that they can't think of a better activity to finance town functions than taking money from people to go watch animals being compelled to do things they would never do in nature. There are so many other, better ways to raise money, to get people together, than to gawk at animals that have no life other than in a cage, being transported from place to place to place. And what does that teach children about being kind, and considerate, and caring, when we dismiss the welfare of beings we've forced to be dependent on ourselves? What does that teach children about respecting the weak, and the ill, and the helpless? Not much.

I don't go to the circus, and I tell everyone I know to stay away from it. I'm sure this does not make me popular.

But until there are no animals behind bars in the circus, until there are no more elephants being paraded and big cats being threatened with whips and chairs, no more animals leaping through rings of flame and dogs riding on the backs of horses, I will not go to the circus and I will not support any town, or activity, that encourages this.

I urge you to do the same.

Yesterday there was a very sad news article in the Independent (see

http://environment.independent.co.uk/wildlife/article2843953.ece

). The baiji, or white-fin dolphin, that lived in the Yangtze River of China and had lived on this planet for 20 million years, has been officially driven into extinction. The baiji, also known as the goddess of the Yangtze, had been failing in numbers and finally Chinese officials took action and set aside a lake in Hubei province where they could attempt a captive breeding program to keep these freshwater dolphins going.

But they waited too long.

In all the 6,300 kilometers of the Yangtze's length, scientists could not find one single dolphin left alive. Hardly surprising, considering that on that expedition to find the baiji, scientists found instead 19,830 ships -- one every 800 meters, to put it into scale.

The baiji suffered from noise -- they used sonar, rather than vision, to navigate the waters of the Yangtze, and the noise of so many ships drowned it out -- and from abuse. Rammed by propellers, gashed by fishhooks, snared in nets, and sickened by pollution of their river home, they didn't have a chance. Add to that the fact that their food source was decimated by the Three Gorges Dam project, which has caused so much other destruction, and it's hardly surprising.

Perhaps it's best for the baiji -- after all, what sort of life would it be, dodging propellers and hooks and nets, breathing in swill, subsisting on a starvation diet, and constantly bombarded with noise? But it is certainly the worse for us.

The baiji is only the fourth major species to go extinct in the last 500 years, according to the Independent article. Around 1500, black rats inadvertently brought by European explorers wiped out the island shrew, which was native to the West Indies. It was an "entire mammalian order," and it's gone.

Then there was the giant lemur of Madagascar, which succumbed to man's hunting practices around 1650. They were as big as men -- up to 180 pounds -- but man took them out.

And the most recent, until the baiji, was the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine. The last known living specimen died in a Hobart zoo in 1936. A marsupial, it too was killed by men who "feared it and killed it whenever they could." It was a beautiful creature, the thylacine, and didn't deserve to be driven from the planet any more than any of the other creatures man has wiped out through hunting, fishing, pollution, or simple ignorance. The world is becoming a narrower,poorer place, because we fail to realize that what we do matters to more than just us humans.

If you'd like to read a wonderful children's book about the Tasmanian tiger -- and what might happen if it survived, unknown to the world at large -- get Kangaroo Dog, by Marlies Bugman (www.zumayapublications.com). The story is a sympathetic look at a small boy who finds a wild thylacine near his Tasmanian home, and what happens when his family must decide what to do about the encounter. It is exceptionally well-written, illustrated with beautiful black and white pictures, and offers a different viewpoint of how man ought to interact with his animal neighbors. I mentioned this book in my newsletter The Beat of Gaia's Heart just the other day, and I'll be reviewing it next month. Watch for it. The author has several other books out and I'll be taking a look at those too. Disclaimer: I have no connection to the book, the publisher, or the author -- I just like good writing.

If we don't change our attitudes toward the animals we live with on this planet, the world will soon be a very lonely, barren place.

Hosted By: Clearwater Festival
When: Saturday Aug 18, 2007
at 11:00 AM
Where: Sunset Park
Main Street & Sunset Avenue
Asbury Park, NJ 07712
United States
Description:
Clearwater Festival

Click Here To View Event

Sadly, I will not be in town that weekend -- I'll be doing my part for the Australian Wildlife Hospital up in Binghamton, NY -- but this is one beach bash everyone should go to. If you're not in Binghamton with me, head for the Jersey Shore and clear the waters!

There's a fascinating article in today's New York Times (check out 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/weekinreview/05kolata.html

) that talks about the research behind the "obesity is contagious" article that hit the news last week. You may have seen it on the news or on the Web -- the idea that if your friend gains weight, you and all your friend's friends are more likely to gain weight too. Apparently the study behind the theory extends credibility to the "infectiousness" of social behavior: if you or your friends start eating more, or, conversely, following a healthier lifestyle, that change begins to affect those in your circle who haven't been doing that.

The research found that former smokers' social relationships gradually evolved so that links to still-smoking friends were severed; those still smoking were involved in fewer and fewer social relationships. Scientists began to question whether depression worked the same way, and found in another study that in teenage girls some friendships indeed were more conducive to the potential for suicide.

What if people made a concerted effort to turn that around? What if we could make humane behavior contagious -- if we could, by changing our own behavior toward animals and toward other people, generate a change that would spread out in waves to better the treatment our friends give their other friends, and their pets, and any creatures with whom (and I use the word whom deliberately) they come in contact?

Think of the effect that one dynamic person can have on a group of people. Take Steve Irwin, for instance. Consider the huge effect he had on people's attitudes toward animals. He alone stimulated a change in the way people looked at the other species with whom we share this planet.

Curious? Want to experiment? Give it a try. Think of one way you could be kinder to animals. Focus on it. Make it a point to engage in that behavior every day. Talk to your friends about it. And then observe. The worst that will happen is that your pets will love you more and your friends may think you're kooky. The best that could happen is that the effect spreads, with everyone being a little kinder to everyone and everything else, and who knows where that could lead?

Wouldn't it be wonderful if it worked?

On July 31, ABC News ran a health feature about the importance of cancer screening. The premise of the article was not only how important it was for people to be tested, specifically women, specifically by having mammograms, but that the number of women having mammograms had dropped considerably.

ABC, you missed the boat. Instead of taking the initiative on the research you cited that women were finding it harder to get mammograms because many mammogram centers were closing due to low government and insurance reimbursements, and because so many women are uninsured, you ended the clip with a statement to the effect that women "should" get screened for cancer and lamenting the fact that many don't.

You had just made the point that many women couldn't afford to, or had no access to a screening center. Don't place the blame on women for failing to get a procedure that is either unaffordable for them or inaccessible to them -- go out and get the story on WHY mammogram reimbursement is so low, on HOW MANY centers have closed, on HOW MANY women now do without screening because of this, and on HOW MUCH mammograms cost to the uninsured.

Another example of "journalism lite" -- you had a real story there, and you blew it. Thousands of women would have been grateful had you followed through and made a story out of the facts of the case, instead of  making it sound as if women were being casually irresponsible about their health.