Friday, April 18, 2007

WAR Exhibits at Earth Day Festival

Bronx High School of Science

Animal rights and earth activists were once again well represented at the Bronx High School of Science annual Earth Day Festival. Although WAR distributed many copies of Why Vegan and Vegetarian Starter Kits, our focus was on the issue of animal testing, cruelty free living and promoting our upcoming World Lab Animal Liberation Week events.

Literature was distributed freely at the WAR table and a video of “The Truth” of what goes on inside Huntingdon Life Sciences was shown continuously. Students came back time and time again to bring friends over to see the undercover video footage. Many left with stickers about vivisection, veganism and cruelty to animals. It was gratifying to see so many stickers on student’s notebooks. Many pledged to become more active in the fight for animal rights.

Activists spoke to many students who are gearing towards careers in the “Sciences” about the inherent problems in using animal models to predict human responses. Many of these students are heading to Ivy League universities. We also discussed the issue of animal dissection and where the animals came from including the notorious CBSC (Carolina Biological Supply Company) which produces the large majority of animals used for classroom dissection.

Many students were unaware of the NY State law that guaranteed their right to choose a cruelty free alternative to dissection. As an added bonus, we were able to speak to teachers and administrators, in an effort to advocate for the proactive offering of alternatives to dissection.

As in years past, we found the student body to be interested and inquisitive. After conversations, many students signed up for the WAR e-mail action alert list. All in all, it was an excellent day of educational outreach and we are sure that we will see some of the students we met today at future WAR protests.