Peta Boycott Canadian Maple Syrup Tour

From July 6-10 I joined Peta for their Pennsylvania tour for the Boycott on Canadian Maple Syrup to bring an end to Canada's annual seal slaughter. We did four demonstrations in Scranton, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. The Scranton demo was rather quiet and had very little media coverage, probably due to the fact that it was raining right up until we started at noon and began raining again just after we finished. At the Pittsburgh demo the media was there right when we arrived. The Harrisburg demo had a couple different media sources and one additional activist came out to join us. Philadelphia was by far our best demo as we had four additional activists show up. We also had several media sources come to the demonstration including TV and radio anchors. The photo above is from our Pittsburgh demonstration. Jena and Michael were awesome and I really hope I get to do demos again with them in the future.

Overall I would say the demonstrations went really well and got better and better each day. One of the other great things about the tour was some of the awesome restaurants we got to try. We ate at Govinda's to go Vegetarian Restaurant in Philadelphia for lunch on both Monday and Friday. I had the Yellow Split Pea soup on Monday and the Red Bean Soup of the Day on Friday, both were delicious. On Tuesday we had lunch at Taco Bell which was an experience, but I got some sort of salad with beans. Tuesday night we ate at the Double Wide Grill in Pittsburgh which I was totally skeptical about because of the name, but they label everything that is vegetarian, vegan, and wheat free on their menu which is awesome. I got the Cal-i-forn-i-a Salad with no tomatoes or dressing. The salad had lettuce, avocado, red onions, portabella, grapes, pears, and sunflower seeds and was delicious! Wednesday we had Denny's for breakfast so I had grits and fruit salad. For lunch we stopped at Kiva Han in Pittsburgh and I got the hummus & veg sandwich without the bread and the house salad with no dressing or almonds. Kiva Han also labeled vegan items on their menu. For dinner we went to Miyako in Harrisburg which was a Japanese restaurant. I got the avocado roll and vegetable soba soup without the tofu. I had never tried soba soup before but have been meaning to since soba is gluten free and I really enjoyed it. Thursday night we at the the Black Olive in Philadelphia, and it is definitely my new favorite restaurant! Their entire menu is vegan, they don't fry anything, like only use sesame oil and olive oil and are willing to switch which oil they use or omit the oils on request. The staff was extremely friendly and encouraged me to ask questions, whereas most restaurants get annoyed with all my questions about ingredients. I got the Black Olive Gourmet Burger without the bun and tomato and with no dressing on the coleslaw. It was absolutely delicious! For dessert I got lemon sorbet and it was equally amazing! I definitely plan on going back the next time I'm in Philadelphia.

Olympic Shame Day

Last Tuesday, June 23, I organized an Olympic Shame Day Demo for the Canadian Seal Slaughter that was held at the Canadian Consulate in Philadelphia, PA. It was the first demo I've ever organized and it was a great experience! Peta sent me several posters and a stack of leaflets, and I made several posters as well. A fellow activist had told me that creating posters was like therapy to her, and I couldn't agree more. Ten activists showed up for the demonstration, and for the most part everyone was really receptive and willing to take leaflets and even talk to us about the cause, which was awesome. I'm doing a tour through Pennsylvania with Peta for the boycott of Canadian Maple Syrup to stop the Canadian Seal Slaughter next week, so I'll let you know how that goes!

Shrine Circus Demo

I attended my first demonstration ever yesterday. It was a Shrine Circus Demo in Plymouth Meeting, PA with the Animal ACTivsts of Philly. There were only three of us there, but Marianne and Gigi were awesome and it was great to meet people who actually understand my passion about animal rights. During our demonstration the trainers actually allowed the two elephants to graze in the field behind us, we suspect to make passerbys believe our signs about animal abuse were false. However, while the elephants were grazing the two trainers paid no attention to them and allowed one of them to wander quite far away, which put everyone at extreme risk if they were to get spooked. (See photo above) I was also bothered by the fact that they did not even take the harnesses off of them while they were not performing.

Marianne and Gigi attended a prior showing of the circus to see what they were forcing the elephants to do. They informed me that the announcer persuaded the audience to believe that the elephants were performing because they said the magic word "please", when in actuality it was because the trainer picked up the bullhook. I was shocked when they informed me that one of the elephants they were forcing to perform was injured. While the elephants were grazing in the field behind us, it was very obvious that this elephant was extremely injured as she barely moved around and was not putting any weight on her back left leg. (See photo above)

To read more about the horrors behind Shrine Circuses, click here.