December 08, 2008

Friends of Animals

On Saturday I joined The Friends of Animals to protest the horse-drawn vehicles in Victoria. The event was organized in part by my pal Dave Shiskoff (a tireless animal activist here in Victoria who also runs The Victoria Vegan newspaper.

These lovely horses have to endure downtown traffic and I have to say... I stood on the corner with FOA for less than an hour and the car fumes were making me dizzy and it's not even peak tourist season. This section of town is wall to wall traffic in the summer.
If you would like to see horse drawn carriages banned from the streets of Victoria a quick letter to Victoria City Hall (councillors@victoria.ca) and the James Bay Association (info@jbnea.org) would be very helpful. We are a tourist town and if tourists (no matter where you live) write in to complain it can make a big difference.

... . If you'd like to share the letter you sent and any response you may receive please send it to dave@friendsofanimals.org

3 comments:

Maria Rose said...

Would it help if out of country folks (like me) sent in letters too?

Dave Shishkoff said...

Thanks so much for sharing this Sarah, and it was a pleasure to have you join us!

For those who'd like to write - please do!! As this is considered a tourist attraction by the city, telling them that as a tourist you find this inappropriate will go a long way. Thank you for taking a moment for this!

If people would like to read the leaflet we've produced for our campaign, check out:

http://www.TheVictoriaVegan.com/foa

Thanks again for speaking in the defense of these horses, let's get this business banned here, and everywhere!

Caroline said...

You know, growing up with horses I never thought there was anything wrong with horse drawn carriages...until I went to Charleston. It was a business trip and the sponsor bought us all tickets to go for a ride around the city. My coworkers and I arrived early and being an over the top animal lover I immediately jumped into the stables with the horse/donkey dudes and dudettes (after asking permission of course) and chatted them up, brushed them and generally had a good time. However, I noticed that they were on edge. I mean, really on edge...and not because some stranger was telling them stories of drunken schenanigans that went on at the hotel bar the other night. They responded well to my touch and voice, but were easily spooked by sudden movements of anyone around. I asked one of the stable keepers if they were always like that and she said they were...that it was common for carriage horses to have stress issues.
Well, I could go on and on, but to put it succinctly, my opinion was forever changes.
Please do help free the horses!
xoxo