Saturday July 5, 2008, 9:51 pm
Heifer International (H.I.) is a non-profit organization that attempts to feed impoverished families by giving them animals. The organization gives pigs, chicks, cows, oxen, water buffalo, donkeys, and camels, among other animals. Many animals, like rabbits, and pigs are raised just for meat. Others, such as oxen, are used to pull plows and other labor. (For more information, visit their Web site at http://www.heifer. org.)
Please send a letter to The Big Moo Canoe, one of H.I.’s sponsors, and ask the organization to stop supporting H.I.

CONTACT INFO-------- --------- --------
"The Big Moo Canoe"
Rob Bean, Fort Collins, CO
Cell: (970) 214-3414
Email: moo @ moocanoe. com

------------ --------- ---- SAMPLE LETTER------ --------- ---------
moo@moocanoe. com
Please stop supporting Heifer International
To Whom It May Concern:
I urge you to re-consider Heifer International’s strategy to end hunger and whether it is wise or ethical to support such an organization.
It is an outrage that in this day and age, Heifer International aggressively promotes animal agriculture despite documented research, which proves that animal agriculture is harmful to the environment, wastes resources, causes enormous amount of animal suffering, and produces products that are detrimental to human health.
A plant-based diet conserves resources and is more economically efficient than a meat-based diet. For example, vegetarians require 1/6 of an acre of land to feed themselves each year, but meat eaters require 3 and 1/4 acres. The water needed to produce one pound of wheat is 25 gallons, but the water needed to produce one pound of meat is 2,5000 gallons (see http://www.earthsav e.org/environmen t/).
The consumption of animal products has been conclusively linked with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Cholesterol (found only in animal products) and animal fat clog arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes. A plant-based diet can prevent 97 percent of coronary occlusions. The rate of colon cancer is highest in regions where meat consumption is high and lowest where meat eating is uncommon. A similar pattern is evident for breast, cervical, uterine, arthritis, osteoporosis, ovarian, prostate, and lung cancers (see www.pcrm.org) .
Contrary to Heifer International’s position, animals are not renewable resources but unique individuals capable of experiencing not only crude emotions like fear, but far more subtle and complex emotions such as love, grief, pride, shame, joy, and loneliness. Heifer International disregards our moral obligation to treat animals with kindness and dignity. The organization sends animals to impoverished regions of the world where they suffer from severe neglect, malnutrition, lack of adequate shelter or veterinary care, and where there often are no regulations regarding slaughter.
Heifer International should focus on crops and plant-based diet instead of animals. Please do NOT support Heifer International while it continues to give away animals. Please support instead ethical organizations, such as Plenty (http://www.plenty. org), that helps impoverished people without hurting animals, spreading diseases or destroying the environment. Solving human problems does not require the exploitation and killing of animals nor degradation of the environment. Please support and promote only plant-based sustainable economics.
Sincerely,