Their Turn - The Social Justice Movement of Our Time Their Turn - The Social Justice Movement of Our Time

Anti-Kangaroo Leather Activists Disrupt Adidas Launch Party

March 11, 2024 by Leave a Comment


The News

As part of a global “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” Campaign, animal rights activists in New York City disrupted a launch party hosted by Major League Soccer (MLS) at the Adidas flagship store. During the protest, the activists called on the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, Thomas Rabe, to join Nike, Puma and New Balance in making the switch from “k-leather” to cruelty-free materials.

The Center for a Humane Economy, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, launched the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign in 2021 in an effort to protect kangaroos from the egregious abuses associated with commercial kangaroo skin trade and to curb the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet. In 2023, the Center and its partner organization, Animal Wellness Action, turned their attention to Adidas, the largest of the few remaining companies that produce soccer cleats using kangaroo skin.

Photo of Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign

In 2021, the Center for a Humane Economy launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign to compel sportswear companies to stop using kangaroo skin in their soccer cleats

In a “Standards on Animal-derived Materials” statement on its website, Adidas claims to source skin from animals who are “free from fear, distress, pain and injury,” and Adidas executives, including the company’s sustainability chief Frank Henke, use that statement to defend the company’s continued support of the commercial kangaroo hunt.

Photo of Adidas standards on animal-derived materials

Adidas claims that the animals whose skin they use are “free from physical discomfort, pain and injury”

Representatives from Australia’s Animal Justice Party, which closely monitors the kangaroo hunt, dispute these “false” claims. In a letter to the board chairman Thomas Rabe, Louise Ward, the New South Wales State Director, wrote:

Photo of a an excerpt of a letter from the Animal Justice to Thomas Rabe, the CEO of Bertelsmann

Excerpt from a letter from the Animal Justice Party to Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas

In addition to serving as the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, Thomas Rabe is the CEO of Bertelsmann, a global media empire that owns the publisher Penguin Random House; the music producer BMG; and the RTL Group, an entertainment company with dozens of media outlets. Rabe has not responded to letters in which the Center for a Humane Economy and the Animal Justice Party ask him for a meeting to discuss the use of kangaroo skin and Adidas’s claims made about how it’s sourced.

Photo of Thomas Rabe and joeys orphaned by the commercial kangaroo skin trade

Animal protection groups are calling on Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, to stop using kangaroo skin. Rabe is the CEO of the global media giant Bertelsmann

The commercial kangaroo skin trade orphans an estimated 300,000 joeys each year. Government code mandates that hunters bludgeon or decapitate the joeys, who cannot survive without their mothers. Those who do escape die of predation, exposure or hunger.

Activist groups in Australia, Europe, Canada and the United States have been protesting Adidas for the past year. Several have decided to escalate the campaign by protest Thomas Rabe at Bertelsmann offices in the U.S. and Germany.

Compilation photo of kangaroos are not shoes protests

Emma Hurst, a member of Parliament in Australia, addresses activists participating in a #KangaroosAreNotShoes protest at Adidas in Sydney

In February, 2024, TheirTurn launched a campaign calling on Thomas Rabe to make the switch from kangaroo skin to cruelty-free materials. To date, 173 people have sent a total of 2,453 emails to Rabe and his colleagues at Adidas and Bertelsmann.

Photo of petition calling on Adidas Board Chair Thomas Rabe to stop killing kangaroos for football cleats

Petition calling on Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, to replace kangaroo skin with cruelty-free materials


NYPD Arrests Spouse of Marc Jacobs VP during Anti-Fur Protest

March 2, 2024 by 3 comments


The News

The NYPD arrested the husband of Jennifer Sagum, a Vice President at Marc Jacobs, after he stole an iPhone from an animal rights activist during an anti-fur protest in front of the couple’s Brooklyn brownstone. Brian Moss, a partner at Coventry Real Estate Advisors, was charged with grand larceny, a felony.

Photo of Brian Moss, husband of Marc Jacob's VP Jennifer Sagum

Brian Moss, the husband of Marc Jacobs VP Jennifer Sagum, was arrested and charged with grand larceny after stealing the phone of an anti-fur activist during a protest at the couple’s Brooklyn home.

In an effort to resolve the conflict without making an arrest, the NYPD officer handling the theft made an appeal to the activist whose phone Moss stole. “He’s a professional. Honestly, he’s deathly afraid of being arrested and it affecting his career.” Moss works in financial services, an industry that is required under federal law to ban individuals convicted of felonies.

In response, the victim agreed to not press charges if Moss returned the phone. By then, however, it was too late. According to witnesses, Moss’s wife, Jennifer Sagum, had thrown the iPhone into a nearby sewer drain and could not retrieve it. After initially telling the police officer that he returned the iPhone to the activists, Moss acknowledged that he no longer had the phone in his possession.

Photo of Marc Jacobs VP Jennifer Sagum and her husband Brian Moss

During an anti-fur protest at the Brooklyn home of Marc Jacobs VP Jennifer Sagum and her husband Brian Moss, Sagum tossed the iPhone of a protester in a sewer drain after Moss grabbed it.

The theft of the phone and Moss’s subsequent arrest were not, according to the activists, the most dramatic moments of the two hour protest.  Before he was arrested, Moss dragged his young, visibly terrified daughter out of their house and down the front steps. According to the activists, he appeared to be using the presence of a child to demand that the activists terminate the protest.

Photo of Brian Moss, husband of Marc Jacobs VP Jennifer Sagum

Brian Moss dragged his daughter down the stairs while confronting anti-fur protesters at his Brooklyn home.

The protest was organized by animal rights activists in NYC in support of a national anti-fur campaign led by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT), an organization whose campaigns have contributed to fur-free policies at several luxury fashion companies.

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by CAFT (@caftusa)

Marc Jacobs is one of the few fashion designers that continues to use real animal fur. For years, advocacy groups have pled with him to switch to cruelty-free materials, as most other designers have done in recent years.

Photo of Marc Jacobs and his public statement about his use of fur

Fashion designer Marc Jacobs has refused to commit to a fur-free policy

In 2022, Jacobs told animal rights activists that he was no longer using fur, but, during a 2023 runway show staged in collaboration with Fendi, he featured a fox fur hat.

Photo of Marc Jacobs and a fox fur hat he designed

After telling animal rights activists that he was no longer designing with fur, Marc Jacobs showed a fox fur hat during a runway show

“On fur farms, wild animals suffer from the moment they are born until the moment they die,” said Tyler Bauer, an organizer with CAFT USA. “The animals spend their entire lives trapped in tiny wire cages, crammed by the thousands into squalid sheds, unable to take more than a few steps in any direction. This abuse of  fur-bearing animals must end.”

Photo of fur-bearing animals in cages on fur farms

Foxes, raccoon dogs, rabbits, chinchillas and other animals killed for their fur go insane from the lifelong intensive confinement in cages.

CAFT organizers say the nighttime protest at the home of Ms. Sagum represents an escalation of their efforts because the more measured tactics employed in the past have been unsuccessful in compelling Mr. Jacobs to implement a fur-free policy.

Photo of petition calling on Marc Jacobs to adopt a fur-free policy

Petition calling on Marc Jacobs to adopt a fur-free policy


NYC Lawmaker Visits Notorious Live Animal Markets

January 22, 2024 by 1 comment


The News

After receiving multiple complaints from constituents, New York City Council Member Bob Holden visited live animal markets in Queens and Brooklyn. In these storefront slaughterhouses, also called viveros, customers select the animals who they want to eat, and workers kill them on premises. Among the approximately 12 species sold in NYC’s 70 live markets are chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, turkeys, quails, rabbits, goats, sheep and cows. The large mammals are held in pens, and the rabbits and birds are stored in cages.

After touring the markets in Queens and Brooklyn, Council Member Holden, said he was “appalled” by what he found inside: “The conditions are horrendous and barbaric. The animals are packed in. We saw birds with open sores, and we saw sick and dead birds in the cages. I don’t know how anyone can buy these birds. We’re going to do some investigation to find out how this is allowed, and we’re going to try to put a stop to it. It’s unconscionable.”

Photo of injured and deceased chickens at a NYC live animal market

During an unannounced visit to a live animal market in Brooklyn, NYC Council Member Bob Holden encounters chickens with wounds and dead chickens mixed in with the living.

The city’s live animal markets were thrust into the national spotlight in early 2020 when the media reported that COVID was likely transmitted from animals to humans in a similar market in Wuhan, China. Despite this revelation, then Governor Andrew Cuomo deemed the state’s live markets “essential businesses.” Astonished by this designation, public health and animal welfare advocates staged protests in front of several of NYC’s markets to raise awareness of the public health risks.

Photo of animal rights activists in NYC protesting live animal markets

During the first few months of the pandemic, media outlets reported on the ongoing efforts of advocacy groups to shut down the City’s 70 live animal markets

At the start of the pandemic lockdown, Dr. James Desmond, a veterinarian and infectious disease researcher based in Liberia, told TheirTurn, “Wet markets that sell live animals house different species in close proximity to each other and to humans. If different strains of influenza in any of these species combine to create a new flu strain, then a more lethal outbreak could occur, similar to the H2N2 pandemic of 1957.”

Photo of NYC Council Member Bob Holden at a live animal market in his Queens district

In response to constituent complaints, NYC Council Member Bob Holden visits a live animal market in his Queens district.

In 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was serving as the Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called for the closure of live animal markets in Asia, perhaps unaware of their presence in the United States. “I think they should shut down those things right away. It boggles my mind how, when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human/animal interface, that we don’t just shut it down.”

In 2022 and 2023, avian flu was detected in several live animal markets in New York City. Hundreds of birds were culled in an effort to contain the spread.

News coverage of avian flu outbreaks in New York City live animal marketes

News coverage of avian flu outbreaks in live animal markets in NYC in 2022 and 2023

New York City’s live animal markets are regulated by the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets. Based on the findings in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the agency rarely cites the markets for violations of the city and state’s health and sanitation codes. It also rarely shuts down or suspends operations of the markets do have violations. Neighbors say that the lack of enforcement enables the owners to keep animals in squalid conditions and leave feces, urine and blood on the public sidewalks in front of the stores.

Two advocacy groups in NYC, Slaughter Free NYC and NYCLASS, have been campaigning to shut down the city’s live animal markets for several years. The Executive Director of NYCLASS, Edita Birnkrant, points to several reasons why they don’t belong. “In addition to violating health, sanitation and cruelty codes, many of the markets are likely violating zoning laws. Research conducted by The NYC Bar Association Animal Law Committee concluded that ‘many of the live animal markets are operating either without a certificate of occupancy or in potential violation of the uses permitted in the subject zoning district.’”

Map of slaughterhouses, or live animal markets in NYC

Map of live animal markets, or storefront slaughterhouses, in NYC created by the advocacy group Slaughter Free NYC

In recent years, several cows have escaped live animal markets and fled through congested city streets. In two cases, New Jersey-based Skylands Animal Sanctuary rescued the cows and gave them a forever home.

Photo of New York Times article about a cow named Freddie who escaped from a NYC live animal market

New York Times coverage of Freddie’s escape from a New York City storefront slaughterhouse

In posts on social media, many people credited their switch to a plant-based diet on the mainstream media coverage of the dramatic escapes and rescues. “I didn’t want to know about cows [being slaughtered] because I was addicted to cow ice cream,” said New York City resident Martha Mooney Waltien.” Then one day, Freddie ran from the slaughterhouse, and I saw his face. He was so scared, and he wanted to live. And I thought, ‘No more cheeseburgers.’”

 


Bull Riding Fans Confront Animal Rights Protesters at Madison Square Garden

January 10, 2024 by 7 comments


The News

“Fuck the bulls.  Fuck the bulls.”

As animal rights activists protested a Professional Bull Riding (PBR) event at NYC’s Madison Square Garden (MSG), fans heading inside greeted them with obscenities, remarks about eating meat and nervous smiles. The reactions came as no surprise to the activists, who have protested year-after-year in an effort to educate the public about the cruelty associated with bull riding.

“Bulls don’t naturally buck,” said Nora Constance Marino, an attorney who organizes the annual PBR protest at Madison Square Garden. “The bull riders use cruel methods to provoke them that may include shocking them with electric prods, jabbing them with spurs, squeezing them with flank straps and twisting their tails. Everything about this so-called sport is inhumane.”

Photo of a man riding on the back of a bull at Madison Square Garden

Bull riders use weapons including electric prods, spurs and flank straps to provoke bulls into bucking

While most of the PBR patrons ignored the protesters, several stopped to say that they had misgivings about attending. Some agreed that bull riding is inhumane, and others said they came only because they received free tickets.

@theirturn

Watch bull riding fans clash with #animalrights activists protesting the Professional Bull Riding (PBR) show at Madison Square Garden. A few of PBR’s corporate sponsors are tagged. #animalcruelty #bullrider

♬ Breaking News – Breaking News

A few patrons defended the “sport,” stating that the “bulls are treated better than people.” After speaking to Edita Birnkrant, a protester who said that some of the bulls are injured and killed, one devoted PBR fan acknowledged that she could be correct. “It’s possible,” he said.

Photo of bulls being transported in a trailer and held in holding pen before a bull riding event

PBR transports bulls around the country in trailers and stores them in holding pens at bull riding arenas

For years, activists in NYC have called on the management at MSG to stop hosting the PBR. In 2019 and early 2020, before the pandemic, the Animal Cruelty Exposure Fund (ACEF), Marino’s organization, staged protests at the Upper East Side home of then MSG Sports President Andrew Lustgarten. His neighbors told the activists that they suspect the protests led him to move out of the building.

Photo of animal rights activists protesting bull riding at Madison Square Garden

Animal rights activists in NYC protest bull riding at Madison Square Garden

According to PETA, animals used in rodeo events, including bull riding, “commonly sustain broken bones, punctured lungs, snapped necks, or torn muscles, and they sometimes die in an arena.”

Photo of PBR's corporate sponsors

Cruelty to animals violates the corporate social responsibility policies espoused by many of the PBR’s sponsors, but that doesn’t stop them from underwriting the bull riding tour.


What Happened to Virginia Chipurnoi?

December 27, 2023 by 3 comments


The News

Virginia Chipurnoi is the President of the Board of the Humane Society of New York (HSNY), a large and well-funded animal shelter in Manhattan that has come under fire in recent years for warehousing animals. Until 2020, Chipurnoi not only served on the board, but she also volunteered at the shelter four days per week. Her presence helped to ensure that the Executive Director, Sandra DeFeo, and her staff were fulfilling the shelter’s mission to place animals into loving homes.

When COVID shut down the city, Chipurnoi, who is 89 years old, left New York. Former colleagues, who say she was showing signs of dementia in 2019, suspect that she moved to her weekend home in Connecticut, where her family owns a confectionary company called Chipurnoi Candy.

Virginia Chipurnoi, the once active board president of the Humane Society of New York, has been silent amid the four year animal warehousing scandal

In July 2021, whistleblowers at the HSNY informed NYC-based animal advocates that adoptions had come to a virtual standstill 17 months earlier; that many of the animals had been living in cages for months or years; and that the Adoption Center was closed indefinitely to adopters. Several advocates who had a relationship with Chipurnoi attempted to contact her because they knew that she would address the warehousing of animals if she knew it was taking place. Chipurnoi did not respond, and, in 2022, her phone was disconnected.

TV news coverage about animal warehousing at the Humane Society of New York

Pix11, a TV news station in New York, aired a three minute story about the animal warehousing controversy at the Humane Society of New York (click photo to see Pix11 story)

Reporters from Pix11 News, AM New York, NBC and Huffington Post working on stories about the warehousing scandal also attempted to contact Chipurnoi through Chipurnoi Candy, but company representatives indicated that she was unavailable and unreachable.

Photo of petition calling on Sarah Gore Reeves, daughter of Virginia Chipurnoi, to address the warehousing of animals at the Humane Society of New York

Virginia Chipurnoi’s daughter, Sarah Gore Reeves, has refused to acknowledge the concerns of advocates despite her close ties to the Humane Society of New York.

Amid growing concerns about the plight of the animals, the HSNY’s former Adoption Director who retired in 2020, Bonnie Tischler, contacted two other board members, Alexandra Rowley and James Gregorio, who is an attorney. Rowley and Gregorio assured Tischler that the whistleblowers and advocates were misinformed, and they promised to provide her with evidence that adoptions were taking place as they had in the past. Two weeks later, Rowley and Gregorio told Tischler that they had resigned from the board and could not provide her with any information. Tischler took this to mean that DeFeo, the Executive Director, refused to release the information or that the information was so damning that Rowley and Gregorio no longer wanted to be affiliated with the HSNY.  Within days, a third board member, C. Jones Perry, resigned. None of the 11 remaining board members, most of whom are elderly and/or live in other states, responded to letters, emails and calls from Tischler and other advocates.

Photo of the members of the board of the Humane Society of New York who resigned when allegations of animal warehousing emerged

Three members of the board of the Humane Society of New York resigned amid the animal warehousing scandal, James Gregorio, C. Jones Perry and Alexandra Rowley

When advocates realized that the HSNY’s board was effectively defunct and that DeFeo was no longer accountable to the board, they began to publicly question why Mrs. Chipurnoi was still listed as the President and why fundraising solicitations were being sent out in her name. They wanted shelter community stakeholders and members of the public to know that the primary guardrail in place to ensure that adoptions were being facilitated, an active board president, had come down and that DeFeo, who describes the shelter as a “foster home” and cages as “apartments,” was no longer accountable to a board.

Photos from VirginiaChipurnoi.com suggest that Virginia Chipurnoi still serves as the organization's board president.

In an effort to give the public the impression that Virginia Chipurnoi is still serving as its board President, the Humane Society of New York launched a website in her name.

In response to advocates’ questions about Chipurnoi’s ability to serve as board president, the HSNY has taken steps to give the public the impression that Virginia Chipurnoi is still capable and active. In 2021, a year after Chipurnoi left New York, the HSNY reported on its 990 tax form that she volunteered at the shelter 30 hours/week. In September 2023, the Humane Society launched the website VirginiaChipurnoi.com which features articles with titles like “How to Spot, Treat and Prevent Gastric Dilation and Volvulus in Dogs” and “Why Canine Dental Examinations Are So Important.” Mrs. Chipurnoi is neither a vet nor a vet tech. Even if she was not cognitively impaired, she would not be qualified to write articles about gastric dilation, canine dental exams and yeast infections in dogs. The most recent article, posted on December 12th, encourages people who cannot adopt a dog to foster one, despite the fact that the Humane Society of New York has, to the frustration of shelter animal advocates, a no-foster policy.

The website also claims that Chipurnoi “leads the HSNY in its advocacy against live animal markets, horse slaughter, roadside zoos, canned hunts, and other issues.”  The HSNY doesn’t work on any of those issues, but, even if they did, how could Mrs. Chipurnoi, who went silent almost four years ago, be “leading” these campaigns?

In a meeting with lawyers representing the state Attorney General’s office, which oversees charities in New York, Tischler and the advocates asked if the absence of a functioning board of directors and the organization’s failure to fulfill its mission violate state law. While sympathetic, the lawyers indicated that they would not consider taking enforcement action unless the advocates could provide data on the number of adoptions taking place. While that information is not publicly available because the HSNY is a private charity, advocates did learn that, during a 2022 inspection by New York City’s Department of Health, the HSNY claimed to have facilitated an average of one adoption per week between March and October that year. For a shelter that takes in $3 million in donations each year, is located in a bustling residential area and has the capacity for 125 – 175 animals according to its own tax forms, that number is, according to the advocates, “abysmal.”

Photo of Virginia Chipurnoi in the New York Times

In 1975, the New York Times published a story about Virginia Chipurnoi’s wardrobe.