AR-News: FoA Letter: Shame on Bubble Gear Designer Aneisha Howard

[kymberlie]

June 7, 2004


Aneisha Howard
2451 Enterprise East Parkway
Grand Rapids, MI  43312


Dear Aneisha Howard:

On behalf of Friends of Animals, a national non-profit animal advocacy 
organization, I write to ask you to discontinue the sale of the Bubble Gear 
Fish Bag. The message that living beings are fashion accessories is never 
stylish.

Recent research published by the British national academy of science shows 
that fish clearly have the ability to experience pain and suffering. Fish 
subjected to stress and pain will avoid the painful stimuli, take much 
longer to eat, and demonstrate a rocking motion, strikingly similar to the 
kind of motion seen in distressed mammals.  This information has been 
covered extensively by the world's science writers and mainstream media. 
For example, it is described in Alex Kirby, "Fish do feel pain, scientists 
say" in the BBC News on 30 April 2003; and also in the leading science and 
technology news Service, NewScientist.com, which published (also in April 
2003) an article beginning with the simple sentence "Fish are capable of 
experiencing pain."

On behalf of our 200,000 members and countless others who care about all 
living, feeling individuals in this world, I urge your company to move 
beyond the archaic idea that other animals belong to us to buy and 
advertise for profit.  In the words of Alice Walker, "the animals of the 
world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more 
than blacks were made for whites, or women for men."

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,


  Kymberlie Adams Matthews


Kymberlie Adams Matthews
Correspondent

Friends of Animals
1841 Broadway, Suite 812
New York, New York 10023
phone: 212-247-8120
fax: 212-582-4482

e-mail: kymberlie at friendsoranimals.org
web site: www.friendsofanimals.org
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