Robber fly - Nature photographer Thomas Shahan specializes in amazing portraits of tiny insects. It isn't easy. Shahan says that this Robber Fly (Holcocephala fusca), for instance, is "skittish" and doesn't like its picture taken.

Nature by Numbers (Video)

"The Greater Akashic System" – July 15, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: Lightworkers, Intent, To meet God, Past lives, Universe/Galaxy, Earth, Pleiadians, Souls Reincarnate, Invention: Measure Quantum state in 3D, Recalibrates, Multi-Dimensional/Divine, Akashic System to change to new system, Before religion changed the system, DNA, Old system react to Karma, New system react to intent now for next life, Animals (around humans) reincarnate again, This Animal want to come back to the same human, Akashic Inheritance, Reincarnate as Family, Other Planets, Global Unity … etc.)

Question: Dear Kryon: I live in Spain. I am sorry if I will ask you a question you might have already answered, but the translations of your books are very slow and I might not have gathered all information you have already given. I am quite concerned about abandoned animals. It seems that many people buy animals for their children and as soon as they grow, they set them out somewhere. Recently I had the occasion to see a small kitten in the middle of the street. I did not immediately react, since I could have stopped and taken it, without getting out of the car. So, I went on and at the first occasion I could turn, I went back to see if I could take the kitten, but it was to late, somebody had already killed it. This happened some month ago, but I still feel very sorry for that kitten. I just would like to know, what kind of entity are these animals and how does this fit in our world. Are these entities which choose this kind of life, like we do choose our kind of Human life? I see so many abandoned animals and every time I see one, my heart aches... I would like to know more about them.

Answer: Dear one, indeed the answer has been given, but let us give it again so you all understand. Animals are here on earth for three (3) reasons.

(1) The balance of biological life. . . the circle of energy that is needed for you to exist in what you call "nature."

(2) To be harvested. Yes, it's true. Many exist for your sustenance, and this is appropriate. It is a harmony between Human and animal, and always has. Remember the buffalo that willingly came into the indigenous tribes to be sacrificed when called? These are stories that you should examine again. The inappropriateness of today's culture is how these precious creatures are treated. Did you know that if there was an honoring ceremony at their death, they would nourish you better? Did you know that there is ceremony that could benefit all of humanity in this way. Perhaps it's time you saw it.

(3) To be loved and to love. For many cultures, animals serve as surrogate children, loved and taken care of. It gives Humans a chance to show compassion when they need it, and to have unconditional love when they need it. This is extremely important to many, and provides balance and centering for many.

Do animals know all this? At a basic level, they do. Not in the way you "know," but in a cellular awareness they understand that they are here in service to planet earth. If you honor them in all three instances, then balance will be the result. Your feelings about their treatment is important. Temper your reactions with the spiritual logic of their appropriateness and their service to humanity. Honor them in all three cases.

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle
American zoologist played by Sigourney Weaver in the film Gorillas in the Mist would have been 82 on Thursday (16 January 2014)

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Chimpanzees granted 'legal persons' status to defend their rights in court

New York judge grants writ of habeas corpus to Hercules and Leo, chimpanzees used for medical experiments, to defend rights against imprisonment

The Guardian, Alan Yuhas in New York, Tuesday 21 April 2015

The judge’s argument in this case and others is that chimpanzees are intelligent,
 emotionally complex and self-aware enough to merit some basic human rights.
Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

For the first time in US history, a judge has granted two chimpanzees a petition – through human attorneys – to defend their rights against unlawful imprisonment, arguably bestowing the status of “legal persons” on the primates.

On Monday, Manhattan supreme court justice Barbara Jaffe granted a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of two non-human plaintiffs, Hercules and Leo – chimpanzees used for medical experiments at Stony Brook University on Long Island.

In her order, Jaffe ordered Samuel Stanley Jr, the president of Stony Brook, to argue before the court why the chimpanzees were being “unlawfully detained” at his university and should not be transferred to a primate sanctuary in Florida.

The attorneys who brought the petition forward, part of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), argue that under New York law, “only a ‘legal person’ may have an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus issued in his or her behalf. The court has therefore implicitly determined that Hercules and Leo are ‘persons’.”

“This is one step in a long, long struggle,” said Steven Wise, the lawyer leading the effort. “She never says explicitly that our non-human plaintiffs were persons but by issuing the order … she’s either saying implicitly that they are or that they certainly can be. So that’s the first time that has happened.

“It feels great. We knew it was going to happen sometime,” he added. “Even though we’re scattered all around the country we all gave each other a high five over the phone.”

Habeas corpus petitions are used, in theory, to fight unlawful imprisonment by forcing a custodian to prove they have legal cause to detain someone.

Wise’s argument in this case and others is that chimpanzees are intelligent, emotionally complex and self-aware enough to merit some basic human rights, such as the rights against illegal detainment and cruel treatment. They are “autonomous and self-determining”, in Wise’s words.

He said he suspects that Eric Schneiderman, who will represent Stony Brook as attorney general of New York, will argue that “Hercules and Leo are things and that they’re not persons, and that’s where the battle lines are drawn. Are they persons or are they not persons?”

Schneiderman may also draw from past rejections of Wise’s petitions. In one failed bid to remove another chimpanzee, Tommy, from captivity in a trailer in Gloversville, New York, an appeals court argued that chimpanzees do not participate in society and cannot be held accountable for their actions.

“In our view,” the judges wrote, “it is this incapability to bear any legal responsibilities and societal duties that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights … that have been afforded to human beings.”

In another decision, a separate appeals court argued that taking a different chimpanzee, Kiko, to a sanctuary amounted to another form of imprisonment, and that habeas corpus amounted to an inappropriate remedy.

NhRP hopes to move the chimpanzees to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida, where more than 250 chimps live on a series of islands along the Atlantic coast.

Kathy Hessler, a professor of animal law at Lewis & Clark law school, told the Guardian that Wise’s burden is to prove chimps are “enough like a human that the legal system should take notice”.

Opponents of Wise’s fight for limited rights for chimpanzees warn that the judge’s granting of the petition does not mean she endorses “personhood” for chimpanzees. Richard Cupp, a law professor at California’s Pepperdine University said “we should avoid reading too much into this document ordering a hearing.”

“It seems quite unlikely that a judge would intend to make such an exceptionally controversial decision that a chimpanzee is a person without even hearing arguments from the other side,” Cupp said. The suggestion that nonhuman animals are persons is “new terrain for judges”, he added.

Cupp and others argue that chimpanzees may deserve greater protections, but not rights. “No one should ever regard animals as if they were stones,” Richard Epstein, a New York University law professor told the Guardian last year, but he said that Wise and his cohorts go too far into a labyrinth of questions about what separates humans from nonhuman animals.

NhRP has appealed against the decisions in Kiko and Tommy’s cases, and its next hearing on behalf of Hercules and Leo is scheduled for 6 May.

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