Edita and Bobby
Courtesy of Edita Birnkrant
From fairy tales to cinematic Westerns, we've long been conditioned to embrace the horse and carriage as a romantic and/or rugged ideal. This partly explains why Big Apple tourists still plunk down big bucks to be pulled around Central Park by a horse suffering in silence. That silence is coming to an ear-shattering end thanks to folks like Edita Birnkrant, New York Director of Friends of Animals.
"From the time I was a young child, I have always had a fascination, respect, and love of the different animal species of the world," says Birnkrant, a vegan activist and certified Holistic Health Counselor. "I connected deeply with the Gandhian principle of Ahimsa (non-violence), and aspired to live my life this way. It became very clear to me that the cause of animal rights was a crucial social justice issue, and one that I could directly contribute to by how I lived my life."
To learn more about Edita and her activism, read my interview with her below.
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Edita Birnkrant Testifies
My Conversation With Edita Birnkrant
Planet Green: How did you get involved in this particular issue?
Edita Birnkrant: I
In 2005, I was approached by an amazing long-time animal activist named Elizabeth Forel who had been involved with the issue for many years and who wanted to form a coalition with the specific goal of working towards banning the industry. Elizabeth realized that focusing on reforming or regulating the industry was a dead-end, and after several high-profile carriage horse accidents on the streets of NYC, we knew that the time was ripe to launch this coalition, and in 2006, the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages was created, with Friends of Animals being a co-founder and partner. We hit the ground running and covered all bases with public outreach and education campaigning, political lobbying and media outreach and started to get a lot of media attention and public support.
PG: Political lobbying? How did that play out?
EB: In 2007, former Council Member Tony Avella made history by introducing a bill that would ban horse-drawn carriages in NYC. This was the first time such a bill had ever been introduced in the NYC Council, and we were thrilled, especially because we had initially received much resistance from Council Member Avella about our campaign. This was because Tony had introduced a bill that claimed to
In a short amount of time Council Member Avella changed his position after educating himself about the carriage horse industry, and recognized that what we had been saying was true: There is no way to
Tony Avella became an important ally for our campaign and a tireless supporter for the animals on many issues, and we worked closely with him until his tenure as a Council Member ended last year. His legislation has since been re-introduced by Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, and is being merged with a bill that would replace horse-drawn carriages with antique cars, and we are now working closely with Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito and lobbying for this new bill.
PG: Let's say you were producing a public service announcement on the concept of carriage horses. What would you want your audience to know? What would you say/show that would convey the inherent cruelty and inspire them to action?
EB: I would want the audience to understand the vast divide between what a horse requires to be physically and psychologically healthy, and what a horse endures shackled within the carriage industry. In a nutshell: the life of a carriage horse is the polar opposite of a life of freedom for a horse; it is a life dominated by exploitation and a denial of basic needs.
Visually, I would show a picture of a horse living in freedom and running on open land juxtaposed with a picture of a horse shackled and confined to his carriage, forced to wear blinders, weighed down with gear and chains, with no freedom of movement possible, whose every movement is dominated by those who profit from his exploitation.
PG: So much of animal exploitation requires humans to ignore the animal's needs.
EB: Horses are herd animals, meaning they are highly social and have a need to interact with other horses and have freedom of movement and most importantly, the ability to graze on open land every day. They are completely denied these needs in NYC
Horses are prey animals, which means they frighten easily, and when spooked, their instinct is to run wildly. Many horses have spooked on NYC streets from the countless existing stimuli that can frighten a horse at any time on a city street, and there have been several serious accidents with cars as a result, some ending with horses dead on the street, and people injured, and more accidents are inevitable.
PG: What about when the horses are not "working"?
EB: After pulling the carriage all day, the horses are brought back to tiny cell-like stables, where they cannot even turn around or lie down for proper sleep. It is a life of total confinement, complete restriction and inhibition of every natural instinct; a life of misery with no relief. When horses can no longer make a profit for the owners after becoming injured or to old or worn out from exhaustion, they are sent to an auction that is the last stop before the slaughterhouse for horses. A life of exploitation and suffering ends in slaughter for many horses forced to pull carriages. When educated about the reality of the carriage horse industry, most people do not want to support such degradation and violence. When you peek behind the curtain of the carriage horse industry—the ugly truth is glaring, and the public
PG: Why do you think riding in a carriage pulled by horses remains a "must" on many tourists
EB: Carriage-horse rides have been romanticized and glorified in films and advertising/media for a long time, and this is especially so with New York City. Many tourists are ignorant about the reality of the lives of the horses pulling them around, and often don
Just this change in perception can be a huge awakening of consciousness for many people, and one which will hopefully extends towards other animals as well. I can
PG: How have your efforts in this area evolved?
EB: Our campaign has made huge strides since we started out in 2006. The groundbreaking ban legislation that was introduced in the City Council in 2007 had been reintroduced as Intro 86, and is being updated and perfected by Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, whom we work closely with. \We hold regular rallies, press conferences, and demonstrations to garner media and public attention about our efforts to ban the horse-drawn carriage industry and our efforts to educate the public through weekly tabling, literature and advertising is ongoing. We also lobby the City Council and other local government officials to support Intro 86.
An exciting new development in our campaign is the recent rescue of a NYC carriage horse who we discovered to be for sale at a slaughter auction in Pennsylvania on June 25th after a Good Samaritan at the auction alerted us to the 4-digit identification number on his hoof that all NYC carriage horses receive. This horse, now named Bobby, was in very bad physical shape after working for several years as a NYC carriage horse, and his owners sold him after buying a younger horse. Bobby would have ended up at the slaughterhouse had the Coalition not intervened to save his life. Bobby is now living in freedom at the Equine Advocates horse sanctuary in upstate New York, has received veterinary care, and is doing well Bobby escaped the fate of most carriages horses who can no longer turn a profit for their owners: death. This cycle of death and exploitation is what we are trying to end.
Intro 86--the bill that we support, would also ensure that all the carriage horses would be placed in a sanctuaries or refuge once the industry is banned--offering them protection that they currently do not have.
PG: How can Planet Green readers get involved?
EB: Friends of Animals does a lot of important work besides our NYC carriage-horse campaign. We have various campaigns to protect free-living animals such as wild horses, wolves, deer, and birds, we run a nation-wide low-cost spay/neuter program for cats and dogs. We operate a primate sanctuary where hundreds of monkeys who were used in lab experiments or other industries are cared for. We have a Marine Animal Rescue program along the coast of California, and we promote veganism through our online educational resource for veganism, our informative Vegan Starter Guides, vegan restaurant guides for several cities, and the publication of two excellent vegan cookbooks, just to give a short list.
We need new members to support all this important work, so I urge readers to visit our website to learn more and to help our efforts through an annual membership. New Yorkers can help our efforts to ban horse-drawn carriages by contacting their City Council Member and Council Speaker Christine Quinn and urging them to support and vote for Intro 86--written letters are most effective, and phone calls are second-best.
People outside of New York can help tremendously by writing a personal letter to Mayor Bloomberg and asking him to use his power to help end the exploitation of the horses by passing Intro 86--tell him you
(Friends of Animals also has campaigns to ban horse-drawn carriages in Philadelphia, PA, and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.)
