“Dead Athletes”: NY Times on horse racing. + CT bear hunting bill failure + more 3-3-25

Sunday’s, March 2, New York Times included an essay on horse racing well worth reading! It also included an article titled, “Mass Firing of Federal Staff May Imperil Food Supply, Cattle and Pets.” Meanwhile a Connecticut front page shared the superb news that a bill introducing bear hunting there has failed, as it does every year. Those stories and more below.

First, let me thank all who responded to the concerning Los Angeles Times front page headline, “Vegan group with Bay Area ties linked to deaths in U.S.” The paper published a letter, by David Weiner, under the title, “They’re vegan. So what?” in which Weiner objected to the headline’s implication that “veganism is some sort of radical and dangerous ideology that leads to violence, when in fact the entire point of veganism is a wholesale rejection of violence.” Here’s a Yahoo link to the letter, in case you hit a paywall at the Los Angeles Times.

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The essay on horse racing in the Sunday Review section of yesterday’s New York Times, page 6, is titled, “It’s Dangerous, It’s Unpopular, and We’re Paying Billions To Keep It Alive .” But the online headline is the one that lets us know we are in for a nice powerful punch: “Dead Athletes. Empty Stands. Why Are We Paying Billions to Keep This Sport Alive?”

Indeed, after discussing the ways in which horseracing is propped up by the government but noting that also happens in other industries, Noah Shachtman writes:

“Another key distinction: Those other sports don’t routinely kill their athletes. The antiracing advocacy organization Horseracing Wrongs has shown that 11,000 horses have been put to death at American racetracks since 2014. Driven in part by opponents of horse racing and by landmark investigations by The New York Times, a new, federally monitored watchdog has already had a significant impact. Even so, hundreds and hundreds of thoroughbreds still perish each year. In one recent monthlong stretch, 10 thoroughbreds died in New York alone.”

After noting the human suffering wrought by the “sport” he writes:

“You’ll find conditions like these in all kinds of workplaces across America, unfortunately. But the difference is that here it’s not some greedy corporation paying the bills (or failing to). It is, essentially, the government. It’s you and me.

“The public is underwriting the sport.”

It’s an article you will want to read and share and I am happy to provide this gift link from DawnWatch. I won’t ask you to respond (for various reasons with which most of you are familiar) but the paper does, at the bottom of the article, with:

“The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.”

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Sunday’s article, page A20, titled “Mass Firing of Federal Staff May Imperil Food Supply, Cattle and Pets,” has a subheading online which more accurately describes its contents: “The terminations, which hit agencies involved in protecting the nation’s food supply and agricultural products, could have long-lasting consequences, experts said.” I am happy to provide this gift link for those who wish to weigh in – perhaps with money saving schemes that would help animals.

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The Hartford Courant front page headline, Sunday March 2, reads, “Bear hunting season bill fails. Lawmaker: Action needed before ‘somebody is mauled or killed.” What a delight to learn from the article:

“Connecticut is the only state in the Northeast with a significant bear population and no bear hunting season.”

That’s despite Sen. Eric Berthel’s annual bill-submitting efforts.

Surely that deserves a letter bursting with state pride from Connecticut animal people! Others wish state envy might also be inclined to send a letter to the Hartford Courant.

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In other major media animal news, shared over the last week on the DawnWatch X Feed and DawnWatch Facebook page:

The New York Post covered wonderfully bipartisan efforts by Council Member Robert Holden , Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa , and  NYCLASS activists, to get the hideously cruel live markets shut down given the H5N1 avian flu threat.

AMNY covered efforts by the same wonderful group of legislators and activists rallying for Ryder’s Law,  in honor of a collapsed horse whipped by his owner, a law that would replace horse-drawn carriages with electric carriages.

We saw tender coverage from Fox 13 in Southern Utah under the headline, “‘Everybody needs to stop thinking that animals are disposable’: Who abandoned these dogs in Hurricane?”

The Roggin Report, on NBC Palm Springs, led its Saturday show with outraged coverage of the killing of a goose at a golf course. I tagged Fred Roggin in my x post to thank him.

And the Guardian ran a lovely piece celebrating the release of beavers into UK rivers. Isn’t it nice to have things to celebrate?

Yours and all animals’,
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch