Everything Under The Sun: United In Support Of Animals

A protest at Denver airport against Delta Air Lines' transporting of animals to labs.

It began a few years ago. At the time, Delta Air Lines was engaged in transporting animals to research laboratories, where those animals faced a grim future. That is something that concerned Amanda Schemkes. She wanted a way to bring this practice to the attention of a public not necessarily aware that the airline they patronized was engaged in this horrible practice. So, she started a tour to visit Delta's hub airports and offices with a campaign, The Bunny Alliance Gateway To Hell Tour, seeking to educate the public about this issue and also engaging those interested in activism workshop training. As Amanda said, "This project is about ending the transport of animals to labs, and so an end to the use of animals in labs."

As the cause grew, the organization became known as THE BUNNY ALLIANCE and broadened its activities. They built alliances with similar organizations in other parts of the US and internationally, holding protest actions in support of their partners. Their most recent campaigns were raising public awareness of the practices of Air France, ABX Air-DHL, and Chinese Southern Airlines. The latter, which was the last airline that transported primates out of China to vivisection laboratories, stopped all of those shipments.

The Bunny Alliance had also sponsored tours, modeled after the original. This was the educational arm that provides the details of what the campaigns are about and why it is so important to prevent the air transportation of animals to research labs. For those of you concerned, research does not need to involve live animals. Advances in technology, along with cellular research, have enabled research to proceed without removing animals from their natural environments and subjecting them to painful and maiming procedures in a rather stark setting that doesn't provide any enrichment. So, you're talking about torturing animals for no good reason.

Then, during the summer months, a dentist from Minnesota, took a trip to Africa, and shot a beloved lion on land that belonged to a nature preserve. And that sparked even more attention to the issue of airlines transporting dead trophy animals, some in danger of extinction, to decorate a hunter's lodge wall. In combination with the issue of lab animal transport, the public's attention and outrage was raised, prompting some airlines, including Delta, to stop allowing the transport of these animals on any of their flights.

A poster from the March Against Air France.

In October, Amanda announced the end of The Bunny Alliance as an organization. The information, up to that point has been left online to show how far its cause has traveled. As for Amanda, she still has her passion for animal liberation and other causes supported by The Bunny Alliance. She has been active in Action For Animals Taking Sides, a larger organization with a broader agenda, where she is now vice president.