State of the Oceans

The Barbi Twins
www.latalkradio.com April 23, 2014

Shane and Sia Barbi and Rescue Kitten

The Barbi twins, Shane Barbi and Sia Barbi, were famous celebrity pin-up-cover girls of the 90's, that had record breaking calendars, two sold out Playboys and popular branding and merchandise around the world, including their images on Russian stamps. They are now renowned animal activist correspondents and media spokeswomen.

The Barbi Twins are the Animal Editors of the #1 green magazine, "Origin Magazine" (Issue15) and they interview numerous iconic celebrities, like their animal pals Bo Derek and Willie Nelson.

The twins are also health authors of two best selling books. Their latest book, "The Eco Anti Diet Book", teaches people how to incorporate a raw vegan plant diet into everyone's regime and lifestyle.

Lately, the Barbi Twins are also lauded for their famous pet detective work in helping catch the infamous, alleged kitten killer turned cannibal murderer.

The twins were producers of a documentary and of the critically acclaimed film, "Your Mommy Kills Animals", and were featured in many other animal documentaries, including "Saving America's Horses", "Skin Trade" and TV shows, such as Morgan Spurlock's FX "30 Days-Animal Activism".

The Barbi Twins claim that they were the first at being "famous for nothing" and put their 7.5 minutes of infamy each toward animal rights. Famous for Something, Indeed: The Barbi Twins Take Tangible Action for Animal Rights

They grew up in a show-biz family and were featured in their own "Barbi Twins: E! True Hollywood Story". The twins were also featured in a "48 Hours" special about their first book, "Dying to Be Healthy", focusing on their struggles with eating disorders.

What the twins want to bring to the radio show is their bipartisan view on conservation and animal rights. They coined themselves "Green Tea Baggers", claiming the animals are the real 99%-ers, the true victims.

Read More from Captain Paul Watson and Jani Schulz on www.latalkradio.com

Speak Up! Enacting Change on Behalf of Animals By Sia and Shane Barbi

Original Interview: OriginMagazine.com  1/27/2015

Shane and Sia Barbi and Rescue Dog

Sia Barbi: Shane, want to tell people who the heck we are?

Shane Barbi: You and I got our seven-and-a-half minutes of fame each as Playboy’s celebrities, which we use for an additional sixteenth minute of fame as vegan authors and to lobby for animal rights.

Sia: What do you say to those who criticize us for only promoting animal causes when the world is in such turmoil with violence?

Shane: It’s a perfect time to talk about animal issues and causes that everyone can help with instead of being a hopeless victim. It’s about being proactive, setting an example of showing the greatest humanity to the smallest, most vulnerable victims: the animals.

For example, we’ve become so desensitized to think it’s normal to kill our companion animals in kill shelters. We kill three to four million a year. That’s only one percent of our population, so why do we feel the need to kill healthy companion animals? As animal rights activists, we have the duty to fight for the animal to live, not die. Animal activists claim they’re “biocentrics,” so who are we to pick who should live and who should die?

Sia: Most people say that they don’t like feeling helpless when it comes to protecting animals. What do you say to those people?

Shane: People underestimate the power we have to make real change for animals; it’s with our vote. Representatives may not care about animals, but they care about our vote and that is our leverage. And it’s like you always say, Sia, “Martin Luther King said you can’t change the heart, but you can stop the heartless with laws.”

Sia: I do always say that. So can you be more specific on how to go about helping animals with just our vote? Shane: Most animals have some kind of protection bill. The ESA, or Endangered Species Act, protects all endangered animals, but the government lifts the ESA, enacting loopholes or amendments to these bills for their own interest.

For example, the wild horses have a protection bill called The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This bill was amended several times to get rid of the horses so that the land could be used for government business. The most recent amendment was The Burns Rider in 2004 by Senator Harry Reid, who tried again to amend it in 2005. Government wrote loopholes claiming wild horses are “feral” or “pests” to the land. They also claim wild horses are overpopulating, by putting out false reports that mares are having three to four foals a year, which is impossible. Horses take up less than one percent of the land and are continuing to zero out in population. Outside agencies are hired by the BLM to do false impact studies that favor government businesses.

Sia: What about the horse-slaughter bill in general? It’s not just about the wild horses. Is horse slaughter legal?

Shane: Currently, there is an annual temporary ban on horse slaughter, through defunding USDA inspections, of horse-slaughter plants. However, horse slaughter has and will always be legal until we pass the anti-horse-slaughter bill, named the SAFE [Safeguard American Food Exports] Act. This federally bans horse slaughter permanently and stops transport to other countries for slaughter. The anti-horse-slaughter bill was introduced in 2001 and has been sitting in Congress without passing because most people don’t know about it. The slaughter of wild and domesticated horses is a big business that the government wastes taxes on for overseas profit.

Read Complete Article:  OriginMagazine.com

Hero Dogs Of War Discarded As 'Surplus Equipment' After Service

Article by The Barbi Twins on thedodo.com
thedodo.com March 13, 2015


Until 2000, military working dogs (MWDs) were discarded, warehoused or euthanized at the end of their service. There was no law allowing for their adoption and retirement. However, that changed when President Clinton signed a bill, known as "Robby's Law," to facilitate the adoption of retired MWDs. Since that time, countless families and retired dogs have been united, but there is still much more to do. While retired military dogs are now available for adoption, some fail to enter the system simply because of their location overseas. It makes sense for the military to take responsibility by bringing MWDs back to the US at the completion of their tour, but they're not. Retired MWDs are reclassified as "surplus equipment" and discarded if there is no immediate home.

We worked with the top D.C. lobbyist from Animal Welfare Institute, Chris Heyde, to end horse slaughter in 2011. A couple of years ago, we worked with him on the Canine Members of the Armed Forces Act, sponsored by Representative Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC), in the House, and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in the Senate. That would have done several important things, including requiring the military to return MWDs to the US upon completion of their service overseas, so they could enter the adoption program at Texas' Lackland Air Force Base.

While the Canine Members of the Armed Forces Act was blocked in 2013, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, which authorized — but doesn't require, as originally intended — the secretaries of the various military services to transfer the dogs back to Lackland Air Force Base or another location for adoption. This provision would be for any MWD who is to be retired and for whom "no suitable adoption is available at the military facility where the dog is located." This kind of language is needed to ensure that the military returns MWDs to the U.S. where homes are available. The bill also authorizes, (but again, does not require), the Secretary of Defense to create a program with funds from the public to provide veterinary care to retired MWDs.

While these steps are important, they fall far short of ensuring that the US military upholds its duty to honor these national canine heroes by requiring them to return them safely to the US, and caring for them as they age. Several basic tasks that the US government should do for every single veteran, no matter how many legs and/or tails they might have.


#K9VeteransDay is today, Mar. 13, so let's make our canine veterans lucky and "leave no man or dog behind." Demand that our representatives #BringHomeOurDogs from overseas. They fought for us, just like all our veteran heroes did.

Original Article:  thedodo.com

From Killer Looks to No-Kill to Nabbing a Kitten Killer: The Barbi Twins Connect the Dots to Save Animals

Joan K. Smith Become a fan
Philadelphia-based cultural critic, editor, and artist
www.HuffingtonPost.com
HP article posted: 08/29/2014 6:07 pm EDT Updated: 10/29/2014 5:59 am EDT

What do stray cats and the ocean have to do with each other?

Quite a bit in the current work of Shane and Sia Barbi, better known as the Barbi Twins. The blockbuster Playboy cover models and vegan book authors who are now highly respected - and unabashedly outspoken -- animal activists have long used their celebrity as a highly effective platform to incite change, awareness, and action. Since I first wrote about them in 2012, their activism has ramped-up to a new level: To be a unifying force for animal rights issues and organizations, finding common ground and establishing a stronger base of nonpartisan power to address all the causes related to human treatment of animals.

Shane and Sia Barbi - The Barbi Twins and Rescue Dog

They'd long admired the work of Captain Paul Watson (of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Whale Wars fame), and this April they joined forces with him for a weekly radio show on LA Talk Radio called "State of the Oceans" ("because our existence begins with oceans," explains Shane). The weekly guests, recruited by Shane and Sia, comprise a who's-who of well-known animal rights leaders and celebrity activists.

As Shane describes their roster: "We want to be the United Nations of animal rights." By bringing together so many big organizations with different interests for the first time ever, "we want to get out a mainstream bipartisan message that resonates," says Shane, "The focus should be on principles ahead of partisan differences. We need to stop making animals a political issue. "

Among their guests on the radio show have been Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary; Scott Beckstead of the Humane Society of the U.S; Chris DeRose of Last Chance for Animals; reality show star and animal activist Joanna Krupa; the family of Willie Nelson; Michael Budkie of SAEN/Stop Animal Exploitation Now; Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals; Dr. Naomi Rose of the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI); Alison Eastwood, daughter of Clint and founder of the Eastwood Ranch Foundation; Dr. Jenny Conrad of The Paw Project , and the movie of the same name; comedian and activist Elayne Boosler; the cast of the movie Blackfish; and activist, animal rights attorney, and filmmaker Shannon Keith of Beagle Freedom Project and ARME (Animal Rescue Media Education); and veteran animal lobbyist Chris Heyde of the AWI.

Read Complete Article:  www.HuffingtonPost.com

5 Reasons Kill 'Shelters' Don't Work

By the Barbi Twins
On Dodo.com September 18, 2014

There's nothing closer to people than their companion pets. We're responsible for their very existence. Yet there's nothing more betraying to a dog or cat's loyalty than for them to end up at a pound to be killed in return for their unconditional love. We've been brainwashed that "killing is saving" so we kill healthy adoptable pets if there are "too many." We've never stepped outside the cage to ask what's "too many pets?" Nor do we think of alternative ways to find homes for pets without killing.

For example, there are 4.2 million people living in Los Angeles and 45,000 shelter pets killed there per year. That's only one percent of the population. Similarly, there are 316.1 million people that live in the U.S. and three to four million pets killed in pounds nationwide; that's also a little over one percent of the population. So why kill pets when we could think about housing them? Why are we the only country that has kill pounds?

Pounds don't work because:

1. They're run by the health department. Their catch and kill technique is an easy and quick way to keep cities disease-free. 
2. Pounds manage themselves. They don't have to answer to anyone so no one enforces laws like spay/neuter laws. 
3. Killing doesn't lower the number of pets, instead it opens a window for puppy mills, kitten mills, pet shops, and internet backyard breeders. 
4. Pounds aren't "shelters"; they're a place to throw away a pet. If they never existed, people would think twice about getting a pet. 
5. Laws protect pounds so that they don't have to disclose facts. Like this one: there's a 50 to 99 percent chance of the animal being killed.  In most pounds we've volunteered at, pets are dragged to the "bump room" unsedated, and killed with a heart stick. This isn't "humane euthanasia." 

Our goal is to make shelters no-kill or to privatize them. Let's tell our local representatives that the cities would save taxes and lower pet numbers by having:

• Free spay/neuter clinics like humane free clinics using third and fourth year veterinarian students. For every tax dollar we'd spend on spay/neuter, we'd save $10 on housing, killing and disposing of pets. 
• City dog trainers, since in my years of volunteering I've seen that most dogs are surrendered to pounds because they're untrained. 
• TNR programs for feral cats to be trapped/neutered and the returned back to a cat colony, since 75 to 80 percent of pound killings are cats.

Let's stop the broken cycle of killing and promote volunteer-based no-kill rescues. Let's rewire the brain to a "pro-live" movement and find new, creative ways to help homeless animals. Animal rights activists should fight for the animals' right to live, not the right to kill them.