Too long have people been indifferent to the plight of those suffering around them. Too often, I see others ignoring, even REVELLING in the suffering and exploitation of others. These hopeless innocents have no voice of their own, they merely suffer in silence, unable to fight back or even cry out against their human opressors.

Too long have I sat in silence, quietly bemoaning the cruelty native to my species, for too long have I been content to support cruelty with my silence and indifference, I must no longer remain neutral in this battle of what is right over our base human craving for inflicting pain on God's creatures.

I am talking, of course, about the absolutely horrid treatment of branch coral in our nation's aquariums.

For decades, the fight has been focused on the liberation of dolphins and seals, and other mammalian ocean bretheren, but we have overlooked the silent battle of this most gentle and beautiful of sea creatures in our struggles. Even though this forgetting has not been intentional, it has indeed been greivous. We are soldiers, soldiers fighting in a battle to save the gentle spirits of the earth and sea from man's tyrrany, and a good soldier is never supposed to leave a brother behind; yet we have left coral behind. For all this time.

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Look at it, look at the solemn expression in its polyp's eyes. They aren't meant to live in a box like this, they ought to be free to run the pelagic prairies and run wild in vast herds on the abyssal plains, as Gaia intended. But HUMANS have made it a point to keep this beautiful animal in SLAVERY for our own amusement! We can no longer justify caging these graceful, intelligent beasts just because we think they are pretty. They are more beautiful in the wild than ever they could be caged! If you truly love the branch coral, you must set him FREE!

I invite you to join the petition to "Save the Branch Coral." I'm currently working on t-shirt desings to promote the campaign, and am seeking a stamp artist to help promote awareness here on DA. With any luck, these poor caged beauties will be free in the wild once again, where they belong.