Monday, June 30, 2008
Urge Your State Legislators to Oppose Pro-Slaughter Resolution
Dear Friend,
Thanks to the hard work of activists like you, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) is steadily gaining support in Congress. However, a new threat to this bill has emerged. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), an organization made up of state lawmakers from across the country, will consider a pro-slaughter resolution at its annual meeting in July. This short-sighted resolution, would ask Congress NOT to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, and could pressure federal legislators into inaction.
We must not allow NCSL to be on record as opposing federal action on this issue. We must block this resolution, which could give Congress yet another excuse to continue to allow the cruel and inhumane slaughter of American horses in Mexico and Canada.
Ironically, it's the state legislatures that have acted recently to end horse slaughter -- shutting down the last remaining slaughter plants in Illinois and Texas -- and this resolution flies in the face of that strong record in the states on horse protection.
TAKE ACTION
Please call your state representative and state senator to urge opposition to any pro-slaughter resolution at the NCSL annual meeting. Click here to look up your legislators' names and phone numbers.
When you call, you will likely speak to a staff member who can pass your message along to your legislator. Please remember to be polite and professional, and leave your name and address so it is clear that you are a constituent. You can say:
"Hello, my name is [your name] and I'm calling from [your town] to urge [legislator's name] to oppose any pro-slaughter resolution at the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual meeting in July. We need to end the cruel and inhumane slaughter of American horses in Canada and Mexico for food exports."
After making your call, send an email to your state legislators in opposition to this resolution. And don't forget to tell your friends and family about how they can help, too.
Thank you for all you do for animals.
Sincerely,
Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO
The Humane Society of the United States
PROTEST AGAINST BULLFIGHT IN PORTUGAL
Oliveira do Bairro will host the 1st Horse Fair between 5th and 13th of July. In the provisional program it is scheduled a bullfight and a garraiada (bullfight with bulls less than three years old) with the trainees of the bullfighting school of Azambuja.
Handlers weaken the bull for days before the bullfight.They put laxatives in his food and heavy sandbags on his back.They file his horns down to the tender quick, and they drug him. In the ring, they drive lances into his back and neck muscles, so he can’t lift his head. By the time the matador appears, the bull is weak from blood loss and dizzy from being chased in circles.
It’s no fun to see an innocent, crazed animal tortured before a screaming crowd of people, who should be hanging their heads in shame. OIPA urges everyone to stay away from bullfights.
Please send protest letters to the Mayor of the City Hall of Oliveira do Bairro asking him not to allow this bullfight and garraida and substitute theses barbarities by other events.
Please help these poor animals – avoid bullfights and speak out against them.
Where the Elephants Roam
By William Mullen
Tribune staff reporter
May 29, 2005
HOHENWALD, Tenn. -- In the rural hills of central Tennessee, workmen are almost finished installing electrified double fences around 2,700 acres of forest: an 8-foot-high, chain-link barrier on the outside, and a much stronger inner fence of tubular steel and cable.
The strong one keeps huge animals inside. The other keeps the public out.
This is the Elephant Sanctuary, a 10-year-old hospice for elderly, ailing elephants from circuses and zoos. Here the animals spend their final years roaming, dining on wild plants and cavorting with their own kind.
Chicagoans began hearing a lot about it in October, when an elephant died of a rare infection in Lincoln Park Zoo and animal-rights activists demanded the zoo's other two elephants be sent to Hohenwald. The subsequent deaths of those elephants--one from old age, one apparently from the same infection--ratcheted up the fury over not moving them.
It is an ongoing fight that illuminates the tensions between the sanctuary and zoos and circuses that once voluntarily sent ailing elephants to the unusual Tennessee facility. Now, with the sanctuary often siding with animal-rights groups in their fierce criticism of zoos, many resist sending animals there.
Still, some heartwarming success stories at the sanctuary have made an impression on the North American zoo community, which is considering building spacious elephant "conservation centers." Those centers physically would resemble the Hohenwald sanctuary, but the philosophical differences would be vast.
Sanctuary founder Carol Buckley will not allow her elephants to breed; she only takes females. By definition, she says, a sanctuary is a non-breeding facility where animals live out their lives. She also won't let the public in to see the elephants, saying they are not there to entertain visitors.
The very existence of zoos has always revolved around giving people an up-close look at animals. Those visceral encounters, the theory goes, generate appreciation for the peril animals face in shrinking wildernesses globally. Zoos also maintain their captive populations through breeding and manage them for genetic diversity, a skill now needed to maintain wild populations.
Buckley, 51, and sanctuary co-founder Scott Blais, 32, have long been outspoken in their feelings that nearly all zoos give elephants inadequate, poorly designed spaces to live in, contributing to chronic health problems.
They are adamant that elephants shouldn't be made to perform, or even be kept on public display. They say no more should be brought in from the wild and prefer that none be bred in captivity.
PETA praised
Buckley is forthright in her admiration and gratitude for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal-rights group that wants to eliminate elephants from zoos. Some of the elephants at the sanctuary arrived as a result of campaigns by PETA activists.
That is a big change of heart, she concedes, from the days when she hired out to circuses, performing with a female Asian elephant named Tarra that she had taught to roller skate.
In 1984, she said, a woman grabbed her after a show in California and shouted: "That's abuse. You're abusing your animal by making it skate like that."
The accusation stunned her. "I knew it wasn't abusive, but the perception of it was that it was abusive," she said. "It got me to look at the bigger picture of what and how we are going to teach the public about these animals. Eventually I stopped the act, because I realized it was sending the wrong message."
Over the next few years she began toying with the sanctuary idea, especially after she and Tarra joined the African Lion Safari in Ontario, where resident elephants could roam off-view from the public, responsible only for performing regularly in an arena.
There she met Blais, then a teenager working as a part-time keeper and being trained, she said, by men who controlled the elephants with hooks and clubs. Blais was in awe when he saw Buckley work with elephants.
"The guys would have a terrible struggle to get Rascha [an elephant] to lay down for a bath. Carol showed me how to pat her on the hind end and say, `OK, Rascha, you're a good girl, and I'm going to ask you to lay down for a bath.' And she would, with no fuss."
Buckley moved on, but she and Blais kept in touch, talking about a sanctuary plan. In 1995 they found 110 suitable acres 85 miles southwest of Nashville near Hohenwald, an old hill town hit hard by its employers fleeing to cheap overseas labor. Bringing Tarra along, they put up a barn for four elephants.
For a year, no money or other elephants came their way. Then early in 1996, a circus owner asked Buckley to come to Florida and take a sick elephant named Barbara. CNN also called, asking if they could do a story on the move.
"The next thing you know," said Buckley, "we got a $10,000 check from somebody who saw the show and liked the idea of what we were doing. That really started things going."
Problems in captivity
More journalists did stories on the sanctuary, telling how Buckley started it on the premise that elephants need access to large amounts of space. In the wild they walk 30 to 50 miles daily, she said, and denying captive elephants the ability to roam causes them physical and psychic problems.
Many captive elephants die of bone disease, which she charges comes from spending much of their lives standing on concrete surfaces. Moreover, she contends that disease is prone to spread among animals kept in close quarters.
The zoo community disagrees, noting that life expectancies for wild and captive elephants are about the same and that wild elephants are prone to the same foot injuries and diseases as captive ones. But as a procession of ailing, older elephants arrived at the sanctuary and seemed to thrive, Buckley found a powerful megaphone in the media.
On July 6, 1999, National Geographic was at the sanctuary to film the arrival of Shirley, a 52-year-old Asian elephant that had been living alone in a Monroe, La., zoo for 22 years.
The TV crew had left for the day when Jenny, a 30-year-old gimpy with arthritis, wandered into the barn from a day outdoors. Seeing Shirley in a barn stall, Jenny began wailing with such passion that Blais grabbed his own video recorder.
"Jenny knew right away who Shirley was and was wailing and screaming," Buckley said. "Shirley wasn't quite sure how to take the attention; then all of a sudden we saw her eyes got big, like there was a jolt of recognition as she remembered who Jenny was."
Buckley knew that in 1976, the two elephants had briefly been owned by the same circus. It turned out Shirley, an adult, had been housed with younger elephants while recovering from a broken leg. Jenny, then 7, was in that group and immediately solicited mothering from Shirley. They were together only a few weeks before each was leased to a different circus.
As the reunited elephants bellowed 23 years later, keepers put them in adjoining stalls. They tenderly entwined their trunks between the bars. The next day, released into the outdoors, they were inseparable. When they weren't using their trunks to caress each other, they were raising them to trumpet their joy.
The moving reunion became the centerpiece of a National Geographic documentary on captive elephants that won an Emmy and brought international fame and donations to the sanctuary. Generous, well-to-do Tennesseans joined the sanctuary's board of directors.
Last year, Buckley said, 34,000 donor/members contributed $4.5 million. The money is being used to expand the original 110 acres to 2,700 acres and to build bigger, better barns, she said.
They now house a herd of 11 Asian female elephants as well as three African females that have their own facility and separate range to roam. When construction is complete, there will be room for 12 elephants the sanctuary wants to bring from the Hawthorn Corp., a troubled McHenry County circus animal training facility.
Buckley said wild-elephant researchers visiting the sanctuary say the elephants behave much as they would in the wild, displaying identical social dynamics and herd organization.
Shirley, for instance, took the role of matriarch of the sanctuary's Asian females. In nature, elephant herds are made up of adult females and their young, with the males coming around only to mate. Each herd is headed by an elder female on whose experience and knowledge the rest rely.
Jenny, meanwhile, bosses others around as if she were Shirley's daughter. In the wild, matriarchal leadership is passed on through lineage.
The elephants can choose at all times to be in the barn or out roaming the hills, but much of their diet comes from browsing the grounds. They have learned through the years which wild grasses and other plants are tastiest in which season.
Three times a day the staff brings supplemental foods, vitamins and medicines, wherever the animals may be. Keepers are convinced the elephants seek out certain plants for medicinal purposes, such as eating the bark of slippery elm or poison ivy leaves for upset stomachs.
With the relatively mild Tennessee winters, Buckley said only in January do the animals generally spend long periods in the heated barns.
`It's not about you, here'
As big as the property is, it remains a captive enclosure, and with captivity come some eccentric behaviors. The Tennessee hills, for example, provide an endless stream of stray dogs, and a little white one named Bella has become Tarra's pet.
"She lives and goes everywhere with Tarra," said Buckley. "Tarra pets her with her trunk and her foot. Bella will roll over and solicit belly strokes from Tarra."
One natural behavior Buckley will not allow is breeding.
"If they come here, we let them become extinct," she said, underlining the philosophy that elephants should not be in captivity. "There is a big difference between extinction in captivity and in the wild."
Nor is the public permitted to see the elephants. The sanctuary's electronically controlled gate swings open only for visitors on prearranged business, though exceptions are sometimes made for large donors.
"People go to zoos to be entertained," said Buckley. "We say that elephants shouldn't be on display. Here, you don't get to come on our grounds. It's not about you; here, it's about the animals."
Instead, remote video cameras broadcast live footage through "Elecam," a feature on the sanctuary's Web site, elephants.com. Buckley says hundreds of people from all over the world regularly watch the elephants, getting to know their lives in intimate detail. She also uses Elecam as a teaching tool while lecturing in classrooms via computer linkups.
Visitor center coming
Buckley expects tourism to increase after the sanctuary builds a visitor center next year, though people standing on an observation platform probably will never be closer to an animal than 300 yards. The best view will be via 30 remote video cameras visitors will use to locate and zoom in on elephants with handheld controls.
"There are alternative, more progressive ways to teach and to not exploit the animals," said Blais. "Even if you don't see the elephants with your own eyes from the visitor center, we think you'll have a more powerful experience than if the elephant was standing just 2 feet away from you.
"We hear from people in Hohenwald that the elephants won't have an impact on them unless they can see the animals, but people aren't going to get a true appreciation for them unless they see them in a natural setting."
Stung by the campaigns against elephant captivity, the American Zoo Association last week reported results from a Harris poll showing that 95 percent of adult Americans believe zoos give children greater appreciation of elephants and 94 percent believe children are more concerned about animals they learn about in zoos.
In January, 78 zoos currently holding elephants in North America announced long-range plans to expand their elephant collections and to broaden research and support of surviving wild populations.
Taking notice of the sanctuary idea, AZA executive director Sydney Butler said the zoo industry is considering trying something similar--not hospices, but "conservation centers."
"AZA institutions have considered species conservation centers, leading to larger spaces for animals," Butler said during a recent Chicago visit.
The big difference would be that the zoo version would be a breeding facility with bull elephants, resulting in "true family herds, with infants." The centers probably would permit public access and might shift family herds in and out of zoos.
"It has to be carefully considered for the future," said Butler, stressing that plans for such centers are only preliminary.
Townspeople critical
In the town of Hohenwald, Buckley has garnered support from civic leaders and has been enthusiastically received at schools, where she volunteers to lecture.
Still, many residents are surprisingly sour about her and her enterprise.
"You hear all about the elephants out there on television, but as far as we're concerned, they're not here, because we never see them," said Carolyn Bell, manager of Hohenwald's only motel, which gets some business from occasional sanctuary visitors.
"I don't think bad about it; I just don't think it benefits the town. I think they started it to give themselves a job. That's my opinion, and a lot of other people around here think so, too.
"If it would let people in, maybe they'd think better of it. Some kids around here will never see an elephant in their whole life."
Buckley said she is aware of the negative undercurrents in the area but believes those will disappear once the sanctuary visitor center opens and begins to attract tourists.
She also insists the sanctuary is merely a bystander caught in the struggle between the zoo industry and the animal rightists, but she makes it clear that she thinks zoos need to pay attention to her operation and change how they care for elephants.
"I don't see zoos ever becoming extinct," Buckley said. "I see them getting managers who have a vision to change their facilities to meet the needs of the animals. Instead of a business mind, you need a visionary to run the zoos."
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wmullen@tribune.com
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Poor children main victims of climate change: U.N.
Foreigners threaten Afghan snow leopards
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's snow leopards have barely survived three decades of war. But now the few remaining mountain leopards left in Afghanistan face another threat -- foreigners involved in rebuilding the war-torn country.
Despite a complete hunting ban across Afghanistan since 2002, snow leopard furs regularly end up for sale on international military bases and at tourist bazaars in the capital. Foreigners have ready cash to buy the pelts as souvenirs and impoverished Afghans break poaching laws to supply them.
Tucked between souvenir stores on Chicken Street, Kabul's main tourist trap, several shops sell fur coats and pelts taken from many of Afghanistan's threatened and endangered animals.
"This one is only $300," one shopkeeper told Reuters, producing a snow leopard pelt from the back of his shop.
"It was shot several times," he said pointing to the patches of fur sewn together. "The better ones are only shot once. The skin remains intact," he says as his assistant brings out a larger pelt, this time with no patches. "This one is $900."
All the shopkeepers said they had more pelts at home and that they had sold furs to foreigners over the past few weeks.
Asked if it was easy to send the furs back home, one shopkeeper who did not want to be named said: "No problem! We hide the fur inside blankets and send it back to your country."
Snow leopards along with several other animals in Afghanistan are listed as endangered or threatened under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Anyone caught knowingly transporting a fur across an international border is liable to a large fine. In the United States, it could result in a $100,000 fine and one year jail term.
It is hard to know the exact numbers of snow leopards left in Afghanistan due to the creatures' elusive nature and the lack of any case studies during the last three decades of conflict, said Dr. Peter Smallwood, Afghanistan country director for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
But what is known is that the snow leopard is endangered.
"If you look historically at Afghanistan, Afghanistan actually had more big cat species than the entire continent of Africa," said Clayton Miller, Environmental Advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
"Now the only cat species that is not on the threatened and endangered species list is the domestic cat.
Destruction of infrastructure, movements of refugees, modern weaponry, extreme poverty and a lack of law enforcement together with drought and deforestation are just some of the factors that have devastated Afghanistan's flora and fauna.
There are now only between 100 to 200 snow leopards estimated to be left in Afghanistan. In comparison, Bhutan has the same number but has three times less the area of habitat.
The estimated number of snow leopards in the wild worldwide is between 3,500 and 7000, according to the International Snow Leopard Trust (ISLT).
CRACKING DOWN ON FOREIGNERS
Snow leopards in Afghanistan mainly inhabit the extreme northeast of the country in particular the remote sliver of land called the Wakhan Corridor which separates Tajikistan from Pakistan and extends all the way to China.
The mountainous Wakhan is sparsely populated by humans but is a vital link for the snow leopard.
"The Wakhan is a critical area because ... you're going to get snow leopards going between Tajikistan, Pakistan and China through the Wakhan valley, so it's a key, key area. Its importance far outweighs its physical size," Smallwood said.
When the U.S. embassy's Miller first moved to Afghanistan he discovered a widespread practice of selling endangered animal parts to foreigners.
"There were threatened and endangered species being marketed to international personnel, not only military but aid mission folks and anybody visiting the bazaar," said Miller.
In a bid to stop poaching of snow leopards, the U.S. embassy and the WCS targeted the buyers.
"We decided that one of the quickest ways of trying to address this issue was to go after the demand. The only individuals that are actually able to purchase these things were internationals," Miller told Reuters.
Snow leopard pelts can sell for up to $1500, well beyond the means of most Afghans.
Since August last year, Miller and the WCS have been educating military and civilian staff, in particular those in charge of mail services, on how to recognize endangered and threatened animal furs as well as conducting "raids" on U.S. military bases.
The raids have yielded products from endangered species including snow leopards, said Miller, but he stressed the U.S. military was very "cooperative" in trying to combat the trade.
Within two weeks of their first training session on a U.S. base just outside Kabul, the military had managed to "virtually eliminate" any trade of these products on the base, he said.
Local traders who offer their wares on military bases are issued with a warning if they are caught selling the furs and are barred from returning if caught again.
Because of the structured nature of the military, said Smallwood, it is easier to get the message delivered.
"The harder part is trying to deliver the message to the rest of the international community, which we're working on," he said.
But the threats to the snow leopard still remain.
"With numbers this low I wouldn't want to say ...if we just fix this problem the rest is fine. All of these problems need to be dealt with. Losing 10 animals could be as much as 10 percent of the population," Smallwood said.
Legalize Whaling (a Little), Some Conservationists Say
for National Geographic News
Could a little legalized commercial whale hunting actually help save the animals? That's one idea floating around this year's meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Santiago, Chile.
The still unofficial proposal involves backing off a 22-year-old moratorium that bans all but a small amount of whaling for scientific and sustenance purposes.
Some problems with the ban as it stands include Iceland and Norway openly defying it to kill several hundred whales a year and Japan's liberal and allegedly dishonest use of "science" to justify its annual hunt of up to a thousand whales.
If these countries are permitted to whale a little, the idea's proponents argue, then their hunts can be monitored and the effects of these hunts better understood.
"It would resume our science-based methods for determining how many whales can be safely harvested from a particular population," said Andrew Read, a marine conservation biologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Read has served on the IWC's scientific committee for more than a decade. He notes that any member country can already issue itself a permit to take as many whales as it wants for "scientific" research, as Japan does.
Susan Lieberman is the director of the World Wildlife Fund's global species program. She said whaling itself does not help conservation, but a compromise that ended unregulated killing would be worth considering.
"I think governments have an obligation to try to see if they can bridge the gap here," she said.
Nature of the Impasse
The IWC formed more than 60 years ago to manage and conserve whale stocks, but the organization has drifted toward conservation since the moratorium on commercial hunts was approved in 1986.
Japan maintains a research program that nets up to a thousand whales annually, even as the country lobbies the IWC to lift the moratorium. Anti-whaling nations and activists, meanwhile, consider Japan's scientific justification for its whaling a sham and vow to uphold the moratorium.
All this time, according to Read, pressing scientific issues such as the effect of climate change on whales in the Arctic and Antarctic and estimates of whale stocks around the world are being neglected.
Unlikely Compromise?
A ban backtrack certainly won't be voted on at this year's meeting. Many details have to be hammered out before one can even be proposed.
For instance, Japan has previously sought approval for a limited hunt of minke whales off its coast.
One potential deal informally under consideration is to allow this hunt in exchange for an end to Japan's scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean, according to WWF's Lieberman.
"WWF isn't promoting limited whaling," she said. "What we're promoting is trying to stop the unlimited, unregulated whaling that's going on right now."
Glenn Inwood is a spokesperson for the Institute for Cetacean Research, which represents Japan on the IWC. In an e-mail exchange, he said, "Japan would not stop its research programs" even if coastal hunting were allowed.
But he noted that a well-managed commercial hunt based on science would provide "a benefit to people while allowing the whale population to increase."
Patrick Ramage directs the global whale program for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which opposes any compromise that would allow for a resumption of commercial whale hunts.
"We reject this notion that we need to kill more whales to save them," he said.
He added that "the impasse is a bit false." Iceland, Norway, and Japan are the only IWC members that hunt whales for commercial purposes, he noted.
Most of the other countries that have voted to overturn the moratorium, he said, were recruited to the commission by Japan in return for fisheries aid.
"We should be discussing how Japan, Norway, and Iceland will join the vast majority of IWC member countries in putting down their harpoons, picking up cameras, [and] going whale watching," he said.
Criminalisation of Animal Protection in Austria
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Exposed: Meat and Dairy Industries' Third Round of Abuses to Cows
WARNING: This video contains images of animal abuse.
Our third investigation shows farm animals suffering at auctions and stockyards. Downed animals, those too ill or injured to walk, can suffer unaided for hours at all stages of the farm-to-slaughter process.
Animals too frail to walk may be dragged to their death or left suffering for hours—and consumers could unknowingly consume the meat from sick and injured animals if these animals are slaughtered.
The USDA must act today to stop this abuse by:
- Immediately closing the dangerous loophole that allows some downer cows to be slaughtered for food
- Applying the downer ban to haulers, stockyards and auctions as well as slaughter plants
TAKE ACTION
Demand that the USDA eliminate this dangerous loophole now.
Public officials receive a lot of email, so it's important to personalize the subject line and message below so that your message will stand out and have a greater impact.
» Forward to a Friend | » Tell Me More
 | Subject: |
Dear Secretary Schafer,
As you know, The Humane Society of the United States has released a third video of downer abuse. This cruelty is clearly being allowed during transportation, auction, and slaughter. Please take two actions without delay:
1. Expedite regulations to immediately close the loophole that allows some downed cattle to be slaughtered for consumption.
2. Apply the ban on downers to haulers, stockyards and auctions as well as slaughter plants.
For the sake of animal welfare and food safety, please don't wait around for the usual slow bureaucratic processes -- the USDA must fix its current policy immediately.
(Edit Letter Below)
This third undercover investigation by The Humane Society of the United States illustrates the need for more humane treatment of animals destined for the food supply, at every step from producer to slaughter plant.
Thank you for your immediate action to stop this suffering.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]
North Pole ice could disappear this summer — scientists
Greenwire: The North Pole may be completely ice-free later this summer as global warming melts Arctic ice, according to scientists.
Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., said the ice retreated to a record level last September, opening up the Northwest Passage, a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, for the first time in recorded history. They said there is a 50-50 chance the thin ice could completely melt away at the geographic North Pole by this September.
“We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center … ‘does the North pole melt out this summer?’ and it may well,” said the center’s senior research scientist Mark Serreze.
Serreze said last year’s near-meltdown was the result of weather patterns, and meteorological conditions this summer will determine whether the ice will completely melt this year.
A brief lack of ice at the top of the globe will not bring any immediate consequences, though, he said.
“From the viewpoint of the science, the North Pole is just another point in the globe, but it does have this symbolic meaning,” Serreze said. “There’s supposed to be ice at the North pole. The fact that we may not have any by the end of this summer could be quite a symbolic change.”
There are even some positive aspects of limited ice in the Arctic, he said. Ships could use the Northwest Passage to save time and energy by not having to sail through the Panama Canal or around Cape Horn. And the Arctic could be more easily opened up to oil and gas exploration.
“There’s also, of course, oil at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean,” he said. “Now, the irony of that is kind of clear but the fact that we are opening up the Arctic Ocean does make it more accessible” (Alan Duke, CNN.com, June 27). – KJH
WSPA’s evidence critical in victory for whale welfare
A WSPA investigation has acted to convince commissioners at the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) annual meeting to vote ‘no’ to including ten humpbacks in Greenland’s whaling quota.
WSPA’s undercover investigation revealed that 25% of whales killed by Greenland – which they are permitted to hunt only for aboriginal subsistence purposes – are sold commercially, resulting in significant profit and exploding the myth that their whaling quotas are purely subsistence based.
Taking the truth to the decision-makers
Last week we presented IWC commissioners with our compelling evidence, providing them with the information necessary to ensure a ‘no’ vote on 26 June from a majority 36 of the 65 voting nations.
In a meeting that was seeking to create consensus amongst IWC members, this sent a powerful message to Greenland.
WSPA’s Claire Bass commented on the vote from the IWC meeting: “This is fantastic news as fewer whales will be cruelly killed. WSPA‘s investigation has given the IWC the information it needed to see through the myths of Greenlandic whaling and make the right decision.”
Speaking on the importance of the vote, she added: “This is a significant victory in a bigger campaign to end the slaughter of whales globally, and we will continue in our campaign to end the cruelty of whaling.”
Investigation sparks further debate
WSPA’s report on our findings in Greenland, Exploding Myths, also raised calls within the IWC for the distinction between aboriginal subsistence whaling and commercial whaling to be properly enforced.
This is important step in preventing an erosion of the worldwide commercial whaling ban which has been in place since 1986.
What the future holds
The Danish commissioners, who represent Greenland at the IWC, said they would be back next year to ask again that their whaling quota be expanded.
WSPA will also be there, backed by sound science and huge public support, to put the welfare case against whaling.
Read BBC’s report on the vote >>
Read more about WSPA’s campaign against whaling (WSPA UK website) >>
Four of the foulest journeys on earth
Global campaign launched to end the cruel and unnecessary long distance transport of live animals
Undercover footage filmed over two years by a global coalition of animal welfare groups today (February 12) revealed the brutality of transporting animals long distances simply to be slaughtered at the journey’s end.
The WSPA-led Handle with Care coalition, which is comprised of leading international animal welfare groups has come together for the first time to fight this issue, today launched its campaign calling on governments to stop this cruel and unnecessary trade.
WSPA’s Paul Rainger said: “The cruelty these animals endure is completely unacceptable in the 21st century. This trade is one in which millions of animals suffer cruel and unnecessary journeys each year. It must stop.”
The transport of chilled and frozen meat has been going on for more than 125 years. But still millions of cattle, pigs, horses and sheep still suffer and die while being transported unnecessarily long distances each year just to be slaughtered on arrival.
The coalition urges people to see the evidence at www.handlewithcare.tv and add their name to a letter of protest which calls on governments to stop the cruel and unnecessary long distance transport of animals for slaughter. The campaign launched by highlight four of the worst routes involving sheep from Australia to the Middle East, cattle from Brazil to Lebanon, horses from Spain to Italy and Pigs from Canada to Hawaii.
-Ends-
Notes to Editor
Members of the Handle with Care coalition are World Society for the Protection of Animal (WSPA), Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), RSPCA Australia, Dieren bescherming (Dutch SPCA), Dyrenes Beskyttelse (Danish SPCA), International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH), Humane Society International, Born Free USA and Eurogroup for Animals.
The definition of long distance varies between regions and countries. But for the Handle with Care Coalition it refers to cases where animals are forced to suffer unnecessarily long journeys – often thousands of miles by road and sea – when it would be possible to take them to slaughterhouses close to where they were reared.
For interviews, images or footage call Sarah Pickering on +44 (0)20 7587 5000 / +44 (0) 7801 386 670 and visit www.handlewithcare.tv
Video Report: Last Situation Programs In Thousands Islands
Presentation At North Jakarta International School
Alert : Puppies Need Help !
Primate Sanctuary Programe : Macaca Release
Video : Aanpakken en wegwezen, Java, Indonesië (Dutch Langguage)
or :
http://xml.truveo.com/rd?i=2690923130&a=af6f670b39b1121cf54358467c12e869&p=1&q=id%3A2691881478&vl=2691881478%20
Marine Ecosystem Program: Video, Welcome to Thousands Islands National Park, Jakarta, Indonesia
Bisnis Gelap Burung Paruh Bengkok (Bahasa Indonesia)
http://www.liputan6.com/progsus/?id=160871
15/06/2008 13:30 Sigi : Bisnis Gelap Burung Paruh Bengkok (Bahasa Indonesia)
Liputan6.com, Jakarta: Setiap tahunnya puluhan ribu burung langka asli Indonesia diselundupkan ke Filipina dan sejumlah negara tetangga. Selain pasar internasional, burung-burung langka jenis paruh bengkok seperti kakatua, nuri, dan bayan juga diperjualbelikan secara ilegal di pasar lokal. Tidak tanggung-tanggung, nilai perdagangan satwa langka Indonesia diperkirakan mencapai Rp 9 triliun per tahun atau hampir separoh nilai bisnis narkoba.
Ironisnya, jaringan perdagangan burung langka ternyata bermula dari para pemburu tradisional yang hanya mengejar sesuap nasi. Betapa tidak, untuk satu ekor nuri kepala hitam yang ditangkap di hutan Papua atau Halmahera, hanya dihargai Rp 65 ribu hingga Rp 150 ribu. Sementara di kota besar seperti Jakarta, Surabaya, atau di Filipina, harganya hingga jutaan rupiah per ekor.
Burung-burung jenis paruh bengkok yang menjadi incaran memang indah dipandang mata. Tidak heran konvensi perdagangan internasional untuk tumbuhan dan satwa langka (Cites) memasukkan paruh bengkok ke dalam satwa langka yang dilindungi karena terancam punah. Bahkan, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) memasukkannya dalam daftar merah yang berarti sangat gawat.
Hingga kini, jual beli burung langka ini terus berlangsung karena perang melawan penyelundupan dan perdagangan satwa langka dilindungi tidak mampu memutus mata rantai mereka. Maklum, jaringannya luas, rapi, dan terorganisir hingga berkoneksi dengan jaringan perdagangan satwa langka di luar negeri.
Lantas, bagaimana modus operandi jaringan perdagangan dan penyelundupan burung paruh bengkok? Di mana saja tempat-tempat transaksi satwa langka ini terjadi? Ikuti penelusuran tim Sigi dalam tayangan video Sigi 30 Menit edisi 15 Juni 2008. Selamat menyaksikan.(ADO)
you can also check this article at : http://www.jakartaanimalaid.com/Agenda.html
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