Day: January 31, 2019

Environmental, General News January 31, 2019

USA: Petition – Tell Politicians, Support The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2019.

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Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/sign-ban-cruel-shark-fin-trade-u-s/

PETITION TARGET: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell

Every year, an estimated 73 million sharks worldwide are cruelly butchered and killed for the shark fin industry.

It’s a brutal process; these majestic apex predators are hauled from the ocean and their fins barbarically sliced off before being thrown back into the water.

Sharks must be able to swim in order to get enough oxygen as the water filters through their gills. Once they lose their fins, they are helpless. Unable to move, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, dying slowly from suffocation and blood loss — if another predator doesn’t attack them in the meantime.

This mass slaughter of sharks is pushing many species towards extinction, with more than 70 percent of the most common species used in the trade considered to be at critically low population levels.

Now, hope is on the horizon with a new bill introduced by Rep Gregorio Sablan and Rep Michael McCaul. The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2019 has enormous bipartisan support and is backed by a variety of conservation organizations.

While shark finning has been illegal in U.S. waters since 2000, the trade in fins throughout the country is still legal; fins are currently imported from countries that have no regulations protecting sharks. Twelve states have state-wide bans on the trade, but even so, many restaurants in these states still feature shark fin on the menu.

Sign the petition urging Senator Mitch McConnell and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi to support this bill’s passage through Congress, and send a message to the rest of the world that the U.S. is a leader in shark conservation.

Environmental, General News January 31, 2019

We Don’t Often Have Much To Celebrate, But Here Is Something.

From ‘Whale and Dolphin Conservation’.

Thank you Mark

We’ve made this video for you to celebrate all the amazing things we achieved together for whales and dolphins in 2018 – our 30th anniversary year. You should feel extremely proud – we couldn’t have done any of this without our fantastic supporters.

I hope you’ll stay with us in 2019 as we need your support more than ever to fight the continuing threats to whales and dolphins and create a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free.

With very best wishes on behalf of all of us at WDC,

Julia Pix, WDC campaigns manager

Farm Animals, General News January 31, 2019January 31, 2019

Vietnam: Coalition of global animal welfare groups urges international companies to help end bloody “pig chopping” ritual in Vietnam.

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WAV Comment:

A ‘civilised’ nation in 2019 ? – one has to question strongly.

Coalition of global animal welfare groups urges international companies to help end bloody “pig chopping” ritual in Vietnam

31 January 2019

Source: https://www.animalsasia.org/uk/media/news/news-archive/coalition-of-global-animal-welfare-groups-urges-international-companies-to-help-end-bloody-pig-chopping-ritual-in-vietnam.html

Note : the following photos are from Google – not Animals Asia.

The Asia for Animals coalition has written to Samsung and Canon asking them to use their economic influence to force government action.

Animal welfare campaigners are urging global companies such as Samsung and Canon to take a strong stand against a gruesome Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam in which live pigs are tied up and paraded around the streets before being chopped in half with machetes. Provincial authorities are set to allow the Nem Thuong Pig Chopping Festival to take place in Bac Ninh province on February 10 despite condemnation from local and international charities, as well as the central Vietnamese government and the general public in the country.

The Asia for Animals coalition of 18 international and Asian animal protection groups has written to leading corporate investors in Bac Ninh province urging them to apply economic pressure to help end the bloody tradition. Industry is a mainstay of the Bac Ninh economy with scores of multinational corporations investing in the province’s many industrial parks. Samsung and Canon are two of the biggest players with Foxconn, PepsiCo and Nokia also present.

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This month, the capital city of Hanoi announced it will set up a 24-hour hotline for the general public to report “offensive” or “violent” Lunar New Year festivals in a move which may bring more pressure to bear on rogue events such as the Nem Thuong Pig Chopping ritual.

Animals Asia Animal Welfare Officer Nguyen Tam Thanh said:

“The public, the media and the central government want this violent ritual to end, but the Bac Ninh authorities are refusing to take action. Now we’re asking the province’s leading commercial players to apply economic pressure and help them see sense.

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“Continuing this barbaric ritual is totally at odds with Vietnamese culture and the tradition of New Year. It negatively impacts society, animal welfare and the country’s image abroad. Animal cruelty cannot be part of modern Vietnamese culture.”

The gory spectacle has been decried by the central Vietnamese government with the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism enacting a regulation in 2016 that all “outdated” and “uncivilised” festivals should end. So far this mandate has halted numerous “buffalo stabbing” and buffalo fighting festivals across the country. Yet the Bac Ninh provincial government, which has the authority to end the extreme animal cruelty which takes place in Nem Thuong village, has remained defiant and allowed the gory spectacle to continue.

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The letters from the Asia for Animals coalition, sent on January 10, ask both Samsung and Canon to speak with both the Bac Ninh People’s Committee and the Bac Ninh Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism to finally end the bloody spectacle.

Phuong Tham, Humane Society International’s Viet Nam Director said:

“Most people in Vietnam don’t want to see this type of animal cruelty spectacle go ahead, particularly the younger Vietnamese who share the global concern for animal welfare and believe that cruelty has no place in a modern Vietnam. The pig chopping festival is brutal and unnecessary, subjecting pigs to a terrifying ordeal and cruel slaughter. Our message is clear, go ahead with a New Year festival but replace the animal suffering with a cruelty-free ritual that everyone can enjoy. Let’s have a new culture of compassion for animals.”

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Samsung’s Global Sustainability Strategy claims it aims to “take on a stronger responsibility as a global citizen to create social values”, a claim Asia for Animals believes means it has a responsibility to oppose the cruel Nem Thuong pig chopping ritual.

The coalition also highlights Canon Vietnam’s philosophy of “Kyosey”, in which “All people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously live and work together into the future”. Asia for Animals has called on Canon Vietnam to expand this philosophy to all non-human animals and to help develop positive social values which benefit both people and animals.

To date, neither company has responded to the letters.

Stray Animals January 31, 2019

Never leave your friends!

The human species has been called “Homo Sapiens”.
I would call ourselves “homo bestial” today.

The dignity of man begins with the dignity of all animals.
The feelings the animals unconditionally bring to us make life more bearable, more human.
The hatred, the exploitation, the contempt humans bring to animals destroy any substance of decency, morality, peace.

Stray is the result of our conviction, that we can treat our pet friends as objects when we do not feel anything for them. We put our best friends on the street when and when it suits us.
Without any remorse, responsibility, moral sensitivity.

In this video, it probably becomes clear what a scum is who treats his best friend with perfidious, cynical, cold-blooded morality.

My best regards, Venus

General News January 31, 2019January 31, 2019

Australia: Farmer as a spy among activists!!

A WESTERN District farmer is acting as an undercover animal rights activist in a bid to protect his industry.

The Weekly Times can reveal the sheep farmer began infiltrating animal rights groups four years ago because he believed activists were getting away with crimes with just a “slap on the wrist”.

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The farmer has a fake “stereotypical vegan” Facebook account to gain access to private vegan groups and discussions online.

He also attends protests and even private social gatherings with local animal activists.

“I thought I better start watching out because you never know when they’re going to come,” he said.

“I meet them, talk to them and protest alongside them.

“You have to bite your tongue 99 per cent of the time.

“I’ve actually stopped quite a lot of sit-ins or disruptions (!!) — about three in the last four or five months — by letting the police and venue know it’s coming.

“If a scruffy bloke can get in on it maybe the police need to start doing it.”

The farmer said while he had heard many conversations about stolen livestock, he had not witnessed or gone as far as to take part in it as his “vegan alter ego”.

Victorian Farmers Federation egg president Brian Ahmed, who has had activists break in to his Werribee farm, said while “two wrongs don’t make a right” he was not surprised it had come to this.

“I think sooner or later someone had to take action,” Mr Ahmed said.

“I’m disappointed authorities haven’t done enough so we have had to get to this level,” he said.

“Unless our government takes a stand for agriculture in this country we’re going to have more and more of this.”

The undercover animal activist said he would like to see “a total reform of the trespassing laws here in Victoria”.

“We’re all just sick and tired of it,” he said.

“We’re just trying to put food on the table.”

https://animalliberationpressoffice.org/NAALPO/2019/01/22/snitch-alert-melbourne-australia-farmer-goes-undercover-as-animal-activist-to-get-inside-knowledge/

My comment: The infiltration of animal rights activists is not new.
In 2011, the Austrian animal rights activist Martin Balluch, also with “help” of a covert spy woman, was jailed for 13 months. Without having committed any offense.
Martin Balluch has written about his experiences in connection with this criminal process the book: animal rights activist: the state enemy!

“We’re all just sick and tired of it,” said the spy.

The animals get sick because of performance breeding and torture in the mega cases. Not the farmers. The farmers only gripe, and “play” the victims.

When we are on the side of justice, we are on the side of the nonhuman animals who are abused by criminal tormentors in the Farma Dachau of the 21st century as slaves and die painful because they consider these beings as their property.

Not least, because the system, the police and the politicians support and advocate these death factories.

The covert investigations will get on!

Thanks to some brave people, we hope to eradicate the hell the animals go through every day because of our species.