Month: April 2019

USA: New Mexico Bans Destructive Coyote-killing Contests.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 2, 2019

New Mexico Bans Destructive Coyote-killing Contests

Governor Lujan Grisham Signs Bill Abolishing Organized Competition Killing of Coyotes for Prizes, Entertainment

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham today signed bipartisan legislation that prohibits organizing, sponsoring or participating in coyote-killing contests in the state. Several conservation organizations praised the governor for signing the progressive, science-based legislation into law.

During these contests, participants compete to kill the greatest number, the largest or even the smallest coyotes for entertainment and prizes. At least 30 such contests are known to take place annually in New Mexico. 

The bill, SB 76, was spearheaded by state senators Mark Moores (R-Albuquerque) and Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces). The bill was carried on the House floor by Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo).

“Killing contests are just blood sports. All they are about is killing as many animals as you can, and not about protecting livestock or property,” said Sen Moores. “No one is trying to restrict landowners’ ability to kill offending coyotes, but celebrating mass killing is just not good wildlife management.”

“With the signing of this bill, New Mexico is sending a powerful message that we value our wildlife and humane treatment of them,” said Sen. Steinborn.

“This victory has been nearly two decades in the making, the culmination of a homegrown campaign waged by thousands of dedicated New Mexicans appalled that these gruesome blood sports are hosted in our state,” said Jessica Johnson, chief legislative officer for Animal Protection Voters. “Today, we as a state are taking a giant step toward thoughtful, humane wildlife management and basic human decency.”

“This law makes New Mexico a leader in following sound science in its treatment of wild carnivores,” said Michael Robinson, senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We celebrate for coyotes, for endangered wolves that might have been mistakenly killed and for our children learning that humane values are New Mexico values.”

“There is no documented scientific evidence that coyote killing contests serve any legitimate wildlife management purpose,” said Albuquerque-based Project Coyote Science Advisory Board member Dave Parsons, a retired career wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We applaud Gov. Lujan Grisham for taking a strong stance against these ethically and ecologically indefensible events.”

“Coyotes as a species don’t deserve to be vilified. They are important ecosystem managers that regulate populations of rodents and rabbits which are significant competitors for forage with other native herbivores and even livestock,” said Mary Katherine Ray, wildlife chair of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter and long-time resident of rural Socorro county. “The random mass killing of coyotes that occurs with killing competitions is like targeting every cocker spaniel, a similarly sized canine, for death because one may have behaved problematically. The governor was right to sign the bill to stop this.”

“This is a huge victory for New Mexico’s wildlife and New Mexicans,” said Amanda Munro, communications director for the Southwest Environmental Center. “Our wildlife deserves management that reflects broad public opinion, respects all wildlife, and is informed by modern ecological understanding about the value of all species. This bill takes New Mexico a giant step in that direction.”

“These contests are abhorrent and unjustifiable — they are neither hunting nor wildlife management,” said Christopher Smith, southern Rockies wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “Banning this activity is a step towards science-based and ethical wildlife management and we are grateful to the bill’s sponsors and supporters and the governor.”

In January, New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard signed an executive order prohibiting wildlife killing contests for unprotected species on State Trust Lands. California banned the awarding of prizes for killing furbearer and nongame species in 2014, and Vermont banned coyote killing contests in 2018. Cities and counties in Arizona, New Mexico, and Wisconsin have passed resolutions condemning wildlife killing contests.

 

Background

Wildlife-killing contests occur throughout the United States. The best available science indicates that indiscriminately killing coyotes disrupts pack social structures, which can lead to increased depredation and compensatory breeding.

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View a statement signed by more than 70 conservation scientists condemning coyote killing contests here.

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The Street Becomes A Dinner Table For Hungry Animals – Harmony Fund Newsletter.

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We support Harmony Fund with a standing order every month. Our donation, complete with those from thousands of other good people enable Harmony to immediately direct resources into animal crisis situations all over the world.

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We would ask everyone to become a supporter of Harmony – for so many years we have been trying to be a voice for street dogs of Serbia; and in this situation, Harmony has stepped forward to supply on going food and support to many.

Here is a link to the latest Harmony newsletter; and you can see what we mean by getting food onto the ground for animals in need.

Please support;

Regards Mark.

 

Click here to read and see the latest:

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/834507/69081882f4/1582506019/09f78bb52d/

China: The ‘Animal Torture Village’ – Please Sign the Petition.

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Petition Link:

https://secure.avaaz.org/de/community_petitions/Botschaft_der_VR_China_Berlin_Stoppt_die_Tierfolterei_von_Wildtieren_in_SuzhouChina/

Botschaft der VR China, Berlin: Stoppt die Tierfolterei von Wildtieren in Suzhou/China! (English version below)

RTL journalist reports from Suzhou
On 30th March 2015 at 18:45h RTL broadcasted a report about an “animal torture village” in China. They became a very sad celebrity and China announced that village as “cultural heritage”
Surely you remember the pictures which were shown:
Pictures of totally scared monkeys, who had to learn how to ride a bike while being chained to it and during that action were beaten with a stick!

Read a lot more via the above petition link – in both German and English.

Please sign and give your support.

 

The following video is not directly associated with this petition, but it does show animal suffering at this very same ‘animal torture village’ – WAV:

Officials said the sperm whale weighed around 14 tons and an autopsy revealed she was pregnant but the baby was not being fed properly due to the plastic.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8770296/pregnant-sperm-whale-48lbs-plastic-stomach-starved-death/

Officials said the sperm whale weighed around 14 tons and an autopsy revealed she was pregnant but the baby was not being fed properly due to the plastic.

”It couldn’t swallow anything else because it stomach was blocked with plastic. Twenty two kilos of plastic is such a large amount and obviously it is sacculated over time but what is important to stress here is that these animals feed at depth and so it would have been eaten near the bottom of the sea.

”That means that down there, there must be an awful lot of rubbish which we have no real idea about.

This is obviously all waste materials from passing ships and they have no idea of the damage they are causing. It is a very sad and worrying situation.”

 

Man – the destroyer of everything – Regards Mark.

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England: Northern Vegan Festival – and Dolma Perfumes; the Best Smelling Without Any Cruelty.

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WAV Comment – should be a great meeting on the 6th – take it from us, Dolma perfumes are pretty amazing; wonderful smelling perfumes and aftershaves – if they can do it by being cruelty free and still smell amazing, then why cant the rest ? – click on the following link for their website / range – better still, buy some ! – Mark.

 

https://www.dolma-perfumes.co.uk/

To all our valued customers,

We are excited to share with you our participation in the Manchester Northern Vegan Festival 6th April as our first time ever real-world event! As you know, Dolma is an online business and this will be our first time to venture into real time. If you are planning to go or want to know more – see link below for more information. Please come and see us, it would be a wonderful opportunity to meet our customers and make some new ones!

Northern Vegan Festival – UK Vegan Events

Look forward to seeing you there.

The Dolma Team

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https://www.dolma-perfumes.co.uk/about/

Ethics

Customers who don’t want their money to fund animal cruelty are able to buy from Dolma with a clear conscience.

Standing up for standards

Our fragrances are cruelty free.

What does this mean?

They come with a globally recognised guarantee showing that Dolma Perfumes has completed an independent audit (the most stringent in the business) proving a genuine commitment to end animal testing for their products.

They are approved by the Vegan Society, Cruelty Free International, Animal Aid, Dr Hadwen Trust, and Naturewatch for meeting their cruelty-free standards.

We are listed on the Vegan Village list of vegan run companies in the UK.

All Dolma Vegan Perfumes are approved under the The Humane Cosmetics Standard.

 

Trusted Nature Ltd

We are an independent British company.

There is no parent company and we have no association with any organisation that conducts animal testing or uses animal derived ingredients.

Many people are unaware animals are suffering for them to smell good.

Well-known within the vegan and vegetarian community, Dolma is a favourite of caring customers who want to smell nice while knowing animals don’t suffer in the process.

 

https://www.dolma-perfumes.co.uk/recycling-and-the-environment/

Dolma is committed to using recyclable materials wherever possible to reduce waste and pollution.

As an ethical business, we are continuously reviewing suppliers, products and packaging to make sure we run our company in the most eco-friendly way possible. We avoid using excess packaging in our deliveries to make sure we cause the least possible damage to the environment.

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We need “direct action everywhere”!

 

 

Watch what happens when a bunch of activists go on a dairy farm tour…


The university of Florida held an event called “family day at the dairy farm” where they gave us a tour of the farm and explained all the terrors that happen there.

We watched as they taught kids how to artifically inseminate a cow, and as they showed off a baby that was removed from his mothers body at the slaughterhouse. We listened to them brag about the fistulated cow, and how their cows are “better for the environment”, we gave love to the orphaned cows who wanted to suckle so badly, and we said we’re sorry to the hundreds of mothers who already lost their babies, and to the mothers currently pregnant, who will soon lose their babies too.

After bearing witness and documenting the animals, we caused a disruption. No animals deserve to go through their life in such a terrible place, being looked at as nothing more than a number, a product with an expiration date.

All animals deserve happiness and freedom.

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We organzied this event under Orlando Animal Save and Direct Action Everywhere – Orlando

A big  ” Thank You” to the activists!

Best regards, Venus

Palm oil: dirty business and an apokalyptic disaster

It is the story of the loss of habitat, of all animal life and premature death. The swamp forests of the Leuser ecosystem are home to most of Sumatra’s orangutans, and Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world, thrives in its rainforests.

Four million indigenous people depend on their water supplies and food for the forests to be intact. The biggest enemy: deforestation because of palm oil. Most of the palm oil plantations have been set up illegally because there is no permit in protected areas.

 

Opaque supplier networks, cleared rainforests and the associated lost habitats of endangered species: 85 percent of the world’s palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Palm oil is a profitable business worth $ 50 billion a year for Malaysia and Indonesia. By 2020, sales should even rise to USD 88 billion. In response to growing global demand, companies are looking for ways to increase production. Malaysia and Indonesia have tried to do this by increasing yields per hectare.

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More than 60 million tons of it are consumed worldwide every year. Palm oil increasingly serves as a substitute for harmful trans fats and as a bio-alternative for various petroleum products. It has become a billion dollar business. But only very few people know that they even eat it. Many have never heard of it.

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Fortunately and unexpected, the EU Parliament is planning to ban palm oil in biodiesel, Malaysia and Indonesia announced punitive measures against countries that want to boycott palm oil. The draft EU law aims to ban all palm oil biofuel imports by 2021, a measure that compares Malaysia to “crop apartheid”, and Indonesia has promised to avenge itself.

The European Commission, the EU’s main executive body, still needs to draft a final bill. Each of the EU’s 27 national governments must ratify the ban before it is enforced uniformly.
But already France is shooting across and has meanwhile, according to Asia Times promised to oppose the EU ban and has praised the cooperation with Malaysia.
Above all, France and the UK offer to sell fighter jets to Malaysia, an armaments order worth more than 2 billion US dollars.

Indonesia buys armaments from Germany and was granted 555 million euros in development aid in 2015, despite massive human rights violations.

In addition, Italy and Spain belong to the largest producers of palm oil diesel in Europe and therefore there is a further economic interest against an ambitious reduction or even a ban of palmoil.

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Shortly after the decision of the European Parliament in January 2018 to ban palm oil in biofuels from 2021, thousands of plantation farmers took to the streets of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur. Supported by the government, which spoke of “unfair practices” and a “trade war”.

Demonstrators display placards in protest of European Union plan to ban palm oil biofuels, in Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia is the second largest exporter of palm oil after Indonesia, with both countries currently covering more than 80 percent of the world market. Reason enough for the Malaysian plantation minister Datuk Seri Mah to drum for the controversial oil.
The Indonesian authorities have already vowed to limit European imports as a retaliatory measure.

Minister of Primary Industries Mah has gone further and has threatened to respond with “force and tact” by withdrawing from upcoming free trade talks with the EU.

While Indonesian President Joko Widodo promised to protect the last nature reserves, horror images have been shown over the world and are showing, what palm oil does, and that even being cleared in the middle of the swamp forests of the Leuser ecosystem. Since then, the protests around the world are increasing.

The Indonesian constitution protects – at least on paper – the tropical rainforest and declares it a “National Strategy Area for its environmental function”.
Nevertheless, huge amounts of land are cleared and used for the palm oil industry. Indonesia produces about 45% of the world’s palm oil, which is used extensively in food and cosmetics, but also in increasing demand for fuel.

 

 

My Comment: . Palm oil is not cultivated by small farmers but by large international corporations. The peasants are robbed only of the land on which they can later work as auxiliary workers.

A recent report shows what happens to people when palm oil is grown:

They are imprisoned, tortured or murdered. In the Indonesian province of Papua everyone lives dangerously, who opposes the authorities. Serious human rights violations are on the agenda – and the world community takes little notice.

Between Sorong and Manokwari in the Indonesian western part of the island of New Guinea, the population is being expelled from their land to build huge palm oil plantations and exploit precious minerals like gold – with serious social and environmental consequences. Anyone who protests, take a high risk, said a human rights activist.

Indonesia has already lost 75 percent of its rainforest, according to the BOS Foundation. According to forecasts by the United Nations Environment Program, by 2022, 98% of the forests will have disappeared.

Two million hectares per year are cleared or burned. About 88% of the wood comes from illegal impact.

Many consumers are unaware that cheap vegetable oil is not only ecologically questionable through rainforest deforestation and plantation cultivation, but that there are more and more reproaches from a health point of view: from the possible rise in cholesterol to the suspicion of cancer.

But what causes palm oil – from land grabbing to murder, from the extermination of many species of animals and especially the orangutans – we have reported several times. Nevertheless, many Nutella smear on bread and buy ready meals and sweets, biscuits and cosmetics that contain palm oil.

Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP) says, “When the big companies go to these areas, they’ll cut down the biggest trees and then shave off what’s left – with machines or by fire. They kill all life there, including ants. Most orangutans die as well. I often refer to them as survivors of an apocalyptic wave, but they are also refugees. “

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Our travel-loving EU parliamentarians should one fly over Malaysia Sumatra and spend hours watching palm oil monocultures and the burning forests, then even the most stupid be clear what the EU has done.

Best regards, Venus

England: London Parliament – Semi-naked climate protesters disrupt Brexit debate.

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Extinction Rebellion activists stripped off in House of Commons public gallery.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/01/semi-naked-climate-protesters-disrupt-brexit-debate

Semi-naked climate change protesters interrupted a House of Commons Brexit debate and glued their hands to the glass of the public gallery, spending almost 20 minutes with their buttocks facing the chamber.

MPs attempted to continue the debate during the peaceful protest by 11 activists from Extinction Rebellion, though several made coded mentions to the protest in their speeches.

Another of the activists, Iggy Fox, said: “I’m tired of the time and resources our government wastes rearranging the deckchairs on the Brexitanic. It’s high time politicians stop beating around the bush and tackle the environmental crisis head on, like they should have done years ago. I won’t stop causing disruption until the government does its duty to protect the people from disaster.”

 

Extinction Rebellion activists stripped off in House of Commons public gallery.

USA: Take Action To Ban Driftnets NOW !

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Mark,

We have the chance to end the last remaining and highly destructive drift gillnet fishery in the United States once and for all, but we need your help!

With your support last fall, we won a major victory for marine wildlife when California passed legislation that will phase out the use of large-scale mesh driftnets in state waters over the next four years and transition to less harmful fishing gear.

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Click Here to Urge Congress to Ban Death Nets Once and For All!

Congress just reintroduced legislation (S. 906 and H.R. 1979) that will phase out the use of harmful large mesh driftnets off the coast of California, the only place the nets continue to be used in the United States. Large-scale driftnets, also known as “walls of death” or “death nets,” trap myriad ocean animals in mile-long nets as bycatch, killing and injuring dolphins, whales, sea turtles and sea lions in shocking numbers.

We have the opportunity to completely ban the drift gillnet fishery in federal waters, but we must act now. Please urge Congress to take a stand against the senseless killing of marine life and support S. 906 and H.R. 1979 to phase out the last remaining and incredibly destructive large mesh driftnet fishery in the United States.

After taking this action, please consider calling the offices of your Senators and Representatives to make your voice heard even louder – or request a meeting! Find out who represents you in US Congress here, including address and phone numbers.

The time is now to ban death nets once and for all.

In solidarity,

 Stepph Sharpe
Development Associate
Turtle Island Restoration Network

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PS – Check out our driftnet campaign center for more resources. Drop us a line if you are interested in volunteering or collaborating with us to amplify this important campaign.

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All pictures and videos are not associated directly with this article – they are taken from our archive – WAV.

 

Regards Mark.