Starting February 2020, the University of Helsinki—the oldest and largest university in Finland—will no longer serve beef for lunch.
The school’s food provider UniCafe—which serves approximately 1,000 lunches daily—made the decision to remove beef from the menu in a bid to fight the climate crisis and revealed that the move would reduce its carbon footprint by 11 percent annually.
“The idea came from the staff as we were thinking about our next responsibility action,” Leena Pihlajamäki, the chief operating officer at UniCafe, told local media outlet YLE. “We realised that this is a way to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
Studies show that it’s one of the most effective ways. The goal is ambitious but far from impossible.” The University of Helsinki follows the University of Coimbra (Portugal’s oldest university), University of Cambridge, and Goldsmiths college which have all pledged to remove beef from on-campus dining facilities in recent months for environmental purposes.
Rachele Totaro is a unique kind of activist. The 37-year-old animal lover and vegan uses her camera lens to tell the stories of animals, helping them to find homes and above all, showing the public that each animal is “someone, not something.”
Totaro was led to a plant-based diet by her fondness for animals. “I’ve always loved and felt connected to them,” she told LIVEKINDLY in an email. The photographer pointed out that although many animals are viewed as food, each is an individual.
“Every animal is someone, not something. Feeling, loving, and fearing with a unique personality, relationships, and, mostly, with the right to live,” she said. “Once you see it, you can’t unsee.”
Totaro uses her photography skills to help others make the link, too. The activist is a volunteer photographer for an Italian charity called La Collina dei Conigli, which rescues and rehabilitates retired lab animals. For six years, Totaro has traveled to the sanctuary to take pictures of rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, and rats who were once used in experiments. The images are used in a fundraising calendar.
“After realizing some story-inspired pictures (‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ‘The Little Prince,’ etc), which were very helpful to raise awareness about some very despised critters like rats and mice, I decided to show the most magical story of all because, in some blissful cases, reality can be more enchanting than fiction,” the photographer explained.
“I decided to show the reactions of the little rescues seeing what was outside of their cages for the first time,” Totaro said.
Even once the animals are released from the labs, they typically spent their time inside cages waiting to be adopted. “Most of them never see what’s outside of a plexiglass cube,” added Totaro.
And so she took them outside and captured their first moments in the natural world. “The warmth of the sun, the smell of fresh grass, the first steps on the ground, and at the same time to show the close relationship between non-human animals and their human rescuers,” the photographer explained. This concept is a moving one given the animals’ experiences with people up until that point. “Human hands were no more a source of pain or fear. They became a safe nest,” she said.
Totaro describes the experience as emotional – for herself, the volunteers, and the animals. She believes the end result was effective since the shoot took place nearly two years ago and the images are still circling the internet.
The ‘Huge Power’ of Photography Activism
Totaro’s photography is also used to help shelter animals find homes. She is a volunteer photographer for HeARTs Speak, a non-profit organization that unites artists from around the world to help “increase the visibility of shelter animals” (Totaro notes, “seen = saved”). The activist explains that a quality photo can mean the difference between “spending a life in a cage and finding a family.”
In that way, photography holds “huge power.” She believes she can use the medium to pull beauty out from unexpected places and hold a magnifying glass to it. She explains, “Photography, for me, means connection – between the subject and the observers, like temporarily borrowing my eyes.”
Every animal Totaro encounters has their own story and she feels it’s important to honor each with the right set of photos. She mentioned an old dog she recently met and photographed. The dog was thin, had terminal liver cancer, and was abandoned when she fell ill. Totaro met her in a shelter’s vet room, lying down and struggling to breathe. With her photography, Totaro was able to showcase the dog as a “unique, precious being, not an old broken toy as her previous owner probably saw her.”
“Maybe it can seem useless or foolish, and of course it won’t change her past, but the fact that now she is recognized as someone, someone who is at center stage, pictured ‘as a model’ to show everyone her beauty – the one that goes beyond the surface,” Totaro said. “Well, it’s my way to say that she is important, that someone cares, and that the real losers are those who never understood this.”
“I took some amazing portraits of her in the last light of the day, my favorite, while she was held by a caring volunteer. She was loved and beautiful and everyone will see it,” the artist added.
Totaro’s passion for lending a lens to animals in need motivated her to start her own project, Progetto gOldies. Through it, she tells the stories of “old pets and their humans.” Totaro explains, “There are so many great love stories out there and so many are at risk of getting lost in time, just because no one can tell them.”
She hopes Progetto gOldies will also promote the adoption of senior pets. Totaro says one of the best feelings is to receive that phone call telling her that an animal she has photographed has found a home. “I cannot think to a bigger reward,” the creative said.
We don’t need to say anything except – we did not realise that there was so much concrete in the African Savannah – see the videos for conditions in the zoos !
The protected status of the wolf is determined by the EU. Yet, EU countries determined what this status practically implies by including the species in different Annexes of the Flora and Fauna Habitats Directive. Therefore, countries like France and Slovakia, as well as regions of Spain can still legally cull wolves to a certain level. Yet, even Spain stopped the wolf culling activities last season. In the meantime, illegal killing of wolves continues to happen in many other countries. Here are a few highlights that need international attention.
Norway
The Norwegian regional Large Carnivores Committee recently made the decision to kill three wolf packs in the so-called wolf zones this winter. The wolf-zones are actually areas where wolves should be able to live, instead of being shot. This means that Norwegian hunters will try to kill another 17 wolves. Many Norwegian organisations have appealed to the Ministry of Environment to call stop the killing. The Ministry will decide on the situation in November.
The decision follows many killings and demonstrations against it in Norway and across the world. Last year, Norway planned to kill half of its entire wolf population even. The Scandinavian wolf population is severely suffering from these impacts. There is less genetic exchange between populations, due to the fact that many migrating wolves die along the way. And the so-called genetic inbreeding is used as an argument to reduce the wolf population size again. Yet, scientific evidence shows that the Scandinavian wolf population can recover, if people let it. On the 26th of October, people will go to the streets to demonstrate against this decision as well.
Denmark
Denmark saw the return of the wolf happening in 2012 after almost 200 years. However, last year a hunter shot one of the few wolves in Denmark. The hunter was captured on video and arrested. The court decided in August last year that the hunter got a sentence of just 40 days probation. In addition, the hunter lost his hunting license now too. But the story of Danish wolves does not stop there. According to reporting, at least 7 wolves have gone ‘missing’ in Denmark since 2012. What is left is an estimated number of 4 adults and 6 cubs.
If the Danish authorities treat such felonies of killing strictly protected animals so mildly, it is only a matter of time before the re-extinction of wolves in Denmark.
Belgium
The latest news is from Belgium, which welcomed the wolf back after more than 100 years of absence. The she-wolf named Naya found a male partner August in the Belgian forests. Earlier this year, camera traps photographed her as she showed signs of being pregnant. However, since 4.5 months there has been no sign of her or the pups. August still roams the woods, but the official news came out this weeks that hunters most likely have killed Naya.
Although clear evidence is still lacking, experts state it is very unlikely that the wolf died of other causes. The official research still has to provide proof of what happened to the Belgian wolf, however.
Human-wolf coexistence
Killing wolves is not the solution for the problems that hunters and farmers are facing. Effective livestock protection measures are more effectively contributing to human-wolf coexistence than killing wolves. Practical examples from many different countries and regions prove that it can work. It is up to the people to decide whether they accept that the wolf returned.
My comment:First of all, we have to make one thing clear: the goal of the hunt is the executions!
After the reintroduction of the wolves in Germany it is forbidden (officially) to shoot a wolf.
The wolf enjoys a high protection status as a endangered species in Germany and at the same time is still protected by European and international law.
This is on paper.
But hunters have always hated wolves.
The murders against wolves have accumulated in recent years in Germany but they were never enlightened.
So how can a hunter eliminate a wolf without being punished?
He sends his hunting dogs, the hunter’s best manipulated!
It is about a miserable minority of 0.45% of the german population practicing undisturbed every day terror against defenseless animals in the forest.
The peasants claiming that their animals are being ripped off by wolves. They can build fences. For this they get the EU subsidies.
Also, if one or two animals are ripped off by the wolf they will get compensation.
The farmers do not mention that in Germany every year one million sheep are brutally slaughtered and often without anesthesia! that’s what they call business, fun food for a society that does not need it.
Hunters claim that they regulate nature.
They do not regulate anything, they massacre on murder lust.
Hunters are habitual offenders who deliberately kill defenseless animals.
this is one of the most dangerous animals on our planet. Year after year, it is responsible for multiple suffering and millions of deaths. Left beside it hangs a murdered wolf.
As a Brit, I have (in the past) had some great times in New Mexico – wonderful people, beautiful towns, great history; not a cloud in the sky ! and a rather hot series of Balloon festivals !
Thanks to Mayor Webber for his outstanding initiative for animals and for the environment and bettering human health. Regards Mark (WAV).
Mayor Webber
Exciting news for Santa Fe, New Mexico residents and the vegan community as the city’s mayor Alan Webber recently named November Vegan Awareness Month. Mayor Webber hopes this action will encourage residents to explore the many delicious vegan options available in their city and by doing so, make a positive impact on the environment, their health, and animal welfare.
The proclamation highlights the many benefits of a plant-based diet, including that every day it “saves 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 square feet of forested lands, the equivalent of 20 pounds of CO2, and one animal’s life.”
Through this initiative, Webber says he hopes to continue Santa Fe’s legacy as “a leader in water conservation and earth-friendly practices, [. . .] support[ing] people who choose a vegan diet for whatever reason” and encouraging others to “learn about plant-based eating during November and beyond.”
The Mayo Clinic and the American Dietetic Association tout the multiple health perks of adopting a plant-based diet. The ADA states that plant-based diets “are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases” and are appropriate for any age. Consuming solely fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes helps lower and manage blood pressure and cholesterol and makes developing chronic heart disease less likely. Additionally, research shows that this diet “reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.”
In addition to the powerful impact a plant-based diet can have your health and the environment, eliminating animal products means no longer contributing to the rampant cruelty farm animals endure in the meat, egg dairy industries. Animals are frequently beaten, thrown, kicked, and discarded like trash.
Male chicks in the egg industry are sometimes ground alive as they do not produce eggs and therefore are seen as unimportant. Pigs are confined to such small quarters that they are unable to move or stand. These are only a few examples of the awful conditions in which these animals must live.
We applaud Mayor Webber for this initiative and hope it will inspire more civic leaders to follow suit.
Great news out of Sacramento! On Saturday, October 12, Governor Newsom signed AB 44 (banning the sale and production of new fur products) and AB 1254 (bobcat trophy hunting) into law. This momentous legislation will spare countless wild animals from the cruel and unnecessary fur trade and bobcats from the horrors of trophy hunting.
Animals raised for the fur trade languish in tiny cages on factory farms and are cruelly killed by gassing or electrocution. Wildlife including foxes, coyotes, beaver, and otter are also trapped in their native habitat and their skins sold at auction. These two laws send a message to the fur industry that consumers no longer want animals skinned for fashion clothing and accessories.
The ban on bobcat hunting will spare countless bobcats and other nontarget species from being sport-hunted—following up on California’s precedent-setting ban on bobcat trapping in 2015. It will also help preserve the species, which faces a range of threats including human encroachment on their habitat and consequences from climate change.
Join us in thanking Governor Newsom and the bill sponsors—Asm. Laura Friedman (who introduced the fur ban bill) and Asm. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (who championed the bobcat bill)—for taking a stand against these inhumane practices. Please shoot them a quick email—contact information is at the links provided.
We are deeply grateful to all of you who supported these bills and spoke out for the voiceless animals.
In the first-ever undercover investigation into a fish hatchery in the United States, an investigator from animal advocacy nonprofit Compassion Over Killing worked at Cooke Aquaculture in Bingham, Maine. This hatchery raises millions of salmon each year and supplies Martha Stewart’s True North Seafood line. The investigator documented horrific treatment of salmon, including fish being thrown, stomped on, suffocated in barrels, stuck with needles, and left to die.
For salmon at the hatchery, life begins in giant metal tanks stuffed with thousands of tiny pink eggs. The dirty conditions are perfect for fungi and parasites, which grow in clumps on many of the eggs. Some babies hatch with severe deformities, while others develop them after being handled, as one worker explains: “Spinal deformity. Happens when they’re babies in B building. If you’re too rough with them, you’ll break their back and they’ll grow back like that.”
During vaccination procedures, many salmon are not properly anesthetized and thrash as workers inject them with needles. One worker says, “Once the needle’s in them and they flop, that tears a f**king huge hole in them.” Another worker describes the psychological effects of the process:
The vaccinating stresses them out, takes its toll on them. Some of them die off. Once you vaccinate them, it takes them like a week before they start eating again.
Salmon considered unprofitable are thrown away like trash. The video shows a worker tossing a fish into a giant barrel and raising his arms in triumph. Once in the barrels, salmon are left to slowly suffocate or are crushed by the weight of other fish. One worker seems to acknowledge the brutality of this treatment. “They just suffocate,” he says. “It’s so rough. Over the years you kinda get desensitized.”
Some of the fish die from infections with parasites and fungi that thrive in the filthy environment. A worker says, “They get, like, lesions and stuff from the fungus, and it kinda eats away at them and they start bleeding from that.” The undercover investigator captured footage of salmon whose faces were partially eaten away.
The fish who manage to survive are kept in overcrowded, stressful conditions and often underfed, which can have tragic consequences. “If the fish aren’t fed enough, they’ll actually think the little pupil on the other fish is food, and they’ll come after it and they’ll peck the eye out,” one worker explains. “You happen to see some missing eyeballs, that’s the reason.”
After going through all this horror, adolescent salmon are usually transported to cages in the ocean to be fattened up for slaughter. In these cages, salmon often suffer sea lice infestations and are fed a diet that includes ingredients from wild-caught fish, who are taken from increasingly depleted oceans. And because these cages are stationary, the salmon cannot flee certain dangers. Harmful algal blooms can suffocate and kill millions of fish at a time.
Although the aquaculture industry treats these animals like unfeeling objects, fish are complex, sensitive beings, many of whom use tools and recognize themselves in mirrors and all of whom feel pain.
You can make a difference for fish and other animals by choosing more plant-based meals.
I don’t really want to have to put this on now above the Eurogroup article by Venus; but it is crisis time and days are getting short for donations. I have just donated to this wonderful organisation helping to be a strong voice for Orangutans.
Please give today if you can – thank you – Mark – WAV.
The deadline for our #GivingDayforApes match is approaching fast, so I’ll keep this short.
We’re 73% of the way to our ambitious $18,000 goal — and RIGHT NOW your gift can be matched for the gift of freedom.
Will you help us change the lives of mother Jubaedah & baby Jubaedi and male Titons forever?
Your gift today will help do this and more. Rush your gift of $25 or more now:
The EU Commission’s right-hand man is the Eurogroup for Animals.
On their website states: We create a favorable political environment!
and further … “it is of the utmost importance to show that as a membership organization we keep our promises”.
The 8hour campaign (1.2 million votes) in 2012 failed because of the rejection of the then corrupt Commissioner John Dali.
Has the Eurogroup contemplated how to honor its promises to EU-Citisens if the Commission now ignores the 1.5 million votes in the “End of Cage Age” Campaign?
The “case John Dalli” may have forgotten the employees of the Eurogroup, they like to suppress sad defeats.
This case should always be a warning sign of how easy it is to betray the animals and those who want a better world for them.
But in this game are also involved those who make big promises, even though they know that they have no power to make big changes in animal suffering under the EU Commission. And by that I mean the Eurogroup for Animals!
The 36 employees of Eurogroup working for the Commission for good money should be sparing with their promises and nice words. The Eurogroup can not make any promise, because they do not take any decision.
They preach visions and missions into their web site but the thing is very simple: if the commission (even now like under Dalli back then) does not abolish caging, in spite of 1.5 million votes, then they should not give us lectures on trust or active animal welfare, but they have only to answer one simple question: what is their right of existence?
Those who participate in the moral and political EU format are cheated and betrayed, so like the animals are.
The Eurogroup is just as weak as we are, the citizens of the EU, the Groupe is powerless, as we are, with the only difference that they are paid to sell illusions, campaigns, visions and hopes in an area, this of animal welfare, which the EU does not care at all.
“We exist because European citizens believe animals deserve a voice” says the groupe.
Indeed! there are demonstrably 1.5 million EU citizens who want to give the voiceless, the suffering, the enslaved beings a voice, a better world.
But no one believes that this can be done with the Eurogroup.
With the employer of the Eurogroup anyway not.
I got this message from Compassion in World Farming today:
170 organisations, united by Compassion in World Farming, came together to make this happen. An unprecedented pan-European movement for farm animal welfare!
So what’s next? The UK Parliament (with 389,057 signatures ) is now expected to debate a ban on farm cages. And, to force the European Commission to act, at least 1 million ECI signatures must be validated.
This process could take three months, and then we’ll submit the petition.
We’ll keep you fully updated on progress and new ways you can get involved!”
After this message, I had the same bitter feeling as back then in the 8hours campaign.
Unfortunately, the bad sides of history are always repeating themselves.
The Dallis, the corrupt commissars and their naive servants.
I want to pick up again on some of our (SAV) past work in Serbia; not for any specific reason; just that it fits well into the recent post by Venus which deals with stray animals within the EU -here is the link: https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2019/10/14/stray-animals-abandoned-friends/ – I have also added some links and video footage at the end of this post.
Firstly, welcome to everyone and anyone who visits the site from around the globe – it is good to see you and I hope you and I hope you find our articles of interest.
Secondly, and very importantly; never judge the way of a nation by the actions of just a few folk that live there. Serbia has some brilliant animal campaigners, and it has been my pleasure over the last 15+ years to work with many of them – people who have my full respect and people that I can call friends. There are some great little private, individual shelters where people are doing everything they can for animals – check out this SAV Facebook site of ours to see what I mean: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SerbianAnimalsVoice/
Today I want to track back to an issue we dealt with many years ago – that of the welfare of animals on some Serbian farms. Please remember, Serbia is currently a nation which is a ‘Candidate Country’ to join the EU. To become a member state, it will supposedly enforce all the legislation required of it under EU rules. But we know these don’t work anyway, and the EU never enforces its own legislation; as we have proven so many times with animal transport breaches over the years regarding Regulation 1/2005.
So, the (EU) rules say that all farm animals must be kept to certain standards – which is a joke really considering how many times we have helped to expose EU wrong doings in the past:
Going back; we looked into specific farm animal welfare in the past. As part of the CIWF investigation / campaign team in the past; https://www.ciwf.org.uk/ I was able to call on their extensive experience to help me with regard a few things about EU / Serbian farm animal welfare legislation. Phil helped me a lot and contributed to one of the articles I did on SAV.
Have a look at these pictures that we published at the time – taken on a Serbian farm:
If you are / have been a meat eater in the past; would you want to eat meat that has been raised in this way ? – this is footage that was taken undercover on a Serbian farm a few years back. It is totally non compliant with EU standards; as detailed in the following links:
Remember, Serbia is now a Candidate Country to become an official EU member state.
We provided our evidence and photographs to the EU Commissioner for Enlargement – Commissioner Hahn; several years ago; as a result, we were ignored; as many animal welfare groups are when they show up the EU for the non enforcement of its own EU standards. We accept that our evidence will be ignored; whilst we hear great words regarding standards coming from EU ‘mouths’.
We also provided photographic evidence of dead pigs which had literally been dumped on the roadside. See the pictures here. Why had they died ?; of what ?; and why were their bodies not disposed of in accordance with proper legislation requirements ?
Stray animals (Dogs) are a big issue in Serbia as we have recently pointed out. Do farm animal carcasses such as these pigs strewn over the roadside not act as a source of attraction for hungry and desolate stray dogs ? – the whole system fails for animals, whilst at the same time the EU opens its arms to new member states; with the ‘EU Utopia’ prophecy in which there is nothing wrong !
Finally, we also took the issue of Serbian live animal transport to the authorities; who were adamant that sheep exported to Israel for slaughter had not been sent live from Serbia. Some Serbian shelters were also targeted with closure if we carried on with our expose.
In the end, the Serbian authorities had to come clean and confirm that the sheep had been shipped live from Serbia. And just for the record, all the shelters threatened with closure by the authorities as part of this expose were left to carry on with their excellent work.
Remember – Serbia is a EUROPEAN NATION – we expect better animal welfare standards of it.
Still to come – out expose of Serbian Zoos and the terrible conditions which animals have to endure – fighting to survive daily whilst the authorities ignore meeting their legal requirements to undertake inspections.
this is one of the most dangerous animals on our planet.
World Animals Voice 