Oscar the cat had both his back legs chopped off when he had a argument with a Combine Harvester. Noel – the ‘Supervet’, made some new back legs for him. Here is his story.
Month: November 2019
Here we are looking a little more into animal welfare in the Ukraine.
We give a very brief summary with associated links for more.
For the past 20 years, Naturewatch Foundation has been actively running projects in Ukraine, working with animal protection NGOs and municipalities to implement humane and sustainable stray dog population management schemes, following the recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OiE).
Site – https://naturewatch.org/campaign/stray-animal-welfare-Ukraine
https://api.worldanimalprotection.org/country/ukraine
Amid the political turbulence in Ukraine, some people are dedicating their lives to the wellbeing of dogs, cats, birds, bears and other animals in the country. Photographer Thomas Machowicz has been documenting the work of the Kiev Animal Rescue Group (Karg), which provides emergency services for injured animals.
Site – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-48830430
https://www.facebook.com/shelterFriendDnepr/
Shelter Ugolyok: Animal Rescue and Farm Sanctuary, Ukraine
Site – https://www.facebook.com/shelter.ugolyok/
Animal welfare standards in Ukraine
Site – http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-013996_EN.html?redirect
Kyiv Society for the Protection of Animals
Site – https://www.spcai.org/our-work/shelter-support-fund/shelter-list/kyiv-society-protection-animals
Society and animal welfare – Ukraine
Site – http://www.esdaw.eu/society-and-animal-welfare—ukraine.html#
EU imposes hen welfare standards on egg imports for first time
Global Animal Law
Site = https://www.globalanimallaw.org/database/national/ukraine/
European Bank EBRD workshop on animal welfare
- 07-Nov-2019
- Kyiv, Ukraine
Site – https://www.ebrd.com/cs/Satellite?c=Content&cid=1395285797015&pagename=EBRD%2FContent%2FEvent
Ukraine proposes bill to ban fur farming
UKRAINE – On February 7, 36 Members of Parliament introduced a bill to ban fur farming in Ukraine. The bill is initiated by MP Andriy Pomazanov with support of Fur Free Alliance member organisation Unique Planet.
Site – https://www.furfreealliance.com/ukraine-proposes-a-bill-to-ban-fur-farming/
Animal Cruelty Index
Site – https://vaci.voiceless.org.au/
Ukraine closes its last Fois Gras farm
Site – https://theecologist.org/2019/aug/09/ukraine-closes-its-last-fois-gras-farm
14,000 sheep drowned or were crushed to death on a capsized live export ship.
254 have been found alive, and we think lifelong sanctuary is the least they deserve afer all they’ve been through. Do you agree?
SIGN here: #BanLiveExport
Video footage and more:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1200288902415650816
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Being involved with animal welfare / rights is not usually much of a happy place to be for many of us. As you can tell from the numerous articles on this site, there is very little in the way of positive news. Sadly, bad, sad unhappy news is often all we can give.
I have been in contact with Venus as always, and as from today, tomorrow ? – I am going to try and make posts a little more positive. I cant turn bad news into good, positive news; if only !, but I am going to try a slightly different approach with you, our friends and fellow animal activists, to see if we can sometimes make things in each post a little better.
It may be music, the odd bad joke, or a cartoon which I (we) hope will bring a smile to your face sometimes. We need something different sometimes, because all this continual bad stuff is not good for us, believe me; been there and worn the T shirt.
Changes will not be big, but some may be slightly different, interspersed amongst various posts. I am going to try it and see if we all feel any better with that approach.
Your feedback, which is always happily received, is always welcome – please use the reply links with any post to tell us; good or bad. This is your site as well as ours, and we welcome comments and views; plus any links you may wish to include. The odd bit of music or the odd joke does not mean that we do not care as much; we are here for one reason only; as the site says, to be a World Animals Voice. Nothing changes there.
Comment please and be part of the team.
For the animals
Regards Mark.
Test only
Campaigners call for sheep saved from capsized ship to be put out to pasture
‘They survived all this, they deserve a nice old age,’ says head of rescue team
A comfortable retirement to an all-you-can-eat grassy field seems the least that the 250 surviving sheep from the Queen Hind disaster in the Black Sea deserve. But there is still some debate over their fate, according to animal campaign groups working in Romania.
More than 14,600 sheep were on the ship, heading to Saudi Arabia on a busy animal export route, when it overturned coming out of the harbour on Sunday afternoon. All of the crew got away safely, but most of the animals are now believed to be dead.
Rescue teams, made up of animal groups and Romanian vets and police, are still working in the ship, cutting holes through the walls to reach inaccessible sections. But conditions are getting worse and the chances of finding any surviving animals are diminishing.
“You have to climb along the dark corridors, wade through the water and clamber over the sheep bodies while you search,” says Kuki Bărbuceanu of the Animal Rescue and Care charity and the Four Paws animal welfare organisation. Bărbuceanu is a veteran disaster relief operator who specialises in animal rescue.
“And then you have to get back out, but this time you are carrying a 50–60kg sheep. It is pretty exhausting work.” The smell is getting worse, and although some crew are wearing gas masks, Bărbuceanu says that interferes with the hard physical labour of carrying out sheep.
He has been working on the ship since Tuesday, when he and his crew reached the harbour. Alongside them have been vets from the veterinarian authority ANSVSA, and Romanian emergency workers. As of Thursday afternoon, 250 sheep had been rescued from the ship.
However, the ultimate fate of the surviving sheep is still in question. They are currently in quarantine and being looked after by the export company, Maria Trading. There have been some anxieties expressed by activists that the Saudi import company that bought them will reclaim them, and that they will be put on the next export ship.
Campaign groups are seeking to take the animals and find them sanctuaries where they can munch away to a peaceful old age. A statement from Maria Trading to the Guardian confirmed that they are giving food and shelter to the rescued animals and added: “The Romanian veterinary health authority is the only concerned party which will decide when and where the rescued animals will be transferred.”
Requests for comment to the veterinary authorities have not yet been returned.
“It’s what they deserve,” says Bărbuceanu. “They survived all this, they deserve a nice old age.”
Legislation currently going through the Romanian parliament would tighten regulations around the country’s live export trade, which has grown fivefold since 2000. Romania is one of the main routes out of Europe into the Middle East.
The live export trade continues to grow both inside and out of Europe, despite continued public opposition. European live animal exports rose from a value of $1bn (£800m) in 2000 to $3.3bn in 2018.
Meanwhile, MEPs in the European parliament have agreed to debate the live export trade in December, Dutch MEP Anja Hazecamp (pictured below) told the Guardian.
“There has been a lot of talk so far, but not enough action,” said Gabriel Paun of Animals International.
Have you heard of kopi luwak or civet coffee?
Known as the most expensive coffee in the world, civet coffee is made by collecting, cleaning, and selling the excreted coffee beans of the nocturnal animals civets. The civets digest the flesh of the coffee cherries but excrete the beans inside. The excretion supposedly adds to the coffee’s prized aroma and flavour.
Kopi Luwak refers to the most expensive coffee in the world with just one cup costing anything between £30 to £70 with its prices reflecting demand dwarfing supply. The reason for its ridiculous price is due to the unique process the coffee cherries go through passing via the digestive system of a pal civet cat…..(in the most sarcastic voice)…..tasty!
It could also be called the cruellest coffee in the world, as the civets are forced to live in cramped, dirty, lonely battery cages a mile away from their natural habitats of woodland, savanna, and mountains.
The Indonesian term “kopi” means coffee and “luwak” is the local term for the palm civet cat, which eats the coffee cherries and digests them by excreting the outer fruits of the cherry.
From here the process continues more conventionally with the shit beans washed and cleaned and prepped for roasting. It is said that the digestive enzymes of the civet enhance and restructure the protein within the coffee beans resulting in a smoother cup of coffee, which is more balanced between acidity and bitterness. But of course that should be with machine help, not with cat help.
The cruel truth
The civets are denied their natural diet, are constantly overfed coffee beans, and have no opportunity to know freedom.
They squat in their tight cages and eat the sweet day long nothing but coffee cherries. In the wild, they eat beside coffee also jackfruit or mangos, here in their cages they are only allowed to eat coffee.
Many caged civets express characteristics often seen in imprisoned animals, such as biting and gnawing at their cages and obsessive repeated behaviour. Some civets even begin to gnaw at themselves and, due to the overfeeding, will start having gastrointestinal problems, often leading to blood in their faeces.
As a carnivore with omnivorous tendencies, this naturally equates to malnutrition, which inevitably leads to death.
And though all the conditions for animal cruelty and factory farming such as chickens, pigs or cows are met, the world does not give a shit about it. What are some unknown cats in the distant jungle, that nobody finds on the map anyway?
Even those who label their kopi luwak “wild sourced” are making false claims, as it is impossible to generate profit from exclusively wild-sourced civet coffee.
This is a luxury product that capitalizes on the captivity of individuals for the super rich rather than a true reflection of good quality speciality coffee, which takes into account not just processes but the beans and final taste of coffee.
Cives are a protected species in Indonesia, but due to their high demand and attraction from tourists they’re being farmed commercially and fed coffee cherries purely for economic benefit.
Although standards restrict the use of cages, there is no real certification system for kopi luwak and so it is too hard to establish whether Kopi Luwak is farmed or produced from wild civets and we have little faith in its enforcement with animal cruelty products still running a mock on supermarket shelves such as Foie Gras.
Do not buy this product! We urge everyone to avoid Kopi Luwak coffee. In addition to the questionable quality, this is a coffee that was born out of stupid curiosity and whose production is associated with animal suffering.
You can almost completely be sure that a good conscience will be sold to a problematic product here. Price, aspiration and reality move here in a cosmos of pure money making with a myth.
And this myth is stupid to us all from beginning to end. There is no reason why this coffee exists. There are millions of better offers – also from Indonesia – that not only do not exploit animals senseless, but also pay the coffee farmers decent.
My best regards to all, Venus
Every year again and again on the fourth Thursday in November (this year on November 28th) … is the American Thanksgiving.
Traditions are again capitalized, 46 million turkeys murdered.
It must be solemn: grandparents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends are invited to a festive dinner.
A big turkey is a must. A delicious filling, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, bread, cranberry sauce, peas and corn, and apple and pumpkin pie should not be missed.
The feast is preceded by a common prayer of thanksgiving.
And we want to spoil the corpse eater’s appetite with a video that clearly shows how much and how many have to suffer if a tradition always lives on the suffering of other beings.
Then enjoy your meal!
Best regards, Venus
WAV Comment: The AR movement has been calling for a ban on live transport to be replaced by a carcase trade for the last 25 years or more – we had a saying even back then – ‘On the hook, not the hoof’. So we are really pleased to see that finally after 25 years or more of AR campaigning, people like Reineke Hameleers, Director at Eurogroup for Animals has finally decided that transporting meat and carcasses is possible –
Yes, the need for more local slaughterhouses is very much needed as part of the scheme; as much as we detest the places; more local facilities will stop the long distance transport of live animals. There is only one group to blame for the closure of many local and regional slaughterhouses; and that is the EU. Local facilities as we (in the movement) have been saying for years, greatly reduces transport distance times and is much better for animals; as they do not suffer anywhere near as much as they do going between other member states.
We have been saying this for years and years; so why now do we hear this from Eurogroup as if the penny has just dropped (as we say in the UK) – or to put it another way; ;the bleeding obvious’ !!
I guess that organisations such as this have to justify their existence; staff and salaries. Real animal people do it for free !
“It was also mentioned that this should be substantiated by a solid regulatory framework setting a maximum journey time of eight hours for animals transported for slaughter, with a derogation for shorter journey time for animals at the end of their lives. All of this should be part of a comprehensive EU strategy produced by the Commission”
– maybe somebody can correct me but did EU citizens in their droves not sign for a maximum of 8 hors a few years back ? – oh yes, the EU Commission decided otherwise to ignore the people and get into bed with the meat mafia to allow the Status Quo – no change. Sorry but ‘EU Strategy’ means that people who can decide nothing, decide that nothing can be done – and so on we go with no changes and continual calls from decent people for change. The EU Commission is utter junk; full of self important’s who think they are above the normal man; and they have some kind of right to ignore his wishes; regardless of them being paid by the people as servants of the people !
“With the passing of time, more reasons to justify a shift from transporting animals alive to a trade in carcasses and meat have emerged”.
What complete and utter rubbish; as if the past few years have suddenly been different. The movement has been giving evidence of the cruelty and abuse of the live trade for at least 25 years; we are specialists at it; it is not something new, so don’t pretend that this is a new happening, please.
“Citizens have also shown their strong disapproval of live animal transport: in 2016-2017, Eurogroup for Animals’ #StopTheTrucks campaign, which called on EU decision makers to reduce and ultimately end long distance live animal transportation, exceeded its target of 1 million signatures and reflected the findings of a Eurobarometer survey showing that a staggering 94 percent of European citizens believe that protecting the welfare of farm animals is important”. And you know what; all the way citizens have been ignored by the EU; and they also have been calling on EU decision makers to wake up; get off their butts and make changes. When I was campaigning against the trade back in 1980; we were asking for change then; so why only now in 2020 may we start to see something happen ? – a bit late of EU, you could say !
Having personally investigated the trade and campaigned for change for what, 27, 28, 30 years; – see a bit more at https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/about-us/ – I am bewildered to see that only now a strategy for change from live to carcase in the EU is looking like a possibility – not it WILL happen; just a possibility. It is all down to those masters of ignorance, the EU Commissioners, to see what they come up with as a result of this ‘new’ report of the obvious.
For me, I am quite happy to take this campaign to my grave if need be – and you know what; if they drag their heels as much as they have done for the past 30 years; then I probably will.
For me, it is:
Regards Mark – continue to fight the fight.
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A shift to meat and carcasses is not only long-awaited, it is totally justified
>>DOWNLOAD THE REPORT<<
Transported alive for up to several days or even weeks, despite legislation and 21st century values – this is still happening to animals in their millions every year, both within and outside Europe. But there’s no need. New evidence shows that a shift to a meat and carcasses only trade instead of transporting animals alive would be justified not only by animal health and welfare reasons, but also by environmental indicators, economic considerations and existing practices.
On 18th November stakeholders gathered together with EU and National representatives for the launch of a new report by Eurogroup for Animals, ‘A strategy to reduce and replace live animal transport: Towards a meat and carcasses only trade’, and to discuss how to make such a shift happen.
The workshop, ‘Moving Matters: From Hoof to Hook’, was co-organised by the Permanent Representation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the European Union and Eurogroup for Animals, and opened by Carola Schouten, Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. During the event participants discussed how to practically achieve a shift to transporting meat and carcasses. Logistic solutions need to be supported by incentives, like product labelling for better marketability, financial support – for example, under the new CAP – or taxing products with a poor environmental footprint. In order to effectively mitigate the drivers of long distance live animals transport, the main transport routes should be assessed, and the need for more regional slaughter facilities should be mapped out.
It was also mentioned that this should be substantiated by a solid regulatory framework setting a maximum journey time of eight hours for animals transported for slaughter, with a derogation for shorter journey time for animals at the end of their lives. All of this should be part of a comprehensive EU strategy produced by the Commission, in line with its response to the Parliamentary implementation report on live transport.
The accompanying report provides an overview of trade flows and analyses the driving forces behind the transport of animals, putting forward proposals on how to mitigate those drivers to ease the transition to a meat and carcasses only trade, including case studies of where alternatives have successfully been tested or established.
Leading bodies such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) – as well as the animal welfare movement – have long been calling for a shift towards a meat and carcasses trade. Citizens have also shown their strong disapproval of live animal transport: in 2016-2017, Eurogroup for Animals’ #StopTheTrucks campaign, which called on EU decision makers to reduce and ultimately end long distance live animal transportation, exceeded its target of 1 million signatures and reflected the findings of a Eurobarometer survey showing that a staggering 94 percent of European citizens believe that protecting the welfare of farm animals is important.
With the passing of time, more reasons to justify a shift from transporting animals alive to a trade in carcasses and meat have emerged. In the last few years, increasingly prolonged periods of high temperatures over the summer months have led some Member States to suspend live trade. As climate change increases the chance of these periods occurring, it will become increasingly important for meat supply chains that currently rely on live transport to develop and implement alternative strategies to ensure that supplies are not interrupted. A debate on live animal transport in July had the majority supporting Commissioner Andriukaitis’ call for the suspension of journeys during summer.
“Transporting meat and carcasses is possible, and it is already happening across the EU and beyond,” said Reineke Hameleers, Director at Eurogroup for Animals. “We need the full involvement of farmers, EU Institutions, national Governments and all the actors in the supply chains, both in the EU and in third countries, to make sure it is effectively developed and implemented. We trust the EC will bring forward its promise to work on such a strategy.”
World Animals Voice 