United States Trails Behind Mexico and India When It Comes to Animal Protection Laws, Report Finds

 

Source:  Newsweek – USA – https://www.newsweek.com/united-states-mexico-india-animal-protection-laws-report-finds-1491419

 

 

The United States is trailing behind other countries—including Mexico and India—when it comes to animal protection laws for farmed and wild animals, a report published by non-profit World Animal Protection (WAP) has revealed.

In its latest Animal Protection Index (API)—a global ranking of animal welfare policies in 50 countries—the organization has awarded the United States a “D” grade, while the two aforementioned countries received “Cs.” The U.S.’s ranking has not improved since the first edition of the API, which was published in 2014.

According to the API, animal protection laws at the state level in the country—where most originate—are inadequate, inconsistent, and sometimes contradictory. At the federal level—where only a few key laws exist—WAP found that there was a lack of accountability.

Below are the four main reasons outlined in the report which contributed to the award of the “D” grade:

1. “The federal government’s key legislations limit which animal species and groups are covered.

2. Most animal protection legislation is are created at the state, not federal, level, giving rise to inconsistencies in enforcement.
3. The number of exemptions or exceptions allowed in both federal and state legislation means that most animals and welfare-impacting practices are not covered.
4. Lack of transparency regarding animal welfare enforcement reports and audits mean there is little accountability for authorities.”

WAP experts say that a failure to improve standards will lead to the continued suffering of millions of animals, while also raising the risk of disease outbreaks.

“The longer poor animal welfare practices continue, the greater the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks becoming more frequent, including but not limited to salmonella, avian influenza and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic currently happening worldwide,” Alesia Soltanpanah, Executive Director World Animal Protection, U.S., said in a statement provided to Newsweek.

“Improving conditions for farmed animals and ending the commercial trade in wild animals, will not only guarantee the welfare of billions of animals but could also help prevent the next big human health hazard.

“There is no federal legislation protecting farm animals during the rearing phase. Intensive, close confinement production systems are common, causing great suffering, causing animals to be stressed and immunosuppressed while also destroying the local environment and endangering the health of people and wildlife in the area,” Soltanpanah told Newsweek.

 

“The U.S. also allows the continued practice of fur farming and allows animals to be used for various entertainment purposes causing great suffering.”

In 2014—when the first API was published—the United States only had a few key animal laws at the state level, according to WAP. These included the Horse Protection Act of 1970, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958, and the Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—which set general standards for certain animals bred for commercial sale, used in public exhibitions or biomedical research, or transported commercially.

Since then, several pieces of legislation have been introduced at the state and federal level, which have helped to improve animal standards, according to the report. For example:

• In 2018, California passed Proposition 12, which effectively banned the most restrictive forms of confinement on farms.
• In October 2019, California also banned the sale of fur from 2023—the first state to do so. Earlier that year, it also outlawed the use of wild animals in circuses.
• And at the federal level, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) became law in November 2019, making animal cruelty a felony.

However, gains such as these were not enough the improve the U.S.’ grade, given that the Trump administration has weakened several protections for animals. According to Soltanpanah these include:

• “Granting permits to trophy hunters to kill endangered species and bring them back to the United States.

 

 

• Lifting environmental protections on national parks and monuments which provide habitats for wildlife, and allowing mining and drilling in formerly protected lands.
• Rolling back protections for species categorized as ‘threatened’ and allowing economic factors to influence which species are classified as ‘endangered.’
• Overturning a ban on the hunting of predators in Alaskan wildlife refuges and proposing to overturn a ban on extreme sport-hunting practices such as baiting grizzly bears.
• Allowing poultry processing facilities to have faster line speeds, which increases risks to chickens and workers.

• Rolling back environmental protection laws under the Clean Water Act which reduces environmental oversight of factory farms and threatens wildlife.”

 

Trump – Making America A ‘D’ Grade – worth grinning about ?

 

Soltanpanah notes that these efforts to weaken animal protections—in addition to the abundance of “loopholes” and exceptions for many species in U.S welfare laws—has meant that many animals are still suffering, despite several promising pieces of legislation being passed in the past few years.

“This index should be a wake-up call for our political leaders with the message that we are failing to protect the vast majority of animals in this country,” Soltanpanah said in the statement. “We are calling on the Trump administration and local governments to improve animal welfare standards and enshrine animal protection into current and critical debates on food, public health, and sustainable development.”

In the API, World Animal Protection urges state and federal government to increase protections for farmed and wild animals in the United States, making a number of recommendations:

1. Recognizing all vertebrates, cephalopods, and decapod crustaceans as sentient, while expanding the AWA so that it applies to all sentient animals.

2. Removing exemptions in the PACT Act for animals killed for food or used in scientific research.
3. Banning the production and sale of fur products.
4. Outlawing forms of entertainment that cause animal suffering, such as circuses, rodeos, fights, races, rides, and the use of marine mammals in shows.
5. Supporting the reintroduction of the Humane Cosmetics Act to phase out cosmetic animal testing and the sale of cosmetics tested on animals.

No countries were awawarded an “A” ranking in the API, however, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Austria received the highest scores—all “Bs.” On the other end of the scale is Iran with a “G” rating. According to the Index, Iran lacks any policies or legislation recognizing the sentience of animals, while also falling short in other areas, such as government accountability for animal welfare.

The report singled out the United States, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Belarus, for concerning animal welfare practices related to intensive farming and/or wildlife markets—which could lead to disease outbreaks.

Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment regarding the findings of the API.

 

 

 

 

WAV Comment:  Sadly, it is only when people personally start to lose money and group finances, do they wake up to the realities that others have been talking and warning about for years.  This article by the Guardian (London) reflects this.

‘Wildlife farming – promoted by Chinese government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich’.

Well now the Chinese, with their lack of legislation for animal welfare and its controls, are now paying the price.  Please don’t come to us with your sob, sob stories, you (China) are now reaping what you sowed; or actually failed to sow, many years ago when you should have introduced animal welfare legislations.

Today, 13/3/20; your inactions have put the planet into a global shutdown.   Oh my god, money is being lost on the worlds stock exchanges at rates not seen for decades.  Global sport is in shutdown and football clubs and racing teams will possibly have to review their future strategies.  You could start by looking at the pathetically gross salaries which you pay some of these people.

The animals have now bitten back big time – and the world; ignore their warnings at your peril.  We shed not one tear for the financial losses of the big corporations – the ignorants, the money grabbers; who only have self interest and personal gain at the top of their pyramid.

You have now been sent a clear message – so, take it on board and more importantly, do something positive (other than financial gains) as a result. 

Wake up world – the animals have now sent a clear message – they need you to give a shit !

 

 

 

Tue 25 Feb 2020 03.01 GMT

Nearly 20,000 wildlife farms raising species including peacocks, civet cats, porcupines, ostriches, wild geese and boar have been shut down across China in the wake of the coronavirus, in a move that has exposed the hitherto unknown size of the industry.

Until a few weeks ago wildlife farming was still being promoted by government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich.

 

 

But the Covid-19 outbreak, which has now led to 2,666 deaths and over 77,700 known infections, is thought to have originated in wildlife sold at a market in Wuhan in early December, prompting a massive rethink by authorities on how to manage the trade.

China issued a temporary ban on wildlife trade to curb the spread of the virus at the end of January and began a widespread crackdown on breeding facilities in early February.

The country’s top legislative officials are now rushing to amend the country’s wildlife protection law and possibly restructure regulations on the use of wildlife for food and traditional Chinese medicine.

 

 

The current version of the law is seen as problematic by wildlife conservation groups because it focuses on utilisation of wildlife rather than its protection.

“The coronavirus epidemic is swiftly pushing China to reevaluate its relationship with wildlife,” Steve Blake, chief representative of WildAid in Beijing, told the Guardian. “There is a high level of risk from this scale of breeding operations both to human health and to the impacts on populations of these animals in the wild.”

The National People’s Congress released new measures on Monday restricting wildlife trade, banning consumption of bushmeat and sales of wildlife for meat consumption at wet markets between now and the time the Wildlife Protection Law can be amended and adopted. Untouched however, are breeding operations for traditional Chinese medicine, fur and leather, lucrative markets known to drive illegal poaching of animals including tigers and pangolins.

 

 

For the past few years China’s leadership has pushed the idea that “wildlife domestication” should be a key part of rural development, eco-tourism and poverty alleviation. A 2017 report by the Chinese Academy of Engineering on the development of the wildlife farming industry valued the wildlife-farming industry those operations at 520bn yuan, or £57bn.

Just weeks before the outbreak, China’s State Forestry and Grassland Administration (SFGA) was still actively encouraging citizens to get into farming wildlife such as civet cats – a species pinpointed as a carrier of Sars, a disease similar to Covid-19. The SFGA regulates both farming and trade in terrestrial wildlife, and quotas of wildlife products – such as pangolin scales – allowed to be used by the Chinese medicine industry.

 

 

“Why are civet cats still encouraged to [be eaten] after the Sars outbreak in 2003? It’s because the hunters, operators, practitioners need that. How can they achieve that? They urged the government to support them under the pretext of economic development,” Jinfeng Zhou, secretary-general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), told the Guardian.

On state TV the popular series Secrets of Getting Rich, which has aired since 2001, often touts these kinds of breeding operations – bamboo rats, snakes, toads, porcupines and squirrels have all had starring roles.

But little was known about the scale of the wildlife farm industry before the coronavirus outbreak, with licensing mainly regulated by provincial and local-level forestry bureaus that do not divulge full information about the breeding operations under their watch. A report from state-run Xinhua news agency on 17 February revealed that from 2005–2013 the forestry administration only issued 3,725 breeding and operation licenses at the national level.

But since the outbreak at least 19,000 farms have been shut down around the country, including about 4,600 in Jilin province, a major centre for traditional Chinese medicine. About 3,900 wildlife-farming operations were shuttered in Hunan province, 2,900 in Sichuan, 2,300 in Yunnan, 2,000 in Liaoning, and 1,000 in Shaanxi.

There is little detail available about the animals farmed across China, but local press reports mention civet cats, bamboo rats, ostriches, wild boar, sika deer, foxes, ostriches, blue peacocks, turkeys, quails, guinea fowl, wild geese, mallard ducks, red-billed geese, pigeons, and ring-necked pheasants.

Neither do reports offer much detail about the shutdowns and what is happening to the animals, although Blake said he does not think animals are being culled, due to issues over compensation.

Chen Hong, a peacock farmer in Liuyang, Hunan, said she is concerned about her losses and whether she will get compensation after her operations were suspended on 24 January.

“We now aren’t allowed to sell the animals, transport them, or let anyone near them, and we have to sanitise the facility once every day,” Chen said. “Usually this time of year would see our farm bustling with clients and visitors. We haven’t received notice on what to do yet, and the peacocks are still here, and we probably won’t know what to do with [them] until after the outbreak is contained.

“We’re very worried about the farm’s future,” she added. “The shutdown has resulted in a loss of 400,000–500,000 yuan (£44,000–55,000) in sales, and if they decide to put an outright ban on raising peacocks, we’ll lose even more, at least a million yuan(£110,000).”

On a visit to Shaoguan, Guangdong province, last year, the Guardian and staff from CBCGDF saw a caged facility previously used for attempted breeding of the notoriously hard-to-breed pangolin.

While there were no longer pangolin at the site, several locals near the facility confirmed the species had been raised there, along with monkeys and other wildlife.

Besides being used for Chinese medicine, much of the meat from the wildlife trade is sold through online platforms or to “wet markets” like the one where the Covid-19 outbreak is thought to have started in Wuhan.

 

 

 

“All animals or their body parts for human consumption are supposed to go through food and health checks, but I don’t think the sellers ever bothered,” said Deborah Cao, a professor at Griffith University in Australia and an expert on animal protection in China. “Most of them [have been] sold without such health checks.”

There have been calls for a deep regulatory overhaul to remove the conflicting duties of the forestry administration, and for a shift in government mindset away from promoting the utilisation of wildlife and towards its protection.

“The ‘referee-player’ combination needs to be addressed and is the toughest [challenge],” Li Shuo, a senior campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia told the Guardian. “This goes back to the institutional identity [of the SFGA] which was established to oversee timber production. Protection was an afterthought.”

Proposals include fully banning trade in wildlife that is protected or endangered within and outside of China, plus bans on raising and selling meat from known carriers of diseases that can impact humans such as civets, bats and rodents.

There are concerns that in trying to prevent outbreaks authorities may go too far in the culling of wild animals that can carry disease.

“Some law professors have suggested ‘ecological killing’ of disease-transmitting wild animals, such as pangolins, hedgehogs, bats, snakes, and some insects,” Zhou said. “We believe lawmakers need to learn [more about] biodiversity before advising on the revisions to the law, or they’ll bring disaster.”

Additional research and reporting assistance provided by Jonathan Zhong.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/coronavirus-closures-reveal-vast-scale-of-chinas-secretive-wildlife-farm-industry