Regards and good night from Venus
Day: April 1, 2020
Right now, mother harp seals are nursing their young pups on sea ice off Canada’s East Coast.
But the peace on the ice is about to be shattered. Climate change is quickly destroying the seals’ habitat, melting the sea ice before the pups are strong enough to survive in open water.
Then, in just weeks, the seal pups who survive will be subjected to the largest slaughter of marine mammals on earth, in which they will be clubbed and shot for their fur, despite seal products being banned in many markets.
No one can reverse the impacts of climate change in the immediate term, but a responsible government can and should take urgent action to stop the commercial seal hunt.
Please ask Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to act now to save seals.
https://action.hsi.org/page/57420/action/
My comment: For millennia, female seals have been migrating from the Arctic to the east coast of Canada in spring to give birth to their young. Due to global warming, fewer and fewer ice floes are forming on which the animals can be born safely. As a result, many seal mothers have to give birth in the water and drown their baby seals.
In addition to this already precarious situation comes the annual seal massacre, which drastically decimates and endangers the seal population.
The seal hunters go on ice with firearms and barbarian clubs called hakapiks.
Hakapiks are thick wooden bats with a pointed metal hook at the end. Many seals do not succumb to the first blow.
Then the animals throw themselves wildly and scream in pain.
Other completely frightened seals facing the same terrible end must watch.
Hunting against seals has been on the verge of collapse since the EU banned the import of seal products in 2009. Canada has unsuccessfully opposed this ban to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
According to IFAW, the number of active seal hunters has declined dramatically since 2006: 5,594 in 2006, but by 2016 the number of active hunters had dropped to less than 1,000.
The trade ban is only a first step, a general ban on seal hunting must follow.
The fishermen who hunt for the seals earn an average of 5% of their total income from the seal hunt. This is only a small part of their income – and is out of proportion to the damage they cause.
Canadian seal slaughter is one of the most brutal and inhumane things you can imagine.
We cannot allow this to continue. That has to stop.
Activists had repeatedly pushed Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to completely ban the controversial seal hunt.
Seal hunting is already banned in 36 countries around the world. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could change it to make 37 countries.
We have to fight for that.
Please sign this Petition too: https://www.peta.de/robbenjagd-kanada-petition#anchor-Petition
My best regards to all, Venus
U.S. senators scrutinize meat packers’ big profits during pandemic
By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. senators are calling for investigations of record profit margins for beef processors like Tyson Foods <TSN.N> and Cargill, after ranchers complained surging meat prices due to coronavirus hoarding did not translate into higher cattle prices.
Futures prices for cattle have tumbled during the outbreak, worrying farmers as the U.S. economy heads into a downturn and fueling questions about whether the market run by CME Group <CME.O> is an effective tool for risk management.
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa wrote on Twitter that U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission probes may be needed to determine why ranchers did not benefit from soaring meat demand.
“Beef is flying off grocery shelves but farmers are seeing prices go down,” Grassley said. “If packers are illegally manipulating markets during crisis, we need USDA & DOJ & CFTC to investigate + help farmers. Four companies control 80% of market & they’re taking advantage.”
Processors’ margins leapt to more than $600 per head of cattle last week, HedgersEdge.com said. But cattle producers are operating at a net loss, four U.S. senators from South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana told the Justice Department in a letter that called for a price-fixing investigation.
Cargill said it is a committed buyer in the cash market for cattle, which was less impacted than futures. Tyson said it wants cattle producers to succeed and paid them a premium last week.
“This is an uncertain and unprecedented time, where food service beef demand has come to an immediate and virtual standstill, while retail demand has increased,” Tyson said.
USDA said it was working with CFTC to ensure transparency and integrity in agricultural markets.
Live cattle futures <LCJ0> dropped 3.5% on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange over the last three weeks amid worries the virus would shut slaughterhouses, while prices for beef that meat companies ship to wholesale buyers jumped about 20%.
Futures sank as managed funds liquidated long positions, or bets prices will rise, said Cassie Fish, a beef expert who formerly worked for Tyson. It was the market’s biggest event-driven decline in more than 45 years, she said.
“They decided to get out,” Fish said. “It was like a stampede.”
Farmers and processors use futures to offset the risk of producing meat, and futures are intended to reflect the underlying cash market. April cattle futures <LCJ0> ended last week at a record $18 to $19 under the cash market, according to consultancy AgResource.
CME Group said it is committed to improving its livestock markets.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-senators-scrutinize-meat-packers-201923580.html
We recently did a post where it was suggested (not by us – we just reported it) that Bear saliva could be used instead of Bear bile as a use for the Coronavirus.
Here is a link to that original post:
Over the last few days we have been in direct contact with Jill Robinson – Founder and CEO at ‘Animals Asia’ regarding this issue. AA have investigated the information that we sent; and today (1/4/20) Jill has come back to us on the issue; with a formal AA statement from Shaun Thomson BVSc MRCVS, Senior Veterinary Surgeon at the AA Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre.
Here is a copy of the mail sent to us from Jill and Shaun.
Dear Mark,
I’m now posting a statement below from Shaun, our Senior Vet in Vietnam – and cc’ing Shaun too for any follow up you might have.
As an organisation we do not endorse this idea and suggest that reliance is placed on the herbal and synthetic alternatives to bear bile and saliva, healing without harm.
With best wishes, Jill
https://www.animalsasia.org/
Jill’s blog – https://www.animalsasia.org/intl/social/jills-blog/
“As health-care and other industries work to replace, reduce and refine their use of animals in product testing and human health care, it is incredibly important that we critically consider the expected outcomes of any animal model or product used in an attempt to save human lives.
Currently, there is little evidence that any bear product provides a health benefit that can’t be obtained through other means. We know that the active component of bear bile has physiologic effects in certain circumstances, but its synthetic and other herbal counterparts have those effects also.
As for bear saliva providing antibodies to coronavirus, there is no good evidence to suggest that the claims made are supported. There are 7 different coronaviruses currently known to affect people and each of them is their own serotype. This means that each is neutralised by a different type of antibody and therefore resistance to one serotype does not confer immunity to another serotype. There is no evidence that bears can mount an immune response to human coronaviruses and therefore no evidence that we would expect to find antibodies to any human coronavirus in their saliva.
Bear saliva, like most animals, contains a lot of different microbes. The way microbes stop other microbes from attacking them is by making antimicrobials. A bacteria found in bear saliva has been found to make a chemical that works as an antibiotic against a bacteria that is a common human pathogen. This chemical is being evaluated for its potential use as an antibiotic, but this in no way supports that bear saliva is in anyway effective against coronavirus (or any other infections). Using bear saliva to treat a susceptible infection could be likened to using mouldy bread to treat an infection susceptible to penicillin.
The way to get antibodies for SARS-COV-2 to then treat people, in a way that makes mechanistic sense and has shown to work for other infections, is to take plasma from recovered people and give it to those that are suffering from COVID-19. This is already being done. This method provides a safer, more effective solution and requires the use of absolutely no animals. There is always the risk of blood borne infections, but with modern screening the chances of this are incredibly low. These risks are also likely significantly lower than problems that could be caused by the administration of bear saliva. Donating plasma allows those now immune to the disease to support their community to get healthier in a better way.”
Shaun Thomson BVSc MRCVS
Senior Veterinary Surgeon
Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre
Animals Asia
*************************
You get up early in the morning and the first thought is whether corona symptoms have appeared overnight.
If you do not have it yet, you can count yourself lucky because the health system and governments, apart from causing panic, are unable to do anything else.
That said, regardless of whether you have it or not, you are medically on the ass actually.
The virus was officially reported to the WHO by China on December 31, 2019. Every country in the world has this duty when an epidemic breaks out.
Today China and South Korea have the virus under control so well that we will soon get protective masks from China. There haven’t been any in Germany for three months and if we get them now it’s too late.
The same applies to the test liquid of the corona virus, which is also produced in China, and cannot be delivered at the moment because all countries need it.
You get the feeling that you are at the mercy, except to lock us in, institutes, governments and laboratories are not even able to tell how it will go on. In the Middle Ages the church took over the role of science, today the economy does it.
There was something else, oh yes it was the Robert Koch Institute that told us that the 2017/2018 flu wave was the deadliest in 30 years.
Yes indeed! The season has been the deadliest in the past 30 years. According to this, an estimated 25,100 people died from influenza in the reporting period (only in Germany) Why didn’t we actually cause panic at the time? We reacted as if this death rate was the most normal in the world.
For 41 years, no thought has been given to any pandemic. Maybe just because it wasn’t a real deal, or because it was about African countries.
Since the outbreak of the Corona Virus, the message has been booming in the animal rights scene: “Stop eating meat, stop preserving wildlife markets in China”.
China is again the main culprit for the pandemic.
Of course, China and the Far East in general is responsible for the worst, most hideous forms of cruelty to animals this planet has ever seen, and on a large scale.
Most people, however, have not understood that China, as the main culprit for the development of the Corona Virus (even if it is true) is one thing. The other side is the inability of most governments to take corrective action against the virus.
It is a welcome excuse if the Chinese are blamed for Corona but no one blames EU that does not send help to Italia.
The German government is rubbing its hands that only the Chinese are found guilty, but not Merkel for doing nothing, for panic and acting too late.
There is a nice Chinese saying: “first solve the problem and then the question of guilt”.
As long as we only deal with the question of guilt, we run the risk of a ridiculous corona mass death due to a totally corrupt world elite that sucks humanity to the bone.
Officially, the panic and the whole breakdown is justified by the fact that humans do not yet have antibodies against this corona virus. Well, if it is actually so unnaturally new, we should perhaps ask again in the bioweapons laboratories where this pathogen in particular is currently available.
My best regards to all, Venus
World Animals Voice 