Day: March 13, 2021

Farm Animals, General News, Live Transport

USA: Ban The Shipment of Chicks In The Mail.

Every year, 20 million day-old chicks are thoughtlessly thrown into boxes and shipped as “perishable goods” through the postal service. You have a chance to help stop this horrific practice. All you need to do is take action today!

When allowed to, a mother hen communicates with her chicks through the shell before they hatch. In hatcheries supplying individual buyers or feed-stores, the chicks are born in an incubator with no mother in sight. Within hours of their life, they are sexed, vaccinated, stuffed in boxes, and sent through the mail. According to the United States Postal Service, they are supposed to arrive at their destination within 72 hours. This means, and this is the best-case-scenario, that they are crowded in a dark box without food or water for 3 days. They are shipped year-round, no matter the weather. Chicks endure below freezing winter temperatures and inhumane sweltering summer heat. 

Can you imagine “mailing” your adopted puppy or kitten under these conditions?

Without a doubt sending day-old babies through the mail is cruel, but recently it has become horrific. Thousands of chicks have arrived dead due to delayed shipments and chaos within the United States Postal Service in the wake of Covid-19. Typically 1-2% percent of chicks die during transit.

In August of 2020 entire shipments of chicks were arriving at their destination dead. Farmers in Maine and New Hampshire reported a staggering 4,800 chicks were deceased upon arrival.

People purchase hens because they produce eggs. But, what happens to the male chicks? Most roosters are killed soon after they hatch. Most commonly they endure asphyxiation by gassing or maceration in high-speed grinders. 

This means that they are ground alive. The ones who survive are packaged and shipped with the hens. They may be sexed incorrectly, purchased unsexed, or used as “packing peanuts” to help keep the female chicks warm in transit. When people receive unwanted roosters they abandon, kill, or dump them at a shelter or sanctuary. Animal Place gets multiple calls and emails a day about unwanted roosters. If we are unable to take them in, we try to find a safe haven for them in private homes or with other sanctuaries. 

The shipment of live-day-old chicks is unethical. We must demand an end to this cruelty. You can use your voice to advocate for chickens. Go to animalplace.org/advocacy/ to sign and send a letter to the United States Postmaster General, find sample letters, and learn more. It only takes a few moments of your time. Take action now and demand that this practice come to an end. Join us in making a difference for the 20 million chicks who face the cruel practice every year.

ACTION – Go to:   Animal Place’s Animal Advocate Alliance | Animal Place

 

 Regards Mark

Environmental

Nigeria: David against Goliath-David winns!

The splendid victory of David against Goliath! Farmer’s triumph over a multinational oil company.

Thirteen years ago, three African farmers decide to sue Shell Nigeria for poisoning their fish farms in the Niger River Delta and making their land barren.

They turn to Dutch justice, where Shell is based, but initially nothing to do.
They reply that they cannot claim damages from the parent company for the behavior of the multinational subsidiary Shell Nigeria.

Farmers are not giving up and in 2021, the Hague appeals court overturned the sentence: Shell will have to pay damages to the three Nigerian farmers. The amount of the compensation will be established in May.

Meanwhile, the sentence is historic.

Thus, the Court of Appeal in The Hague, in the Netherlands, has found the oil giant Shell responsible for the oil pollution in the Niger River Delta, caused by the subsidiary Shell Nigeria.

And it finally does justice to the three farmers; not only that, it affirms the principle of responsibility even in places in the world where multinationals adopt uncontrolled systems.
Not only. It is justice for the Earth: Enough with the poisoning.

It is justice for human rights: enough that the poor around the world are starving to death because powerful ones are draining their resources.

Stop creating poverty to get richer.

In recent years, various journalistic sources have denounced the colossal disasters that other multinational oil companies also create in the Niger River Delta: a real environmental massacre, operated by several hands, where previously there was paradise (e.g. International Report of 2015 ).

Leaking oil pipelines, for example, cause fires and devastate the land. There is something to worry about.

Villains that devastate, starve, kill, with the indifference and tolerance of the institutions. But no: justice can exist.

Fingers crossed. We hope that the compensation is very very high.

https://www.positizie.it/2021/03/12/tre-agricoltori-africani-trionfano-su-una-multinazionale-del-petrolio/

And I mean...Who would have thought … Although it took the judiciary thirteen years to reach a verdict, it is a battle won.
We are happy and congratulate the three “Davids”!

Even if the penalty is not high, it is a precedent case and will therefore motivate others to take action against the multinational criminals.

My best regards to all, venus

Vivisection

Minnesota, MCR factory: Breaks necks to earn money

An undercover PETA investigation into Moulton Chinchilla Ranch (MCR), a huge chinchilla breeding factory in Chatfield, Minnesota that had approximately 1,000 chinchillas confined in wire-mesh floor cages in a shed that stank of ammonia, found that these exotic animals were denied not only everything that is natural and important to them but also the most basic needs, such as effective veterinary care for chronic infections and severe, life-threatening injuries that caused suffering and even death…

Based on PETA’s evidence, law enforcement agents conducted a raid on MCR and launched a criminal investigation.

Without escape

Chinchillas are active and curious animals, who love to run, jump and climb (activities that are extremely important to their physical and psychological health), but at MCR, they remained confined in small desolate, rusty cages with a wire mesh floor. They had nowhere to take refuge or hide, something extremely stressful and terrifying for these nocturnal prey animals.

Charlene was not treated for this excruciatingly painful foot injury, which resulted in a bloody stump with exposed bones. The PETA investigator rescued her. He took her to emergencies, she underwent surgery and she continues to heal.

The dirty shed was crammed with cages, the walls and ceiling covered with insect debris.

There were feces piled up just outside the shed, and some even entered the shed through a door. Many of these social animals, who in the wild live in herds of up to 100 individuals in the Andes Mountains, were locked up alone in cages. Others were so tightly packed into cages that they could barely move.

Some only had a piece of wood to sit on or chew on. No toys, no place to lie down, no environmental enrichment.

Deprived of everything that is meaningful to them, chinchillas in these stressful and inhumane conditions mutilated themselves and their cage mates, a sign of severe stress. One young animal had its ears practically bitten off.

Continue reading “Minnesota, MCR factory: Breaks necks to earn money” →

Environmental, Farm Animals, General News

WHO and UN leaders condemned by animal welfare charity for ignoring root cause of Covid pandemic a year on.

 

WHO and UN leaders condemned by animal welfare charity for ignoring root cause of Covid pandemic a year on

 

The letter says high-risk practices, such as the commercial wildlife trade, the dog and cat meat trade, and fur, must be phased out if we are to prevent another crippling global pandemic

Upon the first anniversary of the World Health Organisation declaring Covid-19 a pandemic, a leading animal-welfare organisation has accused governments of “not addressing the actual issues around animal abuse” which lead to zoonotic pandemics.

In an open letter, addressed to the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), animal charity Four Paws demanded that risky practices be “urgently phased out”, with a ban on fur farms, live animal markets, and the dog, cat meat, and wildlife trade.

It also urged that there is greater acknowledgement of the need to eat less meat – a key driver of the climate crisis and habitat loss – and a crackdown on risks created by factory farming.

The letter said that “pharmaceutical responses are not the sole and long-term solution”, and said it was “deeply concerning” that despite WHO director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking a year ago on infection-prevention, the way humans treat animals has not been factored into the pandemic response alongside the development of vaccinations.

Josef Pfabigan, President of Four Paws wrote: “The settings in which a huge proportion of animals globally are raised, traded, transported and slaughtered – cramped and overcrowded environments, poor hygiene, myriad origins, and conditions suppressing immune systems and encouraging pathogen excretion and uptake – create an ideal situation for the exchange, genetic modification and emergence of new pathogens.”

In 2007-2011, the three global organisations, the WHO, FAO and OIE, set up a plan called One Health, which was an attempt to reduce health risks, including animal-human interactions.

Four Paws wants them to add a “One Welfare” plan, stressing links between animal welfare and people’s wellbeing.

Mr Pfabigan said: “The underlying problem is the dysfunctional relationship between us, humans, with animals and nature.

“Only when concrete measures ending animal suffering are introduced worldwide can future zoonotic pandemics be stopped.

“We demand a holistic approach from those responsible, because animal welfare equals environmental health equals human wellbeing.”

In response to the letter, the non-profit organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) raised similar concerns.

Speaking to i, PETA’s Director Elisa Allen said: “PETA wrote to the WHO last year to emphasise that treating animals with disrespect and regarding them as ours for the taking will come back to bite us again, just as it has with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Animal markets and factory farms – including those that cage animals for their feathers and fur – are breeding grounds for diseases that mutate and spread to the human population. And if we continue to pillage the natural world and kill the other animals in it, we also exacerbate the climate crisis.”

Previously, scientists have said zoonotic diseases – viruses that jump from animals to humans – have become four times more frequent in the past 50 years, with zoonoses causing a billion cases of illness in people and millions of deaths every year.

According to both the WHO and a UN environment report last year, 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases originate in animals, and Four Paws is warning of “ticking time bombs all over the world” from practices where pathogens may emerge and spread.

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