Day: January 26, 2023

Farm Animals, Fur and Fur Farming, General News

Norway: Brilliant News – Fur Farming Ends in Norway as Remaining Farms Close Doors Two Years In Advance of the Legal Ban ! – Victory !

20 January 2023

Dyrevernalliansen

The last two fur farms in Norway will be closing permanently by the end of January 2023 according to the country’s Fur Farmers Association, bringing the industry to a close two years before a legal ban comes into force in 2025.

On 13 June 2019, the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) passed a law banning fur farming. The ban was initiated by the Norwegian Liberal Party. In the years before this, fur farming had been fiercely debated by many parties, including the Norwegian Labour Party and the Norwegian Conservative Party.

Dyrevernalliansen report that in 2001, there were more than 1,000 fur farms operating in Norway, declining to only 80 by early 2021. The organisation has lobbied since 2001 for a ban on fur farming.

Together we won in the end, and it is wonderful to know that no new fox pups or mink kits will be born in cages in Norway. Dyrevernalliansen will continue our work for the animals who need it the most. Our next goal is a ban on the import of fur products into Norway. Fur farming is animal cruelty no matter where in the world it takes place. Now that production has been discontinued in Norway, it is deeply unethical that we continue to import products from fur farms in other countries.

Anton Krag – CEO, Dyrevernalliansen

The European Citizens Initiative Fur Free Europe is calling for a ban on fur farming and the sale of farmed fur products across the European Union.

Do you support this ban? Add your name now. 

Regards Mark

Farm Animals, Fur and Fur Farming, General News

EU: Working Group for the ECI Fur Free Europe Successfully Launched at the European Parliament – 25 January 2023.

Working group for the ECI Fur Free Europe successfully launched at the European Parliament

25 January 2023

Today, a kick-off meeting was held at the European Parliament to launch a working group dedicated to the European Citizens’ Initiative Fur Free Europe. With over 1.3 million signatures collected in 8 months, the ECI Fur Free Europe clearly reflects the wishes of a majority of European citizens for a Europe without exploitation of animals for fashion.

The working group, announced last year during a meeting of the Intergroup on animal welfare and conservation, will be coordinated by Eurogroup for Animals in close collaboration with the Fur Free Alliance. 

The working group hosts representatives from the main political groups, and will work to support the Fur Free Europe initiative by coordinating amongst those groups and collaborating with civil society organisations involved in the ECI. The goal is to ensure the Parliamentary process which follows every ECI, and to adopt a resolution for a ban on fur farming and the sale of farmed fur products in Europe.

In addition, the working group, in conjunction with members of the Intergroup for the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, will aim to foster discussion and raise awareness in the European Parliament about the serious cross-cutting issues related to fur farming and the fur trade. The group will also participate in public campaign activities to apply further pressure and draw attention to the issue.

This is not the first time that the European Parliament has addressed problems connected with fur production. In May 2020, it adopted the Report on the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which acknowledged that fur production significantly compromises animal welfare and increases the susceptibility to infectious diseases, including zoonoses, as it has occurred with COVID-19 specially in mink:

Above – Brilliant Anja !!

[…] fur production, which involves the confinement of thousands of undomesticated animals of a similar genotype in close proximity to one another under chronically stressful conditions, significantly compromises animal welfare and increases their susceptibility to infectious diseases including zoonoses […]. The coming years will be crucial to end the enormous suffering of animals in the EU. In light of the Commissions’ strong commitment to revise the EU Animal Welfare legislation, this working group represents a crucial and timely initiative. We will work together to secure strong support from the European Parliament on the European Citizens’ Initiative Fur Free Europe. The only possible outcome, as demanded by European citizens, is a ban on fur farming and a ban on the sale of farmed fur products on the European market.

Anja Hazekamp, chairwoman of the Fur Free Europe working group

Fur free Europe – browse the publication:

Fur Free Europe | Eurogroup for Animals

Regards Mark

Farm Animals, General News, Uncategorized

Lidl’s Chicken Scandal: a Glimpse of the State of Animal Welfare in the EU.

Lidl’s chicken scandal: a glimpse of the state of animal welfare in the EU

Essere Animali

Press Release

NGOs are pressuring Lidl to sign the European Chicken Commitment, following the release of investigations that reveal shocking conditions for broilers on their supplier’s farms in Germany, Italy and Spain.

In a campaign led by Equalia and the Albert Schweitzer Foundation Germany, NGOs are telling Lidl that enough is enough, after footage was released showing broiler chickens being abused and neglected on their supplier’s farms. 

‘Lidl’s chicken scandal’, as it’s being called, began when Equalia released footage revealing hideous circumstances for broiler chickens on a factory farm in Germany. Shoved together in the dark and with barely enough room to breathe, the video shows droves of malformed broilers suffering and dying in the worst of conditions. 

While that was enough to spark outrage among animal protection organisations across Europe, the scale of the problem was revealed to be much worse shortly after.

Just a few weeks later, further footage published by Equalia highlighted similar abuses being extended to broilers connected to Lidl in Spain. Chickens are being thrown to the ground from high up, slammed against buckets, and made too miserable and exhausted to move, with many of them spending their days lying on the floor being trampled over.

Below – Click on ‘Watch on YouTube’.

Above – This is happening on farms supplying Lidl in Spain

Regards Mark

Environmental, General News, Uncategorized

EU Parliament Shows Positive Commitment Toward Systemic Change to Regulate the (Exotic) Pet Trade.

EU Parliament shows positive commitment toward systemic change to regulate the (exotic) pet trade

25 November 2022

AAP Press Release

Yesterday, the EP adopted a resolution on improving EU regulation through an EU positive list of (wild and exotic) pets. This was the direct result of a petition and subsequent debate at PETI Committee from Eurogroup for Animals and AAP and Dyrenes Beskyttelse.

Excitingly, it’s the second EP Resolution in as many months with encouraging language on an EU positive list. It’s a strong message to the Commission to expand upon their initial commitment for a feasibility study on the EU positive list in the revised Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking.

This resolution is the icing on the cake of a very successful year in political calls for the EU positive list, such as the May AGRIFISH position paper supported by 19 Member States, and the October EP resolution on the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), which provided the EP’s opinion on the position the Commission should take at CoP19. Incidentally, the exotic pet trade has been front and centre of the debates at this important meeting of the Parties to CITES. 

Finally, the text cites the EP’s June 2021 resolution on the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: bringing nature back into our lives, which includes reference to a white (positive) list.

An EU-wide positive list is a tool to more effectively and efficiently regulate the pet trade, by producing a list of animal species that are allowed to be traded as companion animals: any species not on the list is de facto illegal to keep.

The resolution stresses that the European trade policy needs to ensure that pet trade practices do not compromise the welfare of wild and exotic animals or contribute to biodiversity loss, and that the keeping of such animals as pets does not jeopardise the welfare of the animal and the owner.

Moreover, it expresses the Parliament’s concern that current regulations in Member States are fragmented and not consistent, often failing to encompass much of the animal kingdom.

Additionally, it notes that the EU legal framework is currently insufficient to tackle animal welfare, public health and safety, and invasiveness risks associated with the trade and keeping of wild and exotic animals as pets.

Of vital importance, the Commission recently released a revised Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking, which had and action to “Explore the need for, added value of, and feasibility of revising existing measures or creating new tools to reduce unsustainable trade in wildlife (e.g. a ‘positive list’ of species whose specimens taken from the wild can be traded and kept as pets)”.

It’s our view that this action does not go nearly far enough, but that this resolution comes at the perfect moment to urge the Commission to expand on their initial commitment. The resolution calls “on the Commission to carry out an impact assessment of the added-value and feasibility of establishing such a list, using a science-based set of criteria to determine which species are suitable as pets, and to include a careful analysis of various criteria already used in national positive lists, in order to establish the most effective ones to be possibly adopted in an EU-wide positive list”. 

It is vital that the European Commission hears the strong message of the Member States through the Council, and the continued calls from the Parliament, to ensure a timely and strict implementation of the Action Plan, especially its feasibility study on the EU Positive List. The Commission is now mandated to be flexible in its impact assessment approach, to seek out feasible ways that an EU Positive List can fit with, and add value to the current legislative framework. It should be conducted with a view to ease the establishment of the Positive List. If not, an important and viable tool to protect animals, humans and the environment could be missed out on. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Reineke Hameleers, CEO, Eurogroup for Animals

Regards Mark