Day: February 21, 2023

Vietnam: Urgent Appeal To Rescue 5 Bile Bears and Send Them To The Animals Asia Sanctuary.

Further update 2030hrs GMT

This link is not associated with any scam – it is a direct link to the ‘Animals Asia’ donation site.

At the bottom of the donation link there is both a telephone number and also an e mail address.

Donations can be made using this number directly if you wish to donate by card. This is for the UK office.

Email: info@animalsasia.org
Phone: +(0)1752 224424

I will give the donation link once more:

Animals Asia | Make a donation today

Both the links given will take you to the same donation area; you can use either.

Here is the international site link of you wish to donate via this instead:

https://www.animalsasia.org/

—————————————————————————————————————————-

We’ve received a call from the Forest Protection Department in Vietnam alerting us to five bears who need rescuing immediately.

Will you join our Bear Rescue Team and help bring them home to safety?

Between these five bears there has been over 100 years of torturous bile extraction, without a second of freedom.

Right now, that’s all we know about them.

Two decades of abuse will have taken an enormous toll on their minds and bodies. It’s crucial we reach them as soon as possible. Please, will you help?

Welcoming these bears home to our sanctuary in Tam Dao, Vietnam means we’re now at full capacity. But you must know, this will not stand in the way of us rescuing them. Nothing will.

Please will you donate today? Your gift could help rescue five desperate bears and prepare our second sanctuary for the arrival of the hundreds more still waiting.

Donate via this link:

And I promise, with you by our side, nothing will stop us from saving more bears who desperately need us. Will you send an urgent donation today and help bring them home? We can’t do this vital work without you.

Every single second counts for the bears waiting to be saved from these terrible farms.

I’m beyond grateful for your support and dedication to the bears. Thank you for ensuring that no bear is left behind.

Jill Robinson MBE, Dr med vet hc, Hon LLD
Founder and CEO

PS I’ll be joining the team on the rescue so I promise to keep you updated as much as I can but in the meantime, it would mean the world if you could donate to these precious bears.

Donate via this link:

Regards Mark

EU: Force-feeding for foie gras: new investigation reveals this inhumane practice still occurs in the EU, despite high sanctions in most Member States

Force-feeding for foie gras: new investigation reveals this inhumane practice still occurs in the EU, despite high sanctions in most Member States

21 February 2023

GAIA

Recently, the European Parliament hosted a meeting of the parliamentary Intergroup for Animal Welfare, in which footage was shown revealing the horrific reality of force-feeding in foie gras production on a farm in France. Ways forward to finally solve this problem in relation to EU law were suggested by attendees.

Olivier Morice, Public Affairs Officer for L214, showed the footage taken at the end of 2022 on a mainstream French farm. The images of the animals during, before and after force-feeding were a shocking and accurate display of the horrible effects of this awful practice, calling to attention why it urgently needs to be addressed by policymakers.

The use of force-feeding for foie gras production in the EU

Force-feeding ducks and geese for foie gras production is a form of animal abuse that has already been made illegal in 22 EU Member States, plus two of the three Belgian regions. As Adolfo Sansolini, Advisor to Eurogroup for Animals and Consultant to GAIA, explained at the Intergroup, sanctions in those countries if animals were force-fed for foie gras production could reach fines of up to €800,000, and imprisonment for up to six years.

Sadly, force-feeding for foie gras production remains legal in France, Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain and Wallonia. It’s difficult to understand why. Not only has scientific evidence shown the practice of force-feeding to be unnecessarily cruel and detrimental to the welfare of animals, but citizens across the EU have called for its end as well through surveys like the ‘Attitudes of Europeans towards Animal Welfare’ Eurobarometer (2016), through which 94% of participants said they believed it was important to protect the welfare of farmed animals.

A future without force-feeding: how can the EU move forward?

It’s clear this mistreatment can’t be allowed to go on. EU institutions must ensure that citizen and animal welfare concerns, rather than niche sectoral interests, are represented and defended in legislation. ‘Traditional’ animal-derived foods (an umbrella under which foie gras arguably falls) should not undermine ethical and scientific progress, and currently, the fact that this practice is still enabled by European law undermines the EU’s global reputation for high animal welfare standards. 

Sansolini explained two ways to end force-feeding for foie gras production:

1. Foie gras production can be made possible without the use of force-feeding: To achieve this, the arbitrary requirement of minimum liver weights – introduced in the European Regulation on marketing standards for poultry meat in 1991 (and maintained in the 2008 version) – must be removed. This would generate fairer competition for farmers across the EU, allow consumer choice, and level the playing field for the companies and countries that have adopted higher standards. DG AGRI is responsible for this piece of legislation;

2. Force-feeding can be banned altogether in the EU and without exemptions: Therefore fully implementing Directive 58/98/EC, which states that “No animal shall be provided with food or liquid in a manner (…) which may cause unnecessary suffering or injury”.

Reineke Hameleers, CEO of Eurogroup for Animals, commented that “millions of European citizens look with hope at the work of Commissioner Wojciechowski to make foie gras production without force-feeding possible, giving back choice to citizens and ending the discrimination on the market of higher-welfare producers. The time has come to end the scandal of force-feeding for good, by including a ban in the proposals that Commissioner Kyriakides is preparing on farm animal welfare.”

Regards Mark

USA: But if you don’t ignore the violent suffering of animals, kids will get cavities …

With thanks to Stacey at Our Compass

Our Compass | Because compassion directs us … (our-compass.org)

Regards Mark

But if you don’t ignore the violent suffering of animals, kids will get cavities …

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

by Stacey

I’m gonna have to call out some traumatized nonvegans again. On a comment board following a NYT opinion article Rescuing Farm Animals From Cruelty Should Be Legal in favor of a DxE rescue of two chickens from the death industry, some nonvegans had to digitally vocalize why those two chickens should have instead violently suffered death in a “caring, welfare-respectful establishment” – while ignoring that there are zero laws “protecting” “food animals” – in a world where trillions of animals violently suffer yearly for a largely indifferent society that doesn’t experience anger at SUFFERING but rather at people who rescue animals from suffering. I know that was really wordy, but it’s hard summarizing the mass, incalculable violence and pain humans effortlessly inflict, but relentlessly defend, on innocents. (And I’ll just point out here that ALL animal exploitation is cruel, not just “some”.) The comments were eventually closed so I was unable to respond to a couple directly, and while there’s probably a 100% chance of 0 that the original commenters will see my responses here, I think it’s important to make these corrections in general as so many of these excuses are inaccurately-yet-consistently demonstrated by so many non (anti) vegans, whose only change is their name, to attempt to validate injustice. And I can’t just ignore them. Sue me.

This is a favorite of mine: nonvegans demanding vegans make violence against animals more comfortable for nonvegans. So instead of saving chickens, because obviously Michael likes to eat chickens, animal rescuers need to instead concentrate on saving “veal” calves, obviously because Michael doesn’t like the flavor of infant flesh but needs to deflect from his willing participation in chicken suffering and float the idea that because calves violently die due to not being rescued by vegans – versus being killed for and by nonvegans – he can’t be bothered to not kill chickens. (I mean, antivegan’s excuses are like a brain trust in reverse.)

(And they’re not “its”, but I understand that humans have been exploiting speciesist language to distance themselves from their sentient victims since communication was born and it’s just easier for people to refer to boats as “she” and animals as “its”.)

I actually answered this one by factually demonstrating, with USDA data, that “veal” is caused by “dairy”. In other words, Michael, your milk, cheese, and ice cream consumption – because you actually do like to eat those – are responsible for all those poor, sweet baby cows being violently confined and killed as early as 3 weeks of age (of course there are millions who violently die at an even earlier age of 0 in slaughterhouses, too, when their mothers are violently killed and cut open to – surprise! baby here who needs to be killed too).

Michael’s response?

Silence, aka, a hugely silent, “OOOOOOOOOOPS!!! I didn’t know that so will just pretend that I still don’t know and ignore that I personally cause baby cow suffering AND chicken suffering ….”

Of course.

Cruelty is only offensive when you don’t know about or acknowledge that you are directly responsible for said cruelty.

But yes, it’s vegans’ responsibility to help Michael sort his conscience on his self-serving journey to zero accountability….

Just stop the tantrum-blaming, suggesting your cruel actions and violent behaviour are someone else’s responsibility, I’m not here to make you feel better about abusing animals, that’s all on YOU, YOU enable “veal crates” and other suffering via your actions and pathetic welfare “reform” internet support and involvement in an inherently cruel “system” that normalizes a culture of violent animal suffering and death that is ALL RELATED. (And as for those “reforms” I swear I’m going to hurl if I see another person scream, “Yes, pass those regulations, I’m more than happy to pay more for humanely raised animals!!!” while STILL supporting what they admit is cruel NOW. Not to mention – again – that ALL animal exploitation is inherently cruel (if a bigger cage is important, what’s more important than NO CAGE?), it’s just that people have been brainwashed into conformist flesh zombies, believing that unethically and inhumanely violating and violently killing animals is ok because “poor people, male-calves-I-mean-oooops-not-really, a vague future with maybe bigger cages, children’s cavities tho” … :

How about you? Because, you know, instead of spending time criticizing people who spend time helping animals, how many teeth could you have saved by NOT taking time reading and commenting on an article that makes you angsty? (Are you even a dentist or are you implying we all just need to grab some pliers? Seems a bit torturous but I wouldn’t expect an animal abusing apologist to care much about kids anyway.)

But you don’t really care about kids, you care about inventing some fake moral outrage so you don’t have to address the factual suffering and cruelty YOU cause that you could easily NOT.

I mean, imagine feeling so insecure as to suggest that NOT helping animals is required to helping kids while simultaneously ignoring abject animal abuse – animals being boiled alive in this case – because you’re incapable of being a decent human who refuses such cruelties but have to pretend that you’re not complicit because kids get cavities. Desperate much? I can’t even word your illogic logically it’s so bizarre.

But do tell how your violence helps kids with their medical care. And do share also how many sports events, malls, libraries, grocers, theaters, clothing stores, zoos, vet clinics, etc., etc., etc., you’ve visited, screaming at people who shop, play sports, or watch tv, that THEY should instead spend time helping other humans with their dental needs.

Oh. It’s only people who care about animals that you enragingly target: “I refuse to minimize animal suffering so I’m just gonna criticize those who do!!!”

You know why? Because you can’t justify your cruel behaviour, but rather than examine and change it, you have to try to bring others down to your level of indecency and apathy. Indeed, rather than choosing plant-based milk instead of suffering cow’s milk, you have to falsely accuse animal rescuers of being anti-human to deflect from your pro-abuse behaviour.

The hubris irony of “humanitarians” who demand those very humans NOT exercise their rights and ethics to minimize suffering. Honestly, I’ve never been hit with so much hatred than from antivegan “humanitarians” who casually forget that vegans are, you know, human.

And by the way, millions upon millions of animals are condemned (removed from “food supply”) yearly due to disease, neglect, and squalor, do they affect kids’ teeth? Or is it only the animals who are rescued … from you?

And to be clear, the people who spends gobsandgobs of time killing animals, abusing animals, hunting animals, eating animals, cooking animals, using animals, buying animals, wearing animals, breeding animals, impregnating animals, mutilating animals, celebrating animal violence, encouraging more violent exploitation of animals, mocking animal suffering, and mocking people opposed to animal exploitation, are cool, though? As long as a person’s time used to abuse animals aligns with your standard of “legitimate time suckage via animal suffering” they’re good?

So much logic it makes me want to cry ………..

The last comment was correct, but the disinformation machine is alive and violently successful in the first. People say things with zero hesitation because many honestly believe what they’re saying is the truth based on what THEY heard and on and on and on. (Listen to Jem’s They)

You can’t have “empathy” for animals you eat. You have to literally smother your capacity for empathy and instead adopt indifference and word salad justifications overandoverandover to make yourself believe that abusing animals benefits animals. And “humanely raising” is reserved for beings who benefit from a nurturing environment of care and support as they age, not one that exploits and violates your body prior to your body being violently killed and eaten at a fraction of your “normal” lifespan, ffs.

But where are these small farms that slaughter their “own animals” and sell them to community members? I see this “advice” all the time.

Which is really bizarre.

Because it’s illegal.

It’s not a fruit stand, folks, you can’t just “stop by” Farmer Bob’s on your way to bingo and buy a leg and a pound of guts.

In the US, all flesh commercially sold requires inspection and certification via a slaughterhouse. While farmers can kill and consume their “own” animals, it’s illegal to sell their body parts to others.

What’s really (angeringly) interesting is that you’ll NEVER see farmers or industry shills correcting misinformation. No, instead they fuel it with ludicrous, “We love the animals, they’re like our children!!!”

Yikes.

Imagine the absolute betrayal animals experience at the violent hands of their “parents”.

Ah, LB from Minneapolis nobly participates in abject animal suffering because LB is concerned about “poor people”: “I really, really hate abusing animals, but I’m forced to eat dead animals to help poor people…………..”

I wonder if LB smokes and also encourages other people to smoke to sustain tobacco farmers? They have families to feed, too, right?

Honestly.

Caring about poor people doesn’t require animal abuse, that’s just the desperate position you take to garner social approval for being pro-violence. Not one utterance of shock at the violence you cause, LB, just vague references excusing it because “other people tho”; and not actively condemning animal exploitation by being vegan DOES defend factory farming. The entire world loves to object to factory farms on the internet but even with such global condemnation, they still exist “producing” >90% of animals violently killed globally for consumption each year. Someone’s fibbing, LB. Shocker.

And let’s be honest: it’s actually privileged to believe others’ bodies belong to you and abuse and kill them for that belief.

And empathy is free. Use it!

Zero antivegans care about poor people, migrant workers, people who live in food deserts, or quinoa farmers in Peru until vegans enter the room. Then they turn into snot-sobbing humanitarians who boldly sacrifice ethics and exploit other people’s tragedies and negative experiences to (attempt to) legitimatize eating violence (while also ignoring that the largest consumer segment of plant-based food are people who also eat animals).

You can care about animals and humans. At the same time. I do, why can’t you?

A pound of “ground beef” would cost about $35 minus subsidies, how about you stop exploiting animals and use those dollars in a more worthwhile manner? Because rather than admit that you don’t need to support animal abuse, you deflect by instead pretending that violence against animals is ok based on “my (fake) hurty feelings about poor people tho” and criticize people who support animal rescue.

And by the way, when people exploit “poor people” to (attempt to) legitimatize their personal contribution to animal suffering, they’re suggesting that poor people are incapable of being vegan and minimizing animal suffering. And THAT’S offensive. SL

Download Your FREE Vegan PDF HERE

Order a FREE vegan kit HERE

Dairy-Free Info HERE

Take the Dairy-Free Challenge HERE

Click HERE for more Dairy-Free

Fish alternatives can be found HERE

Learn about eggs HERE

Find bacon alternatives HERE and HERE

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copy HERE

Searching for Cruelty-Free Cosmetics, Personal-Care Products, Vegan Products, or more?
Click HERE to search.

Free PDF of Vegan & Cruelty-Free Products/Companies HERE

Click HERE to find out How to Wear Vegan!

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend:

PETA HERE

Vegan Outreach HERE

Get your FREE Activist Kit from PETA, including stickers, leaflets, and guide HERE

USA: Snipers In Helicopters To Shoot Down 150 Feral Cattle.

Feral cattle terrorising hikers to be taken out by helicopter gunmen (msn.com)

Feral cattle terrorising hikers to be taken out by helicopter gunmen

Snipers in helicopters will this week shoot down up to 150 feral cattle that have terrorised hikers in New Mexico.

The US National Forest is stepping in amid complaints from environmentalists that the beasts are wreaking havoc in the Gila National Forest, a 2.7million acre wilderness in the southwest of the US.

A helicopter carrying a shooter will fly over the forest, with the operation due to start on Thursday.

The herd’s territory is close to wilderness trails popular with hikers and the lack of a mobile phone signal in the wilderness means it would be difficult to summon help if somebody was injured in a stampede.

Hikers have reported being charged by wild bulls, which can weigh up to 2,000 pounds (907kg), officials said.

The Forest Service service said the cattle also posed a “significant” danger to natural resources.

“This has been a difficult decision, but the lethal removal of feral cattle from the Gila Wilderness is necessary to protect public safety, threatened and endangered species habitats, water quality, and the natural character of the Gila Wilderness,” said Camille Howes, Gila National Forest Supervisor.

“The feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness have been aggressive towards wilderness visitors, graze year-round, and trample stream banks and springs, causing erosion and sedimentation. This action will help restore the wilderness character of the Gila Wilderness enjoyed by visitors from across the country.”

An array of federally protected animals have been under threat from the cattle, including narrow-headed garter snake, Gila trout, loach minnow, spikedace, Mexican spotted owl, southwest willow flycatcher, and Mexican grey wolf.

Environmental groups had complained that the cattle were damaging streams and rivers.

“They are part of a herd of at least 150 that’s ripping up this monument and scaring the heck out of folks who cross paths with them,” Terry Anderson, a board member of the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep told the LA Times

“They also can transmit disease to native bighorn sheep. So, they need to be removed — and I’m all for lethal removal. They don’t belong here.”

Jack Thompson, desert regional director of the adjacent Whitewater Preserve added: “It’s Jurassic Park just a two-hour drive east of downtown Los Angeles.”

According to the US Department of Agriculture, the problems date back to the 1970s when cattle were abandoned by a rancher.

“Having been born in the wild and never domesticated, they are extremely hard to catch and survive in the rough backcountry that is difficult to access,” it said in a memo.

Not everyone was so enthusiastic about the cull on social media.

Marina Bolotnikova, a journalist and campaigner against factory farming wrote on Twitter: “Feral cows should be celebrated as refugees from the meat industry and given sanctuary, not gunned down from the sky.”

Ranchers have also condemned the move as cruel and were opposed to leaving the carcases to rot.

The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association has voiced doubts about the tactics. Tom Paterson, chair of the association’s wildlife committee, called for a solution which did not require the cattle to be shot.

“Our society should be better than this. We can be more creative and do it a better way where you’re not wasting an economic resource,” he said. However, the service said the culling was “the most efficient and humane” way to carry out the cull. 

Feral cattle are not unique to the Gila National Forest.

Regards Mark