Wild animal trafficker is jailed for smuggling 107 endangered turtles by freezing them in his refrigerated van
Shen was arrested by police who found his lorry packed with 107 frozen turtles
The wildlife trafficker was given a nearly 13-year sentence for his illegal trade
Officials said the seized animals were estimated to be worth over £345,000
The case was reported by local court to raise awareness for wildlife protection
A Chinese wildlife trafficker has been jailed after being caught by police transporting 107 protected sea turtles with his refrigerated truck.
The resident, known by his surname Shen, was tracked down by police after the officers seized found his lorry packed with frozen turtles in the woods in Zhoushan city, Zhejiang province of eastern China.
Mr Shen was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison and handed a fine of 150,000 yuan (£17,287). Two other residents who sold four of the sea turtles to Mr Shen were also imprisoned.
The crime case took place in 2018 and was revealed this week by a local court in Zhejiang to warn the public against wild animal trafficking.
Read the rest of the story by clicking on the above link.
With their fuzzy appearance and distinctive drone, bumblebees are hard to miss in gardens all over the world.
Their dense, hairy bodies make them excellent pollinators for crops like tomatoes and blueberries.
They are among the first bees to emerge each year and work a long season. Some colonies remain active through the winter in southern and urban areas of the UK.
But despite their key role, bumblebees, like many other pollinators have seen their numbers tumble in recent decades.
One recent study pointed to climate change, reporting that an increasing number of hot days in Europe and North America was boosting local extinction rates.
But researchers have now made a discovery about bumblebees that could have relevance to their long-term survival.
Scientists in Switzerland found that when the bees were deprived of pollen, they started to nibble on the leaves of plants that hadn’t yet flowered.
The bees used their proboscises and mandibles (mouthparts) to cut distinctively-shaped holes in the leaves.
But the creatures didn’t eat the material or use it in their nests.
The damaged plants responded by blooming earlier than normal – in some cases up to 30 days ahead of schedule.
“I think everything that we’ve found is consistent with the idea that the bees are damaging the plants and that that’s an adaptation that brings flowers online earlier and that benefits the bees,” said Dr Mark Mescher, one of the authors from ETH Zurich, told BBC News.
The bee-damaged plants flowered 30 days earlier than undamaged plants and 25 days earlier than ones damaged by the scientists.
The research team believes there may be something else going on here apart from nibbles.
“We really tried to replicate with the best of our ability,” said Prof Consuelo De Moraes, also from ETH Zurich.
“It’s possible that the bees also have some cue that they are providing to the plants that is specific to the bee.”
“And that could be secretions that we don’t know about but it’s something that we plan to investigate.”
The researchers say the damage has a particular pattern that the scientists have learned to recognise, even in the most unlikely places.
“You see these semi-circular sort of incisions, often in the leaf,” said Dr Mescher.
“One of the students was saying that they were eating a salad the other day, and they saw that kind of damage on the leaf that was probably from a bumblebee.”
The researchers say that when pollen is available the bees don’t damage plants. They’ve also found this behaviour is in wild bees.
However the team are keeping an open mind on whether the plants might be the ones in the driving seat.
It is vital for plants that depend on pollination to have their flowers on display when the pollinators are buzzing around.
It could be that some plants have evolved a strategy to push out their flowers when they recognise the bee doing damage to their leaves.
Ultimately, though, knowing more about the relationship between bumblebees and flowering might have implications for the resilience of these creatures in the face of a changing environment.
“I think it’s fascinating how much we still don’t know about organisms that we think we know really well,” said Prof De Moraes.
“It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms.”
The whale shark has been added to the nation’s list of protected species, the Ocean Affairs Council said on Tuesday, adding that offenders face fines and imprisonment.
The whale shark, along with the giant oceanic manta ray and the reef manta ray, were on Tuesday last week added to the list, making the disturbance, abuse, slaughter or capture of any of the three species punishable by up to five years in prison, and a fine of NT$300,000 to NT$1.5 million (US$10,033 to US$50,164), the council said.
Whale sharks have been sighted in waters near Hualien for a few years now, and in March this year a roughly 6m whale shark swam into the Port of Hualien looking for food, it said.
The capture of the three species has long been prohibited by stipulations in the Fisheries Act (漁業法), which require fishers to return the animals to the sea if accidentally caught, alive or dead, Hualien County Bureau of Agriculture Director Lo Wen-lung (羅文龍) said, but changes were made to enhance protection of the species by increasing the severity of punishments for offenders.
People who have whale sharks or manta rays in their care, or possess products made from any of the three species before Tuesday last week, must register them with the county government between June 1 and Aug. 31, according to Article 31 of the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法) or face a fine of between NT$10,000 and NT$50,000, Lo said.
The three species are popular pets among fish enthusiasts due to their gentle temperament, Lo said. Whale sharks in particular are an oddity among sharks as they swim slowly, and feed on small fish and plankton, he said.
A woman who was jailed for illegal trade in wildlife in Vietnam had her prison sentence increased from two to five years this week.
Pham Thi Thuan, 58, was given more jail time following a hearing by an appeals court on 12 May in the central province of Quang Nam.
She had originally been sentenced to two years and a fine of 60m Vietnamese Dong ($2,560 USD). However prosecutors pushed for a harsher sentence.
Ms Thuan was found in possession of 13 king cobras, eight Bengal monitor lizards, nearly 300 turtles and other rare species without any documentation at her home in August 2018. The home was registered as a wildlife breeding facility, according to Vietnam Plus. The 58-year-old had been subject to administrative sanctions twice before in 2011 and 2013 for the unlawful possession of wildlife, the site reported.
The case was first reported by the Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV), a non-governmental organisation which has tackled the illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam for the past 20 years.
ENV Deputy Director Bui Thi Ha commended the investigation while urging authorities to revoke Ms Thuan’s wildlife breeding licence.
The conservation group also reported that on 13 May, Tran Quy, director of company Hai Dang Ltd, received 13 years in prison and a 100m VND ($4,283USD) fine by the Provincial People’s Court of Ca Mau for operating a pangolin trafficking network through the ruse of an ecotourism business. Several accomplices also received jail time.
A recent report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found that Vietnam faces a huge wildlife trafficking problem ”with large-scale consignments of ivory and pangolin scales from Nigeria and other countries continuing to enter the country and vast quantities of tiger products available for sale”.
The country is taking steps to address the illegal wildlife trade.
In 2018, penalties were increased for trafficking in endangered species. Criminals now face up to 15 years in prison and fines up to US$660,000, WildAid reported.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered a directive on banning wildlife trade and consumption in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
All over the world, animals are being misused as a tourist attraction. Selfies with wild animals are booming, but these animals are exploited and mistreated like the jaguars in Mexico.
It is a cruel business!
First, America’s largest cat was deprived of its natural habitat for the benefit of humans, now they are being misused for tourism. They are harrowing pictures of how they are forced into chains and then swimming for tourists.
A few years ago, when a large organization announced in the media that the number of highly endangered jaguars in Mexico had increased, these animals, as well as the endangered elephants inAsia, were “cashed”.
Social media likes to pose with exotic animals, the rarer an animal is, the more you boast of being able to take a selfie with such an animal. Likes are more valuable than the health of a wild animal. It is often forgotten that these animals are exploited and abused for precisely this reason.
Two jaguars sit chained in a boat in Cancun, Mexico.
The jaguar found on the American continent is an endangered species. Jaguars are individual animals and can survive in many different habitats. They usually occur near water and prefer marshlands or tropical rainforests.
Just last year, ultra-right-wing President Bolsonaro caused outrage when he released the endangered Jaguar in Brazil for the trophy hunt.
But the jaguar is also exploited in Mexico, for tourism. National Geographic photographer Steve Winter, through his social networks, denounced the “abusive practices” behind some of the tourist attractions used by Cancun jaguars. He accused Cancun’s tourism companies of exploiting jaguars to benefit from the entertainment of tourists.
“JetSki drivers and their tourists are getting ready to dive with 2 tame jaguars in Cancun, Mexico. People need to know more about the big cat trade and selfie industry. From Thailand to South Africa, big cats are often the face of the wildlife trade. If you see your friends or family taking part in activities like this picture or petting boys, tell them that such companies are often associated with breeding programs, illegal body parts and boy trafficking, ”Steve Winterwrites on Instagram.
The Mexican “Mexican News Daily”presented the photos of Steve Winter, which caused outrage in Mexico. It was announced that swimming with jaguars in the Caribbean had already ended and that the photos were older.
tripadvisor.de
But in the research, you can still find current photos that show tourists with jaguars, so on Roatan, Honduras.
“The cruise jetty in Coxen Hole takes about 30 minutes. You cross over with a small boat. Entry without transfer costs around $ 35. Otherwise 59 for the smallest package. Now for the negative: Various animals are kept there, all unfortunately in far too small cages. A lion with behavioral problems and a tiger with a jaguar. Please consider carefully whether you want to enjoy yourself at the expense of the animals. A stay on the island only with sunbathing, snorkeling, swimming is also nice … ” writes a tourist on tripadvisor.de
Cruise tourism is booming in the Caribbean, so you can swim with wild stingrays on a small sandbar off the Cayman Islands.
There is a selfie for the social networks incl.
The trend takes on a whole new dimension when you want to photograph yourself and an exotic animal. So also in the Cayman Turtle Center, because a turtle is taken out of the water and a selfie is made.
Cayman Turtle Farm – Image: D. Schreier
Platforms like Instagram host hundreds of thousands of wildlife selfies. World Animal Protection researchers who analyzed wildlife selfies for a 2017 report found that the number of wildlife selfies posted on Instagram increased by 292% between 2014 and 2017 (!!!)
Celebrities have also contributed to the popularity of selfies in wildlife: Roger Federer and Margo Robbie pose with Quokkas in Australia, Justin Beiber with a tiger, Kim Kardashian with an elephant and Taylor Swift with a kangaroo.
In New Zealand, tourists were caught dancing with endangered sea lions for selfies, hunting rare yellow-eyed penguins, and trying to hug the shy and reclusive kiwi bird.
The handling of wild animals is cruel for the animals, like the lions in Africa. They are kept in captivity on so-called lion farms under terrible conditions. The commercial lion breeding industry in South Africa, for example, is cruel, barbaric, macabre!
On large cat farms in South Africa, lion and tiger cubs are born into a life of exploitation. Some are snatched from their mothers in the wild, while most are bred in fast breeding facilities.
In South Africa, cats often begin their lives at petting courts, where they serve as entertainment for paying visitors.
Young lions are also often used for tourist attractions, such as walking with a lion.
Their lives end deadly when they are shot by wealthy international hunters. Skins and heads are taken as trophies by the wealthy trophy hunters, and bones are legally exported under the “skeleton quota”, which is only valid in South Africa.
Especially on vacation, many use the camera to take a souvenir picture with animals. Most of these animals are exploited and mistreated, which should not be supported under any circumstances. Avoid taking selfies with wild animals!
And I mean… One of the biggest advantages of the coronavirus is the end of colonial tourism.
At least in this year!
Cruises, long-distance trips to Asia, adventure tourism, safaris, trophy hunting, bullfighting, fiestas with bull sacrifices… this mass invasions to exotic countries that exploit and abuse animals to death for a few dollars … all of this has paralyzed the animal-friendly Corona.
For the moment.
Everyone has to go on vacation at home or (highest offer) in a campsite, where the occupancy of guests is strictly controlled and the stay must be at least one week.
So the regulations in Germany.
There is great hope that this year this selfies society, with its hysterical urge for fun at the expense of other beings, will have to cure its selfies disease with picnic photos.
How the fossil fuel industry, News Corp, and the Federal Government hijacked the Black Summer bushfires to prevent action on climate change.
Dirty Power: Burnt Country is a documentary that exposes how the fossil fuel industry, the Murdoch press, and the Federal Government hijacked the Black Summer bushfires to prevent action on climate change.
Some of the key findings include:
Over 100 million tonnes of new coal mining was approved during the 2019/20 bushfire crisis.
News Corp published 75% of all articles denying climate change’s role in the fires, despite only publishing 46% of articles about climate change and the fires.
New South Wales Government ministers met with the fossil fuel industry on fourteen occasions between October and December 2019. This is an average of once a week.
First; I have not really been able to post much over the last few days because of a big drop down on the system here – so apologies and I hope to get it fixed on 13/5. Fingers crossed !
UPDATE 13/5 – All seems to be fixed this morning – maybe some posts now ! – Mark
Here are a few things just sent to me by Juliet – Founder and CEO of ‘Viva !’ here in England. I am writing this tonight (12/5) with the hope that if the system is back on tomorrow, then I can copy and post. Until then it has to wait.
The new Viva ! campaign is called ‘Three in Four’. As new and deadly diseases infect humans, and are appearing all the time; 3 in 4 of them come from animals. It is not the fault of the animal, simply the systems used by humans to keep them and slaughter them – intensive farming and slaughterhouse systems.
Is this not verified by the big infection rates for Covid 19 that we have seen in US slaughterhouse workers over the last few weeks ? – and as always, the ‘just animals’ from intensive systems; that are put through wood chippers and their mushed bodies spread all over the land.
In the mid 19th century, 1855 to be exact; a German pathologist; one Rudolf Virchow, was the first to discover that infectious diseases could be transmitted between animals and humans – a method that became known as ‘zoonoses’. In August 1958, more than a century later, the ‘World Health Organisation’ (WHO) expert committee on Zoonoses met in Stockholm, Sweden. The outcome of the meeting was a stark warning; the prevention, control, and eradication of these diseases were ‘responsibilities of considerable magnitude in every country’.
Move to 2020; now; and we are experiencing globally the disease called ‘Covid 19’.
Animal farming is killing us. 3 of 4 of the worlds new or emerging diseases are what is called ‘Zoonotic’. These diseases are responsible for 2,7 million human deaths per year and are largely transmitted through the wildlife trade and factory farming. In other words, most pandemics are due to people eating animals. So despite knowing the reasons of disease spread for over 150 years; now more than ever before, we are subjecting animals in terrible confinement in factory farms – the very cause of the problems, simply because some of us still wish a burger or sausage for their meal. It is a dangerous game; and cramming animals together in markets; and subjecting them to factory farming, only increases the risk of in house disease infection, as well as the mutations to the human species which results in infectious diseases.
Today, around 90% of all animals farmed for food and dairy across the world are kept in factory farms; where infections can easily spread, mutate and become infectious to humans. Because of the massive numbers of farmed animals involved; such as your typical chicken or pig production system, where huge numbers of animals are crammed together, jammed into farrowing crates, covered in their own waste; and forced to lie on hard slatted floors; pumped full of antibiotics, and surviving in a close environment which easily transmits disease and sickness from one animal to another; is it any wonder that intensive animal farming is killing us ? The huge complexes which imprison these intelligent animals and who at the end of the day only want financial profit, talk the talk when it comes to ‘animal welfare’. But the reality is rather different. The Viva ! 3 in 4 campaign is hitting the streets in the UK; and it calls for an end to intensive farming and for people also to go Vegan; to stop the suffering.
Covid 9 is showing us the bad side of intensive animal farming; we need to learn from it, and quickly, before intensive animal farming kills us all.
‘Bird Flu 90 Times Deadlier Than COVID-19 Could Emerge From Factory Farming’ Warns Report
‘The majority of these diseases are the result of human activit
Author:
Plant Based NewsPublish date:
23 hours ago
A mutant bird flu 90 times deadlier than Covid-19* is ‘poised to emerge in humans’ from factory farming, a new report has warned.
The report, titled Zoonoses: a ticking time bomb, was published by animal advocacy organization Viva! and led by senior health researcher Dr. Justine Butler.
It cites scientists who believe the new mutant strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus could prove 90 times more deadly than Covid-19, and would be capable of killing six-in-ten of those infected.
Zoonotic diseases
According to Viva!, zoonotic diseases – those which spread from animals to humans – are ‘developing with increasing frequency’, with three out of four new or emerging infectious diseases in people coming from animals.
A statement sent to Plant Based News said: “Scientists are concerned that the global explosion in factory farming and wildlife markets could make the transmission of mutated strains of the H5N1 bird flu virus to humans much easier.
“They include familiar illnesses and diseases such as the common cold, influenza (flu), polio, AIDS and measles alongside other lesser known ones such as SARS, MERS, Nipah virus and Ebola.
“Most recently, Covid-19 has joined this growing list, having jumped from bats or other wild animals, to humans, leading to the current pandemic.
There are over 200 zoonotic diseases and 56 of them affect some two-and-a-half billion people and cause nearly three million deaths every year.”
‘The writing is on the wall’
In Zoonoses: a ticking time bomb, Dr. Butler writes: “The majority of both zoonoses and antibiotic-resistant diseases are the result of human activity, with factory farming and wild animal markets lying at the heart of the problem. The solution could not be easier – go vegan now!”
Zoologist and Viva! director Juliet Gellatley added: “The writing is on the wall. The global explosion in factory farming and wildlife markets has left humankind exposed to catastrophic pandemics that could kill millions of people.
“For the sake of generations to come we must heed the science and end our collective dependency on the horrific abuse of animals.”
As of this writing, almost 2 million humans have been infected in the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic, and well over 100,000 have died as a result.
Even so, although the true numbers are unknown, only a fraction of a percent of all humans have been sickened, and less than 6% of those infected have died.
The majority of the 7.7 billion humans wrecking havoc on our planet and torturing and murdering hundreds of billions of non-human animals annually are continuing to go about their evil business as usual.
If one believes, as we do, that humans are the real virus infecting planet earth, we can only bemoan the fact that so many humans will likely remain viable throughout the current pandemic.
The source of the current pandemic of Covid-19 is believed to be a “wet market” in Wuhan, China. In a wet market, all kinds of animals, live and dead, are for sale for consumption, many of them still alive in cages, many killed on the spot. The virus is believed to have originated in bats before moving to an intermediary animal widely consumed by humans after sale in these markets.
These markets contain fish packed into shallow tubs that splash water all over the floor. The floors and counter tops of stalls are slick and red with the blood of animals killed, skinned and gutted as customers watch. Live turtles and crustaceans climb over each other in desperate bids to escape filthy plastic boxes. Birds and mammals scream as they are killed; sick and wounded animals crammed into small cages stacked high drip blood, pus, feces, and urine onto other animals in cages below.
In the eyes of all of them there is misery and terror. Water, blood, fish scales and animal guts are everywhere. Melting ice adds to the slush on the floor.
For years, scientists have warned that filthy markets crammed full of sick animals are breeding grounds for new, antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.”
Some studies claim that by 2050, more people will be dying from these infectious diseases than from cancer. What the world is witnessing in horror in 2020 will someday be common. The United Nations has found that 70% of new human diseases, such as HIV(chimpanzees), Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu(birds), Ebola(bats) and Swine Flu(pigs) were directly linked to animals used for food.
Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, we continue to be stunned by the lack of serious reporting on the source of the problem.
Finally, after weeks of sparse coverage, we are beginning to see the issue come to light through figures that have captured the world’s attention, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who stated that..
“It boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-animal interface [wet markets], that we don’t just shut it down. I don’t know what else has to happen to get us to appreciate that.”
The writing has been on the wall for years. Animal agriculture, in all of its manifestations — from the disembowelment of pigs, slaughter of cows, killing of chickens on assembly lines, to the bloodthirsty “sport” of hunting — is a ticking time bomb.
And its not only, or even primarily, infectious agents that are doing the killing. Heart disease and stroke, also the direct result of a flesh-based diet, kill 18 million people worldwide each and every year.
We humans have a “vaccine” (a plant-based diet) for this major killer and yet knowingly fail to utilize it.
Unless humans change the way they live with animals, no amount of soap and hand sanitizer, social distancing or ventilators is going to save them as a species.
I have no comment on this excellent article, just an addition:
We hear from the media every day … “If we stick to the measures, we will soon be able to return to” normal “life …” At the latest, it will become clear to everyone that we have learned nothing.
We didn’t have a normal life before. That’s why we have a deadly pandemic today. It is not normal to keep, massacre and eat millions of animals in miserable conditions. It is not normal to burn the tropical forests to create feed for animals that are used as food for the rich countries. It is not normal to fell forests and cause the death of a thousand wild animals.
It is not normal to decide about the life and death of other non-human animals, it is the fascist right of the stonger!
Exploitation is a painful and murderous act.
It’s time for us to abolish it.
It is not only since Corona that wild animals are spreading in cities. In Wernigerode (a town in the district of Saxony-Anhalt, in central Germany), foxes roam through a residential area and undermine garages.
At dusk the animals become active: Several stray foxes have been causing uncertainty in the city for several weeks.
A “real plague” is reported by a local resident (!!!)
In families, the red fur animals roam between the houses and dig their burrows under garages. The resident himself has filled a hole under his garage for the fourth time in just a few weeks, and has now set up a waste paper bin in front of it – “so that at last there is peace and quiet,” (!!!) he says.
What worries residents in particular: They fear that the adaptable predators could transmit diseases such as rabies (!!!). And that the animals lose their shyness.
“Since the beginning of the Corona crisis – and the associated restrictions on public life and traffic in our district – we have seen it more and more frequently,” he explains.
Calls to veterinarians and other agencies have so far brought nothing.
City administration recommends scare
As the spokesman for the town hall says: “Prevention of predators is the responsibility of the private property owner and can be done relatively easily with the use of frightening agents. I also had contact with a local resident to whom I recommended this measure. The tip was gratefully received and should be implemented. “
Furthermore, the spokesman for the city administration recommends that those affected adjust their behavior: closed compost heaps, for example, are helpful in order to provide the survivors with no food. This also includes not storing leftover food in the garden and avoiding open feeding of pets outdoors. “Sometimes foxes are even fed, that should be avoided!”
According to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation,the red fox is not subject to any species protection regulations in Germany.
According to the German Wildlife Foundation, these predators are not threatened, “but are among the big winners in our cultural landscape”. They have spread rapidly in large cities.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, rabies had partially decimated the fox population.
Germany has been rabies-free since 2008, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.
And I mean... Of course, none of the residents wonder why the foxes leave the forest.
They are refugees.
We have driven them out and fought since the first day of their lives.
We have not wondered what we would do if others stole our houses, our country, if our children were murdered so that others could build their houses or businesses.
We are the only animals that accept coexistence when we rule and dominate.
The only real plague that I know, is the human plague.
Photo – Aquarium of the Pacific.
Two jaguars sit chained in a boat in Cancun, Mexico.
tripadvisor.de
Cayman Turtle Farm – Image: D. Schreier
“Since the beginning of the Corona crisis – and the associated restrictions on public life and traffic in our district – we have seen it more and more frequently,” he explains.
World Animals Voice 