Category: Environmental
For Immediate Release: December 18, 2019Massachusetts outlaws destructive Regulation abolishes competitive killing of wild animals for prizes and entertainment Boston, MA – A coalition of leading wildlife protection organizations is applauding MassWildlife staff and the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board for their vote today to ban wildlife killing contests in the Commonwealth. The vote will bring an end to events like the ones recently held on Cape Cod and in Granby, in which participants competed to kill the largest, smallest, or the greatest number of animals for cash and prizes. Winners of wildlife killing contests often proudly post photos and videos on social media that show them posing with piles of dead animals, often before disposing of the animals in “carcass dumps” away from the public eye. When proposing this ban in July 2019, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife noted growing outrage in Massachusetts about these cruel and unethical contests. “Upon learning about these unsporting contests, Massachusetts citizens made it clear that they would not tolerate these killing competitions in their state, contacting MassWildlife by the hundreds to voice their opposition,” said Elizabeth Magner, Ph.D., animal advocacy specialist for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). “The MSPCA is grateful that MassWildlife staff and the Fisheries and Wildlife Board treated this matter with the seriousness that it warrants, and for positioning Massachusetts as a national leader on this issue.” “Wildlife killing contests are a bloodsport just like dogfighting and cockfighting, which have been outlawed nationwide” said Katie Stennes, programs and communications manager for Project Coyote. “We commend the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board for relegating these ecologically and ethically indefensible events to the history books.” “Wild animals play an important role in their ecosystem and our environment,” said Stephanie Harris, senior legislative affairs manager for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. “The forward-thinking, science-based regulations adopted by MassWildlife and the Fisheries and Wildlife Board to prohibit senseless killing contests and wanton waste are among the nation’s strongest. “Participants of wildlife killing contests often use unsporting and cruel techniques – such as calling devices that mimic the sound of prey or even pups in distress – so that they can lure shy coyotes and foxes to shoot at close range,” said Laura Hagen, Massachusetts state director for the Humane Society of the United States. “We thank MassWildlife for taking decisive action to ensure that the Commonwealth no longer supports such barbaric and wasteful killing of its treasured wildlife.” Wildlife agencies and professionals across the country have expressed concerns about killing contests not only because they reflect badly on responsible sportsmen and sportswomen, but because they also contravene modern, science-based wildlife management principles. In 2018, more than 70 renowned conservation scientists issued a statement citing peer-reviewed science that refutes claims that indiscriminately killing coyotes permanently limits coyote populations, increases the number of deer or other game species for hunters, or reduces conflicts with humans, pets or livestock. In fact, by disrupting coyote pack structure, randomly shooting coyotes may increase their populations and lead to more conflicts. Nonlethal, preventive measures are most effective at reducing conflicts with wildlife. Wildlife killing contests are also destructive to healthy ecosystems, within which all wildlife species play a crucial role. Coyotes and foxes in particular provide a range of ecosystem benefits, including controlling rabbit and rodent populations and restricting rodent- and tick-borne disease transmission. In just the past five years, California, Vermont, New Mexico and Arizona have taken a stand against cruel, unsporting and wasteful wildlife killing contests. California banned the awarding of prizes for killing furbearing and nongame mammals in 2014; New Mexico and Vermont outlawed coyote killing contests in 2019 and 2018, respectively; and Arizona prohibited the events for predatory and furbearing species this year. # # # Founded in 1954, the Humane Society of the United States and its affiliates around the globe fight the big fights to end suffering for all animals. Together with millions of supporters, the HSUS takes on puppy mills, factory farms, trophy hunts, animal testing and other cruel industries, and together with its affiliates, rescues and provides direct care for over 100,000 animals every year. The HSUS works on reforming corporate policy, improving and enforcing laws and elevating public awareness on animal issues. More at humanesociety.org. Project Coyote, a national non-profit organization, is a North American coalition of scientists, educators, ranchers, and citizen leaders promoting compassionate conservation and coexistence between people and wildlife through education, science and advocacy. Visit ProjectCoyote.org for more information.
The mission of the MSPCA-Angell is to protect animals, relieve their suffering, advance their health and welfare, prevent cruelty, and work for a just and compassionate society. Founded in 1868, the MSPCA-Angell is the second-oldest humane society in the United States. The organization’s public policy work is essential to bringing about long-term change for animals, with the MSPCA working locally and nationally to improve animal protection laws and regulations. This work is sustained through volunteer Animal Action Team members, who engage in advocacy both in their municipalities and on the state level to improve the lives of animals.
Learn more at mspca.org
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Who likes chocolate that has been destroyed by forests where gorillas live?
This is exactly what is happening in Nigeria: cocoa farms invade the last retreat of the endangered primates.
The overexploitation is fueled by the lust of chocolate lovers in Europe. But the forest of the gorillas must not die for sweets.
Cross River gorillas are the most endangered great ape in Africa with only 200-300 individuals remaining in the wild.
Nigeria gives rise to despair and hope at the same time: the country’s forests are almost completely destroyed, 96 percent have disappeared. The state of Cross River in the southeast is a ray of hope. The forests are among the most biodiverse in the world and even offer gorillas a habitat.
But Cross River also loses forest: In 2017, more than 16,000 hectares were destroyed. That is four times more than last year. The main causes are illegal logging, palm oil plantations and the production of charcoal. Cocoa plantations that are planted in protected forests are increasingly to blame. It is often small farmers who see it as a safe source of income and are not familiar with environmentally friendly farming methods.
Overexploitation is fueled by demand in Europe. Nigeria is the third largest cocoa exporter in the world and meets ten percent of the EU’s needs. Deliveries have grown 65 percent to 248,000 tons in 2018 over the past three years, with Holland, Germany and Belgium being the main importers.
In Ivory Coast and Ghana, countries 1 and 2 of origin, forest destruction for cocoa has reached extreme proportions. Almost all protected areas were looted in the Ivory Coast, Ghana holds a sad world record in terms of forest destruction in 2018. The close connection between cocoa cultivation and forest destruction leads to worst worries for Nigeria.
The chocolate companies buy everything they can get, regardless of the environment and animals. It is almost impossible for customers in Europe to find out where their favorite chocolate comes from.
Environmentalists in Brussels are fighting for the EU to regulate the market. But the gorillas can’t wait for that.
The governor of Cross Rivers State is in charge of protecting the gorillas’ habitat.
There are already attempts in the Cross River State to prevent further destruction of cocoa forests. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is in the process of expanding an ongoing project to villages in Afi, Mbe and Okwangwo. The aim is to produce cocoa in an environmentally friendly way. The EU is involved financially.
The state government also plans to build a processing plant in the city of Ikom. It is difficult to estimate what impact this will have on the expansion of the plantations.
The petition goes to: Governor Ben Ayade, Forestry Commission Ogbang Akwaji
“Cocoa plantations threaten the last rainforests in the Cross River State. Please strengthen nature conservation and fight the illegal clearing of forest for cocoa “!
Be sure to sign!
https://www.regenwald.org/petitionen/1188/von-wegen-suess-schokolade-zerstoert-den-wald-der-gorillas
My comment: The animal species are getting fewer every day and the criminal species more and more.
You have to search for half an hour to find a soap without palm oil in the supermarket .
Then you buy a vegan chocolate and go home with a clear conscience that this humble pleasure does not cause an animal life.
But then you read that your chocolate’s cocoa may come from a country where there are only 300 gorillas left because your chocolate costs them their life.
We have to fit everywhere and on everything, nowadays.
Animal welfare has become a detective work.
My best regards to all, Venus
After all the big claims, a hypocritical COP25 summit runs two days over schedule and decides absolutely nothing, leaving climate change issues up in the air and any plans to ‘save the planet’ on hold until next year in Glasgow.
The disgraceful collapse of the COP25 gabfest in Madrid, while it was running two days over schedule, is an indictment of everything that those in attendance purported to stand for.
© Reuters / SERGIO PEREZ
The extra allowances for these holier-than-thou do-gooders, (that includes you, Mary Robinson) , the rescheduled flights (oh, the fuel), the extra meals (the methane emissions), the energy bills from those chilly Madrid hotel rooms (oil, gas, wind, even). If the check is ever totalled I’m sure we will discover this is a summit that actually took the world climate change lobby backwards in its bid to save the planet.
Glacial cliffs are shearing off into the sea in Antarctica, polar bears eat their newborn in the Arctic Circle, but those churros and hot chocolate were bangin’.
This whole débâcle was world-class hypocrisy at a global level.
Sure, the head of the UN, António Gutteres can chunter on about this being a missed opportunity but the game was rigged from the start and it’s those international bodies claiming to represent everyone that are the worst.
The UN has every nation in the world to answer to. The EU has 27 (for now) nations to claim it represents. Within those institutions there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever.
Poland scuppered the EU’s most recent attempt to head the climate-change crusade, not out of obstinacy but after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: “Poland will be reaching climate neutrality at its own pace.”
This is not a wealthy Western nation. People still rely on the old school. And that is fair cop but the EU, obsessed with itself as representative of one single voice, simply ignored that, insisting that everyone had endorsed 2050 as a target for achieving net zero target emissions, despite carbon-hungry Poland opting for 2070.
This Madrid assembly of the world’s most worthy, all burnishing their green credentials by making over-inflated claims about how quickly and how much they will each save the planet, finally broke up after achieving nothing. Zero. Zilch.
Because –and let’s be perfectly clear– the whole carbon credit scam is based on a huge hypocritical lie put in place so that those nations largely responsible for polluting the planet can cheat the system and keep on doing so. They simply buy carbon credits from those countries operating below their emissions allowance to soothe their consciences, balance the books and make it look like they are actually doing something to stick to internationally pre-agreed limits.
Look, I’ve negotiated with my 10-year-old daughter. Here’s how it works. A few more minutes past the previously agreed bedtime on her online game and she’ll tidy her bedroom… tomorrow.
So tomorrow comes, there’s school, netball, homework, dinner and bed, so the debt is not recovered at the agreed time. Then there’s the day after. Same story. And after that, and after that.
Now expand that to an international climate change summit level and you get what I mean. Debts promised but never repaid. Credit given but soon devalued. National interests. Political interests. Business interests. Local interests.
Next thing you know, you have teenage girls sailing around the world, lecturing us all and being, frankly, used by parasitic public relations interests far greater than they will ever understand to push an agenda that suits their paid employers.
It devalues the strength of people like Greta Thunberg. Like the native Amazonian indians that Sting so embarrassingly sucked-up-to during his ‘Save the World’ phase.
So what has happened? The climate change chiefs of the world have taken a huge pivot and given the carbon emissions can a mighty-ol’ kick down the road, to Glasgow next year, when they are pinning their hopes on a newly-energized British government coming up with some sort of solution.
This, I gotta see.
That would involve China rendered happy (with their bunch of worthless carbon offset certificates they bought in Kyoto), the US somehow engaged in the whole process (immediately after their November 2020 presidential election), Australia appeased that their good efforts will actually be rewarded (rather than scrapped) and anyone in the UK actually giving a hoot.
Because Boris Johnson has enough on his plate and with an EU trade deal widely expected by the end of next year, he could really do without the climate change roadshow and the associated circus acts its attracts in just 12 months’ time.
2050 suddenly seems a whole lot closer.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/476039-cop25-worlds-climate-results/
My comment: It’s scary how willing people let themselves be shit in the brain! And feel good when others are still touching it!
In discussions on this annoying issue of climate during the climate conference, I notice very clearly that most, like the parrots, repeat everything that is distributed in the media without questioning a single thing. For them, what is said is like religion and belief. Their ignorance becomes clear when asked about the function and origin of the climate.
Absolute ignorance !!
That’s why the climate spark sends us a Greta.
A welcome occasion for politics and the media to present daily salvation programs and punitive measures for non-man-made climate change.
Constant brain massages, appeals to the guilty conscience, around the clock, make the majority of the people accept their “climate change”.
Politics and climate profiteers now smell their chance.
Filling the cash register has never been easier.
The more people pay, the more effectively and quickly Germany and the rest of the world can be “saved”. The guilty conscience has to be washed away.
Meanwhile, others (including climate missionaries) clutter up the accounts and multi-billion dollars in opaque channels disappear.
That is the result of the climate conference! No more.
My best regards to all, Venus
Image Credit: LPO
SIGN: Stop Torturing Songbirds with Cruel Glue Traps
Posted by Katie Valentine | December 10, 2019
Please Sign Now !
Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/sign-stop-torturing-songbirds-with-cruel-glue-traps/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email
Wording –
PETITION TARGET: Ambassador of France to the U.S. Philippe Etienne
Every year, tens of thousands of birds are victimized in southeastern France by a cruel hunting method called glue-trapping, which involves attracting songbirds to branches covered in glue in order to cage the birds to sell as “pets.” As birds try desperately to free themselves, they become increasingly stuck, resulting in a painful, prolonged struggle that can lead to injury or even death.
After this initial stage of torture, hunters spray birds with toxic chemicals and separate them from the glue, often causing further injury and fatal consequences, including feather loss, which can render birds unable to fly. Birds who are deemed “undesirable” are carelessly tossed aside and left to suffer with any untreated injuries they may have. The rest are exploited for profit, sold into a lifetime of misery in captivity or used as bait in future glue-trapping hunts after spending unnatural periods of time — sometimes months — in pitch darkness. This causes them to sing frantically once they see daylight, unknowingly luring other birds toward the traps.
A warning from the EU, which banned glue-trapping decades ago, and numerous court cases calling on French officials to outlaw the practice, have fallen on deaf ears. In addition to the needless suffering glue-trapping causes to birds, the perpetuation of this government-sanctioned cruelty puts steeply-declining bird populations, including endangered species, further in jeopardy.
Speak out against these barbaric glue traps that torture and kill helpless birds. Sign this petition urging the French Ambassador to do everything in his power to push for a nationwide ban on this disturbing and outdated practice.
Donald Trump Jr killed rare endangered sheep in Mongolia with special permit
- Permit issued after meeting with country’s president
- Argali sheep considered national treasure in Mongolia
- On a hunting trip to Mongolia earlier this summer the US president’s son Donald Trump Jr killed a rare species of endangered sheep. A permit for the killing was retroactively issued after Trump met with the country’s president, according to new reporting from ProPublica.
- Trump was accompanied by security from both the US and Mongolia on the trip, the outlet reported. The argali sheep, with its large horns, is considered a national treasure there, and permission to kill one is “controlled by an opaque permitting system that experts say is mostly based on money, connections and politics”.
In between the killing and the issuing of the permit the month after he left the country, Trump is said to have met with the president, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, suggesting the possibility of special consideration being given to the son of the US president.
- “Trump Jr shot his argali at night, using a rifle with a laser sight, the guides said,” according to ProPublica. “He stopped the local hunting guides from dismembering it at the kill site, instead instructing them to use an aluminum sheet to carry the carcass so as not to damage the fur and horns, said Khuandyg Akhbas, 50, one of the guides. He also killed a red deer, which similarly required a permit.
- The legality of the importation of big game trophies into the United States has been, like many other issues in the Trump administration, confusing and ever-changing. The president himself has spoken out against the practice, calling such hunting practices a “horror show” despite his two sons being avid trophy hunters.
- In order to import trophies of animals on the endangered species list, a US hunter must show that its killing would be beneficial overall to the species at large. In 2017, the Trump administration pushed back against such restrictions on trophy hunting from the Obama era before reinstating the ban. A court ruling found thereafter it was done improperly, allowing imports to continue.
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SIGN: Justice for Sumatran Elephant Brutally Decapitated, Tusks Hacked Off By Poachers
Posted by Ashley Locke | December 5, 2019
Petition Link:
Poachers left the corpse of a 40-year-old Sumatran elephant to rot on an Indonesian plantation after hacking off the majestic animal’s head.
“The elephant’s head had been cut off and its severed trunk was found a metre away from the body,” said Suharyono, head of a local conservation agency, in a statement. “We suspect the elephant was hunted and killed, and then its head was cut off to remove the tusks.”
The Sumatran elephant is listed as “critically endangered.” According to the World Wildlife Fund, “nearly 70 percent of [their] habitat has been destroyed in one generation.”
Poaching has also skewed the breeding rates for these magnificent creatures, making it even more difficult for the species to survive.
Asian Species Expert Dr. Barney Long notes, “we could possibly see the Sumatran elephant be restricted to just a few remote populations within our lifetimes.”
Sign this petition today to urge the Indonesian government to do everything in their power to bring these poachers to justice, and work to protect the remaining animals. The Sumatran elephants must be protected before all hope is lost.
Sydney disappears in the smog – triggered by bushfires that have been raging in Australia for months. Today at the news it said, the fire is out of control, the fire department can do nothing!
Sydney disappears in the smog – triggered by bushfires that have been raging in Australia for months. Today at the news it said, the fire is out of control, the fire department can do nothing!
It is the longest period of air pollution Sydney has ever experienced and there is no sign of recovery.
With a total area of 300,000 hectares in flames, the fire department could do nothing more to extinguish the fires, said New Rogers Deputy Fire Commissioner Rob Rogers.
“They will burn until conditions improve, then we will do our best to get them under control.”
Sydney, about an hour’s drive from the fire, is again enveloped in a toxic cloud of smoke.
Many people in the state capital of New South Wales only use masks to hit the streets. The New South Wales Department of Health warns against inhaling the harmful smoke!
Many people even fear that things will get worse, like the Black Christmas fires of 2001!
The Sydney area is now drier than it was before the Black Christmas fires of 2001. These were the most terrible fires Australia had experienced so far.
On December 24, 2001, the bush fires began and lasted 23 days. The fires started in the Cessnock, Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury and Penrith areas, destroying almost 800,000 hectares.
During this time extreme weather conditions prevailed in all affected areas. These included temperatures up to 45 ° C, wind speeds of 90 km / h and a very low humidity, which led to a very high risk of fire.
More than 11,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes.
But what Australia 2019 experienced, will far exceed the ‘Black Christmas’ fires “, because the real summer is yet to come. The water is running out. Sometimes some places have no water at all, not even for showers, because they have to be economical with what they have left.
Protest on November 8, 2019 in Sydney – due to water scarcity…
While the people in New South Wales are losing everything, even their health, the NSW government has provided mining companies with $ 2019 million in October to “harvest” raw materials just where it is burning, like lithium!
From the Walkabout Wildlife Park, as a precaution, 300 animals have been brought to safety, including lizards, peacocks, marsupials and Australian wild dogs.
Pandas are burning while sitting in the trees
In addition, thousands of animals have been killed since the end of October. The numbers on the koala population are alarming. In the Lake Innes Nature Reserve alone in New South Wales, the Koala Conservation Agency estimated that 350 out of a total of approximately 600 animals were killed in the Hell of the Flames.
Association President Sue Ashton told the “Sydney Morning Herald” on Monday, “We believe that most of the animals are burned – it’s a huge cremation, like in a crematorium. They are burning in the trees. “
Biologists fear that some populations of Koalas will not recover from it.
“Many just do not want to believe that humans are responsible for this development,” says Lesley Hughes, climate expert.
sheep mired in drainage canals at Lake Cawndilla.CREDIT:NICK MOIR
Up to the highest government circles, it is small talk or completely denied. “Climate change is merely sold as a newfangled invention”.
The coal industry is booming and is being defended by the conservative head of government. A few days ago Prime Minister Scott Morrison dodged the question of whether climate change and the current bushfires are related. “I’m now taking care of people’s needs. The bluster of a few pure, enlightened and awakened big-city ecosets is inappropriate,” he said curtly.
On November 08, 2019 at 3 pm in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. Locals say they have never seen such a thing so early and are afraid of the upcoming bushfire summer. Photo by Marc Dodd
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/buschfeuer-duerre-australier-reden-klimawandel-klein-100.html
My comment: The welcome media spectacle Greta Thunberg is arrived in Madrid to take part in the UN Climate Change Conference, and announces in big words: “Today we write history”.
Meanwhile, the forests in Amazon, in Australia, in Indonesia burn for the meat the participant of the conference.
They also write history, in the negative sense. And with our help.
Because billions of human animals can be manipulated by the brainwashing of economic fascism and contribute to climate change, environmental degradation, global warming and animal suffering with their meat and milk consumption.
For climate change, the cause number 1 is factory farming, but about that the meat mafia silences, Greta too.
The world produces 40 billion tons of CO₂ each year. 51% of all greenhouse gases emitted worldwide are caused by livestock.
If mass livestock farming continues, all livestock will consume about 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas budget by 2050.
And the greatest sinners are:
JBS, the largest meat company in the world, from Brazil
Tyson Foods, a meat company from the USA
Cargill, a meat company from the USA
Dairy Farmers, a milk producer from the USA
Fonterra, a dairy producer from New Zealand
Can Greta talk to them directly?
That would be more effective, because until now, her actions have eradicated nothing more than a climate hysteria, while the world dictatorship of the mega corporations destroyed climate, nature and animals.
If we want to prevent a world catastrophe with media spectacle then we write no history but we only expire to panem et circenses ( (bread and circuses) as in ancient Rome.
My best regards to all, Venus
WAV Comment – you keep asking yourself if it can get any worse, after watching footage after footage of the way Australian animals are treated; live exports and the rest. Well yes, it does continue to get worse, and here is another example – taken at 4 different cattle stations in Norther Australia.
Fortunately, these industries are driving lots of nails into their own coffins by what they are doing. We hope they are dead and buried very soon; they do not deserve to exist. As you can hear in the video, it is all a matter of cost – the stations do not want to invest in veterinarians – so they do botched killings of cattle (some shot in the head 4 times; and they still survive !) and the value of the animal is weighed against if it is even worth getting any veterinary treatment !
And it all goes on in the stations which are i9n the middle of nowhere; where officials never go or do not want to go. This is the Australian government approach to ALL animal issues; also especially those of live exports – they do not care as long as financial gain is at the top of the tree.
We will continue to support the work of brave investigators who risk a lot to expose these abuses; be they on cattle stations, sheep stations or during the long export journeys around the world.
Looking forward very soon to watching them drive the ultimate nail into their own coffin – scum humankind like this do not deserve to exist.
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Warning – Disturbing Footage
Israeli-based investigation agency, Sentient, has captured harrowing footage of cattle having their horns cut off without pain relief and animals being left to die on Australia’s remote outback stations.
The shocking footage taken from four cattle stations in Northern Australia has aired on prime-time television in Israel and renewed calls to shut down the live cattle trade to the country.
Investigators witnessed cattle undergoing surgical procedures including dehorning and castration, without any pain relief; animals being punched and kicked; botched euthanasia attempts; and sick or injured animals left to die without veterinary intervention.
The only thing more shocking than the systemic abuse exposed through this investigation, is that some of it is entirely legal.
We were amazed to find out that some of the worst practices we have seen, including dehorning without using pain relief, are legal in Australia.Investigator, Sentient
Demand better treatment of Australian cattle and hold the industry accountable for the welfare of these animals, by taking action now:
World Animals Voice 