SIGN: Justice for Tiger Run Over with Tractor and Beaten to Death

Posted by Carly Day | November 14, 2018

 

PETITION TARGET: Principal Chief Conservator of Forests for Uttar Pradesh, Dr. Rupak De

Villagers living near the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh, India, stormed the reserve last week to brutally slaughter a 10-year-old tigress.

First, they ran the terrified animal over with stolen tractors, then they beat her to death with sticks. Photos of the slain animal show head and facial injuries, with blood pouring from her eyes, mouth, and nose.

The savage attack came after one of the villagers succumbed to injuries inflicted by the tigress earlier in the day – when he had illegally taken a shortcut through the reserve on the way home and been attacked.

The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is the last home to the Bengal Tiger in the state of Uttar Pradesh, and was estimated to contain around 106-118 tigers during the last survey in 2011.

Although human-animal conflict is rampant in rural areas of India, this tigress had no history of attacking humans. Field director of the reserve Ramesh Pandey has pledged that all the villagers involved in the attack will be sent to jail; however, more needs to be done to prevent this kind of tragedy from occurring again.

Sign this petition urging Principal Chief Conservator of Forests for Uttar Pradesh, Dr. Rupak De, to take meaningful action to prevent further conflicts and find ways to protect both the villagers and the animals.

 

Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/petition-tiger-run-tractor-beaten-death/

 

 

 

 

Mark,

Palm oil deforestation is an environmental catastrophe in Asia, but most people don’t know that the EU subsidises palm oil as a “green biodiesel”.

Even though it’s THREE TIMES worse for the climate than regular diesel because of the rainforest destruction it causes.

Europe has two months to stop this. In February it could outlaw palm oil in biodiesel, but we’re up against the huge palm oil lobby that wants to keep its lucrative subsidies.

Sign the petition to tell the EU: No rainforests in my tank! Stop subsidising palm oil biodiesel.

The EU has been under the thumb of palm oil lobbyists for years, disguising this destructive industry as an ‘eco’ option to replace fossil fuels, and deceiving European drivers into burning, essentially, rainforests in their tanks.

Millions of acres of rainforest, and orangutan habitat, have been destroyed –– replaced by huge palm oil plantations to feed Europe’s cars. Deprived of their natural habitat, orangutans starve. When they feed off palm fruits on plantations, they’re shot.

And if we continue, soon orangutans, among the smartest, sweetest and closest relatives of ours, will be extinct.

We can protect the orangutans and the rainforest from palm oil destruction — but we have to act now. Please sign the petition to put an end to palm oil in biodiesel:

Tell the EU: No rainforests in my tank! Stop subsidising palm oil biodiesel.

Last May, close to 100,000 of us pushed the EU to adopt a breakthrough law to stop subsidising ‘high risk’ food crops such as palm oil in biodiesel. But unless the EU clarifies that palm oil is ‘high risk’ by February, palm oil lobbyists could pressure it to keep dirty palm oil in our tanks.

European drivers would be forced to continue to burn up billions of litres of palm oil.

This is a critical moment to save the orangutans and protect our rainforests.

Right now, the EU is being lobbied hard by the Indonesian and Malaysian governments and palm oil barons to continue subsidising palm oil biodiesel, or risk not signing trade deals.

We have just two months to stand down these powerful biofuel and palm oil lobbyists. Please sign the petition to tell the EU that you don’t want rainforest destruction for fake ‘green fuels’.

Tell the EU: No rainforests in my tank! Stop subsidising palm oil biodiesel.

The good news is, SumOfUs members are making strides in cleaning up the dirty palm oil industry. This month, 240,000 of us helped win breakthrough sanctions against Pepsi’s palm oil business partner Indofood — finally holding it to account for labour abuse on palm oil plantations.

And last month, Nestlé responded to our people-powered pressure by ending a 13-year old Joint Venture Partnership with palm oil villain Indofood.

Getting the EU to take palm oil out of our tanks could be our biggest palm oil victory yet. Almost all the growth in the use of palm oil in 2017 was due to biodiesel, driven by an EU law that obliges governments to blend vegetable oils in diesel, while Indonesia’s rainforests (literally) went up in flames to clear land for more palm oil.

Can you sign the petition to make headlines and launch a huge people-powered campaign saying no to palm oil in our tanks?

 Sign the Petition 

Thanks for all that you do,
Rebecca, Fatah and the team at SumOfUs

 

More information:

Up in smoke: Europe’s cars driving deforestation in Southeast Asia, Transport and Environment, 6 June 2018
Palm oil producers are wiping out orangutans – despite multinationals’ promises, The Guardian, 10 May 2018

SIGN: Pass Bill to Finally End Cruel Captivity of Whales and Dolphins

PETITION TARGET: Bardish Chagger, Canada’s House Leader and Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister

The lives of captive whales and dolphins hang in the balance as, after three years of an uphill battle, the Canadian senate has passed Bill S-203: the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act. The bill is now going to the House of Commons. We must urge them to pass this bill, which would finally end the unimaginable cruelty inflicted on intelligent, social animals forced to live in aquariums for human entertainment.

The bill was introduced by senator Wilfred Moore in 2015, but was attacked by conservative politicians for years. This is a paradigm-shifting bill  that reflects the will of the public, who no longer want to see animals tortured for profit.

These whales and dolphins are forcefully stolen from their families to live lonely, purposeless lives for our amusement. They are physically and psychologically molded to be compliant and obedient, causing tremendous damage that greatly shortens their lives. Their natural instincts are stifled as they live with a sense of isolation that few of us could comprehend.

Should this act be passed, Canada’s captive marine mammals will be sent to live in a seaside sanctuary — finally free of the stress of their current confinement.

Sign this petition to urge Canada’s house leader, as well as the president, to fully support this bill and make it a top priority to pass it into law. It’s time to take a stand to make cruel marine mammal captivity a thing of the past.

Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/petition-ban-cruel-captivity-whales-dolphins-canada/

 

 

 

VICTORY! BLM Drops Cruel Sterilization Experiments on America’s Wild Horses

Posted by Carly Day | November 12, 2018

After months of fighting, campaigning, and finally, a court case filed by a coalition of animal welfare groups, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced they will cancel their plans to conduct shockingly inhumane sterilization experiments on a herd of wild horses in Oregon.

The planned surgeries for Oregon’s Warm Springs herd — known as ovariectomy via colpotomy — are highly invasive procedures with great risk of complications such as prolonged bleeding, infection and premature birth or abortion.

The decision comes mere days after a US District Court Judge issued a preliminary injunction to stop the controversial research — due to begin on November 5^th — pending the outcome of the court case, which he predicted would go in favor of the coalition.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC), The Cloud Foundation, and wildlife photographer Carol Walker were all plaintiffs in the case against the BLM.

LFT also strongly opposed the barbaric research, covering the issue as it progressed and hosting a petition which garnered over 18,000 signatures.

In their lawsuit, the coalition argued that the BLM was in violation of the US Constitution and three federal laws, stating that the experiments were cruel and dangerous and that the BLM hadn’t given enough consideration to more humane population control methods.

This is the second time the BLM has been forced to back out of plans to surgically remove the ovaries of wild mares. Two years ago, AWHC and TCF also successfully sued in order to get the experiments halted.

“We are gratified that the BLM has nixed these cruel experiments on federally protected horses, but it should not take two lawsuits over two years to convince a federal agency that America’s beloved wild horses deserve humane approaches to population management,” said Joanna Grossman, Ph.D., equine program manager for AWI.

 

 

 

 

Dear Mark,

I have HUGE NEWS!

A federal judge just blocked construction on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and ordered the government to revise its environmental review of the reckless project.

The judge ruled that the Trump administration violated bedrock environmental laws when approving the proposed pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of dirty, climate-busting tar sands oil each day from Canada’s boreal forest through America’s heartland. Among other things, the judge found that the administration’s environmental impact statement glaringly ignored the pipeline’s obvious impact on climate change, and the high risk of dangerous, hard to clean oil spills.

This court ruling is a major win for NRDC, our partners, Indigenous communities, and environmental activists like you who have been fighting tirelessly to stop this dangerous pipeline for over a decade.

And this news came just hours after 150,000 individuals from across the country — including tens of thousands of NRDC activists — submitted public comments to the State Department opposing its faulty, hastily-produced draft environmental impact statement for Keystone XL.

Read more about this momentous victory on NRDC.org and The New York Times, and then share the good news with friends and family.

It has been three years since the Obama administration stopped the Keystone XL pipeline from moving forward. Under President Obama, the State Department, which has jurisdiction because the pipeline crosses the U.S./Canada border, concluded that the pipeline was just too dangerous — to our environment and wildlife, to our global climate and drinking water, and to local communities and tribes.

President Trump, backed by the tar sands oil industry, then revived the project by executive order just days after taking office, and he has been doing everything in his power ever since to ensure this destructive pipeline gets built.

But this court order, the result of a lawsuit by NRDC and our allies, sent a message loud and clear: the pipeline is a disaster for our climate, communities, and wildlife, and should be shelved forever.

Of course, the fight’s far from over. We must stay vigilant — the Trump administration is sure to keep pushing the Keystone XL pipeline forward. It might appeal the judge’s ruling, or the State Department may go back and amend their environmental impact statement yet again. But one thing is certain: NRDC, with your support, will keep working — in and out of court — to ensure this climate-wrecking pipeline never sees the light of day.

I hope I can count on you to stand with us in the weeks and months ahead. But today, please join me in celebrating this important victory.

Thanks for joining us in this fight.

Sincerely,

Rhea Suh
President, NRDC

https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/979893/whales-china-news-entertainment-park-beluga-sanctuary

WATCH: Whales airlifted from Chinese park to cold water sanctuary off Iceland

TWO ghostly white whales are being airlifted from a Chinese entertainments park to live out their days at the world’s first beluga sanctuary.

By Stuart Winter

The whales called Little Grey and Little White will be flown 6,000 miles to the cold waters off Iceland in what is being described as a ground-breaking project to herald the eventual end of whale and dolphin shows.

Whale and Dolphin Conservation have teamed up with the Sea Life Trust to create the open water sanctuary and the two 12 year old beluga are being slowly prepared for their new natural life in a secluded bay off Heimay, one of Iceland’s remote Westman Islands.

Because both female beluga, originally from Russia, but have been captive for so long, they can never be returned fully to the wild Arctic waters of their ancestors.

A team of cetacean experts and vets have designed a training programme for the two beluga to prepare them for their journey and for life in their 32,000 square metre sanctuary. Beluga live up to 50 years.

Besides introducing the 12-foot long beluga to the specialist stretchers that will ferry them by land, sea and air to the reserve, trainers are also teaching them how to hold their breath for diving as well as building up strength so they can cope with the tides and currents of open water.

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This is a complex and logistically challenging rehoming project of two well-loved beluga whales

A rich diet of herring and capelin will ensure they have extra blubber to insulate them in Iceland’s colder waters.

The belugas’ new lives in the North Atlantic is the result of Merlin Entertainments taking over China’s Changfeng Ocean World in Shanghai, with its philosophy of not keeping whales or dolphins in captivity.

Merlin Entertainments are donating towards the creation of the sanctuary with its stunning backdrop in Klettsvik Bay and which will also have a care facility as well as a visitor centre when it is completed next year.

There will be limited, discrete public viewing allowed but this will be carefully controlled to ensure the beluga are not disturbed in the natural surroundings.

Rob Hicks, director of Merlin’s animal and welfare department, said: “This is a complex and logistically challenging rehoming project of two well-loved beluga whales.

“Little Grey and Little White are highly intelligent marine mammals and are fast learners, but we are taking all precautions to protect their health and well-being.

“The aquarium team at Changfeng Ocean World have been very helpful in supporting this project and we will be helping each beluga to get ready for this landmark journey and their new environment.

“A team of vets will be with the whales at all times during transit to monitor their welfare to ensure their relocation is successful.”

Sea Life Trust is Merlin’s partner charity and is working with WDC to break new ground in marine animal welfare.

Andy Bool, head of Sea Life Trust, said: “This project has been years in the making and is a pioneering solution to how the aquarium industry can re-shape the futures of whales in captivity.

“This is a truly global effort and working with our partners, leading veterinarians and marine experts, we believe providing a more natural habitat for Little Grey and Little White to dive into cool waters and interact with the natural environment will greatly enhance their quality of life.”

Providing a new home for the two Little Grey and Little White at the Sea Life Trust Beluga Whale Sanctuary will hopefully lead to more captive marine mammals being rehabilitated, say conservationists.

WDC chief executive Chris Butler-Stroud said: “We have long applauded the commitment of Merlin and the Sea Life Trust to find a better, alternative future for these belugas, which is in line with our concerns about the keeping of whales and dolphins in captivity around the world, and the need to find a solution for the thousands of individuals held.

“We are proud to have been a partner from the very beginning in this important project to improve beluga welfare and hope it will create a blueprint for further such sanctuaries for belugas and other captive whales and dolphins, which are desperately needed to address the risks captivity poses to whale and dolphin health and welfare.”

BBC link – including video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-45968245/first-retirement-home-for-showbiz-beluga-whales

First ‘retirement home’ for showbiz beluga whales

UK-based company Merlin Entertainments says it does not want to keep beluga whales in its marine parks because they suffer in captivity.

But it has been under pressure over a park in Shanghai, China, which it has owned since 2012 and where two belugas perform.

It has long promised to move the marine mammals to a more natural home. But it had been saying that there was nowhere suitable – until now, that is.

Video by Jasmine Taylor-Coleman and Jemma.

WAV Comment –  Another small sign that things are changing for the better.  Through never ending campaigning and awareness information; people are now dismissing the entertainment parks which hold these wonderful animals in barbaric conditions; and instead are now asking for all their kind the world over to be released back into much more natural surroundings.  Captive animals such as these can never really return to the wild; but they can be provided with sanctuary which represents this for them.   We welcome this project and hope that all goes well with it.

As is said quite rightly:

 

SIGN: Free Miyako, Elephant So Lonely she Chews on Metal Bars

 

 

Flickr/tomosuke214

 

 

Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/petition-free-miyako-elephant-lonely-chews-metal-bars/ 

 

PETITION TARGET: Japanese Minister of Environment Masaharu Nakagawa

Imagine spending 24 hours every day in a barren concrete cell with no friends, nothing to do, and no escape from the endless boredom and frustration.

Now imagine enduring this lonely misery for 45 years.

This is the heartbreaking reality for Asian elephant Miyako, who lives in the Utsunomiya Zoo in Japan.

Snatched from her homeland of Thailand at just six months old, Miyako has never seen another elephant since.

She spends her days pacing her tiny cement pen, desperately trying to interact with zoo visitors for some stimulation, and biting the steel bars of her cage in frustration.

Her outdated and bare enclosure is surrounded by a dangerous moat, which could cause serious injury if she fell; she often tiptoes on the edge trying desperately to reach zoo visitors with her trunk.

A life of solitary confinement is nothing short of torture to an elephant. These deeply social animals naturally live in large family groups and form intense emotional bonds with one another.

Sign this petition urging Minister of Environment Masaharu Nakagawa to free Miyako from this hellish life and send her to a sanctuary where she can live the rest of her years with freedom, dignity and companionship.