Category: Farm Animals

England: Viva!Health’s monthly e-newsletter. April 2019.

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Welcome to Viva!Health’s monthly e-newsletter bringing you the latest health, nutrition and lifestyle news.

Click on the following link to view the newsletter in your browser:

https://mailchi.mp/viva.org.uk/vivahealth-april19-newsletter?e=26c03356b8

Read about diary and Palm Oil via the above link, in addition to ……

 

The bountiful B vitamins

The B vitamins are a collection of eight, water-soluble vitamins essential for a range of important functions in the body. They help release energy from food and are essential for our immune and nervous systems. They are not stored in the body so we need to eat foods that contain them. Why are they so important and which foods contain them?
Read the new feature here

 

Ham and egg on their faces! 

Recent headlines say ham and bacon sold in supermarkets ‘contain chemicals linked to cancer’, leaked report warns. What’s new? We’ve known this for donkey’s years!

Read more here!

Healthy vegan hearts

An extensive analysis of studies spanning 50 years and numerous countries was undertaken in order to assess the impact of diet on heart disease risk factors. The diets compared were vegan and omnivorous (meat-eaters)…
What did the study find?

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Keep it animal free ! – Regards Mark.

 

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USA: Expose of Pig Abuses at Texas ‘Bacon Bash’ – Take Action.

USA-Flagge

 

 

At the Bandera Bacon Bash in Texas, PETA eyewitnesses saw wild young pigs and piglets chased, tackled, dragged around an arena, stuffed into a sack, and terrorized for mere “entertainment.”

Take action – https://investigations.peta.org/bacon-bash-expose/?utm_source=PETA::E-Mail&utm_medium=Alert&utm_campaign=0419::ent::PETA::E-Mail::BREAKING%20New%20Video%20Shows%20Wild%20Piglets%20Tackled%20and%20Terrorized::::aa%20em&ea.url.id=221016

The pigs were so scared that many tried to escape by digging under or leaping over barriers, crashing headfirst into metal fencing over and over again.

This cruel spectacle causes pigs extreme distress, pain, and suffering and sends children the harmful message that it’s “fun” to terrorize animals. Please, join PETA in calling on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to issue an executive order shutting down this violent, inhumane, and dangerous event immediately.

Thank you for your compassion for animals.

Sincerely yours,

Melanie Johnson
Senior Campaign Coordinator
Animals in Entertainment
PETA

How media reports about a mass death of animals

 

Completely burned out: A pigsty had started fire, the 1100 caged animals are burned alive. The cause has now been determined (?)

 

Germany

 

First registration: April 9, 6:49. WarendorfAround 19:19 on Monday (April 8), a pigsty of the farm Schwienhorst  (Warendorf, North Rhine-Westphalia area) has caught fire. Whether this is a technical defect or even arson has not yet been determined: the cause is not yet clear.

Around 130 firefighters were on duty and were able to prevent the fire from spreading to the nearby residential building. However, the pigsty burnt down completely in Warendorf: “It killed about 100 mother sows (!!!) and 1000 piglets,” reports the police.

500,000 euros damage after fire in Warendorf!!

Update: April 9, 12:13 pm. Warendorf – As the police just announced, the cause has now been determined, but there were no indications of a negligent or intentional fire. “The fire may have broken out due to a technical defect,” reports the police. The officials are also correcting the number of burned animals down: it should be around 700 (!!!)

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In addition to the forces of the fire brigade, police and ambulance service, the employees of the public order office and the county veterinary office were present at the deployment in Warendorf. In addition, a rescue team had to come to slaughter the injured animals.

“According to initial findings, the damage should amount to just over 500,000 euros,” summarizes the police in Warendorf. The investigations into the cause of the fire continues. (We continue to report).

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It is not the first fire in the Münsterland where animals had to die: just a few days ago a pig stall was in flames in Ostbevern. It killed 100 animals. ( Due to this fire, PETA has filed complaint against the operator, note from Venus). The owner of the plant has now been shown. That could now be imminent for the operator of the pig farm in Warendorf.

https://www.msl24.de/muensterland/warendorf-ort847840/warendorf-schweinestall-in-flammen-700-ferkel-in-feuer-gestorben-12172460.html

My Comment: First of all, one thing must be clear: Any animal that dies in a stable in a fire is grossly negligent killed.

The fire protection regulations in the German stables are as good as not regulated. And in addition comes the fact that in most stables the number of slaves animals has an illegal height, so that in case of fire any help comes too late.

We are deeply saddened by the death of 100 mothers who were burned as slaves in a barracks for the purpose of meat production.
We mourn over their 1000 newborn children, who were also born as slaves in the service of the meat machine and were burnt together with their mothers helpless and cruel.

They were not mother sows, they were mothers.
They were not piglets, it was their children.

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This is how the language of the media works: they present the mass murder of animals as ordinary random events and degrade the victims to objects, so that the perpetrators are relieved in advance.
And if one still does not feel compassion for the “poor” farmer, who is financially ruined by the unexplained burning of 1000 creatures, the amount of 500,000 euros in damage will convince him.
Mass media reports about animals are Conscience Opium for naive people.

Best regards, Venus

South Korea: New plant-based meat product is becoming an instant hit in the country. Kill the Dog Meat Trade !

South Kores

[Photo by Beyond Meat]

Photo – Beyond Meat.

 

From: https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2019&no=213221

 

South Korea is not an exception from the growing global trend of vegetarian diets with a newly imported plant-based meat product becoming an instant hit in the country.

According to multiple sources from the industry on Sunday, about 10,000 packages of meat-free patty product of Los Angeles, CA-based Beyond Meat were sold in just one month after being introduced to Korean consumers last month. Several online malls including Dongwon Mall and Gmarket started offering Beyond Meat’s plant-based meat products, as well as four vegan restaurants.

An official from Dongwon F&B Co., the exclusive supplier of Beyond Meat products in Korea, said that the brand has been well received in the marketplace given that it offers specially targeted products and are sold online.

Click on the above link to read more …….

 

WAV Comment – Sounds good; all they need to do now is stop the dog meat trade and it will be very much better !

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USA: Video – New Investigation Reveals ‘Nightmare’ for Cows at Nestle Dairy Farm.

USA-Flagge

 

New Investigation Reveals ‘Nightmare’ for Cows at Nestle Dairy Farm

Posted by Katie Valentine | April 5, 201

 

Compassion Over Killing has released undercover footage of horrific abuse against cows at Martin Farms, a factory dairy farm in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

COK’s investigator followed a delivery truck straight from Martin Farms to a Dreyer’s ice cream facility owned by Nestlé, the world’s largest dairy company.

At the farm, COK captured some of the most inhumane treatment they say they have ever witnessed, including gruesome violence against mother cows and their calves.

The video revealed “downed cows” —  cows who cannot walk or stand on their own — hoisted up by their hips using metal clamps and dragged by tractors. In one instance, a manager shot a “downed” cow in the head, and she suffered in agony for almost a minute before she was shot again and died.

New Investigation Reveals ‘Nightmare’ for Cows at Nestle Dairy Farm

 

The meat from “downed” cows like her was casually doled out to employees in garbage bags.

In another shocking incident, a manager stabbed a cow with no anesthesia in a misguided attempt to treat a stomach malady.

Workers kicked, stomped on and hit cows, or sprayed them in the face with scalding water just to make them move faster.

As painful as the footage is, it depicts the typical activities at a factory farm. Shortly after birth, calves are separated from their mothers, and the mother’s milk that is meant for her calf is instead used for products for human consumption.

After being taken from their mothers, calves are branded and their horns are seared off. COK’s footage shows the anguish they endure during these brutal procedures, which are done without pain releif.

Cows are deprived of desperately-needed veterinary care and suffer from painful and bloody conditions such as prolapsed uteruses and open sores. One scene shows a mother cow with a severed teat, bleeding as she is being milked.

COK handed the evidence over to the Pennsylvania State Police and the Franklin County District Attorney, and is calling for swift legal action against Martin Farms.

In a statement released shortly after the undercover video was released, Nestlé claimed to have cut ties with Martin Farms. But other cows are still suffering at the hands or their suppliers.

Help stop the cruelty.

Sign COK’s petition calling on Nestle to end the cruel dehorning of cows, and start producing more vegan options.

China: Porcupines Poached for Chinese Medicine at Risk of Becoming Endangered.

China

Porcupines Poached for Chinese Medicine at Risk of Becoming Endangered

Porcupines Poached for Chinese Medicine at Risk of Becoming Endangered

Porcupines across Southeast Asia are at risk of becoming endangered due to a misguided belief that undigested plant material found in their stomachs can cure cancer, diabetes, and dengue fever. This plant material, called bezoars, can only be removed through slaughter.

The prickly animal’s spines are also used in traditional Chinese medicine to prevent nosebleeds. The decline of porcupines is raising red flags in the conservation world and calls for porcupine protection are growing.

If the word bezoar sounds familiar, you may have heard it in a few of the Harry Potter books. In J.K. Rowling’s magical world, a bezoar from a goat counteracted most poisons. However, this is not the case in the real world.

There is no scientific evidence they offer any of the healing properties promised by traditional Chinese medicine.

 

Porcupine Poaching

The full extent of porcupine poaching is unknown despite calls to monitor and protect these animals. Since bezoars fetch between hundreds and thousands of dollars per ounce, the high price makes porcupines a prime target for poachers.

During the 1990s alone, the Malayan Porcupine declined by 20% due to overhunting. Though no comprehensive study has been done since that time, evidence suggests the decline has only continued.

 

Porcupine Farming

Almost as unpalatable as poaching wild porcupines, porcupine farming is common in Southeast Asia. The animals are bred, kept in small enclosures, and slaughtered for their meat, spines, and bezoars. Some sources claim that wild porcupines produce more potent medicinal properties, putting populations at risk.

Farmers have also admitted to using wild porcupines as founder stock. In addition, poachers will sell wild porcupine meat at a cheaper price than farmed meat. These activities put pressure on wild populations, threatening the species.

Porcupines are not at the forefront of conservation news. Though there are laws in place offering varying levels of protection, most protections are minimal and enforcement is difficult to navigate among legal trade.

Conservationists fear that porcupines will follow the path of pangolins. Illegally traded in the millions, pangolins became critically endangered before real protections kicked in.

Giving them the status of threatened or endangered would increase legal protections and raise awareness. CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) has not designated the porcupine any protections for trade.

What Can You Do?

It may seem daunting to think about combating the poaching of these adorable herbivores. But you can speak up for their protection. Email the U.S. ambassadors in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia and let them know this issue needs to be addressed.

Mexico, Jalisco: recognizes animal cruelty as punishable

 

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In December 2016, undercover images of Animal Equality Mexico exposed unimaginable animal suffering in 21 slaughterhouses in Mexico.

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The investigators of Animal Equality, Mexico documented the terrible everyday life in 21 slaughterhouses. Some of the slaughterhouses are owned by the government, such as Jalisco, Nuevo León, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Colima, Zacatecas and Nayarit. The footage clearly shows how these farms regularly violate the Federal Animal Health Lawwithout any legal consequences:

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-ALL pigs are fully conscious when they are stabbed. In most slaughterhouses, pigs are killed by being stabbed in the side with several knife wounds and then bleeding to death.
In none of the documented abattoirs are sheep and goats stunned before slaughter. The animals are tied together, a worker pulls them on one foot over the ground and then cuts off their heads.

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-Workers forcibly force them to move with blows and electric shock when they panic.

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-Workers kill more than three pigs at the same time.

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Some pigs try to climb over other pigs to escape the impending death, while the workers kill the other pigs and begin dissecting them.

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-Pigs are beaten with a hatchet.
-Cows are driven forward with surges.

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-Bleeding cows try to get up after they wake up from their anesthesia. Partially, underage children are present at the time of killing the animals.
-A worker ties a lamb, slits his throat and rips his head off while fully conscious.

These practices did not constitute a crime. In Mexico, there have been no laws protecting so-called livestock from maltreatment.

The current animal welfare laws that protect dogs and cats do not prescribe any regulations for the animals in the breeding, fattening and slaughterhouses of the food industry. If somebody treated a dog or a cat like workers in the farms visited, such as pigs, cows, sheep, chickens or goats, these people would have to face imprisonment.

The Animal Equality team in Mexico has managed to change this, at least in the Mexican state of Jalisco, with an unprecedented initiative.

Anyone who abuses so-called livestock in the future commits an offense.

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This is a significant advance for animal welfare in Mexico!

That’s what the congress of the Mexican state of Jalisco decided at the weekend by an overwhelming majority. The amendment has a direct impact on 211 million animals a year: so many are killed every year in slaughterhouses in the state of Jalisco alone.

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For the first time, the abuse of so-called livestock in a Mexican state is considered a criminal offense. A strong signal to the rest of the country, which will hopefully follow suit soon.

The Animal Equality team in Mexico will definitely stay tuned and we’ll keep you up to date.

And… of course, Animal Equality would monitor closely whether the farms would comply with such regulations in the future.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/igualdadanimal/sets/72157707752640855/with/33669376508/

My comment: We welcomed the 21st century long ago, but in the sense of “morality” we still live on the trees. These pictures prove it. That most animal eaters see such images and still participate in this daily, excessive mass murder of innocent beings proves that the human species has lost any ethical basis.

The daily torture and exploitation of our fellow animal beings for food is a matter of course in the still underdeveloped conscience of the human world.

Given that such massacres happen in EVERY land and are now widely publicized and shown many times but still have 7 billion meat eaters, one can say with certainty that the only honest reason why people eat animals, the fact is that the suffering of other beings interests them a shit.

Animal Equality MexicopgPhoto: Dulce Ramírez, chair of Animal Equality in Mexico, and Alejandro Hermosillo, MP of Movimiento Ciudadano.

 

Thank you, Animal Equality, for the courage, perseverance, and loyalty to our animal comrades!

 

 

EU: Bad for Cows; and Humans !

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Jean-Claude Juncker

 

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Last month you took action against harmful meat – and we won!

We moved closer to European rules against factory farming that floods the market with cheap disgusting meat, as many Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were convinced by your pressure. [1]

But next Tuesday a different bunch of MEPs could deliver a big blow to us if they vote to block this progress. This is a harder bunch to convince, as they mostly want to keep things as they are – to protect the interests of big corporations. That’s why we are going to scale up our efforts!

For MEPs their Facebook wall is a big part of their public image -and they don’t want their public image questioned-, so they care a lot about what’s posted on their Facebook walls. If us, their electorate, put our concerns there, our representatives will have little choice but to vote in favour of our health on Tuesday – or be accountable for voting against us.

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Big business swamps the market with cheap meat, so that we consume more and more of it. But this meat is mostly produced from animals crammed in horrible conditions – and by abusing antibiotics. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people get ill from antimicrobial-resistant diseases – an estimated 700,000 of them die globally every year for this reason. [2]

Take Action:

https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/stop-subsidising-intensive-farming-uk?action=facebook&utm_source=civimail-22183&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190327_EN

We cannot miss our opportunity next Tuesday: this will most likely be the last vote on meat farming in this legislature – and it’ll be a determining one.

There are reasons to be optimistic. We already influenced many MEPs back in February by sending them public messages via Twitter. In this final vote we plan to use the same tactic – but with a tool many more of us have access to: Facebook.

We must flood our representatives’ walls with messages of concern visible to the whole world: to journalists, to other politicians, to other people like you and I. It’s an easy action, and it can make a real difference for your health.

Take Action:

https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/stop-subsidising-intensive-farming-uk?action=facebook&utm_source=civimail-22183&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190327_EN

Many small farmers don’t agree with a sickening factory farming model either – and they’ve come together to say so. In fact, we are mobilising because they called for our solidarity beyond borders, and we came in thousands to join their movement.

Some of the leaders of the farmers movement were recently at the European Parliament, and explained how industrial farming is degrading the soil of their farms, and polluting the water, while at the same time giving them little profits. Many farmers prefer sustainable meat farming, but they need regulations to support them! [3]

Small farmers in Europe are doing their bit – and now our community of action must do ours!

Olga (Bologna), Jörg (Lübeck), Virginia (Madrid), and the rest of us at WeMove.EU


[1] https://eeb.org/historic-european-parliament-vote-for-nature-friendly-farming/ https://www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/press/environment-committee-wants-significantly-greener-agriculture-policy/
[2] https://openletteranimalfarming.com
[3] 40% of the European budget subsidizes damaging animal factory farming because big businesses that sell the stuff this farming model feeds on (think pesticides, animal fodder, etc) are at work. They don’t want to go out of business – even if that means persuading us to eat more and more meat, of lesser and lesser quality.

Australia: A Promise To Strengthen Laws for Dairy Cows.

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      BIG NEWS: A promise to strengthen laws for dairy cows

In the lead-up to the Federal Election being called, Labor has committed to rectifying the double-standard in Australia’s live export laws that makes exporters legally accountable for the treatment of one group of animals, but leaves thousands of ‘breeder’ and ‘dairy’ cows — arguably, the most vulnerable — utterly exposed.

Mark, images of sick and dying dairy cows exported by Australia’s live export industry have shocked us all. Since I wrote to you, thousands of people have called on the government to close the loophole that, for too long, has excluded these vulnerable animals from basic protections under live export laws.

We had to ensure this appalling situation was a catalyst for change. And it’s close to being just that.

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Labor’s commitment could be game-changing for so many animals. It could not only prevent a repeat of the suffering unfolding right now in Sri Lanka, but the additional layer of accountability on exporters could also impact the viability of sending these animals overseas in the first place.

Mark, if yours was one of the thousands of emails that helped catapult this issue onto the political agenda — thank you. We hope the government matches this commitment.

I appreciate that when it comes to political lobbying especially, you may wonder if your ongoing — and often repeated — actions are making a difference. Progress like this is proof that they are 🙂

I can definitively say, after 20 years in this field, that if there is one thing that pays off for animals — it is persistence. We are so close to major outcomes now, because every time we are told ‘no’, we hear ‘try harder’. And because we do — and because you stay with us — animals have hope, like never before.

For the animals,

Lyn White AM
Investigations Director

 

P.S. Labor’s pre-election commitment is fantastic, but obviously the situation for the animals right now in Sri Lanka is still dire. Our expert has just arrived and is already providing much needed assistance. We’ll keep you informed of any developments.

 

Germany: finally a historical judgment for a mass murder!

 

Germany

 

A farmer was sentenced on Friday in Ulm (West germany) because of animal cruelty to three years imprisonment. Animal rights activists of SOKO Organisation had uncovered the abuses in a pigsty in Merklingen ( West Germany).

SCHWEINE IN MERKLINGEN pegImage: SOKO

 

The Judge Oliver Chama spoke in his verdict in the district court Ulm ( West Germany) of a “mass animal hell” that lasted for months instead of mass animal farming. The farmer accepted the sentence with his head bowed.

Films shown as proof (published on 19.10.2016

 

The 56-year-old farmer from Merklingen (Alb-Donau-Kreis, West Germany) is responsible for the deaths of a total of 1,600 pigs due to catastrophic conditions in the completely overcrowded and filthy stables, the court said Friday. They found carcasses, bitten off tails, shredded ears. In addition, the defendant killed two animals with a hammer.

schweine-stvImage: SOKO

 

Animal rights activists welcomed the verdict as “historical”. “For the first time in Germany an industrial animal owner was sentenced to prison for animal cruelty,” said the founder and chairman of the association of Soko animal protection, Friedrich Mülln. “Finally, a judge has dared to break a taboo and severely punish grievances in industrial livestock farming.”

Closure: 160 animals had to be killed immediately after becoming aware of the abuses, the operation was closed. The accused, who was confessed, received a lifelong animal keeping ban. The judge cited the “rudeness” of the farmer: he had inflicted considerable pain and suffering on animals.

From a “historical judgment in Ulm” animal rights activists speak of the “miracle of Merklingen”, of a “breakthrough”.  Ulm District Court on 15 March 2019 sentenced a pigmeat from Merklingen for animal cruelty to a prison sentence of three years. With “Oh, finally,” many would have welcomed the verdict, says Friedrich Mülln, spokesman for the association Soko Animal Welfare, who testified in the process as a witness. The Soko had revealed in 2016 the catastrophic abuses in the pigsty.

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For the first time in Germany, a prison sentence for crimes under the Animal Welfare Act in industrial livestock has been imposed, explains Mülln. Therefore “Ulm is so special”, the judge “courageous”. The outcome of the procedure “causes panic in pet owners,” he is sure. With a suspended sentence, the farmer would have gotten away with “unscathed”: “Then the deterrence would have failed.”

friedrich Mülln bei emopgimage: SOKO

The prosecutor had demanded a milder probation sentence: that the farmer was confessed and unpaid, must be appreciated. He has appealed, as well as his defense. The case will be reopened at Ulm Regional Court – possibly only in 2020.

Often in Germany no procedure is opened, says Mülln – that’s 26 years of fighting for animal rights in his experience.

The farmer’s sentencing to imprisonment is an important step, says Mülln. But even more he sees veterinary offices in the duty, which he accuses complete “failure”. Stall controls – on average every four years – are usually pre-announced, overcrowded stalls are still considered a minor offense. “We always come to it only when veterinary offices fail. ” Veterinarians are a big problem, says Mülln. “They know which companies are the worst.” But there is a law of silence throughout the industry.

https://www.swp.de/suedwesten/skandal-zeigt-wunde-punkte-auf-30656090.html
My comment: All this is not in China! it is in Germany! And it is the standard business model of the meat mafia whose employees are usually freed from any guilt, no matter how big or how small the crimes they commit against animals are.

And the evildoers, this disgusting peasants’ association, are mainly working with EU subsidies and our tax money and are under the protection of politicians and local communities who regard animals as a cash-making factory and torture them to the most hideous.
Hopefully the verdict of the Ulm court will lead to a stricter control in the farms and a certain inhibition against the sadism of the slaveholders.

My best regards, Venus