Put a camera in any animal facility, and you won’t wait long to see abuse.
If it isn’t the horrific standard practices, it’s the people in there on a power trip abusing others who can’t fight back.
Text: Anonymous for the Voiceless
Regards and good night, Venus
WAV Comment – GAIA are a great campaigning organisation based in Belgium, supporting a wide range of animal issues, Check out their website from the link below to see more. We have enjoyed campaigning with them in Brussels (EU HQ) in the past on the live export issues.
We encourage everyone to sign the petition at EU for Animals – and let the non acting EU that they really need to get into Century 21 and more importantly, reflect the wishes of the vast majority of EU citizens.
Note – you DO NOT have to be an EU citizen to sign this; anyone can contribute. Just select your nationality at the end of the petition form.
Regards Mark
GAIA launches #EUforAnimals campaign
18 March 2021
GAIA
On 10th March, GAIA, together with various other organisations and the support of Eurogroup for Animals, launched very successfully the #EUforAnimals campaign. Main goal is to explicitly include ‘Animal Welfare’ into the job title of the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety.
GAIA’s key demand is that more relevance is given to animal welfare by making this responsibility explicit in the name of the relevant Directorate-General and the job title of the competent EU Commissioner. In the present context, the Commissioner’s responsibility would become for “Health, Food Safety and Animal Welfare”.
Animal protection in the EU will increase if this obligation is highlighted, and the appropriate Commissioner is expressly urged to take a more constructive and progressive approach to animal welfare on behalf of the entire European Commission, thereby reacting to the passionate call of European citizens.
You can sign the petition on the EU for Animals website and a space will be added in the coming days to show the list of MEPs who have communicated their support.
Read more at source
Following on from our earlier post today regarding the cattle stranded at sea on the ‘Elbeik’:
We now have the following from UK Press ‘The Guardian’ (London), as follows.
Does this situation not sum up the scum involved in this business, that
“a source said the owner plans to sell the animals “to north Africa”.
All this time at sea, and the suffering involved with it, the numbers of animals now dead, and all this thickhead can think about is still trying to make money from the remaining animals, and sending them on yet further (by sea ) to another destination in North Africa; which we can only view as being ‘Libya’.
Regards Mark
Almost 180 bulls believed to be already dead as campaigners call for surviving animals to be humanely slaughtered on arrival in port
After three months stranded in the Mediterranean, a livestock ship carrying almost 1,800 young bulls has been ordered to dock at the Spanish port of Cartagena.
The Elbeik is expected to arrive in Cartagena this evening, having left the Spanish port of Tarragona in mid-December.
It has been struggling to find a buyer for the cattle after being refused entry by multiple countries, including Turkey and Libya, over fears the animals had a disease called bluetongue.
Sources have told the Guardian almost 180 cattle are now dead, more than double a previous estimate. An MEP has suggested that the “hellish” stress of three months at sea means slaughter on arrival at port is now the most humane option.
Following recent stops near Cyprus and in Greek ports to reprovision, the Elbeik returned to Spanish waters earlier this week, anchoring off the island of Menorca.
Spanish authorities on Tuesday ordered the ship to dock in Cartagena, describing it as the “most suitable port” for the inspection and possible unloading and slaughter of the animals. A source within the ministry of agriculture said the vessel would be inspected by vets once docked.
The return order comes just weeks after Spanish authorities slaughtered more than 850 young bulls in Cartagena from another livestock ship, the Karim Allah. The ship had also left Spain in mid-December and been refused entry to ports in Turkey and elsewhere because of bluetongue fears.
On Wednesday a source close to the Elbeik said the owner of its cattle hoped to arrange blood tests for the animals when the ship arrives in Cartagena. If the results showed them to be free of bluetongue and other diseases, the source said the owner plans to sell the animals “to north Africa”.
The Guardian has been sent a document, apparently signed by the Elbeik’s captain, saying 179 bulls had died at sea, up from a previous estimate of 80 deaths. Another 1,610 animals appeared “normal and healthy”, which it credited to the crew’s good care , but said “lately they have been frustrated due to staying on board” for so long.
The Karim Allah had likewise arranged blood draws and aimed to sell the bulls if they were disease-free, but Spain’s agriculture ministry ordered the bulls to be put down before the blood samples were analysed.
Some MEPs and NGOs have argued that euthanising the bulls in Spain, rather than sending them on another long journey to face possibly less humane slaughter, was a kinder option.
“For more than three months these animals [on the Elbeik] have been on this hellish ride,” said MEP Thomas Waitz, a member of an EU committee examining animal transport issues and European Green party co-chair.
Waitz said the “constant stress” of being at sea, on top of food and water shortages, meant the young bulls were probably in “a dire state” and euthanasia now appeared “the only responsible thing to do”.
Unexpected problems, said Olga Kikou of Compassion in World Farming, were exacerbated by a failure to make contingency plans for animals facing hold-ups and a lack of clarity over who was responsible for their welfare.
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A comment left by Elvera, one of our supporters:
Three months at sea and then likely euthanized. Spain, EU should be ashamed of their indifference to the suffering they have inflicted on these poor creatures. How many more such tragedies have to occur before live transport is banned. Anyone involved in this trade is sick and lacking any moral compass .
We fully agree !
Live animal transport: Elbeik still at sea with 1700 animals | Eurogroup for Animals
WAV Comment – From our research today (18/3), we understand that the Elbeik is en route to Cartagena in Spain, and will arrive today at about 1900 hours. As you can read below from AWF, the mobile killing team that was used for the ‘Karim Allah’ is still at Cartagena, so will all the remaining animals on the Elbeik be slaughtered when they arrive there ?
The incidents relating to the ‘Karim Allah’ and the ‘Elbeik’ show without doubt the abuses that the live export business inflicts on live, sentient animals. The useless EU does nothing as always about the live trade; and so it remains as useless as it always has been.
We hope that both these incidents inflict massive financial losses on all parties involved in what is outright animal abuse and suffering; we have no sympathy for them whatsoever. If you want to be involved in this business, then expect retribution from the vast majority of people.
They are sick, the operators are sick, the authorities are sick and the EU is definitely sick; it always has been where live animal transport is involved !
Live animal transport: Elbeik still at sea with 1700 animals
16 March 2021
AWF
Three months after its departure the vessel is still wandering around the Mediterranean with no clear destination.
Last Thursday, the Elbeik vessel left Greece heading towards Spain. Since yesterday, it’s anchored in front of Menorca and our member Animal Welfare Foundation got confirmation that there are more than 100 dead animals on board.
Despite the fact that the Greek authorities in Crete provided the vessel with food for the crew and feed for the animals, there are concerns over the conditions of both after 3 months at sea.
Unfortunately the fate of these animals remains unclear: the possibility for them to be exported again to a third country is still there. Indeed, the vessel’s final destination has not yet been indicated.
Meanwhile, the mobile killing unit, used for the Karim Allah’s animals, is still up in the Spanish port of Cartagena.
Immediate action is necessary to relieve the animals and the crew. We urge the Spanish authorities to finally step in and put an end to this sad journey.
I crossed over the ‘angry line’ about all this weeks ago – EU top shit – Mark
Texas A&M University has repeatedly tried to hide what has gone on in its canine muscular dystrophy (MD) lab—and repeatedly failed.
Today, the school can chalk up another loss.
In a first-of-its-kind ruling within the Fifth Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has denied the university’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit that PETA had filed against it.
The litigation challenges the Texas A&M vice president of brand development’s refusal to allow us to place an ad on the school’s buses featuring Peony, a dog used in the university’s canine MD experiments.
This groundbreaking victory means that we can now collect evidence from Texas A&M regarding its denial of our ad, which we allege is a free-speech violation.
You can read more about this great news here.
Under pressure from PETA supporters, the laboratory has released dozens of dogs for adoption and ended its breeding program. But the school continues to warehouse 21 dogs—many of whom are completely healthy—in its barren metal cells.
If you haven’t done so already, please take action to help free them
Urge Texas A&M University to Close Dog Laboratory | PETA
WAV Comment – Hats off to all the crew involved in fighting the dog meat campaign in South Korea. Like live animal transport which we are also fighting and are deeply involved in, we appreciate that these things are never easy to get positive results with. But, in the end, good always wins over evil, and we see their news as a real positive; it also gives us hope with all our own work – the South Korean Ministry of Justice announced plans recently to amend the civil code to remove animals from the category of ‘property’ and designate a possible third category, in a bid to ensure their basic legal rights.”. That is excellent news.
We congratulate the team for all their hard work in efforts to change this despicable trade.
Despite things looking more positive with regard the future, it does not mean that campaigning stops; quite the opposite – it must really go on now until victory.
In the newsletter (link given below at the end of this post), you will find many actions you can continue to take. Actions which must continue to be taken until this abuse is stopped for once and all. Please support the fight to get what we now see as a very positive move froward.
Regards Mark
You can view all of our past work in this campaign by visiting:
Search Results for “south korea” – World Animals Voice
The Korea Times reported on March 16, 2021, “ For a country with around 1.5 million pet owners, Korea’s legal framework for animal protection has been considered relatively weak, leading to low public awareness on animal welfare, and lenient punishment for animal cruelty.
A major reason for this, pointed out by many animal rights activists, is because the civil code defines animals as “objects,” not living beings.
Under the current law, animals are regarded as the property of their human owners, something that can be owned, traded and controlled without any of the basic rights that are given to people. Therefore, animal abusers often face relatively weak punishment proportional to their level of cruelty, as their sentences are based on the Property Damage Law and Animal Protection Law.
But this may change, as the Ministry of Justice announced plans recently to amend the civil code to legally recognize animals as living entities.
In response to an increasing number of people who perceive companion animals as part of their family, the ministry said that it will remove animals from the category of property and designate a possible third category, in a bid to ensure their basic legal rights.”
Click here to read the Korean Dogs newsletter online:
Nigeria: Undercover investigation by UK television shows that wet markets operate as normal; and that this is another Covid pandemic waiting to happen. Disturbing footage, as are all wet markets that involve live animals.
ITV News (UK) has secretly filmed in Oluwo Fish Market, a wet market just outside Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.
Oluwo Fish Market teems with life. It is a wet market just outside Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.
ITV News secretly filmed there – a place awash with animals – alive and dead. Scientists believe wet markets are a breeding ground for disease, a high risk environment, from where the next pandemic could emerge.
The very concept of a “wet market” means the presence of blood and bodily fluids.
It is a marketplace selling fresh meat and fish, as opposed to a “dry market” that sells durable products.
Not all wet markets sell live animals. Not all of them trade in wild and exotic animals, but some do, and some of those have been linked to outbreaks of zoonotic diseases, where an infection crosses the species barrier from animal to human. Exhibit A. Covid-19. The pandemic that allegedly originated at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.
Video obtained by both ITV News and the charity WildAtLife shows live crocodiles having their scales removed, pangolins being kicked and abused and dogs boiled alive.
Multiple primates were seen imprisoned in cages, the heads of others were for sale. It was difficult to watch when a baby baboon, trapped inside a birdcage, reached out to the camera grasping for freedom, as a decapitated monkey was sold next to him.
One woman reached into a brown sack and pulled out a pangolin. This species is the most trafficked animal in the world. We could buy it there for less than ten pounds.
The pangolin is a species that has been linked to the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Their scales are of high value in Asia for medicines.
The abuse of animals and the health risks for humans at this market were plain to see. It’s what the conservation group WildAtLife want to expose. Chinedu Mogbu works for them, and has rescued umpteen exotic species from there in recent months.
He said: “Nigeria doesn’t have strong laws to protect its wildlife.
“Anyone can go into the forest, take a pangolin and sell it on the street. The law enforcers are not even aware of the importance or the laws that protect these animals.”
We did notice the presence of Asian buyers at this African market.
Any illicit, international trade would undoubtedly increase the risk of spreading disease around the globe, but Nigerian officials say they are doing enough to prevent that.
Joseph Attah from the Customs Service refused to answer more than one question on the matter though.
This was all he would say: “We have been making a lot of seizures about that, we have been seizing them and we will continue to seize them anytime we see them.”
We know, that despite our allegations, the wet market in Epe continues to thrive. Scientists are concerned that such places pose an unnecessary and high risk.
“Every single animal at a wet market is likely to have an infection,” Malcolm Bennett from the University of Nottingham told me. He is Professor of Zoonotic and Emerging Diseases.
“That general concept of bringing lots of animals and people together, and doing lots of things to them in the same place is a high risk thing to do. It’s not just a biodiversity of animals, it’s a biodiversity of disease. Some of which will spread to us.“
He said unflinchingly, “It is going to happen again.”
There is a high security lab at the university where they are analysing the affects of COVID-19 on cells.
Bringing together animals and people that don’t usually mix increases the risk of new infections, so wet markets are ideal places for cross species transmission and disease amplification.
Other viruses we know of that started out as zoonotic diseases are SARS, MERS, Ebola, even HIV.
Stopping the development of such viruses is impossible, instead we need to mitigate the risks.
In many peoples’ eyes what happens at some wet markets is unhygienic, tortuous and brutal, but in African and Asian nations it isn’t simply a case of shutting them down. There are more issues at play. They have a critical role in social interaction and for different cultures. The Deputy Director of the National Zoo, Aminu Muhammad Beli, explained.
“We cannot close the wet markets because there are certain animals that have cultural attributes to certain tribal groups. We have to devise a way of sustaining the industry,” he said.
His words are perhaps difficult to stomach when you see carcasses lying in the hot sun and live animals being butchered. Regulation and surveillance must increase though, else harmful pathogens will breed.
We just can’t predict where or how destructive they will be.
Regards Mark
Comment – I watched the investigation on UK news yesterday (16/3) – and was informed that some of the UK team rescued some of the animals and released them back into the wild where they belong. Well done ITN.
He is getting a preview of what is next for him …
At Easter, not only chocolate bunnies are served, but also lots of eggs, a roast rabbit, or even an Easter lamb. What many are not aware of: Thousands of lambs suffer before the holidays, especially for our enjoyment.
In large parts of Europe, sheep are rarely kept for their wool, because no profit can be made from it, not even from sheep’s milk production.
Lamb, on the other hand, is still considered a delicacy in many places – especially at Easter. The lamb babies are between eight weeks and six months old when they are slaughtered.
As a rule, they have never eaten grass.
Their meat is therefore considered to be particularly tender and low in fat.
In Italy, the demand for the Easter lamb is particularly high. According to the Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori (CIA), the Italian farmers’ association, Italians eat around 260 tons of lamb on the festive days alone, for which several million lambs lose their lives.
The great demand is mainly due to the Christian tradition, in which the Easter lamb is a symbol for Jesus Christ and his resurrection.
For the History: Jesus voluntarily sacrificed himself for the sins of mankind.
For the truth: Nobody asks the lamb, we just kill it.
The right to life should be taken for granted. For all living beings
Therefore: Let animals out of your plate! A tortured animal is an involuntary sacrifice and its suffering cannot justify any tradition or religious belief
My best regards to all, Venus
Nebraska Declares Pro-Meat Day After Colorado Urges Citizens To Eat Vegan | Plant Based News
Meat on the Menu Day is attempting to rival MeatOut Day – which urges citizens to eschew from animal products on March 20
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts is declaring a pro-meat day in response to Colorado urging its citizens to eat plant-based.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis recently marked March 20 as a statewide meat-free holiday named MeatOut Day.
The initiative was founded by Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) back in 1985. It aims to ‘educate consumers about the benefits of a healthful, plant-based diet’.
“Removing animal products from our diets reduces the risk of various ailments, including heart disease, cancers, and diabetes,” FARM states.
“A plant-based diet helps protect the environment by reducing our carbon footprint, preserving forests, grasslands, and wildlife habitats. It also reduces the pollution of waterways.
“Since MeatOut was launched, more than 35 million Americans have explored a plant-based diet and reduced their consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs. And, major food manufactures and national franchises are marketing more vegan options in response to this growing demand.”
Whilst many commended the move, Ricketts blasted the incentive, claiming it is a ‘direct attack’’ on Nebraska’s ‘way of life’.
According to The Guardian, he said: “If you were to get rid of beef in our country, you would be undermining our food security, an important part of a healthy diet. And, also destroying an industry here in our state that’s very important.”
Moreover, Steve Wellman is Nebraska’s agriculture director. He added: “When agriculture does well, Nebraska does well.
“Agriculture is the heart and soul of Nebraska, and our 45,700 farm and ranch families keep our state going year after year.”
Nebraska is now urging citizens and restaurants to participate in ‘Meat on the Menu Day’ on the same day as ‘MeatOut Day’.
❌ Suffering as a craft set – #Triops #primeval crabs
They are filigree relics from # prehistoric times … The graceful little crabs – known as so-called “Triops” – are considered “living #fossils”.
Freshwater is their element.
You can find the animals not only in pools and lakes all over the world – but unfortunately also in children’s rooms all over the world …
The tadpole shrimp family includes three well-known species – one of them – the “fairy shrimp” (Anostraca) – was recently discovered in a temporary lake in Baden Wuerttemberg (Germany)
With their original body and shell structure, their three complex eyes (TRI = three OPS = eye), and their artful movement patterns, the small prehistoric animals exert a great fascination on us.
Many children and young people want to bring a piece of primeval times into their own children’s room by buying a “Triops set”.
Triops eggs can be purchased online and in zoo and toy shops for less than 20 € in the “complete carefree package” with food, mini aquarium, and various auxiliary utensils …
Once the “handicraft set” has been opened and the eggs put in the water, the cute little animals hatch after just a few days and swim around in their cramped, monotonous plastic baskets in the hope of being reliably fed.
The crabs suffer silently.
It is not uncommon for the enclosed instructions to be ignored and the locations for the small water basins to be chosen so inappropriately that the little animals perish in agony, for example in the blazing sun or standing on a heater.
The fascination for the small creatures quickly gave way to another exciting occupation, and they are no longer adequately cared for or simply dumped into the toilet out of weariness.
The “animal experiment sets for the children’s room” are generally approved for children from 8-9 years of age. Such a pronounced sense of responsibility for living beings is not yet sufficiently given at this young age in very many cases.
Entrusting them with such responsible tasks always requires close control by parents, which unfortunately only rarely comes into play.
Apart from the maturity of those providing care, it is absurd to use sentient beings – no matter how small they may be – and no matter how short their life expectancy may be – for experimental ones
Abusing projects that lack any competence framework!
‼ ️ We demand a ban on the sale of “craft kits” with living beings and thus an end to silent tadpole cancer suffering in the nursery! Interested parties of all ages can gain valuable knowledge about animals and nature, for example from non-fiction books and TV or online documentaries.
Under no circumstances is it necessary to expand this in the form of domestic animal experiments!
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Text: Animals United e.V. – For animal rights. Because pity is not enough!
And I mean…This disgusting business is booming on the internet.
Instructions for beginners and advanced slave owners on how to breed the animals, what you need for successful Triops breeding.
Eggs, food, and a complete set of equipment for rearing and observation are offered in inexpensive presences.
Triops Set
The industry motivates with its ridiculous sets to be there up close when the little crabs hatch after a few days when they change their tanks when they dart through the water …
Teach your children what empathy and correct behavior are towards animals.
Teach them to be on the right side at an early age
My best regards to all, Venus
World Animals Voice 