WAV Comment:

For our non European friends who may not be familiar with this, the beautiful and majestic ‘St. Bernard’ dog is always associated with the rescue of persons trapped in avalanches; on mountains etc in Switzerland. They are always shown carrying the Brandy barrel which contains the spirit which is given to rescued persons to ‘warm them up’.

You can see a few typical pictures below.

 

 

What with the Coronavirus now and what appears to be an obsession with having plenty of toilet rolls; even though dysentery is not part of the virus problems; people seem to have gone into overdrive to obtain piles of toilet rolls ! – why, don’t ask us – just a load of crap you could say !!!

So here is the latest fun pictures of the ‘rescue St. Bernards’; all kitted out with a toilet roll rather than the brandy barrel.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is further interesting information (from friends at Wikipedia – thanks !) on these beautiful dogs and their association with Swiss mountain rescue:

 

The Great St Bernard Pass (French: Col du Grand St-Bernard, Italian: Colle del Gran San Bernardo, German: Grosser Sankt Bernhard) is the third highest road pass in Switzerland, at an elevation of 2,469 m (8,100 ft). It connects Martigny in the canton of Valais in Switzerland with Aosta in the region Aosta Valley in Italy. It is the lowest pass lying on the ridge between the two highest mountains of the Alps, Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. The pass itself is located in Switzerland in the canton of Valais, very close to Italy. It is located on the main watershed that separates the basin of the Rhône from that of the Po.

Great St Bernard is one of the most ancient passes through the Western Alps, with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze Age and surviving traces of a Roman road. In 1800, Napoleon‘s army used the pass to enter Italy, an event depicted in Jacques-Louis David‘s Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass and Hippolyte Delaroche‘s Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, both notable oil paintings. Having been bypassed by easier and more practical routes, particularly the Great St Bernard Tunnel which opened in 1964, its value today is mainly historical and recreational.

Straddling the highest point of the road, the Great St Bernard Hospice was founded in 1049. The hospice later became famous for its use of St Bernard dogs in rescue operations.

 

The Great St Bernard Hospice – Founded 1049.

 

The Great St Bernard Hospice (Italian: Ospizio del Gran San Bernardo, German: Hospiz auf dem Grossen St. Bernhard, French: Hospice du Grand St-Bernard), is a hospice or hostel for travellers in Switzerland, at 2469m altitude at the Great St Bernard Pass in the Pennine Alps. The border with Italy is only a few hundred metres to the south.

The first hospice or monastery was built in the 9th century at Bourg-Saint-Pierre, which was mentioned for the first time around 812-820. This was destroyed by Saracen incursions in the mid-10th century, probably in 940, the date at which they also occupied Saint-Maurice. Around 1050, Saint Bernard of Menthon, archdeacon of Aosta, regularly saw travellers arriving terrorised and distressed, so he decided to put an end to mountain brigandage in the area. With this in mind, he founded the hospice at the pass which later bore his name (it was originally dedicated to St Nicholas). The church’s first textual mention is in a document of 1125. The hospice was placed under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Sion, prefect and count of Valais, thus explaining why the whole pass is now in Swiss territory.

The St Bernard dog breed was created at the hospice from cross-breeding dogs, probably those offered by families in Valais in the 1660s and 1670s. The first definite mention of the breed is in 1709. The breed was originally raised to provide guard dogs for the hospice, before they became mountain rescue dogs. The St Bernards were specially bred and trained for the role of mountain rescue because they were sufficiently strong to cross deep snow drifts and had the capacity to track lost travelers by scent. The first evidence that the dogs were in use at the monastery is in two paintings dating to 1690 by Salvatore Rosa.

The dogs are often depicted as carrying a small flask of brandy around their necks to revive travelers. While this appears to have generally been a 19th century myth,^[1] there was apparently at least one dog that really did. In The Percy Anecdotes, by Thomas Byerley, published in 1823, the following anecdote appears, and was often quoted in other books in the 19th century:

The breed of dogs kept by the monks to assist them … has been long celebrated for its sagacity and fidelity. All the oldest and most tried of them were lately buried, along with some unfortunate travellers, under a valanche [sic]; but three or four hopeful puppies were left at home in the convent, and still survive. The most celebrated of those who are no more, was a dog called Barry. This animal served the hospital for the space of twelve years, during which time he saved the lives of forty individuals. His zeal was indefatigable. Whenever the mountain was enveloped in fogs and snow, he set out in search of lost travellers. He was accustomed to run barking until he lost breath, and would frequently venture on the most perilous places. When he found his strength was insufficient to draw from the snow a traveller benumbed with cold, he would run back to the hospital in search of the monks….

When old age deprived him of strength, the Prior of the Convent pensioned him at Berney, by way of reward. After his death, his hide was stuffed and deposited in the museum of that town. The little phial, in which he carried a reviving liquor for the distressed travellers whom he found among the mountains, is still suspended from his neck.^[2]

The last recorded rescue by one of the dogs was in 1955, although as late as 2004 eighteen of the animals were still kept at the Hospice for reasons of sentiment and tradition. In 2004, the breeding of the dogs was undertaken by the Barry foundation at Martigny, and the remaining St Bernards were transferred there from the Hospice. They remain a tourist attraction, and a number of the animals are temporarily relocated from Martigny to the Hospice during the summer months.

 

Here ends todays lesson;

Regards Mark.

 

 

The Spanish flu, the most deadly in modern times, lasted from January 1918-December 1919 and killed approximately 50 million people worldwide, nearly 675,000 in the United States.

This deadly airborne strain affected everyone. Efforts to curb the flu required people to wear face masks and public meetings were discouraged.

Saloons, dance halls, and theaters were recommended to close. In some towns store hours were staggered to prevent crowds.

People were advised to avoid shaking hands and to stay indoors, libraries put a halt on lending books and regulations were passed banning spitting.

At the time there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this strain or prevent its spread. Researchers later discovered what made the 1918 pandemic so deadly: In many victims, the influenza virus had invaded their lungs and caused pneumonia.

(Photograph courtesy of the Saratoga Historical Foundation)

And…A hundred years after the Spanish flu, there are still no effective medicines or vaccines to treat the corona or prevent it from spreading.
And we claim that medicine works wonders today!

Regards and a good night from Venus

Dear donors and friends,

 

This is not a usual newsletter, but more of a blog. In order to give a break to our volunteer translators during this difficult time, I am only writing in English. And it’s a longer read than usual. Thanks for your understanding.

 

 

What caused the Corona-virus? When Emmanual Macron, president of France announced last week “we are at war against this virus” I could not help but wonder why so many leaders of the world are announcing a war against the virus, and not against the source of this virus. I was also wondering why most media were reporting only on the effects and deaths of the virus, and very little could be found about where it came from and why. Of course, we want to beat this virus, find a vaccine against it and stop all the suffering of people. Not just for those lying in the hospital, but also those that have lost their jobs, are isolated and lonely, not able to visit their loved ones, not knowing how they will afford to support themselves now or later without a paycheck… But without a war on the way animals are caged, handled and slaughtered at such meat markets, we will never win “this war” as more viruses will come.     Wuhan live animal and meat market is not the only live animal market where exotic and domestic animals are mixed, kept in filthy tiny cages and forced to face days of extreme fear after being transported from far away. There are hundreds of thousands of these meat and exotic pet markets all over the world. I saw with my own eyes huge warehouses even in The Netherlands full of reptiles, arachnids, parrots and even hyenas imported from all over the world.     Without putting a stop to this wildlife trade, we will face more and more viruses that threaten humans. Corona is not the first case; HIV, SARS, MERS and Ebola also all came from handling and eating wild and stressed animals and led to massive human suffering on top of the obvious animal suffering. And we also know that transporting farm animals around the world was causing the suffering of billions of animals when we had to “cull” them, often in horrific ways (gassing them here and in many other parts of the world burying them alive in huge pits) because of diseases breaking out and spreading like bush fire due to the sheer numbers and international transport of animals. Think of the avian flu, the African swine fever, Mad cow, Foot and Mouth… Why didn’t we fight the war against the cause off these viruses to put a stop to the suffering of these animals? How do we win these wars? How do we put an end to the risk of causing more animal and human suffering?     Plants didn’t give us Corona As you know, Eyes on Animals is not a radical organization. We do not see all animal transporters or even slaughterhouse managers as brutal murderers nor do we point fingers. We see that there is a food system started by all of us that is full of inherent problems and needs to change. A system that can only be changed by intelligent discussions, transparency and cooperation among all of us. We all want a good world where people, including animal farmers, transporters and slaughterers have a chance to have a happy and healthy life, the chance to work and be financially independent. There have been many truck drivers and slaughterhouse personnel that have done their best at adopting better practices and shown genuine interest in improving animal welfare. But regardless, the system is too risky. Many people continue to think that we need to eat meat and dairy, or are worried about losing their jobs, should society stop eating meat and dairy. But that is not the case and where we can, we should now more than ever move to a plant-based diet. Plants never caused virus among people. Plants never caused mass-cullings of innocent animals. Feeding people with plants will create new job opportunities. We see this more and more every day, with companies springing up everywhere selling everything from pea protein to pineapple leather. Even in Ghana we visited vegetarian and vegan restaurants.     Working for the animals – from home The corona virus has made us at Eyes on Animals have to stay at home, but we have been incredibly busy trying to raise awareness about this important issue and prevent further animal suffering. We have been holding conference calls with other NGOs and together writing letters to the European Commission about the current risk of farm animals in transit and to breeders encouraging them to decrease breeding at the moment to avoid a back-log. We have been calling as many journalists as possible encouraging them to report more on the source of this virus, to expose the horrible animal suffering at these meat markets in China and beyond. We are doing everything to help people recognize that this virus did not just come out of nowhere, but that similar situations can and should be prevented in the future, and will bring back hope to people. Bring back a sense of control for our future.     Educate! Now more than ever is the time to educate ourselves and spread this news. Now more than ever it is time to, respectfully, phase out our dependence on meat and dairy products and replace them with the production of more plant-based foods. Below is a list of articles we collected about the source of the corona virus that make for very interesting reading and watching. Please pass these on to friends and colleagues, particularly ones still unaware of these issues.   In Dutch OneWorld Waarom vechten we tegen Corona zonder de oorzaak te bespreken Jort Kelder in RTL Boulevard   In English 60 Minutes Australia – Excellent documentary about corona and its source Video message from Dr. Jane Goodal, world renowned ethologist The Guardian Billion-dollar wildlife industry in Vietnam under assault as law drafted to halt trading The Guardian ‘Nature is taking back Venice’: wildlife returns to tourist-free city The Guardian ‘Tip of the iceberg’: is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19? The Guardian Cattle Gridlock: EU border delays add to coronavirus strain on meat trade The Animal Reader This pandemic is our fault: stop exploiting animals Brussels Times Coronavirus: Humans suffer but also animals in transport over borders   We hope you and your loved ones will stay healthy and safe. With best wishes from us all, Lesley Moffat director of Eyes on Animals

 

What would our live be without those who, as the only ones, can teach us about love, solidarity, joy, symbiosis with all species …

 

Regards and a good night from Venus

 

The video and pictures shown here are not from the PETA campaign – we have these from other sources – WAV.

 

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, many people had never heard the term “wet market,” which is believed to be the origin of the novel coronavirus. It’s simply a market that sells live and dead animals—often of a variety of species—for human consumption, like those that exist in New York. SARS is a coronavirus that’s believed to have first infected humans at a Chinese wet market, just like COVID-19.

 

 

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, HIV, Ebola, and other diseases are linked to meat production or consumption. Not all of these come from live-animal markets— Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a variant of mad cow disease, for instance, can affect a person who has eaten certain body parts of an infected cow—but such markets, where stressed, injured, and sick animals are commonly caged in public areas, are perfect breeding grounds for diseases.

In this video, Peter Li, an associate professor at the University of Houston–Downtown, states that at wet markets, “The cages are stacked one over another. Animals at the bottom are often soaked with all kinds of liquid. Animal excrement, pus, blood.” Such conditions allow viruses to spread from one animal to another as well as to humans who come into contact with them.

 

Although the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus is thought to have first infected humans, has closed and that country has banned the consumption and farming of “wild” animals (hopefully, not only temporarily), it’s important to note that diseases don’t just affect animals humans have labelled as “wild.” Many wet markets continue to operate throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the U.S.

There are more than 80 live-animal markets and slaughterhouses in New York City alone.

 

Just as we don’t want to be infected with or die from COVID-19, other animals don’t want to suffer or be killed for food. A hen, for example, just wants to be left in peace so that she can teach calls to her chicks before they hatch (much like how a human mother talks to her baby in the womb) and teach her young the ways of the world once they’re born. And fish just want to be left alone so that they can protect their young, build nests, and swim freely.

 

 

No matter what species they are peddling, live-animal meat markets will continue to put the human population at risk as well as sentencing countless animals to a miserable death.

 

Join PETA in urging the World Health Organization to call for an end to deadly live-animal markets around the globe.

 

Link to add your name calling for action:

 

https://support.peta.org/page/17888/action/1?utm_source=PETA::E-Mail&utm_medium=E-News&utm_campaign=0320::veg::PETA::E-Mail::Help%20Shut%20Down%20Deadly%20Live%20Animal%20Markets::::peta%20e-news&ea.url.id=427095&forwarded=true