Just how “personal” is it, exactly, to slit the throat of a non-consenting party, dismember their corpse, and put them in a sandwich?
Last time we checked, PERSONAL choices and preferences end JUST THERE – at the body of the person making the choice.
Buying the products of animal oppression is not a “personal choice”- it’s a VIOLATION of someone else’s choice to not be enslaved and murdered!
Best regards, Venus
Pig-Monkey Chimeras Have Been Brought to Term For The First Time
MICHELLE STARR
9 DEC 2019
Pigs engineered to have a small amount of monkey cells have been brought to full term and were even born alive, surviving for a few days after birth. Although the piglets died, it is claimed the experiment – performed in China – marks a major milestone for the future of lab-grown organs.
“This is the first report of full-term pig-monkey chimeras,” Tang Hai of the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology in Beijing told New Scientist.
The research is part of an ongoing effort to develop animals – whether they are sheep or pigs – that can grow human organs we could then harvest for transplants, a process called xenogeneic organogenesis.
Research has been done on both pig and sheep embryos with transplanted human stem cells; in both cases, the embryos continued to develop until the experiment was deliberately terminated.
That’s because, due to ethical concerns, these chimeras – organisms that incorporate the genetic material of another species – cannot be cultivated or studied in the later stages of embryonic development. Some scientists worry that some of the human stem cells could end up in other parts of the animal or even in its brain, with unintended consequences.
For that reason, in this experiment the team used stem cells from crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis). These were imbued with fluorescent proteins so that they would glow under fluorescent light, and derived to produce fluorescing embryonic cells.
These cells were then injected into over 4,000 five-day-old pig embryos fertilised using IVF; the modified pig embryos were subsequently implanted into sows.
This fiddly and painstaking work produced just 10 piglets that made it to full term and were born alive. And only two of these were chimeric, with between one in 1,000 and one in 10,000 functional monkey cells to pig cells.
The monkey cells had migrated to the heart, liver, lungs, spleen and skin of the piglet hosts, but were not found in other organs, such as testes and ovaries, due to the low rate of chimerism, the researchers said.
Sadly, before a week was out, the piglets died – not just the two chimeras, but the other eight normal piglets, too. Because all the pigs died, Hai told New Scientist, the cause of death likely had less to do with chimerism, and more to do with IVF – a procedure that is notoriously tricky in pigs.
The low chimerism rate is also somewhat discouraging. However, the researchers remain optimistic. Although the birth rate was low, and the pigs didn’t survive, the team now has a wealth of data they can apply to future experiments.
The scientists are planning to try again, increasing the chimeric cell ratio. And they believe their data may help other scientists working in the field.
“Here, we have used monkey cells to explore the potential of reconstructing chimeric human organs in a large animal model,” they wrote in their paper.
“We believe this work will facilitate the development of xenogeneic organogenesis by providing a better understanding of the processes of xenogeneic recognition, fate determination, and the proliferation and differentiation of primate stem cells during porcine development.
“The findings could pave the way toward overcoming the obstacles in the re-engineering of heterogeneous organs and achieve the ultimate goal of human organ reconstruction in a large animal.”
The research has been published in Protein & Cell.
Here in the UK, a different approach is being used which eliminates the use of growing organs from one species and then attempting to transplant them into another – which could be high risk. It is an opt out system that will work on the policy that anyone who dies can have their organs taken for donation unless they decide to go for the ‘opt out’ option which they can take if they do not wish to donate.
A new opt-out system for organ donation will be in place by 2020 in England, if Parliament approves “Max’s Law”.
Under the plans detailed by ministers, adults will be presumed to be organ donors unless they have specifically recorded their decision not to be.
The government said it would save up to 700 lives each year.
In the UK in 2017, 411 people died before the right donor was found, and more than 5,000 people are currently on the waiting list in England.
A similar opt-out system has been in place in Wales since 2015. Scotland plans to introduce a similar scheme and Northern Ireland has also expressed an interest.
WAV Comment – has this grabbed attention ? – well, we are talking about chickens actually, not human lives. Both sentient creatures; both with feelings and a wish to survive.
“It is the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) job to monitor that factory farms have working emergency back-up systems. So was this farm being effectively monitored? It looks like yet again, MPI hasn’t had the resources to ensure this factory farm wasn’t breaking the law”.
Lets hope that nightclubs used by the human species are monitored better !
OPINION: Nearly 200,000 deaths by suffocation, because of a power cut. What a tragedy and a terrible way to die.
New Zealand is a nation of animal lovers. We lavish attention on our dogs, we dote on our cats, often valuing them as important members of our families.
If this tragedy had involved dogs or cats, this appalling loss of life would be the lead story on all the news bulletins and the subsequent investigation would be a topic on everyone’s minds for weeks. But when the individuals who perished in such a terrible way are chickens, it’s just a passing bit of shock news.
It is the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) job to monitor that factory farms have working emergency back-up systems. So was this farm being effectively monitored? It looks like yet again, MPI hasn’t had the resources to ensure this factory farm wasn’t breaking the law
READ MORE:
* Mass chicken deaths ‘catastrophic’ and unprecedented, experts say after nearly 200,000 birds die
* Nearly 200,000 chickens die due to power failure at poultry farm, MPI investigates
* Safe releases footage of deformed, dying chickens on free-range farm
* Culture shift needed on ‘Frankenstein’ chickens culled at six weeks old
* Behind New Zealand’s most popular meat
In this case, a simple power cut led to the ventilation supply to these chickens being cut, and both the back-up generator failed and the alarm to alert workers that the chickens were slowly dying.
Less than a year ago, at another West Auckland farm that was also part of Tegel’s supply chain, 50,000 birds burned to death. The details that were made public reported a lack of water available for fighting the fire.
Just last month, ten thousand more chickens perished on a Whanganui chicken farm and another thousand in the Waikato back in June. This is appalling!
As always, when there are massive corporate profits to be made, animals suffer the consequences. Tegel has refused to require its suppliers to fit sprinkler systems to prevent fires from taking hold in chicken sheds. That would cut into profits, wouldn’t it?
These birds are treated as mere production units, rather than living, breathing beings. Even our Animal Welfare Act recognises that chickens are sentient, accepting that they are fully able to experience a range of emotions. Despite this, the chicken meat industry kills 125 million birds a year in New Zealand. So, the loss of 195,000 birds is presumably just a blip on their production schedules, and insurance will soften the blow.
But taking a look behind the walls of these chicken factory farms, we see that these birds suffer even when it’s business as usual.
Highly selectively bred to double in size each week, their bodies just can’t cope. According to a 2013 Ministry for Primary Industries report, up to a third are painfully lame in the last weeks of their short lives and up to ten thousand die a very stressful death of heart failure or are culled, every day in sheds across New Zealand. The Poultry Industry of New Zealand puts that figure at 6000 – but even that is 6000 individuals that are so sick and deformed that they can’t even survive to the age of six-weeks, when most are taken for slaughter.
These are the birds that are out of sight, out of mind, hidden inside barren window-less sheds. Most people only interact with one of these chickens at mealtimes. Chicken meat is so cheap compared with other meats, that it’s eaten almost without thinking by people who would be appalled if they stepped inside a chicken factory-farm.
Few people even know what one of these white-feathered, blue-eyed, overgrown baby-birds looks like.
Kindness and compassion are great qualities to celebrate, and we can widen the circle of our compassion to include all sentient animals. If you care about animals and don’t want to support corporate cruelty, the easy solution is to choose chicken-friendly plant-based alternatives at your supermarket and you can also email MPI, making sure it throws the full force of our animal welfare laws at Tegel for its negligence.
Together we can create an Aotearoa New Zealand that cares about all animals.
Marianne Macdonald is the head of campaigns for the animal welfare group SAFE.
Carolin Günther (Caroletta) works as a painter and illustrator. “About Meat” is a project of the heart.
This book (“That’s how we’ve always done it”) is something for you, if you
surreal and detailed illustrations like.
are a friend of clear words and sharp poetry.
Discrimination, oppression and violence in any form reject.
In addition, the book addresses to all who
like to pet cats and / or dogs.
Chicken nuggets find great and chick-shredding stupid.
Donate to the shelter and eat meat sandwiches.
First and foremost, the illustration book “That’s how we’ve always done it” is for everyone who does it differently.
As a young child, she saw a slaughter, heard and smelled, and soon thereafter stopped eating animals uncompromisingly. That’s 30 years ago.
Today she lives completely vegan and is a public advocate for animal rights and environmental issues. Her illustration series “About Meat” was nominated for the 2018 World Illustration Awards and featured in Greenpeace magazine.
Most of us lovingly caress their dog or cat and bite in the next moment in a roast sausage without the slightest glimmer, what’s actually in it, where it comes from, and what the animal looked like that had to die for it. We can not make the connection between the sausage on our plate and the animal that was this time. Because the so-called useful animals are invisible. Their killing takes place far behind closed doors.
To draw attention to this topic, Carolin Günther recently launched the art project “About Meat”. A main motive of the picture series is the categorization of animals in “inedible” and “edible”. All illustrations were created in classic handwork and follow a common design concept.
With each picture that came in the last few months, she grew with the desire to put it in book form. In cardboard picture book form.
Cardboard picture books explain the world and playfully promote the development of children. Maybe, that works for adults as well.
All pictures are from her picture book: “That’s how we’ve always done it”.
Carolin Günther http://www.about-meat.com
And I mean … such books should read children in their early age. These are books that bite and sting, although they do not receive any trace of gruesome video images.
The sooner our children learn the truth about the suffering of the animals, the greater the likelihood of alleviating this suffering of the animals.
My best regards to all, Venus
Good night from Venus
Updated December 6, 2019:
Following an intense campaign by PETA USA and the help of tens of thousands of supporters, the Air Transport Service Group (ATSG) has now announced that it is completing monkey transports in experimental laboratories.
This announcement comes just a week after our US counterparts told Amazon to convince their current business partner – ATSG – to stop these atrocious transports.
For far too long, airlines have been making money on the bloody business of killing monkeys to their deaths. The sensitive animals are taken from countries such as China or from the island state of Mauritius, to laboratories in the United States or to Europe.
The places of origin of the monkeys offer them no protection, so they are often snatched from their homes and their families or bred in horror animal factories.
ATSG and its affiliates – Air Transport International (ATI) and ABX Air – have delivered thousands of monkeys to US research centers where frightened animals await terrible things.
Mostly they are locked in tight cages, in the course of the experiments they are then poisoned with chemicals, mutilated, deprived of food and water intake, infected with some deadly diseases and killed in the end usually emotionally cold.
ATI has repeatedly violated the minimum requirements for such animal transport in the past. The monkeys had to survive these – already stressful – flights without water and food and spend hours in their own excrements.
The United States Department of Agriculture is currently completing the infringement.
We’ve received disturbing reports that Michigan-based airline Kalitta Air has begun shipping monkeys from China to the U.S., where they will be cruelly experimented on in laboratories.
According to multiple credible sources, Kalitta Air reportedly transported crates of live monkeys from China to the U.S. recently. We contacted the airline’s executive team multiple times, but they refused to answer our questions about their policy. However, one employee did confirm that the company did bring at least one shipment of monkeys to the U.S. for use in laboratories.
Every year, thousands of monkeys are transported from countries such as China, Mauritius, and Vietnam to the U.S. and the European Union to be imprisoned in laboratories and tormented in experiments. Some are bred in captivity on cramped, terror monkey factory farms, while others are abducted from their families in the wild. The traumatized monkeys are crammed into small wooden crates and transported in the dark and terrifying cargo holds of planes for as long as 30 hours.
During the transport, the monkeys receive no food or water for more than 24 hours – a violation of the Animal Welfare Act. Some of the hungry, thirsty and confused monkeys must also sit in the midst of their own excretions during the unbearably long flight. Many die a painful death on their long journeys, some of them over 30 hours long.
When they arrive in the U.S., they’re transported to facilities where they’re imprisoned in cramped cages and frequently cut open, poisoned, crippled, addicted to drugs, shocked, and killed.
Kalitta Air joins the long list of airlines—including American Airlines, United Airlines, Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Delta Airlines, El Al Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, and dozens of others—that refuse to participate in this sordid trade.
Air France is the last major airline that continues to enrich this bloody business and kidnap monkeys from Mauritius to Europe.
Please help* and ask Air France to join all the other major airlines worldwide and stop transporting monkeys to their deaths in experimental laboratories!
* (Petition: https://headlines.peta.org/air-france-stop-shipping-monkeys/)
My comment: Every year more than 6,000 monkeys in Europe are misused for animal experiments, half of which are imported from Mauritius and flown by Air France to Europe!
Those of the animals surviving the horror journey land on the hands of the practicing Dr.Mengele, in the Dachau laboratories for animals, which are equipped with their own justice, and are supported by corrupt politicians.
The news is good, and we are very pleased that another company stops its flying coffins.
But we want the abolition of the torture of innocent animals justified by the mantle of research.
We are fighting for it, and in recent times we have been able to achieve some positive results (https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2019/11/10/after-60-years-of-cruelty-the-lpt-lab-is-over/)
It has come the time of consistent and hard action; Sinners and criminals should be punished and we have to do that where we can.
Therefore: do not fly with Air France!
Until the company stops the death transports.
My best regards to all, Venus
Progress toward ending the dog meat trade in Indonesia! This week, Governor Ganjar Pranowo called for a ban on the consumption of dog meat throughout Central Java.
Every month around 13,000 dogs are slaughtered for consumption in the region. Governor Ganjar Pranowo met with representatives from Dog Meat Free Indonesia on Tuesday, which was followed by his announcement.
He proclaimed, “We must push the Surakarta administration to issue a strict regulation that prohibits people from consuming or selling dog meat.”
Further legal support for this ban comes from a law passed in 2012 stating that dogs are not defined as food since they do not come from forests or farms. According to the Jakarta Post, Ganjar said, “The law clearly prohibits it. Once a regency issues a ban, every other region will follow suit. Agency heads will convene to discuss such a regulation.”
Many concerns surround the health and safety of the dog meat trade. The transportation of the dogs sent to slaughter increase the likelihood of the spread of disease such as rabies, and for the dogs the rampant abuse within the industry drew sympathy.
It is also a barbaric and inhumane business. Dogs are often beaten to death in front of onlookers, and some are blow torched while still alive.
While dog meat is easily found in the stalls of street vendors, only a small percentage of the population consumes dog meat. However, it is still a lucrative trade.
We applaud Governor Ganjar Pranowo for his call to help put an end this brutal practice, and urge other provinces to follow suit.
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.
| Dear Mark, |
| In the video (below) about rescuing two puppies from a deep well, you might take a look at the little unexpected character innocently minding his own business at 1.05 minutes into the video. It’s a round brown mouse, who doesn’t even look up from her preoccupations when Pushkar pulls in close the first frightened puppy. People write to us regularly about the animals in their lives. Whether they’ve found a stray kitten, or an injured crow, or upset a family of mice in the basement, or a squirrel who’s been hit by a car–we all become more sensitive learning the heroics ordinary people go through to save an animal’s life. Sharing such stories helps us keep our eyes and hearts open generally, to all animals everywhere. If that little creature hadn’t looked so peaceful in that deep well, we might have tried to bring her up too!
Saved from starvation, puppies rescued from well
Two naughty angels must have been so engrossed in playing that they didn’t realize they were heading straight for an open dry well. In they fell, dropping 60 feet, but because their fall was broken by several feet of garbage, they didn’t break even a single bone! Neighbor kids heard them crying and cheered on our rescue team from arrival to the puppies’ dizzying reunion with their Mommy. These darlings would have died of starvation and thirst without rescue. Please donate for little ones in deep trouble.
Dear old Baloo couldn’t even lift his head, but he wouldn’t give up
Neighbours noticed a dog sleeping in the corner of their small yard, but then realized he hadn’t moved for hours. When they approached, he didn’t even stir, and that’s when they realized he was horrifically injured. His ear was shredded and the tissue all around it was swollen, and then they could see an enormous wound in his stomach. Hundreds of maggots roiled in the wounds. When we bent to pick him up, we found that the precious old sweetheart had no strength even to resist, even to raise his head. We hurried him back to the hospital and began the laborious process of removing the maggots, and his brave effort to get well began. Meet adorable old Baloo now. He’s just irresistible.
Please donate for old friends.
Maude’s eyes sparkle at last
We are currently experiencing problems with this video. Will add and publish if we resolve. Mark – WAV. A deep wound on this old girl’s stomach threatened her life. When neighbors noticed blood on her side as she lay on the ground they called us to rescue her. She seemed to consider slipping away from us, but soon relaxed and allowed us to scoop her up and bring her to the hospital. We could see that the wound flap would heal well with sutures, so we sedated her, thoroughly cleaned the site and stitched her up. Maude’s eyes started sparkling as soon as she felt better, and seemed to say thank you. Your caring donations made her rescue possible. Please donate.
Celebrate the Caregivers: Vinod Meena!
When paravet Vinod Meena started working in Animal Aid two years ago, we didn’t have a Street Treatment program yet. We wouldn’t have dreamed that in such a short time a newer member of staff could master the skills to gently handle animals who are often frightened, right out in the open, where dodging our care is on the mind of many of our outdoor patients. But Vinod has an incredibly soft touch and wins the trust of his patients with grace and speed. He is great in interacting with neighbors, too, teaching and encouraging them to do all they can to help, too. Through this program of prevention and treatment, where the animals are kept in their own environments, Vinod has saved the lives of hundreds of patients and supported their care-takers in helping their neighbourhood animals.
Mahatma Gandhi
“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”
|
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.
———————————————————-
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:
