We know that animals have no rights anywhere in the world, from clams to primates. What we, the human species, define as animal rights is merely a limitation of the violence and exploitation that we attribute sui generis about the existence of “other” animals.
We want to remind everyone of this fact today.
We must stop being the perpetrators, the animal tormentors, the privileged class in the animal kingdom, the rulers.
The World Animal Day is a memory of the still long way of fighting for the rights of animals.
If no animal is discriminated against because of its species affiliation, then we can speak of a just world.
In this sense, our contribution to this day is to confirm that we will continue to fight for our fellow creatures so that injustice stops and every “other” animal gets what it deserves: the right to life, freedom, happiness.
“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.” — Martin Luther King
“It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice” – (Tom Regan)
“Who has rights is respected. Who has no rights is despised!” (Bertolt Brecht)
“No animal ever tortures, only to torment; but man does this, and that makes the devilish character, which is far worse than the mere animal!” (Arthur Schopenhauer)
“The deliberate transformation of a living being into a bundle of suffering and dumb despair is a crime – what else should be a crime?” (Prof. Dr. Robert Spaemann)
“If you do not close your eyes, ears, brain and heart to how terribly people treat animals, you MUST love the animals more than the people who tyrannize, torture and kill these innocent animals” (Helmut Kaplan)
“There is no fundamental difference between human and animal in their ability to feel joy and pain happiness and misery” (Charles Darwin)
MISSION OF WORLD ANIMAL DAY
To raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe. Building the celebration of World Animal Day unites the animal welfare movement, mobilising it into a global force to make the world a better place for all animals. It’s celebrated in different ways in every country, irrespective of nationality, religion, faith or political ideology. Through increased awareness and education we can create a world where animals are always recognised as sentient beings and full regard is always paid to their welfare.
TO RAISE THE STATUS OF ANIMALS IN ORDER TO IMPROVE WELFARE STANDARDS AROUND THE GLOBE
To achieve this, we encourage animal welfare organisations, community groups, youth and children’s clubs, businesses and individuals to organise events in celebration of World Animal Day. Involvement is growing at an astonishing rate and it’s now widely accepted and celebrated in a variety of different ways in many countries, with no regard to nationality, religion, faith or political ideology.
Events are organised under the World Animal Day Umbrella by being publicised on this website and advertised using the World Animal Day brand and logo. Global branding effectively ties all events together and, over the years we have found this approach to be particularly helpful to grassroots groups who struggle to attract media attention in order to raise awareness of their work and fundraise. This draws attention to animal issues and makes them front-page news – a vital catalyst for change. Each year the logo becomes more widely recognised as a global brand for animals. A brand that unites the animal welfare movement – firmly establishing itself as a platform for raising the status of animals.
Participation in World Animal Day will continue to grow until it reaches and connects animal advocates in all corners of the world. It’s something that everyone can join in with, whether they are part of an organisation, group, or an individual. We regularly receive wonderfully inspiring messages about World Animal Day from animal advocates around the world. For example: “Thank you once again for your inspiration and support towards this auspicious World Animal Day that continues to make a huge difference for animals in Africa and the world at large.” Josphat Ngonyo, Executive Director, Africa Network for Animal Welfare, and “What World Animal Day is doing for animals is truly influencing all of us in amazing ways.”
Why celebrate World Animal Day?
Building the celebration of World Animal Day mobilises people for action now for a better future for animals.
Throughout history, social movements (mass actions) like World Animal Day, have always been a major vehicle for ordinary people’s participation in politics, and key in fighting for social justice and reform. The lives of animals are profoundly affected by the actions of individuals, businesses, and nations. It’s therefore essential that, as sentient beings, their rightful status as recipients of social justice is established and translated into effective animal protection. World Animal Day embraces all animals and the unique concerns of each, in every country, and makes animals front-page news. Through increased awareness and education, we can help develop a compassionate culture which feeds into legal reform and social progress to make this world a fairer place for all living creatures. A world where animals are recognised as sentient beings and full regard is always paid to their welfare. World Animal Day has already brought about a significant and lasting contribution towards advancing animal welfare standards, and its influence will only continue to grow. We regularly receive heart-warming messages from people keen to tell us about what being involved with World Animal Day has helped them achieve and we’d like to share a few of these phenomenal victories with you now.
Amina Abaza, who heads the Society for the Protection of Animal Rights in Egypt (SPARE), has used World Animal Day to successfully lobby for the addition of a clause about animal welfare in the new Egyptian Constitution and, more recently, submitted a Model Animal Welfare Act to the Egyptian Parliament.
Another ground-breaking event achieved by SPARE was held at Cairo University’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine where animals are used in education. Attended by professors, students, the Dean and Vice Dean of the Faculty, and other dignitaries, speeches were made by the President of the Egyptian Veterinary Association and representatives of several, highly-respected animal welfare NGOs to increase awareness about alternatives to the use of animals in education and a film was shown about animal suffering throughout the world
Cuthbert, 42, was sentenced at Ayr Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to keeping three dogs, cats and a rat for animal fighting, and procuring cats for fights.
As well as his 10-month jail sentence, he was banned from keeping animals for 10 years.
The court heard Scottish SPCA inspectors went to Cuthbert’s home with a warrant on 16 March last year where they found three Patterdale Terriers – two of them older dogs and the third a puppy.
A specialist vet found the older animals, called Digger and Billy, had multiple injuries, some of them recent, consistent with fighting a badger.
Digger and the puppy were rehomed, but Billy was so aggressive he had to be put down after attacking a Scottish SPCA employee.
Cuthbert’s phone was seized during the search and images and videos were found of his dogs killing domestic cats and a rat in a trap.
There were also pictures of his dogs with apparently dead and bloody badgers
A Scottish SPCA undercover investigator said the case was one of the most upsetting and “depraved” they had encountered.
One video showed the three dogs attacking a domestic cat in a field as it fought for its life.
“It’s clear the cat was caused horrendous suffering and many of the cats he purchased will have suffered long, torturous deaths,” he said
“Cuthbert had been picking up the cats for his dogs to attack from the online selling site, Gumtree.
“After contacting Gumtree, we found correspondence between Cuthbert and people who had listed their cats on the site which led us to believe large numbers of cats were uplifted from pet owners who trusted their cats were going to a good, safe home.”
The charity urged pet owners to carry out thorough checks when selling or rehoming animals online.
“If you are using an online service to find a new home for, or sell, your pet, please be vigilant and ensure your pet is going to a safe environment,” the investigator said.
” If you are suspicious, do not continue with the sale and notify the Scottish SPCA as soon as possible.”
Ship transporting 60,000 sheep on journey of death gets ‘clean bill of health’
The sheep are doomed to spend three weeks at sea in squalid conditions should a live export permit be granted, and many will not make it out alive.
The Al Shuwaikh livestock vessel destined for Kuwait, which has docked in East London for the past few days awaiting shipping 60,000 sheep onto it has been given a clean bill of health, according to Dispatch Live.
It was earlier reported that a permit had already been granted, but has since been corrected to reflect that this is only expected to take place later this week, department of rural development and agrarian reform spokesperson Ayongezwa Lungisa told Dispatch Live on Monday.
Lungisa says veterinarians are expected to be inspect the sheep for diseases and vaccinations before the Al Shuwaikh heads for Kuwait. If this is in order, a live export permit is expected to be granted.
The sheep are doomed to spend three weeks at sea in squalid conditions, and many will not make it out alive.
Al Mawashi, the livestock transport and trading company facilitating the live export, ironically claims that it does not tolerate poor treatment of livestock in any part of its supply chain.
However, in November 2017 during a voyage on the Al Shuwaikh, an average of 37 animals died each day onboard the ship. In June 2018, an average of 20 animals died per day on a 30-day voyage, and in September 2018, 659 deaths were recorded on a 24-day voyage.
The National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) urged both government and the public to reconsider the shipment.
The permit being granted has hit them and other animal rights organisations hard.
In a statement, the NSPCA details the gruesome conditions the sheep will face on the ship.
“Onboard this ship, they will be crammed so tightly that many will not be able to lie down and rest. For three weeks, they will stand, with limited access to food and water, and some will have no access at all … They will be forced to stand in their own excrement, wearing what is called “faecal jackets”.
Marcelle Meredith, NSPCA executive director, said: “The South African government have the power to stop this shipment, they have a responsibility to ensure that welfare is a primary concern, especially in light of our success in the high court recently with regards to permitting issues and welfare considerations.”
In a damning statement, the NSPCA has slammed the company’s blatant hypocrisy, pointing to claims that they operate transparently.
The NSPCA continues to advocate that live export by sea for slaughter purposes is unethical, unnecessary, and unacceptable.
According to Animals Australia, over 100,000 litres of urine and faeces accumulate on a trip like this each day the sheep are onboard.
This combined with the Middle East’s high temperatures results in sheep being unable to regulate their own body temperatures causing heatstroke. This, the statement reads, literally results in sheep being “cooked alive” while in oven-like temperatures.
Waste build-up makes it dangerous for the sheep to lie down, as they risk being buried alive, and ammonia from their excrement often leads to respiratory infections, and burning eyes and throats.
“All this mixed with disease, overcrowding, pneumonia, motion sickness, physical trauma and injuries, and stress, creates the perfect environment for excruciating suffering, and many animals will die in transit.”
The fate of those that survive the journey is not good either – they will face “inhumane handling” before being violently slaughtered while they are still alive.
Carte Blanche screened horrifying footage of the live export trade on Sunday evening, with the video still making the rounds on social media.
The NSPCA hoped their online petition would encourage government to reconsider the shipment.
“South Africa must take a stand against this abhorrent and unnecessary practice and rather export packaged meat, which not only ensures that animals do not suffer unnecessarily, but helps the country’s struggling economy.”
Those who wish to make a donation to the NSPCA can do so by clicking here.
Nearly 200 dolphins stranded themselves on a beach of Boa Vista island off the coast of West Africa on Tuesday.
Authorities in the Cape Verde islands have called on Spanish experts to help determine why the mammals beached themselves.
Officials, residents and tourists managed to drag some of them back out to sea, but many returned.
Mystery as 200 dolphins wash up on a tourist beach on Cape Verde – with some beaching themselves after locals managed to drag them back to sea.
Despite their efforts, authorities had to bury 136 dead dolphins.
Although some of the dolphins swam off and survived the mass beaching, experts fear that they may not have long left to live due to the trauma of their ordeal.
Scientists believe that the leader of the dolphin school may have got lost or disorientated and the rest of the animals followed.
BIOS Cape Verde, a volunteer environmental association in the former Portuguese colony, said on its Facebook page Friday that it took samples from 50 dolphins and four others were placed in deep freeze by the local council.
The group said veterinarians from the University of Las Palmas in Spain’s Canary Islands are due in the coming days to perform tests.
Activists warned that similar incidence have been seen in the past and called for the protection of the the diverse wildlife off the Atlantic coast of Africa.
In March it was reported that 1,100 dolphins had beached themselves on the shores of France in just three months, a 40-year record high.
Many were mutilated with injuries sustained from being trapped in fishing nets and having their fins cut off.
My comment: Again and again there are reports of mysterious animal mass extinctions.
The mass extinction of the sea mammals is no more enigmatic and no less rare.
There are several reasons for this:
– The oceans are getting more and more polluted and overfished, they acidify and heat up, the oxygen content sinks.
– Drilling or the search for gas and oil deposits with compressed air guns produce the sound waves that irritate the sensitive sensory organs of the animals and take their bearings.
This brings us back to the conclusion that the human species is (mostly) the designer of such massacres!
„What I had learned about human rights proved to be directly relevant to my thinking about animal rights. Whether any animals have rights depends on the true answer to one question: Are any animals subjects-of-a-life?
This is the question that needs to be asked about animals because this is the question we need to ask about us.“ – Tom Regan
Two amazing high school students in Bombay just added hundreds of young people to the Animal Aid family through “Take a Paws,” a sensational fundraiser for Animal Aid Unlimited.
Held in their high school (Bombay International School) Diya Chitrabhanu and Ananyaa Mehra took care of every aspect of this special event from staging performances, selling tickets for 3 weeks prior to the event, and collecting over 2 lakhs (about USD $3000)in donations from students and many other donors.
This money will provide medicine for more than a hundred animals in treatment for wounds and illnesses.
Diya and Ananyaa sold Animal Aid tee-shirts and caps, food and gave everyone who attended not only entertainment but animal protection information and inspiration. Attendees watched singers, dancers and Animal Aid rescue videos, and were moved by Diya and Ananyaa’s powerful vision of a kinder world where animals are protected by all of us.UN LAB Middleware Label: Petition Body Ends
Badly wounded but cheerful older dog, Moti thrived after his rescue
The massive hole near Moti’s ear must have hurt so badly, but his tail wagged when he greeted his rescuers and he was the best little patient ever. He had a very serious maggot wound with dozens of small tunnels bored through his flesh. We removed the maggots, cleaned and dressed the wound, changing his bandages daily for several weeks. We felt that because of his loving nature he thrived on care and attention and this helped him heal especially fast.
Street animal rescue saved darling Moti’s life. Please donate.
Celebrate the Caregivers: Shanta Bai!
Shanta Bai Gameti has been with Animal Aid for six years, cheerfully helping animals by making sure hundreds of blankets and towels are washed and hung out to dry every day so that dogs, and large animals too, can have fluffy and dry bedding. This might sound like a minor task but it is not. Even though we do have a washing machine, it can only take small loads and even those loads have to be thoroughly rinsed clean before loading. So it’s hand and muscle work. We celebrate Shanta Bai today for her enduring high spirits, serving countless animals by keeping them clean and comfy.
We thank you deeply for all you do, are, and inspire for animals.
As demonstrated by the athletes and research featured in The Game Changers, switching to a diet centered around plants can yield significant performance advantages, providing optimal fuel, increasing blood flow, making muscles more efficient, and speeding recovery by lowering inflammation. These benefits can not only be experienced by athletes, but by anyone who wants to feel and perform better in any aspect of their lives. UN LAB Middleware Label: Petition Body Ends
Hard-working muscles run primarily on glycogen, a form of carbohydrate stored in our liver and muscle. Carbohydrates, which come almost exclusively from plants, also provide our brain with its primary and preferred fuel — glucose — which helps us stay sharp and focused during intense training sessions and competitions (1).
Performance-based diets built around meat and other animal products often provide dietary fat at the expense of carbohydrates (2,3). Unlike carbohydrates, fat can’t produce energy fast enough to meet the demands of intense exercise, so diets that sacrifice carbohydrates typically impair high-intensity performance (1). Low-carbohydrate diets, including the ketogenic (keto) diet, have been shown to cause so much fatigue that they even affect our motivation to begin a training session, let alone finish it (4-6).
Protein can also be used as a fuel source, but it’s highly inefficient, wasting 20-30% of each calorie as heat (7).
All told, carbohydrates are the ideal source of energy for optimized performance, whether it’s doing squats, playing football, or running a marathon.
And as we’ll discuss later in Getting and Staying Lean, despite the common misconception that “carbs make you fat”, unrefined carbohydrates — like those found in whole plant foods, including oats, sweet potatoes, and bananas — are consistently associated with decreased body fat, another advantage for most performance goals.
Increased Blood Flow
Efficient blood flow is another cornerstone for optimized performance, since blood is how oxygen and vital nutrients reach the cells in our muscles, brain, and the rest of our body, while also helping to eliminate waste (8).
Just as the experiment conducted on three NFL players in The Game Changers revealed, a single animal-based meal can quickly thicken our blood (9), which slows down the flow of oxygen and the nutrients blood transports to the areas that need it most, including the muscles we use during exercise (10). People who avoid meat experience the opposite effect, since plant-based meals allow blood to remain fluid and flow quickly to its destination (11).
Adding insult to injury, animal-based meals can cripple our arteries, preventing them from fully opening to allow for increased blood flow. Research has shown that just two hours after eating a heavy animal-based meal, arteries can constrict by 40%, essentially causing a traffic jam. The calorie-matched plant-based meal allowed them to open freely for quick, easy transit (12).
But it isn’t just the lack of “baggage” in plant foods that help keep our blood flowing quickly; there is also a common ingredient found in plant-based foods like spinach, lettuce, carrots, and beets that actually signals our blood vessels to open, allowing more blood to flow through at a faster pace (13). This ingredient is nitrates which, unlike the cancer-causing nitrates in cured meats like bacon (14), serves another important function.
Improved Muscle Efficiency
The energy reserves our muscles use for intense training or competition are limited, and when we run out, we’ve reached the end of line. The more efficiently our muscles work, the further these energy reserves can take us.
In addition to encouraging our arteries to expand, the nitrates found in plant foods also allow our muscles to contract more efficiently, sparing their energy reserves and allowing them to accomplish more work with the same amount of effort (15). This translates into measurably better performance, whether it’s lifting weights at the gym, playing football, or running sprints (16).
Reduced Inflammation
Inflammation is our bodies’ natural immune response to injury, foreign invaders, or even exercise. In its acute form, like after spraining an ankle, coming down with a bacterial infection, or recovering from a workout, inflammation is an immediate and necessary part of the healing process. Left unchecked, or further intensified, inflammation can prolong healing time from injuries or sickness, and also increase soreness and swelling, slowing recovery between workouts and competitions.
Chronic inflammation often begins with the same cellular response, but shifts in nature when the immune system fails to heal the injury effectively, eliminate the foreign invaders, or continues to respond to a threat that no longer exists. Once it reaches this stage, inflammation often begins damaging healthy tissues, including muscles and joints (17).
Taking all of this into account, unnecessary inflammation can have a significant negative impact on our physical performance (18).
Fortunately, diet can be a powerful tool to get us through acute inflammation faster and combat chronic inflammation as well. But it can also have the opposite effect.
Animal-based diets fall into the latter category. Extensive research has shown that meat and other animal products contain (or lead to the formation of) a wide range of pro-inflammatory compounds and molecules, including bacterial endotoxins, trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), nitrosamines, heterocyclic amines (HCAs), N-Glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (19-23). If these words sound scary, you’re right: the damage they inflict can be severe, with research showing that a single hamburger can increase measures of inflammation by 70 percent (24).
Plants fall on the opposite end of this spectrum, coming naturally packed with high doses of anti-inflammatory compounds, including thousands of powerful antioxidants. The contrast between these two classes of food is dramatic, with plants having on average 64 times the antioxidant content of animal foods (25). This helps explain why switching to a plant-based diet can help reduce measures of inflammation by 29 percent in just three weeks (26).
Not surprisingly, numerous studies have shown that the anti-inflammatory nature of plant foods can help decrease soreness, reduce muscle damage, and support recovery — all of which contribute to improved performance (27-31).
Eating plants also combats the inflammation caused by animal foods (24,32). Therefore, decreasing animal foods while increasing plant foods has a dual effect: it not only replaces pro-inflammatory compounds with anti-inflammatory ones, but also frees up the beneficial plant compounds to address the inflammation caused by exercise, injury, and sickness (33).
The reduction in both acute and chronic inflammation reveals why so many plant-based athletes, including those featured in The Game Changers, report reduced DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), quicker recovery times after workouts and competitions, faster healing from injuries, reduced tendonitis and joint pain, improved immunity, and significantly increased career longevity.
Plants for the Win
Whether you’re a competitive athlete, weekend warrior, or someone who simply wants to feel and perform better in the gym, at work, or at home, eating more plants and fewer animal foods can provide powerful advantages. As we’ll see in Optimizing Health, eating a diet centered around plants can also have a dramatic effect on our health.
Signatures from overseas visitors would be most welcome and would strengthen the case – Mark.
Hi Mark,
If plans for an intensive pig farm in North Kesteven, Lincolnshire, are approved, nearly 2,000 pigs at a time will be crammed into a small building, where they’ll never be able to breathe fresh air or see daylight.
At just 20 to 24 weeks old, they’ll be packed onto a lorry and sent to the abattoir, where workers will slit their throats and leave them to bleed out.
We have only two days left to speak out against this proposal – the deadline for submitting comments is Tuesday, 1 October. Please add your name to our petition now:
More info and sample letter that you will be supporting:
Plans have been submitted to North Kesteven District Council for an intensive pig factory farm in Lincolnshire. If the proposal is approved, thousands of pigs will be sent to slaughter every year.
On factory farms, pigs are treated like machines rather than sensitive, living beings. At the proposed facility, nearly 2,000 of them at a time will be crammed into a small building, where they’ll never be able to breathe fresh air or see daylight.
Unable to behave naturally, pigs in extreme confinement often suffer from stress and frustration, which can drive them to engage in aggressive behaviour such as tail-biting, so farmers routinely cut off their tails without painkillers.
The pigs will reach their “finished weight” when they’re just 20 to 24 weeks old, at which point they’ll be packed onto a lorry and sent to the abattoir. At the end of this terrifying journey, the animals are typically stunned with electric tongs or suffocated with carbon dioxide in a gas chamber before their throats are slit and they’re left to bleed out.
Speak Out for Pigs Now
Local residents have described the proposal as an “atrocity” – they are worried about overwhelming odours, noise, and pollution and don’t want this misery on their doorstep.
Please join them in speaking out against these horrific plans by signing our petition to North Kesteven District Council:
Re: Planning application 19/1085/FUL
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To: Tom Siddons, Case Officer, North Kesteven District Council
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Dear Mr Siddons,
We are writing in relation to planning application 19/1085/FUL, which seeks permission for the construction of a pig rearing and finishing unit on land north of Station Road, Harmston, Lincoln. The building would hold as many as 1,920 pigs at a time in intensive conditions. We object to this proposal for the following reasons:
Waste from the farm – including the pigs’ excrement and spent litter and the on-site slurry tank – would likely produce strong odours, which could potentially have a negative impact on local residents’ quality of life.
Operations on the farm – including 16 extractor fans, vehicle movements to and from the facility, and the confinement of 1,920 pigs in a small building – would generate large amounts of noise, which could disturb local residents.
The 124 vehicle movements to and from the farm each year would intensify traffic in the area, potentially causing disruption for local residents.
Ammonia from the pigs’ waste would be emitted from the farm into the surrounding area, which would likely have a negative impact on air quality and potentially a detrimental effect on human health, wildlife, and the environment.
The farm would produce large amounts of slurry, which would be stored on site before being pumped overland for spreading. There would be a risk that this material would leak or spill and contaminate the surrounding area.
The new building would likely diminish the character of the rural landscape and spoil natural vistas.
Finally, the farm would cause immense suffering to the pigs confined there. Pigs are highly intelligent animals who naturally live in small family groups and enjoy playing, exploring their surroundings, foraging for food, and building nests for their offspring. On intensive farms, they are typically crammed by the hundreds into barren enclosures, where they are denied the opportunity to carry out any of these natural forms of behaviour. This extreme confinement often causes them to become highly stressed, which can drive them to engage in aggressive behaviour such as tail-biting, so farmers routinely cut off their tails and clip or grind down their sensitive teeth, often without pain relief. Ultimately, they endure a terrifying journey to the abattoir, where they are typically stunned with electric tongs or suffocated with carbon dioxide in a gas chamber before their throats are slit.
We hope you will take our objections, along with comments made by local residents, into account when making a decision on this application.
“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.” — Martin Luther King
