The discovery of the pirate whaling ship followed a reported pirate attack on another vessel in the area earlier this month. After deploying anti-pirate forces — including aircraft and ships — to further investigate, officials confirmed that the whalers were active, not only slaughtering these marine giants illegally but posing a direct threat to legitimate vessels in the area.
The crew of ESPS Castilla tracked this illegal vessel to a small bay, where they seized it, removed the crew, and towed it out to sea to be destroyed.
“Using the resources of Op Atalanta we were able to identify, track and destroy the equipment of a Pirate Action Group making it harder for them to attack maritime shipping in the future,” said Admiral Nanclares of EU NAVFOR. “We will continue to deter and prevent acts of piracy with every chance we get in order to ensure vulnerable shipping and their crews remain safe while they transit the Western Indian Ocean”.
Operation Atalanta is a European counter-piracy military initiative aimed at fighting the massive problem of piracy around the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. In addition to this, they monitor illegal fishing activity in the area.
The Gulf of Aden was once teeming with marine life, home to a wide variety of whales and dolphins. Now, only a handful remain, thanks to decades of overhunting by countries like Japan and the Soviet Union.
Commercial whaling was banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986, but Iceland and Norway continue the process in objection to the mandate, while Japan exploits the loophole of “scientific whaling,” slaughtering hundreds of whales every year under the guise of research.
While both commercial and illegal whale hunting are barbaric, at least there’s one fewer ship roaming the oceans, thanks to Operation Atalanta.
We are delighted to announce that we, together with government and private sector partners, have officially opened Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary – the world’s first orangutan island sanctuary, complete with natural forest vegetation!
We also saw the transfer of the first six «unreleaseable» orangutans to call the island their new home. Read the full success story here.
This achievement gives us much hope for future orangutan conservation efforts.
We are so grateful for your support. Thank You!
With gratitude, Dr. Jamartin Sihite
CEO of BOS Foundation
BOS Foundation together with government and private sector partners, has officially opened Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary, located on one of the islands in the Salat Nusa island cluster, in Pulang Pisau Regency, Central Kalimantan. The official opening of Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary—the world’s first orangutan island sanctuary complete with natural forest vegetation— and saw the transfer of the first six unreleaseable orangutans that will call Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary their new home.
Pulang Pisau, November 5, 2018: Rehabilitated orangutans must meet certain criteria before they can be reintroduced to the wild: They must be of suitable age, be in good health, possess the appropriate survival skills, and exhibit natural, wild behaviours. At the BOS Foundation’s Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, there are a number of orangutans who, despite being of suitable age and in good health, lack the skills and behaviours required to be released to the wild. The under-development in these orangutans, who are categorised as ‘unreleasables’, is the direct result of being kept in captivity for too long. However, this does not mean these orangutans are destined for a life behind bars; the BOS Foundation has helped secure a better future for them by working in cooperation with a number of stakeholders to prepare Badak Kecil Island as a special, orangutan sanctuary island with natural forest vegetation for ‘unreleasable’ orangutans.
Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary was officially opened, immediately followed by the transfer of six ‘unreleasable’ orangutans to the new sanctuary. By Law, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia should ensure that all protected wildlife can live freely and prosperously in their respective habitats. Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary is a haven for orangutans that was carefully prepared through cooperation between the BOS Foundation, the Indonesian Government, and PT. Sawit Sumber Mas Sarana (SSMS) Tbk., with support from BOS Foundation’s international partner organisations and WAP. Being ‘unreleasable’ does not mean that we should give up on these orangutans. On the contrary, we should be locating safe environments for them to thrive in.
Badak Kecil Island is a 104-hectare, forest-covered island in the Salat Nusa Island cluster, which covers a total area of 2,089 hectares. It is jointly managed by the BOS Foundation and PT. SSMS, with the aim of creating semi-natural island facilities for the final stage of the orangutan rehabilitation process (pre-release islands), and creating a sanctuary for orangutans that cannot be released to the wild. The area chosen has a large carrying capacity and well-maintained vegetation; is isolated by river waterways throughout the year; does not have an existing wild orangutan population; and can facilitate orangutan adaptation and socialisation.
Vallauthan Subraminam, President Director of PT. Sawit Sumbermas Sarana Tbk., added; “Through this collaboration, the BOS Foundation has implemented best practices in terms of orangutan rehabilitation and sanctuary management. Meanwhile, PT. SSMS has the role of providing thousands of hectares of land and infrastructure for conservation activities, including platforms, buildings, and canals to separate the islands.”
Dr. Ir. Jamartin Sihite, MSc., CEO of the BOS Foundation said; “We have been planning to use Badak Kecil Island as a sanctuary for unreleasable orangutans since 2016, and now we will finally get to see the first group of unreleasables moved there.
We are delighted that these orangutans will get the chance to enjoy life on Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary, but we must stress that we still need more sanctuary facilities, we still need more release sites, and we need increased commitment and the participation of all stakeholders to better protect our forests to prevent orangutans from being driven away from their natural habitats in the first place.”
The six orangutans to be released in the first transfer to this sanctuary island include Moncos (a 20-year-old male), Yasmine (female, 23), Manis (female, 22), Caesar (male, 28), Mama Lasa (female, 26), and Pepsi (female, 21). All six will be protected, observed, and supplemented with food by our team of BOS Foundation technicians for the rest of their lives.
The establishment of the Badak Kecil Island Orangutan Sanctuary has created economic opportunities for local communities who are providing the transportation services for the orangutan food and water, and managing the accommodation facilities (provided by PT. SSMS) for staff and visitors coming to the sanctuary and the surrounding islands in the Salat Nusa island cluster.
Founded in 1991, the BOS Foundation is a non-profit Indonesian organisation dedicated to the conservation of Bornean orangutans and their natural habitats, working together with local communities, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia, and international partner organizations.
The BOS Foundation currently cares for almost 550 orangutans in two rehabilitation centres, with the support of 440 highly dedicated staff members and experts in the fields of primatology, biodiversity, ecology, forest rehabilitation, agroforestry, community empowerment, communications, education, and orangutan welfare. For further information, please visit www.orangutan.or.id.
ABOUT WORLD BRANDING AWARD
The World Branding Award is an annual event organised by The World Branding Forum, a registered non-profit organisation in England and Wales. Awards are only presented to the very top household names, recognised globally and in their home countries. The BOS Foundation thanks those who supported and voted for our organisation.
WAV Comment – What fantastic news – congratulations to all involved.
A compassionate veterinarian from Monchique in Portugal has found a novel way to turn trash into treasure, repurposing old washing machines as shelters for stray cats throughout the town.
Ann Silva came up with the idea when she was caring for two little kittens in her vet practice. The adventurous pair curled up inside a broken washing machine destined for collection in the backyard and made themselves right at home.
“I put in some blankets, and they’ve never left,” said Silva.
Silva regularly sterilizes stray cats and returns them to their colonies, but often worries about them not having shelter to rest and recover. She decided that this was the perfect solution.
After getting permission from the local council, Silva began depositing unwanted, broken washing machines around the town. The machines are decorated with art created by local students and graffiti artists to transform them into funky street art. By involving local children from the local community, Silva hopes to teach them that cats are not harmful and instill the values of compassion and empathy for the future.
There are five of these stylish cat “houses” dotted around town now — spread out through residential areas and one at a local school — but Silva is hoping to grow the initiative further and is accepting donations of old washing machines and dryers.
“The project has only just started so we are welcoming donations and soon hope to place more shelters for our cats.”
The machines make fantastic shelters for the stray cats, keeping them warm in winter and cool in the hot summer months.
The veterinarian also says it’s much easier to keep tabs on and care for the stray cat populations in the area; she was able to sterilize an impressive 50 cats in only one week this month.
PETITION TARGET: Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is moving forward with plans to torture and murder dogs in a series of horrific experiments.
In these gruesome and cruel tests right out of the dark ages, dogs are sliced open, paralyzed, traumatized and then put down once they are no longer “useful.”
·Placing electrodes on dogs’ spinal cords and inducing coughing. Then the spinal cord is severed, and testing continues.
·Pacemakers are implanted, then researchers purposely induce abnormal heart beats, create heart attacks and block the dogs’ arteries with latex. The nerves that assist the brain in controlling their hearts are severed. The dogs are then forced to run on treadmills to further stress their hearts.
These innocent animals suffer from immense physical pain and emotional distress. Once the research is complete, all the dogs are killed.
In spite of the controversy surrounding these gruesome experiments and continued pressure from both lawmakers and animal advocacy groups, the VA continues to subject dogs to these unethical and needless tests. We must speak out to end this travesty.
Sign this petition urging Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie to stop these experiments, and turn his focus to finding humane research methods that do not involve animal torture.
(From Helmut F. Kaplan (Austrian animal ethicist and philosopher)
“Animals are my friends … and I do not eat my friends,” said George Bernard Shaw.
Not only does it sound logical, but it is – and means nothing more than: animal lovers must become vegans!
On the other hand is often objected: It may indeed be correct in principle, no animals to eat. But if I’m going to become a single vegan now, that does not change anything, that’s not important at all. Who says that, should remember:
Every day thousands of people are killed in the world. So it would not matter if I killed one too. Nevertheless, we do not think and act that way!
The animal industry is not the only area where things pass that we condemn, without being able to directly influence them right now: the arms race, for example, was no different. What did those do who opposed it? They have demonstrated against it. To become a vegan is also a kind of demonstration: It demonstrates that it is wrong to torture and kill sentient beings for such banal purposes as our tastes. Here, veganism is not just a demonstration, but the most important and urgent one: No one can convince another of the correctness of a thing that he does not practice himself!
None of the great movements against injustice and oppression, such as against slavery, racism or sexism, would ever have been brought to life (let alone be successful) if their representatives had only fought if they were sure of their success!
For all the great crimes of human history, the participants have subsequently justified themselves in this way: what should I have done as an individual? It was not all about me!
Of course it is all about each individual: Who does not become part of the solution, remains part of the problem! But anyone can stop participating in this slaughter of animals at any time. Anyone can immediately stop participating in this war against the innocent and the defenseless.
Government of China President Xi Jimping United Nations
Yesterday I read that a mother bear escaped from her cage and drowned her baby to save her from a lifetime of suffering in a bile farm, then killed herself by banging her head against a wall.I cry and I still get goose bumps when I think about that scene and all that these bears suffer in these places where they are “milked” bile throughout their lives until they die from exhaustion or some infection from open wounds that have. Imagine living that way for more than 30 years, I would also think about committing suicide.
In many countries in Asia, such as China, there are these farms where the bears live in small cages called “crush” that are deliberately small so that the animals can not move, constantly hooked to a catheter that drains the bile while the animals live constantly drugged.
The bears that survive this constant torture of decades, unable to produce more bile, are killed and their body is sold.
It is time for all of us to fight to end these farms of torture, abuse and death.
PETITION TARGET: Australian Ambassador to the US Joe Hockey
Locked away in the laundry room without water or food, desperately crying for help while forced to wallow in a pool of urine and feces for two weeks — we can only imagine the immense fear, pain, and trauma endured by two dogs that suffered this fate in the suburb of Albury, New South Wales, Australia.
By the time RSPCA staff discovered two-year-old Staffy cross Benji and six-month-old Ruby the Kelpie last year, it was too late: their stiff bodies clinging to each other for comfort, both animals had died from a combination of starvation and dehydration, with their guardian, 21-year-old Kimberly Thi-My Atwell, admitting she hadn’t given them food or water for 11 days.
Atwell appeared in court this week to face the consequences of this appalling abuse.
Her punishment? A fine of $144 and 80 hours of community service, along with a ban on owning animals for only five years.
This paltry sentence, handed down by Magistrate Rodney Brender at the Albury local court, is nowhere near fitting for this extent of cruelty. Such a slap on the wrist sends a dangerous message that those who torture and kill animals will face hardly any consequences at all.
Sign this petition urging the Australian government to push for stronger laws — and stiffer enforcement — in the state of New South Wales and throughout Australia, so animals are protected from cruelty and shocking crimes like this are treated with the severity they deserve.
Target: Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China
Goal: Prevent China from overturning a ban on the trade of endangered tiger and rhino parts.
Rhinos and tigers could soon go extinct if a trade ban is overturned in China. The Chinese government has announced plans to reverse a 25-year-old ban on the trade of rhino and tiger parts. According to the news reports, the Cabinet cloaked their intentions in promises of “controlling the trade” and that they would merely be making exceptions for “special circumstances;” these circumstances operate on the claim that rhino horns and tiger bones are essential to medical research and practices.
The World Wildlife Fund predicts “devastating consequences globally” should this ban be removed. Not only are rhinos and tigers among the most threatened species on the planet, but there is no concrete evidence of these parts’ effectiveness in health care or medicine. Thousands of these animals have died for nothing beyond a profit; only roughly 3,000 tigers remain and 30,000 rhinos, with the latter’s numbers dropping year by year. To make matters worse, the ban has been very lax in the past, with the government only seriously cracking down in recent years.
We cannot allow China to deplete the remaining rhino and tiger population for the sake of monetary gain and a medical myth that has yet to be and may never be proven true. Sign this petition to demand China keep the ban on the trade of these animals’ parts in place.
Your government’s plan to overturn the 1990s-era ban on the trade of rhino and tiger parts could wipe out both species entirely within just a few short years. The Cabinet has claimed they will only make exceptions and promised to “control the trade;” the main reasoning is said to be the belief that rhino horns and tiger bones are essential to medical research and practices.
You cannot allow this ban to be reversed. Too many poachers have managed to keep the trade going in spite of it, with the laws only recently tightening to stop their black market operations. The number of living rhinos is dropping every year, and only roughly 3,000 tigers remain in the world. You must keep the ban on this trade in place and protect what remains of both these species.
As the English say – “remember, remember, the 5th of November – a gunpowder treason and plot; there is no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot”.
Why ? – to celebrate the ‘Gunpowder plot’ – or ‘Guy Fawkes night’.
Guy Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.
The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight on 4 November 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot’s discovery, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing battle Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
A gruesome death
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a statutory penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reigns of King Henry III (1216–1272) and his successor, Edward I (1272–1307).
Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death),emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such asLondon Bridge. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
WAV Comment – many people were behind the views of Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators – he was an explosives expert for his time. His actions were betrayed by a letter sent in secret. There is a saying in England today – “Come back Guy Fawkes; all is forgiven !”.
With the political system as it is now, many feel the need for a major overhaul of the system.
