Category: Hunting

Lebanon-hunters target anything that comes within range of the rifle.

Lebanon – end point of bird migration: Around 500,000 hunters are officially registered in Lebanon, they are allowed to shoot 12 species of birds.

But the hunting law in the “cedar state” is mostly only on paper.
In reality, many hunters target anything that comes within range of the rifle.

Now, during the peak of the bird migration, we receive photos every day, which the perpetrators themselves post on social media.

Almost all of them show strictly protected species in Lebanon – from bee-eaters and blue-nails to ortolans and orioles to barn owls and short-toed eagles.

Fortunately, there are many nature lovers in Lebanon who do not just watch the hunters go by.
They search social media for such posts, report the perpetrators’ profiles to us and the authorities, and thus ensure prosecution.

Together with its Lebanese partner associations SPNL and MESHC, the Committee against Bird Murder will again be on site with an international bird protection team from next week.

The economic crisis in the country and the political unrest make the operation a risk – wish us luck!
The pictures are all up-to-date – they show protected migratory birds illegally shot.

The animals with which the heart is laid are ortolans, which are highly endangered almost everywhere in Europe!

https://www.facebook.com/Komitee.CABS/

And I mean…The birds are eaten – as a “second use”, so to speak.
But the motivation is the pleasure of hunting! whoever hunts, kills for sheer pleasure.
And that applies to hunters all over the world.

What state of mind can we expect in someone who cowardly shoots an animal while it is eating or breeding, although he does not need its flesh and skin to live and then call it as a “hobby”, “nature conservation”, “protection of species”, “epidemic protection” “or” tradition “?

“Hunting is just a cowardly paraphrase for particularly cowardly murder of chanchenless fellow creatures.
Hunting is a side form of human mental illness”
(Theodor Heuss, former Federal President)

We agree, it couldn’t be better said!

My best regards to all, Venus

Even locals outraged as 1400 dolphins die in Faroese hunt.

Even locals outraged as 1400 dolphins die in Faroese hunt

There has been widespread condemnation after over 1400 Atlantic white-sided dolphins were killed in the Faroe Islands last weekend, believed to be the largest number of dolphins ever killed in the country.

Much of the criticism has come from within the country where usually there is a strong defence of the hunts, which are portrayed by locals as a long-standing tradition providing a necessary supplement to their diet.

The dolphins were herded into a bay on the island of Eysturoy on Sunday after being encountered far out to sea. Even though the hunt was sanctioned by local authorities, it appears there was confusion over the number of dolphins being driven to shore with first estimates putting the number at around 200.

As a result, local reports suggest there were not enough people on the beach to kill the dolphins when it became apparent how many there actually were. The process took several hours as dolphins were left in a distressed state while their fellow pod members were killed with knives.

The meat from the hunt is traditionally distributed to local people but with so many dolphins killed, there are concerns that much of it may have to be discarded.

Find out more about whaling in the Faroe Islands

Even locals outraged as 1400 dolphins die in Faroese hunt – Whale and Dolphin Conservation (whales.org)

Regards Mark

Faroe Islands-illegal massacre of 1,428 dolphins

On September 12th, a huge school of 1,428 Atlantic white-sided dolphins was hunted and driven to their deaths for hours.

The driven hunt, the so-called grind, took place on the Faroe Islands, which belong to Denmark.
The animals were driven over a distance of approx. 45 km with speedboats and jet skis into the shallow waters near Skálabotnur, where every single animal was cruelly killed.

According to locals who shared videos and photos with Sea Shepherd, this hunt violated several Faroese laws regulating grind:

First of all, the grind supervisor responsible for this area was not informed and therefore never authorized the hunt.
Instead, the decision was made by another grind chief who was not authorized to do so.

Second, many of the participants did not have permission to participate. This permit is required in the Faroe Islands because it includes special training to ensure the rapid killing of pilot whales and dolphins.
The footage also shows that many of the dolphins were still alive and moving when they were dragged ashore with the rest of their dead school.

Thirdly, photos show that many of the dolphins were run over by motorboats and torn apart by the screws, resulting in a slow and painful death.
According to local residents, the grid was illegal and was reported to the Faroese police for these violations.

The Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet” published interviews with locals, whose full names were changed to protect their families, stating that many Faroe Islands are angry about the incident.

“I suspect that most of the dolphins will end up in the garbage or in some digging hole,” said a local.
“We should have quotas per district and not kill dolphins,” said another.

A local asked the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to investigate the incident:

“If she expresses herself critically in public, it will also be easier for the locals who want to end this barbaric tradition.”

Others fear that the international press will show the pictures of the slaughtered dolphins and that this will endanger their exports (e.g. the Faroe Islands export salmon to Germany, Great Britain, the USA and Russia).

Further information and images on our website:
https://sea-shepherd.de/…/1-428-delfine-bei-treibjagd…/

And I mean…Sea Shepherd considers this to be “the largest single hunt for dolphins or pilot whales in Faroe history” (followed by the hunt for 1,200 pilot whales in 1940) and “it is believed to be the largest single whale hunt ever documented worldwide”!

We call it mass murder.
Driven in any place that is a very wealthy European island group that has no need for meat to survive, based on secret licenses and documents, practically an illegal process, carried out by anonymous sadists and corrupt officials, who settled the crime among themselves.

An illegal massacre with no basis, no legal evidence.
Here borders were crossed and a new dimension of brutality and barbarism reached.

What the residents of the Faroe Islands can never be ashamed of

My best regards to all, Venus

UK Wrongdoing: Challenge to badger cull due as Bern Convention Bureau considers alleged breach case.

WAV Comment – No final news yet, but we will report as soon as we know.

Regards Mark

Challenge to badger cull due as Bern Convention Bureau considers alleged breach case

13 September 2021

Press Release

Complaint alleges UK Govt in breach of international wildlife treaty obligations after failing to consider cull impact on badger population

A coalition of animal protection groups will have their complaint against the UK Government, alleging a breach of an international wildlife treaty, considered by the Bern Convention as its Bureau meets this week (15 and 16 September). 

The Bern Convention, to which the UK has been a signatory since 1982, aims to ensure the conservation and protection of Europe’s wildlife, and regulates the exploitation of species listed in Appendix III, which includes badgers.

Badger Trust, Born Free Foundation, and Eurogroup for Animals allege that the UK Government’s ongoing badger culling policy places it in clear contravention of its commitments under the Convention. Their complaint challenges whether the UK Government has adequately considered the impact of mass culling of badgers on the badger population and wider biodiversity, and whether there has been any significant disease control benefits to justify the culls. 

The consideration comes just a week after the UK Government announced that badger culling will be ramped up in 2021, with seven new licences issued expanding the cull area and setting maximum kill quotas that could see the highest numbers of badgers killed in a single year since culling began. There are now 61 areas with active cull licences, covering counties from Cornwall to Cumbria, and up to 75,930 badgers could be killed in 2021 – taking the total since the cull began to well over 200,000.

Britain is home to more than 25% of the European badger population. However, with more than 140,000 badgers killed under licence since the cull policy started in 2013, and with culling set to continue until 2025 under recently confirmed UK Government plans, that population is coming under severe pressure. The case was put on “standby” by the Bern Convention in 2020, with a request for further information, the first time a complaint made against the UK Government’s badger culling policy had not been dismissed at the initial stage. 

That the UK government continues to hand out new cull licences not only lays bare claims made by British ministers to be champions for animal welfare, but only serves to showcase a bewildering level of cognitive dissonance. No evidence whatsoever supports the ongoing culls in England, which is why, I suspect, no such evidence demonstrating a disease control benefit has been produced by the British government. We now rely on the other parties to the Convention to hold the UK government to account. England’s badgers — Europe’s badgers — cannot continue to be sacrificed for domestic political expediency.

Reineke Hameleers, CEO of Eurogroup for Animals

Whilst we are grateful that our complaint is at last being reviewed, it has been two years since we initially submitted our complaint in 2019. In that time another over 76,000 badgers have been killed under this failed approach to controlling bovine Tuberculosis – a respiratory disease in cattle that starts and ends with cattle. The latest licences for 2021 alone could take the same amount again, and the cull is set to run to 2025 – so we have years and years of further culling ahead. The impact on the badger population is unknown, and seemingly inconsequential to the UK Government who claim it is coming to an end, but in reality this senseless slaughter continues. We hope for a positive outcome from the Bern Bureau, and a brighter future for Britain’s badgers.

Adam Laidlaw, Executive Director of Badger Trust

The UK Government has hailed its badger culling policy a success. However, after eight years of culling which has seen the destruction of more than 140,000 badgers, representing perhaps a quarter of the UK badger population, evidence for significant disease control benefits among cattle herds in cull areas is lacking, and the Government’s woeful efforts to estimate and monitor targeted badger populations are failing to guarantee their eventual recovery. In spite of this, the Government has issued licences for 2021 which could see a further 75,930 badgers killed. We urge the Bern Convention to take action that will help to bring this inhumane, ineffective, unscientific and unnecessary slaughter of a native, protected wild animal to a permanent end.

Dr Mark Jones, veterinarian and Head of Policy at the Born Free Foundation

ENDS


Notes
A briefing on the complaint can be viewed here.

Final information relating to the complaint was submitted by Badger Trust, Born Free, and Eurogroup for Animals, in July in advance of the meeting this week. 

The original complaint lodged with the Bern Convention in 2019 can be found here.  

Time Out – Enjoy !

Regards Mark

Hunting is a form of war

“Hunters only inspire me with revulsion. When they shoot at animals, it’s like soldiers shooting at children”Theodore Monod.

Vietnam

Hunting is always a form of war.
Hunting leads to bestiality and dehumanization.
War too
Hunting is and remains murder.
Just like the war

best regards, Venus

Mendip Farmers Hunt, Ston Easton: brutal attack on sabs

Mendip Hunt Sabs-Report

Mendip Farmers Hunt, Ston Easton, 11th Sep 2021
Thanks to local tip offs we were able to catch the Mendip Farmers Hunt out illegally hunting foxes and terrorising wildlife.

We hot-footed it off to Ston Easton (a linear village and civil parish in the English county of Somerset) to start our day.

Our supporter funded drone again proved to be worth it’s weight in gold, we were able to safely watch and record the vile blood thirsty hunt.

The hunt move off after the vicious attack on sabs.

With the drone, we watched them unboxing near a field of solar panels then separating themselves out around a maize field, lying in wait to flush fox cubs back into the maize to the jaws of the waiting, ill fed hounds.

These are the people who pass you in the street, stand next to you in a queue in Toolstation….horrible thought isn’t it?

Our two foot sabs caught up with Huntsman Hickmott on horseback with hounds et al on Thickthorne Lane. They turned into a field adjacent to Burnt House Farm where almost instantly the hounds picked up the scent of a fox and went into cry.

Our two foot sabs quickly made their way up the field on the public footpath following the terrible, overlapping, dreadful, screaming cacophony of the hounds now in fully cry.

Our two remaining sabs quickly made their way up the farm track, desperately spraying citronella both sides of the hedgerow and rating the hounds. The hounds began to hesitate and back off of the line but the hunts’ blood thirst was too strong.

Some of the gang of thug terriermen laughing post-attack as Hickmott departs with his hounds in the background.

Huntsman, Matthew Hickmott encouraged the hounds with voice calls, brrrs and fast horn blows and the remaining hounds poured through the hedgerow, across the dusty farm track and ran into the yard. The sound of encouragement from the field riders and hunt supporters was sickening to the core.

As these two sabs rounded the corner of the barn the dreadful sight of a fox being ripped apart alive by a pack of writhing hounds faced them. The hounds were packed in a chaotic pile all over the structure where the fox had taken cover. The screaming mass of hounds trampled over each other, climbing through, over and into the structure in the yard. On their right Tim Pullen and the approaching farmer. Ahead near the hounds Kevin Stevens.

Stevens, surprised at the swift appearance of our witnesses began to shout “GET OUT! THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY! GET OUT!” Then from behind a farm building on the left Matthew Hickmott walked forward on his horse his eyes on the still squirming, screaming hounds.

His satisfied expression changed instantly when he saw our sabs.

Continue reading “Mendip Farmers Hunt, Ston Easton: brutal attack on sabs”

France: in spite of the ban ortolane are still drowned and eated!

Before the law one could achieve a victory and enforce a ban on the questionable “culinary delights” after previous animal cruelty unparalleled, but unfortunately this un-tradition is still practiced illegally.

We are talking about a custom from France in which protected songbirds – Ortolane or garden bunting – are mistreated and eaten.


The garden bunting is a songbird that overwinters in Africa and flies thousands of kilometers to breed with us. The slightly larger than sparrow-sized bird with the yellow throat, also called Ortolan, was never common in Germany – and is becoming increasingly rare.
One reason for this is its flight route.

On their strenuous journey around the Mediterranean Sea, the animals have to make a stopover in southern France to recover.
That will doom for thousands of them.
Because the French love Ortolans. Not because they are beautiful to look at or because they sing adorable.
But because they taste good.
The animals end up as a precious specialty in the palate of wealthy gourmets.

The well-heeled French upper class has these animals caught and fattened for 3 weeks in the dark so that the little birdies put on fat and mutate into so-called “fat bangers”.

They are then drowned in Armagnac so that the birds can take in plenty of it.
Then the birds are fried in fat in a special saucepan and put into their mouths whole by gourmets with skin and bones and chewed.

Continue reading “France: in spite of the ban ortolane are still drowned and eated!”

UK-Hunters love being criminals

Disturbing footage shows the moment a pack of crazed hounds appeared to savage a fox to death during a hunt.

Members of the Warwickshire Hunt were filmed by saboteurs allegedly using their dogs to tear the creature to pieces in Chadshunt, Warks., on Monday (6/9).

Graphic video footage shows dozens of hounds swarming around bushes in a field before clambering over each other to rip away chunks of flesh.

Meanwhile, huntsmen stand around and sit on horseback – appearing to do little to call off the attack as the dogs drag pieces of the dead animal away.

West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs said the prestigious hunt met in Kineton, Warks., at around 6am and claim they later deliberately sought out the nearby fox den.

A spokesperson for the group said: “This was no ‘accident’, the Warwickshire Hunt can’t claim they accidentally came across this fox.

“There was no pretence at even laying and following a trail. The huntsman has been at the Warwickshire Hunt for a long time now and will know his hunt country well.

“The fact that he headed across the road and straight up to what he would have known was an active fox den shows that this was very much a deliberate act of hunting.

Killed it
“He then let his hounds run up and down it until inevitably they found the fox and killed it.
“At no point prior to the hounds killing the fox did the huntsman or anyone from the hunt stop the hounds.
“Members of the hunt were all happy for the hounds to be running up and down an area that contained a fox den.

“What is most shocking about this apart from the fact that a fox was brutally ripped apart by a pack of hounds is the complete casualness and nonchalance of those involved and watching.
“No one rushes over to stop the hounds.
“The riders just stand watching before casually moving on to the next bit of land to hunt as if a fox being killed is an everyday normal occurrence.”

The Hunting Act has banned the hunting of mammals with dogs in England and Wales since 2004.
The Warwickshire Hunt and Warwickshire Police have both been contacted for comment.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/shocking-moment-pack-of-dogs-tear-fox-cub-to-pieces-on-hunt-289116/

And I mean……when hunters look for foxes in their only refuge where they breed their pups in order to brutally kill entire fox families as part of the construction hunt with dogs or to catch fox babies in order to shoot them ..

… when dogs or packs of dogs tear foxes break up family associations of foxes or wild boars and mangle newborns …
…when hunters massacre even highly pregnant wild animals ..
… when hunters armed with semi-automatic weapons, infrared or thermal imaging technology go to war against animals..

then… we speak of psychopaths who enjoy killing defenseless animals (negligent homicide = murder)

In practice, hunting is a conscious, knowingly, willful cruelty to animals that is guided by lower motives, and is solely for the perverse pleasure of some psychopaths.

Most of the alleged government are fox hunters themselves. They love being criminals.
The only illegal activity supported by the government and the police is that of the hunters.

My best regards to all, Venus

Scotland (UK): Revealed: Fox hunting foot packs & wildlife crime on Scotland’s public land.

Dear Mark,

Shockingly, our latest Freedom of Information request to Forestry Land Scotland (FLS) has revealed that FLS has continued to allow fox hunting foot packs access on Scotland’s public lands despite our previous exposé last spring. 

The FOI also reveals that FLS have been unable to stop ongoing wildlife crime which has been taking place on Scotland’s public lands since 2016, and is suspected to be gamekeeper-led.

External reports of ‘out of control’ hounds in the FOI also highlight just how weak Scotland’s fox hunting legislation is and why reform is urgently needed.

The majority of the Scottish public are opposed to fox hunting, and so, as the public body responsible for promoting Scotland’s land, we believe that FLS should amend its fox control policy to reflect public opinion. Fox hunting in any form should not be permitted on Scotland’s public lands. 

Read the expose here:

Revealed: Fox hunting foot packs & wildlife crime on Scotland’s public land

Read here:

Revealed: Fox hunting foot packs & wildlife crime on Scotland’s public land (onekind.scot)

Support the campaigns:

WAV – This is a foxhunting link, not exports – we have no control:

Support our campaign to ban live exports (netdonor.net)

Onekind site – OneKind | Improving Animal Welfare Across Scotland and the UK

The Scottish Government has also committed to reforming Scotland’s fox hunting legislation in this parliamentary session to make it more effective and enforceable. We will be urging the government not to license any packs of dogs and to end fox hunting for good. 

If you would like to help us raise awareness of the ongoing use of fox hunting foot packs on FLS land, click here for a pre-written tweet. You can also click here to share the exposé directly to your Facebook page

Our campaigns are funded by donations. If you would like to help strengthen our campaign even further, you can donate here.

Together let’s use our voices to take a stand against fox hunting in Scotland.

Best,

Eve

Regards Mark

UK: Petition – Strengthen the 2004 Hunting Act.

Strengthen the 2004 Hunting Act

Add your support at:

Petition · Strengthen the 2004 Hunting Act · Change.org

At least 84% of the UK population are in favour of fox hunting being illegal and yet there were attempts to weaken the act. The Act needs strengthening to ensure people are discouraged from participating in illegal hunting and for those caught hunting, the penalty and arrest needs to be more severe.

 We would like to see section 6 of the Act to be amended to add provision for a prison sentence of up to six months for illegal hunting. Additionally there should be a ‘reckless’ clause which will make it an offence for anyone to ’cause or permit’ one or more dogs to seek out, chase, injure or kill a wild mammal. The widespread flouting of the ban continues to this day and these measures along with several other reforms could ensure our wildlife is protected as it should be.

For more details on necessary amendments to strengthen the 2004 hunting Act, please follow this link which features a Hunting Act Amendment Bill.


http://campaigntostrengthenthehuntingact.com/powa-proposals-for-amendments-2.php

Regards Mark