Not much, but …. please watch the video (link below)

Volunteers in Turkey Try to Save Animals Trapped in Rubble After Devastating Earthquake

Volunteers from Turkey’s Animal Rights Federation are working to save animals trapped under the rubble or abandoned in apartment buildings after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country last week. Footage from AP.

Click here to see the video footage:

Volunteers in Turkey Try to Save Animals Trapped in Rubble After Devastating Earthquake (yahoo.com)

Regards Mark

Animal rights group blasts Pope, Krajewski for circus outing with elephants

ROME – As the saying goes, “no good deed goes unpunished.” It’s a sentiment with which Pope Francis and his top official for charitable activity, Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, may have a special sensitivity right now.

Thinking he was doing something nice for the poor, Krajewski took them to the circus over the weekend and now finds himself facing a protest from an animal rights group, which believes such spectacles amount to human beings subjecting animals to “painful constraints” for our own amusement.

On Saturday, Krajewski organized an outing for more than 200 poor and marginalized persons at Rome, taking them to a performance of the Rony Roller circus, a famed spectacle in the Eternal City that features musical performances, clowns, trapeze artists, animal tamers, and jugglers. The invitation was extended in the name of Pope Francis.

The guest list for Saturday’s performance included refugees, homeless persons, inmates, families with children from Ukraine, Syria, Congo and Sudan, as well squatters from various occupied buildings in Rome, all accompanied by a number of volunteers, including Missionaries of Charity sisters of Mother Teresa.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski lies on stage while an elephant climbs over him during a Fab. 11 performance of Rony Roller Circus in Rome. (Credit: Screen capture.)

The event was part of an ongoing effort by Krajewski to offer not just material aid to the poor, but also opportunities for relaxation and amusement. Over the summers, for instance, he’s used a van to transport small groups of homeless persons from the area around the Vatican to a nearby beach, offering them an afternoon of surf and pizza.

During Saturday’s performance, one highlight came when Krajewski volunteered to stretch out on a stage and allow an elephant to climb over him, the idea being to demonstrate how well-trained the massive pachyderm actually is.

“Making participation in this show possible is a way to give a few hours of serenity to those who face a hard life, and who need help to find hope,” Krajewski said in advance.

Less than 24 hours afterwards, Francis and Krajewski found themselves facing a complaint from the “International Organization for the Protection of Animals,” a non-governmental organization founded in Italy in 1981 which has long objected to the use of animals in circus performances.

“I’m sorry that the pope somehow is sponsoring a circus with animals,” said Massimo Comparotto, the organization’s president, in a statement on Sunday.

“The pontiff often has expressed the importance of a greater respect for nature, above all in the encyclical Laudato si’ of 2015,” Comparotto said. “This choice seems contradictory to his so-called ‘ecological magisterium.’”

“Behind the exercises of the circus performances can be hidden deprivation, mistreatment and suffering for the animals, who live in captivity, behind bars, with limited space available and constantly under stress,” he said.

“They’re animals forced into a life that’s against nature,” Comparotto said.

The statement said the organization has no problem with circuses with human performers, such as jugglers, clowns and acrobats, who, the statement said, “display human talent and not the painful constraints of sentient beings forced by humans to put on a show with the force of heavy training.”

At the same time, Comparotto complained that Pope Francis in the past has suggested that human life is more important than other animals.

“In 2016, he affirmed that facing an injured animal, one feels pity, not mercy,” Comparotto said. “Often he’s put love for animals in opposition to love for children, as if love were something limited, which can be exhausted.”

“He receives and blesses circus performers in the Vatican who keep animals in captivity and force them into the role of clowns,” Comparotto said. “In sum, this is a pope not exactly on the side of the animals.”

“Those who feel that life is sacred love all life, beyond species,” Comparotto said.

Over the years, circus performers have been frequent guests at Vatican events. During the Great Jubilee year of 2000 under Pope John Paul II, a special day for circus performers and traveling shows was among the last events on the jubilee calendar.

Pope Francis has also hosted circus performers in the Vatican, welcoming some 6,000 of them during the Jubilee of Mercy in 2016. In the same year, he also sponsored a special performance of the Rony Roller for 2,000 poor and homeless persons, which opened with a song by a Spanish vocalist who had once been homeless himself.

Animal rights group blasts Pope, Krajewski for circus outing with elephants | Crux (cruxnow.com)

Regards Mark

England: Remembering Vicki Moore –  British Animal Activist – Died 6/2/2000. “The fleece of the lamb could not hide the teeth of the wolf.”

By Danny Penman

VICKI MOORE was a leading light in the animal-rights movement and a tireless campaigner against bloodsports across the world. Even the most vociferous of bullfighters acknowledged her determination and bravery.

Moore first hit the headlines in 1987 when she saved Blackie the donkey. Blackie was destined to be crushed to death in Villa Nueva de la Vera, Spain, during the village’s annual fiesta. Every year, the villagers forced a donkey to carry the fattest man around the streets until the unfortunate creature was crushed and died of exhaustion.

After hearing of the donkey’s plight, Moore vowed to stop the festival. Sensing a fight, Britain’s tabloid newspapers all despatched reporters to the fiesta. Within hours of their arrival, rival newspapers started out-bidding each other to buy Blackie and fly him to a British donkey sanctuary.

Over the ensuing days, television crews and journalists from all over the world arrived in the tiny village. Drama soon descended into farce when Blackie was sold to both the Sun and the Star simultaneously. The resulting confusion led to a fist-fight between rival photographers and bitter exchanges between their editors. Moore settled their claims in characteristic style by declaring that “everyone had helped save Blackie”.

She was born Victoria Seel. Her mother was a club singer and gave birth to her daughter whilst touring Northamptonshire in 1956. Vicki followed in her mother’s footsteps and left home in London at the age of 18 and worked as a bunny-girl at the Kingsway club in Southport. It was here that she met Tony Moore, her future husband. The pair married when she was 20 and formed their own band. In the late Seventies, the couple became involved with the RSPCA and soon had a house full of rescued animals.

The publicity generated by Blackie’s rescue in 1987 turned the spotlight on Spain’s blood fiestas. Moore realised that nations could be humbled by exposing their cruel truth to the outside world. To do this she and Tony set up Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe in September 1987 in their Southport home. At great risk to herself, she exposed the scale of animal suffering in the blood fiestas using the simple power of the home video camera.

Her first video expose focused on the village of Manganeses de la Polvorosa in 1989. Every year, the villagers celebrated the feast of St Anthony by dropping a live goat off the church tower. Once captured on video, and shown to a horrified world, the festival was quickly outlawed by the Spanish government. Later she would pose as a tourist at fiestas across Spain, all the while gathering the evidence to shut them down. It was during one of her campaigns that she suffered the injuries which eventually led to her death.

In June 1995, in Coria, she was gored by a bull being chased through the village streets. Argentino inflicted massive injuries and no one expected her to survive. But her spirit refused to be cowed. Her first words after regaining consciousness were, “What happened to the bull?” When she discovered the bull’s name, she giggled: her favourite song was “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”. In subsequent years, when the pain of her injuries became too great, she would quietly call on the spirit of Argentino to help her.

Despite her ongoing suffering, requiring constant medication, Moore continued to fight for animal liberation. She was a determined campaigner against hunting, and never tired of reminding Labour politicians of their promise to ban blood sports. She also took the fight against bullfighting to Macao.

Vicki Moore’s life was, perhaps, best summed up by a Spanish newspaper after she was gored by Argentino: “The fleece of the lamb could not hide the teeth of the wolf.”

Victoria Lucille Seel, animal-rights campaigner: born Western Favel, Northamptonshire 24 December 1956; married 1977 Tony Moore; died Liverpool 6 February 2000.

Copyright 2000 Newspaper Publishing PLC

Regards Mark

Obituary: Vicki Moore (indexarticles.com)