Farm Animals, Hunting

Austria: Minister of Agriculture wants wolves to be shot

Austria’s Minister of Agriculture, Elisabeth Köstinger, in a broadcast called for the “removal”, i.e. killing, of wolves that keep killing sheep and goats.

This is legally possible (!!)

Elisabeth Köstinger

The wolf debate also reached the federal capital.
Agriculture Minister Elisabeth Köstinger of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) took a political stand on Friday against the demands of the green coalition partner and behind those of the farmers who are calling for problem wolves to be shot down.

“If no action is taken now and problem wolves are removed, the local alpine pastures will soon no longer be able to be cultivated,” the minister said in a broadcast (!!!)

Across Austria, wolves had killed around 200 animals in the past few weeks.
In Salzburg, three wolves killed at least 75 sheep – around 25 are still missing.
The alpine farmers see it as “cruelty to animals such as would not have happened in the past hundred years” (!!!)

On Thursday they vented their anger at a rally in Salzburg’s old town.
Again and again they speak of the fact that the wolf falls into a “blood frenzy” when it rips off their animals.

Hubert Stock, the state’s wolf commissioner, describes this as a natural hunting behavior.
“It seems irrational, but as long as something is moving, the wolf hunts.”

In order to protect their animals, many farmers have not driven their sheep and goats up to the alpine pastures this year – or have already driven them down again.

Instead of in the heights, the animals are now housed on the fenced winter pasture near their farms.

ÖVP Provincial Councilor Josef Schwaiger points out the consequences for tourism: If animals no longer graze on the alpine pastures, the hiking trails would be covered with bushes.

Minister Köstinger also emphasizes the possible consequences of wolf cracks for the tourist use of alpine pastures and hiking trails.

“The peaceful coexistence of wolves and alpine farming is an illusion. Wolves are predators that often strike indiscriminately and kill alpine cattle.” (!!)

The Minister of Agriculture also points out that the “removal” – that is, killing – of individual problem wolves is legally “entirely possible”.

Even if the wolf is strictly protected according to the EU nature protection directive, the fauna-flora-habitat directive.
It says that all “deliberate forms of capture and killing” are banned in the EU.
Exceptions to this guideline are possible, however, if individual wolves would lead to “damage in particular to crops and animal husbandry as well as to forests”.

The State Council now wants to define conditions and areas of action by ordinance.
However, he should not get the necessary approval from the Greens. They spoke out against the regulation in advance.
The nature conservation organization WWF also criticized the demands of Agriculture Minister Köstinger.

“The wolf is a strictly protected species and an important part of intact nature,” says the WWF.
Instead of discussing the shooting of problem wolves, there should be nationwide coordinated herd protection programs as well as “a revival of shepherd life based on the Swiss model”.

https://www.sn.at/salzburg/politik/friedliche-koexistenz-ist-eine-illusion-ministerin-ist-fuer-den-abschuss-des-wolfes-106352221

And I mean…Shepherds howl when wolves, bears or eagles steal a sheep from them, but I have never seen a shepherd cry in front of a three-story truck that carries sheep hundreds of miles on top of each other through a heat of 35 ° or even 40 °.
They are the same animals that the farmer gives for slaughter anyway.
Because the farmers keep animals for economic reasons.

Grazing animals are also ultimately brutally killed in slaughterhouses without any control and carted into the mobile coffins on all the highways of the world.
And that is also subsidized.

Wolves make grazing animals impossible?
Whta an outrageous lie!
Wild animals make up just 3% of the total biomass of terrestrial vertebrates on earth!
The rest is “useful” animals + people!

According to the Federal Statistical Office, an average of more than two million animals are slaughtered in Germany every day.
Per day!

So … not even whole wild animals around the world would be able to do that in a hundred years !!

Wolves do not practice brutal mass animal husbandry, they either eat what is there or starve to death.

But the farmer’s knitting pattern is always the same: dissemination of incorrect or incomplete information, coupled with targeted scaremongering.

Köstinger is Vice President of the Austrian Farmers’ Union.
That can explain some of the reasons why she calls for the “removal” of the wolf.
To date, no Minister of Agriculture in Austria has supported farmers and hunters as outrageously as Köstinger.

Perhaps the Minister’s “removal” would be the best choice for humans and animals.

My best regards to all, Venus

Environmental, General News

Canada: ‘Heat dome’ probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say.

Dead mussels at the waterline in British Columbia.
Dead mussels at the waterline in British Columbia. Photograph: Christopher Harley

‘Heat dome’ probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say

‘Heat dome’ probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say | Canada | The Guardian

British Columbia scientist says heat essentially cooked mussels: ‘The shore doesn’t usually crunch when you walk’

More than 1 billion marine animals along Canada’s Pacific coast are likely to have died from last week’s record heatwave, experts warn, highlighting the vulnerability of ecosystems unaccustomed to extreme temperatures.

The “heat dome” that settled over western Canada and the north-western US for five days pushed temperatures in communities along the coast to 40C (104F) – shattering longstanding records and offering little respite for days.

The intense and unrelenting heat is believed to have killed as many as 500 people in the province of British Columbia and contributed to the hundreds of wildfires currently burning across the province.

But experts fear it also had a devastating impact on marine life.

Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia, has calculated that more than a billion marine animals may have been killed by the unusual heat.

A walk along a Vancouver-area beach highlighted the magnitude of devastation brought on by the heatwave, he said.

“The shore doesn’t usually crunch when you walk on it. But there were so many empty mussel shells lying everywhere that you just couldn’t avoid stepping on dead animals while walking around,” he said.

Harley was struck by the smell of rotting mussels, many of which were in effect cooked by the abnormally warm water. Snails, sea stars and clams were decaying in the shallow water. “It was an overpowering, visceral experience,” he said.

While the air around Vancouver hovered around the high 30s (about 100F), Harley and a student used infrared cameras to record temperatures above 50C (122F) along the rocky shore.

“It was so hot when I was out with a student that we collected data for a little bit and then retreated to the shade and ate frozen grapes,” said Harley. “But of course, the mussels, sea stars and clams don’t have that option.”Mussels are hardy shellfish, tolerating temperatures into the high 30s. Barnacles are even sturdier, surviving the mid-40s (about 113F) for at least a few hours.

“But when the temperatures get above that, those are just unsurvivable conditions,” he said.

The mass death of shellfish would temporarily affect water quality because mussels and clams help filter the sea, Harley said, keeping it clear enough that sunlight reaches the eelgrass beds while also creating habitats for other species.

“A square meter of mussel bed could be home to several dozen or even one hundred species,” he said. The tightly bunched way mussels live also informed Harley’s calculation of the scope of the loss.

“You can fit thousands on to an area the size of a stove top. And there are hundreds of kilometres of rocky beach that are hospitable to mussels. Each time you scale up, the numbers just keep getting bigger and bigger. And that’s just mussels. A lot of sea life would have died.”

While mussels can regenerate over a period of two years, a number of starfish and clams live for decades, and they reproduce more slowly, so their recovery is probably going to take longer.

Harley has also received reports from colleagues of dead sea anemones, rock fish and oysters.

Experts have cautioned that the province needs to adapt to the reality that sudden and sustained heatwaves are likely to become more common as a result of climate change.

Another heatwave is expected to strike the western United States and south-western Canada in the coming week, highlighting the relentlessness of the dry summer heat.

“The nerdy ecologist part of me is excited to see what will happen in the coming years,” said Harley. “But most of the rest of me is kind of depressed by it. A lot of species are not going to be able to keep up with the pace of change. Ecosystems are going to change in ways that are really difficult to predict. We don’t know where the tipping points are.”

Great article by The Guardian, London, as always

Regards Mark

Environmental

China: Panda is no longer under endangered status!

Giant pandas are no longer classified as endangered but are still vulnerable, Chinese officials say.

The classification was downgraded as their number in the wild has reached 1,800.

Experts say that the country managed to save its iconic animal through its long-term conservation efforts, including the expansion of habitats.

China considers pandas a national treasure, but have also loaned them to other countries as diplomatic tools.

The latest classification upgrade “reflects their improved living conditions and China’s efforts in keeping their habitats integrated”, said Cui Shuhong, head of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation at a news conference.

The new classification comes years after the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had already removed the animal from its endangered species list and re-labelled it as “vulnerable” in 2016.

At the time, however, Chinese officials had disputed the decision, saying that it could mislead people into believing that conservation efforts could be relaxed.

Chinese efforts to create and populate bamboo forests have helped pull the pandas back from brink of extinction

This week’s announcement by China’s environmental ministry is the first time the animal’s status was changed on its own endangered species list, which uses similar standards as the Swiss-based IUCN.

Chinese social media users were delighted at the news, saying that it is “proof” that conservation efforts are worth it.

“This is the result of years of hard work. Well done to all the conservationists,”

one person wrote on microblogging platform Weibo.

Giant pandas are no longer classified as “endangered” – but are still “vulnerable”

Experts have said that the success is largely due to Chinese efforts to recreate and repopulate bamboo forests. Bamboo makes up some 99% of their diet, without which they are likely to starve.

Zoos have also attempted to increase numbers via captive breeding methods.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57773472

And I mean…It is good to read such beautiful news.
So far we only know the sad fact that the human species are becoming more and more and the animal species are becoming less and less.
Yes! it is always worth fighting, and we will continue to fight for the animals

My best regards to all, Venus

Hunting

Hunting is murder

“Turning children into soldiers is deeply perverse, but don’t think we’re lagging behind Africa in anything.
We let these killers break their own children and even promote their deeds in elementary schools”.

If you want to become a serial offender in the future, you practice early!

My best regards to all, Venus

 

Hunting

Catching with limesticks for birds is now banned in all EU countries.

It has now become a reality, what animal welfare organizations have been fighting for for years.
The catching of limesticks for birds is now banned in all EU countries. France was the last country to classify the fishing method as illegal!

It’s a breakthrough in bird conservation.
Since June 28, 2021, the controversial hunt for limed birds has been banned throughout the European Union. As the last country in the EU, France has now declared the fishing practice illegal. The French Supreme Administrative Court announced last Monday that the trapping technique for blackbirds and thrushes could not be approved in their current condition.

Eric Neuling, bird protection consultant at the German Nature Conservation Union (NABU), welcomes the verdict: “At NABU, we have been fighting against the hunting of limedrods for years. The verdict is a groundbreaking success for bird protection across Europe.”

Illegal bird trapping in Cyprus with liming rods and nets

Up until the end of the day, liming was still practiced in some areas of the south of France. Every year around 40,000 birds – including protected species – were painfully caught in France. The decision of the French administrative court now followed a ruling by the European Court of Justice in March, according to which the technology fundamentally violates EU law.

Hunting tradition is no longer placed above animal welfare

When catching limescences, bird trappers set sticky traps for birds by smearing sticky glue on branches.
If the birds perch on the prepared rods or fly close by, the animals stick to the sticky paste. As the birds attempt to escape, they begin to flutter in panic, which causes the feathers and wings to stick together even more.
Often the only thing left for the animals is painful death.

Ramifications for Cyprus after European court rules on bird trapping | Cyprus Mail

Continue reading “Catching with limesticks for birds is now banned in all EU countries.” →

Environmental, General News, Uncategorized

Sustainable Fashion Brand Collaborates With Sea Shepherd For New Clothing Line.

The t-shirts, hoodies, and tote bags are made with organic and recycled materials Credit: TOMORROW

Sustainable Fashion Brand Collaborates With Sea Shepherd For New Clothing Line

A new sustainable clothing line aims to raise awareness about ocean conservation

 Social activism brand TOMORROW has joined forces with Sea Shepherd to release a collection of sustainable, vegan clothing. The range is an effort to raise awareness about ocean conservation.

The new line is TOMORROW’s latest foray into ‘activism you can wear’.

The brand teamed up with six artists to produce the line: B. Thom Stevenson, Ellen Rutt, Humberto Cruz (I SCREAM COLOUR), Kelly Knaga, Kit Agar, and Luca Bjørnsten.

The vegan range includes organic cotton t-shirts and hoodies, as well as tote bags made from recycled fabrics.TOMORROW plans to donate 50 percent of the line’s proceeds to the artists and Sea Shepherd.

The PETA-certified brand said in a press release: “The innovative campaign shines a light on the importance of ocean conservation and enabling real action to protect marine wildlife.”

“Sea Shepherd accomplishes these goals through public education, investigation, documentation and, where appropriate, help to enforce violations of international treaties, laws and conventions designated to protect the oceans.”

Sea Shepherd

Founded in 1977, Sea Shepherd targets issues like whaling, plastic pollution, and marine habitat destruction.

In 2019, the Liberian Ministry of Defense awarded Sea Shepherd the Distinguished Service Order. The order honored the non-profit for its  ‘immense support and contribution in assisting the Liberian Coast Guard to fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Liberia’.It’s the highest military award that the ministry gives.

The year prior, Sea Shepherd helped arrest and seize the Damanzaihao – the world’s largest fish factory ship. The blacklisted vessel was capable of killing 547,000 tons of fish annually.

Find more information about the TOMORROW X Sea Shepherd range here.

Sustainable Fashion Brand Collaborates With Sea Shepherd For New Clothing Line | Plant Based News

Regards Mark

Environmental, General News, Hunting

USA: Minnesota DNR calls off wolf hunt this year despite support from farmers, hunters.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday that there will be no wolf hunting or trapping season in Minnesota in 2021. Agency officials said they will wait until a new state wolf management plan is in place early in 2022 before deciding on any wolf harvest options. (Photo by iStock/AB Photography courtesy of the Wisconsin DNR)
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday that there will be no wolf hunting or trapping season in Minnesota in 2021. Agency officials said they will wait until a new state wolf management plan is in place early in 2022 before deciding on any wolf harvest options. (Photo by iStock/AB Photography courtesy of the Wisconsin DNR) 

Minnesota DNR calls off wolf hunt this year despite support from farmers, hunters

Agency officials made the annoucement during a video meeting of the state wolf advisory committee.

Minnesota DNR calls off wolf hunt this year despite support from farmers, hunters | Park Rapids Enterprise

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday, July 7, said there will be no wolf hunting and trapping season in Minnesota in 2021 as the agency continues to develop a new long-term wolf management plan.

DNR officials made the announcement during a video meeting of the agency’s wolf plan advisory committee that is helping plot the future of wolf management in the state.

Agency biologists say they won’t authorize a hunt until after a new wolf management plan is in place which they said likely won’t happen until early 2022, but no later than March.

“This morning we reiterated to the (committee) that there would be no decision on a wolf season prior to the completion of the wolf plan update,” Dan Stark, the DNR’s large-carnivore specialist, said Wednesday. “We anticipate the completion of the wolf plan process in early 2022.”

Minnesota could hold a wolf hunting and trapping season this year because the animal has been taken off the federal endangered species list, as of January, with management now in the hands of state and tribal resource agencies.

Current state law says the DNR “may’’ hold a wolf hunt when federal protections are removed. Legislation to force the DNR to hold a wolf hunt, and another bill to prevent them from holding a wolf hunt, both failed to pass the 2021 Minnesota Legislature, leaving the decision up to the agency.

Many farmers and deer hunters have pushed for a wolf season, saying the big canines are killing livestock, threatening pets and people, depleting deer numbers and need to be culled.

But wolf supporters say the animals should remain protected. Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity and a member of the state’s wolf plan advisory committee, said the DNR is making the right decision.

“Minnesota’s wildlife managers have wisely prioritized first updating the management plan to reflect new science and the values of all Minnesotans,’’ she said. “That’s a welcome contrast to what happened just next door in Wisconsin, which rushed to hold a winter hunt and decimated their wolf population earlier this year.”

Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board, pressed by legal action and state lawmakers, ordered a wolf hunt in February which led to 216 wolves being killed in just 72 hours, 82% more than the state goal. Supporters said the culling was long overdue. But critics said the wolf season was too much, too soon after federal delisting. Wisconsin officials are debating another wolf hunt set for November.

In June 2020, the Minnesota DNR released a report that found 87% of Minnesota residents agree that maintaining the state’s wolf population is important. That agency last summer also formed its Wolf Advisory Committee with the goal of evaluating and updating the current 20-year-old Minnesota Wolf Management Plan. Committee members include representatives of local governments, wolf advocacy groups, environmental protection organizations, hunters and trappers and livestock operators.

The DNR estimates that there are about 2,500 wolves in Minnesota currently, by far the most of any state outside Alaska.

Nationally, the Biden administration says it is reconsidering all moves by the Trump administration regarding the Endangered Species Act. Wildlife groups also have moved to sue the federal government over the decision to delist wolves in the western Great Lakes region — Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Regards Mark

General News

The history of meat consumption in America

Happy cows living in sanctuaries wander, swing their tails, form strong friendships, groom each other, enjoy intellectual stimulation, prefer salty and sweet foods, empathize with each other, and take care of herd members who are sick. The vast majority of cows in the United States, meanwhile—about 41 million cows were being raised for beef and dairy in 2019—are unable to enjoy most of these activities, especially as they only live to be about 14 to 16 months old, less than a tenth of the expected lifespan of a cow living in an animal sanctuary.

https://charismatismus.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/kuhstall.jpg

But how did cattle farming become like this, and what might the future hold for beef consumption in the U.S.?

The history of meat consumption in America

The history of eating meat in America begins with hunted meat. This predates the arrival of the settler colonialists who created a system of white supremacy, within which the story of meat-eating became primarily one of stealing American Indian land, raising cows on that land, and the consumption of domesticated meat.

In the 20th century, meat consumption has also been heavily tied to farming innovations. Innovations in industrial agriculture changed how animals were raised for the market.
For example, after World War II, farmers began using antibiotics to prevent the spread of disease among animals living too close together.
Cows spend their lives in cramped and unsanitary conditions where they must often endure the pain of having their tails removed.

How to make secret KFC secret recipe that's locked in vault - according to Michelin-starred chefs | indy100

The resulting efficiency of the meat production system also came with a price of hazardous conditions for low-wage workers.
Slaughterhouses tend to hire Black, Latino, Asian, and both undocumented and documented immigrant workers for dangerous, trauma-inducing, non-unionized work.

Farmers who raise cattle that are sent to slaughter also struggle to make money from their labor.

Continue reading “The history of meat consumption in America” →

Environmental

Gray whale “Wally” swims in Italy

A young gray whale swims off the coast of Italy – the animals actually live in the Pacific. Has global warming opened a way across the Arctic and Atlantic?

A gray whale has been sighted on the coast of Italy and is causing all sorts of speculations about its origin.
Because the giant animals actually live on the other side of the globe on the coasts of the East and West Pacific.
The one-year-old gray whale, christened “Wally” by the Italian press, was sighted in the Gulf of Naples near Sorrento, near the island of Ponza and in front of the US naval base of Gaeta, and was last swimming around near Fiumicino near Rome, like the coast guard reported on Thursday.

Gray whale in the Pacific | The population of gray whales in the Pacific Ocean is around 22,000, far below the previous population of around 96,000.

The appearance of a gray whale in the Mediterranean Sea is extremely rare.
Several experts suspect that the melting of the polar ice caps in the Arctic will open up new routes into the Atlantic for gray whales.
In fact, the marine mammals in this ocean were thought to be extinct.
“Gray whales are coastal whales and sometimes invade large lagoons,” write whale conservationists from the Marevivo organization.
So they could also explore the way to the Mediterranean. The animal is “probably malnourished because our ecosystem does not offer enough resources. But it’s strong enough to look for food. “

The Mexican whale expert Jorge Urban, interviewed by the Italian newspaper »La Repubblica«, speculates that gray whales, arriving in the Atlantic, can enter different waters: »North America, Iceland, Spain and finally the Mediterranean, a great lagoon for them« so Urban.

Gray whales can weigh up to 35 tons. Here is a copy off the coast of Mexico.

Other experts suggested that because of its young age, the animal might even have been born in the Atlantic.

This would raise new research questions on the return of the animals to regions where the species became extinct some time ago.
Because of the climate crisis, gray whale experts are concerned about the way the gray whales live in the Pacific: In the Arctic, the sea ice is dwindling and with it the food supply.
The animals therefore have to swim further and further north in search of food.

https://www.spektrum.de/news/verirrte-tiere-raetsel-um-grauwal-vor-italien/1863577

And I mean…In fact, this marine mammal species has long been extinct in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
To date, only the East Pacific gray whale populations have recovered. The West Pacific gray whales are more threatened than ever by oil and gas drilling.

There is much speculation as to where “Wally” came from: It is unlikely that the animal swam all the way. That’s what the experts say. The whale is still too young for that.
It is more likely that the young whale was born in the Mediterranean Sea.

That would be a real sensation. Because that would mean that there are even more gray whales in the Mediterranean.

No matter where the guest Wally “comes from, we wish you all the best and a long, carefree life

My best regards to all, Venus