Farm Animals, General News, Uncategorized

‘Veganuary’ Expects More Than Half a Million Participants Worldwide in 2021.

Veganuary Expects More Than Half a Million Participants Worldwide in 2021

Every year, nonprofit organization Veganuary encourages people to choose plant-based food for January and beyond. For 2021, the group aims to attract more than half a million participants around the world!

The COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the urgency of plant-based eating, as raising animals for food can promote the creation and spread of dangerous diseases. Consumers are growing more aware of this connection, with sales of plant-based meat jumping 35 percent from April to May 2020. Tofu is also flying off the shelves. According to Nielsen, tofu sales in the first half of 2020 were a whopping 40 percent higher than last year. And Google searches for tofu recipes have nearly doubled since March. Actor and Veganuary supporter Alec Baldwin said:

During the pandemic, we have cooked all our meals at home and have moved to a completely plant-based diet in this house. When you prepare your own food, it’s interesting how your tastes change. And any animal products become less appetizing when you prepare them, from start to finish, yourself.

Last year, Veganuary expected 350,000 participants and ended up with more than 400,000 from 192 countries! Among participants were rock legends Brian May and Meat Loaf. Veganuary also launched the first-ever vegan advertisement for mainstream U.K. television.

Since Veganuary was founded in 2014, over a million people have participated. Of those surveyed, 47 percent said they were committed to staying vegan, while 77 percent of those not committed said they were “very likely to try veganism again.”

People who take the Veganuary pledge get support through emails, social media content, and membership in a Facebook group. Veganuary also encourages brands, manufacturers, and retailers to expand their plant-based options. In fact, several huge companies, including Yelp, Mendocino Farms, Tofurky, Follow Your Heart, and Violife, have agreed to offer Veganuary promotions, giveaways, special menu items, and more.

Programs like Veganuary are a powerful way to introduce people to plant-based eating. Get started on your New Year’s resolution by taking the pledge, and order a FREE Vegetarian Starter Guide for recipes and tips!

Vegan Faces
General News, Hunting

Sweden: Mass Seal Hunting – Sweden Attempting to Overturn EU Ban – Trophy Hunters ? – Please Read On….

 

2/1/21

Hans has been in contact with us direct from Sweden.

There is a situation now where seals (3 species) can be shot and killed – and this ‘service’ is being snapped up by organisations who are trying to get trophy hunters to pay and kill.

We are repeating the info from Hans below; complete with the links which have some graphic photos on them.  Note there is also a petition site link if you want to sign against this.

Thanks go to Hans for drawing this issue to our attention, which we are putting out for the world to know about.


Un edited info from Hans:



Here in Sweden, they are now letting people shoot and kill thousands of seals of 3 different species, information here:

 


https://www.thepetitionsite.com/sv/253/746/017/stoppa-s%C3%A4ljakten-nu-demand-and-end-to-the-seal-hunt-now/

Precisely, the killing quota is 3300, and they are also inviting trophy hunters, Swedes as well as foreigners, to pay for hunts. Here is an example of seal trophy hunting in Sweden for sale, containing many grisly images of satisfied customers:


https://www.sealhunt.se/viner/

The price is, 5500 Swedish kroner for a hunt without training, and 3500 Swedish kroner for a hunt with training, it can be done from rocks, islands and even boats. The images contains both male and female customers who paid to shoot these seals in Sweden in 2020. Its everything from baby seals to fully grown adult seals. This is perfectly legal in Sweden and the EU because the products are not commercially sold. Its legal to kill, but not to sell the byproducts of the kill. However on this website you can pay 500 Swedish kroner for someone to preserve the skin so you can bring it home as a trophy.

More images from the same website where the hunts are sold:

https://www.sealhunt.se/var-berattelse/

Thanks for highlighting it!

The ban is on seal products, what many don’t know is that there is not a ban on killing seals as such, for any reason including sport! The authorities justify it with the exact same argument as Canada and Namibia, that the seals eat the fish. 

Out of the 3300 quota, there is a quota of 2000 grey seals, and here you can follow the hunt updates live by the Swedih EPA (Environmental “Protection” Agency)

https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Stod-i-miljoarbetet/Rattsinformation/Beslut/Beslut-om-jakt-och-vilt/beslut-sal/Sal/

So far for the 2020/21 season, the quota has been half filled. The regions reporting most kills are Gävleborg (154), Kalmar (141), and Stockholm, yes, Stockholm the Swedish capital (104).

Furthermore, Sweden is trying to repeal the EU seal products ban, possibly to remove it entirely, or to at least have an opt-out from it. Here you can see an official document from Swedish authorities to the EU. They claim that seal hunt is a long lasting Swedish tradition since well, the last ice age. This is NOT something Sweden proudly boast about very often in international relations. Without the UK being in the EU, it could be considerably easier to repeal the EU seal products ban now. 

https://ec.europa.eu/environment/biodiversity/animal_welfare/seals/pdf/factsheet/Annex%20to%20Sweden%20report%20-%20Comments_from_Sweden_on_the_EU_seal_regime.pdf

 

 

Quote from first part of the document, you can follow the link and read the rest:

“Seal hunt has been a part of Swedish culture and history since the repopulation of the region after the latest ice age. Hunting for seal was a way of getting meat, skin and bones for tools, jewelry and weapons. For the more modern day small scale coastal fisheries the seal has been an important source of meat and skin and a way to get an extra income. The ban on trading with seal products implies large problems for the coastal fishery in Sweden. With the ban fewer people hunt for seal while an increasing population has caused fishstocks with parasites, competition for the fish and the destruction of fishing gear. Aspects raised by national agencies

A key concern highlighted by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency is the effect of the current seal regime through its trade ban which prevents the use of the seal as a resource. The Agency moreover stresses that seal hunting is an integrated part of the Swedish game management and that the way the EU Seal regime works could prevent the effective management of the game population with decreased interest in seal hunting as a result. In particular, this could have a damaging effect on small-scale coastal fishing which depends on hunting and where a proper manegement of the population is key in order to prevent serious damages to catch and equipment.

The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management welcomes a revision of the ban on trade with seal products as this could help to

A short comment on the subject from me even though the good article by Mark said it all.

We are very happy when we receive reports of crime or abuse against animals from our readers.
We inform ourselves daily, but help is always welcome.
Today comes a message from “civilized” Sweden, which proves that when it comes to money, status, and above all corruption in governments, then the old saying from the good Karl Marx applies (analogously), “Animal exploiters of all countries, unite”!

It is hard to believe that a country like Sweden, without economic or social hardship, adopts methods with seal trophies as countries in Africa do with game hunting for trophies, but often out of necessity.

It is also shameful that the Swedish Government and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency have dragged the entire nation into the mud because of some greedy fishermen and their lobbyists in the government and want to obtain a license to execute 2,000 seals.

The government should know (and if not inform itself) that the ridiculous excuse for the dangers in the fishery is not from the hunter seals, but from the criminal industrial fisheries and the climatic damage, it causes.
We have always considered Sweden very civilized when it comes to animal welfare.

In this case, Sweden has to prove that.
Because a trophy ban is a MUST for civilized countries.
We support the enlightened animal rights activists in Sweden and think the petition is great!

Please sign. ALL!

My best regards to all, Venus

 

Vivisection

The gruesome primate lab at UW-Madison must be shut down, now!

At this laboratory, primates are put through conditions so disturbing, “nightmarish” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Male monkeys are dragged out of metal cages by their necks and locked into restraint chairs. Once strapped in and unable to move, staff bring out electric shocking devices. They lower the devices to the animals’ genitals.

And then, helpless to escape, the monkeys’ penises are shocked over and over and over again until they finally ejaculate.

This sounds like the kind of thing that could not even possibly be real. But it is, and an undercover whistleblower for PETA witnessed these experiments occurring first-hand.

Where could such horrendous types of research possibly be conducted? At a renowned university funded by federal tax dollars — the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW-Madison).
The experiments described above are only one part of the problem.

Staff is also extremely numb to the monkeys’ emotional needs, neglecting and tormenting them as a result.
The “lab rat” primates are shut away in rooms without windows or natural sunlight, inside metal cages just barely large enough to meet federal regulations. Infants have regularly torn away from their mothers.

Baby monkeys torn away from their mothers are forced to live alone in small metal cages.

Some are put through surgeries performed without proper anesthesia.

In one case, a monkey — still stuck inside his metal cage and screaming to be let out — was run through equipment designed to wash cages at extremely high temperatures. The wailing animal died as a result of this torture.

In another incident, a supervisor confided that one of their staff members was a “bit too … rough” and broke another monkey’s leg.
Still more animals have lost parts of their fingers and toes from amputated injuries, often sustained while they are desperately trying to escape.

Other captive, experimented-upon primates at the lab have taken to self-mutilating.

One, called “r12050,” created an open wound on his own leg and continued scratching and digging until he’d bored a hole into his body that went all the way down to his muscle. Meanwhile, multiple other monkeys have resorted to an activity born of severe trauma called trichotillomania, in which they pull out all their hair — even to the point of becoming completely bald.

The list of abuses at this window-less, dungeon-like horror facility goes on and on and on. There are quite literally far too many accounts of trauma to address here.

No university should be affiliating itself with this level of out-and-out sadism.

There is NO EXCUSE for this kind of brutality and callous disregard for animals’ rights. Yet as of now, there are still approximately 2,000 monkeys trapped in this research facility’s premises.

Tell the leaders of the University of Wisconsin — Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Vice-Chancellor Steve Ackerman — that we will not stand this cruelty any longer!

They must close this primate lab immediately!

Sign the petition to demand that the gruesome primate lab at UW-Madison be shut down, now!

https://www.thepetitionsite.com/de/takeaction/845/554/294/

Important information on the topic: Since 1989, UW-Madison’s Richard Weindruch has starved caged monkeys—depriving them of an extreme 30 percent of needed calories—to see if this would increase their longevity.

The monkeys have been caged alone and kept perpetually hungry for nearly three decades. Members of the control group in this experiment were fed an extremely high-sugar diet and became morbidly obese.

The experimenters have repeatedly tried to make meaningful claims about the health benefits of caloric restriction, but given the fundamental flaws of this experimental design, it can’t possibly hope to inform us about anything of value.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives & Wisconsin National Primate Research Center

Surrogate mothers, then and now. Left: Harry Harlow, a controversial experimental psychologist who worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for more than 40 years, studied the effects of isolation on baby monkeys. Right: When psychiatrist Dr. Ned Kalin’s research into the effects of early adversity on the brain begins, experimental animals will live in this incubator for the first several weeks of their lives.

 

In 2013 20 rhesus monkeys, as well as another 20 used as a control group, will be given tests intended to provoke and measure anxious behavior. After one year they will all be euthanized and their brain tissue collected for molecular analysis.

“We’re killing baby monkeys,” Streiffer says, Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics, at UW-Madison. “There are other things that have been done that are worse, but that’s not a justification for saying that this isn’t really really bad.”

The public has a right to insist that federal tax dollars not be wasted on unnecessary “terror testing”. Far more useful and painless methods of research are already available that do not involve animal suffering.

PETA Undercover Investigation: Workers Pry Baby Monkeys Away From Their Mothers, Electroshock Penises, and More in Deranged Lab

 

Why are we animals still subjecting these hellish experiments?

No one in a common sense would argue that it is okay to separate people from their families, take them overseas, and not subject them to consensual, painful procedures.

So how can we tolerate other living beings?

The answer is only one: animals cannot defend themselves. And that is also the reason why we still experiment on animals and no longer on humans, as we did a few centuries ago.

It has nothing to do with human welfare because animal experiments have no practical relevance!

““I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t… The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.”
― Mark Twain

My best regards to all, Venus

General News

The 10 Best Cities to Be Vegan in Europe, According to Experts.

The 10 Best Cities to Be Vegan in Europe, According to Experts

The 10 Best Cities to Be Vegan in Europe, According to Experts (chooseveg.com)

Your dream list of future vacation destinations is ready to be finalized! Consumer spending experts at money.co.uk analyzed cities across Europe to find the best locations for vegans. Among other factors, the researchers considered the number of vegan restaurants and plant-based takeout services and the cost of cooking a vegan meal at home.

Here are their findings!

London – England

Krakow – Poland

Glasgow – Scotland

Seville – Spain

Madrid – Spain

Berlin – Germany

Stockholm – Sweden

Valencia – Spain

Vienna – Austria

Barcelona – Spain

Proteins in a Vegan diet – check it out here:

Proteins in the Vegan Diet | Guide | Gourmandelle

Farm Animals

Betta fish-the gruesome delivery from Thailand

Betta fish are vibrant and colorful, but they’re also extremely complex animals.

At Petco stores around the country, they’re confined to tiny plastic cups with scarcely a couple of inches of water inside that are stacked on top of one another.

Thailand: The eyewitness who took the photo saw a bucket of dead and live fighting fish. These animals were considered unprofitable because their caudal fin was damaged. One employee said they would be thrown into a canal or pond.

Scores of customers have complained of finding dead, sick, and injured bettas floating in filthy water on the chain’s store shelves.

PETA’s investigations of the pet industry have uncovered appalling neglect of betta fish even before they reach stores.

They’re often starved for several days during transport and are confined individually to tiny bags that are stuffed into boxes stacked up high in massive wholesale warehouses. Many fish die before and during transport to retailers, which can take days, as they’re shipped all over the country. Industry insiders have confirmed that this system is a common practice for some retailers.

Each captive betta fish requires a regularly cleaned aquarium with gallons of water heated to between 76 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit, a good filtration system, and enrichments such as caves, rocks, and live plants in order to thrive.

Selling them in tiny bowls or cups perpetuates the harmful myth that they’re nothing more than pretty “starter pets” who should be kept solitary. In fact, female bettas can live together, and while male bettas will fight with other males, they can be placed in a “community” aquarium containing other species of fish.

In some branches, fighting fish are kept in tiny plastic cups that only contain a few centimeters of water.

While some bettas are captured in the wild, the vast majority of those sold in the U.S. come from breeding farms in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia, where it’s common practice to keep them in small bottles.

When it’s time to pack them for transport, fish are haphazardly dumped into baskets covered with nets and scooped up into tiny plastic cups. Then, they’re packed up to be sent to the United States.

While workers sorted the fighting fish for transport, the animals were out of the water, writhing and gasping for air.

Segrest Farms, a Petco fish supplier, admitted that it sources bettas from Thailand.

In addition to being forced to endure cramped conditions, these fish are denied everything that’s natural and important to them, which can cause them to become depressed. According to Victoria Braithwaite, a professor at Penn State University who studies fish intelligence, depression is likely prompted by a lack of stimulation.

In study after study, fish are defying stereotypes: Some use tools, and others can recognize individual human faces.

Male bettas have devoted fathers who build bubble nests for their young with their mouths and fiercely protect their babies from predators. In his book What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins, ethologist Jonathan Balcombe notes that bettas stop killing each other and instead exhibit cooperative group behavior when they’re released from the “artificiality of captivity.”

Most fish are shipped in small plastic bags that have just enough water to cover the animals’ bodies. Countless fish die before they even arrive at the pet shop.

Yet these sensitive fish continue to suffer greatly in the pet trade, where they’re subjected to inadequate care from the time they’re born on breeding farms to when they’re transported to pet stores to when they’re sold.

Take Action!

Despite the cruelty inherent in the “pet” betta fish industry, Petco continues to sell these animals in tiny containers. No fish should be forced to live and die in a tiny bowl. Urge Petco to end the sale of betta fish immediately!

Betta Fish Are Suffering by the Millions | Take Action Today

 

Additional Information: Thailand is one of the world’s most important export countries for fighting fish.
In 2019, an eyewitness from PETA took a look around Thai fighting fish farms that supply the global pet trade – including the German one. What he found was shocking conditions and cruelty to animals.

Many of the animals had died in the breeding tanks and were simply not removed.
At a Petco supplier, the eyewitness came across a bucket full of dead and live fighting fish.
One employee said these animals were not profitable because their caudal fin was damaged. She admitted that they would just dump them in a nearby pond or canal.

The eyewitness looked at a total of 10 establishments

In this company, tens of thousands of fish were kept in tiny, often dirty bottles. Due to the small amount of water, the ammonia produced by the fish’s excretions quickly accumulates and pollutes the water. The bottles were so close together that the employees could walk over them.

For worldwide shipping, fighting fish are packed without any food and sent on a journey of several days by air freight. A staff member told the eyewitness that sedatives would be put into the water to prevent the fish from trying to eat their own caudal fin.

According to an employee, a company that supplies Petco sends 100,000 fighting fish to the USA every week.

Up to 1,000 of them die before they reach the dealer.

The company EFS – Zoo buys Betta fish from Thailand from the company Q.P.S. International Aquatics Co. Ltd., which can be seen in this video at minutes 1’41 – 1‘59.

 

Fish are not decorations, and they should never be forced to live and die in a tiny bowl

There is nothing more perverse than imprisoning animals in a water prison for life and claiming that someone does this out of love for animals!

Every single living being has a specific task, an individual meaning in the entire context of life.
Only the recognition of the individuality of each being can lead to a coherent ethic for our behavior with animals.
Since thinking is part of our life’s tasks, we are morally obliged not to tear other beings out of their living space and use them at will.

This moral principle cannot be discussed. It is a fact!

My best regards to all, Venus

General News

for the new year…

Dear friends,

Another year of cruelty to animals is over and a new year of cruelty to animals begins.
If we honestly and disillusioned draw a balance about the facts in animal welfare for the old year, we should admit that every crime was allowed and every crime was possible again.
So we can safely assume that it will again be a fascist-coordinated dance of death for the animals, led by a disinterested majority of society together with corrupt governments.

And yet we are determined to continue our struggle.
Because of our experience we know:
who fights can lose
who does not fight has already lost

But in view of the ever stronger and legalized violence from the side of the rulers, tactics, and methods are required and we have to rethink this.
We have to act more courageously, more directly, and more massively.
And there’s one thing we don’t have to ignore: we have to stay united.

I wish that to every one of us for the coming year.

My best wishes and regards to all, Venus

Environmental, Farm Animals, General News, Live Transport

England: Good Campaigning Wishes for 2021.

Well here we are on the last day of 2020.  It is a cold and frosty day here in Southern England; but loads of good, healthy food has been put out this morning for all our feathered friends; and it is a pleasure to see them, all popping down for something to eat before they fly off to who knows where.

News years eve is also a time for reflection on the past year.  Both Venus and I are very strong supporters of direct action; you have to take to the streets and elsewhere to get your message across.   Never rely on government actions as the only route to change, it wont happen; they have to be shamed into taking action for the better, which takes years !.  This year (2020) especially has been a very testing time for millions of good people all over the world.  You have been limited in the actions you can take in being a voice; for example; anti export friends I have here in England have been threatened (for breaking Covid regulations) with £10,000 fines if they take to the docks and try to do what they have always done; that is trying stop live animals from being exported to their deaths in Europe.  In a lot of ways, Covid has worked very well for the authorities; we are all being confined and controlled in what we are allowed to do; the big brother is watching you (via your mobile phones ?) and we (WAV) are probably being monitored by ‘the better people’ from somewhere; so that in the future we can have god knows what thrown back at us should things ever get ‘legal’.

Change for the better has only ever happened because good people have got up off their butts and made it happen.  Please remember that for 2021; when you take actions in defence of the animals.

I started to write here about our live export campaign in England; as a bit of an example; but have decided not to include here as it is too long and possibly irrelevant. 

People take action for animals in many, many different ways.  You do what you feel is right with you and what suits your personal situation best.  This year especially, we have to remember Regan Russell  Search Results for “regan russell” – World Animals Voice  who paid the ultimate price for her dedication towards making a better life and less suffering for animals. 

Just like our own dear Jill here in England who lost her life on 1st February 1995  Search Results for “jill phipps” – World Animals Voice  whilst trying to be a voice for young, exported calves out of Coventry airport; by an arms dealer and convicted drug smuggler.  26 years on in 2021, Jill is quite rightly still remembered in ceremonies at the ports and elsewhere; a young, beautiful and compassionate girl taken out by those involved in a trade which involves so much suffering and abuse by those who do not deserve it.

Tribut für Jill Phipps – YouTube

Remembering Jill, an animal hero – YouTube

I still find it hard to watch these – but now finally at the end of 2020 / Jan 2021 we in the UK are contributing to a government consultation which will hopefully see and end to all live animal exports from the UK.  Jill would have been so receptive of the fact that finally, after  so many years of campaigning; we can now hold the UK government to account and make the demands of stopping this disgusting business.

There is a common theme which runs though all of this;  Jill was taken from her mum Nancy all those years ago; the baby calves she was trying to protect had already been taken from their mums; the tiny hens in intensive systems are taken from their mums and immediately murdered; or put into the abusive cages for yet more egg production.  Baby pigs are taken from their mothers at such an early age; baby dogs in puppy mills; baby lambs hauled off to the slaughterhouse ready for Easter; all issues that go back to youngsters being taken away from the only security they have, and need most at the time when they are separated.

I wish you all a great 2021 and hope that all your dreams and wishes come to fruition.  The fight for giving animals a voice and stopping cruelty the world over is down to the majority now – and we are a majority; getting bigger and stronger every day in direct opposition to the abusers.  They are going to be named and shamed; exposed for all the abuses they undertake.  We at WAV are committed to that for sure.

The animal rights / welfare issue is growing massively; even in places which you never really expect it to.  It is now so easy to become Vegan and throw all cruelty associated with old diets and the cruel methods associated with their production out of the window.

More than many things; I now think the good folk of the USA will see so many positives for animals and the environment after January 2021.  The same with the Amazon; the lungs of our planet.  Many excellent groups who fight tooth and nail for better things; the right things; have been shot down at every step by the problems that live in the White House and other government buildings the world over.  Personally; I think 2021 will be a new year and much better year for you all.  ‘Keep on keeping on’ as we say here ! – for animals and their environment. 

Knowledge, publicity and the use of the internet is something that is with so many of us now each and every day – we can inform the world of abuses and negative issues the same day; and bring about necessary change – that is what 2021 brings for you.  So use it; there is no need for abuse or bad name calling of the abusers; we all hold feelings that may resemble that in our own consciousness; but try to keep polite and respectful regardless; lets continue to get friends by exposing what the others do – and turn any acquaintances they may have away from them.

I just feel that 2021 is going to be a good year for us; 2020 was different but so many positives have happened that the only way now is up; a continuation from 2020.

With the new legal action by UK activists to bring intensive farming to the fore – England: RSPCA calls for cut in meat and dairy as Activists Launch Legal Fight to End Factory Farming. A Real Tester for the Government. – World Animals Voice  lets hope that 2021 sees the start of all cages being broken open and getting what they deserve – ie being trashed !

This track has nothing to do with this post; but we need to go out of the year with a bang; I loved the original Quo (there is only the original); and I and many friends enjoyed following and watching them all over the UK.  It starts off a bit slow, but as a guitar head, I can tell you it just gets better; so take time out and enjoy.

Stick with us please; for the animals;

Regards Mark