The Trump administration just gave polluters a free pass to pollute our air and water with impunity.
Using the COVID-19 pandemic as cover, Trump’s EPA announced it will no longer enforce legally mandated public health and environmental protections nationwide — indefinitely, while the pandemic crisis lasts.
Letting oil refineries, chemical plants and other industrial polluters off the hook is disgusting and shamelessly opportunistic.
Never before has the EPA just given up and stopped enforcing its own rules at this scale.
The pandemic has upended what is normal for everyone, but that’s not an excuse to toss aside environmental protections.
We’ve seen countless attacks from the Trump administration on wildlife and the laws that protect it. The Endangered Species Act is already under tremendous threat from being weakened in its ability to save plants and animals.
Now, with the EPA turning a blind eye to industrial pollution, our public health could be even more seriously threatened. This cynical ploy is a new low, even for this administration.
Believe it or not; now the China’s National Health Commission is recommending an injection containing bear bile as a treatment for COVID-19, despite the World Health Organisation insisting there is currently no cure for coronavirus.
PETITION TARGET: National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China
In a disappointing step backward for animal rights and human health, China’s National Health Commission is recommending an injection containing bear bile as a treatment for COVID-19, despite the WHO insisting there is currently no cure for coronavirus.
Bears harvested for their bile are subjected to excruciating and invasive extraction methods, including cutting a hole in their bodies and forcing a metal tube through the wound.
Kept in cramped cages, they suffer from starvation, dehydration, infection and other untreated medical problems. These bile farms, like live animal markets, are potential environments for bacterial infections and viruses to “make the jump” from animals to humans.
Shockingly, Tan Re Qing, a medication that includes bear bile, is recommended on a government-sponsored list of suggested coronavirus treatments. China is supposed to be curbing their wildlife trade because of its link to spreading zoonotic disease, and this directly contradicts that effort.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, which started as a result of poor animal welfare standards, enough is enough. By recommending bear bile as a COVID-19 treatment, the Chinese government is encouraging animal cruelty and prolonging the wildlife trade, which poses a global health risk. China has made tremendous progress with its recent ban on wildlife consumption, but we must implore them to broaden their scope and end all wild animal exploitation.
Sign this petition urging China’s National Health Commission to remove Tan Re Qing from its list of recommended coronavirus treatments and to ban the use of all wild animals in medicine.
The video and pictures shown here are not from the PETA campaign – we have these from other sources – WAV.
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, many people had never heard the term “wet market,” which is believed to be the origin of the novel coronavirus. It’s simply a market that sells live and dead animals—often of a variety of species—for human consumption, like those that exist in New York. SARS is a coronavirus that’s believed to have first infected humans at a Chinese wet market, just like COVID-19.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, HIV, Ebola, and other diseases are linked to meat production or consumption. Not all of these come from live-animal markets— Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a variant of mad cow disease, for instance, can affect a person who has eaten certain body parts of an infected cow—but such markets, where stressed, injured, and sick animals are commonly caged in public areas, are perfect breeding grounds for diseases.
In this video, Peter Li, an associate professor at the University of Houston–Downtown, states that at wet markets, “The cages are stacked one over another. Animals at the bottom are often soaked with all kinds of liquid. Animal excrement, pus, blood.” Such conditions allow viruses to spread from one animal to another as well as to humans who come into contact with them.
Although the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus is thought to have first infected humans, has closed and that country has banned the consumption and farming of “wild” animals (hopefully, not only temporarily), it’s important to note that diseases don’t just affect animals humans have labelled as “wild.” Many wet markets continue to operate throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the U.S.
There are more than 80 live-animal markets and slaughterhouses in New York City alone.
Just as we don’t want to be infected with or die from COVID-19, other animals don’t want to suffer or be killed for food. A hen, for example, just wants to be left in peace so that she can teach calls to her chicks before they hatch (much like how a human mother talks to her baby in the womb) and teach her young the ways of the world once they’re born. And fish just want to be left alone so that they can protect their young, build nests, and swim freely.
No matter what species they are peddling, live-animal meat markets will continue to put the human population at risk as well as sentencing countless animals to a miserable death.
Join PETA in urging the World Health Organization to call for an end to deadly live-animal markets around the globe.
From the archive: December 20, 2018: Report by the captain of SAM SIMON,Alistair Allan
Liberia, West Africa – It’s a cloudless day again, and the blue water shimmers under the relentless sun. Only rarely does a light breeze blow through the endless, turquoise expanse that I look through my porthole.
The internal phone in my cabin starts ringing. At the other end of the line an excited voice calls out: “Orcas! Orcas are outside! ”
I quickly climb the steps to the bridge and look out from the starboard side. When I look over the water, a huge dorsal fin appears right next to the ship. It is the largest of the school, the matriarch. I can see that they swim on all sides next to our ship, a family of about 12 animals! The crew is thrilled by the sight of the young members of the orca family jumping and splashing around.
The SAM SIMON has been on patrol in Liberia for a month now, and during this special meeting we were far away, on the eastern border between Liberia and the Ivory Coast. Here the Cavalla River flows into the sea and the area is known for its richness in species.
Before the OPERATION SOLA STELLA started in 2016, the local small-scale fishermen complained that foreign industrial trawl vessels enter this area every day. They came across the border night after night, flattening the nets of the small fishermen, rolling over their canoes and stealing the fish with which they made a living.
Today, almost three years later, the Liberian coast guard, in cooperation with Sea Shepherds SAM SIMON and BOB BARKER, has completely stopped these nighttime ideas … continue on our website: https://sea-shepherd.de/2566
Some information about orcas: Orcas are the largest dolphins in the world. The males are 10 m long and 10 tons heavy. The females are somewhat smaller. They have pointed, conical teeth that are 7 cm long. The body is strong and the jaw is exceptionally strong.
Orcas are quick hunters. The broad tail fin gives the animal the necessary acceleration. They always hunt together and also live in a group. There are 6 to 40 animals in a family.They often stay together for a lifetime.
An orca baby stays close to the mother. It also has to learn to speak. Orcas communicate through chants and a series of tones: they growl, hum, screech, whistle, scream and click. The orca mother speaks the words to her boy until she can pronounce them correctly. Orcas have the second largest brain of any living thing on the planet.
Orcas eat herring, salmon, penguins, seals, sea leopards, sea lions, rays, whales and sharks. They always came up with very special techniques for hunting.
The massive animals cover long distances in the wild, on average 65 kilometers a day. They don’t just do it because they can, but because they have to – to find varied food and to keep fit.
They dive several times a day at a depth of 30 to 150 meters.
The killer whales are becoming increasingly rare – and their survival is uncertain.
On the one hand, it is due to the perverse desire of humans to put these intelligent animals in a pool that is 45 x 28 x 9 meters in size, so that they serve as entertainment for stupid tourists. Most of them die in captivity after a few years and do not give birth to a calf for years.
On the other hand, the king salmon is becoming increasingly rare. This very high-fat type of salmon is the main food source of the orcas. The fish swims up the Tazer River, which flows into the sea off the Seattle coast. Here the killer whales usually grab their prey.
But the number of salmon in the Pacific Northwest has been declining for decades. Overfishing, dams, cutting down coastal forests and, last but not least, climate change are reducing the population.
Maybe we, we human beings, can save these intelligent sea creatures.
Animal protection is education to humanity.
The only person who is truly moral is those who respect and save all life.
On Thursday, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said its latest aerial surveys had shown that the severity of bleaching varied across the reef.
But it said more areas had been damaged than in previous events.
“The reef had only just begun recovering from impacts in 2016 and 2017 and now we have a third event,” chief scientist David Wachenfeld told the BBC.
“Climate change is making the extreme events that drive those impacts both more severe and more frequent, so the damage in an event is worse.”
The earlier events hit two-thirds of the reef system, wiping out coral populations and destroying habitats for other sea life.
But Dr Wachenfeld said some key reefs for tourism – in the northern and central regions – had been only “moderately bleached” this year. This meant coral there would probably recover, he added.
“The reef is still a vibrant, dynamic system but overall, with every one of these successive events, the reef is more damaged than previously,” he said.
“We need to take these events as global calls for the strongest possible action in climate change,” he said.
Global temperatures have already risen about 1C since pre-industrial times.
The corona crisis doesn’t stop at butcher shops either. “Our sales are no longer enough to keep the company alive,” says Richard Mischau, managing director of the traditional Berlin company of the Mischau sausage factory.
On Facebook, his sister Britta Mischau (49) therefore made a moving appeal to the Berliners: “Buy from your trusted butcher. Help us and all medium-sized companies to survive. ” (!!!)
With its sausage and meat products, the company (known for its curry sausages) supplies many caterers and canteens, the university and the parliament.
But they’re all closed now. “Last Monday alone, we had 35 percent less sales.” A lot more has been closed since then. Mischau sent their 72 employees on short-time work. The production works only half a day.
But there are also difficulties. Britta Mischau to the Berliner Zeitung: ” The raw material Meat is becoming scarce.” The slaughterhouses mainly work with foreign columns from Romania, Bulgaria or Poland. “They are head over heels back to their countries,” says Britta Mischau.
The goods they ordered for further processing were not delivered on Friday. “We don’t slaughter ourselves. Nobody in Berlin does that. We mainly process already dismantled and prepared goods. Now we have to buy large pieces (!!!) and disassemble them ourselves, ” says Britta Mischau.
More work with less staff.
To compensate for the slump in sales, they keep their factory outlet in Spandau, Berlin, open – in the hope that customers will come to them.
And I mean…When the French Revolution occurred on August 4, 1789, about 200 executioners became unemployed.
At the time, they wrote a letter to the then revolutionary government.
In this letter they brought up the argument that their entire profession is facing the economic abyss, a disaster! because the executioners had to feed several thousand people with their families. So … the impossibility of executing more people would make many people hungry.
After more than 200 years, the executioners of animals claim that they are facing the economic abyss.
Viruses spread at lightning speed in slaughterhouses and factory farming.
Right now, in the Corona Krisis, where governments have paralyzed everything, endangered the existence of millions of people and face disobedience, the slaughter industry, including animal transports, is now unaffected and everything is running as before.
Cruelty to animals in slaughterhouses, animal transports, animal breeding, factory farming, dairy industry … is still tolerated.
This system has to be shut down just like everything else currently. Nobody needs it to survive.
It is sick, dangerous and bad for the earth, humans and animals.
The modern execusioters should stop whining and learn a new, decent profession.
One hundred Russian military medics and disease specialists were airlifted to Italy over the weekend, landing at Pratica di Mare Air Base 30km (18.6 miles) from Rome. The team, deployed to help Italy in its fight against coronavirus, brought mobile laboratories, disinfection vehicles, coronavirus test kits, and other equipment to battle the disease.
Italy is the hardest coronavirus-hit European country – the total number of cases has approached 70,000, while the death toll is already twice as large as China’s.
Northern Italy has been affected the worst, with around a half of the nation’s cases originating there.
Good to know who can help you in difficult moments.
Here is one of the nicest comments: “I have many relatives in Italy, I would like to say “thank you” to Russia. Did you notice that the BBC says nothing? why? because it’s a State Broadcaster and very biased, if you want the news don’t look at the BBC”.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, in effect the executive committee of the Chinese Communist Party, in late February issued an edict banning the country’s “wet markets,” including those in Wuhan, the source of the current COVID-19 outbreak.
The statement notes that “it is necessary to strengthen market supervision, resolutely ban and severely crack down on illegal wildlife markets and trade, and control major public health risks from the source.” The Straits Times of Singapore has reported that eight laws have been passed in the last week. We have no details on the contents of the legislation. It’s too soon to know, though, whether we have been down this road before.
After the SARS outbreak in 2003, which was traced to a wet market in the southern Guangdong Province, a temporary ban on wet markets and the wild-animal industry were put in place. In July of that year, the World Health Organization declared the SARS virus contained, and in August the Chinese government lifted the ban.
Wet markets are found the world over, typically open-air sites selling fresh meat, seafood, and produce. The meats often are butchered and trimmed on-site. Markets in China have come in for justifiable condemnation because of the way they’ve evolved, commingling traditional livestock with a wide variety of wild animals, including exotic and endangered species.
Many are quite unsanitary, with blood, entrails, excrement, and other waste creating the conditions for disease that migrates from animals to people through virus, bacteria, and other forms of transmission. Such “zoonotic diseases” that have emerged from China and other regions of the world include Ebola, HIV, bird flu, swine flu, and SARS.
The wild animals that mix with more common livestock — poultry, swine, and seafood — form a deadly combination.
And, as has been well reported by Vox and others, wild-animal farming has a long history in China, emerging after disastrous decades of state control of rural production under Mao Zedong. By the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, tens of millions of Chinese citizens had died of starvation under a system that could not produce enough food for China’s population.
Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, in the late 1970s lifted state controls on rural farming to allow peasant farmers to provide for their own sustenance. Rats, bats, civet cats, pangolins, and other wild animals became staples of rural farming. To acknowledge and even encourage this, the government enacted laws that protected “the lawful rights of those engaged in the development or utilization of wildlife resources.”
Over time, this led to the breeding and distribution of these animals, and small rural outposts developed into larger-scale operations.
Add to this the use of wild animals not only for consumption but as the supposedly magic ingredients in tonics and alternative medicines, and it is obvious that what began as subsistence farming for the rural poor has developed into a substantial industry.
Wuhan, a city most Americans had never heard of before this year, is larger than New York City.
So far, we may just be seeing a repeat of the “crackdown” after the SARS epidemic, which was quickly and quietly lifted.
We do not know the nature of the current ban.
And can we even trust Beijing to keep such bans in place, particularly with a slowing economy and persistent rural poverty? Also, what exactly is banned? It should be all aspects of the wild-animal trade — breeding, transporting, and marketing.
There should be permanent closure of the wet markets, given the government’s obvious inability or unwillingness to regulate them.
Such a comprehensive approach would be a reversal of decades of government policy and market practice, but when we get through this crisis and the toll it will take on the world, we will owe it to the memory of those we lose that there be a global, sustained push to see these practices ended, everywhere.
