Farm Animals, General News

Sun Bear ‘Aurora’ – Rescued In December 2018 – Update.

 

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On December 15th 2018 we did a post regarding the rescue of Bile bear named ‘Aurora’.

https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2018/12/15/viet-nam-aurora-has-been-rescued-by-animals-asia-big-changes-a-new-life-with-people-who-love-and-care-for-her/

https://www.animalsasia.org/intl/media/news/news-archive/rescued-sun-bear-aurora-recovers-from-health-check-and-makes-herself-at-home.html 

 

So it is wonderful to see that Aurora is now doing so well; just a few weeks after her rescue.

Now there is an update from Animals Asia.

As you can see in the video below; she is doing really well in conditions so different to those from which she was rescued.

 

watch the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3ty6tWZQD0

 

 

Here is what Animals Asia have to say:

 

Rescued sun bear Aurora recovers from health check and makes herself at home

Just a few weeks on from her rescue, Aurora is in good health and busy exploring the largest space she has ever known.

For sun bear Aurora, the new year has brought with it an entirely new and wonderful life.

Having spent 15 years in a tiny, barren cage as an exotic pet, Aurora was freed by rescuers in December and brought 1,500 kilometres to sanctuary.

In the weeks since, this gentle sun bear has experienced more kindness and enjoyed more natural behaviour than in all the years since she was poached from the wild as a cub.

She has moved to an indoor den to complete her 45-day quarantine period and her new space is packed with enrichment and climbing structures.

 

Animals Asia Vietnam Bear and Vet Team Director Heidi Quine said:

“For a bear whose every waking moment has been entirely bereft of stimulation for over a decade, Aurora’s new surroundings must feel palatial. Sun bears love to climb and for the first time in her life, this is something Aurora is free to do. She’s experienced huge changes over the last few weeks, but she is a brave soul and is already very trusting of her new carers.”

Aurora has also received a thorough examination by vets who believe she has a small gallstone and suffers from arthritis. Thankfully, neither condition requires surgery or medication currently and will be monitored closely as future treatment will likely be required.

Another area of concern during her rescue was the state of Aurora’s teeth. Having been fed an unsuitable diet for years, there was a large build-up of tartar which unchecked would cause serious disease and pain. Thankfully, the nutritious and crunchy vegetables and fruit Aurora now enjoys as part of her daily diet have already massively improved her condition.

Heidi said:

“When Aurora got back to her den after the health check she used the straw to build herself a huge comfy nest, just as a sun bear would in the wild. These are exactly the kind of natural behaviours Aurora has been denied all her life, and to see her simply begin to be a bear again fills us with the greatest joy.”

During the remainder of her 45-day quarantine period, Aurora will continue to build her strength, while her carers will work to earn her trust. After quarantine is complete, it is hoped Aurora will  be integrated with some of the other eleven sun bears at the sanctuary and will be free to enjoy a large outdoor enclosure.

 

Not directly associated with AA; but please look at this video relating to Vietnamese bile bears and the daily suffering they endure to milk them for bile:

https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2019/01/09/vietnam-inside-the-illegal-bear-bile-market-breaking-into-vietnamese-bear-farms/

 

Farm Animals

Italy: Undercover video about the “milk machines”!

 

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Rome: Involuntary activists of the Italian animal welfare organization Essere Animali managed to document the sad life of the Italian dairy cows. The two committed animal rights activists filmed the entire life cycle of the dairy cows, from insemination to the treatment of calves and the milking of cows. What they saw was scary!

When milk and dairy products are advertised on Italian television, happy cows grazing on a green meadow in a beautiful landscape are almost always shown. The reality is a completely different one. Of the more than 2,200,000 dairy cows in Italy, the very few ever see green grass. The vast majority of them must be crammed together in confined spaces in dark stables their miserable existence as a dairy cow, until they – when the milk yield decreases – after a few years “cleared away”.

kuh in italien 3The video starts with insemination. To guarantee a constant milk production and to be able to “produce” a calf annually, the cows are inseminated regularly. As a result, the pregnant cows can be milked twice a day and 300 days a year.

The hidden cameras also show the separation of freshly born calves from their mothers. A cow desperately calls for her calf. The calf is brutally separated from her mother and taken away with an excavator. Then they tie a rope to his leg and put it in a tight box for several weeks. If it is a male calf, it is fed with a low-iron diet to obtain a light meat and brought to the butcher after six months. Overall, male calves are regarded as a by-product of intensive dairy farming and are therefore less valuable than dairy cows. The video shows several painfully dying and dead calves. But if it is a female calf, it becomes a dairy cow.

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In order to avoid injuries, the calves are burned the roots of the horns. Although this extremely painful procedure, according to law, may only be performed by a veterinarian and under anesthesia, this practice was used by simple staff and without anesthesia in the stable screened by animal rights activists. In addition, the activists were able to document many cases of violence against the animals. The cows were kicked, pushed and even beaten with iron bars. Breeding of dairy cows designed for maximum milk production – a dairy cow of the Holstein cattle breed today gives up to 28 liters of milk, in 1985 it was only 17 liters – is increasingly affecting the welfare of the animals.

More and more often, the animals suffer injuries to the claws or slip on the wet concrete floor of the stables, breaking their tendons and legs. By law, injured and suffering cows may not be repealed, but would have to be killed immediately, but the employees often let the animals suffer for days before the “mercy shot” for lack of time.

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Although the dairy cows could live up to 20 years, they are “exchanged” after four to five years of life as a result of slowly declining milk yield and handed over to butchers and meat processing companies.

Given the sad fate of the dairy cows as well as the brutal and sometimes illegal behavior of the employees, there is not much left of the image of happy cows, who are happy to give milk, and who are carefully cared for by the advertising.

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Animal welfare organization hopes that consumers will reconsider their consumption of milk and dairy products produced under such dire conditions.

Whether the video can shake up the consumer?

https://www.suedtirolnews.it/italien/milchmaschinen-gequaelt-geschlagen-ausgepumpt-und-umgebracht?

My comment: The meat consumer likes to “stun” himself.

We do not learn to feel anything anymore. Even after such documentation which- fortunately! – has been shown by public service broadcasters in recent years, we develop mechanisms such as rejection, oppression or even apathy.

We can not say more: how do the animals that give us milk live? Where are they?
We read and experience how animals live today: in huge factory farms, under torture, psychic stress, suffering until they are transported to the slaughterhouse. In a way, we know the truth quite well!
But the most effective way to evade this reality is to deny it. That’s why we tell ourselves that such pictures are just the exception, we buy organic milk from happy cows and organic meat from meadows cows.
And so we tell ourselves, there is no problem, so we do not have to make any thoughts and we are not responsible for our consumption, that is, for our actions.

And that’s why, we no longer see the cow, which is transported by crane, on our plate!

My best regards, Venus

 

 

 

 

General News, Vivisection

USA: Drugged Octopuses, Gambling Monkeys, and Shocked Mice – Or to put it another way; money for nothing that is of any use to mankind.

 

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Drugged Octopuses, Gambling Monkeys, and Shocked Mice – Or to put it another way; money for nothing that is of any use to mankind.

Funded by American tax payers; must be:

MAGA 3  – I know, Trump told me !

 

Many universities in the U.S. carry out experiments in which animals are subjected to all manner of torment. But Johns Hopkins University experimenters have outdone themselves when it comes to cruelty.

Here are just a few recent examples:

Drugged Octopuses

Experimenters put octopuses—whose mother had been kidnapped from the ocean—in beakers of water laced with the mood-altering drug MDMA, better known as “ecstasy.” Then, they watched how the drug affected the animals’ behaviour toward other octopuses.

Those who had been exposed to MDMA spent more time in a chamber with an unfamiliar octopus than those who hadn’t been drugged did. Based on that finding, the experimenters absurdly suggested that these animals are more like humans than we had previously thought and might be used to study the effects of psychiatric drugs on humans.

Just what the world needs: another bad animal “model” for the human brain.

 

Gambling Monkeys

Experimenters cut into monkeys’ skulls, exposed part of the brain, covered it with a metal plate, and then coerced two rhesus monkeys to use a computer game in which they “gambled” for “drops of juice.” Of course, the monkeys probably don’t think of it as “gambling.” It’s common for experimenters to restrict the amount of liquid animals are allowed to drink in such experiments so that they become thirsty and will cooperate in order to alleviate their thirst.

The experimenters found that the monkeys were more likely to choose a “bet” that was high-risk but could pay off with more juice rather than one that was a sure thing.

They then “suppressed” an area of the monkeys’ brains by pumping freezing methanol into a metal plate secured over the membrane covering their brains.

Their excuse for this torment: It “could lead to better treatments” for humans who exhibit destructive, risky types of behaviour.

monkey in lab

Owls and Earphones

An experimenter imprisons owls in a basement laboratory, inserts electrodes into their brains, puts earphones on them, and exposes them to bursts of noise.

This individual has restrained fully conscious barn owls for up to 12 hours while recording and poking at neurons in their brains. He admits in his paper describing this experiment that “some birds were calm when restrained, while others were not.”

Mice Tormented and Shocked

In a particularly hideous experiment, mice were used in an attempt to explain how electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—commonly called “shock treatment”—relieves severe depression in humans.

First, to make mice depressed, experimenters subjected them to a series of torments. For five days, six hours per day, the mice were restrained in tubes so tight that they couldn’t turn around or move their limbs. For two days, they were kept in unfamiliar cages with water-soaked bedding then immersed in water up to their pelvis for four hours daily for two days.

But the worst was yet to come.

Experimenters then attached wet clips to the ears of the mice that delivered electric shocks so severe that they induced seizures. While the experimenters don’t bother to report whether the electric shocks induced acute pain in the animals, it seems likely that the mice suffered considerably. Humans have reported headaches, jaw pain, and nausea after undergoing ECT. In humans, ECT is performed under general anesthesia, a kindness not extended to these mice, some of whom endured the procedure repeatedly for up to 10 days.

forced swim device

Following the shocks, the experimenters forced mice to swim in an inescapable cylinder of water until they stop struggling and began floating—and they claimed that this absurd experiment measures the antidepressant-like effects of the shocks. But this test has been shown not to measure depression at all, making the results of this cruel experiment worthless.

 

Most of these experiments were funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This combination of bad science, cruelty, and waste of tax dollars needs to end. Johns Hopkins gets more money—your money—from NIH than any other university. Let’s stop that.

trump feb 2
liberty oh god

Please Speak Out!

You’re welcome to use our template letter, but putting your subject line and message into your own words will help draw attention to your e-mail.

https://support.peta.org/page/7390/action/1?utm_source=PETA::E-Mail&utm_medium=Alert&utm_campaign=0119::viv::PETA::E-Mail::Octopuses%20Drugged%20with%20Ecstasy%20at%20John%20Hopkins::::aa%20em::rs3&ea.url.id=180002&forwarded=true

 

Farm Animals, General News

Brussels is finally mobilizing

 

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‘Radical Islam has won’: Belgium outlaws Muslim and Jewish animal slaughtering practices à https://on.rt.com/9ltk

 

The ban brings Belgium in line with European Union regulations that require animals to be stunned, so they can’t feel pain, before slaughter. However, Jewish and Muslim religious laws require that animals are conscious when they are killed.

The new law applies to the country’s Flanders region and a similar ruling will come into force in the Wallonia region in August, meaning the religious slaughtering practices will be outlawed across the country.

The resolution to ban ritual slaughter passed the Flanders parliament unanimously in 2017.

Belgium’s Flanders region has banned Jewish and Muslim forms of ritual animal slaughter, sparking a firestorm of criticism from religious groups, who see the measure as thinly veiled xenophobia.

Approximately 500,000 Muslims and over 30,000 Jews live in the small European country, which has a population of 11.3 million. Leaders of both communities have railed against the new law and are challenging it in Belgium’s Constitutional Court.

Kosher and Halal methods of slaughter involve the animal being killed with a single cut to the neck which severs critical blood vessels. Advocates claim the animal loses consciousness in seconds and it doesn’t suffer during the process.

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Flanders – and Belgium’s Francophone region, Wallonia, later this year – join Denmark, Sweden, and Slovenia on the list of European nations that have outlawed all forms of ritual slaughter.

Rule of law or attack on religious freedom? Belgian ritual animal slaughter ban DEBATE  à https://on.rt.com/9lw0

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said the ban is proof that “radical Islam has won.”

“We are in the midst of an attack on the freedom of religion. The European capital has, with its laws and lack of tolerance for minorities, proven that radical Islam has won,” he said, as cited by Israel National News.

“We managed to block many [similar pieces] of legislation in other countries in Europe and attempts to pass bills in the European Parliament and initiatives in the the EU’s agencies.”

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However, that stance was dismissed by animal rights activists. Ann De Greef, director of Global Action in the Interest of Animals, said that in Belgium “the law is above religion.”

“They want to keep living in the Middle Ages and continue to slaughter without stunning – as the technique didn’t yet exist back then – without having to answer to the law,” she said to the New York Times. “Well, I’m sorry, in Belgium the law is above religion and that will stay like that.”

READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9ltk

My comment: Of course it’s an archaic, a barbaric method of slaughtering, the shafts. And I’m sure: progressive, enlightened Muslims and Jews would be against it.
Brussels has decided correctly.
But such good decisions need to be extended.
Also in the European area, in the slaughterhouses, methods are practiced, which are often worse than the shafts.
The last undercover investigations of the organization SOKO (Germany) proved it.
It is therefore urgent that Brussels requires video surveillance of all slaughterhouses by law.
Because only then can good decisions be controlled in practice.

My best regards, Venus

Environmental, General News, Hunting

England: Fox Survey If You Wish To Get Involved.

 

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Want to take part in a survey on foxes ?

Use the link below – which may only be available for residents in England ? 

For my undergrad dissetation I am looking at public perceptions of foxes. If you have a few mins please can you complete my questionnaire for my research:

 

(link: https://survey.swan.ac.uk/index.php/289276?lang=en) survey.swan.ac.uk/index.php/2892…

 

fox sake 4

General News

USA: Petition – Justice For ‘Lucy’ Who Had Facial Tumour and Was Left to Freeze. Please Sign.

USA-Flagge

 

SIGN: Justice for Lucy, Abandoned Pit Bull Left to Freeze

 

SIGN: Justice for Lucy, Abandoned Pit Bull Left to Freeze

Image Credit: Willoughby Police Department

WAV Comment –  Lucy has successfully had her facial tumour (shown above) removed, and is well on the road to recovery.

PETITION TARGET: Prosecuting Attorney

When police in Willoughby, Ohio responded to a call of a dog running loose, they found a cold, terrified pit bull mix who had been heartlessly abandoned for days in freezing weather. Her so-called “guardians” had left her to fend for herself with just a cage and an old, soiled pillow.

In addition to being lonely and cold, the dog — now named Lucy — needed urgent medical attention for a large tumor on her face. Subsequent surgery to remove the tumor was successful, but she has a long road of recovery ahead of her, and the seriousness of her condition is unknown because the biopsy results haven’t come in yet.

Lake County Dog Warden Rodney Shelton confirmed that based on the condition Lucy was found in, she was a victim of neglect.

Lucy’s owners have been identified as Alvaro Torres and Heather Pica Torres. The couple was arrested for fifth-degree felony cruelty to a companion animal and a misdemeanor charge for an unlicensed animal.

It’s now imperative that both individuals involved in this cruel act of animal abuse are held to the highest degree of accountability possible. Sign this petition urging the prosecuting attorney for this case to treat the crime with the severity it deserves, and to call for a lifetime ban on the defendants ever having another animal again.

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Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/sign-justice-lucy-abandoned-dog-left-freeze/?https://ladyfreethinker.org/?utm_source=Newsletter%20MailUp

 

 

Farm Animals, Fur and Fur Farming, General News

Serbia: Victory ! – Fur Farms All Now Banned From 1st January 2019.

 

Serbian Flag

Fur Farms Are Now BANNED In Serbia!

Posted by Carly Day | January 5, 2019

 

Fur Farms Are Now BANNED In Serbia!

Image: Pixabay

Above – Chinchilla -the only animal farmed for fur in Serbia.

The new ban now saves about 12,000 / 13,000 animals each year.

 

After ten years of lobbying, Serbia’s long-awaited ban on fur farms finally went into effect on January 1st, 2019, and will save the lives of an estimated 12,000 chinchillas every year.

When it passed, the 2009 Animal Welfare Act included a decade-long transitional period, allowing fur farmers time to phase out their business and find a more sustainable income. But the wait is now finally over for these suffering animals.

Anti-fur organizations such as the Fur Free Alliance have been hard at work during that period, as pro-fur advocates fought to get the ban reversed.

In 2018, with the deadline drawing closer, fur trade groups stepped up their efforts, pressuring the Serbian government to extend the transition period or abandon the ban completely.

Thanks to the relentless work of the Fur Free Alliance and Serbian organization Freedom for Animals, the law stayed in place.

“For 15 years now, Freedom for Animals has advocated for a fur-free Serbia by advancing and supporting legislation to abolish this brutal exploitation of animals,” said Snezana Milovanovic, director of Freedom for Animals. “With the enforcement of the 2009 Animal Welfare Act, that makes it illegal to keep, reproduce, import, export and kill animals only for the production of fur, a great victory is finally achieved. Not only is this ban important for animals kept for fur production in Serbia, but also for the whole South East European region, and it signifies a major step forward for animal rights worldwide.”

The only species farmed for their fur in Serbia, chinchillas are endangered and protected in their natural habitats within South America. These adorable rodents are highly social, often living in colonies of up to 100 individuals. They are monogamous, mobile, shy and nocturnal.

These natural behaviors lie in stark contrast to their tortured lives in fur farms. Crammed into tiny cages barely big enough to move around in, they are forced to be active in the daytime.

Research has shown that chinchillas are prone to serious health and behavioral issues when kept in these horrific conditions. From stereotypic behaviors to self-mutilation, the intense stress of their enforced imprisonment is clear.

Serbia’s ban now puts them on a par with around a dozen other countries that have put an end to fur farming, including Norway, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

General News

Canada: Stop Cruelty to Dogs at the Deadly Yukon Sled Race – Canadian Petition.

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SIGN: Stop Cruelty to Dogs at the Deadly Yukon Sled Race

SIGN: Stop Cruelty to Dogs at the Deadly Yukon Sled Race

Representative photo via Sled Dog Action Coalition

 

PETITION TARGET: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

A sled dog named Boppy tragically died choking on his own vomit during the the grueling Yukon Quest race last year. A necropsy revealed that the battered dog suffered stomach ulcers, whipworm infestation, muscle wasting and more.

While Boppy’s “guardian” — a 2-time Yukon champion — is barred from racing in 2019, the torturous event will still go on, with the help of funding from the Canadian government. It’s time to stop the cruelty.

Boppy is just one of nine dogs who have died in the past decade at the grueling Yukon, a 1,000-mile race from Fairbanks, Alaska to the Yukon in Northern Canada. Some died from medical problems like sudden intestinal issues and internal bleeding. Others died choking on food, vomit, and pieces of their harness.

As with other sled dogs, the cruelty probably began long before the race even started.

Last October, disturbing photos surfaced online of the appalling conditions at a kennel owned by Dallas Seavey, a regular participant in the annual Iditarod race in Alaska. The startling images showed starving puppies, shivering in the freezing cold and with infected neck wounds.

Similar conditions were exposed in the 2016 documentary Sled Dogs, during which camera crews visited kennels where sled dogs were tethered to plastic barrels and surrounded by filth.

Sled dogs deemed too old or unfit to perform are often ‘culled,’ or killed. In 2011, a mass grave of 50 dogs was discovered on the property of a former sled dog musher in British Columbia.

This year’s Yukon Quest race is set to begin on February 2. Sign this petition urging Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to pave the way for the rights of sled dogs by ending government funding for this cruel and inhumane event.

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Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/sign-stop-dog-torture-deadly-yukon-race/

 

More info on sled dog racing:

 

General News

USA: Lion Shot 8 Times – Time To End Private Ownership of Exotic Species. Petition – Please Sign.

 

USA-Flagge

Lion Shot 8 Times After Gruesome Mauling – Sign to Stop the Bloodshed

Posted by Carly Day

 

PETITION TARGET: Governors of North Carolina, Alabama, Nevada, Wisconsin.

Tragically, a young woman and 14-year-old lion were killed in a gruesome incident at The Conservators Center — a private, unlicensed wild animal menagerie — in North Carolina last week.

After only ten days of interning at the center, 22-year-old Alexandra Black was cleaning the lion enclosure when a lioness, Matthai, escaped from a locked area and attacked her.

After three tranquilizers failed to immobilize the animal for staff to retrieve the body, police officers repeatedly shot her. It took six bullets to fell the stricken lion, with two more fired into her head and chest to ensure she was dead.

It’s time to end the violence and ban private “ownership” of wild animals.

This heartbreaking incident highlights the urgent need for law changes in the four remaining US states where unaccredited and under-qualified organizations and private individuals are permitted to hold exotic animals captive.

North Carolina — along with Alabama, Nevada, and Wisconsin — are the only states left that have not yet banned private ownership of exotic species. 

Sign this petition to urge these states to join the rest of the nation in outlawing private ownership of exotic wild animals, to prevent the needless loss of life of both people and animals.

 

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Petition Link – https://ladyfreethinker.org/sign-lion-young-woman-dead-lets-stop-cruelty/?https://ladyfreethinker.org/?utm_source=Newsletter%20MailUp