Not only the wildlife markets suspected of origin have to be criticized. The corona outbreaks in numerous US and German slaughterhouses show how quickly dangerous germs can also spread in this system.
The exploitation of the animals meets there with mostly poor working conditions for the staff – a combination that causes maximum damage.
“With this campaign, we want to draw your attention to the fact that we not only have to look at the wild animal markets but also that we have to change something directly in our company. Animal production, intensive animal husbandry, slaughter, meat consumption – something has to change here!”
And I mean… I quote a comment that just shows that we deserve a second corona:
“It has nothing to do with animal welfare, nothing with veganism, nothing with ecology or sustainability. It is simply a dangerous form of actionism that we cannot tolerate. No matter in which area. A limit was crossed here”.
The border has long been crossed in all slaughterhouses around the world.
Of unscrupulous meat producers, farm owners, and their lobbyists in government posts who use our money to conduct criminal and (often) illegal business with the “livestock” animals.
No slogan in the world can be hard enough to describe this hell.
Such apolitical and indifferent idiots are the feed of this fascist system.
We would like to thank the activists for their great action!
Posted on June 2, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
A disturbing, first-of-its-kindPETA undercover investigation reveals that workers hit, kicked, tied down, and mutilated pregnant, crying alpacas in Peru, the world’s top alpaca producer.
This groundbreaking footage highlights just some of the abuse documented at Mallkini,the world’s largest privately-owned alpaca farm, near Muñani,Peru.
Mallkini is owned by the Michell Group, the world’s largest exporter of alpaca tops and yarn.
When the workers stitched them up, most were never even given a topical numbing spray, which would have been inadequate anyway for gaping wounds.
According to one veterinarian, “The workers are inflicting excruciating pain and torture by sewing up wounds on fully conscious restrained animals without proper pain control”.
They slammed pregnant alpacas onto tables.
After talks with PETA, ESPRIT will now phase out alpaca. And as a first step, Gap Inc. (which owns Banana Republic, Athleta, and more) and the H&M group (including its eight brands) have cut ties with Michell, which had supplied them with alpaca.
Please, see for yourself, and join us in helping these animals.
“At Michell, we are the pioneer and leading company in the field of transforming this noble fiber into luxurious yarns, working harmoniously with nature, the environment, and with the utmost respect for the local population.
Our ranch named Mallkini, has the goal of improving Alpaca breeding, improving the herds and animal live, training local breeders, and contributing to the sustainable development of the communities in the Puno region”.
Of course, the company always sells the argument that the business with wool is most important for people living in the heights of South America, especially near the Andes. “We help people who are really poor and live without heath … just to maintain their alpacas and their families”.
To support the human species, we should forgive every crime against animals.
Is it ethical?
If the Michell Groupe wanted to ensure the survival of the Puno people with organ trafficking of human animals, we would call it crimes against humanity.
Those who have rights are respected.
Those who have no rights are despised.
Posted on June 1, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
30. Mai 2020
FRANCE -Live “decoy ducks” are bred especially for their beautiful voices.
When adult, they are elevated in micro prisons along the banks of a dam to vocally attract their free-flying friends while the hunters lie in wait, their rifles at the ready.
When will our base level of ecological unconsciousness in the name of sport ever change?
We demand an immediate end of this shameful practice.
France: Ban the use of live ducks, encaged, to attack their wild friends, to be shot down.
“Ever since we arrived on this planet as a species, we’ve hunted them down, dug them up, burned, and poisoned them. Today we are doing so on a greater scale than ever”.(Sir David Attenborough)
And I mean… Hunters are serial killers.
Like the serial killer, hunters have to prove their status as a person who has power over life and death.
Both the serial killer and the violent hobby hunter thinks he is taking part in something important.
It is time for every civilized society to recognize hobby hunting for what it really is: a pastime for psychopaths that is kept alive with government support.
So we never tire of publishing their crimes so that everyone knows about them.
Posted on June 1, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
For the International Milk Day, June 1, 2020
So far, over 100 campaigns from around the world have been announced or registered for the day. We have not yet discovered one from Germany.
On the action map for World Milk Day 2020,the center of Europe is rather a blank spot.
When almost everyone talks about milk and its “miracle” effects on this day, we have found a scientific article that can cure even those who still believe in miracles. Because it is now known that milk is not as healthy as it has been for a long time.
And everyone must finally learn that drinking milk can not only harm their bodies but also cause suffering and death for millions of animals.
Bodo Melnik,professor of nutritional science at the University of Osnabrück, Germany, is considered one of the greatest critics of the drink. He makes it clear why he thinks it is extremely questionable to consume cow’s milk.
“Milk is not a product,” he told the “Vegan World ” magazine.
“Milk is a highly complex signal substance for the care of a newborn. His signal is growth.
“You could also understand it as a kind of doping. But this has to end after weaning”, explains Melnik. “All animals then stop – only humans don’t.”
Milk increases the risk of prostate cancer
According to the scientist from Osnabrück, when drinking milk, a signal is sent to the human body and this is aimed at growth – that’s why milk is so important for newborns.
In contrast, stimulating an adult’s body to grow could be dangerous.
And I mean…For us today, it’s not just about the health damage or benefits of milk.
It is about the mother cows, who are enslaved and exploited lifelong as turbomachines, with udders so big that they can no longer walk.
And as soon as they stop delivering their 50 liters of milk a day, they are brutally slaughtered.
That is the milk, that is the system of milk production, that is our enemy.
It is about the financial gain of the slave owners, the cattle breeders, who get their legally guaranteed license from criminal governments to torture and slaughter their “milk” cows.
And then the stolen milk, for which the blood of innocent mammals has been spilled, is also thrown away when the sale is not worth it: “European farmers have had to pour some of their milk away”, we read in the media.
Today we have nothing to celebrate because we know how the milk production system works.
Avoid milk and animal products.
Stop supporting this shit with your money. Don’t buy it.
Not just because of your health, or to make you feel better, but because it is the right thing against this fascist system of exploitation.
So I went right back to the farm that we exposed roasting pigs alive through “ventilation shutdown.”
They’re about to do it again, but activists are locking down at the farm RIGHT NOW, blocking trucks hauling in pigs, and demanding an end to the violence.
Help us elevate the cries of the pigs and get Governor Kim Reynolds to end this horror and start protecting animals and workers.
Then please help us get our message to Kim Reynolds every way that you can. You can tweet at her asking her to end VSD and #CancelAnimalAg. You can call her office at 515-281-5211 and leave a message. You can submit an email through her website here. We need as many people speaking up as possible if we’re going to protect these animals and the workers who suffer emotional trauma in this violent industry.
Posted on May 31, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
May 29, 2020, 5:50 p.m.
The basic intention of conventional German media is to sell us for stupid.
I quote from the local newspaper “Nordkurier”, which very shamefully describes the following incident:
“It was long unclear whether a wolf was actually responsible for the disappearance of an entire flock of sheep near Strasburg (northern Germany).
Now it is clear: yes, he was (!!!)
It was the wolf!
The crack incident near of …. could be clearly assigned to the wolf by genetic testing, the district spokesman said on Friday at the request of “Nordkurier” Newspaper.
Around 50 animals (!!!) died on the meadow in the middle of the month, including more than 30 lambs.
The wolf “used” dead animals again (!!).
“There have been several cases in Krackow (North Germany) indicating that the wolf will reuse the dead animals or stillbirths,” said the spokesman.
For this reason, the nature conservation authority has received an application for the “removal” of a wolf.
The authorities are examining the request for shooting”.
And I mean…The wolves in Germany mainly eat deer, young red deer, and wild boar. Sometimes rabbits or mice are on the menu, but they rarely cut sheep or calves. Because they avoid herds.
Therefore no idiot would believe that 1 (!) Wolf tears 50 (!) Sheep/lambs without eating them !!!
Anyone who leaves his animals unprotected, despite the wolves, he willfully delivers them.
As soon as an electric fence and herd dogs protect the sheep, they are no longer easy prey and the wolves leave them alone.
The guilty wolf doesn’t exist.
The farmers do not care about their animals, they will be later cruelly slaughtered anyway, but even for each animal torn by the wolf, they receive fat compensation.
What should not be forgotten is the fact that hunting for the wolf is not intentional cruelty to animals, but a necessity for survival.
In contrast to the farmers, who are torturers by profession and use animals for their economic interests lifelong.
We cannot allow that these animal haters, the peasants, and their dirty marionettes in the banana republic of Germany authorize the execution of wolves, and even legalize it later.
As soon as a petition comes out, I will contact you again.
It wasn’t the wolf, it was the farmers’ love for their animals
Posted on May 31, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
9 years ago today, Australians were waking up to the shocking reality of live animal export.
The night before, Animals Australia’s ground-breaking investigation into Australia’s live cattle trade to Indonesia had aired on Four Corners, in a program aptly titled A Bloody Business.
We watched in horror as this Australian steer — who we named ‘Tommy’ — stood trembling on the floor of an Indonesian slaughterhouse, waiting his ‘turn’ as his pen mates were butchered around him.
The months that followed this exposé were a blur of politics and press conferences as the industry came under unprecedented scrutiny and in the end, was forced into a new era of government regulation.
Today, this ‘bloody business’ continues but for live exporters, it’s harder, more expensive and more scrutinised than ever. That’s one of Tommy’s legacies.
The other will be an end to this global trade in animal suffering. Because Tommy’s experience ignited a collective wave of grief, compassion and determination that is as strong today as it was 9 years ago. Thank you for fuelling his legacy and being the reason our work can continue.
Live exporters want the world to forget Tommy. We never will.
Posted on May 31, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Tale of two farms that says it all: US megafarm locals call ‘Cowschwitz’ has 120,000 wretched cattle pumped with hormones to boost growth… while a fully organic farm in Wiltshire (England) won its owner an OBE for animal welfare
Harris Ranch in California is one of America’s largest ‘feedlots’, or factory farms for cows
It produces a staggering 150 million pounds of beef every year
Harris Ranch has long been a target for animal rights protesters and suffered an arson attack in 2012
It is the smell that hits you first, a putrid stench seeping in through the air-conditioning vents of the car. I’m still two miles away from Harris Ranch, one of America’s largest ‘feedlots’, or factory farms for cows. I’m hurtling down the freeway at 70mph and the windows are up, yet the stink is everywhere, filling the car and permeating the 105F air outside.
When the ranch finally comes into view, the sheer size and scale of the operation is mind-boggling.
Spread over 800 dusty acres without a blade of green grass in sight, there are up to 120,000 cattle here at any one time. The animals come from ranches throughout the western states of America to be fattened up before slaughter. The locals call it ‘Cowschwitz’.
Pizza Hut, KFC to sell Beyond Meat products at restaurants in China
China represents big market for plant-based meat maker
Beyond Meat is partnering with fast-food chains KFC and Pizza Hut to sell its plant-based meat replacements in China.
The companies haven’t announced specific details yet, but new products are scheduled to launch in June at the restaurants’ Chinese locations.
“We’re proud to expand our partnership with KFC into China, one of their largest markets worldwide, as well as introduce a new partnership with Pizza Hut in China,” a Beyond Meat spokesperson told FOX Business. “We’ll be sharing more details soon.”
Beyond Meat has been making a push into new markets. The company already announced a limited test last month at Chinese KFC restaurants, and Starbucks has also recently launched a plant-based menu in China that features Beyond Meat products.
KFC sold plant-based chicken nuggets in the trial last month, and Yum China said pre-sale coupons for the first day sold out in less than an hour.
“The test of KFC’s Plant-Based Chicken Nuggets caters to the growing market in China for delicious alternative meat options on the go,” Yum China CEO Joey Wat said in a statement last month. “We believe that testing the plant-based chicken concept with one of our most iconic products will take this increasingly popular meatless trend to a new level.”
Meatless protein makers like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have eyed China as key to their future growth. Beyond Meat hired a former Tesla executive, Sanjay Shah, last year to lead the company’s overseas expansion.
DxE investigator Matt Johnson was just arrested in Iowa. He’s in jail right now charged with three felonies for documenting factory farms roasting pigs alive in mass killings due to COVID-19.
The industry and government are calling this torture “humane” and saying that Matt is the criminal for speaking out.
We need your help to support Matt and expose the industry’s lies as people everywhere recognize just how vile it truly is.
Posted on May 30, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
The following film shows terrible Jewish slaughtering in the USA – an undercover film by the international animal welfare organization PETA from a slaughterhouse in the American state of Iowa.
It is a bit older, from 2004, and is the short version of a very long video that is almost unbearable to watch.
Dr. Erwin Kessler, who made the video known in Europe, is the President of VgT (Association against animal factories,Switzerland) and he has as follow reported about it:
“I have seen and experienced a lot. I felt sick with these recordings. What these “religious” beasts do to the cattle is unspeakable, unbearable.
Words are missing.
It is unbearable for a mentally healthy person and he will be followed by these recordings for a long time. You should just know that there are such documents – for those who still don’t believe it”.
My comment: Before the anti-Semitism argument is raised, I would like to say the following:
There is no human culture that has not embodied some morally indefensible practices at some time or another.
Progress would never have been brought about if people were complacent about religious practices.
Criticizing the religious practices of others is much easier than criticizing one’s own.
But this does not mean that criticizing the rites of others is impermissible.
While the slaughter of animals in abattoirs is wrong, the dismembering of a live cattle is still worse and thus deserves special criticism.
Just when we seem to be easing out of the crisis, just as the death toll slows and new hospital admissions for coronavirus head towards zero, just as we begin to allow ourselves the first tentative sigh of relief, along comes a new book by an American doctor to tell us: this, folks, is just the dress rehearsal.
The real show, the plague in which half of us may well die, is yet to come.
And, if we don’t change our ways, it could be just around the corner. What we are experiencing now may feel bad enough but is, apparently, small beer.
In the ‘hurricane scale’ of epidemics, Covid- 19, with a death rate of around half of one per cent, rates a measly Category Two, possible a Three — a big blow but not catastrophic.
The Big One, the typhoon to end all typhoons, will be 100 times worse when it comes, a Category Five producing a fatality rate of one in two — a coin flip between life and death — as it gouges its way through the earth’s population of nearly eight billion people. Civilisation as we know it would cease.
What’s more, he adds ominously, ‘with pandemics explosively spreading a virus from human to human, it’s never a matter of if, but when’.
This apocalyptic warning comes from Dr Michael Greger, a scientist, medical guru and campaigning nutritionist who has long advocated the overwhelming benefits of a plant-based diet. He’s a self-confessed sweet potatoes, kale and lentils man. Meat, in all its forms, is his bete noire.
He has also done a lot of research into infectious diseases — the 3,600 footnotes and references in his mammoth 500-page book bear witness to that.
His conclusion is that our close connection to animals — keeping them, killing them, eating them — makes us vulnerable to the worst kind of epidemic. With every pork sausage, bacon sandwich and chicken nugget, we are dicing with death.
The key to all this woe awaiting us is ‘zoonoses’ — the scientific term for infections that pass from animals to humans. They cross over from them to us and overwhelm our natural immune systems, with potentially fatal consequences on an unimaginable scale.
These viruses are generally benign in the host, but mutate, adapt themselves to a different species and become lethal.
Thus tuberculosis was acquired millennia ago through goats, measles came from sheep and goats, smallpox from camels, leprosy from water buffalo, whooping cough from pigs, typhoid fever from chickens and the cold virus from cattle and horses. These zoonoses rarely get to humans directly, but via the bridge of another species.
Civets were the route for SARS to get from bats to humans; with MERS it was camels. Covid-19 originated in bats, but probably got to us by way of an infected pangolin, a rare and endangered scaly anteater whose meat is considered a delicacy in some parts of the world and whose scales are used in traditional medicines.
Once Covid-19 got a toehold, thanks to globalisation, it travelled fast and far among humans, leading to the perilous state we are in today. ‘Just one meal or medicine,’ notes Greger, ‘may end up costing humanity trillions of dollars and millions of lives’.
Which is a trifle, though, compared with what could happen next time, when the bridge the virus crosses to infect is likely to be just about the most prevalent creature on the planet — the humble chicken.
There are a mind-blowing 24 billion of them spread around the globe — getting on for double the number there were just 20 years ago.
We gulp down their cheap-as-chips meat and eggs by the ton, and turn a blind eye to the factory-farming conditions in which they are reared, force-fed with chemicals and slaughtered.
We in the West may kid ourselves into xenophobic complacency about lethal viruses, content to shrug off the blame for them getting out of hand onto cultures that lap up bat soup or pickled pangolins.
So it’s a bit of a shock to be told the greatest danger of all is lurking in our back yard.
Because if Dr Greger’s prediction is anywhere near true, the diseases harboured by chickens, notably influenza, could end up damn nearly wiping us out.
Influenza is scientists’ top pick for humanity’s next killer plague. It most famously turned deadly on a vast scale back in 1918-20, infecting at least 500 million people — a third of the world’s population at the time — and killing 10 per cent of them, possibly more.
The World Health Organisation describes it as the ‘most deadly disease event in the history of humanity’.
It killed more people in a single year than the Black Death — the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages — did in a century, and more people in 25 weeks than Aids killed in 25 years.
Death was quick but not gentle. ‘Spanish Flu’, as it misleadingly came to be known, began innocuously with a cough and aching muscles, followed by fever, before exploding into action, leaving many victims with blood squirting from their nose, ears, and eye sockets.
Purple blood blisters appeared on their skin. Froth poured from their lungs and many turned blue before suffocating. A pathologist who performed post-mortem examinations spoke of lungs six times their normal weight and so full of blood they looked ‘like melted redcurrant jelly’.
Normal flu — the type we see every year — targets the old and infirm, but the 1918 variety wiped out those in the prime of life, with mortality peaking among 20 to 34-year-olds. It stopped spreading after two years only when everyone was either dead or immune and it ran out of people to infect.
For decades, the precise starting point of humanity’s greatest killer was an unsolved puzzle, though pigs were suspected. Not until 2005 was it scientifically established that the Spanish Flu was avian influenza. Its source was birds.
This apocalyptic warning comes from Dr Michael Greger, a scientist, medical guru and campaigning nutritionist who has long advocated the overwhelming benefits of a plant-based diet
Since that mass outbreak among humans in the early part of the 20th century, bird flu has remained just that — largely confined to its host creature.
The worry is that the virus never stands still but is always mutating, and in 1997 a new strain emerged, known as H5N1, which crossed over into humans.
This is the monster lurking in the undergrowth, the one that makes epidemiologists shudder.
According to infectious disease expert Professor Michael Osterholm, it is a ‘kissing cousin of the 1918 virus’ and could lead to a repeat of 1918, but in an even more lethal way. The 1997 outbreak started with a three-year-old boy in Hong Kong, whose sore throat and tummy ache turned into a disease that curdled his blood and killed him within a week from acute respiratory and organ failure.
If it had spread, Lam Hoi-ka would have been patient zero for a new global pandemic. Fortunately, it was contained. Just 18 people contracted it, a third of whom died.
Those figures demonstrated its extreme lethality. but also that, thank goodness, it was slow to be transmitted. What worried public health scientists, however, was that the new strain turned out to be only a few mutations away from being able to replicate itself rapidly in human tissue. Here was the potential for a nightmare scenario — extreme lethality combined with ease of transmission.
One expert declared: ‘The only thing I can think of that could take a larger human death toll would be thermonuclear war.’
And where had the H5N1 in Hong Kong originated? Greger claims that in a subsequent investigation, the strongest risk factor to emerge was either direct or indirect contact with poultry. The birds in the pets corner at Lam Hoi-ka’s nursery even came under suspicion.
‘Thankfully,’ he adds, ‘H5N1 has so far remained a virus mainly of poultry, not people.’
But for how long? ‘It and other new and deadly animal viruses like it are still out there, still mutating, with an eye on the eight-billion-strong buffet of human hosts.’
And if, God forbid, it were to take hold, it would be many times worse than before. Like the 1918 version of the virus, H5N1 has a proclivity for the lungs, but it doesn’t stop there. It can go on to invade the bloodstream and ravage other internal organs until it is nothing short of a whole-body infection.
Iowa’s largest pork producer, Iowa Select Farms, has been using a cruel and excruciating method to kill thousands of pigs that have become commercially worthless due to the coronavirus pandemic. As is true for so much of what the agricultural industry does, the company’s gruesome extermination of sentient animals that are emotionally complex and intelligent has been conducted entirely out of public view.
But The Intercept, as the result of an investigation by animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, has obtained video footage of the procedure and the resulting carnage that occurred at one of the company’s facilities in mid-May. Additionally, a whistleblower employed by Iowa Select has provided extensive details to The Intercept about the extraordinary methods now being employed to kill pigs — agonizingly and over the course of many hours — in increasingly large numbers.
What prompted both the DxE investigation and the whistleblower to come forward is Iowa Select’s recent adoption of the mass-extermination method known as “ventilation shutdown,” or VSD. Under this method, pigs at the company’s rural Grundy County facility are being “depopulated,” using the industry’s jargon, by sealing off all airways to their barns and inserting steam into them, intensifying the heat and humidity inside and leaving them to die overnight. Most pigs — though not all — die after hours of suffering from a combination of being suffocated and roasted to death. The recordings obtained by The Intercept include audio of the piercing cries of pigs as they succumb. The recordings also show that some pigs manage to survive the ordeal — but, on the morning after, Iowa Select dispatches armed workers to enter the barn to survey the mound of pig corpses for any lingering signs of life, and then use their bolt guns to extinguish any survivors.
The whistleblower told The Intercept that when Iowa Select began using the ventilation shutdown method in late April, it first experimented on a smaller group of hogs by just shutting off the airways into their barn and turning up the heat. Other employees told similar stories to DxE investigators. After those experiments failed — the oxygen-deprived pigs survived over the course of many hours, the whistleblower said, due to a failure to increase the heat to fatal levels — Iowa Select decided to begin injecting steam into the barns, to accelerate the accumulation of heat and humidity. That steam is visible in the video provided to The Intercept and is the culmination, at least thus far, of several attempts to perfect VSD. The whistleblower explained the process:
They shut the pit pans off, shut the ventilation fans off, and heat up the building. That’s what the plan is. It’s horrific as it is. It was first used on test cull sows: those were first given the VSD treatment. The first day they shut off all the fans and turned the heat up and the hottest they could get the building was 120 degrees. After four to five hours, none of the animals were dead. There was an attempt to induce steam into the building, along with the heat and the ventilation shutdown, and that is how they ultimately perfected their VSD operation. Every time they’ve been euthanizing the animals, it’s been a test in a sense. Piglets were killed off in a barn with gas generators.
The profit model of the agricultural industry depends, of course, on raising animals in ways that cause suffering for years and then ultimately killing them to convert them into meat. Though food lines are growing around the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has prompted factory farms to exterminate animals en masse because of the erosion of their commercial supply chains. Numerous slaughterhouses have been forced to close due to Covid-19 outbreaks among their insufficiently protected employees, and this has only increased the amount of “excess” animals the industry regards as worthless and disposable.
Rather than caring for these animals until pre-pandemic demand returns, or converting them into discounted or donated food for millions of people who have suddenly become unemployed and food insecure by caring for the animals until slaughterhouse capacity can accommodate them, many companies, including Iowa Select, have evidently made decisions driven exclusively by a goal to maximize profits. In sum, they are slaughtering these now “worthless” animals in vast numbers as fast as possible, using extermination methods that cause sustained suffering and agony, to avoid the costs of keeping them alive.
During the pandemic, mass slaughter has become commonplace at factory farms, even though many of these farms are not where large-scale killing is meant to occur. In normal times, the animals would be transported to slaughterhouses and killed there in ways that, at least in theory, minimize the cruelty by accelerating the death process. But mass killings that radically deviate from the normal slaughterhouse process are now rampant in this industry and are expected to increase. “At least two million animals have already reportedly been culled on farm, and that number is expected to rise,” The Guardian reported on April 29. Officials in Iowa “have warned that producers could be forced to kill 700,000 pigs a week due to meat plant slowdowns or closures.”
This mass extermination requires the use of life-extinguishing procedures which, prior to the pandemic, were not typically employed by this industry. And those procedures are anything but quick, painless, or humane, as this four-minute video produced by The Intercept demonstrates:
The Horrors of Ventilation Shutdown
The decision to kill healthy animals in unusually large numbers has led many factory farms to resort to methods that are novel and gruesome. The quickest and most merciful way to induce death for so many animals at once — shooting them in the head one by one — would be too emotionally traumatizing even for factory farm employees who are accustomed to raising animals in order to bring them to slaughter. Even when standard industrial methods of slaughter are used, factory farm work has been demonstrated to entail serious mental health harms for workers.
But the method of ventilation shutdown now being used at Iowa Select causes pigs to endure great anguish over many hours on their way to death. On the hidden audio recorders placed in the barn as part of DxE’s investigation, sustained screams of distress and agony are audible as the heat fills the building while the air supply is shut down. The deployment of armed workers to shoot any pigs who are clinging to life in the morning is designed to ensure 100 percent mortality. But the number of pigs in the barn is so great that standard methods to confirm death, such as pulse-checking, are not performed, making it quite possible that some pigs survived the ventilator shutdown, were not killed by bolt guns, and are therefore buried alive or crushed by the bulldozers that haul away the corpses.
Iowa Select has not responded to numerous questions submitted by The Intercept. But upon discovering that investigators from DxE had obtained video footage from inside one of its barns showing the suffering of pigs during this process, the company tried to preempt this reporting by admitting its use of VSD in an article published last week by a pork industry newsletter. “The thought of euthanizing entire herds is devastating,” a company spokesperson told the newsletter. “Sadly, Iowa Select has been forced to make this heartbreaking decision for some of its herd.”
To another industry outlet, the company “announced in a statement that they have been forced to euthanize some of its herd,” emphasizing not the pain endured by the animals that were exterminated, but the suffering of company executives: “‘It’s been hard on us to come to those decisions,’ says Pete Thomas, DVM at Iowa Select Farms.”
The video obtained during DxE’s investigation and provided to The Intercept viscerally conveys the inhumane cruelty of this extermination method. The video cameras placed inside the barn, along with audio recorders, were activated shortly after DxE investigators learned that a ventilation shutdown was scheduled for a particular night in mid-May.
Those video and audio devices recorded the start of the killing process, beginning with the sealing off of all airways, and continued all night as the pigs suffered and died. The devices continued recording through to the next morning, when Iowa Select employees entered the barn, finished the extermination process by shooting the pigs who managed to survive and then removed the corpses using bulldozers. The audio recorders document the noises of anguish emitted by the pigs during the procedure, as well as the sound of guns finishing off survivors. It also records discussions by Iowa Select Farms about what they were doing, followed by their eventual discovery that hidden cameras had captured everything that was done.
In an interview with The Intercept, the whistleblowing employee of Iowa Select, who originally wanted to speak on the record but changed their mind due to fear of reprisals from the industry that dominates their state, described the abuses that prompted them to reach out to DxE even prior to the pandemic. The whistleblower recounted how their pre-Covid-19 anguish escalated significantly over the last several months, and how they were pushed over the limits of their conscience by witnessing the unparalleled horrors of their employer’s use of ventilation shutdowns.
Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the whistleblower decided to covertly communicate with DxE investigators after reading a study published by the group on the inhumane and often illegal confinement of factory farm pigs in which they linger for years with no adequate space even to turn around. The conditions in which the Iowa Select pigs were kept — with nowhere near enough room to be considered humane by the whistleblower — was increasingly weighing on their conscience. The whistleblower explained to The Intercept that a “massive increase” in pig production over 2019 led to the already cramped space for pigs becoming even smaller. Despite being around farms for decades, the whistleblower could hardly bear to see what was happening. “It’s immoral, hard to see every single day,” they said.
Months ago, the whistleblower even began conducting research into regulatory requirements, after observing that the pigs were being stored in ways that appeared to them to be “double what is permitted” by applicable standards. But they quickly determined that the state would have little interest in taking action.
Indeed, the agricultural industry has long used its economic dominance to influence both political parties and the legislative process to enact laws and regulations with little purpose other than to maximize their profit margins and conceal from the public the realities of how they operate. The industry succeeded even to the point of inducing the enactment of now-notorious and constitutionally invalidated “ag-gag” laws, designed to punish various forms of transparency intended to show the public the realities of what takes place inside industrial farms. A short documentary produced by The Intercept last year revealed pervasive abuses in Iowa’s meat industry and how those abuses are protected and enabled by industry-dominated politicians who receive substantial donations and dutifully subject themselves to industry lobbyist control.
The whistleblower’s growing concerns about the ethics of this industry “quickly evolved” as the coronavirus pandemic began seriously affecting factory farms. The pandemic caused “massive backups,” the whistleblower said. As market gluts and slaughterhouse shutdowns increased, the whistleblower began to suspect that “massive kill-offs of healthy pigs” were being planned by the company: Pigs, in the whistleblower’s words, “are now being killed for no reason.”
This realization of imminent mass extermination using methods that cause death slowly and painfully elevated the crisis of conscience to an entirely new level. “The weight of that was pretty heavy, to be honest,” the whistleblower said. Over the course of the last several months, the whistleblower began seeing Iowa Select implement new protocols and schedules for the transportation of pigs, reviewing documents describing new procedures, and hearing from other facility employees about plans for ventilation shutdown. That was when the whistleblower concluded that the reality of killing healthy pigs en masse was coming “very much sooner rather than later.”
The Iowa Select Farms whistleblower is far from being a coastal animal rights activist or vegan fanatic ideologically opposed to all animal agriculture. The source is virtually the opposite of that industry-peddled caricature: someone who has been around farming, including industrial agriculture, for their entire life. They are someone fully accustomed to the raising and slaughtering of animals for food, often under repressive and inhumane conditions. And yet, even with all of that mental conditioning and cultural immersion, the whistleblower was reaching the breaking point for what their conscience could withstand even before the Covid-19 pandemic. Once the pandemic ushered in all-new moral atrocities, they could no longer morally justify staying silent and complicit about an industry that has long provided them and much of their community with employment.
Rather than becoming inured to these abuses as the result of daily exposure, the whistleblower was becoming increasingly sickened by them. While this “is an industry I’ve grown up around,” the whistleblower said, “I wasn’t becoming numb to it. It was affecting me more and more every day: feeling the compassion and empathy for these animals that we were working with every day, then beginning to question” the ethics and morality of industrial practices.
As The Intercept has often documented, pigs are social animals at least as intelligent and emotionally complex as dogs, who experience the full range of emotions from life: joy, playfulness, love, connection, pain, loss, suffering, and grief. But at least prior to the coronavirus pandemic, even with all the immense suffering factory farm animals endure — bred by industrial agriculture to live in extreme deprivation, which often includes being confined for years in cages so small they can never even turn around, living in festering disease, and being genetically modified to be more profitable to the point that their own distorted bodies cause constant pain — the method of slaughter that finally ends their suffering is typically (though not always) free of sustained, enduring pain and agony.
But the pandemic, while having no effect on the inherent moral value of these sentient beings, has stripped them of their commercial worth. And that has resulted in the industry using extermination methods outside of the standard processes, producing new ethical and moral horrors in an industry that was already suffused with them.
To continue reading click on the link at the start of this post.
We are beyond excited to report after learning from Animals Asia that China’s new National Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources was announced this morning, with dogs not included on the list.
“This is a step by step process where the regulation bans the industry of selling live dogs and dog meat for food, rather than making it illegal to eat your own dog. You can no longer buy dogs in the markets or restaurants for consumption because they are selling dogs illegally for food,” Animals Asia told WAN.
“However, if you breed your own dogs you can eat them – but you cannot sell them for consumption. All of the dog meat restaurants, markets, and slaughterhouses countrywide selling dogs for food are illegal now – including of course Yulin,” continued Animals Asia.
“One more addition is that Shenzhen and Zhuhai have already made it illegal to both buy dogs for food and eat them (in any capacity). We hope that a precedent has been set with more cities joining this initiative as well,” concluded Animals Asia.
Although the legislation is not an outright ban on consumption, the regulation bans the selling of live dogs and dog meat for food. This is sending a message to the industry that dog meat consumption is not supported by the government.
The protection also extends to cats who are not and have never been on the Catalogue of Livestock, reflecting their status and importance as companion animals as well.
Animals Asia’s Cat and Dog Welfare team has worked for decades to see the building blocks towards this decision – quietly and sensitively behind the scenes with the authorities and local NGO’s. They have been encouraging responsible dog management, and a harmonious connection with companion animals in China, seeing the government and public increasingly supportive of ending the dog and cat meat trade. Their team can now report any illegal restaurants or facilities selling dogs as meat and help to strengthen this regulation by public education – thus slowly bringing the consumption of dogs (and cats) completely to an end.
The organization submitted four in-depth investigative reports to a number of national and local governments to help departments and officials understand the violations and dangers of the dog and cat meat industry. Their efforts were acknowledged by an official reply letter from the State Food and Drug Administration in 2017, which mentioned that they would protect consumers’ food safety by strengthening supervision and inspection of restaurants and other dog and cat meat sales across the country, collaborate with relevant departments to crack down on illegal dog and cat meat practices, and increase publicity and guidance to the public, amongst many other important measures.
This regulation is a cause for celebration, showing that Animals Asia’s programs working from within the country, nationwide, have been supported by the authorities and are now making the difference they had hoped for. It provides inspiration to continue their work to improve the lives of animals and humans alike, and is truly a shining example of kindness in action.
“Thank you to Animals Asia and all of the compassionate people and groups worldwide who have worked tirelessly for decades to end the barbaric dog and cat meat trade in China and throughout Asia, you have exposed this shocking trade and proved that darkness can’t exist where there is light,” said Katie Cleary, President & Founder of WAN & Peace 4 Animals.
Posted on May 30, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Reported by “Freedom for dolphins and whales”, May 24 at 8:58 pm public
Every Wednesday and Sunday at 8 p.m. we share the life story of a dolphin or whale with you.
Today we report on the seventh fatality in the Duisburg Zoo, Germany, a male dolphin named Flip, who could have lived much longer if the Dusiburger Zoo had properly taken care of him.
Flip’s story, Bottlenose dolphin, 5 years imprisonment, in the Duisburg Zoo,Germany.
In the middle of 1965,Flip was brutally caught with three other bottlenose dolphins in the waters off Florida for the Duisburg Zoo.
In addition to the dolphin male Flip, the other three unfortunate bottlenose dolphins, another male dolphin that was given the name Flap and two female bottlenose dolphins which were given the names Perfect and Littlebit and died shortly after being caught.
On July 11, 1965, the first four bottlenose dolphins reached the Duisburg Zoo. They were locked in the basin called a dolphin with a size of approx. 10 x 10 meters and a depth of three meters and in this basin, which could not in the least reproduce their natural habitat, they should also die.
The two females were the first victims of the Duisburg Zoo.
Perfect died after 13 days, the death of Little Bit came on 44 days later.
For more athttps://worldanimalsvoice.com/2020/05/30/duisburg-dolphinarium-the-largest-dolphin-cemetery-in-europe/
My comment: It is criminal to keep these sophisticated animals in captivity because they are deprived of even the most basic needs: in the wild, dolphins live in groups of up to 100 animals, reach speeds of up to 50 km / h and can reach up to 500 meters Dive deep.
Also, the food in captivity, namely dead fish, is not “natural” for dolphins, because in the wild dolphins only eat live fish, and avoid the dead one.
The weakest argument of zoo supporters is that of animal conservation.
In reality, it is like this: Because stupid zoo visitors and their kids are enthusiastic about such suffering inmates and even want to enjoy stupid selfies, these innocent and completely defenseless animals have to live in loneliness, suffering, and deprivation of liberty for a lifetime.
These animals are unlucky enough to be caught by poachers as children, to be snatched away by their families, and to be sold to unscrupulous slave owners called zookeepers.
These inmates did not violate any law – and yet they were “long life” in a zoo.
Like millions of other animals, their freedom is robbed because the stupid visitors have no education and no morals, and regard captivity as a conformal way of life for “others”.
In the past, people from other ethnic groups or people with special physical characteristics were also shown in zoos and deprived of their dignity. They were particularly large or small, particularly hairy, had a different skin color – in any case, they were “different” in some way. The culture of these people was ridiculed.
It was not until 1940 that these so-called national shows were banned, which, like today’s zoos, were called “educational institutions”.
And if we haven’t understood for hundreds of years, we should finally understand NOW that animals are not our slaves, they have the right to live freely on this planet as roommates.
But the ruling species, human-beast, has taken the right to decide about them, to enslave them for its own purposes.
We have not developed.
Humans still live on the tree, in terms of morality with “other” animals.
Posted on May 29, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
We have just received disturbing information alleging that more than 600 monkeys destined for laboratories will be shipped to Chicago on a Volga-Dnepr flight leaving Cambodia on May 29.
We’ve received disturbing reports that the Russian airline Volga-Dnepr Airlines, under its parent company Volga-Dnepr Group, allegedly transported a shipment of monkeys for use in laboratories in the U.S. and maybe planning to do it again.
Insiders allegedly at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport reported that Volga-Dnepr Airlines transported a shipment of live monkeys from Cambodia to the U.S., where they will be sent to laboratories and used for cruel and deadly experiments.
We confirmed that the airline did indeed operate flight VI3236, which departed Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia on April 30, 2020, and arrived at George Bush Intercontinental/Houston Airport in the U.S. on May 1, 2020, after making two stops—at Khabarovsk Novy Airport in Russia and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
We were told that the cargo on board this flight was live monkeys destined for experimentation.
We contacted Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ executive team and global offices multiple times, but they are refusing to answer our questions about transporting monkeys for experimentation.
Volga-Dnepr Airlines: Come clean! Are you transporting monkeys to laboratories?
My comment: Experts in the field of microfluidics and “human-on-a-chip” technology assume that no toxicity tests will be carried out on animals in the foreseeable future, and shortly thereafter no more tests on the effects of the medication will be carried out on animals because of the alternatives are scientifically superior.
On May 14, 2020, the science magazine “Science” reported that a Dutch research group had succeeded in showing on the human intestinal organoid and how coronaviruses attack the gastrointestinal system.
On May 5, 2020, the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin described the human lung organoids on its website as “the ideal test system for corona infection”!
We are currently living in transition.
The corona crisis could be the reason to finally abolish animal experiments that are worthless for human animals and cruel for non-human animals.
Posted on May 28, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Italy and Belgium have joined France in moving to ban the use of the controversial hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 patients, as questions continue to mount over its safety.
On Wednesday, France revoked its decree authorizing the prescription of the anti-malarial drug for the novel coronavirus following a decision from the government’s health advisory agency.
Now Belgium’s health body has warned against using the drug outside of ongoing registered clinical trials.
Italy’s health authorities also concluded that there is too little evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 and that the lack of proof means it should be banned outside of clinical trials.
The Italian Medicines Agency(AIFA) also cited new clinical evidence on the use of the drug which “indicates an increased risk for adverse reactions with little or no benefit.”
My comment: WANTED: Human guinea pigs for big pharma. Must be willing to risk the health and possibly their lives in the name of profits. Must waive all rights of recourse against said vaccine creators.
At the moment, only French, Belgian, and Italian guinea pigs are not in demand.
After releasing footage taken inside “wet markets” in Indonesia and Thailand in early April – months after the COVID-19 outbreak began – PETA Asia investigators observed more filth, misery, and death at nearly a dozen other animal markets elsewhere in Asia.
At one market, the flesh of wild boars, snakes, dogs, and rats was sold openly, and even cats were slated for slaughter – huddled together, terrified and exhausted, in a crowded, dirty cage.
Since PETA released the initial footage in April, more than 200,000 people have joined PETA and our affiliates in urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to call for an end to deadly live-animal markets around the globe. More than 60 bipartisan congressional lawmakers followed in our footsteps, too, writing their own, similar letter to WHO urging the agency to request the closure of all such markets immediately. And as hundreds of thousands of human lives have already been claimed by COVID-19, it’s more critical than ever that we all take action.
Please join us in urging the World Health Organization to call for an end to live-animal meat markets.
Thanks for all you do for animals.
Sincerely,
Simon P-H
PETA UK
After releasing footage taken inside “wet markets” (also called “live-animal markets”) in Indonesia and Thailand in early April—months after the COVID-19 outbreak began—PETA Asia investigators observed more filth, misery, and death at nearly a dozen other animal markets elsewhere in Asia. Despite a growing death toll, calls by world leaders for a ban on such markets, and the continued importance of flattening the curve, they and others like them are still conducting business as usual.
These Live-Animal Markets Could Be Where the Next Pandemic Originates
This new footage, shot just days ago, takes viewers inside live-animal markets in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, where chickens, ducks, fish, and dogs as well as bats, monkeys, and other exotic animals are sold.
Terrified live animals, bloody carcasses, and rotting flesh were all being peddled for human consumption. At multiple sites, investigators observed marketgoers walking around in flip-flops on floors covered with bodily fluids and handling raw flesh and touching blood-streaked countertops with their bare hands. At two other markets, civet cats and bats were sold for food—even though they’re a reservoir species for severe acute respiratory syndrome (commonly known as SARS), another deadly coronavirus.
Blood and Rotting Flesh Everywhere
Weeks before, PETA Asia investigators had visited wet markets in Indonesia and Thailand and were shocked even back then that any were still operating. At the Tomohon Market in Indonesia, the flesh of wild boars, snakes, dogs, and rats (whose babies like to put their arms around their mother’s neck while being bathed) were openly sold at the market. Gloveless workers and customers were seen handling the body parts of animals who had been killed on site. A mutilated snake was curled up on a table, blood staining the white tiles red. Chickens with open wounds were bound to other birds slated for slaughter.
Enough Is Enough
All wet markets are potential breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases, such as COVID-19, SARS, and MERS. At such markets, feces and other bodily fluids can easily get on traders’ and customers’ shoes and be tracked into restaurants and homes. The workers who handle the animals often don’t wear gloves (as seen in the video footage) and can also spread bacteria. Flies swarm around the bodies of dead pigs and other animals, and the countertops and floors are streaked red with the blood of gutted fish and slaughtered animals.
PETA Asia has written to health officials in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to call for an end to deadly live-animal markets.
Shutting down foreign wet markets isn’t good enough. To prevent more diseases like COVID-19, we must do more than crack down on these markets only in certain areas of the world. All live-animal markets must go.
Live Birds Caged With Their Dead Companions
Live ducks and chickens (who have their own unique language, with more than 30 different sounds) were kept in cramped, filthy cages, sometimes with the bodies of birds who’d already been purchased and killed. Live turtles (some of whom can hold their breath under water for over 100 days) and other “exotic” sea animals were also available for purchase. Like all animals, they just want to be left in peace, not killed for food.
Suffering and Death in a Thai ‘Wet Market’
At Bangkok’s Khlong Toei Market, PETA Asia’s investigator saw mesh bags jam-packed with live, frightened frogs (some of whom use trees as “drums” to send messages to one another) being plunked down next to the mutilated bodies of other slaughtered frogs.
Cats Are Caged and Sold for Meat, Too
Terrified, exhausted cats—sensitive and intelligent, just like the cats we share our hearts and homes with—were kept in a crowded, dirty cage without food or water until they were purchased for their flesh.
Help Prevent the Next Global Pandemic: Take Action Now!
Posted on May 28, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Animal hoarding describes the morbid addiction to collecting animals – a widespread phenomenon not only in Germany.
People who hoard a large number of animals in this form usually cause terrible animal suffering: they often do not provide food, adequate hygiene, and veterinary care.
Again and again, countless animals have to be saved from terrible circumstances in which they lived with animal collectors.
What is animal hoarding?
Animal Hoarders are mostly not aware of the suffering they cause to the animals in their care – even if it seems obvious to other observers. The animal collectors are also characterized by the following striking behaviors:
-They collect a large number of animals, often kept in too little space.
-They don’t care about the most basic needs of animals, such as freshwater, feed, shelter, veterinary care, and hygiene.
-They make excuses or deny the miserable conditions under which their animals – and other people in the household – have to live.
Even if the well-being of oneself or other family members are endangered, the people affected usually no longer respond.
And I mean…Mostly, Hoarding is a symptom of a mental disorder, to which the animals ultimately fall as victims, mainly because the family or the environment of the person intentionally remains indifferent.
The Hoarders are not aware of how much the imprisoned animals are suffering, but they are also unable to recognize that they themselves need psychological help.
Nevertheless, the common preaching of the Hoarders for collecting animals is … “I have to rescue as many cats as possible, otherwise they will be run over on the street”, or … “this dog is a very beautiful animal, it is unjust that he lives on the street “… and so over the years, they cause a personal tragedy and the cruel death of many innocent animals.
The Hoarders claim that they develop a very special bond with each animal, which they “save”, although most of them do not provide the animals with enough food, water or protection, nor medical help when they get sick.
According to a study about 408 dogs harvested from a Hoarder, these animals showed the following reactions when they later came into contact with humans:
-They were afraid of unknown people because of a lack of socialization
-Once they saw a person, they urinated because they lived in isolation
-They trembled as soon as someone stroked them because they never came into contact with people
Hoarding is nothing more than a bad form of animal cruelty.
Although the perpetrator is not acting out of sheer sadism or joy in the suffering of the animals, the result is the same: he causes the cruel death of animals, and therefore Hoarders belong to the psychiatric institution.
As society shifted from liberty to lockdown, life as we know it changed. This global crisis warrants a global response and that’s what we’re giving it… or are we?
We’ve seen schools close and pop-up hospitals open. As planes sat idle, airlines sought bailouts. Anti-bac became our everyday elixir. We’re now living a life full of hand-sewn face-masks, never-ending Zoom calls and supermarket home-deliveries.
In France police patrol the streets checking people’s permits to stroll outside. In Spain some residents resorted to walking toy dogs in an attempt to dodge imposed restrictions. And finally, after two long months of strict lockdown measures, Italy has taken a collective deep breath of fresh air.
So, as we battle this deadly pandemic, it’s only right that ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ became our quarantine mantra.
Journeys
As many of us keep safe inside, farmed animals continue to roam — though they too are not free. With a one-way ticket to an international destination of the industry’s choice, they are shipped great distances for ‘fattening’ and butchery.
Forced to travel many miles from where they were born, footage showed them in small metal pens, their hooves caught between the bars and their journeys lasting for days or even weeks. Some are pregnant or become injured along the way; most endure extreme temperatures with little food, water or rest; all are unaware of the chilling fate that awaits them.
Last month animal protection organisations, Eyes on Animals and L214, released undercover footage of calves from Ireland transported on long journeys to France for veal, where they were callously kicked and beaten with sticks.
And just a fortnight ago coverage of a newly published European Commission report highlighted that the welfare of millions of animals exported from the EU is being put at risk by failings, “including heat stress, bad planning and a lack of information from the destination country”.
Here in the UK thousands of live sheep, calves, pigs and even horses continue to be exported to countries in the EU and beyond. The cliffs of Dover are witness to lambs on their way to slaughter.
Disease
So, why one rule for the animal agriculture industry and another for the rest of us?
A particularly poignant question at a time when researchers are suggesting that the consumption of animal products may be linked to the coronavirus crisis and when science tells us that 75 percent of new and emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals.
Forcing animals to live in intensive conditions, travel great lengths in restless confinement and suffer a merciless death leaves us in a more precarious position than ever before.
Live export is certainly not necessary on animal welfare grounds, nor for reasons of public safety, so why exactly is this practice still permitted in the current health crisis?
As I write, animals are struggling in overcrowded lorries and ships, stuck in even longer queues than usual as COVID-19 further disrupts transport links. We cast-off these blameless animals with no controls in place for how they are to live or die: once they depart British soil, they may as well already be dead to us.
Profits
Workers too are in imminent danger. Truckers, vessel crews, animal handlers and others are all in close proximity with these frightened animals and will be amongst the first to catch any deadly pathogens that lurk. No one should be forced to be at risk just to make a living.
Though can we really be all that surprised that the meat industry is prioritising profits over people?
Weeks ago we saw workers stage a walkout of a poultry plant operated by Moy Park — one of the UK’s largest chicken producers, responsible for raising and slaughtering over 312 million birds here each year — due to fears over lack of PPE and inadequate measures to combat the spread of coronavirus.
And stories from slaughterhouses and meat packing facilities continue to dominate our screens, with coronavirus cases especially prevalent in abattoirs throughout the US and Ireland. This from an industry that prides itself on ever-increasing ‘kill line’ speeds, where workers are typically in close proximity and made to work as quickly as possible, all to maximise profits.
Inaction
Worldwide, an estimated two billion live animals are transported long distances each year. Since we went into lockdown in the UK on 23rd March, over 350 million live animals have been exported around the world. The numbers are staggering… the risk to us all equally so.
Boris himself has spoken out in the past in favour of a ban, claiming that by “abolishing the cruel live shipment of animals” the UK can demonstrate that “we will be able to do things differently” post-Brexit.
Despite this, no legislation has been put in place. Animal Equality is among many animal protection groups calling for action, including Compassion in World Farming, Eurogroup for Animals, KAALE and more.
The export of live animals poses a serious threat to humans and animals and now, more than ever before, we cannot afford the further spread of disease. The Government must end live animal exports.
This Author
Abigail Penny is executive director for Animal Equality. Animal Equality will be joining Compassion in World Farming’s global twitterstorm on 14 June 2020 to raise awareness of this issue and to signal to policymakers that this cruel practice must end now. Learn more from its website.
Posted on May 27, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Much has been written about the decimation of rhino populations in Africa due to poaching. Due to COVID-19, the problem has worsened as gangs in Mozambique take advantage of the lack of tourists and guards in South Africa’sKruger National Park, killing nine rhino already.
Since lockdown, six rhino in Botswana has been slaughtered for their horn.
Why do the poachers do it? In all the coverage of the rhino disaster — about the demand from China, the gangs who control the racket and the horrific on-the-ground images — the people who commit the actual murder of the animal have largely remained silent, until now.
In 2016, award-winning journalist Godknows Nare spent six months in the epicenter of rhino poaching, around the perimeter of Kruger National Park, interviewing poachers and their families.
Shortly after he returned, I talked with Nare about his time with the poachers. (Nare, who had received death threats for several years due to his work exposing the inhumane prison system in Zimbabwe as well as his investigations into corruption in South Africa, was shot and killed outside his home by Johannesburg Metropolitan Police in 2017. Three officers were arrested and put on trial for murder, later to be acquitted.)
“At first I thought [poachers] were just cruel criminals,” Nare told me. “But then you engage with the people, you live with the people … There are villages just around the Kruger National Park, [where people] live on social grants because there is no more land to farm … You just need to fill up your stomach. Then you can think about other things.”
And I mean…Ivory and Rhino Horn are billions of deals that can only be compared to those in the arms or drug business.
The largest market for illegally traded rhino horn is in Vietnam. Here the horn is used primarily by the new social elite as a status product and as a remedy for many diseases.
The rhino only contains keratin, which our fingernails also have.
Most of the business is done by black South Africans, who receive a commission of up to 3,000 euros.
Behind it are white gangsters who have made technological improvements with the money of Horn business: they have small multi-purpose helicopters and the latest night vision devices with which they can recognize the outlines of a rhino from four kilometers away.
Vietnamese usually act as middlemen and smuggle the loot into China via their homeland.
We have to find a way to eliminate the demand for rhinoceros horn so that nobody pays poacher for it.
Posted on May 27, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Dear Friends,
I want to urge you to register ASAP for this important webinar tomorrow, Thursday 5/28. There are over 80 slaughterhouses in NYC but they exist in every major city in the US and Canada. As a result of the pandemic of Covid-19, the WHO has urged the closing of all wet markets and there is a nationwide SlaughterFreeCity movement in response. You are sure to find this webinar of great interest…and it is open to all; so please share with associates and on social media!
All the best,
Zelda
Dear Friends,
My name is Tamara Bedic. I am the co-Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild (NYC) and Chair of its Animal Rights committee.
Although our Animal Rights committee used to meet in person, COVID-19 changed all that, and we’re now meeting online and inviting all activists and interested parties to join us.
I hosted our first online meeting in April called: ‘Wuhan, Wet Markets & Wildlife’. Our speaker was renowned Sino-American wildlife expert and animal activist Prof. Peter Li of Houston University. We concluded that webinar with comments by Assemblymember Rosenthal, who subsequently went on to draft a bill to close New York’s 80+ slaughterhouses, an essential step in ridding our neighborhoods of these disease-ridden, inhumane, wet-markets.
The poll that immediately followed April’s webinar asked attendees to choose a follow-up topic of preferred interest. “New York’s slaughterhouses” was by far the issue on every one’s mind; it won the poll by a landslide.
Bill A10399 / S08291 came into being around May 4th, but the clock is ticking on the session calendar. Meanwhile, the slaughterhouses are operating as ‘essential businesses’, despite having accumulated (in some cases) dozens of violations (as our FOIA requests bear witness).
So as you see, lots to analyze and discuss at the next meeting. Helping us along are:
“If this book doesn’t get trophy hunting banned I don’t know what will. This is an incredible investigation that reveals everything the industry would rather you didn’t know.” – JUDI DENCH
“A society which allows sentient creatures to be killed for entertainment has serious questions to answer. ‘Trophy Hunters Exposed’ asks those questions and then answers them in devastating fashion.” – PETER EGAN
“If there’s one book to buy about animals this year, this is it. Trophy hunting is legalised animal abuse on an industrial scale. ‘Trophy Hunters Exposed’ tells us why we must abolish it. Now.” – JOANNA LUMLEY
Thousands of animals threatened with extinction were shot by trophy hunters last year. Attempts to protect dwindling lion and elephant populations have been thwarted by hunters. They are now allowed to shoot twice as many critically endangered black rhinos. How has this happened?
‘TROPHY HUNTERS EXPOSED – Inside the Big Game Industry’ is an explosive investigation into the trophy hunting industry, its key players and donors, and how it is stripping endangered animals of the protections they need.
It reveals how a top fundraiser for Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man, the head of a paramilitary death-squad and a former WWF Director have shot record-breaking lions, elephants, rhinos and leopards.
It exposes the identities of over 500 hunters who have won industry awards for shooting all the ‘African Big Five’; the leading figures in the UK industry including a salesman who helps hunters shoot juvenile lions in enclosures; and the extraordinary kill tallies and trophy collections of hunters around the world.
It also lifts the lid on how household brands – and our taxes – are funding lobbyists, how the Boy Scouts and Salvation Army in the US are helping the industry recruit a new generation of child hunters, how lobbyists are posing as ‘conservation’ groups … and how the industry boasts it ploughs more money into US elections than some of the world’s biggest corporations.
Read how psychologists and criminologists fear trophy hunting could be fuelling violent crime, and how the industry could spark devastating outbreaks of diseases in local communities …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eduardo Goncalves is an award-winning campaigner, journalist and conservationist. He has been a consultant to WWF and CEO of a national animal welfare charity. In 2018, he founded the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, which is today supported by some of the world’s biggest names in music, sport, film and TV. In 2019, the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting persuaded the UK government to support a ban on imports of hunting trophies.
Eduardo was awarded the Animal Heroes Award for services to wildlife in 2019. A short film about Eduardo’s work – with endorsements from Kevin Pietersen, Stanley Johnson, Lorraine Kelly, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Daily Mirror editor Alison Phillips – can be viewed HERE.
Proceeds from the sale of ‘TROPHY HUNTERS EXPOSED – Inside the Big Game Industry’ will be donated to the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting
The Daily Mail has described Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting (CBTH) as “Britain’s most prominent anti-hunting activist”. Whether they mean that as a compliment is difficult to tell, but it does show just how busy Eduardo has been given that he only set up CBTH two years ago. Prior to that he was chief-executive of the League Against Cruel Sports of course (which, not that disclaimers are needed, is where I first met him), but Eduardo – it seems – has indeed become one of the most recognisable faces and voices in a movement arrowing in on one of the most cruel, wasteful, and disturbing examples of humanity’s war on wildlife.
In a remarkably short time Eduardo (who is seemingly everywhere and knows everyone) has brought together a broad coalition of supporters and researchers, become an almost permanent fixture in the media, and – it turns out – has also somehow found time to write a book. Or at least, written the sort of minutely-detailed, reference-packed work that an organisation like Ethical Consumer might produce if they were to write a book. Stripped of anything superfluous, of anything subjective or gratuitous (there are no images – can you imagine the hunters writing their manual without including selfies of dentists with dead lions?), “Trophy Hunters Exposed: Inside the Big Game Industry” slams into trophy hunting with the force of a meteorite.
Published today and presented in three parts, ‘THE’ precisely dissects the Industry (“one of the world’s most powerful political lobbies”), dispassionately lists the worst of the world’s self-glorifying hunters, before finally detailing exactly why these apparently sexually inadequate, delusional, ‘freedom fighters’ only feel alive when they’re killing something (in the name of ‘conservation’ of course). It’s all done so forensically. Fact after fact delivered like charges in an indictment. Page after page of condemnation of an industry that shouldn’t exist, that is built from an alt-right shopping list of God, money, gun rights, and machismo, a skewed eighteenth-century vision of white men sorting out the wilderness, and a biblical ‘dominion’ belief that animals are just there for us to do what we want with.
Eduardo doesn’t go in for such rhetorical flourish though, and ‘THE’ is all the better for it. There is a noticeable absence of opinion or personal pronouns. It is in essence a distillation of factual material, minutely researched and referenced, that brings together absolutely every good argument against trophy hunting. Trophy hunting’s proponents will seize on that last point as the book is unconcerned with presenting any of what they would see as the good arguments for trophy hunting. But, I would hazard a guess, that was never the intention. Eduardo’s response might be to point out that the industry has had years to lobby, obfuscate, blur, and lie, so why should he give their arguments (which revolve almost entirely around land-use) another airing, but I think it’s more likely that he simply neither respects nor agrees with any of them.
And why should he? Anything trophy hunters might trot out about respect for wildlife, local people, or conservation is undermined by their own words and actions. While ‘THE’ is not filled with what Eduardo thinks, feels, or has experienced, it does collate the most apposite quotations of others. There are damning lines picked from, for example, hunting forums, from unguarded discussions at hunting shows, and from the tone-deaf posturings of hunters on social media. There is an enormous amount of material in the public domain. Much of it no doubt resonates with fellow psychopaths, but to the rest of us it is just revealing. From glorifying trophy rooms (external representations of an individual’s total lack of empathy with the natural world) to organ-swelling gun porn (“…[the gazelle] swayed back and forth a bit and then turned and I saw the blood pouring out of his nose”), the appalling world of treating sentient life as the urinal wall in a pissing contest is laid bare.
Will ‘THE’ end trophy hunting? For all its gimlet-eyed focus on this ego-stroking ‘sport’, the answer is no, of course not. As the book details, heads of industry, the uber-wealthy, and sons of presidents and royalty fill voids in their lives by blasting holes in animals. Hunting has shored itself up with vast bank accounts, infiltrated legislature and conservation organsations, and is now chasing children to ensure the flow of emotionally-stunted gunmen doesn’t dry up. It sells itself as freedom, and uses an image of masculinity that appeals to a primal desire to slaughter that many of us acknowledge but have turned away from in disgust. More than all of that, it is about making profit. Corrupt officials have made absolute fortunes selling wildlife to the vainglorious. Trophy hunting will not simply lie down and go away, but much like how Dr Mark Avery’s ‘Inglorious’ stripped away the veneer of tradition and glamour that the grouse industry had wrapped itself in, “Trophy Hunters Exposed: Inside the Big Game Industry” does exactly what it sets out to do: expose, strip bare, shine a light that trophy hunting will at first sneer at but – as the evidence piles up – will ultimately be desperate to shrink away from.
Another question might be, where does ‘Trophy Hunting Exposed’ sit in our post-Covid world? Is it a perfect post-Covid book, arriving bang on time as we seek to re-examine our relationship with the environment and with nature? I don’t think so. Not because ‘THE’ is not an invaluable resource or primer par excellence (it definitely is), but because none of what ‘THE’ exposes is made worse by global pandemic. We already knew that habitat and biodiversity loss was destroying nature, that we’re emptying the planet of large mammals (especially large carnivores), and that unregulated trophy hunting (and Eduardo has plenty to say about CITES incidentally) is slashing-and-burning its way through whole populations of supposedly protected wildlife. Trophy hunting was horrible and self-serving long before the virus emerged, and the seeds of this book were surely planted almost as soon as Eduardo began gathering his facts and statistics for the launch of CBTH. There was simply so much damning material that it had to go somewhere, and a book that all of us can use as a reference or guide to silence or infuriate trophy hunters is the logical format.
Like all campaigns that tackle such complex issues it will take a huge, multi-agency effort to end trophy hunting, but those of us that love wildlife should be incredibly grateful that there are campaigners like Eduardo Goncalves prepared to stand so visibly on the front line. Genial and all smiles on the surface, he is like a human cruise missile, powered by cold fury and laser-locked on the appalling trophy hunting industry. I suspect the industry hates him. Which is perhaps reason enough to own ‘Trophy Hunters Exposed’, but more importantly it’s all the information you need to marshal your thoughts, talk persuasively to your family and friends about trophy hunting, and to rebut the claims of pro hunters that they do no harm, love animals, and are true conservationists. It’s important to note, too, that any profits from ‘THE’ will go straight back into funding the work of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting.
As stated above, no single book, no single effort, can stop something as embedded and well-financed as trophy hunting. But have no doubt that each barbed fact, each truth, each honest analysis will unpick the threads holding this disgusting edifice together and convince more and more of us that it is dishonest, untruthful, and bereft of legitimacy. And that – in the end – is how it will be brought down.
Posted on May 27, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Dear Mark,
So much has happened since the last time I wrote to you about the live export of sheep to Kuwait, in the Middle East.
High Court, February 2020
We headed to the High Court in February 2020 where our case was unfortunately struck off the roll due to procedural issues – the merits of the case had not been argued, and we believe that we still have a strong case to be made.
The Ship Arrives, March 2020
In March 2020, the Al Messilah vessel arrived in South Africa and the NSPCA had teams ready at both the feedlot in Berlin, and the East London Harbour to monitor the loading of these sentient creatures.
It was a gruelling week for the NSPCA who worked tirelessly to protect the sheep that were eventually loaded onto the vessel which was destined for Kuwait and Oman.
It was an uphill battle from beginning to end – court proceedings, protesters, challenges gaining access to the harbour, and our inspectors being treated with contempt by the employees, agents, and associates of Al Mawashi, and the Page Farming Trust – in spite of all these challenges, as well as knowing what the devastating end for these creatures would be, our team stood tall for the voiceless.
We are unsure of the final number of animals loaded on board as the employees and crew were completely uncooperative and hindered our team at every given opportunity, but an estimated 54 500 animals were loaded.
In spite of the NSPCA having an order from the court to inspect the vessel at the end of loading, our Senior Inspectors and Veterinarian were instructed to leave the ship before our inspection was complete, after an injured animal was pointed out. It was impossible to intervene under the circumstances, and Al Mawashi acted in contempt of the Magistrate’s order.
Due to our team being rushed off the ship, a thorough inspection was not possible. In spite of Al Mawashi insisting to the public and the courts that welfare was paramount to their business, and that they had employed an “independent” veterinarian who would travel with the animals on board the vessel, no veterinarian was on board.
Al Mawashi, also known as KLTT, now has a consistent reputation in South Africa for disrespecting South African laws.
The South African Government stops exports during the Middle Eastern Summer months
Like Australian animal welfare groups, notably Animals Australia, who lobbied to the Australian government, the NSPCA has continuously engaged with The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) in order to end this abhorrent trade. The NSPCA has been advised by the DALRRD that they have advised the Eastern Cape Veterinary Services against any live animal exportation to the Middle East from May to September 2020. The Eastern Cape Veterinary Services have confirmed that they have no intentions of going against the decision from DALRRD.
The NSPCA commends the South African Government for taking a stance against shipments during the Middle Eastern Summer months based on the exacerbated risks during this period.
The route and climatic conditions of the voyage from South Africa to the Middle East are horrendous at this time of the year. The temperatures in the Persian Gulf are already climbing towards the 50 degree Celsius mark.
These enclosed vessels do not have air conditioning as claimed. The hot air outside is simply pumped into the pens, the warmer seawater heats up the hull from below and the hot sun beats down on to these metal boxes, all contributing to the already hot and humid environment caused by the tens of thousands of sheep radiating heat from their own bodies, in an attempt to cool themselves.
Evidence has shown that during voyages, particularly between May to September, the combined heat and humidity literally “cooks” animals alive. Many will die and those that survive will endure unimaginable suffering.
IN SPITE OF THE GOVERNMENT’S DECISION, AL MAWASHI HAVE ACCUMULATED APPROXIMATELY 72 000 SHEEP IN THEIR FEEDLOT IN BERLIN
In light of the amassed sheep at the Feedlot – we have tried to ascertain from Al Mawashi whether a shipment is intended in the near future and have been left to draw our own conclusions.
Our legal team wrote to Al Mawashi on 24 May 2020 to inform them that in light of their silence, and lack of cooperation, they have left us with no choice but to begin preparing an application to the High Court – this is to be set down for hearing on Tuesday, 2 June 2020.
Although the climatic conditions between May and September are severe in the Middle East – we are determined to have the transport of livestock by sea declared unlawful throughout the year.
We thank you for your continued support – we will not give up and we are grateful that we have you on our team.
Posted on May 27, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
WAV Comment
So now the possibility of ‘an exemption’ to allow animals to be exported when they should not. In addition, the ship (Al-Kuwait) with crewmembers suffering from Covid 19, possibly sailing to foreign shores and taking the disease there with them ! – wow; this just sums up how bloody desperate the Australian government and live export industry are to keep their trade going. Prepared to take the risk of human health in another country by potentially allowing this vessel to sail.
Seems like they care just as little for human life as they do for the animals they transport. Sick, all of them – literally !
We totally support Lyn and the crew (and all other folk fighting this trade) at Animals Australia and wish them the best for success in getting this stopped. As for the government and the exporters; they are bastards; simple as that; putting money before the welfare of animals and now humans. Lets hope the trade goes to the wall and that in the near future the Australian people vote in a government that does give a shit about the environment and compassion to all living beings.
Hi Mark,
You may have seen reports in the media of a COVID-19 outbreak onboard a live export ship, the Al-Kuwait, which is docked in Fremantle. This situation is still unfolding, with predictions that further crew members could be diagnosed with the virus.
Back in March, we wrote to the Department of Agriculture expressing concerns about the heightened risks that the global coronavirus pandemic posed to crew members and animals. As you know, seafarers live and work in close and unhygienic conditions and have no access to medical care. Risks of shipment rejections increased dramatically as a result of COVID-19 implications.
The sheep who were supposed to be loaded onto the Al-Kuwait remain in an export feedlot while their fate is determined. In theory, this delay should mean a reprieve from live export for these animals as new regulations prohibiting voyages during the Northern summer come into effect next week.
However, we’ve read concerning media reports that indicate an exemption could be granted to the exporter to allow a shipment in June.
We have expressed our opposition to this in the strongest possible terms to the Department of Agriculture today and will again tomorrow during a teleconference.
Any exemption would obviously be totally unacceptable given the well-known heat stress risks that these animals would face.
I will be in touch again when we know more, and we will of course let you know if we need you to amplify our efforts on behalf of these animals. But for now, I wanted you to know that we are are doing all we can to ensure that the welfare of these sheep is prioritised.
Posted on May 26, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Bullfighting celebrations are not the second show in this country by a number of spectators, as they claim from the bullfighting sector, but the tenth, behind football, cinema, monuments and sites, museums, current music concerts, and classical music, exhibitions, theater and art galleries.
The bullfighting sector is the show that gets the lowest mark in relation to the interest it arouses among citizens.
Only 8% of Spaniards went to a bullring in 2019, according to the “Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices” in Spain.
The cinema, the second show that brings together the most people after soccer, was attended by 57.8 percent of those surveyed.
It is followed by monuments (49.3%), museums (40.5%), current music concerts (30.1%), art exhibitions (29.8%), theater (24.5%), archaeological sites (21.8%), and classical music concerts (9.4%), which outperform bull shows for the first time in public.
Horses support from Men draw Dead Bull out Bullring Novillada Picada Bullring Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas Madrid Spain Copyright image broker KarolxKozlowski iblkoz04463573 JPG
And I mean…Unfortunately, these statistics do not tell us how many Spaniards are against bullfighting.
If one does not attend bullfighting, it does not necessarily mean that he is also against it.
There are also many people who don’t go to the theater, but most of them (at least in Germany) agree that theater should be subsidized with public money.
When the bullfighting was recognized as a national cultural heritage on November 7, 2013, the bull mafia was delighted.
Because that would mean subsidizing taxpayers’ money.
But business has been going bad for years and now is worse in the Corona Krisis.
The bullfighting industry expects a loss of 200 million euros.
Now would be the right time to end the matter once and for all.
Nevertheless, even the left-wing government of PSOE and Podemos, (the latter declared itself to be the enemies of this spectacle), have so far not dared to put an end to the bloody spectacle. Behind it are a strong lobby and powerful industry.
Leading cardiologist Joel Kahn, MD has announced saturated fat should be ‘off the menu’ as it causes heart disease.
The medical expert penned an Op-Ed for The Beet titled ‘The Big Fat War is Over’ – following a recent paper published by the Cochrane Library analyzing the relationship between dietary saturated fat and cardiovascular disease.
‘It’s huge’
“The Cochrane Review demonstrated unequivocally that reducing dietary saturated fat lowered the risk of combined CVD events by 21 percent. That may not sound like a lot, but in scientific terms it’s huge,” Kahn wrote.
“Further analysis showed that the greater the reduction in dietary saturated fat, the greater the drop in the risk of CVD events. This was true both for people who had no prior history of heart events, and those who had. In fact the reduction in sat far was even more powerful for those who did have known heart disease.”
‘Ammunition’
Speaking to Klaus Mitchell, Founder of Plant Based News, Kahn discussed how this study could affect future dietary guidelines.
“Now we have ammunition to go to the USDA and ask them can we incorporate [sic] – there are already recommendations that you limit saturated fat in the diet,” he said.
“They have a comment in the current guidelines in the US – ‘as little cholesterol as possible’ – and I believe it’s less than seven percent of the calories in the diet should be from saturated fat.
‘Tighter’ recommendations
“Now with this new big Cochrane database study we need to go back to when there are hearings and an opportunity for appearances at Congress to call for even tighter recommended reductions.
“Because that does translate to school meals and intuitional meals and dollars that are spent in this country. And more beans will be bought and less beef; and more water will be bought and less full-fat dairy; and there’ll be more salads and less cheese because that’s how the dollars are spent based on the guidelines. So we need to get politically active.”
Posted on May 25, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Every human born vegan, with heart full of compassion and love, but sadly customs, traditions and teaching of the family and society misguide us .
We learn violence, hatred and greed from society.
In a few years, this little person may be someone who orders a dead animal from McDonalds at the counter. Or someone who fights wholeheartedly for animal rights.
Teaching children respect and love for animals is our responsibility.
Posted on May 25, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
And we do not forget the animal victims of the country.
And the mass murder of the farm animals, which the psychotic president finances because of Corona.
It is always the psychopaths and political criminals around the world who support the meat industry and feed it with billions from our tax money..
We ALL must finally stop eating animals and be miserable accomplices of this fascist system of animal exploitation.
Fruits come in countless varieties, offer solid nutrition, and can make an important contribution to a vegan diet. There are so many delicious varieties of fruit that there is always something new to discover. So let’s take a look at all the delicious possibilities, in order to acquaint you with the most delicious types of fruit in existence.
Common Varieties of Fruit
The first thing you should know about fruits is that the variety grown in the tropics is entirely different than what you can find in colder climates.
Here are the most common fruits grown in temperate climates, in roughly the order they come into season:
Strawberries
Cherries
Peaches, Plums, and Nectarines
Raspberries and Blackberries
Melons
Blueberries
Apples
Persimmons
And here are some of the most popular tropical fruits:
Papayas
Bananas
Pineapples
Avocados
Mangoes
Passionfruit
Starfruit
If you love fruit, the tropics are an incomparable place to live. The above list of tropical fruits only scratches the surface of what’s available, since several of the most delicious tropical fruits can’t stand up to shipping and are rarely exported. These include starfruit, soursops, egg fruit, and jackfruit. What’s more, the bananas, pineapples, and mangoes sold in the tropics are far tastier than the exported varieties.
A good mango has my vote as being the tastiest of all tropical fruits, but the flavor totally depends on the variety—of which there are dozens. Smaller long and thin orange or yellow mangoes like the Ataulfo are among the most consistently delicious mangoes. Be sure to avoid Tommy Atkins mangoes, which are justifiably compared to the godawful Red Delicious apple.
Savory Fruits
While most tree-grown fruits are sweet, two notable and delicious exceptions are avocados and breadfruit.
Avocados thrive in both tropical and warmer temperate climates. They come in numerous varieties. Hass avocados are widely available and I think by far the tastiest variety. You can find avocados almost everywhere, since they are exported from Mexico to every part of the world.
Breadfruit has a flavor and texture like potatoes and it is magnificent sliced and sauteed with some garlic. Unfortunately, breadfruit bruises easily and rots quickly, so it’s rarely exported. In many parts of the tropics, breadfruit is among the very cheapest foods since the trees yield a massive amount of fruit.
Nightshades
Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are all nightshades. This family of fruits is widely cultivated in Italy, and all varieties grow on poisonous vines. Nightshades are planted in the spring, as soon after the first frost as possible, and they die in autumn with the first frost. Every sort of nightshade is delicious when combined into an Italian sauce.
Eggplant is also a staple of Middle Eastern cooking, and is the key ingredient for a classic dish called baba ghanouj. Made traditionally, the eggplant for baba ghanouj is baked in a wood-fired oven, where it gains a smoky flavor and a wonderfully rich texture.
Purchasing Fruit
Since every fruit starts out as a flower, it’s no surprise that many fruits are naturally fragrant. In fact, often the best way to judge the ripeness of your fruit is not by sight but by smell. You’ll often encounter gorgeous, flawless-looking fruits that are practically tasteless. Giving your fruit a sniff before purchasing is often the only way to determine whether it has good flavor.
When shopping for produce, remember that smaller fruits tend to have more complex and intense flavors. That goes for bananas, tomatoes, blueberries, and especially strawberries. Larger fruits may seem more eye-catching, but often their size seems to dilute their flavor.
You’ll get the most delicious and the cheapest fruit if you buy at peak of season. You’ll get strawberries in the spring. In early summer cherries are the first tree fruit to ripen. By mid-summer, peaches, plums, and nectarines reach peak of season, along with raspberries and blackberries.
In early autumn, blueberries start coming in. The further north (or south, in the southern hemisphere), the later the blueberries ripen and the better they’ll taste. The fruit season closes out in late autumn with apples and persimmons. Persimmons may be the most delicious fruit of all—when perfectly ripe their flesh has a texture like pudding.
No fruit comes into season during the winter, but you can get freshly-picked apples and persimmons through late fall. Since apples can hold up well in cold storage for a couple months, they’re probably the best fresh fruit to eat over the winter. By the time spring rolls around, you should switch from apples to freshly-harvested spring produce.
Frozen Fruits
Every supermarket and natural foods store sells inexpensive frozen fruit year-round. The most common varieties include peaches, strawberries, blueberries, and mangoes. All of these fruits are especially good for vegan smoothies. Just use the vegan milk of your choice—it makes sense to choose an unsweetened variety for smoothies since your fruit will add plenty of natural sugars.
Frozen fruits provide a wonderful boost for eating well during the winter. And nutritionally speaking, they’re a much better option than canned fruits, since there’s no sugar-sweetened syrup. Plus, since frozen fruits haven’t undergone the cooking that’s part of the canning practice, you are eating something that’s much closer to tasting freshly-picked.
You should also consider washing, slicing, bagging, and freezing your own fruit during peak of season. The best produce you can buy locally is likely to be far superior than bagged frozen produce, and quite possibly less expensive. Any market will sell double-sealed freezer bags in sizes ranging from quarts to gallons.
When freezing most fruit, arrange your berries or sliced fruit on a single layer of a tray, then freeze until solid. Once the fruit is frozen hard, transfer it to freezer bags. This method is called “individual quick freeze” (IQF) and keeps your fruit from clumping together into an unappetizing frozen brick.
Dried Fruits
Dried fruit are a wonderful option during the cold months. Raisins are probably the most widely-eaten dried fruit, but that’s just the start of your options. No matter what kind of dried fruit you buy, sulfites whenever possible.
Nearly every fruit is wonderful dried. Just like frozen fruit, dried fruit can easily last through the winter. If you have an abundance of fruit in the summer—especially if you have your own fruit trees—why not consider purchasing a food dehydrator? That’ll enable you to feast on delicious dried fruit during the lean months of autumn and winter. Dehydrators were once outrageously expensive, but today you can buy a good one for less than the price of a rice cooker or bread machine.
My favorite dried fruit is apricots, but not just any apricot. They’ve got to be unsulfured Blenheim “slab” apricots. If you seek this variety of dried apricot out, I can’t imagine you’ll be disappointed.
Finally, don’t forget about figs and dates. Much of the world’s fig and date crops are grown in Turkey, Greece, and other Mediterranean countries. Both these foods are commonly dried, especially for export. I think the most delicious varieties are medjool dates and calimyrna figs. I actually prefer dried figs to fresh, since the texture improves and the flavors are much more concentrated. But avoid black mission figs. They’re terrible, and should be summarily rejected by anyone of discriminating tastes, just like red delicious apples and Tommy Atkins mangoes.
Wild animal trafficker is jailed for smuggling 107 endangered turtles by freezing them in his refrigerated van
Shen was arrested by police who found his lorry packed with 107 frozen turtles
The wildlife trafficker was given a nearly 13-year sentence for his illegal trade
Officials said the seized animals were estimated to be worth over £345,000
The case was reported by local court to raise awareness for wildlife protection
A Chinese wildlife trafficker has been jailed after being caught by police transporting 107 protected sea turtles with his refrigerated truck.
The resident, known by his surname Shen, was tracked down by police after the officers seized found his lorry packed with frozen turtles in the woods in Zhoushan city, Zhejiang province of eastern China.
Mr Shen was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison and handed a fine of 150,000 yuan (£17,287). Two other residents who sold four of the sea turtles to Mr Shen were also imprisoned.
The crime case took place in 2018 and was revealed this week by a local court in Zhejiang to warn the public against wild animal trafficking.
Read the rest of the story by clicking on the above link.
Posted on May 24, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Animal Equality, May 13, 2020
The “HEROES” Act disregards animal welfare groups’ asks regarding depopulation and slaughter line speeds.
Two weeks after President Trump moved to protect meat industry profits by designating meat processing facilities as “critical infrastructure,” apparently it is now Congress’s turn to do the industry’s bidding.
In the latest coronavirus relief package, introduced in the United States House of Representatives on Tuesday, lawmakers have disregarded both of the major issues animal protection groups have been bringing to their attention: increased slaughter line-speeds, and the mass killing (“depopulation”) of millions of pigs and chickens across the country.
WASTE, BUT WANT NOT: The latest relief bill – the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solution (“HEROES”) Act – would reimburse meat producers for 85 percent of the financial losses they incur as a result of killing whole barnfuls of chickens, pigs, or other farmed animals.
Those who choose to keep their animals alive will not receive the relief funds (!!!)
These mass killings are the result of supply-chain disruptions, as slaughterhouses across the U.S. have temporarily halted operations due to widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers.
Without anywhere to send “market-ready” pigs and chickens, producers are simply killing their herds and flocks to make room for the next batch of animals already in the pipeline. The bodies of these culled animals are not sold for human consumption.
Most will simply be composted (also at taxpayer expense).
EVEN WORSE THAN SLAUGHTER: The methods producers use to carry out these mass killings are exceptionally cruel, ranging from suffocating the animals with foam or gas, to manually slamming them against the ground, to simply turning off the ventilation system in the barns and allowing the animals packed inside to slowly die of overheating.
Posted on May 24, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
What is the fate of a petition if that petition reaches 1 million signatures in Europe?
We can find the answer in the EU statute, as part of the “European Citizens’ Initiative” which was introduced with the Lisbon Treaty, and came into force in April 2012:
“For initiatives that have collected at least one million signatures, achieving the minimum number required in at least seven Member States, the EU – Commissionwill have three months to examine the initiative and decide how to act on it. It will meet the organizers so they can explain the issues raised in their initiative in more depth”.
Conclusion:Within three months, the Commission will inform the organizers about its legal and political conclusions on the initiative, as well as what to do next, or not to do so, and the reasons why.
The “End The Cage Age” campaign had 1,5 million votes and was closed on September 11th 2019.
Instead, we get a “Green Deal” in double packaging to “farm-to-fork”, where the massive overproduction of meat in industrial livestock farming with catastrophic effects on animals, humans and the climate is not addressed in the “Green Deal”.
We will never tire of complaining about the fraud and disrespect of the EU Commission, we cannot accept that in this way our civil right to participation is trampled on.
Obviously, The Eurogroup for Animals has understood that the “End the Cage Age”campaign will not work.
Therefore they ask for help at the end:
“The finalised strategies will now be rolled out, with the European Parliament adopting a resolution on the content later this year. At Eurogroup for Animals, our next opportunity will be to influence the European Parliament’s response to the two strategies, so our members will start to mobilise citizens in the days ahead to contact their MEPs and make their voices – and our recommendations – heard”.
No, dear people from the Eurogroup!
I will no longer sign anything, nor will I send any letters to the MEPs.
Until I get an answer about the state of the “End the Cage Age”campaign.
Posted on May 23, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
🐶 Around 300,000 animals end up in German animal shelters every year and are urgently looking for a loving home.
We translated what they would tell us. 👇 (Video is in English)
An animal comes to German animal shelters every 65 minutes.
They are the product of human indifference.
They are either abandoned, given away, or come to the home through official animal trapping and the veterinary office.
The shelters are full, the volunteers work overtime to provide the animals with adequate care, but unfortunately more animals are accepted than mediated.
Many leave their cat or dog in the forest and hope that a merciful hiker will find and save them.
For these animals it means that they are lucky when they end up in the shelter, where most of them stay until the end of their lonely life.
In Germany the abandoneded animals are piling up.
We used to think that this only happens in southern countries, now it is exactly the same here.
The only difference is that we don’t see the abandoneded animals on the street because the shelters have more money to take them in.
Give a home to an abandoned animal.
It will be thankful and loyal to you forever, and you will have a dear friend in happy and sad moments of life.
Wuhan, the city at the center of the coronavirus in China, announced Wednesday that eating and hunting wild animals within the city limits has been banned, declaring Wuhan a “wildlife sanctuary,” according to a report.
Local authorities in the city of over 11 million have said exotic animals are no longer allowed to be farmed, and breeders will be offered a one-time cash payment as part of a wider national scheme to end exotic animal breeding, CBS News reported Wednesday. This is the first national plan in China to stop the breeding.
Two provinces have reportedly agreed to the plan just one month after China also reclassified dogs from “livestock” to “pets.”
Chinese officials had already banned the sale and consumption of wild animals during the coronavirus pandemic, which some officials believed originated in a wet market in Wuhan. Some also believe the virus first spread from bats to humans, though other wild animals have been considered as the virus’ origin.
Government-sanctioned hunting is still reportedly permitted for “scientific research, population regulation, monitoring of epidemic diseases and other special circumstances.”
The province of Hunan announced its plan to establish a compensation scheme to encourage breeders to farm other livestock. Hunan authorities will evaluate each farm for compensation based on the exotic animals they reared.
The neighboring province of Jiangxi has crafted a similar plan, but officials have estimated that there are more than 2,300 licensed breeders and their stock could be worth upward of 1.6 billion yuan, or $225 million, sources told The Week.
According to the Human Society International (HSI), the wildlife consumption trade in China is “worth 125 billion yuan, roughly $18 billion.” But wildlife consumption is not the biggest industry in the country.
“The largest proportion of China’s wildlife farming [is] the fur industry, worth 389 billion yuan ($55 billion) annually,” the society said.
The HSI believes there are already plans being made to have “millions of raccoon dogs, foxes and mink farmed for fur” retitled from “wildlife” to “livestock” as a way to continue to farm these animals.
It’s been three weeks since President Donald Trump’s executive order to keep meat plants running in the pandemic and the government began preparing fresh guidance on how to keep their employees safe. Infections are still on the rise as workers say they’re being forced to put themselves in harm’s way in the name of food security.
Based on 13 interviews with employees, labor representatives and a U.S. government inspector at meat plants in states including Arkansas, Virginia, Nebraska, North Carolina and Texas, employees are still standing elbow-to-elbow along production lines. There are some plastic barriers, but employees haven’t been spaced out in parts of the plants. People with symptoms are still coming in for shifts, afraid of losing income if they call in sick. Protective gear in some cases is of low quality — thin masks are breaking. With not enough distance between people, the combination could be ripe for the spread of disease.
Companies have taken measures such as increasing hand-washing stations, distributing face shields, doing temperature checks and staggering breaks. But experts warn that in the end, nothing can make up for a lack of physical distance. And some are starting to question whether it’s even possible to run these plants safely during the pandemic, given the nature of how production is handled.
“They’re still working shoulder to shoulder, and these partitions are not even proven to prevent the spread of the virus,” said Magaly Licolli, executive director at Springdale, Arkansas-based Venceremos, an organization focused on human rights of poultry workers. Companies have “basically refused to restructure workstations, since that would decrease production. But that’s what they need to do to prevent an outbreak.”
Some of America’s largest meat suppliers, JBS, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and Cargill, reopened plants recently, working to increase meat output after closures sparked some shortages and higher prices. That means maintaining high speeds on processing lines — something that makes physical distancing nearly impossible. Even protocols developed jointly by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration seem to acknowledge this. The guidance recommends reconfiguring work spaces to allow for 6 feet of distancing “if feasible,” but sets no hard rules.
More than a dozen major meatpacking facilities reopened in May after Trump’s order. Since then, the coronavirus has continued to spread at almost twice the national rate in counties that are home to these types of plants. In the two months since infections started among meat workers, at least 30 have died and more than 10,000 have been infected, according to the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union. Virus rates among workers have topped 50% at some plants.
The outbreaks have exposed vulnerabilities in the meat supply chain — and the human cost of keeping Americans fed amid a pandemic. Restaurants including Wendy’s Co. have reported meat shortages. But wholesale beef and pork prices, which had doubled since early April, are starting to ease as plants reopen.
Meat-industry advocates have said that high infection rates are partly due to aggressive testing of their workers. The North American Meat Institute, the trade association that represents processors, says “that companies are constantly looking for and implementing new ways to protect workers under the careful oversight of state and local authorities” including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the CDC and OSHA.
“The safety of the men and women who work in their facilities is the first priority for the meat and poultry industry,” Sarah Little, a spokeswoman for the group, said by email.
Still, Trump’s order sparked outrage from union leaders and worker advocates who argue that maintaining and ramping up production in spite of the outbreaks will lead to more illness.
“Many aren’t coming to work — they’re sick or afraid. And if they do go in, they have to work faster” to make up for absenteeism since line speeds haven’t slowed, Licolli said.
Interviews with employees from JBS, Tyson, Smithfield and Cargill, along with labor leaders, show that social distancing is difficult to maintain — both on production lines and in other areas. Even when traffic is directed, it can still get crowded. Some plant workers said colleagues have come into work coughing, sneezing and, in a few cases, vomiting.
“We are doing everything we can to keep this virus out of our facilities,” JBS USA said in an emailed statement. “That said, our plants were not designed to stop the spread of a virus. Throughout this process, we have had to fundamentally alter the way we do business because of Covid-19.”
JBS said it doesn’t want “sick team members coming to work,” and that “no one is punished for being absent for health reasons.” If an employee “is fearful of coming to work they can call the company and inform us, and they will receive unpaid leave without any consequence to their employment,” the company said.
Some of the line speeds at JBS have slowed because members of vulnerable populations are being asked to stay home, with pay. Employees are required to wear a mask on company property, everyone is given a face shield and the company said it has hired hundreds of people for a team that oversee its efforts to keep employees healthy.
Cargill said it is “consulting health experts and implementing new protocols as they are identified” to protect employees.
“Standards are evolving as this virus progresses, and we are continuously learning about new ways to protect employees,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We are proactively putting into place the latest available safety protocols appropriate for the contexts in which we operate. We care deeply about our co-workers and the communities where we live and work.”
“We take seriously our responsibility to feed the world,” Cargill said.
Smithfield said it has taken “aggressive measures to protect the health and safety of our employees during this pandemic.”
On its website, Smithfield lists safeguards taken including boosting use of protective gear to include masks and face shields, making free voluntary Covid-19 testing available to employees, explicitly instructing employees not to report to work if they are sick or exhibiting symptoms and increasing social distancing, wherever possible.
Tyson said it has implemented a range of social distancing measures, including installing physical barriers between workstations and in break rooms, providing more breakroom space, erecting outdoor tents where possible for additional space for breaks, among other steps.
“We only want people to come to work if they’re healthy,” Tyson said in an emailed statement. “Our top priority is the health and safety of our team members, their families and our communities.”
The company said it’s addressing line speed on a case-by-case basis, and has slowed lines in some locations based on labor availability and to allow for social distancing. It’s also staggering start times to avoid large gatherings and has designated social-distance monitors stationed throughout each facility. Tyson said the measures being taken are based on guidance from CDC, OSHA and local health officials.
Many employees acknowledge that companies are making some improvements, but they point to line speeds as part of the underlying problem for distancing.
There are a lot of areas where workers are complaining they’re “right on top of each other,” said Kim Cordova, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 7 union, which represents workers at a JBS USA plant in Greeley, Colorado.
Data from the USDA on slaughterhouse production underscore the rapid increase in output in the past few weeks. As of May 18, government estimates for daily hog slaughter rose 6.2% from a week earlier, and the cattle kill was up 9.3%. Capacity is back to about 80% of normal, after falling to roughly 60% to 70% last month.
To allow for proper social distancing, production should be running at a much lower rate, possibly just one third of normal, according to Sanchoy Das, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where his research focuses primarily on supply chain modelling and analysis.
Instead of slowing things down, some companies have been adding weekend shifts to further boost production.
“Usually we don’t work Saturdays until the middle of August. Right now, because of coronavirus, we will work from now up until the end of February 2021” to meet rising demand, said Dennis Medbourn, a union steward at the Tyson pork plant in Logansport, Indiana, where he’s worked for 12 years.
Tyson said it has “historically worked Saturday shifts through April and May at the Logansport facility,” adding “this isn’t a new initiative.”
The national UFCW union has also pointed to a lack of rapid testing as part of the challenges facing producers.
And there are issues with protective gear.
In some places, plastic sheeting is used to create barriers between workers. That ends up creating a capsule where cleaning chemicals become trapped next to people’s faces, making it difficult to according to Licolli of Venceremos.
Joe Enriquez Henry, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Iowa, said the combination of fast line speeds while wearing protective gear also creates breathing problems, likening it to jogging while wearing full head gear.
Face shields become impractical because of the nature of the job: Inevitably, blood splatters on shields — forcing employees to then wipe them off in order to see properly, potentially exposing them to whatever particles had gathered.
“These plants are what I would describe as wet plants, for the people who work there, there’s fluid flying everywhere,” said Das of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “Everybody is wet, the floor is wet, so it is a conducive environment for disease transmission.”
In the early days of the pandemic, there was little information about how workers should defend themselves against the virus. The CDC didn’t issue guidance for “critical infrastructure” workers, including food industry staff, until April 3. There was pandemic guidance on file from OSHA, written in 2009 as a result of the H1N1 influenza pandemic, but it wasn’t widely distributed this time around. OSHA and the CDC didn’t issue covid-19 specific guidance for meat and poultry workers until late April, after more than a dozen industry employees had died from the virus. The guidance was last reviewed May 12, according to the CDC website.
Even now, unions say federal guidelines aren’t strong enough. The language is full of phrases like “if possible” and “if feasible,” allowing for plenty of wiggle room.
“These recommendations, they have no enforceable piece to them and that’s the real challenge,” said Jake Bailey, packing house and food processing director for UFCW 1473 in Milwaukee.
The “USDA works with plant owners to keep them operating safely in accordance with CDC and OSHA guidance. State and local health departments are heavily involved,” the CDC said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.
“It’s important to remember that CDC is a non-regulatory agency, and its recommendations are discretionary and not mandated,” the agency said. “However, guidance and recommendations issued by CDC are often used by other agencies responsible for developing and enforcing workplace safety and health regulations.”
OSHA said its guidance “allows for flexibility in responding to the rapidly changing conditions and understanding of the virus,” while adding it’s important that employers “seek to adhere to this guidance.”
The agency said it has “a number of enforcement tools that apply to protect these workers,” including standards on protective gear and sanitation. It is working with its federal partners to continue monitoring the situation at meat plants and will make changes as needed to its standards and requirements, OSHA said in an emailed statement.
The USDA said it has directed meat and poultry processing plants to operate in accordance with the CDC/OSHA guidance. Facilities should “utilize the recommendations highlighted in the guidance document, recognizing that how they are implemented may differ given the unique circumstances of establishments and processing facilities nationwide,” the agency said in an emailed statement.
“USDA will continue to work with our federal partners and state, local, and tribal officials to meet resource needs to keep food and agriculture employees safe and maintain the continuity of food supply chain operations.”
Bailey of the Milwaukee group has toured many of the 20 food and meat processing plants the union represents in recent weeks. It’s not all bad news, he points out. In some facilities, things have changed “drastically” — there is duct tape on the ground telling people where to stand as they get their temperature taken, and every 5 to 15 feet there’s a sanitizing station. Workers have been moved apart, but there are a few places where the distance has actually reached the recommended 6-foot threshold, he said, adding that that’s where companies are trying to put barriers in place.
“Physical distancing is the number one way we currently know to prevent transmission,” said Celeste Monforton, a lecturer in public health at Texas State University. “You can put out as much hand sanitizer as you want, as many checkpoints for temperatures, all of those things are complementary, but extremely limited in terms of preventing transmission of disease compared to physical distancing.”
Posted on May 23, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
China wants to severely punish illegal hunting and wildlife trafficking.
Reuters Staff,22. Mai 2020
This emerges from the government’s working report published on Friday for the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
This is intended to implement a ban that was imposed in January as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
The novel virus had spread to a market in Wuhan at the end of 2019, selling wild animals such as bats and pangolins. The virus could have spread from such animals to humans.
Wuhan, Shanghai and other major cities have already banned the consumption of wild animals. Several provinces have also adopted plans to contain hunting, breeding and trade. ”
And I mean…Criticism is already booming on Facebook:” you shouldn’t believe the Chinese, they won’t stick to it”.
Why should one believe the Chinese a little less than the German government?
In Germany, improvements in animal protection have been announced many times and nothing has happened. Or it got worse.
The keeping of pigs in illegal boxes, for example, has been extended for 17 years.
Shredding male chicks continues as before.
Lawsuits against veterinarians, who idly watched when slaughterhouse workers tormented a cow 80 times on the anus and head with the stun gun, were terminated!
Justification: “We cannot prosecute the veterinarians because they would not be able to stop such animal suffering in the slaughterhouse anyway. They lack the opportunity to intervene directly” !!!
Image: SOKO Tierschutz-Germany
Before criticizing other countries, we should fight to ensure that OUR Animal Welfare Act (we claim we have the best in Europe!) is finally properly complied with in OUR own stables.
Posted on May 22, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Humans have no more of a right to be on this planet than other animals. Years of tradition and a social belief of human supremacy has led us to believe that humans, out of all other animals, have a right to pillage, destroy, and kill other beings.
Well, the time will come for the world to realize that we share this planet with many other animals.
Animals who have voices, fears, and desires. The time has come to realize that we are ALL earthlings, with the right to life and freedom.
Posted on May 22, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
From the blog of “Doctors Against Animal Experiments”,19.05.2020
It feels like a time machine: genetic information was successfully decoded in a very short time, first trials on monkeys were promising, and soon the vaccine will be tested on humans.
Sounds familiar – in fact it is a report on SARS from 2003.
The article in the “German medical magazine” reported on the progress of vaccine development against SARS-CoV, the “first” coronavirus.
The virus family of Coronaviridae includes the currently rampant SARS-CoV-2 and the SARS-CoV-1, which was created in China in 2002.
At the time, this virus triggered a pandemic that killed nearly 800 peopleworldwide.
In 2012, almost 10 years after the outbreak, vaccinated mice showed an antibody formation, but after infection with the virus also an autoimmune reaction of the lungs, i.e. the defense system was directed against its own tissue.
Research on a vaccine was discontinued shortly thereafter. Reason: the virus no longer occurs. This makes us suspicious, because at this point the pandemic had been over for almost 10 years and all animal tests that had taken place shortly before were unsuccessful.
Was it perhaps more because the (animal-based) research simply did not progress and then an apology was sought to secretly drop the whole thing under the table?
My comment: Just today I read in an article that the full approval process for vaccines usually takes more than a decade, and even the most optimistic experts – including Dr. Anthony Fauci,who has become the public face of US Covid-19 policy- has said that a shot will only be completed in another year, and even up to 18 months.
When a vaccine is launched in the middle of a pandemic, extensive safety reviews need to be sacrificed for efficiency – a compromise that can be catastrophic, like the 2009 Pandemrix swine flu vaccine, which caused permanent brain damage in over 1,000 British patients.
The parallels between Covid-19 and that epidemic are ominous – wildly inflated death predictions had spooked the UK government into approving Pandemrix without sufficient safety data – and it surely won’t help Americans’ trust in this vaccine that Trump’s“vaccine czar”Moncef Slaoui ran GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine division during the swine flu debacle.
Slaoui earned $3 million on Monday alone from Moderna, which is still considered the leading candidate in the vaccine race, even though the drug company has never brought a vaccine to market.
After hyping up what were essentially meaningless preliminary results, Moderna’s stock shot up 25 percent, bringing his holdings to over $10 million.
A vaccine produced at Oxford University hasn’t fared much better, with all six rhesus monkeys who received the shot becoming infected anyway – despite a preliminary report that tried to spin the failure as representing “some” success.
I cannot understand why anyone can be in favor of the next COVID-19 untested, unsafe vaccinations under those circumstances unless they want to die and don’t care what’s actually in the vaccination.
Posted on May 22, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
A Beagle was found tragically drowned in a pond, beaten and with his snout zip-tied shut, allegedly at the hands of his owner. Demand justice for this poor animal.
Target: Scarlett A. Wilson, Berkeley County Solicitor, Berkeley County, S.C.
Goal: Punish man who allegedly abused and drowned his pet Beagle.
A Beagle was found drowned in a pond, his muzzle zip-tied and his body battered. Sign the petition to demand that the man allegedly responsible for this horrific crime face the severest penalty the law allows.
Jeremy Bush is facing a felony charge of mistreatment of animals after his pet Beagle was found drowned in a pond. Authorities allege that Bush murdered the dog on purpose, beating the animal and then zip-tying his muzzle before disposing of the body. This reported attack was caught on video.
No animal should ever have to endure such cruelty and mistreatment. Sign the petition to demand that Bush be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Solicitor Wilson,
An innocent Beagle was found drowned in a pond, allegedly beaten and disposed of by Jeremy Bush. The poor animal was reported to have been battered for 15 minutes before his muzzle was zip-tied and his body was thrown into a nearby pond.
Bush is facing felony charges for these alleged crimes. I demand that you prosecute him to the fullest extent the law allows. Do not let this cruelty go unpunished.
We are presently inundating you with information because COVID-19 has coincided with the new Agriculture Bill and we need you to call the alarm. To take a quote from our interviewee, Michael Greger; “In this new age of emerging diseases we now have billions of feathered and curly tail test tubes, for viruses to incubate and mutate within. Billion more spins at pandemic roulette. Maybe COVID-19 is the dry run we needed, the fire drill, to wake us up out of our complacency to reform the food system before it’s too late.”
We have interviewed several people from the scientific community who have spoken out about factory farming and the stress they inflict on animals and risk this poses to public health.
Author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching and leading nutritionist, Dr Michael Greger accounts past pandemics and their roots in the industrialisation of livestock production. He advises “along with human culpability comes hope and, if changes in human behaviour can cause new plagues, maybe changes in human behaviour may prevent them in the future.”
Dr Lizzie Rowe, senior researcher at the Sustainable Food Trust, and a research associate at the University of Bristol tells us how poor welfare and squalid conditions in factory farms causes stress & disease in animals that have the potential to unleash viruses to human populations. She strongly believes that high welfare farming should not be a luxury, it should be an imperative.
News of 3 coronavirus deaths linked to a meat packing plant in West Yorkshire is the first report of this catastrophe on English soil. It reminds us that giant meat plants are intrinsically volatile due to insufficient care of the largely immigrant workers, crammed together with inadequate PPE and poor assurance of pay if they want to stay home to self-isolate from the risk of COVID-19. In the US, due to the closure or slow down at giant meat plants, up to 10 million market hogs will be inhumanly euthanised between the weeks ending on 25 April and 19 September 2020, despite unprecedented demand at food banks. We should question the import of pork from this system, and the increasing industrialisation of our food system at home, in terms of both production, processing and retailing. A network of small scale farms, abattoirs,processing plants and markets is the most resilient way to feed the nation.
Therefore, we are bitterly disappointed with the news last week (13th May) that a majority of MP’s rejected amendments to the Agriculture Bill that would have enforced into law the protection of UK farmers from low welfare imports. To compete, UK farmers will have to join the downward spiral of ever lower animal welfare and worker health standards. The fascinating House of Commons debate shows the polarisation in both parties with short speeches from those MP’s that want to protect our farmers from cheap imports and those that chase damaging trade deals. Our hope lies in a majority in the House of Lords voting for the amendments. Look out for news next week of how to engage in this important bill as it moves through the House of Lords and then back for the 3rd reading in the House of Commons… In the meantime we can inform ourselves on the issue; let’s not drop the ball on this one, it could shape British farming for years to come.
Text: “Your factory farming leads to pandemics
They slammed pregnant alpacas onto tables.
It wasn’t the wolf, it was the farmers’ love for their animals
China wants to severely punish illegal hunting and wildlife trafficking.
Image: SOKO Tierschutz-Germany
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
