Venus has kindly been looking into this more – and has provided a lot more information which we think you will fine interesting.
Dear Mark,
I promised you to write a post about the “Pig Baron” Straathof, here it is.
The story is old, as old as corruption in the meat business and the boundless exploitation of the animals of the system and its servants.
And unfortunately, the story repeats itself.
The case Straathof and the Holocaust of 24,000 pigs
On the 27th of July 2017 about 24,000 nonhuman beings were burnt alive at the “Knorhof” in Erichem (NL).
Adriaan Straathof
Owner of the animal barracks: the Dutchman Adriaan Straathof, the “pig baron”.
For years this barracks has been under criticism, it was actually built as a poultry shed.
Straathof converted this barracks into two floors and got the permission for:
-2,000 sows with suckling piglets, -7,600 rearing piglets and -9,600 Fattening pigs
Adrianus Straathof is one of the largest pig producers in Europe.
He produced 1.5 million piglets per year in Germany alone, when he was still allowed to work there.
Since 2016, Straathof has been forbidden to work in Germany.
Here the chronology:
December 2014: Against Straathof, a ban on feeding and caring has been imposed.
March 2015: Evidence of serious animal welfare violations; Criminal officers carry out a major raid in the pig farm ‘Gut Thiemendorf’.
April 2015: Nevertheless, the ban on banning animals is canceled by the Supreme Administrative Court. The evidence is not sufficient.
June 2015: Straathof remains in the sights of the authorities: 100 officials searched the breeding farms of his pig empire!
June 2016: In Magdeburg, the professional ban against the pig owner Adrianus Straathof is being tried in court.
July 2016: The Administrative Court in Magdeburg confirms the ban on the profession against Straathof. Straathof appealed against the judgment of the Administrative Court Magdeburg.
On 4 November 2016, the Senate of the Higher Administrative Court of Saxony-Anhalt rejected this request for appeal.
Since then, he has been forbidden to work in Germany.
And so Straathof returns to his home country, the Netherlands, and builds a new barracks for 20,000 pigs in a two-storey poultry stable.
Straathof ignores in his new home, as in Germany, every precept which concerns the animal husbandry.
And so there is the burning of 24,000 living beings in Strathof’s barracks.
But, is Straathof a single offender?
No! No way!
Straathof only does what is allowed to him. Politicians and authorities, these are the main guilty, these are our enemies.
The problem is the system.
The state and no one else is responsible for checking whether all, even fraudsters such as Straathof, adhere to animal welfare.
And this control is traditionally weak, you might say miserable.
Because in the lobby republics, the interests of the big businessmen are always taking their place.
Straathof is nothing more than the controlled actor of a corrupt system.
I still trust 24,000 creatures who were unfortunate enough to be born, bred, tortured, and burned in the barracks of Adriaan Straathof.
Every year millions of animals around the world endure horrific suffering as a result of the long distance live transport trade.
On the 13th September we are organising a rally in central London as part of Stop Live Transport International Awareness Day. A global day of action to speak out on behalf of the animals that cannot speak for themselves.
In the UK, for decades politicians have said that it is EU law that prevents a ban on live exports. As we are now leaving the EU, this argument no longer stands.
They are out of excuses and we need to make sure that they know we expect action. Confirmation of the London rally’s exact location will follow in due course, but I wanted to get in touch with you now, so that you could save the date.
Can’t make it to London? Why not attend a local Stop Live Transport event, or even organise your own? Check out the events already planned – from Edinburgh to Tel Aviv, from Dublin to Warsaw – at stoplivetransport.org
Together we will demonstrate global opposition to this abhorrent trade and expose the ugly truth:
– Excessively long journeys without sufficient food, water or rest
– Animals being transported when sick, injured, very young or heavily pregnant
– Ill-equipped and overcrowded vehicles
– Exports from countries with animal protection laws to those that have none, with animals often facing terrible abuse both during transport and at the time of slaughter.
I hope that you can join us on the 13th September to use your voice for those who are voiceless. Even if you cannot be there in person, you can still get involved in the Stop Live Transport International Awareness Day in many other ways.
Right off the coast of California, whales are drowning.
According to the government’s own data, one in four whales entangled in fishery gear is killed or seriously injured. Entangled whales can die slow and painful deaths.
And yet, the federal agency mandated to protect these animals backed off of common-sense regulations and refuses to close down the deadly driftnet fishery.
How deadly? The California driftnet fishery kills more whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals than all other observed West Coast fisheries – combined!
Posted on August 8, 2017 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
I read this news in “Spiegel.de/panorama” a few days ago, here is the translation:
“Indonesia: Army should stop monkey invasion”!!
Indonesia has the army marched up – against naughty monkey bands. The animals are increasingly becoming a problem for the residents of the Boyolali district on the island of Java. The military should now help.
The chief of the district, Seno Samodro, spoke of an “invasion of hundreds of monkeys”, which could only be met with firearms. The long-tailed macaques fell massively over plantations, they steadied maize and fruits and sometimes even attacked people, complained Samodro. Alone this year monkeys had bitten eleven local residents.
The district administration therefore mobilizes soldiers, policemen, hunters and members of shooting clubs, who are to go on patrols and kill the monkeys. A local shooters’ association sends ten members every day. According to “Newsweek” against the animals however only rubber boots are used.
In the region is currently dry season, the food in nature is scarce. This forces the monkeys to look for food in humans.
And here is my response to the article:
Why the animals walk around hungry and “steal” fruit or maize the journalist does not tell us, of course.
If he had told us that Indonesia is one of the main cultivators for palm oil, and every day countless hectares of the jungle would be burnt for this shit palm oil, he might lose his job, the palm oil industry does not joke!
And only who gets this information knows that monkeys and other animals lose their homes, their food their families every day. At the beginning of the 1990s, some 150,000 orangutans still lived in Sumatra and Borneo. Today there are only 49,000.
SAV Comment
– see pictures below – the journalist does not tell us that 300 soccer fields sized areas are deforested every hour – and that 50 Orangutans are killed every week doing this.
He claims to be a journalist but his writing is very much one sided; that in defence of the palm oil industry and of the destruction caused by the monkeys to humans who have invaded the monkeys homelands !. What about the destruction caused by the humans in the rainforest every hour ? – tell us about that Mr Journalist. Or do you not want people to know about an industry which kills so many wonderful animals ?
The journalist has not told us this, because he is paid neither to write truth nor real facts. For this reason, he tells us in the end that the cause of this “invasion” is the dryness.
The most successful way to cover up the truth is to confuse effect with cause. The press writes of aggressive monkeys and threatened people. And so the mass murder against the expellees is justified. We experience a lie shock every day, in the television, in the press on the radio.
I think the German press is a typical case of presstitution.
Dear friends, They were burnt alive — 20,000 pigs packed into tiny pens with nowhere to run.
But his farms were hell long before that:
sick piglets beaten to death,
extreme overcrowding,
animals left suffering with broken bones and protruding organs.
Dutch farmer Adriaan Straathof has a gruesome reputation and Germany has already banned his farming.
Now other EU countries must do the same.
The farmer hopes to just carry on, but if we make this huge, we can force a whole new level of scrutiny, and get regulators to suspend his permits while all his farms are urgently investigated.
To local, regional, national, and European regulators: “As citizens outraged but the incredible suffering of animals on farms owned by Adriaan Straathof, we urge you to take advantage of all possibilities offered by local, regional, national, and European laws to withdraw his farming permits, ensuring he is unable to farm or keep any livestock or other animals. We also urge you to pass stricter fire and animal welfare regulation to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Straathof is one of the biggest pig farmers in the EU, with 6 mega farms in the Netherlands and a string of others in Hungary and Germany. And while the Dutch food safety authority has inspected his farms 14 times, and reports of abuse, fines, and violations are piling up, he’s just got a permit to farm another 11,000 pigs!
Enough — this isn’t farming, it’s industrial torture!
Together we can make sure that these were his last victims. Let’s create a massive public appeal, forcing regulators to intervene and stop the next bloodbath:Sign with one click: No More Torture Farms
Our movement has been on the frontline of fighting violence against animals, from China’s dog meat festival, to the cruel trade in horse blood. We know that when we come together in massive numbers to protect animals, incredible things can happen — and this time will be no different.
With hope and determination, Mike, Anneke, Luca, Danny and the entire Avaaz team
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 