Posted on October 17, 2019 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
The horns hit the artery in the left thigh: In Madrid, a bull seriously injured a bullfighter. The man had to be operated on in the arena.
A well-known bullfighter was fatally injured in a bullfight in Madrid on the Spanish national holiday. A bull met the 27-year-old Gonzalo Caballero with his horns on his left thigh, said the organizers on Saturday by tweet. The femoral artery had been severed.
The horns hit the artery in the left thigh: In Madrid, a bull seriously injured a bullfighter.
The injured man under general anesthesia was operated on site, and then taken to hospital. Madrid’s bullring has two operating rooms where injured bullfighters can be treated.
The Spanish press had already reported in May that Caballero had suffered a severe injury to his left thigh there. It is also said that Caballero is in a relationship with Victoria Federica, a niece of Spain’s King Felipe VI.
Yes !!! It seems that the budding murderer will not grow old!
On the other hand, he is fortunate enough to get a potentially powerful uncle, which means he can always get another, decent job.
But he has to hurry, because after his failure – and especially on the Spanish national holiday – can lose not only his leg, but also his royal bride.
I’m sorry, but I just defended myself, he hurt me again and again
Emergency Bear Rescue from an Illegal Farm in Tam Duong
16 October 2019
At about 2pm Vietnam time Tuesday, we received an urgent telephone call from local police alerting us to the imminent confiscation of a bear from an illegal farm in Tam Duong just under 20km from our Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre in Tam Dao National Park.
Our team sprung into action for what was to be the 210th bear rescued by our Vietnam team and brought to our sanctuary. Upon loading up the trucks, the team was swiftly on their way to the farm. What they found there was heartbreaking.
In a tiny cage whose floor was covered in faeces, we found a portly bear who had for the last 15 years — what amounts to almost his entire life — never set foot on the ground, only walking on the bars of the cage that was his prison. He had no visible food or water and was surrounded by the sounds of loud squealing pigs from the pig farm where he was held. The team on the ground decided to call the bear Tuan in honor of our fearless and pioneering Vietnam Director Tuan Bendixsen, especially given the fact that for the first time ever Tuan could not join the rescue. Tuan also means ‘handsome’ and this big bear is certainly a handsome boy.
The farmer said that he didn’t know that the bear needed to be microchipped and so he was handing him over to the authorities who were confiscating the bear. Due to our hard work over the decades, funded by supporters around the world, we have built a great working relationship and trust with the local authorities and police which is why we were able to act so swiftly in responding to this urgent rescue.
Our Vietnam Vet and Bear Team Director Heidi Quine reported:
“The farmer has had Tuan for fifteen years, since he was a five kilo cub which is very young. That’s a bear that should have been with his mother in the wild.”
After Veterinary Nurse Kat Donaldson used honey on a stick to calm and distract Tuan, our Senior Veterinary Surgeon Shaun Thomson anaesthetised him, making it safe for the team to use bolt cutters to remove the lock on the farm cage and remove Tuan for an initial health inspection.
The brief health check indicated that Tuan was in a fit state to be transferred to the sanctuary with the main areas of concern being his very soft paws and his excessive weight, probably brought on by being fed the same feed as the pigs on the farm.
Senior Veterinary Surgeon Shaun Thomson said:
“The anaesthetic for him when it finally set in went very smoothly. The health concerns we’ve found for him are mainly his weight and his pads on his feet, which are very soft from standing on cage bars for so long. They’re probably going to get a little bit sore and may crack before they get better as they dry out and he starts to use them, but with all the medications and equipment in the rescue centre we can manage that no problem.”
Soon after the health check, Tuan was transferred to the transport cage and the team was on the road again.
Slowed only by a herd of local cattle in the roadway, Tuan arrived back at the sanctuary just after sunset at around 6pm. He was placed in quarantine where he will be treated to a 45-day programme of enrichment to stimulate his body and mind after 15 years of cruel, damaging confinement. Although he is a big bear he is not strong so building his muscle mass will be a top priority for the team.
Our Vietnam Vet and Bear Team Director Heidi Quine, who was there throughout the rescue, said:
“Now that he’s back at the sanctuary, his quarantine begins and really a lifetime of care. And we need your help to do that. It takes a lot of resources, a lot of time, a lot of love and a lot of money to rescue these bears and make them better. It can be up to 30 years of care. We can’t do it without you and I really want to thank you. Thank you for supporting our work and thank you for anything you can generously give to help Tuan and his rehabilitation. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way.”
Over the next few months we’ll be keeping a close eye on Tuan and giving him all of the necessary health checks and treatment as well as a carefully balanced diet to help him to recover from his ordeal that has come to an end, thanks to our Vietnam team and all of our supporters across the world.
Shaun added:
“He’ll get a full health check in the next couple of months. It’s been such a privilege bringing him here today. Thanks for helping us do the job we do and getting Tuan home.”
Our new bear’s namesake our Vietnam Director Tuan Benedixsen had the final word:
“My colleagues on the ground chose to name this gentle giant, our 210th rescued bear in Vietnam, after me. I am of course, humbled to share my name with such a special bear.
“This is just the beginning. Tuan is deeply traumatised. After all, he’s known nothing but misery and abuse his entire life. I’m so grateful to the local authorities who have entrusted us with this bear, to the Vietnamese government for working with us hand in hand to end bear bile farming by 2022, and to you for supporting us in our work to give these bears the fresh start they so dearly deserve.”
Global pizza chain Pizza Hut recently launched a full vegan menu in all locations across Australia.
The menu features four pizzas: Vegan Mediterranean, Vegan Deluxe, Vegan Cheese Lovers, and Vegan Margherita. The restaurant also offers vegan cheesy garlic bread, which joins its existing vegan-friendly garlic bread and Spud Bites. A vegan ice cream cone has also been added to the dessert menu.
The new vegan options come a year after the company first tested vegan options in the country. In May 2018, Pizza Hut trialled vegan cheese—made by local vegan company Dairy Free Down Under—as an option for its pizzas at two locations in New South Wales, Australia.
Earlier this year, the chain debuted a dedicated vegan menu in 253 locations in the United Kingdom.
Starting February 2020, the University of Helsinki—the oldest and largest university in Finland—will no longer serve beef for lunch.
The school’s food provider UniCafe—which serves approximately 1,000 lunches daily—made the decision to remove beef from the menu in a bid to fight the climate crisis and revealed that the move would reduce its carbon footprint by 11 percent annually.
“The idea came from the staff as we were thinking about our next responsibility action,” Leena Pihlajamäki, the chief operating officer at UniCafe, told local media outlet YLE. “We realised that this is a way to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
Studies show that it’s one of the most effective ways. The goal is ambitious but far from impossible.” The University of Helsinki follows the University of Coimbra (Portugal’s oldest university), University of Cambridge, and Goldsmiths college which have all pledged to remove beef from on-campus dining facilities in recent months for environmental purposes.
Posted on October 17, 2019 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Rachele Totaro is a unique kind of activist. The 37-year-old animal lover and vegan uses her camera lens to tell the stories of animals, helping them to find homes and above all, showing the public that each animal is “someone, not something.”
Totaro was led to a plant-based diet by her fondness for animals. “I’ve always loved and felt connected to them,” she told LIVEKINDLY in an email. The photographer pointed out that although many animals are viewed as food, each is an individual.
“Every animal is someone, not something. Feeling, loving, and fearing with a unique personality, relationships, and, mostly, with the right to live,” she said. “Once you see it, you can’t unsee.”
Totaro uses her photography skills to help others make the link, too. The activist is a volunteer photographer for an Italian charity called La Collina dei Conigli, which rescues and rehabilitates retired lab animals. For six years, Totaro has traveled to the sanctuary to take pictures of rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, and rats who were once used in experiments. The images are used in a fundraising calendar.
“After realizing some story-inspired pictures (‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ‘The Little Prince,’ etc), which were very helpful to raise awareness about some very despised critters like rats and mice, I decided to show the most magical story of all because, in some blissful cases, reality can be more enchanting than fiction,” the photographer explained.
“I decided to show the reactions of the little rescues seeing what was outside of their cages for the first time,” Totaro said.
Even once the animals are released from the labs, they typically spent their time inside cages waiting to be adopted. “Most of them never see what’s outside of a plexiglass cube,” added Totaro.
And so she took them outside and captured their first moments in the natural world. “The warmth of the sun, the smell of fresh grass, the first steps on the ground, and at the same time to show the close relationship between non-human animals and their human rescuers,” the photographer explained. This concept is a moving one given the animals’ experiences with people up until that point. “Human hands were no more a source of pain or fear. They became a safe nest,” she said.
Totaro describes the experience as emotional – for herself, the volunteers, and the animals. She believes the end result was effective since the shoot took place nearly two years ago and the images are still circling the internet.
The ‘Huge Power’ of Photography Activism
Totaro’s photography is also used to help shelter animals find homes. She is a volunteer photographer for HeARTs Speak, a non-profit organization that unites artists from around the world to help “increase the visibility of shelter animals” (Totaro notes, “seen = saved”). The activist explains that a quality photo can mean the difference between “spending a life in a cage and finding a family.”
In that way, photography holds “huge power.” She believes she can use the medium to pull beauty out from unexpected places and hold a magnifying glass to it. She explains, “Photography, for me, means connection – between the subject and the observers, like temporarily borrowing my eyes.”
Every animal Totaro encounters has their own story and she feels it’s important to honor each with the right set of photos. She mentioned an old dog she recently met and photographed. The dog was thin, had terminal liver cancer, and was abandoned when she fell ill. Totaro met her in a shelter’s vet room, lying down and struggling to breathe. With her photography, Totaro was able to showcase the dog as a “unique, precious being, not an old broken toy as her previous owner probably saw her.”
“Maybe it can seem useless or foolish, and of course it won’t change her past, but the fact that now she is recognized as someone, someone who is at center stage, pictured ‘as a model’ to show everyone her beauty – the one that goes beyond the surface,” Totaro said. “Well, it’s my way to say that she is important, that someone cares, and that the real losers are those who never understood this.”
“I took some amazing portraits of her in the last light of the day, my favorite, while she was held by a caring volunteer. She was loved and beautiful and everyone will see it,” the artist added.
Totaro’s passion for lending a lens to animals in need motivated her to start her own project, Progetto gOldies. Through it, she tells the stories of “old pets and their humans.” Totaro explains, “There are so many great love stories out there and so many are at risk of getting lost in time, just because no one can tell them.”
She hopes Progetto gOldies will also promote the adoption of senior pets. Totaro says one of the best feelings is to receive that phone call telling her that an animal she has photographed has found a home. “I cannot think to a bigger reward,” the creative said.
I’m sorry, but I just defended myself, he hurt me again and again
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 