Posted on August 12, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
‘Unprofitable’ chicks at a farm supplying Tesco, Ocado, and McDonald’s were deliberately deprived of water and left to die of dehydration, an undercover investigation has found.
Secret filming also shows how other baby birds deemed too small to be worth raising had their necks crushed or snapped by workers, causing a painful death.
Some were left to die because they were too weak to feed themselves, it was claimed.
An undercover activist for animal protection organization Animal Equality, who was employed by the company, shot footage showing that at one farmworker raised the height of the drinkers every day for about 40 days so that the smaller chicks – those considered not profitable – were unable to reach them.
One farm manager was reported to have said: “I can look at a day-old chick and say ‘that’s going to make 1.85[kg] at 32 days or it’s not’; if it isn’t, there’s no point feeding it. It’s cheaper to get rid of it and kill it.
Because at the end of the day it’s about making money.”
And I mean…Anyone who would now think that such a company is only the exception is unfortunately wrong. Nowadays these are the standard methods in meat production.
All over the world!
It is said that animal suffering is systemic.
But what kind of system is that?
The answer is: the operators of the so-called “meat industry” brutally exploit everything and everyone in a kind of “backroom” of our society.
Although our lives are made of meat, the meat mafia goes to great lengths to keep their criminals secret and invisible to society.
The situation in the German slaughterhouses is not any better. The same grievances or similar situation has existed for over 20 years and maybe it has gotten worse.
By the way, and of course, all of this applies not only to the chicken farms but also to cattle, pigs, sheep, etc. The (dismantling) personnel, called dismantling columns (!), mostly from third countries, are usually housed in a way that could well be described as ‘barracked’!
But the German government is proud to take the top places in the export world championship league with this criminal industry too.
TODAY we know more about nutrition than ever before, which is why there are no longer any arguments in developed industrial countries why animals and their hormone products MUST be part of a diet. Only the power and the law of the stronger allow us to act in this way.
Animals have a consciousness and the same feelings as we humans, such as grief, pain, fear, wanting to stay alive, wanting to live with their family.
And we can all understand that without any scientific evidence, videos and undercover investigations, right?
I cannot take seriously people who exploit others and also kill them for their own enjoyment or profit and cannot regard them as my friends.
There are many good reasons not to eat meat. But actually one is enough …!
The Hunting Act 2004 is the law which bans chasing wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales – this basically means that fox hunting, deer hunting, hare hunting, hare coursing and mink hunting are all illegal, as they all are cruel sports based on dogs chasing wild mammals.
The introduction of the Hunting Act followed an extensive and often exhausting campaign spanning 80 years, with the League Against Cruel Sports and its supporters (including us) at the forefront since 1924. In Scotland, hunting with dogs was banned earlier by a different law, the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002.
Securing the Hunting Act was a key moment in the history of animal protection legislation in the UK and public polling consistently shows it is a popular law. Yet, since its introduction, the Hunting Act has been the target of considerable attack from the pro-hunt lobby which has waged an on-going campaign to try and undermine the Act with the aim of getting it scrapped or weakened, and defied the Act by developing and promoting methods to circumvent it in the form of false alibies or illicit exploitations of its exemptions.
This sabotage of the law continues today, despite the legislation of 2004.
Prosecutions and Exemptions
Official figures demonstrate that the Hunting Act has protected animals, with people being convicted for crimes covered by the law. However, far too many allegations of illegal hunting have not been properly investigated and far too many illegal hunters have got away with it unpunished, which means that the Act has a serious enforcement problem. Because of the weak enforcement by the authorities the successful prosecution of registered hunts was spearheaded by the League when we took private prosecutions against illegal hunters.
While many people have been convicted under the Hunting Act, most of these are in fact poachers rather than hunters. Unfortunately we believe that illegal hunting with dogs by organised hunts is very common across the country, while there are very few prosecutions. The problem is that considering the defiance of the hunting fraternity and how they have created sophisticated alibies and illicitly exploited the exemptions of the Act, it is often hard to catch hunts in the act of chasing and killing a fox, and even if they are caught, it is hard to prove in court.
The Act contains ‘exemptions’ built into its Schedule, which were designed to prevent the ban affecting activities which Parliament did not intend to prohibit. Unfortunately, hunts often use these exemptions as an excuse if they are caught hunting. For example, staghunts use the ‘Research and Observation’ exemption that was designed for researchers and not hunters, and some fox hunts carry birds of prey in order to claim that they use the ‘falconry’ exemption, which was designed for falconers.
However, the most common way illegal fox hunters use to avoid prosecution is with ‘trail hunting’. Most registered fox and hare hunts now claim to be trail hunting – an activity that was not in existence or envisaged when the Hunting Act was drafted, and which should not be confused with ‘drag’ hunting.
Trail hunting is an entirely new invention which purports to mimic traditional hunting by following a scent trail (using fox urine, according to the hunters) which has been laid in areas where foxes are likely to be. Those laying the trail are not meant to tell those controlling the hounds where the scent has been laid, so if the hounds end up following a live animal scent the hunt can claim that they did not know.
Having looked over 4,000 hunt monitoring reports of over 30 hunt monitors from different organisations covering the majority of hunts in England and Wales (157), since the Hunting Act 2004 was enacted these hunt monitors have reported witnessing someone laying a possible trail only in an average of around 3% of the occasions they monitored hunts, but they believed that only an average of around 0.04% of the occasions they may have witnessed a genuine trail hunting event, rather than a fake one.
Trail hunting is not the same as drag hunting, a legitimate sport created in the 1800s which is not intended to mimic animal hunting, but instead is a sport using hounds to search for a non-animal scent without the pursuit or killing of wild animals.
In drag hunting, or in bloodhounds hunting (or hunting the ‘clean boot’ as it is also known) where the scent of a human runner is followed instead of a drag, the trail never contains animal scent, is never laid in areas likely to have foxes, and those controlling the hounds always know where the trail was laid.
This is why in drag hunting, ‘accidents’ when live animals are chased are very rare, while in trail hunting they are very common.
The League believes there is no such a thing as the ‘sport of trail hunting’ and it is simply a temporary, false alibi to cover for illegal hunting while the hunting fraternity hopes for the hunting ban to be repealed or weakened.
Hare hunting is the lesser known cousin of fox hunting and deer hunting, but in the days before hunting was banned in England and Wales, one in three hunts were actually hare hunts. Despite the ban, when hunting with dogs was made illegal, most of these hunts still exist, and are chasing and killing hares in the name of ‘sport’.
Hare coursing is a different ‘sport’, involving two fast dogs being set loose to chase a hare. Traditionally, this could take place on a small scale but also as a large-scale, organised event, such as the famous Waterloo Cup event which attracted thousands of spectators who came to watch and place bets. Hare coursing was banned, along with hare hunting, by the Hunting Act 2004, and is illegal, but coursing still takes place
According to the Hare Preservation Trust, the number of brown hares in the UK has declined by 80% since the late 1880s – that’s a devastating drop. While modern farming practices are thought to be the main cause of this decline, hare hunting and hare coursing also had an impact. A return to these cruel sports could see brown hares wiped out in many parts of Britain. The brown hare is listed as a conservation priority in the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan, meaning we should be doing all we can to protect this vulnerable species.
There is nothing ‘natural’ about a hare being chased with a pack of dogs. Hares have evolved to sprint at high speeds for short periods to escape predators. They cannot match the stamina of hunting hounds who will continue the chase until the hare is exhausted and can run no more. When talking about hares and hunting with dogs, the Government’s Burns Report published in 2000 concluded that ‘this experience seriously compromises the welfare of the hare.’
The Prada Group – which includes Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s, and Car Shoe – has confirmed that it will no longer purchase any new kangaroo leather. The decision will spare these remarkable Australian animals immense suffering.
Prada joins the likes of Versace, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, and Paul Smith in banning leather made from kangaroos.
Some 2.3 million kangaroos are reportedly killed every year for their skin. To produce leather, the animals are first shot. Then, the injured kangaroos – as well as orphaned joeys – are decapitated or hit sharply on the head to “destroy the brain” before their skin is torn off so it can be exported and made into accessories often labelled as “k-leather”.
As you read this, state governments are approving permits to hunt kangaroos.
While wildlife carers are still working day and night rehabilitating burned, otherwise injured, and starving animals, the Victoria and New South Wales governments are allowing permits to be issued for the mass slaughter of kangaroos – often simply because they compete for food with introduced farmed animals raised for meat, leather, and wool.
It’s outrageously easy to get a permit to kill kangaroos in these states – in fact, in New South Wales, it’s called a “Licence to Harm” and applicants can even renew over the phone.
Meanwhile, Queensland’s commercial slaughter has been halted and the South Australian government has stopped plans to slaughter wallabies on Kangaroo Island after one-third of the island caught fire.
More than 1 billion animals perished in Australia’s recent fires. The death toll is high enough.
Join us in urging the New South Wales and Victoria governments to stop issuing permits to kill wildlife.
Posted on August 11, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Utilizing drone footage, Animal Equality has released an investigation denouncing the serious environmental risks caused by pig farms in Mexico.
BACKGROUND: Industrial animal farming has had a devastating impact on the planet and human health, as well as been extremely cruel to animals.
Most scientists agree that the greatest threat humanity faces today is climate change, and our current food production system is helping to accelerate potentially catastrophic environmental changes.
For example, it is estimated that the process of animal farming contributes to around 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Animal agriculture also is a serious threat to public health, with numerous diseases originating from its practice. These diseases include the swine flu pandemic of 2009 and most recently, COVID-19, which scientists believe originated from a live animal market in China.
THE DETAILS: Given the urgency to stop these risks, Animal Equality has released the short documentary, Enemy of the Planet.
The investigative film was produced using drones that flew over two industrial pig farms in Jalisco, Mexico that house more than 89,000 pigs.
The goal of the investigation is to publicize the damage caused by industrial livestock farming.
And I mean…Mexico is all over the world.
The video above is unfortunately in German, but don’t let that stop you from watching it without sound.
It is a video from various German stables.
There are undercover investigations by the ARIWA organization and Greenpeace.
Since 2013, both organizations have endeavored to bring the responsible of these hells – stables to justice in Germany. Until today without success, despite undercovers!
A brief explanation about the video: Due to the documented, cruel ILLEGAL conditions in German stables, the two organizations filed criminal charges with lawers against the farms and they have been doing this since 2013.
Veterinarians tell in the video that when they reported violations of the animal law, they were taken out of control.
Criminal complaints from the organization against the ILEGAL manure booths have been discontinued since this year until today, NO ONE has been punished, the businesses continue as we see them.
It is a mafia the meat industry, it is an organized crime that pays high taxes to the state and is protected by politicians, who are mostly financially involved in this business.
The stupid and incompetent Agriculture Minister of Germany Julia Klöckner said: “We don’t need a self-appointed stable – police to monitor compliance with animal welfare.”
Decaying body parts of animals in factory farming (98%), slaughterhouse workers beating the piglets to death on the floor, fear, and terror to which these animals are exposed… is not what I call controlling animal welfare, but exposing criminals!
This is a job that should be paid, and we all have to be grateful to these people.
Because our “responsible politicians” are useless idiots!
Posted on August 10, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
SHIZUOKA, Japan – A rare turtle with tiny horns on both its eyelids, which was discovered in Shizuoka Prefecture last year, has gone on display at a local zoo, with curators saying it is “probably the only one in the world.”
A rare horned Chinese pond turtle is seen in this photo taken at Zoo in Kawazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Saturday. | KYODO
The female Chinese pond turtle is believed to be around 10 years old judging from its body size, having a 16-centimeter shell, and weighing 670 grams, said curators at Zoo, a facility showcasing reptiles and amphibians in the town of Kawazu.
The zoo used X-ray to check its horns, roughly 1 cm in length, and believe they have been formed from dead skin cells.
It was captured by a man while he was fishing in Fuji in the prefecture in the summer of 2019.
When he sent an image of the horned turtle to the zoo, “I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought it might be a composite picture,” said Tsuyoshi Shirawa, chief curator of the zoo.
The man kept the turtle at his home for a while but donated it to iZoo in July this year, believing it should be seen by many people (!!)
The zoo has mated the horned turtle with a male Chinese pond turtle to see if any horned baby turtles will be produced.
Babies are expected to hatch next spring, according to the zoo.
And I mean…Head-tied Siamese children are more likely to be born than horned turtles.
There are certainly many perverts who want to watch these beings in their everyday life, how they eat, sleep, or go to the toilet.
But nobody would ever think of showing them as exhibits in a hospital or museum.
Morality forbids it, and it is right!
However, this only applies to human animals.
Because they have rights and human animals are protected even as newborns.
We have denied animals all of their rights to this day. Animals did not even have a hint of rights, and that because we humans, from birth, act under the fascist conviction of the better race.
The turtle belongs to the open sea and not as a show object in the Japanese zoo prison.
And the Japanese won’t get any knowledge or intelligence about turtles if they come to the zoo to gawk at the new captive, a horned turtle.
They will only achieve one thing: that this animal will spend the rest of its life in captivity and suffering.
A particularly disturbing scene illustrates one method of “euthanasia”, a euphemistic term describing a person sliding a chick’s head off with no hesitation, no remorse.
Animals are “produced” en masse under a human-manufactured moniker of “welfare”. To subject animals to such dismissively indifferent procedures as normalized violence substantiates the fact that “welfare” is only meaningful to humans, and not to the animals who are controlled, violated, and violently killed, in direct contradiction to anything remotely resembling or defining “welfare”.
Please note that exploitation is endemic on all farming sizes, be they small or locally owned 20-animal operations, or CAFOs confining 125,000 animals. And all animals exploited for food in the United States are specifically exempt from the Animal Welfare Act.
Meat processing plants, or slaughterhouses, have been making headlines these past months as epicenters of the coronavirus pandemic. Outbreaks of positive cases amongst workers have caused the industry’s rapid processing lines to slow or stop for days on end, resulting in a pileup of tens of millions of animals who have reached slaughter weight with nowhere to go.
Much of this burden falls on the farms, which are designed neither to kill nor dispose of animals en masse, and the methods many resort to are truly disturbing. One farmer reported shooting all 3,000 of his pigs over the course of a day. Tanks of carbon dioxide are pumped into barns to gas and suffocate chickens by the thousands. Recently, undercover footage from a pig farm in Iowa documented a deliberate ventilation shutdown followed by the release of hot steam into a barn full of live animals. With temperatures in excess of 140 degrees, the animals inside were slowly roasted.
As a practice, the culling and subsequent disposal of animals en masse pre-dates the current Covid-19 outbreak. It’s the unfortunate answer from a system whose scale defies logic to the challenges presented by unanticipated supply chain disruptions. As factory farms continue to grow in size, and supply chains become increasingly monopolized, times of crisis reveal troubling vulnerabilities in the American food system. The close confinement of factory farmed animals is a death sentence when lethal strains of swine or avian flu spark an outbreak. Rescue is not an option for the millions of chickens or tens of thousands of pigs who become immediately trapped in the face of catastrophic events like hurricanes, tornadoes, or fires. Each time any one of these indisputable disasters strikes, massive numbers of animals are killed, yet each time the numbers are reported, they still continue to astound us.
The number of animals that have and will continue to be culled in the wake of Covid-19 represent a mere fraction of those who are killed for our consumption every single day. Their deaths, now newsworthy, reveal the failings of a system destined to repeat itself.
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WAV Comment – Really wonderful news in these down times ! – I watched the move live into the special area, before going into the real sanctuary waters, on the BBC this morning (10/8/20); and it was great to see so many happy faces from people who have given so much to achieving this ‘dream come true’. Thanks also to ‘Cargolux’, who flew the whales to their new home. UK Merlin entertainments were behind all of this; and it is great to see that they know that wild animals such as these belong in the wild and not performing dumb tricks for even dumber humans who pay to go and see them ! – Mark.
Meet the whales with plenty to smile about! Two belugas are transported from captivity in China to a new ocean refuge 6,000 miles away thanks to British charity
Whales Little Grey and Little White have been taken to a sanctuary in Iceland
The belugas had been taught to perform tricks at Ocean World in Shanghai
It is the first time they have been in the sea since they were taken in 2011
They are creatures who always seem to have a smile on their faces.
And now, two beluga whales are sure to be feeling much happier thanks to British charity the Sea Life Trust.
The whales, called Little Grey and Little White, have been freed from captivity in China to swim in the sea for the first time in nearly a decade.
In a painstakingly-planned, 6,000-mile journey the charity relocated the 12-year-old pair from a Chinese aquarium – where they performed as show animals – to the world’s first open water sanctuary.
They are now exploring a special area of the facility at Klettsvik Bay off the south coast of Iceland to acclimatise before their final release in to the wider sanctuary.
Andy Bool, head of the Sea Life Trust, said: ‘We’re absolutely delighted to be able to share the news that Little Grey and Little White are safely in their sea sanctuary care pools and are just one step away from being released into their open water home.
‘Following extensive planning and rehearsals, the first stage of their release back to the ocean was as smooth as we had hoped and planned for.’
It is the first time the belugas, both female, have been in the sea since they were taken from a Russian whale research centre in 2011, the charity said.
The cetaceans were later transferred to China, where they performed tricks for fish.
For their trip to Iceland, the pair were put in specially-designed slings with custom-made foam matting to cushion their bodies during the complex journey, which involved a lorry, a Boeing 747-400ERF cargo aircraft and a harbour tugboat.
The final stage of their release is due in the coming weeks. Merlin Entertainments, the UK firm that owns Sea Life centres, acquired Changfeng Ocean World aquarium in China in 2012, and had been searching for a new home for the belugas.
The company made a ‘substantial donation’ to the Sea Life Trust to fund the operation.
The Sea Life Trust describes Little Grey as ‘very playful’ but she also has a mischievous side – and likes to spit water at her care team.
Little White is ‘much more reserved but still likes to play and forms close bonds with her carers’.
The average life span of a beluga is 40 to 60 years. An estimated 200,000 live in the wild.
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 