away with the pest!
Regards and good night, Venus
Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »
Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »
Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »
We have some good news for hares!
With a six-week lockdown in force in Ireland, the Irish Coursing Club has been ordered to halt the hare-coursing season and release wild-caught hares back into the countryside
While it’s great news that no coursing meetings will take place while lockdown restrictions are in place, the Irish government must take action to protect hares exploited for coursing in the long run. If coursing is allowed to resume, many more terrified hares will be taken from their homes and forced to race for their lives.
Hares deserve to live in peace in the countryside – they’re not ours to abuse and kill in the name of entertainment. We’re demanding that Taoiseach Micheál Martin (the Irish prime minister) ban hare coursing altogether.
Every aspect of this ordeal is terrifying for the hares, who are gentle, solitary animals. They often die or are injured as a result of the netting process and during transport.
Those who survive are held in captivity and put through training sessions to get them used to the field where coursing meetings take place and to teach them to run up the centre of it. During training, they’re kept crammed together in an enclosure. This is completely unnatural and extremely stressful for them.
At course meetings, dogs are made to compete against each other in pursuit of each hare. The petrified hares run for their lives, desperate to evade the dogs. The dogs are muzzled, but this does little to reduce injuries and fatalities, as they can still forcibly strike the hares, pin them to the ground, and toss them in the air – breaking brittle bones, dislocating hips, fracturing spines, rupturing organs, and causing internal bleeding. Hares are extremely sensitive animals, and the fear and stress of the chase can also cause heart failure. If they can’t find the escape holes or routes at the end of the field, they may be chased for so long that they die from stress or exhaustion if they’re not caught and mauled to death first.
The dogs involved are also victims of the “sport”. Often subjected to intense training, they’re treated not as cherished members of the family but as money-making machines. They’re usually kept in concrete outdoor kennels, repeatedly used for breeding, and abandoned when they get injured or are deemed too slow for coursing and therefore are no longer profitable.
The government granted hare-coursing licences for the 2020/21 season despite the cruelty involved and the potential environmental impact. A private members’ bill, the Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Hare Coursing) Bill, has been introduced by Paul Murphy TD and will be debated in the Irish Parliament in due course. This bill would make hare coursing a crime punishable by a €1,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
The situation is urgent – hare coursing must be stopped. Tell Taoiseach Micheál Martin (the Irish prime minister) to support this bill banning hare coursing altogether.
Demand that the Irish government end hare coursing by sending the taoiseach a message
Join the call for a ban today:
Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »
WAV Comment – I stumbled across this today; it is from UK press back in April 2020, and is by Juliet – founder of Viva!
Regards Mark
If more of us were vegan, there would be less chance of a pandemic in the future
As our excessive demand for meat and animal products grows, we destroy ever more wildernesses for animal fodder and grazing, bringing wildlife into closer contact with people. And we put ourselves at greater risk
Thursday 30 April 2020 13:40
Animals transmit infections. Who knew? We did, a long time ago.
In the mid-19th century German pathologist Rudolf Virchow was the first to discover that infectious diseases can be transmitted between animals and humans – coining the term “zoonoses” in 1855.
A century later, in August 1958, the World Health Organisation Expert Committee on Zoonoses met at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The outcome of the meeting was a stark warning: the prevention, control and eradication of these diseases were “responsibilities of considerable magnitude in every country”.
Fast forward to today and the world is in the grips of the worst global pandemic for generations. Covid-19 – like SARS, bird flu, swine flu and Ebola – originated in animals.
Three in four of the world’s new or emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. These diseases are responsible for some 2.7 million deaths per year and are largely transmitted through the wildlife trade and factory farming. Despite knowing the dangers for over 150 years, we continue to put ourselves at risk of devastating outbreaks.
Cramming animals together in markets and subjecting them to intensive farming practices creates a breeding ground for disease. Today some two thirds of all farm animals are kept in factory farms where infections can spread with ease between animals, mutate and become infectious to humans.
As our excessive demand for meat and animal products grows, we destroy ever more wildernesses for animal fodder and grazing, bringing wildlife into closer contact with people. And we put ourselves at greater risk. This is no longer just a matter of animal welfare, it’s a global public health crisis too.
The coronavirus pandemic has inspired thousands to speak up against the unregulated movement of wild animals, ignited calls for stricter controls at airports and brought global attention to the barbaric cruelty of wet markets, all in a bid to prevent future outbreaks. But the most impactful solution is to stop the spread of these diseases at their source by putting an end to our consumption of meat and dairy.
Cramming animals together in markets and subjecting them to intensive farming practices creates a breeding ground for disease. Today some two thirds of all farm animals are kept in factory farms where infections can spread with ease between animals, mutate and become infectious to humans.
As our excessive demand for meat and animal products grows, we destroy ever more wildernesses for animal fodder and grazing, bringing wildlife into closer contact with people. And we put ourselves at greater risk. This is no longer just a matter of animal welfare, it’s a global public health crisis too.
The coronavirus pandemic has inspired thousands to speak up against the unregulated movement of wild animals, ignited calls for stricter controls at airports and brought global attention to the barbaric cruelty of wet markets, all in a bid to prevent future outbreaks. But the most impactful solution is to stop the spread of these diseases at their source by putting an end to our consumption of meat and dairy.
But the most important lesson doesn’t stem from this outbreak alone. It’s the culmination of our history, which has been blighted by preventable outbreaks of lethal diseases spread from animals to humans, and our collective decision not to act.
We’ve known the risks for almost two centuries. Too many lives have been lost. The solution is at our fingertips: it’s time to go vegan now.
Juliet Gellatley is director of Viva! a charity campaigning for a vegan world
Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »