Coronavirus may mean Botswana’s hunting season is cancelled
First hunting season after controversial ban was lifted likely to be hit by coronavirus pandemic.
Animal rights campaigners have welcomed the uncertainty surrounding Botswana’s first hunting season since 2014, which has been hit hard by hunters pulling out because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Everything is at a standstill. All clients that were supposed to come in have either postponed or cancelled,” said Clive Eaton, owner of Tholo Safaris, a hunting company that last month bought licences to hunt 20 elephants.
Botswana, home to the world’s largest elephant population and almost one-third of Africa’s herd, lifted a ban on hunting in May 2019, saying the elephant population had increased to the point where farmers’ livelihoods were being affected.
While the country has no confirmed cases of coronavirus infection so far, it has banned arrivals from 18 high-risk countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain.
The Botswana Wildlife Producers Association (BWPA) said bookings across the industry had been cancelled or postponed and that it had asked for an extension of the hunting season, due to start in April.
But animal rights campaigners have urged the government to reinstate the ban lifted last year.
“We welcome the fact that foreign trophy hunters cannot kill elephants in Botswana, and hope that the government takes the time to reflect on and rethink its deadly strategy towards elephants and shake off this colonial pastime altogether,” Siobhan Mitchell, UK Director of Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, told Al Jazeera.
“People in Botswana can find peaceful ways to co-exist and benefit from elephants and ensure rural people benefit. This time of global crisis is a great time to look for new and innovative ways to benefit economically and sustainably.”
More than 16,500 people have died from the coronavirus across the world. The pandemic poses a threat to economies like Botswana, where tourism is big business. The country’s vast tracts of wilderness are a magnet for those who want to see – or hunt – wildlife.
Proceeds from hunting licence auctions, worth around 13 million pula ($1.08m) annually before hunting was banned in 2014 due to declining elephant numbers, go to community trusts used for development.
However, a resumption in hunting, to reduce the impact of elephants on people and crops, proved controversial.
A leading wildlife charity, the Born Free Foundation, urged Botswana to abandon any return to trophy hunting.
“Born Free has always maintained that commercial hunting does not offer an ethical or sustainable wildlife management tool, nor is it an effective or sustainable way of funding conservation activities or local communities,” its policy head Mark Jones said.
An auction of licences to hunt 15 elephants is due to go ahead as planned on Friday.
Posted on March 28, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
The Trump administration just gave polluters a free pass to pollute our air and water with impunity.
Using the COVID-19 pandemic as cover, Trump’s EPA announced it will no longer enforce legally mandated public health and environmental protections nationwide — indefinitely, while the pandemic crisis lasts.
Letting oil refineries, chemical plants and other industrial polluters off the hook is disgusting and shamelessly opportunistic.
Never before has the EPA just given up and stopped enforcing its own rules at this scale.
The pandemic has upended what is normal for everyone, but that’s not an excuse to toss aside environmental protections.
We’ve seen countless attacks from the Trump administration on wildlife and the laws that protect it. The Endangered Species Act is already under tremendous threat from being weakened in its ability to save plants and animals.
Now, with the EPA turning a blind eye to industrial pollution, our public health could be even more seriously threatened. This cynical ploy is a new low, even for this administration.
Believe it or not; now the China’s National Health Commission is recommending an injection containing bear bile as a treatment for COVID-19, despite the World Health Organisation insisting there is currently no cure for coronavirus.
PETITION TARGET: National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China
In a disappointing step backward for animal rights and human health, China’s National Health Commission is recommending an injection containing bear bile as a treatment for COVID-19, despite the WHO insisting there is currently no cure for coronavirus.
Bears harvested for their bile are subjected to excruciating and invasive extraction methods, including cutting a hole in their bodies and forcing a metal tube through the wound. Kept in cramped cages, they suffer from starvation, dehydration, infection and other untreated medical problems. These bile farms, like live animal markets, are potential environments for bacterial infections and viruses to “make the jump” from animals to humans.
Shockingly, Tan Re Qing, a medication that includes bear bile, is recommended on a government-sponsored list of suggested coronavirus treatments. China is supposed to be curbing their wildlife trade because of its link to spreading zoonotic disease, and this directly contradicts that effort.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, which started as a result of poor animal welfare standards, enough is enough. By recommending bear bile as a COVID-19 treatment, the Chinese government is encouraging animal cruelty and prolonging the wildlife trade, which poses a global health risk. China has made tremendous progress with its recent ban on wildlife consumption, but we must implore them to broaden their scope and end all wild animal exploitation.
Sign this petition urging China’s National Health Commission to remove Tan Re Qing from its list of recommended coronavirus treatments and to ban the use of all wild animals in medicine.
Posted on March 27, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, many people had never heard the term “wet market,” which is believed to be the origin of the novel coronavirus. It’s simply a market that sells live and dead animals—often of a variety of species—for human consumption, like those that exist in New York. SARS is a coronavirus that’s believed to have first infected humans at a Chinese wet market, just like COVID-19.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, HIV, Ebola, and other diseases are linked to meat production or consumption. Not all of these come from live-animal markets— Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a variant of mad cow disease, for instance, can affect a person who has eaten certain body parts of an infected cow—but such markets, where stressed, injured, and sick animals are commonly caged in public areas, are perfect breeding grounds for diseases. In this video, Peter Li, an associate professor at the University of Houston–Downtown, states that at wet markets, “The cages are stacked one over another. Animals at the bottom are often soaked with all kinds of liquid. Animal excrement, pus, blood.” Such conditions allow viruses to spread from one animal to another as well as to humans who come into contact with them.
Although the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus is thought to have first infected humans, has closed and that country has banned the consumption and farming of “wild” animals (hopefully, not only temporarily), it’s important to note that diseases don’t just affect animals humans have labelled as “wild.” Many wet markets continue to operate throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the U.S. There are more than 80 live-animal markets and slaughterhouses in New York City alone.
Just as we don’t want to be infected with or die from COVID-19, other animals don’t want to suffer or be killed for food. A hen, for example, just wants to be left in peace so that she can teach calls to her chicks before they hatch (much like how a human mother talks to her baby in the womb) and teach her young the ways of the world once they’re born. And fish just want to be left alone so that they can protect their young, build nests, and swim freely.
No matter what species they are peddling, live-animal meat markets will continue to put the human population at risk as well as sentencing countless animals to a miserable death.
Join PETA in urging the World Health Organization to call for an end to deadly live-animal markets around the globe.
Posted on March 26, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
From the archive: December 20, 2018: Report by the captain of SAM SIMON,Alistair Allan
Liberia, West Africa – It’s a cloudless day again, and the blue water shimmers under the relentless sun. Only rarely does a light breeze blow through the endless, turquoise expanse that I look through my porthole.
The internal phone in my cabin starts ringing. At the other end of the line an excited voice calls out: “Orcas! Orcas are outside! ”
I quickly climb the steps to the bridge and look out from the starboard side.
When I look over the water, a huge dorsal fin appears right next to the ship.
It is the largest of the school, the matriarch.
I can see that they swim on all sides next to our ship, a family of about 12 animals! The crew is thrilled by the sight of the young members of the orca family jumping and splashing around.
The SAM SIMON has been on patrol in Liberia for a month now, and during this special meeting we were far away, on the eastern border between Liberia and the Ivory Coast.
Here the Cavalla River flows into the sea and the area is known for its richness in species.
Before the OPERATION SOLA STELLA started in 2016, the local small-scale fishermen complained that foreign industrial trawl vessels enter this area every day.
They came across the border night after night, flattening the nets of the small fishermen, rolling over their canoes and stealing the fish with which they made a living.
Today, almost three years later, the Liberian coast guard, in cooperation with Sea Shepherds SAM SIMON and BOB BARKER, has completely stopped these nighttime ideas … continue on our website: https://sea-shepherd.de/2566
Some information about orcas: Orcas are the largest dolphins in the world. The males are 10 m long and 10 tons heavy. The females are somewhat smaller. They have pointed, conical teeth that are 7 cm long. The body is strong and the jaw is exceptionally strong.
Orcas are quick hunters. The broad tail fin gives the animal the necessary acceleration. They always hunt together and also live in a group. There are 6 to 40 animals in a family.They often stay together for a lifetime.
An orca baby stays close to the mother. It also has to learn to speak. Orcas communicate through chants and a series of tones: they growl, hum, screech, whistle, scream and click.
The orca mother speaks the words to her boy until she can pronounce them correctly. Orcas have the second largest brain of any living thing on the planet.
Orcas eat herring, salmon, penguins, seals, sea leopards, sea lions, rays, whales and sharks. They always came up with very special techniques for hunting.
The massive animals cover long distances in the wild, on average 65 kilometers a day. They don’t just do it because they can, but because they have to – to find varied food and to keep fit.
They dive several times a day at a depth of 30 to 150 meters.
The killer whales are becoming increasingly rare – and their survival is uncertain.
On the one hand, it is due to the perverse desire of humans to put these intelligent animals in a pool that is 45 x 28 x 9 meters in size, so that they serve as entertainment for stupid tourists.
Most of them die in captivity after a few years and do not give birth to a calf for years.
On the other hand, the king salmon is becoming increasingly rare. This very high-fat type of salmon is the main food source of the orcas. The fish swims up the Tazer River, which flows into the sea off the Seattle coast. Here the killer whales usually grab their prey.
But the number of salmon in the Pacific Northwest has been declining for decades. Overfishing, dams, cutting down coastal forests and, last but not least, climate change are reducing the population.
Maybe we, we human beings, can save these intelligent sea creatures.
Animal protection is education to humanity.
The only person who is truly moral is those who respect and save all life.
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 