Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

Time to End the Cage Age – a ban on cages for farmed animals receives overwhelming support at EU Parliament hearing

15 April 2021

CIWF

Press Release

Today (15th April 2021), the European Parliament held a three-hour public hearing on the End the Cage Age European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which was warmly welcomed by the three European Commissioners present during the debate. A large number of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) made interventions and, overall, the ECI received overwhelming support.

The End the Cage Age ECI calls on the EU to phase out the use of cages in animal farming. Today’s public hearing was a milestone for the ECI in the run-up to the official response from the European Commission, expected in the next few months.

The EU claims to be a leader in animal welfare, yet every year it condemns more than 300 million farmed animals to lives of misery in cramped cages. This medieval practice is cruel and completely unnecessary since viable cage-free systems not only exist but are also in use in some parts of the EU. A number of pioneering Member States and businesses have led the way in ditching cages. Now it is time for the rest of the EU to catch up. In line with the ambitions of the European Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy, we call on the European Commission to propose a phase-out of cages in farming through a revision of the 1998 Directive on the protection of farmed animals.

Reineke Hameleers, CEO, Eurogroup for Animals

MEP Norbert Lins, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (Group of the European People’s Party, Germany) concluded at the hearing that “most speakers welcomed this initiative” and noted that “the ball is now in the Commission’s court.”

Before the hearing, on 13th April, EU citizens and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) rallied behind the End the Cage Age ECI Initiative on Twitter, encouraging MEPs to support the ECI during the public hearing. A total of 35.000 tweets were sent, reaching a potential number of more than 3,7 million views, making public support for the ECI undeniable.

The End the Cage Age ECI launched on 11th September 2018 and closed exactly a year later. With 1.4 million verified signatures from citizens across the EU, it became the first successful ECI in farmed animal welfare.

Bo Algers, Professor Emeritus at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said: “EU law for farmed animals is incredibly outdated. Since 1998, when the EU adopted its Directive on the protection of farmed animals, the output from the animal welfare science has on average been tenfold. Today, we have a much better understanding of how physical, physiological and psychological factors relate to animal welfare. A wide range of species-specific ethological needs are not, or cannot be, provided in a cage, whether enriched or not. It is now crystal clear that cages, due to their inherent physical and behavioural restrictions, cannot provide good welfare, no matter how good the management.”

MEP Eleonora Evi, Vice-President of the Animal Welfare Intergroup and co-chair of its cage-free working group, said: “Today’s public hearing marked another fundamental step towards the objective of a cage-free Europe. Together with many like-minded MEPs, we gave a voice to the over 300 million animals that every year, in the EU alone, spend all, or a significant part, of their lives imprisoned in cages. The enormous support received by this European Citizens’ Initiative throughout Europe cannot be ignored by the European Commission, which needs to come forward with a legislative proposal to end the unnecessary cruelty of caged farming as soon as possible, bringing EU farming practices closer to our citizens’ expectations and more aligned with nature and the protection of public health.”

MEP Anja Hazekamp, President of the Animal Welfare Intergroup and co-chair of its cage-free working group, said: “Hundreds of millions of animals in Europe are locked up in cages for farming purposes. These animals have no chance to exercise their natural behaviours and the conditions in which these animals are kept are so bad that their lives become one big agony. Cages are cruel, but also outdated and unnecessary. It’s a milestone that more than 1.4 million citizens have stood up for these animals to put an end to the ‘Cage Age’. We are now looking at the European Commission and the Member States to prove that they take their call seriously, and that they take the European Citizens’ Initiative as a democratic instrument seriously. A legislative proposal to ban the use of cages in agriculture must be put forward without delay.”

Věra Jourovà, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Values and Transparency, said during the hearing: “The Initiative is fighting for a cause that is topical in the current public debate to improve animal welfare for farmed animals and to invest in sustainable farming. These are valid objectives, which the Commission has embraced in its political ambitions to design fair, healthy, and environmentally-friendly food systems and which have found their way in the Farm to Fork Strategy adopted in May last year.”

Stella Kyriakides, Health and Food Safety Commissioner, said during the hearing: “We are taking steps to tangible action because, as I have repeatedly stated, animal welfare and animal health are very high on our agenda.” She added: “We are very much aware that we need to do more, and we need to strive for better. And we are absolutely determined to do so. The European Citizens’ Initiative is a timely reminder of that. It is a heartful example also of democracy at its best.”

Janusz Wojciechowski, Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner, said during the hearing that EU farm subsidies and recovery funds “can also be used in part to phase out caged farming and implement alternative methods”, and added “you have the full support from the European Commission to implement this transformation.”

Ruud Zanders, co-founder of the high animal welfare poultry farm, Kipster, said: “I grew up on my parents’ intensive poultry farm, which ended up going bankrupt in 2007. This made me rethink the model of production we were using. With Kipster, we set off to create the most animal, environment and people-friendly poultry farm on this planet. It turned out to be a golden egg for us, as our business is both profitable and scalable. We do not only want to respond to consumer demands but anticipate change and even set an example in the world that better ways of farming are possible.”

The hearing was organised by the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in association with the Committee on Petitions.

The hearing’s programme can be found here. 

The hearing’s recording can be accessed here.

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The EU-Mercosur trade agreement will fuel intensive farming

14 April 2021

WAV Comment – find out more about the agreement by clicking on thios link:

https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/eu-mercosur-association-agreement/index_en.htm

The European Union and Mercosur states – Argentina, Brazil Paraguay and Uruguay – reached a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement.

Nearly two years after the end of the EU-Mercosur trade negotiations, the European Commission finally published the related final Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA), which confirms the findings of the draft SIA published in July 2020: if ratified as it stands, the agreement will fuel intensive farming, which is detrimental to animals, people, and the environment.

This SIA was released as the ratification of the EU-Mercosur agreement is for now uncertain due to the various concerns raised by civil society organisations. The European Parliament and several Member States, including Austria and France, have pledged not to ratify the deal “as it stands”, mainly because of the significant negative impact the deal will have on deforestation. 

In this context, the SIA tries to defuse some of these concerns by downplaying the impact the deal will have on the expansion of agriculture, and therefore on deforestation. Indeed, the SIA recognises that, in the beef sector, “EU  imports  from  Mercosur  will  increase  in  both  scenarios  (…) but that most of  the deforested  area  is  used  for  low-efficiency  cattle ranching”. Hence,  the SIA suggests that “there  is  great scope  for  expanding  production  by  intensifying  beef  production  in  these  areas  without  inducing deforestation”. However, fuelling the intensification of animal farming is extremely detrimental to animal welfare, but also to people and to the environment as intensive farms often not only rely on crop-based feed, whose production fuels deforestation, but also generates high levels of air, ground and water pollution.  Furthermore, the SIA seems to ignore that, according to a research by Global Forest Watch, the impact of the beef sector on deforestation is five times higher than any other industry, and deforestation rates are increasing worldwide. For instance, in Brazil alone, over half of the country’s deforestation over the last twenty years came from the beef sector, mainly due to the conversion of forests into cattle pasture. As a reminder, the Ambec report – the impact study commissioned by the French government – concluded that, as it stands, the EU-Mercosur agreement would generate an extra 25% of deforestation in the six years following its entry into force. 

The SIA also draws worrying conclusions concerning the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapter. It recognises that the potential  impact of  TSD provisions are uncertain,  “insofar  as  they  remain  contingent upon  implementation  in  good  faith  of  all  parties”. The decentralisation  of  environmental  regulation in  key countries like Brazil  can  increase this uncertainty. Hence, the environmental concerns are not likely to be addressed unless there is unilateral EU legislation guaranteeing imported products are deforestation-free, or that EU standards, including  animal welfare standards, apply to imported products.   

We regret the late publication of this SIA, which according to the Commission’s own policy, should have contributed to discussions during the negotiations of the agreement. It is worth noting that the European Ombudsman found that:

“the failure of the European Commission to ensure the finalisation of the sustainability impact assessment before the end of the EU-Mercosur trade negotiations constitutes maladministration” and “risks weakening European and national parliaments’ ability to comprehensively debate the trade agreement”

The European Commission also published a Position Paper commenting on the main findings of the SIA report, but it does not not mention any strategy to address the underlined shortcomings or any next step to be taken. For instance, on the beef sector, it supports intensification of the production, regardless of the very negative impact it would have on animal welfare, public health and the environment. Instead of endorsing intensive farming, which is the main driver of deforestation in the Amazon forest, the European Commission should acknowledge that addressing deforestation cannot depend solely on the political will of EU and Mercosur countries, given the economic weight of the beef sector in Mercosur, and the constant imports of beef and soy from the EU.

We  thus call on the EU to uphold the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy, which are to use trade policy “to obtain ambitious commitments” from partners in key areas such as animal welfare, and to take this opportunity to negotiate the adoption by Mercosur countries of EU-equivalent legal standards in key sectors (cattle, broiler chicken, laying hens), as well as in terms of transport, or to agree on conditions on animal welfare and sustainability to access tariff-rate quotas or liberalisation in animal products, including the respect of EU-equivalent animal welfare standards. 

https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/news/eu-mercosur-trade-agreement-will-fuel-intensive-farming

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COVID-19 first detected in European mink farms a year ago – NGOs and the public urge the EU to act

13 April 2021

Press Release

12 months after the SARS-CoV-2 virus was first detected in animals in a mink farm in the Netherlands, the EU has failed to take decisive action to shut down these coronavirus reservoirs despite huge public support for a ban on fur farming.

In recent months, almost 500.000 people have signed a petition calling for an end to the cruel and deadly fur trade. A new survey also shows strong support for emergency EU action to put an end to fur farming and breeding, to protect the health of EU citizens and animals.

Throughout the past year, there have been outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 to humans) on more than 400 mink farms in ten EU Member States, with millions of animals affected. Given the living conditions on fur farms, once a single animal has been infected, the virus spreads quickly. It soon became evident that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not only spread between farmed mink and mutate, but can also be transmitted back to humans and wildlife. 

Fur farms pose a threat to public health and have the potential to become reservoirs for the coronavirus. A joint assessment from the World Health Organization (WHO ), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that there is a significant risk of COVID-19 being transmitted from mink to humans. Yet, despite this, the European Commission has remained mostly inactive. 

“To date, the European Commission has only required the monitoring and reporting of COVID-19 cases on fur farms. It recommends the implementation of stricter biosecurity measures, including regular COVID-19 testing for fur farm employees and random sample testing of mink, as well as the testing of dead animals”, says Dr Joanna Swabe from Humane Society International/Europe, “These measures are, however, insufficient to protect public health. The only way to prevent the coronavirus spreading from mink to humans is to end mink farming in the Member States where this cruel practice is still legal”.

Not only can COVID-19 be spread from mink to humans, but Joh Vinding from the Fur Free Alliance explains that “With animals being kept in such close confinement under inherently poor welfare conditions, fur farms are the perfect breeding grounds for infectious disease. Viruses can also mutate. Indeed, mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 that occurred in mink on Danish mink farms were already transmitted to humans. Researchers feared that such mutations could reduce the efficacy of vaccines and significantly delay success in our battle against COVID-19”.

A recent opinion poll, commissioned by Four Paws and Eurogroup for Animals to YouGov, conducted in France, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Estonia and Slovakia (1), has shown that EU citizens are in favour of emergency EU action to end fur farming and breeding, to protect their health.

The survey results show that the majority support our calls for urgent action. With such strong public support and the health risks associated with allowing fur farming to continue unabated, the European Commission must act immediately and urge Member States to halt fur production.

Reineke Hameleers, CEO, Eurogroup for Animals. 

In Italy, a country which, while having suspended mink fur farming for 2021, still has operational farms, 77% of the adult population are in favour of the adoption of emergency measures to end fur farming and breeding. This illustrates that by allowing fur production to continue, the European Commission is more concerned with protecting the economic interests of a small group of stakeholders at the expense of the health of all European citizens. 

“With the entry into force of the Animal Health Law on 21st April, the European Commission has a prime opportunity to take action against fur farming and eliminate this threat to human health once and for all”, says Pierre Sultana from FOUR PAWS Europe.

To draw attention to the issue, inform the public and reach out to policymakers, the Fur Free Alliance, Eurogroup for Animals and their members, together with FOUR PAWS and Humane Society International are holding a joint day of online action on 14th April.

ENDS

Notes

1. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. This global study was conducted online between 25th March – 1st April 2021 in 6 markets. The sample in this market report comprised a nationally representative sample of 5,098 adults aged 18 years and older in the following countries: France (n=1,047), Italy (n=1,048), Slovakia (n=501), Hungary (n=1,001), Bulgaria (n=1,000) and Estonia (n=501).
 

Opinion poll full results
The Stop Deadly Fur petition 
Scientific statement on public health risks from SARS-CoV-2 and the intensive rearing of mink
Eliminating a potential reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 virus on EU fur farms
 

Eurogroup for Animals represents 70 animal advocacy organisations in 26 EU Member States, Switzerland, Serbia, Norway, Australia and the USA. Since its inception in 1980, the organisation has succeeded in encouraging the EU to adopt higher legal standards for animal protection. Eurogroup for Animals reflects public opinion through its membership organisations’ affiliations across the Union, and has both the scientific and technical expertise to provide authoritative advice on issues relating to animal welfare. 

The Fur Free Alliance exists to end the exploitation and killing of animals for fur. The Alliance is an international coalition that consists of more than 50 animal protection organisations, based in more than 35 countries around the world, working collaboratively to bring about the end of fur farming and fur trapping, using wholly peaceful means.

FOUR PAWS is the global animal welfare organisation for animals under direct human influence, which reveals suffering, rescues animals in need and protects them. Founded in 1988 in Vienna by Heli Dungler, the organisation advocates for a world where humans treat animals with respect, empathy and understanding. FOUR PAWS’ sustainable campaigns and projects focus on companion animals including stray dogs and cats, farm animals and wild animals – such as bears, big cats, orangutans and elephants – kept in inappropriate conditions as well as in disaster and conflict zones. With offices in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, Hungary, the UK, the USA and Vietnam as well as sanctuaries for rescued animals in twelve countries, FOUR PAWS provides rapid help and long-term solutions.

With a presence in more than 50 countries, Humane Society International works around the globe to promote the human-animal bond, rescue and protect dogs and cats, improve farm animal welfare, protect wildlife, promote animal-free testing and research, respond to natural disasters and confront cruelty to animals in all of its forms.

https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/news/covid-19-first-detected-european-mink-farms-year-ago-ngos-and-public-urge-eu-act

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Speciesism demands a strict separation between humans and animals. He demands special solidarity with all members of our species.

He assumes that all people have the same value (egalitarianism).

In our society, this is even called a humanistic attitude.
The result is the categorical devaluation of all non-human living beings.

This violent ideology is arbitrary and unfounded like the attitude of a despot who believes that his special power over other living beings also gives him special rights.

All species must have the right to life, freedom, integrity, and protection. Only then is it a right and not a privilege of the ruler.

Fight for basic rights for all feeling, thinking individuals.

regards and good night, Venus

 

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Theridion grallator is a species of spider in the genus Theridion that is found exclusively in Hawaii.
The underside is light yellow and somewhat transparent.

Depending on the food consumed, it can be red, black, and white in color.
T. grallator gets its name from its long, spindly legs (grallator meaning “stilt-walker” in Latin).

It gets the nickname happy-face spider because of the yellow color on most of the body and the patterns on the abdomen.
The pattern is similar to a smiling face.
Therefore the common English name is also “happy face spider”.

This polymorphism could counteract the applicability of their hunters’ prey schemes.
The females live as solitary animals under leaves in forests.

They defend their egg balls aggressively and look after the brood for a while after they hatch.

It can happen that some young animals of the brood are taken in by foster mothers.

They mostly live predatorily and feed mainly on captured arthropods, especially insects that they suck out.
For this purpose, the prey animals are first dissolved with an enzyme-containing digestive juice, which the spider brings into its victim, which has been killed with its jaw claws.

It is absolutely harmless to humans.
Despite its restricted habitat, the Theridion Grallator is not considered endangered according to the IUCN

Text: Together for the animals

Not all happy-face spiders have such striking markings, and some are nearly all orange or all blue.
The Hawaiian name is nananana makakiʻi (face-patterned spider).

In addition to the variety of color polymorphisms present in T. grallator, this spider also demonstrates the interesting quality of diet-induced color change, in which its appearance temporarily changes as it metabolizes various food items.

T. grallator spiders do not utilize webs to capture prey, so they do not follow the sit-and-wait method of web-building spiders. Instead, they will forage freely, often traveling to nearby leaves to capture insects.

During prey capture, T. grallator spiders use their silk.
Common prey include Dolichopodidae and Drosophilidae.

A very likable animal and a splendid specimen of the genus!

My best regards to all, Venus

 

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⚠ HARD IMAGES posted on Instagram by a young hunter (since deleted).

https://fb.watch/4SYd73yQAa/

Instead of killing the boar, the hunter lets the dogs come to massacre him alive
We call this sadistic cruelty and is an indication of who has what intellectual level within the hunters…

According to this young man, who presents himself as a high school student in Gironde, “the boar is dead but is still moving because of the nerves”.

Lie or complete ignorance?
We’d say both because hunters aren’t just professional killers; they are professional liars too.

Be that as it may, the hunting lobby is sticking to the trivialization of cruelty among young people:

The minimum age for obtaining a hunting license in France is 16 years (15 years for the accompanying person with a license).

Hunting is a popular sport in France: 1.3 million hunters enjoy great freedom here. They can hunt almost anywhere and during the hunting season on all days of the week.

Hunting accidents, including fatal ones, are one of them.

Thierry Coste is arguably the most influential French hunter. He is a political spokesman for the French Hunters Association.

Coste is in regular contact with President Macron because for politicians Coste is a powerful man who knows how the French think in the country.
The hunt is a national good for them.

His political conviction is: “In the past, hunting was a privilege of the nobles, but the French fought for the right to hunt during the revolution.
Everyone has been allowed to hunt since the French Revolution. With us, hunting is not a sport for the rich. It’s democratic. Hunting is a thing of the people. “

And we say: Hunting is and remains murder!

Anyone who operates the murder of a defenseless animal as “sport”, “hobby”, “nature conservation”, “species protection”, “epidemic protection” or “tradition” does not deserve to have their own rights.

My best regards to all, Venus

 

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Animal Trials, Exploitation, and Planted microchips

Elon Musk, the large entrepreneur, visionary, billionaire, and man with 3 citizenships originally from South Africa is known as the co-founder of Pay Pal, Space X, and Tesla.

He dreams of manned Mars flights and of sending people around the world through suction tunnels at lightning speed.

His achievements caused a sensation, but as always, not all that glitters is gold: behind the scenes of his work, animals are tortured and exploited in the name of an unholy science.

In 2020, the multi-billionaire introduced Gertrude to the world on August 28th: ​​one of many pigs who were exploited, coerced, and tortured for his megalomaniac ideas.

Gertrude was the result of his project for the Neuralink company, which is also owned by the cold-hearted Croesus.

After a few attempts, coin-sized computer chips were implanted in her brain and her pitiable, bristly fellow sufferers.
These were supposed to track the animals’ brain waves.

Realizing that this cruelty to animals will bring animal rights activists worldwide to the barricades, Musk wanted to cover up his crimes with a hypocritical “animal welfare coat”, but the shot backfired – an Elon Musk can do with all of us empathic animal rights activists do not deceive his wealth.

What he does in the name of science is flawless cruelty to animals.
His animal experiments only demonstrate his arrogance and the lack of respect for fellow creatures.

Continue reading →

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