Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

WORLD ANIMAL DAY – 4TH OCTOBER – THIS YEAR AND EVERY YEAR

Perhaps you aren’t aware that 4 October is World Animal Day.

Yet World Animal Day is celebrated around the world by organisations, groups, clubs, schools, places of worship and individual, animal‐loving members of the public.

World Animal Day celebrates humankind’s unique relationship with the animal kingdom, and acknowledges the numerous ways in which animals enrich our lives.

You don’t have to be involved in animal welfare in any way at all; you just have to care about animals.

http://www.worldanimalday.org.uk is full of ideas of ways you can get involved in World Animal Day. Here are a few of the fabulous events that took place around the world recently:

Schools in Tanzania, Morocco, Cameroon, Hong Kong, Philippines, Nepal, India, Cambodia, Malaysia, Armenia, Romania, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, UK and the USA undertook special topics on pet care and held art and craft competitions, often later exhibiting the children’s work to the public.

In 2007, many African countries including Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, held educational events to raise public awareness of animal welfare, with an emphasis on farm animals, and the importance of conservation.

In Asia, events took place involving individuals, through small, grass‐roots groups through to international organisations. In Palawan, Philippines, even the animals sported World Animal Day T‐shirts when joining in a colourful World Animal Day procession. In Cambodia, an animal art competition was held for 250 orphans and vulnerable children in Phnom Penh with 50 winners being taken on a day trip to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre.

Music often plays a part in World Animal Day. In 2007, in Australia and the USA fabulous black tie gala balls and concerts raised much‐needed funds.

Throughout the world, information stalls in shopping areas are a popular way of raising awareness of animal welfare issues.

Fundraising events, such as sponsored dog walks or pet shows, take place in many countries.

Many animal shelters around the world hold open days or adoption days.

In 2007, the SPOTS Foundation in Holland, with the help of a large group of children, broke the Guinness world record for the ‘Longest Painting by Numbers’ – an animal painting of course!

Please do take a look at the ‘Events Diary’ on the website as I’m sure you will find the event reports and images truly inspiring and then click on ‘Get Involved’ for more ideas and advice on getting organised. It’s never too early to start thinking about how you might get involved.

Don’t forget to let us know your plans so that we can tell the world and please sign the Pledge Board to show you care.

A celebration of animals and their contribution to our lives

World Animal Day website created by Naturewatch. All queries relating to http://www.worldanimalday.org.uk should be directed to: Naturewatch, 14 Hewlett Road, Cheltenham, GL52 6AA Email : info@worldanimalday.org.uk Tel : 01242 252871

Registered in England. Registration No. 2660946. A Company Limited By Guarantee 

WORLD ANIMAL DAY
14 Hewlett Road, Celtenham,,  Gloucestershire, GL52 6AA,  United Kingdom,  Telephone: +44 (0)1242 252871

Email: info@worldanimalday.org.uk
Website: www.worldanimalday.org.uk 

ONLY 54 DAYS TO GO BEFORE WORLD ANIMAL DAY
Show the Animals you Care – Get Involved

Dear Friends of the Animals

Although World Animal Day is only 54 days away, we know there are still many more events that we need to know about for inclusion in the 2010 Online Diary! If you’ve already contacted us then please ignore this paragraph!  However, if you are organising a World Animal Day event and haven’t yet told us about it, please send the information and details via email as soon as you can.  

We are calling on animal advocates throughout the world to help unite the animal welfare movement at this special time, embracing all animals and the unique concerns of each in every country. Increased awareness of animal welfare issues will eventually lead the way to improved standards of welfare throughout the globe – and what a wonderful achievement that will be!

Get involved and be part of something special !

www.worldanimalday.org.uk
The website has everything you need to help organise a special event for the animals.
Get started at Get Involved and then go to:
 

STEP 1  Get and Idea – We’ve got plenty!  
STEP 2  Get Organized – Suggested guidelines to help you plan for a successful World Animal Day.
STEP 3 Get Publicity – Advertise your event with us for free. Your email should include an outline of the event, including time, location and contact details, and we’ll do the rest!  The website provides free publicity to any group or individual who is doing something special connected with animals on or around 4 October. Events can take place up to 2 weeks either side and still be included on the website – as long as they’re being advertised as World Animal Day events of course!

VERY IMPORTANT – don’t forget to take photographs of your event and, as soon as possible afterwards, write up a short event report for publication in the ‘2010 World Animal Day Events Round-Up’. If your country has a World Animal Day Ambassador, please send it to them and they will collate the event reports and images for your country before sending the information to us. Please note: if your country doesn’t have an Ambassador, please send your images and report directly to info@worldanimalday.org.uk. We’ll show the World what you have achieved for the animals and inspire others to get involved next year.

Help spread the message
You can help raise awareness of World Animal Day by: including information in a newsletter; organising the creation of weblinks on any websites you have connections with; writing letters for publication in newspapers; sending out press releases; contacting celebrities asking them for written endorsements for addition to the celebrity website page and the list goes on…….  Full instructions for a number of different weblinks are available in the ‘Resources’ section of the website, where you will also find the World Animal Day Logo in various formats and other useful resources that can be freely downloaded to help ensure your event is a great success.

For more information about World Animal Day, please visit the World Animal Day website.  So, if we haven’t already heard from you, we greatly look forward to adding your event to the 2010 Online Events Diary!

Be part of something special – get involved and show the animals you care. 

Kind regards
Caroline Barker, Project Manager

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »

As few as 3,200 tigers remain in the wild.

At the same time that tigers are vanishing from their natural habitats, more than 5,000 tigers may exist in captivity in the U.S alone. Loopholes in current regulations allow many tigers to be held without any permit or reporting requirements, putting U.S. captive tigers at risk of entry into the illegal tiger trade – the biggest threat to the survival of wild tigers.

Urge the Obama Administration to tighten U.S. laws protecting captive tigers to prevent them from contributing to the illegal tiger trade >

A recent study by World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) partner TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, found that the federal government has no way to determine exactly how many captive tigers are in the U.S., where they are, who owns them, or what happens to them when they die.

This lax management makes the U.S. captive tiger population an easy target for black market sales. Without tighter regulation, this large population could become a “drip feed” of supply to fill demand for tiger parts, thereby perpetuating this market and further threatening wild tiger populations by putting them at increased risk of poaching.

Help strengthen U.S. laws to ensure captive tigers do not contribute to the endangerment of the world’s remaining wild tiger populations >

If we don’t take action now to protect the remaining population of wild tigers, we will witness the loss of one of the world’s most impressive animals. In the past 100 years, wild tiger populations have fallen by about 95%. Without action to stem this decline, we risk the very survival of wild tigers.

Take action today: sign our petition with the World Wildlife Fund >

Thank you for raising your voice,

– The Change.org team in partnership with World Wildlife Fund

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »

Animal Petitions.

Please visit this site to see a host of animal petitions which you can electronically ‘sign’ via your computer.

http://animals.change.org/petitions

Just a very small sample of some petitions are:

http://animals.change.org/petitions/view/prevent_the_killing_of_strays_in_neuqun

http://animals.change.org/petitions/view/stamp_out_the_canadian_foie_gras_industry–the_dirty_little_secret

http://animals.change.org/petitions/view/tell_the_sc_legislature_to_end_fox_penning

http://animals.change.org/petitions/view/stray_dog_abused_at_kepong_ktm_station

And if you have a cause which is not getting attention, then why not create a petition of your own ? – this site allows you to do this.

Please check out the great site and start signing.

SAV.

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »

Support Catalonia’s campaign to end bullfighting

The blood sport of bullfighting has no place in modern day Catalonia, Spain. I’m supporting many thousands of local citizens in lobbying their politicians for a region-wide ban, saving hundreds of animals a year from a violent end.

Catalonia’s Parliament will vote soon and every voice in favor of a ban counts.

Please join me in taking an online action to consign this cruelty to history!

http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=24&ea.campaign.id=4016

Tough times hit Spanish bull run/Cutbacks put squeeze on bullfights

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/tough-times-hit-spanish-bull-run-20100705-zxqg.html

Sydney Morning Herald. 5 July 2010.
Tough times hit Spanish bull run.
 
Hordes of humans will sprint ahead of thundering beasts this week at Pamplona’s famed running of the bulls, but Spain’s most storied fiesta is being overshadowed by a crisis in the bullring.  A proposed regional bullfighting ban is combining with grim economic times to send a chill through the national pastime.  Pamplona’s historic old quarter comes under the international spotlight because its bullfights are preceded by thousands of thrillseekers chased by bulls that invariably end up goring some humans on cobble stoned streets en route to bloody deaths in the ring.  But across Spain, the number of bullfights has dropped from about 1,000 in 2008 to a projected 800 or less this year, as local governments that have always subsidised small-town bullfights cut budgets because of declining tax revenue.  Bullfights, or corridas in Spanish, have become a luxury when cuts must be made by town councils to maintain funding for schools, social programs and road repairs.

Making matters worse for bullfighting aficionados, the vast north eastern Catalonia region where more than 10 per cent of Spain’s 46 million people live could wind up without bullfights when provincial legislators vote on a proposed ban in mid-July.  That would shut down Catalonia’s last bullring in the city of Barcelona, though it wouldn’t ban other bull spectacles like”correbou”, where people chase bulls through the streets and “bouembolat”, where bulls are forced to run around with flaming wax balls on their horns.

Animal rights activists say the gory spectacles are one of the planet’s most blatant forms of animal cruelty. They hope a ban in Catalonia nine years after the Canary Islands enacted a similar one could prompt other Spanish regions to follow suit.  “It would be a huge step forward, Catalonia telling Spain and the rest of the world that they are not for torturing animals,” Mimi Bekhechi, special projects manager and anti-bullfighting campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Bullfight defenders insist the tradition is still so strong that bans are unthinkable across the rest of Spain. They concede, however, that the country’s debt woes coupled with 20 per cent unemployment and government austerity spending cuts could keep down the number of small town corridas for years.

In Pamplona, the crisis is expected to take a toll on tourism and non-stop street parties during its weeklong festival of bullfighting. Hotels used to sell out three to four months before the event – but not this year. “You can still find good quality rooms going for around $US100 ($A148.37) and vacancies even in some top class hotels, something unheard of four years ago,” Nacho Calvo of the Navarra Restaurant and Hotel Association. At the plush, sought-after AC Ciudad de Pamplona hotel, “we have seen fewer foreigners, and this year the absence of Americans is notable, there are hardly any,” said manager Gabriel Pascual. Bullfighting promoter Luis Miguel Ballesteros two years ago put on 27 or 28 small town bull spectacles in villages with populations ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 people each across the Castilla-Leon region, part of Spain’s historic heartland. This year he’s down to nine or 10 because the rest can’t come up with the $US30,000 ($A35,608) to $US35,000 ($A41,543) subsidy payments they used to give him for putting on corridas costing $US80,000 ($A94,955) to $US100,000($A118,694). “The first thing they are cutting are the bullfights, they’re spending less money on bulls so they can pay for education,”Ballesteros said.

Things are so bad in Estepona, a Mediterranean seaside resort of quaint whitewashed homes, that city officials couldn’t find a promoter willing to stage bullfights at the local festival starting on Tuesday. “It did surprise us, but we understand there is a not a lot of money out there,” said town councillor Carmen Ocana. Estepona – a town of 70,000 that doubles in size each summer as tourists pour in – normally spends $US250,000 ($A296,736) on its weeklong summer festival of music, parades, food and booze. But this year there will be no public spending and no parade. A children’s show that used to be free will charge admission. Instead of hiring big-name musicians for concerts, Estepona put out a call for local musicians who will play for free. Some see a silver lining in the crisis: higher quality fights.

Jose Carlos Arevalo, editor of Spain’s top bullfighting magazine, 6 Toros 6, said that in the boom years before the crisis, bullfighting was flush with money. The subsidies for staging fights drew in freewheeling managers and even people who turned to raising fighting bulls after getting rich on Spain’s real estate boom. That led to a glut of fights, featuring “semi-empty rings and bouts with any animal that had four legs and two horns,” Arevalo wrote in an editorial in last week’s edition of the magazine.
Now Spain’s economic woes are bringing the industry back into equilibrium, with fewer but more star-studded fights and breeders also trying harder to turn out only top-quality beasts. The crisis, Arevalo wrote, “has made the men of the bullfighting world come to their senses”.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hhUS6aDvr9GJLIhtzrCEHES5gRvw
 Google. 5 July 2010
Cutbacks put squeeze on bullfights.

Spain’s world-famous Pamplona bullfighting festival is in danger of being overshadowed by a crisis in the sport.  A proposed regional bullfighting ban is combining with grim economic times to send a chill through the national pastime.  From Tuesday for a week Pamplona’s historic old quarter comes under the international spotlight with its bullfights preceded by thousands of thrillseekers chased by bulls that invariably end up goring some people on cobblestoned streets en route to bloody deaths in the ring. But across Spain, the number of bullfights has dropped from about 1,000 in 2008 to a projected 800 or less this year, as local governments that have always subsidised small-town bullfights cut budgets because of declining tax revenue. Bullfights, or corridas in Spanish, have become a luxury when cuts must be made by town councils to maintain funding for schools, social programmes and road repairs. Making matters worse for bullfighting aficionados, the vast north-eastern Catalonia region where more than 10% of Spain’s 46 million people live could wind up without bullfights when provincial politicians vote on a proposed ban later this month.  That would shut down Catalonia’s last bullring in the city of Barcelona, although it would not ban other bull spectacles like “correbou,” where people chase bulls through the streets and “bouembolat,” where bulls are forced to run around with flaming wax balls on their horns.

Animal rights activists say the spectacles are one of the planet’s most blatant forms of animal cruelty. They hope a ban in Catalonia nine years after the Canary Islands enacted a similar one could prompt other Spanish regions to follow suit.  “It would be a huge step forward, Catalonia telling Spain andthe rest of the world that they are not for torturing animals,” Mimi Bekhechi, special projects manager and anti-bullfighting campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Bullfight defenders insist the tradition is still so strong that bans are unthinkable across the rest of Spain. They concede, however, that the country’s debt woes coupled with20% unemployment and government austerity spending cuts could keep down the number of small town corridas for years.

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »