Posted on May 15, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Photo – CIWF.
The pig industry is about to succeed in getting Europe to approve fully slatted floors. We have just weeks to stop them.
Please, will you take a moment to demand that European Agriculture Ministers reject fully slatted flooring as the ‘best available technique’ for pig farming?
A European reference document to define ‘best available techniques’ for the intensive pig industry is being negotiated. A threat looms: fully slatted flooring for pigs risks being recognised within this document as the ‘best available technique’, despite it being the worst system for the animals. We have just weeks to prevent this huge backward-step for pig welfare in Europe – please, act now.
For many years, Compassion supporters have campaigned to improve the conditions in which pigs throughout the EU are reared. Thanks to you, last year we submitted a petition with 475,576 signatures to Europe’s Agriculture Ministers. This called on them to ensure that the rules set down in the EU Pigs Directive are respected and that pigs are protected from the worst excesses of factory farming.
Now, a European document that defines the ‘best available technique’ for intensive pig farming is being negotiated. The pig industry is about to succeed in getting fully slatted floors approved within this document – and we have just weeks to stop them.
Pigs are curious and intelligent animals that use their snouts to explore and root around. This decision will result in Europe’s pigs living in a completely barren environment without a single activity to occupy their time.
How can fully slatted floors be the ‘best available technique’?
The worst cannot be ‘the best’
In reality, these floors are not compatible with good animal welfare: European law, in place since 2003, requires pigs to have materials like straw in which they can explore, rest comfortably and nest before giving birth. Fully slatted floors can make the provision of straw impossible. By declaring that fully slatted floors are the best available technique, the European Commission will be endorsing an environmental practice that goes against its own laws on animal welfare.
The argument, that fully slatted floors make it easier to dispose of pig waste and keep areas clean, is also weak: pig waste is 10 times more polluting in water than human waste and has been a major cause of an ecological disaster in Brittany, France, where vast algal blooms have plagued the sea along the coast.
Fully slatted floors are not permitted, or will be phased, out in the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. This is because, in reality, this system has no environmental benefit and is the worst available technique for the pigs’ welfare.
It is unacceptable that European authorities are prepared to sacrifice animal welfare laws and the environment to endorse a method of production that would simply benefit the intensive pig farming industry.
Please write to your Agriculture Minister today and call on them to reject fully slatted floors as the ‘best available technique’.
Thank you for your support – Please Act Now
– We have LIMITED time left !
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere !, LETTERS | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 14, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Posted on May 14, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Stop Crystal Towers Cape Town (African Pride Hotels Group) from selling Foie Gras!
WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!
Thanks again everyone! Please note I am now “going after” a different restaurant in Cape Town: The Taste Kitchen. Please SIGN!
About the original Petition – which has now stopped.
Please click on the above link for the new campaign.
Original wording:
Towers Restaurant at Crystal Towers Hotel in Cape Town is selling foie gras!!!!
The production of foie gras (the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened) involves the controversial force-feeding of birds with more food than they would eat in the wild, and more than they would voluntarily eat domestically.
According to Peta.org this is what occurs:
“Foie gras is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of ducks and geese who have been cruelly force-fed. Although France is the primary producer (and consumer) of this so-called “delicacy”—France produces more than 20,000 tons of foie gras each year—force-feeding takes place on a few duck farms in the U.S. too.
Although foie gras has historically come from force-fed geese, most foie gras farms now raise ducks—mule, Muscovy, and genetically manipulated, sterile birds called “moulards.”
Farmers have found that they can sell more than just the ducks’ fattened livers: Ducks’ legs, breasts, fat, and skin are all marketed for (mostly French) specialty foods. The bodies of geese, however, age too quickly to be used for some of these foods. Today, in France, only 4 percent of foie gras comes from geese. It is common, however, for geese to be raised for their down as well as for foie gras; birds with white feathers are preferred for this purpose.
Force-Feeding
Birds raised for foie gras spend the first four weeks of their lives eating and growing, sometimes in semi-darkness. For the next four weeks, they are confined to cages and fed a high-protein, high-starch diet that is designed to promote rapid growth. Force-feeding begins when the birds are between 8 and 10 weeks old. For 12 to 21 days, ducks and geese are subjected to gavage—every day, between 2 and 4 pounds of grain and fat are forced down the birds’ throats by means of an auger in a feeding tube.The Washington Post reported that the tube “is pushed 5 inches down their throats, and more food than they want is gunned into their stomachs. If the mushy corn sticks … a stick is sometimes used to force it down.”The birds’ livers, which become engorged from a carbohydrate-rich diet, can grow to be more than 10 times their normal size (a disease called “hepatic steatosis”).The mortality rate of birds raised for foie gras has been found to be as much as 20 times higher than that of birds raised normally, and carcasses show wing fractures and severe tissue damage to the throat muscles”.
you have the power to create change.
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 13, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Target: Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture for the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Goal: Ban inhumane contest killing in the United States.
Contest killing is a game. The purpose of this “game” is to slaughter as many animals as possible in the shortest amount of time or to kill the largest or smallest animal first. Participants are awarded cash or prizes for winning and participating. The most common targets are coyotes, prairie dogs, and pigeons. These animals are treated as disposable and like their lives don’t mean a thing. Urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture to finally ban cruel killing contests.
The most common killing contest is coyote calling. This is the most savage of the contests as the coyotes may be killed by any means—the body count is all that is taken into consideration. When the timer goes off, the bodies are counted and weighed and a winner is chosen.
In prairie dog killing contests, prairie dogs are shot down with powerful rifles. Hunters have described the experience as “beautiful,” and boast the “red mist” as perfection. That red mist is the bloody remains of the prairie dog. The players actively enjoy watching the prairie dogs being blown apart. The person who kills the highest percentage of prairie dogs is deemed winner. Pigeon shoots are just as violent: Shooters line up and try and shoot down as many pigeons as possible. Thousands of birds may be killed during a pigeon shooting contest.
There have been several proposals to ban contest killing in various states across the United States. However, this should not be a state issue. The USDA has a federal duty to protect animals from being killed for no purpose. There is simply no reason to allow these contests to continue. The only people who benefit are the killers with the highest kill-count. If contest killings were made illegal, no one would suffer any negative consequences. The animals would be able to live out their lives as nature intended, rather than being killed for the sake of a prize.
Sign the petition below to show you do not support these savage contests.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
I am writing to you because we cannot allow contest killing to continue in the United States. The Animal Welfare Act needs to be expanded to include all sport killing and hunting contests. When the purpose of a contest is to take as many innocent lives as possible, it is no longer a game, it is slaughter. We have a duty to protect animals from heartless humans that have such a desire to kill for the sake of killing. Blood lust is not a reason to harm animals, and these cruel impulses should not be indulged.
Animals are not here for our entertainment. It is inhumane to allow these violent contests to continue. I urge you to let these coyotes, prairie dogs and pigeons enjoy their lives in nature without a constant human threat.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
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Target: US Congress, Secretary Vilsack, Secretary Jewell
Goal: Protect the last remaining habitat of Siberian tigers from the ravages of illegal logging.
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Innocent hamsters are being injected with aggression enhancing drugs such as cocaine and steroids, before being forced to fight one another.
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Nearly 50,000 endangered or threatened sea turtles are injured or killed as the result of fishing practices every year. While efforts have been made to help protect sea turtles, thousands are still experiencing unnecessary suffering and more needs to be done to combat this issue.
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Employees at a pig farm were allegedly caught beating, abusing, and even killing animals on a recent undercover video taken by a Mercy for Animals member at a Seaboard Foods farm. The video depicts employees hitting pigs in the face and body with large coffee cans filled with rocks, beating them with boards, and shooting them in the head in front of other animals. In past years, Seaboard Foods has been accused of improper animal handling procedures, improper disposal of waste, and deceptive claims about the welfare of the animals on its farms.
Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 12, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Each year, elephants are forced to fight in front of crowds of howling spectators at the Suwori harvest festival in Assam, a northeastern state in India. The elephants are mounted by riders, traditionally called mahouts, who beat their heads with sticks in order to force them to charge forward and attack a rival. The matches last until one elephant pushes the other out of a circle drawn on the ground.
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 8, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Posted on May 7, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
I signed the petition: “Stop Killing Stray Dogs With Acid”
Please consider signing:
See our post of 24th April regarding live stray dogs being injected with ACID !!
Please support this new petition – thank you.
WATCH THE DISGUSTING VIDEO ON
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 