Posted on July 13, 2016 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Cruelty Conviction
A Foster Farms slaughterhouse employee caught torturing chickens has been convicted of criminal animal cruelty. The conviction stems from a recent Mercy For Animals hidden-camera investigation.
by Lina Cohen – July 6, 2016
Yesterday, Gabriel Cevallos, a Foster Farms employee, was convicted for criminal animal abuse after being caught on hidden camera ripping out fistfuls of feathers from live birds, repeatedly hitting a bird with a severed chicken leg, and tossing live birds around like basketballs. Cevallos pled no contest to one count of criminal animal cruelty. His conviction stems from a 2015 Mercy For Animals undercover investigation at a Foster Farms chicken slaughterhouse in Fresno, California, which revealed birds scalded alive and several Foster Farms employees punching, throwing, and slamming birds.
Cevallos was sentenced by the Fresno County Superior Court to three years of probation and a fine of $600, and is required to attend 12 sessions of mental health counseling.
Although animal abuse is pervasive in Foster Farms’ poultry supply chain, American Humane Association has certified Foster Farms—one of the largest poultry producers in the country—as “humane.” AHA’s standards, which cover more than 1 billion animals, are far less stringent than those of virtually every other humane certification program. In fact, AHA standards barely exceed the minimal standards set by the factory farming industry itself. In other words, these standards are essentially meaningless.
MFA is calling on Foster Farms and AHA to stop misleading the public and implement meaningful animal welfare requirements, including replacing live-shackle slaughter methods with less cruel systems that eliminate the appalling suffering caused by dumping, shackling, shocking, and slitting the throats of conscious animals. Additionally, birds should be provided with more space, clean litter, access to adequate light, and environmental enrichments. Video monitoring systems that live stream to the internet should also be installed to deter future violence against animals.
Last week, Perdue Foods, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, announced a precedent-setting animal welfare policy. MFA is calling on AHA and Foster Farms to stop paying lip service to animal welfare and do the same.
Convictions send an important message that animal cruelty will not be tolerated. The best way to protect animals, however, is not to eat them. Visit ChooseVeg.com to get started with some tips and recipes.
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Washington Post – Meat Is Horrible
by Joe Loria – July 5, 2016
“Meat is horrible,” a new article in The Washington Post, highlights the negative impacts of a Western diet.
Author Rachel Premack discusses the environmental, ecological, and health reasons Americans must give up or cut back on meat. Featuring multiple graphs, her compelling argument destroys common myths and seems to support a meat tax.
Premack writes:
By 2050, scientists forecast that emissions from agriculture alone will account for how much carbon dioxide the world can use to avoid catastrophic global warming. It already accounts for one-third of emissions today — and half of that comes from livestock.
She also notes that it takes “48 times as many liters of water to produce the same amount of beef as veggies” and we could save “a collective $730 billion in health care by reducing meat consumption.”
The debate over climate change and animal agriculture’s role in it is over. We know how raising animals for food damages our planet, and it’s time world leaders took action.
In the meantime, you can help protect the planet, your health, and animals by switching to a plant-based diet.
Click here to order your FREE Vegetarian Starter Guide
Posted on July 12, 2016 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
It’s common for elephants used in the tourism industry to be separated from their mothers as babies, tied down with ropes, beaten mercilessly, and gouged with sharp weapons.
These intelligent, complex, sensitive animals are forced to spend their entire lives shackled in chains and give rides to people, even in extreme heat.
Travel companies Classic Journeys, Goway Travel, and SITA World Tours know this, but they still offer elephant rides as part of some of their tours.
When people go to Thailand and ride on an elephant, most of them have no idea that elephants are often separated from their mothers when they’re babies, tied down with ropes, beaten mercilessly, and gouged with sharp weapons. If they knew, they probably wouldn’t do it.
But travel companies Classic Journeys, Goway Travel, and SITA World Tours can’t say that they didn’t know, because PETA told them about the industry-standard abuse, but they still offer elephant rides as part of their tours.
Life for these elephants is hell: Trainers at some camps wave flaming sticks in baby elephants’ faces, just to terrify them. The animals are often deprived of food and water during training, which can last for days and leave them injured and traumatized. Some don’t even survive.
The survivors will spend the rest of their lives like slaves, chained up and forced to carry tourists on their backs through sweltering heat and exhaustion, all while being jabbed and pulled with weapons such as bullhooks or other sharp objects.
If this makes you mad, think about how the elephants feel—then you might be able to understand why they sometimes lash out. Earlier this year, a man vacationing in Thailand was gored to death in front of his daughter. In March, captive elephants killed at least four trainers in Thailand alone. Plus, elephants throughout Asia are known to carry tuberculosis, a deadly disease that can be spread between elephants and humans.
Riding elephants hurts animals and humans, and there’s no reason for it. Animals are not ours to capture, beat, enslave, and ride.
ACTION
Tell Classic Journeys, Goway Travel, and SITA World Tours to stop supporting the abuse of intelligent, sensitive elephants.
The news was shocking – a coyote in Los Angeles, gunned down by a sniper on a residential street. As reported on July 1st in the Los Angeles Times, the gunman shot the coyote in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, in what the Times called an act of “coyotecide.”
As Los Angeles’s Animal Cruelty Task Force looks into the shooting, and the Department of Animal Services investigates, Project Coyote is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect(s) responsible.
Our reward offer is helping to generate news coverage about this act of barbarity, while exposing the stark reality that coyotes are the target of so much hatred and violence and have no protections as afforded their domestic cousins.
Had the killer shot a domestic dog, it would be considered a felony under state anti-cruelty laws.
Ironically, just last week Project Coyote’s Southern California Representative, Randi Feilich testified before the Los Angeles City Animal Welfare Committee in support of a proposed non-lethal coyote management plan being considered by the Committee. The plan emphasizes public education and coexistence. At the meeting, Feilich offered the support of our Coyote Friendly Communities program, which provides tools and expertise to peacefully live with coyotes and other wildlife.
Since the shooting, media coverage has increased public awarness of the cruelty suffered by coyotes and other wildlife, as well as the threat this poses to human safety.
Please help us prevent such senseless acts and help us change laws so that coyotes are no longer treated as vermin that can be killed in unlimited numbers.
With your support we can continue to equip communities across the country with the information, support and tools they need to live peacefully with wild animals who also call this planet home.
Posted on July 7, 2016 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Victory for bulls in Spain!
Dear Mark,
Last year, you took action against the Toro De La Vega bull fiesta, a spectacle held in Tordesillas, Spain every year in which a bull endures tremendous pain and suffering in the name of entertainment.
Because of growing opposition from Spanish citizens and global outrage against cruel bull fiestas from animal advocates like you, we are pleased to share that, this year, the Toro De La Vega has been cancelled.
With recent changes, the public killing of bulls during such fiestas is now prohibited.
The local government of Castile & Léon has denied organizers of the Toro De La Vega permission to stage this cruel spectacle in September. For many years, we have worked alongside local partners in Spain tirelessly exposing and condemning this barbaric tournament where there is no winning for bulls.
We are pleased that elected representatives in Spain have taken a compassionate stand against cruelty. However, this terrible event is just one of thousands of similar spectacles held in Spain every year, and we won’t stop fighting until all fiestas that involve animal distress and suffering are ended for good.
Kitten season has kicked into full gear and abandoned babies, frequently just born and with their umbilical cords still attached, are literally everywhere.
Irresponsible cat owners here feel that spaying/neutering is cruel, but I guess separating the youngsters from their nursing mothers and leaving them next to a trash can to fend for themselves when they aren’t even able to eat alone (or throwing them inside the waste container) isn’t cruel at all.
Please use the above link to see many more pictures – thank you.
Posted on July 4, 2016 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
UPDATE 5/7/16 –
Yesterday we did send a copy of this post back to DG SANTE, just to inform them of our opinion on the situation.
We now have confirmation that the e mail has been rec’d and read:
Your message
To: SANTE CONSULT-G2
Subject: Re: Reply your e-mail of 15th June 2016- Ares(2016)3157360 Sent: 04 July 2016 18:34:12 (UTC+01:00) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris
was read on 05 July 2016 09:49:48 (UTC+01:00) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris.
Who knows what will happen next – but at least we have informed on our opinion of the situation.
There may be some changes on the horizon at the EU – lets hope this spreads to other Commissions and departments who are failing in their obligations to the EU citizen and to the animals who are suffering in transportation:
With regards to our e mail (plus attachments) sent on 15/6, we have now had a reply from the man himself – Mr Van Goethem at DG SANTE –UNIT G2 (Animal Health and Welfare).
Para 2 – the photos we provided showing animals in poor welfare conditions were those taken at the EU / Turkish border.
Para 3 – “The Commission is aware of the ongoing challenges with the enforcement of the Regulation” (1/2005 on the welfare of animals in transport).
We respond by saying that whilst being glad that the Commission ‘is aware’; we are witnessing nothing in the way of regulation enforcement. We feel that this is where the Commission should immediately step in and take out prosecutions against all member states who are failing to enforce the regulation. But the don’t; so what really is the point of them one has to ask ? – talk the talk, but in reality, do nothing to improve the welfare of animals.
Here is a message sent to us on 29th June from Lesley, who is currently at the border:
For the past week Eyes on Animals and TSB|AWF have been at the Kapitain Andreevo (BG)/Kapikule (TR) border. We are still there now. Since arriving on June 23rd there has not been a moment of rest. The situation is the worst it has ever been. Just yesterday 55 EU animal trucks passed the Bulgarian Exit Post. Four pregnant heifers from Germany have already given birth on board the trucks and many animals from different origins are dead inside the trucks. We have seen several journey logs with this scribbled on them, in Bulgarian:
So – 55 EU animal transporters cross the EU / Turkish border in just one day; and we can be pretty certain that none of them would be enforcing the 1/2005 regulation. Does not this typical example of 55 transporters of suffering animals passing through in just one day not show that the EU Commission / DG SANTE (Animal Health and Welfare – hmm ??) is actually doing nothing in the real world when it comes to taking out prosecutions against nations and transporters who are not enforcing the regulations.
DG SANTE has a lot of blood and animal suffering on its hands.
DG SANTE talks the talk; but in reality it does nothing except continue to let animals be abused and suffer horrendously. Do we see DG SANTE stop live animals being exported from the abusing member states ? – NO – it all comes down to money in reality. The Commission likes to make the EU public think through it very expensive europa web site that it doing everything correctly. The reality is it is actually ding nothing except let (for example) 55 livestock transporters break the law and move into Turkey in just one day without actually taking any real action.
This is the reality of the EU and its useless Commissions.Here in the UK we have now voted to leave all the ‘talkers but do nothings’ behind and to go our own way. We are in no doubt at all that many other member states will be holding in / out EU referendums in the next year to 18 months. Why ? – because we have no faith whatsoever in the Commissions and the talkers that work there. We want to see action and we want it now. Not weasel words about regular meetings with member states represented by their national contact points; not just talk of ‘enhanced checks’ and ‘timely actions in case of non compliance’ – Christ – this has been provided for over the last 5 YEARS showing non compliances at the EU / Turkish border; and here we are yet again with utterly useless weasel words from Mr Van Goethem and Commissioner Andriukaitis telling us that ‘the Commission has launched a pilot project to develop best practices for animal transport’ !!!
Why not stop the member state(s) being allowed to export live animals ? – then your pathetic messages might actually get through to them !!
We see all the words like ‘strengthening training activities’, ‘all actors involved in the transport of animals’ and ‘levels of enforcement’.
We totally dismiss the conclusions of Mr Van Goethem when he says that ‘ the broad spectrum of tools for better application and enforcement of existing rules represents a concrete and fast way to help improve the welfare of animals’.
We say, don’t please give us the continual waffle; prosecute member states and ban them now from exporting live animals. This is the only way the message will get home – not by introducing yet more useless rules which nobody takes any notice of. You may think you are acting positively DG SANTE; but you have always failed in the past, fail now and will always continue to fail.
DG SANTE you have always failed, despite the evidence being provided to you for many years. You are failing now and you will forever continue to fail, despite your brand new weasel words of ‘strengthening training activities’, ‘and ‘levels of enforcement’. You are failing and will always fail – that is why we have no respect whatsoever for you.
DG SANTE = Pathetic – simple as that.
Here is the reality of all the ‘hard work’ of DG SANTE –
More than 5 years of evidence to the EU, and STILL IT DOES NOTHING IN REALITY.
Posted on June 30, 2016 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
In this moment we have big debt for boarding kennel fee for 4 dogs . For Mikro, Zuca , Maza and Srna no one helps… debt is too big, and we have just few days to collect amount of debt or they will go back to street.
Lina’s Animal Rescue is small organisation located in Coka, Serbia. In this moment we have big debt for boarding kennel fee for 4 dogs . Mikro, Zuca , Maza and Srna have just few days to collect amount of debt or they will go back to street. Mikro was saved as starving puppy from the street . Now he is 2 years old and he will not survive street after so much time on safe.His curent debt is 5x 60€ = 300€( boarding kennel and food for 5 months )
Zuca is senior , rescued from street just day before dog catchers were here to collect his fur friends. Zuca had sponsor for food so his debt is 5x 40€ = 200€ ( boarding kennel fee for one month is 40€). Also we have debt for Zuca’s boarding in Januarz so his total debt is 240€. Maza was saved from high kill public shelter in terrible condition. She was ill and starved . She still has health problems and street is not place for her . Her curent debt is 5×60€ = 300€ Srna was left on the street with heart problems . She was not good for hunting to her prvious owners. Now she is healed , but still she would not survive on the cruel street. Her debt is : 4× 60€= 240€ . Total amount that we urgent need to collect is 1080€ in next week. If not, they will have to leave boarding kennel. For them , in Serbia that mean death. Please, help them. There is no small amount . Every € mean a lot for this souls . Please, help them also with sharing . If you want to help and be monthly sponsor , inform us via anmalrescueserbia@gmail.com or in our facebook group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/242713556066360/
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 