Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

In India, 1.3 billion people are affected by the curfew due to the corona pandemic. Also in Bantala, where millions of people work in the leather industry.

Leather is the skin of animals, which is chemically preserved through tanning. The chemicals come from China and, like in China, dogs are also to be slaughtered here for the leather industry.

Although China is the largest leather producer and exporter itself, it imports cheap leather from India.

In the end, it is no longer possible to determine where the leather really comes from.

India is the largest producer of cheap leather in Asia.

From here, a great demand for finished leather and leather goods is exported to Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France. And for the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the leather comes from India.

Since India exports leather worth billions of euros, cows are simply caught on the streets, but so are dogs.

Since everything has to happen very quickly, their legs are chopped off so that they can no longer run away. Then the skin is torn off their bodies while they are alive.

The fact that dogs and cats are also slaughtered for the leather industry in India was rather unknown, especially since dog and cat meat are prohibited. But after the police in Calcutta confiscated 20 tons of dog and cat meat, there is great fear that this meat will also be sold in restaurants.

Slaughtering cows is legal in Kerala and West Bengal. Therefore the animals are carted there.

Excruciating transport

At the markets, the animals are given liters of water before they are sold so that they look plump and can be sold for more money. Cows and calves that are far too young are also sold to traders, contrary to the law, and crammed onto overcrowded trucks to the slaughterhouse.

This often leads to the animals falling on top of one another, trampling on one another, or injuring one another with their horns. Cows that collapse on a march are rubbed chili in the eyes, hit with sticks, or their tails are broken to get them to stand up again.

Ingrid Newkirk, President of Peta, followed one of the caravans of cattle stumbling towards Kerala.

“It’s a hideous journey,” she writes “To keep them moving, drivers beat the animal across their hip bones, where there is no fat to cushion the blows. The cows are not allowed to rest or drink.

Many cows sink to their knees. Drivers beat them and twist their battered tails to force them to rise. If that doesn’t work they torment the cows into moving by rubbing hot chili peppers and tobacco into their eyes.”

 

Millions of cows are imported into Bangladesh from neighboring India every year. Although these are “sacred” in India, the workers there quickly forget and kill the cows on the street or in slaughterhouses – without prior anesthesia.

 

For more…at https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2020/12/17/indianot-one-slaughterhouse-fulfilled-the-legal-requirements/

 

And I mean…There is hardly a well-known brand that does not have its products manufactured in India. Around 90 percent of Indian leather ends up in the European Union; Germany is the second most important sales market.

Over 90% of the leather products marketed today are tanned with chrome, one of the most dangerous and toxic substances in the world.

Extreme animal suffering, systematic harm to people and above all to children in the production countries such as Bangladesh, unimaginable environmental pollution, and health hazards from wearing leather products are the diabolic cycle of the leather mafia.

The barbaric treatment of these animals has been hidden too long, but the truth is:
“Sacred” cows, allowed to run around anywhere, are stolen even on the street. It is estimated that there are around 30,000 illegal and unlicensed slaughterhouses that kill and skin cows or calves at night and in fog. Workers often cut the animals’ throats without anesthesia.

The Indian tanneries have no systematic control over the real origin of all rawhides. The illegal butchers simply sell the hides as buffalo hides to avoid persecution by the Indian authorities.

Yet greed, poverty, ignorance, and the absence of regulation and supervision have brought India’s cows to the point where their treatment is on the threshold of becoming a major international scandal.

Militant animal rights activists have now declared war on local butchers and tanneries.

My best regards to all, Venus

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Animal welfare victory: the CJEU ruling confirms Member States right to introduce mandatory pre-slaughter stunning

17 December 2020

Today is a historic day for animals, as the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) clarified that Member States are allowed to impose mandatory pre-slaughter stunning.

The case raised from the ban adopted by the Flemish Government (BE) in July 2019 which made stunning compulsory also for the production of meat by means of traditional Jewish and Muslim rites.

The verdict ruled that the EU Governments can legitimately introduce mandatory reversible stunning in the framework of Art. 26.2(c) of the Council Regulation 1099/2009 (Slaughter Regulation), with the aim to  improve animal welfare during those killing operations carried out in the context of religious rites.

It clearly states that the Slaughter Regulation “does not preclude Member States from imposing an obligation to stun animals prior to killing which also applies in the case of slaughter prescribed by religious rites” .

 This judgment considers the latest development onreversible stunning as a method that successfully balances the apparently competing values of religious freedom and animal welfare, and it concludes that “the measures contained in the (Flemish) decree allow a fair balance to be struck between the importance attached to animal welfare and the freedom of Jewish and Muslim believers to manifest their religion”.

Eurogroup for Animals has followed the Court case closely and in October it released an opinion poll showing that EU citizens do not want to see animals slaughtered while fully conscious.

“It is now clear that our society doesn’t support animals to unduly suffer at the most critical time of their lives. Reversible stunning makes it possible to successfully balance the apparently competing values of religious freedom, and the concern for animal welfare under current EU law. Acceptance of pre-slaughter stunning by religious communities is increasing both in EU and non-EU countries. Now it’s time for the EU to make pre-slaughter stunning always mandatory in the next revision of the Slaughter Regulation” commented Reineke Hameleers, CEO, Eurogroup for Animals

Throughout the years, experts have raised concerns about the serious animal welfare implications of killing without pre-cut stunning (FVE, 2002; EFSA, 2004; BVA, 2020), as acknowledged by the Court itself, in another case (C-497/17).

The case will now go back to the Flanders’ constitutional court which will have to confirm and implement the CJEU’s ruling. Furthermore, the imminent revision of the Slaughter Regulation, as announced by the European Commission in the framework of the EU Farm to Fork strategy, gives the chance to further clarify the matter by making pre-slaughter stunning always compulsory and move towards a Europe that cares for animals.

ENDS

Notes

Opinion poll on slaughter 

Summary of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case C-336/19

Amicus Curiae on CJEU case

Advocate General opinion

Additional from WAV:

Electrical stunning

An electrical stunning device (applied to the head only) must pass sufficient current through the brain of the animal to interrupt normal brain activity and render the animal immediately unconscious. Electrical stunning (or electronarcosis) is reversible as it disrupts normal brain function for a short time only. An electrical stunning system requires the correct voltage, current and application time to be delivered for the stun to result in instantaneous and painless unconsciousness.

https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/how-are-animals-stunned-prior-to-slaughter/

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Received anonymously from Frente de Liberación Animal:

The official website of the Italian Hunting Federation <www.federcaccia.org> has been hacked by the Animal Liberation Front.

ALF Hacks Italian Hunting Federation Website (Italy)

We wish the hunters a lot of fun repairing the hacked page.

Especially now in Corona times, you have to employ hunters, otherwise, they will come up with stupid ideas

Regards and good night, Venus

 

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WHO scientists will travel to Wuhan in January to investigate origins of Covid-19 after months of negotiating with China for access

• The coronavirus pandemic is believed to have originated from Wuhan in China
• A year on from the start of the pandemic, the mission is expected to visit the city
• U.S. has called for a ‘transparent’ WHO-led investigation and criticised its terms
• Specifically, it was unhappy that Chinese scientists did the preliminary research

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9060429/WHO-scientists-travel-Wuhan-January-investigate-origins-Covid-19.html?ito=push-notification&ci=60710&si=17774922

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Totilas was considered a “miracle stallion” and record breaker in dressage riding and was the most expensive dressage horse in the world. His life in equestrian sport was marked by agony and suffering.

Now Totilas died on the evening of December 14, 2020, at the age of just 20 years.

Totilias

A painful death ends his painful life

Totilas died of complications from colic. After an operation, the otherwise healthy stallion got up again but eventually succumbed to the disease.

Animal rights activists mourn the death of the long-suffering animal, which symbolized the pain and suffering of the equestrian sport like no other.

“Totilas is, on behalf of thousands of other horses that are abused as sports equipment, the best-known example of a reprehensible and criminally driven sports business.” (Dr. Edmund Haferbeck, PETA Germany)

Tortured with cruel training methods

Totila’s life clearly shows that in dressage only success counts and that horses are misused as expensive sports equipment.

After Totilas broke all records in dressage at the 2009 European Championships, he was bought for an estimated 10 million euros by entrepreneur and showjumper Paul Schockemöhle and the Linsenhoff-Rath family.

But the hoped-for successes mostly failed to materialize

In order to achieve the calculated victories in the future, Totilas has been trained with the cruel “roll cure”, especially since spring 2012.

The horse’s head is pulled down so hard that the neck is systematically overstretched. This is incredibly painful for the animals.

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England: SPANA – Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad – Helping Working Animals Around the World. – World Animals Voice

SPANA (Head Office – London) – helping the working animals of the world who may otherwise not get any support.  https://spana.org/

Established in 1923, SPANA’s goal is simple: to improve the welfare of working animals in the world’s poorest communities. Through three key areas – treating, training and teaching – we’re inspiring others to act in the best interests of working animals while also providing practical, professional and sustainable solutions today. We recognise that the fortunes of working animals and people go hand in hand: in the developing world, just one working animal can support an extended family of up to 30 people. SPANA’s work improves the lives of working animals while supporting the communities that depend on them. We rely entirely on our loyal supporters to help us in our huge but vital task.

WAV Comment – we are very happy to give a monthly donation to SPANA to help relieve the suffering a little of so many working animals.

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Scottish Salmon Farming Exposed – A Viva ! Investigation. – World Animals Voice

Alarming scenes captured at Scottish salmon farms supplying Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Aldi, Morrisons and M&S reveal putrid conditions that lead to invasions of parasitic sea lice. Painful non-medicinal lice management systems that breach basic animal welfare standards on the treatment of farmed animals were also filmed – one of which was operating in a designated Special Area of Conservation and Marine Protected Area famous for its rare flame shell bed.

Around 70 per cent of Scottish salmon farms are RSPCA Assured, while the remainder conform to other supposedly ‘high welfare’ certification schemes such as Best Aquaculture Practices, Marin Trust, GGN Certified Aquaculture and GlobalG.A.P.

More images from the investigation can also be publicly viewed on Flickr.

Promoted as a ‘sustainable’ solution to overfishing, modern aquaculture confines fish in fetid cages by their thousands, creating a breeding ground for disease and causing widespread suffering.

Whilst adult wild salmon are well adapted to coping with the odd sea louse – a parasite that naturally occurs in the sea – the intensification of salmon farming has led to fundamental changes in the density and occurrence of lice in coastal waters. Although one or two lice per salmon may not sound like a real threat, when you multiply that by hundreds of thousands within a sea cage, the consequences are catastrophic.

The lice reproduce rampantly, feeding on skin, mucus and blood, which produces white ‘death crowns’ of exposed flesh on the salmon. Clearly suffering, the infected fish are regularly seen jumping up to 30 centimetres in the air and skimming along the water surface with their tails in attempts to dislodge the bugs. Large numbers of these lice can be devastating, causing skin lesions, loss of scales, secondary infection and ultimately death.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, huge numbers of juvenile sea lice also escape to the local marine environment, causing significant damage to wild salmon and sea trout smolts, whose fragile skin is not yet adapted to coping with parasites on this level.

In response to the invasion of sea lice, the aquaculture industry breeds millions of lumpfish ‘cleaners’ that feed on sea lice, in futile endeavours to control the outbreaks. Other techniques include chemical washes or mechanical treatments such as hydrolicers and thermolicers.

Hydrolicers

During a hydrolice treatment, fish are drawn into a ‘washing machine’ type device through two lines by live fish pumps. Each system line includes a fish counter, two hydrolicer combi units, fish pumps, water separating units and a filtration system to ensure that all the lice can be removed from the water and destroyed.

As the salmon pass through the system, they are sprayed with freshwater jets to dislodge lice that are not adapted to non-seawater conditions. Eye damage, increased stress levels and death are all consequences of the process.

According to the Scottish Government, fish farms have reported killing 269,674 salmon in hydrolicers between 2016 and 2019. That’s an average of 67,418 a year.

Thermolicers

Like with hydrolicer treatments, salmon are herded and pumped up from the sea pen through a tube. Exiting the tubes the fish pass through a tank of warm water, before being ejecting back out into the opposite side of the sea cage. The water is heated up to 34 degrees, which can be 20 degrees above the seawater temperature. It takes around 25-30 seconds for the fish to pass through the entire ‘processing loop’.

Sea lice are sensitive to sudden changes in water temperature and so die and fall off once the salmon hit the heated water. They are then collected and destroyed.

Recent scientific research has found that salmon exposed to water temperatures above 28 degrees centigrade behaved as if they were in pain. Marine and veterinary researchers in Norway observed fish swimming faster, crashing into tank walls and shaking their heads.

According to the Scottish Government, fish farms have reported killing 177,601 salmon in thermolicers between 2016 and 2019. That’s an average of 44,400 a year.

“In my expert opinion and based upon scientific studies from other laboratories, [hydrolicers and thermolicers] contravene the FAWC five freedoms, the RSPCA (2018) welfare standards for farmed Atlantic salmon and the Animal Welfare Act (2006) resulting in harm and poor welfare and should not be employed within the Atlantic salmon farming industry.”

– Dr Lynne Sneddon (Senior Academic, University of Gothenburg)

Share our investigation graphics

Download one of the graphics below and share with the following text:

Putrid conditions and severe overcrowding on Scottish salmon farms lead to parasitic sea lice invasions that kill fish and destroy the surrounding environment. End Factory Farming, Before It Ends Us.

  viva.org.uk/scottish-salmon

#EndFactoryFarming #EFF

Investigation: Scottish Salmon | Viva! – The Vegan Charity

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