Posted on July 13, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
With the recent passing of Regan Russell who died when run over by a slaughterhouse truck at a vigil in Canada, a long horrible chain of violence has been added to.
Below is a timeline of vegan activists who died speaking out for the animals. When possible I have posted pictures of the slain individuals so they can be more than just words on a page.
1976, January 6th: William Sweet, LACS member Anti-hunting activist, Murdered after an altercation with a man who was shooting birds. His murderer was jailed for life but was later released.
1985 October 7th: Fernando Pereira a Greenpeace photographer was murdered by the French Secret Service when the vessel “Rainbow Warrior” was sunk by two explosions in Auckland Harbor, New Zealand.
1988, December 22nd:Chico Mendes an anti-deforestation activist was murdered in his own home after an assassination order by a cattle rancher. He was the 19th Brazilian rainforest activist murdered that year.
1991, February 9th:Mike Hill an 18-year-old hunt saboteur was deliberately run over and killed during a meet of the Cheshire Beagles. Death is deemed “accidental”. No charges are brought against the driver Allan Summersgill.
1993, April 3rd: 15-year-old hunt saboteur, Tom Warby, is deliberately run over and killed by a fox hunter as other huntsmen stand and laugh, proclaiming a “victory”. The driver, Alan Ball, is not prosecuted.
1995, February 1st:Jill Phipps was a 31-year-oldBritish activist and mother, who was crushed to death under the wheels of a veal transporter truck carrying live animals for export at a protest at Coventry airport. The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to bring any charges against the driver.
1995, March:Dr. Karel Van Noppen was a Belgium veterinarian who was assassinated in 1993 by hitmen after exposing mafia connections to the meat industry. Dr. Van Noppen was the victim of a powerful, international mafia who violently imposing its rule on the meat business, ruthlessly bullying anyone daring to stand in its way. In 1995, a few days before his murder, Van Noppen was explicitly threatened by people linked to the “hormone black mafia” underworld.
1998, September 17th:David “Gypsy” Chain was an American eco-activist who was crushed to death after an irate logger fell a tree on him in California’s redwood forest. On September 17, 1998, the 24-year-old environmental activist was crushed to death by a falling tree at the Headwaters Forest in Northern California.
Activists from Earth First! accused loggers of deliberately cutting down trees in their direction, part of escalating violence against activists condoned by the Pacific Lumber Company and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department.
Gypsy was part of an action to stop PL from destroying one of the last ancient redwood forests in the world.
The logging operation was illegal as a survey had yet to be done for the marbled murrelet, an endangered species of bird. PL attempted to portray death as a “freak accident” and even tried to blame the victim as well as Earth First! According to PL spokesperson, Mary Bullwinkle:
“Despite all our precautions, a trespasser was apparently killed by a falling tree at one of our logging sites on our private property.”
On September 18, Earth First! released a videotape revealing that loggers not only knew that demonstrators were in the area, but were angrily threatening them shortly before Gypsy was killed.
A logger shown shouting profanities and threats was, according to Earth First!, the very same logger who felled the tree that struck David. The video also showed activists scrambling up a steep hillside to escape falling trees. According to a witness statement:
“Gypsy’s death is not an isolated incident of violence. In the last several month’s trees have been intentionally felled at nonviolent activists at the Luna tree sit and in the Mattole watershed in Humboldt County. This is part of an escalation of violence against nonviolent forest defenders in the Northwest and all over the world.”
On September 18, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department issued preliminary findings concluding that the death was “accidental”. According to an Earth First! activist speaking at a press conference, “Police have routinely refused to file charges against anybody who assaults a forest activist.” In 1999, Mr. Chain’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against PL. The company settled out of court in October of 2001, just three days before the trial was set to begin.
2003: Animal rights activist Jane Tipson is murdered in an alleged contract killing after protesting against the construction of a dolphin aquarium in St Lucia. To this day, her killers have not been found or prosecuted.
2005: 73-year-old anti-deforestation campaigner, Dorothy Stang, is approached in the Amazon by 2 armed men working on behalf of an animal agriculture organization. Asked if she has any weapons, she produces her Bible and says that’s all she has. She is shot in the stomach, then fatally shot 5 more times as she lays on the ground.
2006:Joan Root, a conservationist, and activist against poaching and illegal fishing are murdered by 4 gunmen in her own home. To this day, her killers have not been found or prosecuted.
2010, May 12th:Elvio Fichera a volunteer for the Association of Abandoned Animals was murdered while trying to serve a warrant with police on Renzo Castagnola for cruelty to animals. Renzo Castagnola shot Elvio dead.
May 12, 2010:Paola Quartini, an animal activist for LIPU (Italian League for Bird Protection – UK) from Genoa, Italy was murdered whilst trying, with police, to serve a warrant on Renzo Castagnola for cruelty to animals. Renzo Castagnola shot him dead.
2011: Two anti-deforestation activists, Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espirito Santo, are shot dead by hired thugs, after years of constant death threats from cattle ranchers. The main suspect is acquitted. No other prosecutions.
2013:Jairo Mora Sandoval, a sea turtle activist, is bound, beaten, then fatally shot in the head by sea turtle poachers, after being kidnapped along with 4 other activists.
2020, June 19th:Regan Russell, an activist with the Animal Save Movement was murdered by a slaughterhouse truck driver that by all accounts did so on purpose.
We remember our fellow fallen friends by continuing on with the activism they died for. Any single one of their deaths could easily have been ours and that’s one reason their deaths hit so hard. Every time we go to a vigil, protest, shutdown, undercover investigation, or any form of protest we place our lives at risk so that we can help change the world.
Never forgetting those who have sacrificed everything for a more just and equal world is the least we can do but it’s even better if we remember on the days we are too tired, or sick to go to an event.
In the end, we are all brothers and sisters in this together fighting for what’s right.
In the cacophony of reports and commentary on the disaster and discord produced by Covid-19, discussion of human treatment of nonhuman animals and its link to the pandemic remains largely nonexistent. In reality, the current catastrophe is but the latest of a long series of tragedies resulting from nonhuman animal exploitation.
When people began capturing and breeding nonhuman animals approximately 10,000 years ago in Eurasia, the confinement and crowding of these other animals led to the development of deadly diseases that infected humans. From smallpox to tuberculous to the measles, such zoonotic diseases caused by animal mistreatment have been calamitous over millennia. Moreover, large scale human violence and warfare was both enabled and promoted by nonhuman animal exploitation. Horses came to be used as instruments of warfare, and cows, pigs, sheep and other nonhuman animals were exploited as rations, allowing the formation of militaristic, nomadic societies that launched constant invasions in search of fresh grazing land and water. As a result, countless people who did not die from these zoonotic diseases died violent deaths at the hands of societies led by the likes of Attila the Hun to Chinggis Khan.
In the 15th century, this deadly system steeped in animal exploitation was unleashed on the rest of the world through European colonization. Even with thousands of years of experience of warfare waged from the backs of horses, the Europeans could never have subdued the resistance of indigenous peoples were it not for the deadly viruses they brought with them, zoonotic diseases that brought unimaginable trauma while decimating populations of indigenous peoples in the Americas and throughout much of the world. A great deal of the land stolen by European colonizers was then used to expand the profitable practice of ranching, an enterprise that led to the continual, violent expropriation of land around the world for increasing numbers of cows and sheep and other nonhuman animals.
The numbers of nonhuman animals exploited as food on the expropriated lands soared and in the early 20th century the virus underlying the catastrophic influenza pandemic of 1918, likely first originating among confined pigs, resulted in an estimated 50 million deaths around the world before settling into the seasonal flu. The exploitation of chickens, ducks, geese and other birds for food likely contributed to the H2N2 virus of 1957, that led to a million deaths; and the 1968 H3N2 influenza virus that also caused roughly one million deaths. In 2002 the coronavirus SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), again linked to the consumption of nonhuman animals as food, killed hundreds, while in 2009 the H1N1 influenza virus, believed to have originated in factory farms for pigs on North Carolina, resulted to as many as 500,000 deaths worldwide. In 2012 exploitation of other animals led to the rise of the coronavirus MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) which also killed hundreds, and the present pandemic of the coronavirus Covid-19, again linked to the use of nonhuman animals as food, is now wreaking havoc across the globe. With tens of billions of nonhuman animals either hunted or farmed in the world’s current world system of food production, future pandemics are all but certain.
If this were not enough reason for seriously challenging the use of other animals as food, the practice is the primary driver of imminent ecological collapse. The practice is a – some scientists argue the – leading cause of the climate emergency. And it is the primary cause of water pollution, ocean destruction, topsoil depletion and the squandering of the earth’s remaining supply of fresh water. Countless indigenous peoples throughout the world remain marginalized while much of their stolen land continues to be used for ranching or feed crop production. While one billion of the world’s human population currently does not have enough food, and thousands of children die daily from conditions related to malnutrition, 70 percent of the world’s agricultural land is used to produce nonhuman animal products, disproportionately for the more affluent. As the climate emergency advances future food shortages are inevitable, and powerful countries around the world are preparing for the race for what is left.
The exploitation of nonhuman animals for the past ten thousand years has been disastrous for human society. At this tragic moment in history, circumstances are crying out for policies and legislation that will rapidly promote the development of a global, plant-based food system.
Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copyHERE
Searching for Cruelty-Free Cosmetics, Personal-Care Products, Vegan Products, or more? Click HERE to search.
Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend:
Important news! We are getting new animal welfare laws at EU level for the first time in over a decade.
Through it’s ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy, the European Commission has committed to a revision of the laws on live animal transport (Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005) and slaughter (Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009. And, the Commission will review all of the existing law relating to animal welfare at EU level and broaden its scope, so we may see other new legislation too.
Fitness check
Before starting on such new legislation, the Commission evaluates whether current EU laws are delivering on their objectives in the best way possible. This means conducting a ‘fitness check’ on the current law in the area of animal welfare.
This fitness check is taking place now! Until 31 July 2020, the Commission is asking for the views of organisations and citizens as to the roadmap of the fitness check. This means that they will design what the fitness check looks at in terms of animal welfare law at EU level. It is important to provide evidence on all laws that are not working properly -or the absence thereof- so as to make sure animals will be better protected in the future.
We need your help!
Please use the brief to enter your input into the consultations. Draw on all of your (organisation’s) experience from real world examples of where EU legislation on animal welfare is simply not up to scratch!
This is the start of a long process, but finally we are getting new law at EU level again, and this will have a massive impact on billions of lives of animals.
Posted on July 12, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
With so many bad people out there, today I came across this scene.
At the hospital where I work, at 3 am, while a homeless person was being treated, his companions waited at the door. A simple person, without luxury, who depends on helping to overcome hunger, cold, pain, the world’s evils, has the best companions at his side, and the exchange is mutual.
Exchange of love, affection, warmth, understanding. A person who confessed to us that he sometimes stops eating to feed them.
I don’t know what his life is like, why he is on the street, and I don’t even want to know and judge him, but I admire the respect and love he has for his pets. Seeing them like this, waiting at the door, just shows how well cared for and loved they are.
Oh if everyone were like this … If there was no malice, mistreatment …. 😍😍🐶🐕💕
(original text) Com tanta gente mal por aí, hoje me deparei com essa cena. No hospital em que trabalho, as 3h da madrugada, enquanto seu dono (morador de rua) estava sendo atendido, seus companheiros esperavam na porta.
Uma pessoa simples, sem luxo, que depende da ajuda para vencer a fome, o frio, as dores, as maldades do mundo, tem ao seu lado os melhores companheiros , e a troca é recíproca. Troca de amor, carinho, calor, compreensão,. Uma pessoa que nos confessou que deixa de comer para alimentá-los.
Não sei como é a vida dele, o porque está na rua, e nem quero saber e julga-lo, mas admiro o respeito e amor que ele tem pelos seus bichinhos. Ver eles assim, esperando na porta, só mostra o quanto eles são bem cuidados e amados. Ai se todos fossem assim…. Se não tivesse maldade, maus tratos…. 😍😍🐶🐕💕
Posted on July 12, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
AnimalEquality
People watch our investigative footage of industrial farms and are appalled at the cruelty they’ve witnessed. The images shown are something straight out of a nightmare, so surely the farmworkers shown in these videos will be arrested, right?
We’re here to clear some things up—unfortunately, much of what is documented in undercover investigations is not only completely legal but also standard practice.
Here are just a few examples:
1. DEPOPULATION:“Depopulation” or “culling” is the mass killing of animals on a farm.
Methods considered acceptable by the American Veterinary Association include exceptionally painful or prolonged methods such as suffocating the animals with foam or gas, manually slamming baby animals against the ground, and turning off the ventilation system in the barns and allowing the animals packed inside to slowly die of overheating.
This has typically happened when animals are suspected of having a disease, like the bird flu, for example.
However, recently hundreds of thousands of animals have been killed en masse due to breakdowns in the supply chain because of COVID-19.
2. THUMPING: As mentioned above, slamming animals to the ground has been used to kill them for depopulation, but this is actually standard practice in the commercial meat industry.
Workers sometimes kill piglets who are weak, sick, or not expected to reach market weight by slamming them into the ground, which is sometimes called “thumping.”
Some states have passed measures making this practice illegal, but in many areas, it’s not only legal but considered an acceptable form of “euthanasia.”
And I mean.. According to the Federal Government, around 70 million poultry, six million pigs, 350,000 cattle and 100,000 sheep are slaughtered incorrectly in Germany every year.
This means that in nine percent of all cases the animals suffer great pain: Pigs are thrown into boiling water with full consciousness, cows are shot at the forehead bones a second and third time with the nail gun, or poultry are too slowly anesthetized with gas, with the result that they are afraid of suffocation before death.
It is obvious that such an animal welfare law does not protect animals and does not deserve its name.
Anyone who may think that such an operation, which was recorded in this Italian video, is only an exception, is unfortunately wrong.
In today’s world, profit is paramount. No consideration is given to animals. If a slaughterhouse worker can no longer perform his or her job in the slaughterhouse, a new worker is replaced.
Anyone who buys animal products orders such treatment of the animals – EVERYONE!
Posted on July 11, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Gold fever, Covid 19 and the genocide of the Yanomami indigenous people of the Amazon.
I found this article on Barbara’s site tragic; and at the same time very informative about what is happening right now; today, in the Amazon. At the end I copy a quote which sadly, is vso very true, but so very ignored by those in power who haver the possibility to change things, but fail to do so.
Please read the full article – link given below; and learn more about the suffering of the indigenous people of the Amazon.
Rage and repent, but above all – read it !
Regards Mark (WAV)
Yanomami leaders say that wildcat gold miners are responsible for bringing coronavirus into their communities. They are very concerned because over 25,000 gold miners are now operating in their preserve, destroying the forest to clear spaces for mining pits, polluting the rivers with mercury and contaminating fish.
Deafening noise from their machines and high powered hoses scare off game animals, leaving nothing for the Yanomami to hunt.
As the virus spreads throughout Brazil, the gold rush in the Amazon continues unabated, accelerating the devastation among the 850,000 indigenous people in the country.
Read the full and disturbing article at Barbara’s site –
“When you cut down the trees you assault the spirits of our ancestors. When you dig for minerals you impale the heart of the Earth. And when you pour poisons on the land and into the rivers – chemicals from agriculture and mercury from gold mines – you weaken the spirits, the plants, the animals and the land itself. When you weaken the land like that, it starts to die. If the land dies, if our Earth dies, then none of us will be able to live, and we too will all die.” – cacique Raoni Metuktire
The Photographer Fernando Pereira (right) and Rongelap Islander Bonemej Namwe ride ashore in the ‘bum bum’. Born on Kwajalein, Namwe, 62, has lived most of her life on Rongelap.The Rainbow Warrior is in Rongelap to assist in the evacuation of islanders to Mejato. Rongelap suffered nuclear fallout in 1954, making it a hazardous place for this community to continue living in. Eyes of Fire: p49
The Photographer Fernando Pereira (right) and Rongelap Islander Bonemej Namwe ride ashore in the ‘bum bum’. Born on Kwajalein, Namwe, 62, has lived most of her life on Rongelap.The Rainbow Warrior is in Rongelap to assist in the evacuation of islanders to Mejato. Rongelap suffered nuclear fallout in 1954, making it a hazardous place for this community to continue living in. Eyes of Fire: p49
1991, February 9th: Mike Hill an 18-year-old hunt saboteur was deliberately run over and killed during a meet of the Cheshire Beagles. Death is deemed “accidental”. No charges are brought against the driver Allan Summersgill.
1993, April 3rd: 15-year-old hunt saboteur, Tom Warby, is deliberately run over and killed by a fox hunter as other huntsmen stand and laugh, proclaiming a “victory”. The driver, Alan Ball, is not prosecuted.
1995, February 1st: Jill Phipps was a 31-year-old British activist and mother, who was crushed to death under the wheels of a veal transporter truck carrying live animals for export at a protest at Coventry airport. The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to bring any charges against the driver.
1995, March: Dr. Karel Van Noppen was a Belgium veterinarian who was assassinated in 1993 by hitmen after exposing mafia connections to the meat industry. Dr. Van Noppen was the victim of a powerful, international mafia who violently imposing its rule on the meat business, ruthlessly bullying anyone daring to stand in its way. In 1995, a few days before his murder, Van Noppen was explicitly threatened by people linked to the “hormone black mafia” underworld.
1998, September 17th: David “Gypsy” Chain was an American eco-activist who was crushed to death after an irate logger fell a tree on him in California’s redwood forest. On September 17, 1998, the 24-year-old environmental activist was crushed to death by a falling tree at the Headwaters Forest in Northern California.
2005: 73-year-old anti-deforestation campaigner, Dorothy Stang, is approached in the Amazon by 2 armed men working on behalf of an animal agriculture organization. Asked if she has any weapons, she produces her Bible and says that’s all she has. She is shot in the stomach, then fatally shot 5 more times as she lays on the ground.
2020, June 19th: Regan Russell, an activist with the Animal Save Movement was murdered by a slaughterhouse truck driver that by all accounts did so on purpose.
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 