We will not include any Canadian dates on our world tour to promote our new album. This is in protest against the barbaric slaughter of over 325,000 baby seals which is now underway. I fully realise that the absence of any Morrissey concerts in Canada is unlikely to bring the Canadian economy to its knees, but it is our small protest against this horrific slaughter. As things stand, Canada has placed itself alongside China as the cruelest and most self-serving nation. – Morrissey

In this issue:
- Croatia bans the import of seal pelts!
- Meatout Croatia 2006.
- New bans on circuses with animals
- Animal Friends Croatia becomes a member of ECEAE
- News and announcements

Croatia bans the import of seal pelts

More than 60 activists gathered on March 15 on the International Day of Protest Against the Canadian Seal Hunt in front of the Canadian Embassy in Zagreb so as to express their protest against this shameless action. Many celebrities like Paul and Heather McCartney, Brigitte Bardot, Pamela Anderson, and Morrissey gave their support with their appeals and public appearances to protests that were being held worldwide on six continents and in more than 50 cities. On the other hand, activists like eminent doctor Jerry Vlasak started a hunger strike in protest. While the horrible slaughter of baby seals, which will result with smashed heads and skinned bodies, is taking place in Canada, on March 27 Croatian Ministry of Culture – Nature Protection Division with the Rule Book of Transboundary Transport and Trade of Protected Species banned the commercial import of skin and other products derived from skin of seals. Thus Croatia became the third European country, of seven countries in the world, that imposed such bans. Animal Friends Croatia (AFC) congratulates the Ministry of Culture on this praiseworthy decision, which resounded in the whole world.

Meatout Croatia 2006

This year too, on the first day of spring – March 20, AFC marked the Meatout by offering vegan tastings, leafleting and a 'prize contest' in which visitors of the stand received cookbooks, T-shirts, postcards, pins, vegan products, and CDs with veg(etari)an messages. Besides Zagreb, activists in ten another towns also marked Meatout Croatia 2006. AFC invited Croatian citizens to not hesitate and switch to a non-violent diet and thus show respect to animals as well as to their own health.

New bans on circuses with animals

A list of Croatian towns that banned circuses with animal acts is growing bigger and this month it reached the number of 27 towns! We invite you to congratulate the mayors of Novigrad, Sisak, and Karlovac by sending an e-mail to their addresses:
- Mr Anteo Milos, the mayor of Novigrad, poglavarstvo@grad-novigrad.t-com.hr,
- Mr Dinko Pintaric, the mayor of Sisak, gradonacelnik@sisak.hr,
- Mr Miro Skrgatic, the mayor of Karlovac, grad-karlovac@ka.htnet.hr.
AFC invites the mayors of the cities, who still didn't joined this initiative, to do that as soon as possible.

Animal Friends Croatia becomes a member of ECEAE

The past year's beagle affair opened many questions about insufficient supervision and legislation deficiency in approving animal experiments in Croatia. Thanks to continuous education about ethical unacceptability and scientific groundlessness of conducting any kind of animal experiment, AFC organization last month on the meeting in Vienna was admitted to the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments – ECEAE membership. The Coalition, which is presided by a largest organization in the world against animal experiments British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), draws together like-minded organizations from the European Union and international partners, and on the grounds of scientific and ethical reasons opposes to all animal experiments. More on the work of the Coalition, legislative and political changes in regard to animal experiments on the European level you can find out in the Coalition’s newsletter Testing Times.

News and announcements

- The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management presented a Draft proposal for the new Animal Protection Act. The Draft proposal for the new Animal Protection Act brings many improvements in comparison to the current Animal Welfare Act, but it is still not sure whether the ban on breeding of animals for their fur will be implemented in it, which we consider extremely important and justifiable. We will report about its enacting in our e-newsletter and on our web page.

- On March 9, in Maribor, AFC held a first Slovenian promotion of the Croatian edition of Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust by Charles Patterson. After an interesting debate and video projection by Robert Franciszty and Drazen Jeren, the author received the first offers for the publication of the Slovenian edition!

- A press conference about the inefficiency of veterinary inspections was held on March 10 in Info Pet Center for lost and found animals in Zagreb. The representatives of animal protection and rights organizations also attended the conference.

- One AFC representative was in Brussels as part of a negotiating group on the screening of Food safety, veterinary and sanitary policy chapter. Though presented legislation was founded on exploiting and speciesistic treatment of animals and animal welfare was considered solely from the aspect of scientific validity of their bodies for human consumption and other means of exploitation. Nevertheless the gathered information will help us in our future work on turning our treatment of animals into an important political issue both in Croatia and Europe.

- On March 14 in 'KSET' club in Zagreb played a posthardcore/emo band Dead by Mistake from Varazdin. This concert was a part of their Croatian tour, whilst their European tour begins this spring. The members of this band are vegetarians and animal rights advocates - on their concert they handed out AFC leaflets about vegetarianism.

- AFC sent a request to Hrvatske ceste (National Roads) and the City Council of Garesnica for placing the speed limit traffic signs and for building underground passages for animals in order to prevent their road kill. Mostly otters, a protected species, cross the road Garesnica-Hrastovac and due to a great speed end up under the wheels.

- On the border crossing Bajakovo, the Inspection of Nature Protection on March 25 in cooperation with the customs and the police broke another chain of smuggling killed protected animals over Croatia. This time too, the smugglers were Italian hunters who tried to smuggle 92 killed larks from Romania over Croatia into Italy. The value of the birds is estimated on 73,600 Kuna (cca 10,000 Euro).

- A concert of the band Hakuna Matata and promotion of their album Antigravitation will be on Thursday, April 6 in Zagreb club 'Tvornica kulture'. Hakuna Matata promotes animal rights, welfare and vegetarianism and supports the activities of AFC.

- On the occasion of the World Health Day Animal Friends Croatia at their info stand in Zagreb will besides info materials on vegetarian life-style distribute free vanilla and chocolate soy-puddings, which are free from cholesterol and animal suffering. The same distribution of info materials and puddings will take place in Split, Rijeka, Karlovac, Varazdin and Osijek where all together 10,000 puddings will be handed out.

We hope that you will also in the future further support the work of our organization as well as our endeavors for the animals as far as it is possible for you.

At the end of this issue of AnimaList we are saying goodbye to you with the words of the music legend and the animal advocate Paul McCartney directed to Canadians: 'This is one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth… It's very rare that you can come to a beautiful, wild place like this. Canada is known as a great nation... But this is something that leaves a stain on the character of the Canadian people.'

Animal Friends Croatia