News
The number of news found: 16.
05/31/2010 WORLD CUP ANIMAL SLAUGHTER BEGINS
South African tribal chiefs and healers have slaughtered a cow outside Soccer City, the biggest stadium at the World Cup, as part of rituals to appease the spirits of ancestors and welcome fans. Phepsile Maseko, national coordinator for the Traditional Healers' Organisation, said the ceremony was intended to cleanse the air and ensure spirits were not frightened by the many languages that would be spoken during the month-long tournament. Animal slaughter is a ritual among local tribal groups to call on ancestors to bless an occasion. Some 2,000 people attended Tuesday's ceremony, many wearing traditional animal skins. Maseko said the ceremony was meant to cover all the World Cup's 10 stadiums, including Johannesburg's second stadium Ellis Park, where 43 fans died in a stampede at a local derby in 2001, the country's worst soccer disaster.
05/28/2010 THIRTY-NINE PANTHER SKINS SEIZED IN HARYANA
Thirty-nine panther skins have been seized from a village in Haryana's Panchkula district, officials said. Two people were arrested from the spot. A team of forest and wildlife department conducted a raid at Bhairon ki Ser village in Panchkula district near Chandigarh after a tip-off late Monday. "We laid a trap, along with the local police, and seized the skins of 39 panthers. Police have arrested two accused while six others fled," R.K. Sharma, divisional wildlife officer, said. The arrested accused, Surjan and Vairmaila, were booked under various sections of the Wildlife Protection Act. They told the police that the seized skins were not original and were of bulls and cows. "The skins will be sent to a laboratory at Dehradun to ascertain their authenticity. The culprits purchased the skins from different towns of Punjab," Sharma said.
05/27/2010 CHICKENS VICIOUSLY ATTACKED IN NORTH POLE
Twenty-six chickens were found decapitated in their coop in North Pole, Alaska, a community about 15 miles southeast of Fairbanks. It appeared the birds had their heads pulled off. Their bodies were lined up outside the coop in a linear fashion and an animal predator has been ruled out. This happened in a residential, though isolated, neighborhood on Monday morning, May 24. The Fairbanks State Troopers ask that if anyone has pertinent information to pass on to the troopers, to assist their investigation, please call 907-451-5100.
05/26/2010 WHY VEGETARIAN CHILDREN WILL RULE THE WORLD
According to a report in The British Medical Journal, children with higher IQs are more likely to grow up to be vegetarians. The study also found that vegetarians are more likely to be female, more likely to have a college degree, and more likely to come from a higher income family. But even after those factors were adjusted, a child with a higher IQ is 20 percent more likely to be vegetarian as an adult.
05/25/2010 GREYHOUND RACING ENDS IN NEW ENGLAND
Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri signed legislation allowing betting parlors in that state to end dog racing, meaning greyhound racing is over in all of New England. Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine each outlawed dog racing in the past couple of years. It ended for financial reasons in New Hampshire, and the state Senate recently voted to make live racing illegal. Connecticut's last greyhound track closed in 2006.
05/24/2010 SPANISH BULLFIGHTER GORED THROUGH THROAT
Julio Aparicio, 41, was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after a bull's horn pierced through his jaw and lower neck, under his chin and back out of his mouth. Doctors performed an emergency tracheotomy and reconstructed his throat, jaw, tongue and roof of the mouth in a six-hour operation the Telegraph reported. "It was a serious goring. Almost his entire mouth was destroyed," said his father, a retired matador. The half-ton bull caught him under the chin after he lost his footing and stumbled while executing a pass with his cape at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid.
05/19/2010 NESTLE TO STOP USING PRODUCTS FROM RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION
Nestlé, the world's biggest food and drinks company, announced on May 17 that it will stop using products that come from rainforest destruction. The move follows a two month Greenpeace campaign that exposed Nestlé’s use of palm oil in products like KitKat. The expansion of palm oil and pulp plantations is driving the destruction of Indonesia's rainforests and peatlands and pushing endangered orang-utans to the brink of extinction.
05/18/2010 ITALIAN MOTORISTS HAVE TO HELP ANIMALS
Under the new highway code Italian motorists have the obligation to help animals run over by their vehicles; in case motorist run away without providing help they will face a fine of up to 1,500 Eur. Whoever assists the animals will not be sanctioned in case he breaks the highway code by taking the animals in need of urgent care to a veterinary clinic. This is an important step towards the acknowledgment of animal rights on legal grounds and is the result of the campaigning carried out by the Italian Antivivisection League (LAV), with the help of the two major Italian parties (PD and PdL) and the Intergruppo Parlamentare Animali (Animalist Parliamentary Group). The LAV president Gianluca Felicetti has welcomed the new article of the highway code as a step forwards in the legal recognition of animal rights, who are now granted the same right as humans in case of urgent help.
05/17/2010 DOG ON THE MENU FOR CHINESE ASTRONAUTS
China's first man in space has said that Chinese astronauts eat dog meat to keep their strength up as they orbit around the earth. Yang Liwei, the 44-year-old military pilot who commanded the Shenzhou Five mission in 2003, revealed the menu on-board the spacecraft in his autobiography, The Nine Levels between Heaven and Earth. "Many of my friends are curious about what we eat [in space] and think that the astronauts must have some expensive delicacies, like shark's fin or abalone," he wrote. "Actually we ate quite normal food, there is no need to keep it a secret," he added. He listed a menu including braised chicken, steamed fish and dog meat from Huajiang county in Guangdong, which is famed for its nutritional benefits in China.
05/14/2010 KINDER FORM OF BULLFIGHTING PROPOSED TO AVOID BAN
Bullfighting in Catalonia has about as good a chance of survival as a 1,000lb bull in a ring, but amid the on-going parliamentary battle over a regional corrida ban, one party is still charging hard. The Socialists of Catalonia have come up with an odd proposal to save the controversial tradition: bullfighting that incorporates the "dignified treatment of animals." If accepted, the proposal would mean that a supposedly kinder version of bullfighting would survive in Catalonia with limits on how long the bull can suffer in the final killing, strictly delineated sword dimensions and the prohibition of drug use. The bulls would also have more opportunities to earn the now-rare indulto, or their only ticket out of the ring alive.
05/13/2010 PHTHALATE, ANTIBIOTIC LEVELS PLUMMET AFTER FIVE-DAY VEGETARIAN DIET
People who adopted a vegetarian diet for just five days show reduced levels of toxic chemicals in their bodies. In particular, levels of hormone disrupting chemicals and antibiotics used in livestock were lower after the five-day vegetarian program. The pilot study suggests that people may be
able reduce their exposure to potentially dangerous chemicals through dietary choices, such as limiting consumption of animal products like meats and dairy.
05/12/2010 MEMBER STATES AGREE NEW EU RULES ON ANIMAL TESTING
Following years of negotiations, the EU has agreed on new rules governing animal testing in Europe. EU member states met today to sign off on a political agreement paving the way for a new Directive. The new set of rules will finally replace the hopelessly outdated Directive 86/609/EC on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, which is almost a quarter of a century old. Eurogroup for Animals welcomes the Council's decision as it moves forward the revision of the outdated Directive but remains concerned that the new EU law does not fully reflect the high level of public concern about the use of animals in experiments and does not go far enough in promoting the use of non-animal alternatives.
05/10/2010 CHINA DRAFTS NATION'S FIRST ANIMAL PROTECTION LAW
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) applauds China for drafting the country's first animal welfare legislation, which would make animal abuse and cruelty a punishable offence. A draft of the Animal Protection Law which outlines the basic standards for treating all animals in different situations is published online for public comment, from a legal conference in Beijing, China. Recently, several Chinese cities have forged ahead with dog culls citing concerns of rabies, leaving tens of thousands of dogs brutally killed. Such slaughter would be stemmed should this law be passed. In addition to releasing the draft animal protection law, changes regarding China's Criminal Law were also suggested, making animal abuse a punishable offence.
05/07/2010 29 PIGS STABBED BY DRUNK MAN
FAIRMONT, Minn. - Police say a drunk southern Minnesota man allegedly broke into a barn and stabbed 29 pigs, all of which later had to be euthanized. Authorities say 23-year-old Curtis Lee Adams had blood on his knuckles and smelled of pigs and pig manure when he was found in the
barn early April 27. According to officials, he told a deputy he could remember drinking at a bar and falling asleep in his truck, then talking to police. Adams is from Winnebago, located about 120 miles south of Minneapolis. Adams faces charges that include one count of third-degree burglary, one count of first-degree damage to property, one count of cruelty to animals, two counts of driving while intoxicated and one count of illegal transport of a firearm in a motor vehicle. A veterinarian inspected the pigs and said the best option was to euthanize them.
05/06/2010 MEPs VOTE TO EXCLUDE FOOD FROM CLONED ANIMALS
Food derived from cloned animals and their descendants must be excluded from draft legislation on the authorisation of "novel foods", Environment Committee MEPs said on Tuesday. Foods produced by nanotechnology processes must also undergo a specific risk assessment before they can be approved for use and labelled, they added. The proposal to update the regulation on novel foods aims to simplify and centralise the procedure for authorising them, so as to safeguard food safety and human health. Only novel foods which are included on the Community list (after assessment by the European Food Safety Authority), may be placed on the market.
05/05/2010 NEW SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS DEBUNKS ZOOS' EUDCATION CLAIMS
A new scientific critique questions claims by zoos and aquariums to be educating the public, finding that a key study conducted by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) is fatally flawed in its conclusions. IDA is calling on zoos and aquariums to stop misleading the public and admit they have no evidence that zoos have a positive educational impact. "There is no compelling evidence to date that zoos and aquariums promote attitude changes, education or interest in conservation in their visitors, despite claims to the contrary," stated lead author Dr. Lori Marino, a neuroscientist at Emory University and expert in dolphin and whale intelligence.
The number of news found: 16.
