News
The number of news found: 21.
01/27/2004 BRIAN MAY SPEAKS OUT FOR THE ANIMALS!
Legendary guitarist Brian May from Queen has expressed his disgust at the treatment of hunted baby seals in Canada. Thousands of baby seals are cruelly wrenched from their mothers and are beaten to death, stamped on, clubbed, impaled on hooks and sometimes are skinned alive. Most of the 300,000 killed last year were under one year old and many were under one week.
01/25/2004 DOG TRAPPED IN STEEL SNARE 19 DAYS!
The case of a black labrador who spent 19 agonizing days in the northern Ontario bush after being snagged in a steel neck snare that cut to her windpipe is more proof that all such devices should be outlawed. The wire snares are cruel and indiscriminate killers, said Earthroots. "The dog suffered enormously but it did make it home," said Melissa Tkachyk. "This killing device is not being properly regulated."
01/25/2004 RABBITS ON DEATH ROW FOR GNAWING ALARMS!
AMSTERDAM - Dutch officials plan to shoot hundreds of wild rabbits which have nibbled through a prison's underground alarm, phone and power cables and tried to tunnel under its walls, officials say. The hapless bunnies outside Overijssel prison in Zwolle are to be culled by hunters after the local municipality got a permit to shoot them. Catching them in cages to be released in the countryside failed to put an end to the destruction.
01/23/2004 COVANCE TRIES TO CENSOR THE BUAV!
Multi-national contract animal testers, Covance, have threatened the BUAV's Internet Service Provider with legal action if certain material is not removed from the BUAV's website. Covance doesn't want the public to see the harrowing undercover video clips and video grab images the BUAV's investigator filmed inside its primate lab in Munster, Germany. The images show some of Covance's staff entertaining themselves by forcing monkeys to "dance" to disco music blaring on the radio in the background, and highly distressing scenes of monkeys enduring appalling conditions in small, barren, single-isolation cages - some of the disturbed animals on the BUAV video show clear signs of stereotypical behaviour such as back flipping and repetitive cage pacing.
01/23/2004 GLOBAL WARMING MAY CAUSE MASS EXTINCTIONS BY 2050!
According to a recent scientific study published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, between 15 and 37 percent of the world's species may face extinction by 2050 due to global warming. In one of the biggest mass extinctions since the demise of the dinosaurs, the loss could total 1.25 million species. The report's authors are calling for a "rapid implementation of technologies" to combat the human causes of climate change. (Defenders of Wildlife)
01/17/2004 BELGIUM BANS SEAL, DOG, AND CAT FUR!
GAIA enthusiastically welcomes the decision of Ministers Van den Bossche (Environment), Demotte (Public Health and Animal Welfare) and Moerman (Economics). Three ministers have decided to ban the import and the trading of dog, cat and seal fur in Belgium. The way the three ministers tacked the problem and took the decision together is a first in Belgium, says GAIA chairman Michel Vandenbosch. Just before Christmas, GAIA and Dierenleed Azië (Animal Suffering Asia) had conducted a protest action in front of the cabinet of Minister Freya Van den Bossche to call for a ban oncat and dog fur. Immediately afterwards, GAIA had launched a campaign to send thousands of "season's greetings" cards to the Minister of the Environment. Earlier GAIA had demonstrated against the gruesome slaughter of seals in Canada and called for the Belgian ministers to ban the import of all seal fur. The decision is a wonderful gift from the ministers to animals at the start of the New Year. It is also of course a powerful signal to the rest of Europe not to tolerate the cruelty with which this kind of item is produced. In banning dog and cat fur, Belgium is following the example of Italy, where a ban has been in force since 2003. Belgium is however the first country in Europe to ban all seal fur.
01/14/2004 PET CAT IS FOUND AFTER A WEEK IN A TRAP!
A pet cat spent more than a week in agony after being caught in an illegal trap. The thin and dehydrated male tabby was found "on the verge of death" after it managed to detach the spring trap from a post and crawled to a nearby house in Wallyford, East Lothian. Animal welfare experts believe the trap - which is designed to kill pests including grey squirrels and stoats by breaking their necks - was deliberately left in the open to target passing animals. Officials with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said they were treating the case as a "premeditated, callous act of cruelty," and warned that whoever laid the trap could face a sentence of up to six months in prison and fines totalling £5000. The cat, which was caught by the left foreleg, is now recovering from its ordeal at the SSPCA's Lothian Animal Welfare Centre at Balerno. Officials are urgently trying to trace the tabby's owner and vowed to lobby for a complete ban on traps and snares.
01/14/2004 AT LEAST 110 MAD COW RISK CATTLE IN THE FOOD SUPPLY!
At least 110 cows considered at risk for mad cow disease have been slaughtered and most likely entered the food chain for human consumption, federal agriculture officials said. Those cows could have been exposed to the same contaminated feed source as the infected Yakima County cow. Consumers should not be alarmed, however, because there is little chance those cows were also infected or that the meat poses a human health risk, agriculture officials said. "There is probably no risk from these cows - but they may be in the food supply," said Madelaine Fletcher, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Also yesterday, authorities said they will soon begin killing 129 dairy cows from the same Mabton farm that was the last home of the infected Holstein. Those cows also could have been exposed to the same feed source in Canada as the infected Yakima County cow, Dr. Ron DeHaven, USDA chief veterinarian, said at a news conference.
01/12/2004 HELP SWEDISH FUR FARMING BAN!
Animal Rights Sweden, an animal rights organisation in Sweden, are trying to get 100,000 signatures on petitions to back up the proposed ban on fur faming. The last date to get the signatures are in the end of January and many are still missing. You can sign the petition on internet by writing your name, last name, town/country and your e-mail. Please send this to other mailing lists and help us get the signatures.
01/12/2004 BARDOT SLAMS CHINA OVER WILDCAT CULL!
PARIS - French actress turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has slammed Chinese President Hu Jintao for the drowning and incineration of thousands of civet cats over fears they carry a new strain of SARS. "The eradication methods these animals are put through are unacceptable and they have easily and quickly been ideally targeted although no scientific research has yet identified which species is the first to have caught the virus," Bardot said in an open letter in English to the president.
01/11/2004 CHILDREN MOURN KILLER WHALE KEIKO!
OSLO - Hundreds of children have placed stones on the grave of "Free Willy" movie star Keiko the killer whale in Norway in an emotional Viking-style ceremony denounced as absurd by a leading whale hunter. About 300 children placed stones in a pile where Keiko's carcass was hauled out of a western fjord and buried after Hollywood's top cetacean celebrity died of pneumonia last month, aged 27. Even the mayor of the local township of Halsa attended.
01/11/2004 CAT KILLINGS "MAY SPREAD SARS"!
The World Health Organization had anecdotal evidence that civet cats were being clubbed to death and this could exacerbate the spread of SARS, the WHO said. "We've heard anecdotal evidence that some of the animals have been clubbed," Bob Dietz, a Beijing-based WHO spokesman, said. "This puts allthe people (involved in killing the civet cats) at risk." The mass destruction of civet cats - considered a delicacy in south China's Guangdong province - began after confirmation of the country's first case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in half a year. As the confirmed case was released from hospital, it was followed by a suspected case of SARS in a waitress, who might have been in contact with civet cats, according to reports in Chinese newspapers. Civet cats have mostly been killed by drowning in disinfectant, overseen by well-protected officials, but these instances are far from universal, according to the WHO.
01/10/2004 MASS EXTINCTION LOOMS BY 2050!
Global warming could force one-fourth of the globe's plant and animal species to the brink of extinction by 2050, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Chris Thomas, University of Leeds conservation biology professor and lead author of Feeling the Heat: Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss, said the earth's rising temperatures, in tandem with burgeoning agriculture and the proliferation of invasive species, would leave many plants and animals with vanishing habitats. If all threatened species were able to relocate to more suitable climates, only 15 percent would face extinction by mid-century. If none could relocate, that number would soar to 37 percent, Thomas said, adding that the reality would doubtless lie between the two extremes.
01/10/2004 DOG MEAT TRADE CAUGHT IN BOMBAY!
In bombay "Dindoshi" area 8 people were caught by police which catching dogs for killing. This group of people catch the dogs from where the complaint comes and then kill them and sell them mixed with meat of pigs to the big hotels in Mumbai. This group is active since many years. This group is total of 25 persons who are in trade. Per dog thay take 110/-.
01/10/2004 SEA SHEPHERD LAUNCHES 2004 CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT THE HARP SEALS!
The 2004 Sea Shepherd Campaign to defend the seals is now officially underway. In late March of 2004, the rifles and clubs of Canadian seal killers will bring chaotic violence to the nursery floes of the harp and hood seals. The government of Canada has approved a kill quota of 350,000 seals. This is the largest mass slaughter of a marine mammal population on earth. It is a subsidized orgy of blood where seals scream in agony as bullets rip through their bodies and brutish clubs smash young and fragile skulls. The beautiful bluish white ice floes off Labrador and Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence will run red with innocent blood. This atrocity has no place in a civilized world and no place in the 21st Century. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been fighting this horrific massacre of seals since 1976. Captain Paul Watson has led ten expeditions, including three ship campaigns - to oppose the seal slaughter, three on the Labrador Front and seven in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In two months he will lead another ship campaign, taking the Farley Mowat into the ice to confront the seal killers and to expose their gruesome industry to the international public.
01/08/2004 CIVETS ARE DROWNED IN CHEMICAL DISINFECTANT!
GUANGZHOU, China - Health workers have begun drowning and incinerating thousands of civet cats in southern China over fears they carry a new strain of SARS, but international experts are worried the cull may only add to the danger. The civets are drowned in chemical disinfectant and their carcasses hauled away in huge metal containers for incineration. Guangdong authorities have given a Saturday deadline for the slaughter of some 10,000 of the animals.
01/08/2004 USDA TO KILL 450 CALVES IN MAD COW SCARE!
WASHINGTON - U.S. agriculture officials have decided to kill 450 calves in a Washington state herd that includes an offspring of the cow diagnosed with mad cow disease. Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian, said Monday that the month-old calves would be slaughtered this week at an undisclosed facility that is not being used.
01/07/2004 AILING SHARKS DIE AFTER TRIP FROM ONTARIO!
Three sick sharks bought by the Aquarium of Niagara in the hopes they would recover and go on display have died. The 1.2 meter lemon sharks died on by one while being held in a basement tank for several months while a new exhibit was under construction. "They were in a weakened state when we got them. I think it was a combination of their age and the transportation," Gay Molnar, the aquarium's director of development, told The Buffalo News. Dr. F.E, Latson, a Buffalo veterinarian who conducted post-mortem examinations, said the sharks died of stress. "These types of sharks often don't do well in captivity," Latson said, adding the defunct Chomps Shark Museum in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, from which the sharks were purchased, had planned to euthanize them. The tree lemon sharks should have been kept in water about 21oC, said Glen La Placa, curator of the Aquarium of Niagara. But the heat in the building had been shut off and the sharks were in water that had dropped to 4oC. The death of the lemon sharks followed criticism of conditions at the Aquarium of Niagara by a visiting marine biologist from Florida. Dr. Stephen Bailey said the facility's tanks were too small and cited "indications of indifference and neglect everywhere."
01/07/2004 CHINA TO KILL 10,000 CIVET CATS IN EFFORT TO ERADICATE SARS!
Officials in Guangdong Province in southeastern China ordered on January 5 morning the immediate killing of every civet cat in captivity in the province after researchers found that a Guangdong man had fallen ill with a new strain of SARS virus that is genetically similar to a strain found in civet cats. Dr. Zhong Nanshan, China's top expert on SARS, said that senior provincial health, agriculture and forestry officials were holding an emergency meeting this morning to discuss how to carry out the decision as quickly as possible. All civet cats - relatives of the mongoose widely eaten in winter as a delicacy - will be killed "in a few days," Dr. Zhong said. A Guangdong provincial official said that about 10,000 civet cats would be killed. Dr. Zhong said that there would also be an effort to trap and kill civet cats in the wild, but the Guangdong provincial official said that at least initially, the government would only try to kill civet cats at restaurants, on farms and in wild-animal markets.
01/06/2004 LEGAL CHALLENGE TO PRIMATE CENTRE!
Two animal rights groups have lodged a High Court challenge to a government decision to allow a research centre which will experiment on monkeys. Animal Aid and the National Anti-Vivisection Society (Navs) are furious that Cambridge University has been given permission to build the lab. They are appealing against Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's decision to permit the centre after a public inquiry. It is due to be built in the spring at Girton on the outskirts of Cambridge.
01/02/2004 TUFTS PREPARES TO KILL DOGS BY END OF WEEK!
Boston, MA - The five remaining dogs used in an experiment brought under scrutiny by students at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, are scheduled to be killed "at the end of this week," according to the experiment's principal investigator, Dr. Randy Boudrieau. The dogs had both of their back legs surgically broken in an experiment by Boudrieau and Drs. Karl Kraus and Stephanie Gorman, to test the effectiveness of the application of a device used to aid in healing broken bones. Six dogs were subjected to the bone-breaking experiment. One of them has already died from infection. Tara Turner, a graduate student in the Animals and Public Policy Program, notes, "The researcher is insisting the dogs have to die. We have researched other studies that show they do not. Tufts will talk about our concerns but then they do nothing to make this study more humane. Our ethical considerations are not being taken seriously and the scientific studies we researched showing that there are alternatives to killing the dogs are being ignored."
The number of news found: 21.
