Animal successes
1. Guinness goes vegan, only then share that until now they have been filtering their product through fish bladders.
Article on the Guinness move and other surprising drinks that use animal ingredients
2. Yesterday, the crushing alive of one day old male chicks was banned in Germany. Until then most people didn't know that that is their fate here in Ireland and everywhere else.
Wikipedia: Chick Culling
People power can force change in animal practices
3. Bullfighting was at last outlawed in Spain, only then it came to light that it was subsidized with public money to the tune of millions of euro.
110 million Euro in subsidies by the EU for Bull Fighting
4. Hare coursing, banned for cruelty in most countries, is discovered by TD Clare Daly as also being subsidized yearly by over a hundred thousand euro of Irish tax payers money.
TD Clare Daly questions why no welfare provision in Agricultural Minister's new horse racing bill and why tax payers money is being channelled into hare coursing
5. A super trawler, banned in Australia, is allowed to fish indiscriminately in Irish Waters, nets the size of two football pitches, sonar to identify every shoal and catch them, on a Lithuanian quota but owned by someone in Holland. Only then did it arise how big a problem Dead Zones (empty miles with no species of fish, crustaceans or algae) are already and the need for 'No take' areas (like the waters around Lundy Island, where fish are able to replenish themselves).
The full impact of these super freezer trawlers benefiting no one
6. The ban (following its 5 year wind down period) came into effect on caging female pigs, in Australia.
Few knew that in Ireland and everywhere else most sows live permanently in crates so small that they cannot turn around. They are inseminated where they stand and cannot help their piglets when they arrive - every 4 months. The public were able to stop the new factory farms planned.
Irish Pig Situation
7. Council dog pound inmates were saved from a fate worse than death, by the Mail on Sunday article, that the public contract was about to go to private for-profit company rather than an animal welfare organization. Search 'Dog Shelter Tender' on the www.healingbyfranc.com blog.
8. Fur farming is banned in most countries, the most recent country gave a 10 year wind down period - within which it is anticipated that 50 million more mink will be killed. Ireland refuses.
Fur Farming Stats and Information - It says banned across the UK but Ireland still has fur farms as horrific as any from the past. Mink are semi-aquatic wild animals each family holding an average territory of 2.5km of riverbank in the wild.
9. Govegan Poster Campaign, was a huge success with thousands of people contacting the Eden Farm Animal Sanctuary and www.govegan.ie for a Vegan Starter Kit. The purchase of turkeys was down world wide this year as well. Go Vegan Starter Kit
10. The World Health Organization report, stating that processed meat was carcinogenic, flagged up 1. the chemicals involved in processing meat 2. also the antibiotics used in confined farming methods and 3. the chemicals sprayed on the grain and grazing they eat, all finding their way into the food chain. That reduced again the purchase and therefore demand for meat.
Firewurst chain of shops close and blame WHO cancer meat report
All the above developments exposed were tough to hear but also exposed what had gone unnoticed for a long time before.
Animal failures
11. Aproximately 200,000 tonnes of animals killed per month - sheep, pigs and cows.Breeding
12. Puppy farms raided and exposed in Myshall Carlow but had to demonstrate outside courts to make sure license was not given back.
13. Puppy farmers' profits were protected by our government when the DSPCA had to pay for seized dogs at Dublin Airport.
14. New puppy farms have got licenses, including Mayo where the beagles are to be bred purely for use in laboratories.
Charles River Laboratories' Experiments, breeding and stray animal 'continuum' of abuse
On their own website they call it a 'continuum' of product development and tests.
Vivisection in Ireland
15. Ireland is the worst for animal testing in Europe. 820,000 animals a year suffer in laboratories. 80% for commercial product testing, not even medical. The Hadwen Trust in Oxford amongst others has developed a complete system, exploiting no animals, that could be made mandatory.Dr Hadwen Trust offers animal-free, human relevant research
16. Conditions for cows at abattoirs was exposed. There is a rush of 'rape rack' training advertised on Done Deal where people can pay and practice artificial insemination skills on a suspended cow before she is slaughtered.
Further discussion about rape rack by a vegan feminist…not me!
Calves are shown dragged from their mothers in order for people to have their milk.
18. Massive animal cruelty and abuse exposed throughout the food, science, entertainment and every other industry, including the use of pigs for the military to shoot just to observe blood spatter patterns.
Blood Spatter Experiments
19. The climate summit touches on the environmental impact of animal agriculture - more than half of all CO2 emissions, up to 15,000 litres of fresh water to produce 1kg of beef, all fed GM Round-Up Ready corn - that kills the pollinators, the glysophates are present in all cancers and the massive misdirection of crops that could have fed people directly.
Farmers use three quarters of the world's fresh water
20. Juxtaposed against the big Irish deals with America and China to produce meat and dairy for them. No intention of managing Ireland's Greenhouse emissions.
Minister Coveney doing deals with the devil - negotiating on Ireland's behalf with key Trans Atlantic Trade Partnership Negotiators
21. The undervaluing of Irish produce has already happened by this same TTP - as the US has just decided that meat must not be labelled as to where it came from so that shoppers cant be biassed….!!! American factory-produced and fractionally better produced Irish produce will not be a differentiation that can help retain Irish meat's value very long if Ireland is not allowed to say its cows are from Ireland anymore. But that will suit Ireland's meat processors who'll stick a label on almost anything saying its Irish and Organic. Say No to Secret TTP massive power grab that would make corporations more powerful than governments and make courts decide on protecting profits rather than protecting the common good
I don't think this is limited to Ireland. The atrocities are everywhere and Australia ranks highest amongst them. We need to educate the people. Cruelty to animals affects people adversely, too. I recall Lyn White of Animals Australia saying that she once attended a domestic when she was with the police. The man had abused the woman. But what stood out for her was that this normally mild mannered man was now working in an abattoir to provide for his family. He loved animals so his hatred for the job grew and grew until it controlled him. Sometimes the price of conformity is too high. In fact, perhaps always.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Madeleine for your insightful comment. I totally agree that it is a world-wide situation and see so many parallels as you describe. I love Animals Australia's work and Pig Save Australia and lots of others based abroad. When I'm writing, I am always trying to both 'join the dots' of the implications for animals, people, health and environment but also to engage people here in Ireland. My intention is that to make these situations relevant locally means that people won't just think its part of the big bad world that they can do nothing about! The one power we have is to put our hearts into our own relationships with people, animals and our surrounding countryside and also to make responsible, compassionate consumer choices…Hang on, that's two powers! Great! Thanks again, I wish you and yours a very happy and completely non conformist new year, love Frances
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