by Peter Li

April 20, 2012 was a significant day for the estimated 130 million dogs in China. A weibo (Chinese twitter) alert led to a massive dog rescue on a highway in Kunming, southwest Yunnan Province.

Advocates intervene
Stopped at a toll station was a truck loaded with misery and despair. Bound for Guangxi, some 1,000 miles from its place of origin, the truck carried 475 dogs headed for dog-eating markets. On learning of this, hundreds of Kunming activists converged on the toll station to demand confiscation of the dogs. Persistence finally led to their release after hours of difficult negotiations.

A sad state
The rescued animals were in shocking condition. Dead dogs were found in many suffocating small cages. Some were barely clinging to life. Most were stoic, emaciated and dehydrated.“The crying of the dogs was such that I fought hard to suppress my emotions,” said a rescuer tearfully. “But I lost control of my feelings when I saw a dog licking every drop of water around him that he could reach.”

Many dogs had injuries. Some of them could not even stand up when moved into bigger enclosures. Despite what they had endured, most were forgiving and showed no signs of aggression toward people. In fact, many dogs seemed to have been household pets. Some wore jackets. Others wore collars. Their temperaments suggested that they had been close to humans.

Hope for the cause
Leading the rescue and post-rescue care is Haoyuner Animal Protection Center (HAPC), Kunming’s biggest animal protection group and a previous participant in an event sponsored by HSI in China. Ms. Zhao, an HAPC staff member, told HSI that the dogs would be moved to their shelter after evaluation. “We are working hard to provide the best possible care for these traumatized animals,” Zhao said. Volunteers from across the city have joined HAPC to help and the rescue operation has attracted worldwide attention.

Kunming is relatively remote, and this rescue shows that animal protection efforts are expanding into the country’s less developed inland areas. “Those young people who spent sleepless nights caring for the dogs are the hope of our country,” wrote one Web surfer.

Creating change
This incident was not without controversy. Dog-eating is not illegal in China. There are still people who see animal protection as a hobby of the rich. In fact,volunteers and activists are young and passionate, with limited means.

HSI has been following the development of the rescue operation. Our China operation team has contacted HAPC and offered funding help. We believe that the Kunming rescue sent a strong message to Chinese society to be conscious of and sensitive to the adverse moral, economic, public health and political impacts of dog abuse and dog eating.

We congratulate the Kunming activists for their success and we will continue our efforts to encourage greater awareness of animal welfare issues, support capacity building, assist in lobbying activities aimed at policy change, respond to distress calls and monitor developments as the Chinese animal protection movement grows. Give now to support our life-saving work.

Dr. Peter Li is China Policy Specialist for HS

http://www.hsi.org/news/news/2012/04/china_dogs_rescue_042612.html

Where to begin? There are so many problems with this scenario, but here are just five reasons why this is a terribly bad idea:

1) The cows are destined for factory farms. China may be importing the cattle from Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand, but they are importing the model for factory farming from the U.S. The animals’ long nightmare starts on a harrowing journey overseas in ships, where they are confined tightly and face multiple health issues that may result in death. Those buried at sea might be the luckiest cattle, because once the animals get through the 45-day quarantine, they will continue their confinement in “football-field-size sheds” that resemble electronics factories more than farms and are milked three times a day on “bovine merry-go-rounds,” according to Wall Street Journalreporter Alex Frangos.

The Chinese government has created tax incentives and other policies that favor investors in big dairies. These facilities will widgetize animals in the same model that China has used for electronics and other manufacturing sectors that have made the country an export powerhouse. But the factory farm model has been a failure for public health, the environment and animal welfare in the U.S., just like it will be in China. The only people who will benefit are the investors who aim to concentrate Chinese dairy production.

2) It’s bad for Chinese farmers and relies on genetically modified feed. Policies that favor factory farms and the economic concentration of food production in the hands of a few small producers is bad for Chinese farmers and consumers who want local, farm-raised food. The U.S. factory farm model has already been exported to Europe, thanks to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that has made it very difficult for small farms to thrive.

They’re even forced to import genetically engineered soy feed because there are no more local feed markets that can compete with these cheap yet dangerous imports.

3) Essential resources are being traded away for profit. A New Zealand farmer was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that selling the country’s strong milk producers is like “selling the family silver, you can only do it once.” Farmers like Roma Britnell in Australia are selling to Chinese buyers because of the good price and income, which helped her pay down the debt on her farm. Like so-called land grabs, where fertile land is sold out from under farmers and peasants by foreign interests, this is a resource grab that New Zealand’s dairy farmers may come to regret if China is successful in becoming a dairy powerhouse.

4) It’s already affecting farmers elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal reports that the price of alfalfa, the preferred feedstock for dairy cows, has gone through the roof. Since China doesn’t produce it, it needs to import it from the U.S., where the price has doubled in the past year thanks to increased Chinese demand. This is an extra expense for U.S. dairy farmers who are already squeezed thanks to low dairy prices and industry consolidation that favors the biggest producers.

5) This does nothing to address real food safety problems in China. The effort to create a booming domestic dairy industry is a nice PR effort, but by favoring factory farms it won’t make the Chinese food system any safer. Further consolidating the food system is a sure-fire way to increase the chance that a problem in one facility can make it halfway around the world before a problem is even detected.

Policies like these that import heifers from around the globe to fuel China’s factory farms are just further proof that globalization and the industrialized food system have gone too far.

David Neale
Animal Welfare Director
Animals Asia Foundation

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wenonah-hauter/china-cattle-imports_b_1456818.html

Did you know that Australia is currently home to three government-funded primate breeding facilities – the National Marmoset and Macaque Facilities at Churchill, Victoria and the National Baboon Facility in Sydney, all of which breed animals specifically for the purpose of being used in research?

Since 2000, despite this “ready supply”, eight permits have been granted to import primates into Australia for research.  Data obtained from CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species – to which Australia is a signatory), showed that in the period 2000 to 2009, a total of 324 pigtail macaques (Macaca Nemestrina) were imported from Indonesia – all for research purposes. Humane Research Australia is also aware of a shipment of 67 macaques in 2003 (not reported by CITES) which brings the total to at least 391.

Image courtesy of BUAV

Image courtesy of BUAV

The National Health & Medical Research Council’s policy on the care and use of non-human primates for scientific purposes states “Non-human primates imported from overseas must not be taken from wild populations and must be accompanied by documentation to certify their status.” (4) Similarly, Indonesia has an official ban on the export of wild-caught macaques. Ironically, there is no restriction on the number of monkeys who can be trapped in the wild to replenish breeding stocks.
In April 2009, the British Union Against Vivisection (BUAV) published a report on its undercover investigation: Indonesia: The trade in primates for research. Not surprisingly, the report concluded that the ban on wild-caught macaques is a sham.

Conservation Status

Pig-tailed macaques are classified as Appendix II under CITES, meaning that “although not necessarily now threatened with extinction may become so unless trade in specimens of such species is subject to strict regulation in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival.”(5) With Indonesian forests being destroyed by logging, conversion of land for agricultural use and human settlement, continual trade in these primates for research will further exacerbate the losses from habitat destruction.
Bogor Agricultural University

The BUAV report also documents conditions at Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) – where Australia’s imports were sourced from!

Extract from BUAV Report

“The BUAV investigators visited one holding facility at the IPB which they were told infant and juvenile long-tailed macaques who had been taken there after they had been trapped on Tinjil Island. The facility contained a number of small rooms, each containing one small chain link pen housing around 15-20 monkeys. The pens were a barren environment with a metal grid floor. There was no substrate for the monkeys to play or dig in. There was virtually no enrichment, just a few perches.

The monkeys could only climb the side of the pens and there was nowhere for them to hide from each other or people. The pens were indoors so there was no fresh air and limited sunlight through one window. Only one pen was seen to have a water bottle attached to it. The others had free standing bowls made from either rubber or plastic. In at least one pen, this bowl was empty, leaving the monkeys no access to water. The only evidence of food was a few pieces of monkey chow seen on the wire floor of one pen. In other pens no food was visible.

The areas underneath the pens were covered in waste and what appeared to be monkey chow biscuits that had fallen through the grid floor. Mould could be seen growing on some of the food. This was a stressful environment in which these monkeys were forced to live. These conditions were in stark contrast to living freely in family groups in a natural environment on Tinjil Island.”(6)

Added to this fear and misery are the holding pens at airports and long arduous flights to destination countries – all this before the research begins!

There is NO justification for Australia to support this international trade in cruelty and perpetuating bad science.

Australian researchers should be using non-animal methodologies that are far more relevant to studying human disease rather than trying to replicate a disease in a species that is genetically different to our own and expecting to achieve accurate or indicative results for humans.

Instead of logically reducing and ultimately eliminating the use of primates, Australian researchers are utilizing those already bred within our three established colonies, and still importing more!

We Need Your Help

Write to the following ministers and ask that the Australian Government impose an immediate ban on the importation of primates for research:
The Hon. Tony Burke MP

Minister for Sustainability, Environmrnt, Water, Population & Communities
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House,
Canberra ACT 2600
Email: tony.burke.mp@environment.gov.au

The Hon. Tanya Plibersek

Minister for Health & Ageing
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Email: Tanya.Plibersek.MP@aph.gov.au

Whilst HRA opposes the use of ALL primates (as well as other animals) in research, we believe that this ban will be a significant step toward reducing the suffering of many animals and assisting the BUAV’s efforts to end the international trade.

4. Policy on the Use of Non-Human Primates for Scientific Purposes, NHMRC, page 5, item 7.

5. CITES Text of the Convention: http://cites.org/eng/disc/text.shtml as quoted by BUAV Indonesia: the trade in primates for research. 2009.

6. Indonesia. The trade in primates for research A BUAV investigation, April 2009, page 18.

But people within the industry say the Meat and Livestock Association should be the focus of any claim, alleging it was aware of the problem well before footage aired on ABC’s Four Corners program.

With new and stronger auditing requirements the trade has resumed, but according to the industry in the Northern Territory the damage is still being felt.

“It’s still pretty tough up here. Cattle production isn’t like retail or manufacturing where you can just close the doors and reopen the doors later on,” Kevin Mulvahil, from the Northern Territory Livestock Exporters Association, said.

“Producers normally put the profits they make into next year’s production, so from their point of view it’s a very tough year this year.”

Official surveys at the time revealed more than 300 employees were laid off at farms across the Top End, but Mr Mulvahil says the job losses represent only a small portion of the damage.

“Everyone involved lost significant amounts of money – from stockfeed suppliers, holding yards, trucking companies as well as producers, the live exporters, ship owners and right down through the chain to the people in feedlots in Indonesia where they rely on the live export industry to provide income for hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.

Now, a statement of risk from the federal budget papers shows a potential class action has been received from a law firm on behalf of 21 clients.

“The Australian Government may become liable for compensation following the decision by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to suspend the export of livestock to Indonesia for a period of one month in 2011,” the papers said.

Minter Ellison, the law firm leading the negotiations, and none of the claimants will comment on the negotiations, and most people in the cattle export industry know nothing about it.

But 7.30 understands the group is making a claim for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from the Government.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has also received a claim under the scheme of compensation for detriment caused by defective administration from a law firm on behalf of three of its clients.
‘Someone has to pay’

The case has not reached the courts, instead it is a direct negotiation with the Government.

To this day, Indonesia’s quota of cattle from Australia is well down on what it was before the ban and independent federal MP Bob Katter says someone has to pay.

“There are many cattlemen up here, their losses would’ve been close to $1 million or pretty close to it and there would’ve been a lot of them,” he said.

“As I understand it, Indonesia has said ‘we’ve had a gutful’.”

Mr Katter likes the chances of a class action but says it should be directed at Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) not the Government.

“The body that was paid a $100 million a year to look after our interests quite frankly had done nothing whatsoever,” he said.

“So I mean there’s a magnificent case for a class action, but I would think that the MLA would be caught in the action here.”
‘They had the knowledge’

The MLA is not the target of this action, but other industry lawyers agree they should be.

One of them, Norman Hunt, a cattle industry lawyer, says the industry body knew of animal cruelty but failed to stop it.

“They had the knowledge, in a joint report published in 2010, and really failed to let the industry know there’s a time-bomb ticking, they allowed the time-bomb to explode,” he said.

Mr Hunt is advising his clients to wait for the negotiations with the Government to be resolved before taking action.

“I think the claims could be significant. I’m not sure if it really is hundreds of millions of dollars, but there are lots of people who had bought properties in the Top End specifically for the live export trade,” he said.

“The value of those properties dropped as a consequence, a lot of people got caught with cattle ready to go that they couldn’t send, and had to sell at a huge discount on the domestic market so the potential claim could be quite significant.”

Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig says he cannot talk about the class action.

In the past he has steadfastly maintained he did the right thing in ordering the export ban, but behind the scenes the case is far from closed.

By Hayden Cooper

Updated May 14, 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-14/government-facing-compensation-claims-for-live-export-suspension/4010600/?site=newcastle

LIVE exports are damaging the long-term interests of Australia, writes CHRIS DEROSE.

Australia’s Government refuses to listen to its people.

Every day countless Australians ask the Federal Government to end the cruel live animal export trade.

But Parliament doesn’t care enough to respond and as a result, the global community thinks Australia has aligned itself with barbarity.

Much to the country’s shame, the Federal Government’s animal welfare framework has failed.

The live export industry continues to expand into new markets with full knowledge that routine slaughter practices in importing countries fall well below standards expected by the Australian people.

New footage and reports of exporters, transporters, and slaughterhouses allowing animal abuse pours out of Indonesia, Turkey and the Middle East.

Adding insult to injury, industry trade group Meat and Livestock Australia makes a concerted effort to convince Australians and the world that “Australia has become an international leader in the development of industry welfare standards and guidelines”.

This attempt at propaganda would be laughable if it wasn’t so offensive.

Having lived in Australia and returned many times, it angers me to see this group assuming Australians are so stupid and gullible.

One of Australia’s most distinguished families, the Murdochs, publicly condemned the live export trade as unethical and bad for long-term business growth.

Rupert Murdoch told me in person he does not support live animal exports.

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was one of 58 prominent Australians who signed a public notice condemning live exports and asking for an outright ban.

Consumers abroad who purchase Australian agricultural products, support Australia’s travel industry and invest in Australia’s financial markets share this sentiment.

If the Gillard Government continues to refuse to answer to its people, it will have no choice but to respond to economic silence from abroad.

On January 24, the Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig wrote: “Australia is world-renowned for the quality and safety of our agriculture produce and our reliability as a trading partner. Maintaining this standing is pivotal to the success of our agricultural trade.”

Mr Ludwig concludes by looking forward to ensuring Australia’s producers “remain some of the most highly regarded and productive in the world”.

According to the National Farmers’ Federation, however, the number of people employed in agriculture has decreased by 18,000 from last year.

Agricultural communities across Australia carry the burden of the live animal export trade. It means nothing for the country’s farmers to continue to produce high-quality goods when government allows greedy businessmen to exchange Australia’s world standing for profit. The long-term outcomes clearly outweigh any short-term gains.

You’re doing what your government asks of you. Demand they do what you ask of them. Refuse to let them put the burden of an ugly business on your shoulders.

Speak out against this trade and ask the Government to be accountable to the people.

One person can make a difference.

The louder you are, the more they will be forced to listen.

Chris DeRose is the president and founder of Last Chance for Animals, a US non-for-profit animal rights group

May 16, 2012

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2012/05/16/483141_opinion-news.html

THE leader of controversial environment group Sea Shepherd has been arrested on what is believed to be an attempted murder charge.
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Captain Paul Watson was arrested in Germany over the weekend and will be extradited to Costa Rica on an outstanding arrest warrant from an incident which occurred in 2002.

In a statement Sea Shepherd said the arrest was related to a “violation of ships traffic” incident and involved a Costa Rican vessel called the Varadero in Guatemalan waters illegally hunting for shark fins.

“While escorting the Varadero back to port, the tables were turned and a Guatemalan gunboat was dispatched to intercept the Sea Shepherd crew,” the statement read.

“The crew of the Varadero accused the Sea Shepherds of trying to kill them, while the video evidence proves this to be a fallacy. To avoid the Guatemalan gunboat, Sea Shepherd then set sail for Costa Rica, where they uncovered even more illegal shark finning activities in the form of dried shark fins by the thousands on the roofs of industrial buildings.”

The group says Mr Watson and his ship intercepted the Varadero on the orders of the Guatemalan Government but later encountered a Costa Rican gun boat, the crew of which has accused Mr Watson of attempted murder.

The statement said video evidence proved the claims were untrue.

Esther Han

From the Sydney Morning Herald

April 15, 2012

Ban the trade … Sydney protestors call for a ban to the live export market. Photo: Dean Sewell

More than 200 animal welfare activists converged on Sydney Town Hall today to protest against the government’s new live export regulations which they labelled as “tokenistic” and “ineffectual”.

NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said the government had failed to live up to the community’s expectations to stamp out cruelty in the live export trade.

“The so-called supply chain assurances do not protect our animals and do not stop the cruelty,” he told the crowd. “At its highest, it encourages the use of stunning the animals before they’re killed in Indonesian abattoirs.”

Barbarism begins at home

He said the only answer was to ban the trade. “As soon as the animals leave our shores there is no control over how these animals are treated.”

Banning the trade would be in Australia’s economic and social interest, he said, because it would bring slaughter jobs onshore, where it can be monitored.

Eleven months ago, the ABC’s Four Corners exposé on the cruelty inflicted on exported cattle in Indonesian abattoirs caused the suspension of the trade.

It resumed under new guidelines two months later. However, the reforms were slammed as weak and ineffective by Dr Adele Lloyd, the vice-president of Sentient, the Veterinary Institute for Animal Ethics.

“Why are OIE standards left as voluntary or even relied upon given they fall far below Australian standards for the slaughter of animals?” she asked. “There is no mandate for pre-slaughter stunning.”

She questioned the independence of the auditing bodies and urged veterinarians to become stronger advocates for increasing welfare standards of animals in the trade.

“The government’s tokenistic changes are disappointing and ineffectual,” she said. “We call the government to implement mandatory pre-slaughter stunning in export destinations while working towards solutions to phase out live export trade.”

Emma Hurst from Animal Liberation NSW called the trade as “Australia’s greatest shame”, adding that profit was not an excuse to allow the cruelty to continue.

Michelle Myers, a musician from Marrickville, said the protest was part of a growing momentum to halt the trade.

“It is going to happen, it is going to change. We don’t need to be that cruel in this day and age,” she said.

Timie Niederer, 20, from Alexandria, likened the live export to the slave trade.

“It seems outdated. And considering my family heritage and our experience with slavery, it’s despicable the way animals are shipped off to be slaughtered,” she said. “In the 21st century practices like this shouldn’t exist anymore.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/protest-against-live-export-regulations-20120415-1x1an.html#ixzz1u52P3Tsb

The Animal Justice Party unequivocally condemns the use of animals in circuses, and separate protests occurred in Queanbeyan and Ballarat recently.

Animals involved in the so-called ‘entertainment’ industry are routinely subjected to inhumane confinement, constant travel, and to cruel training methods to force them to perform demeaning ‘tricks’ to entertain people who have no understanding of the terrible lives of hardship and deprivation faced by these animals.

About 35 Councils around Australia have banned circuses featuring ‘exotic’ animals, and the reality is that any animal subjected to this kind of life has a sad, desolate and hopeless existence. Circus operators claim that they have never been charged with cruelty offences, but the facts of the matter are that the monitoring their activities is poor to non-existent.

The AJP urges concerned members of the community to lobby Councils which still allow these archaic activities to operate in their areas.

The Australian Koala Foundation has welcomed with caution, the listing of the koala as vulnerable under the EPBC Act by the Minister today, but is shocked and saddened that the koalas in Victoria have been left unprotected. It is disheartening to read that the Minister has fallen for the old and sad myth that koalas in Victoria have “eaten themselves out of house and home”.

When the United States Government listed the koala in the year 2000, it showed very clearly that if you have a few islands with koalas – which are all identical genetically – that it should not cloud the conservation debate in the original geographical range.

When the AKF nominated the koala, we did not nominate the island populations on good scientific advice and the Minister’s TSSC should not have included this in their thinking. It is so predictable that the same old, same old argument from the Victoria Government has won on the day. There is good science to show that the koalas in Victoria have the same decline curve as their brothers and sisters in other parts of the country. This is a battle that is still to be fought.

The AKF right now has still not seen the details of what the Minister is saying – his website does not respond so we have little to go on right now. As I get interviewed by journalists from around the world, they are all asking questions, good questions, like how will this react with the conservation laws where the koala is still listed as Common?

Will this be able to over-ride existing projects that are destined to diminish koala habitats? Will the Koala Coast population, which is now “functionally extinct”, have any chance with a listing like this?

From my point of view, I want to see the science. We hear that the Minister thinks there are 200,000 koalas in Australia. A lovely neat number and nearly double what the AKF estimates. Where did he get this figure?

The AKF also wants to know what has happened to the National Koala Conservation Strategy? The Minister in his press release, mentions funding $300,000 worth of research. I wonder who will get that money? And for what?

And finally, the kicker in any policy decision, where is the money? When a species is listed, there has to be funds for a Recovery Plan. It is concerning to me that a Recovery Plan for the koala at the Federal level has not been announced, and I suppose that is predictable, because the other 1700 species already on that list haven’t had that money either. The devil is probably in the detail and as the day progresses, we will know more. As I have said on many occasions, the system is broken.

It is a good step in the right direction, but I have a feeling the koala still has a long journey to make before it can be completely safe.