(01/03/2004) About 60 Animals Dead in Brazil Zoo Murder Mystery
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Nearly 60 animals have been killed at the Sao Paulo
Zoo since last month and police expect to track down the suspected killers
soon, a Brazilian official said last week.
Laboratory tests have shown the animals were killed with a rat poison
banned in Brazil.
Joao Carlos Meirelles, a Sao Paulo state minister, said investigators had
ruled out the deaths being an accident, mainly because the dose was so
high in most of the dead animals...
[Link]
(02/03/2004) Swimming cow saves farmers wife
A New Zealand farmer's wife recently had her life saved by a cow.
In recent bad weather, the area around Mrs Kim Riley's farm at Woodville , New Zealand , has been lashed by severe storms that have claimed two lives, washed away wooden houses and forced the evacuation of hundreds of North Island homes...
[Link]
(03/03/2004) Norwegian Government Announces Whaling Season
The government of Norway has announced that it will permit whalers to kill 670 whales between May 10th and August 31st, despite an international ban on commercial
whaling...
[Link]
(04/03/2004) Rats are shown to be pessimistic
Rats housed in unpredictable conditions appear to have a more negative outlook on life than those housed in stable, settled conditions, according to new research published by scientists at Bristol University Veterinary School,
UK.
The researchers found that whether an animal anticipates that something good or bad is going to happen can provide a clue as to the emotion it may be experiencing...
[Link]
(05/03/2004) Ecotourism Takes Toll on Wildlife
LONDON - Ecotourism is taking its toll on wildlife and may be endangering the survival of the very animals people are flocking to see, according to researchers.
Biologists and conservationists are worried because polar bears, dolphins, penguins and other creatures are getting stressed and losing weight and some are dying.
"Evidence is growing that many animals do not react well to tourists in their backyard," New Scientist magazine said this week...
[Link]
(08/03/2004) Wayward California sea lion released into wild
LOS ANGELES - A California sea lion rescued last month in a farmer's field far from the Pacific Ocean was released back into the ocean last week as game officials search for the person who shot the massive mammal in the head, officials said.
Officials at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito said the young male sea lion, nicknamed CHiPpy, may have had his compass scrambled by the bullet that lodged in soft tissue just behind his skull...
[Link]
(09/03/2004) Whaling 'too cruel to continue'
Animal welfare campaigners say methods of killing whales are so
inhumane that all whaling operations should cease.
A coalition of 140 groups, Whalewatch, says many whales do not die quickly when hit, and tests to decide exactly when a whale is dead are inadequate.
The well-known UK naturalist Sir David Attenborough says in a foreword that Whalewatch's report shows "there is no humane way to kill a whale at sea"...
[Link]
(10/03/2004) Dead Crows in Japan Test Positive for Bird Flu
TOKYO - Two dead crows found near a poultry farm in western Japan have
tested positive for bird flu, raising concerns that the spread of the
disease may be difficult to control, the Agriculture Ministry said
yesterday.
One crow that tested positive was found adjacent to a farm that has
been affected by bird flu and the other about 5 miles away, a ministry
official said.
The official said it was likely the crows had been infected by chickens at the farm, which became the third poultry operation in Japan to be declared affected by bird flu on February
27...
[Link]
(11/03/2004) Fire Department Buys Oxygen Masks for Animals
The fire department of Seminole County in Florida has purchased special oxygen masks that can be used to help save dogs, cats, hamsters and other animals suffering from smoke inhalation.
The special masks, which were purchased with funds donated by members of the public, had to be obtained with the aid of a veterinarian because only physicians who treat animals are permitted to buy such devices...
[Link]
(12/03/2004) Tiger numbers burning bright
DHAKA - The number of tigers in Bangladesh's part of the world's largest mangrove swamp has risen to around 500 from 362 a decade ago, a triumph for environmentalists battling to preserve the endangered big cat.
Shahjahan Siraj, Bangladesh's Minister for the Environment and
Forests, told a news conference that a recent count suggested the Royal
Bengal tiger may be making a comeback in the Sundarbans after numbers
dwindled from 450 in 1982 to around 360 in 1993.
"A primary analysis of the paw prints hints that the number of tigers might be around 500," he said...
[Link]
(13/03/2004) Cows Being Fed Chocolate
Employees of a farm located near Kaliningrad, Russia recently began adding chocolate to the feed they give to cows in order to make the milk produced by the animals more rich...
[Link]
(14/03/2004) UK at heart of illegal ivory trade
LONDON - Britain is at the centre of a thriving trade in illegal ivory, a business that is likely to boom if, as expected, limited sales of stockpiled tusks are approved next week, environment activists say.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is due to agree the one-off sale of a total of 60 tonnes of ivory from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa to Japan, but activists fear the sale will trigger an explosion of poaching.
"The UK has very good enforcement of wildlife laws and yet the trade in illegal ivory here is flourishing," a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare told Reuters on Thursday...
[Link]
(Notice) HORSE CRISIS - URGENT MESSAGE!
Canada's PMU horses are being sold by the thousands. The grim reality is that of approximately 14,000 - 20,000 horses at present (double this number if you count the fetuses of the pregnant mares), the many who cannot find homes fast enough are sold for slaughter.
What are PMU horses? For the past decades, the pharmaceutical company Wyeth-Ayerst has paid farmers to provide horse urine of pregnant mares to produce the hormonal, menopausal treatment drug Premarin. These horses, much like dairy cattle, are kept in constant pregnancy. As a rule, the mares are generally in foal again, while still nursing the last foal. Farms keep hundreds of PMU horses whose lives are lived in prison-like existence.
Over the years, Premarin has become very controversial because of side effects produced by the drug and because of the conditions under which the horses are kept. As a result, last year, Wyeth has reacted and cancelled so far 50% of contracts with the farmers, creating a horse surplus on farms where horses have no other than an economic value.
What are we doing about it? - Our group will organize the purchase, transport, temporary sheltering/feeding, and adoption of as many PMU horses as possible. How many are possible? - That depends largely on the help we will receive.
How Can You Help? - There are a number of options:
1. Instead of buying a horse somewhere else, adopt a PMU horse (many
are quite valuable and a wide variety of breeds and cross breeds is
available).
2. Provide a loan for one or more horses until the horse(s) has been
adopted and receive full reimbursement for the loan. The cost of purchase
and transport is approximately $1,000 per horse. Of course, we will sign a
loan contract with you.
3. Sponsor a horse (or more horses). Even if you do not want or are
not able to have your own horse(s), finance the purchase and transport of
that horse.
The government of Denver, CO on Saturday opened dog runs in parks located throughout the "mile-high" city...
[Link]
(Notice) The Whalesong Hydrophone is on the air
We are happy to announce that the hydrophone is in the ocean and we are once again webcasting the live songs of the Hawaiian Humpback Whales, na mele o na kohola, at our website at
www.whalesong.net. This season is our fourth, and has presented many challenges. We are again working on the many technical aspects of the project that make it possible. We launched the buoy this morning during a bit of a storm, with high
winds........ a double rainbow greeted us at the launch site, and a whale breached under the rainbows. We are happy to have Markus and Silke here helping to make this all possible, from Whalesong Germany. We at The Whalesong Project wish you all a good day and happy listening!
(16/03/2004) Korea: Home away from home for lost pets
Mini was just past puppyhood when he was found wandering the streets of Seoul in August. The deaf
white Pekingese was unneutered and had no tags or other identification. Where he came from was a
mystery.
Hwang Mi-kyong of Bundang, a teacher and longtime animal activist, already had two dogs but agreed to
foster Mini. She ended up keeping him. "There are many Minis here," said Hwang, 38, during a recent visit to
the Korea Animal Rescue and Management Center (Karma) in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, where three happy
Pekingese jumped up to greet the visitors. They were among 400 animals awaiting adoption at this remote
site two hours from Seoul.
[Link]
(17/03/2004) Hunters 'threaten Sumatran tiger'
Indonesia's last species of tiger - the Sumatran tiger - is doomed unless the trade in its body parts is stopped and its habitats saved, campaigners warn.
One estimate suggests there may be only 400-500 of the tigers left in the wild. new report says demand for medicinal ingredients, trophies, charms and souvenirs in Asia is driving a programme of killing by hunters...
[Link]
(18/03/2004) On 'hunger strike', Sikh priest dies in California jail
FRESNO (CALIFORNIA), MARCH 15: For two months, guards and medical staff at
a California state prison failed to provide meals or emergency care to an imprisoned Sikh priest from India, Khem Singh, dying of malnutrition,
according to inmate accounts given to a state senator.
In the days before 72-year-old Singh - who spoke no English and was crippled - starved to death at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in
Corcoran last month, inmates said, they alerted correctional officers to his condition and filed complaints. But no medical help was provided.
While some accounts said Singh was on a hunger strike, others insisted he
wanted vegetarian meals but was consistently served meat (...)
In the days after Singh's death, corrections officials in Sacramento said he had been depressed since arriving at the prison in 2001, protesting
against his molestation conviction and refusing to eat a diet that didn't conform to his vegetarian practices...
[Link]
(19/03/2004) Key West Divided Over Chicken Catcher
KEY WEST, Fla. - Like Superman emerging from a phone booth, Armando Parra steps out from the bathroom of his old-time barbershop transformed into the
Chicken Catcher, dedicated to ridding this island town of nuisance fowl.
To some, Parra is a hero clearing out the birds that tear up lawns,
sneak inside houses to perch in Christmas trees and leave a carpet of
droppings in their wake. To others, he's a villain, snatching beloved
roosters and speckled hens from neighborhood streets where they delight
tourists and residents alike.
Wearing shorts and a mostly unbuttoned shirt emblazoned with "Key West Chicken Catcher," the 63-year-old Parra climbed into his two-tone blue van
and started another patrol one recent afternoon.
Parra has snared more than 90 chickens in the few weeks since he became the
first official chicken catcher in Key West, where colorful chickens dart through traffic on busy streets, meander in mangroves and even greet
customers at the drive-thru of the KFC.
The city agreed in January to pay Parra $20 for each nuisance chicken he catches until Sept. 30. His limit is 900, or $18,000. Every few weeks, the
birds are collected and brought to a 400-acre farm in Miami-Dade County, where they live out their days...
[Link]
(20/03/2004) Captive Chinese Pandas to Get More Space
BEIJING - Some of China's captive pandas are about to move up market.
The 76 rare and endangered animals at the Giant Panda Protection and
Research Center in Wolong, in southwestern Sichuan province, are to be
moved into bigger and "more interesting" accommodation, Xinhua news agency
said Tuesday.
"At present, one giant panda usually has only 100 square meters of space, including one interior section and one open-air field where the environment is dull," Wei Rongping, assistant to the director of the center, was quoted as saying. This figure is equivalent to a space of 1,076 square feet...
[Link]
(21/03/2004) Primate virus spreads to humans
Chimpanzees carry viruses which can jump to humans Hunting for - and eating - primate 'bushmeat' is exposing humans to a form
of virus carried by apes and monkeys, experts say.
The effect on humans of
simian foamy virus (SFV) is not yet known - but it is thought that HIV originally passed to humans in the same fashion.
Johns Hopkins University
experts say the only way to stop the virus's spread in humans is to restrict
hunting...
[Link]
(22/03/2004) Bushmeat Sparks Fears of New AIDS-Type Virus
LONDON (Reuters) - People in central Africa who hunt monkeys and apes for food and trade are being infected with animal viruses and researchers fear
their transmission could spark a future epidemic similar to AIDS.
Scientists who documented the transmission of a monkey virus to humans
in Africa, called Friday for measures to end the hunting of wild primate
populations to lessen any potential threat of new diseases in humans.
"It is in all our interests to put into place economic alternatives to help
people move away from hunting and eating these animals," said Dr Nathan Wolfe, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore,
Maryland.
"In addition to preserving endangered species, such development
efforts will reduce the ongoing cross-species transmission of retroviruses
and other pathogens that could spark future epidemics similar to HIV," he added...
[Link]
(23/03/2004) Fight to Save Whale Stranded on Man-Made Island
A battle is underway to rescue a huge whale which is beached on a
man-made island off the Lincolnshire Coast.
A 36-foot-long sperm whale is stranded on Trial Bank at Sutton Bridge in the
Wash, rescue crews said today.
Coastguards said the mammal was still alive
and may have got stuck on the bank after becoming lost in The Wash.
Volunteers from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) and the
RSPCA were trying to keep the whale upright to stop its lungs collapsing under its own weight...
[Link]
(24/03/2004) Butchered by the score ... for a shawl
The bloody - and deadly - trade that has brought a much-prized Tibetan
antelope to the brink of extinction
A nervous salesman spreads out five shawls on the bed in a Delhi hotel. He
thinks he is dealing with an affluent Dubai businessman and his American
wife. In fact, the shawls are contraband and his 'customers' are a trustee
of the Wildlife Trust of India and an Observer reporter...
[Link]
(25/03/2004) EU to Stop Dolphin Deaths in Fishing Dragnets
BRUSSELS - The European Union agreed new rules late this week to reduce the number of dolphins and porpoises killed after becoming entangled in fishing nets.
Fisheries Ministers spent hours haggling over the details, delaying the ban on the use of driftnets to catch salmon in the Baltic Sea by a year until 2008.
Ireland, holding the rotating six-month Presidency of the EU and chairing the talks, welcomed the agreement.
"Too many dolphins perish each year as a consequence of fishing programs," said Irish Fisheries Minister Dermot Ahern in a statement. "Today's outcome delivers a balanced package."...
[Link]
(26/03/2004) Vivid picture of slaughterhouse cruelty
Selected clips from a video of three Canadian slaughterhouses shot last summer by Lesley Moffat of Animals' Angels, a European animal rights organization. The video is being presented Wednesday at a review into the province's meat inspection system. While some viewers may find these clips disturbing, they represent some of the less troubling images on the video...
[Link]
(27/03/2004) Australia to Ban Fishing from Third of Barrier Reef
CANBERRA - Australia will ban fishing and shipping from one-third of Australia's Great Barrier Reef from July 1 under laws approved by parliament Thursday for protecting the world's largest living structure.
The coral reef, one of Australia's main tourist attractions with its magnificent array of tropical fish, is under threat from record high temperatures, over-fishing and pollution.
Environment Minister David Kemp said the new zoning would increase protection to 33.3 percent from 4.5 percent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park which covers 134,400 square miles - an area only slightly smaller than Germany or Japan...
[Link]
(29/03/2004) Has Freedom really died in the Cayman Islands?
Six am Sunday morning, March 21, the One Voice Dolphin Rescue team received a phone call from Billy Adam who is spearheading the "Keep Dolphins Free in the Cayman Islands" campaign. The help of One Voice was needed immediately, he said. Two men had found a young dolphin in the water off South Sound Road, Grand Cayman. According to eyewitnesses, the dolphin had stranded himself in shallow water and wasn't moving much.
Captive dolphin facilities in Honduras and Jamaica were already standing by with airplanes and staff members, geared up to go to Grand Cayman and take over the dolphin rescue attempt. It was important for the dolphin freedom campaigners on island not to involve the dolphin captivity industry, for the simple reason that several dolphinariums are in the planning stages in the Cayman Islands, despite strong local opposition to dolphin captivity: The entrepreneurs behind the proposed dolphinariums would no doubt use the rescue effort to further propagate the position that a captive dolphin facility is needed in the Cayman Islands in order to deal with any future dolphin standings.
The One Voice team traveled to Grand Cayman immediately, arriving on-site within a few hours after the call for assistance came in. The many locals, who have been fighting the proposed captive dolphin facilities for years, were thankful that One Voice was able to show up with such short notice but, sadly, the dolphin died. He was only a few months old. When dolphins are this young their markings and coloring are not fully developed, and it is therefore sometimes difficult to determine their species. However, we suspect he was a spotted dolphin (Stenella plagiodon). Somehow he got separated from his mother and the rest of his pod, but we will never know exactly what brought him ashore.
For several hours, area residents, volunteers, and environmentalists took 30-minute shifts standing in the water, shading the dolphin with beach umbrellas and helping him keep his balance in the water. Billy Adam, Juliet Austin, and local veterinarians Dr. Brenda Bush and Dr. Elizabeth Broussard were among the team of caregivers who did everything possible to save the young dolphin. But at 3:30 pm the dolphin took his last breath.
Several people, including grownups, started crying when they realized the dolphin was dead. Although it was a sad scene it was also one of tremendous hope and encouragement for the One Voice team: We had recently returned from Taiji, Japan, where whalers intentionally drive hundreds of dolphins ashore and kill them in the most gruesome way imaginable. One day we witnessed the capture of more than 100 bottlenose dolphins, and we were shocked to see whalers and dolphin trainers working side by side to beach the panic-stricken animals. The trainers spent several hours selecting the ones they wanted for their dolphinariums. Dragging the dolphins ashore with ropes, they separated the mothers from their babies with extreme brutality. The dolphins' cries of distress were met with complete indifference.
"We love dolphins." This is the dolphin captivity industry's first line of defense when confronted with the questionable ethics of capturing and confining dolphins. Their second line of defense is: "We are displaying dolphins to teach the public respect for nature." But there was no sign of "love" or "respect" for dolphins on this day where dolphin trainers mercilessly stranded an entire pod of full-grown dolphins, juveniles, babies, as well as pregnant and nursing females and dragged more than 20 of them away from their pod members to be shipped to various dolphinariums. Dolphin trainers simply stood by and watched as some of the dolphins, in a massive effort to escape, got entangled in the whalers' capture nets and, unable to reach the surface to breathe, died a slow and painful death of suffocation. We witnessed how members of the dolphin captivity industry, in their self-serving endeavor to choose the dolphins that best fit the desired criteria for dolphin shows and captive dolphin swim programs, knowingly and calculatingly exposed dolphins to trauma, injuries, and death. This is the dark side of dolphin captivity that the public is never told about.
On South Point in Grand Cayman, however, we saw a very different
picture. Here, we saw compassionate and caring people coming together in
an extraordinary effort to save a dolphin, with the ultimate goal of
releasing him back into the sea and reuniting him with his mother and
other pod members. Among the rescuers was Gina Ebanks-Petrie, head of the
Department of Environment. To the many volunteers that comforted the
dolphin in his final hours, he became a reminder that these free-ranging
and highly intelligent marine mammals belong in the wild, and that it is
cruel to separate them from the three most important aspects of their
lives: Their world of sound, their pod members, and the ability to move
freely. With this in mind, they named the dolphin "Freedom."
Thanks to the effort to rescue "Freedom," the issue of whether or not dolphins belong in captivity once again became an issue of high interest to the media in the Cayman Islands; something it hadn't been in a long time.
To our knowledge, there are four proposals to bring captive dolphins to the Cayman Islands. If the authorities approve the import of captive dolphins, the Cayman Islands will become part of the dolphin trade that nourishes its profits from deadly dolphin captures; a procedure that leaves dolphin pods traumatized and destroyed. The Cayman Islands will become supportive of an exploitative entertainment industry that treats nature and its inhabitant in a manner that works directly against the caring approach to nature we saw demonstrated in South Sound the day "Freedom" died. Compassion and care will be replaced with crudeness and greed. A passionate effort to save life will be replaced with the act of permanently destroying it by subjecting it to a violent capture and lifelong confinement.
The "Keep Dolphins Free in the Cayman Islands" campaign continues. Freedom died but in his death brought new life to the effort to keep the Cayman Islands on the list of tourist destinations that, rather than exploit captive dolphins for profit, celebrate the dolphins' way of life in their vast marine environment -- wild and free.
Helene O'Barry
Field Correspondent
One Voice
France
Crows use different sides of their beaks to make and use tools, researchers have found. This suggests that different parts of the brain may control making and using tools, and that the biology of handedness - or beakedness - may be more complex than we thought.
Just like humans, New Caledonian crows are usually right 'handed' when it comes to tasks such as making tools. But it turns out the birds use their tools with left and right sides equally, although individual crows prefer one side or the other...
[Link]
(31/03/2004) Sealing under fire
Italian television reporter Cristina Stanesa kneels beside a harp seal pup
Friday afternoon, on a giant ice-pan in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On the same pan of ice sealers clubbed and skinned seals that had passed the
white-coat stage. The IFAW has brought 25 journalists from around the world
to witness this year's annual hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and mobilize
public opinion against the cull...
[Link]
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