Written by It can be found throughout Scripture – the idea that the abuse of animals is an abuse of God’s creation. Now Dr. Richard Land and other religious teachers are becoming allies in the fight to end the exploitation of animals used in blood sports.
Posts in category Animal Welfare
Japan says some tsunami reconstruction funds going to whaling
Tokyo (CNN) — The Japanese government has affirmed that $29 million from its budget for post-earthquake and tsunami reconstruction is going toward extra security measures for the country’s whaling fleet, angering environmental activists like Greenpeace.
The whaling industry is “siphoning money away from the victims of the March 11 triple disaster, at a time when they need it most,” Junichi Sato, executive director of Greenpeace Japan, said this week, referring to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that struck Japan in March.
But Tatsuya Nakaoku, an official from the Japanese Fisheries Agency, said Thursday he funds would help “support the reconstruction of a whaling town and nearby area,” which was devastated by the natural disasters.
Ohio Dangerous Exotics Pet Trade
It’s up to Ohio’s Governor Kasich and state lawmakers to ban the sale and ownership of dangerous exotic pets.
Shark fin soup banned in Toronto
TORONTO — City councillors voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to make Canada’s largest city a shark fin free zone.
After an almost three-hour debate, councillors voted 38-4 to ban the possession, sale and consumption of shark fin soup and other products within the Toronto city limits, effective Sept. 1, 2012.
“This will be a motion that will be heard around the world, I think sharks in every single ocean of the world are clapping right now as we speak,” said Coun. Glenn De Baeremaeker. “We did this to make sure that (sharks) didn’t get wiped off the face of the earth; we’re being part of a global solution to solve a global problem.”
Toronto zoo elephants to roam free in California sanctuary
TORONTO – After months of controversy, Toronto city council voted 31-4 Tuesday night to send the Toronto Zoo’s three elephants to a California sanctuary.
The program came under fire earlier this year, when former game show host Bob Barker said Toronto was too cold to house the giant beasts.
He pressured the zoo to send the elephants south of the border to a warmer facility with more open space.
EU bans GM-contaminated honey from general sale
The European Union’s highest court on Tuesday ruled that honey which contains trace amounts of pollen from genetically modified (GM) corn must be labelled as GM produce and undergo full safety authorisation before it can be sold as food.
In what green groups are calling a “groundbreaking” ruling, the decision could force the EU to strengthen its already near-zero tolerance policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Bavarian beekeepers, some 500m from a test field for a modified maize crop developed by Monsanto – one of only two GM crops authorised as safe to be cultivated in Europe – claimed their honey had been “contaminated” by pollen from the plant.
The European court of justice found in their favour, a ruling that should offer grounds for the beekeepers to claim compensation in a German court.
Jury awards family $300K after police kill man’s dog during search
Thomas Russell III describes watching a police officer shoot his canine “best friend” two years ago as “the scariest thing I ever saw.”
On Thursday, a U.S. District Court jury decided Russell, 20, and his family deserved to be compensated for the Feb. 27, 2009, police search of the family’s South Side home during which “Lady,” the family’s black Labrador, was shot dead. The jury awarded the family about $300,000.
“That was my best friend,” said Russell, who was 18 at the time. “We did everything together. When I worked out, she’d be right there watching me. She’d sleep when I’d sleep.”
The Russell family originally sued the city of Chicago in January 2010, accusing police of excessive force, false arrest and inflicting intentional emotional harm — among other claims — during the 2009 search of the family’s apartment in the 9200 block of South Justine. Though police searched for drugs, they found none in the apartment, the family’s lawyers say. Russell and his younger brother, Darren, were handcuffed during the incident, attorneys for the family said, and both boys had shotguns placed against their heads. At some point, Lady appeared and an officer shot her, the family’s lawyers said. Lady was a sweet dog, and police had no reason to fear her, Russell said.
Shelter Dogs Cared for by Prisoners
In a small town in Louisiana, a group of prison inmates is caring for the pets that come into a shelter built right on the Dixon Correctional Institute campus. The shelter came about after a grant from the Humane Society of the United States.
Anti-whale slaughter protesters must raise $1.4m bond to free Steve Irwin following lawsuit
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society must raise a bond of US$1.4 million if it wants to avoid its flagship vessel Steve Irwin being held in Shetland indefinitely due to legal action brought against the radical protest group by a Maltese fishing company.
Captain of the ship and founder of the organisation Paul Watson has issued an urgent appeal to supporters to raise the cash, which would allow it to leave Shetland and continue with its planned campaign against the annual slaughter of pilot whales in Faroe. Its smaller vessel Brigitte Bardot left Shetland for Faroe on Sunday morning.
The Steve Irwin has been detained since Friday afternoon after a civil lawsuit was brought against it in the UK courts by the Maltese company Fish & Fish, which is claiming damages over action taken against its bluefin tuna fleet in the Mediterranean in June 2010.
On Tuesday evening the Steve Irwin was moved from its berth at Holmsgarth over to Heogan in Bressay to make way for the arriving tall ships. LPA chief executive Sandra Laurenson said the port authority was quite happy for the boat to stay in Lerwick and said she had “no thoughts one way or another about any of our clients”.
The Fish & Fish lawsuit alleges that Sea Shepherd campaigners damaged property belonging to Fish & Fish when the Steve Irwin rammed their tuna pen on the high seas in the Mediterranean last year. It claims that a combination of the damage caused to its net and the loss of 600 valuable fish, with a weight of 35 tonnes, amounted to US$1.4 million, around £875,000.
Whale activists: ‘Meet us don’t eat us’
Pro- and anti-whaling nations are meeting in the British island of Jersey to consider the future of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Anti-whaling protestors gathered outside the 63rd convention of the IWC. The 89-nation body is deeply divided.While some member nations are pushing to enforce a ban, others have strong whaling traditions.
Iceland is one of the few nations where whaling still takes place and is an important tourist industry.
Al Jazeera’s Tim Friend reports from Reykjavik, Iceland.
Life of Dogfighting Over
20 dogs were seized on a Gary, Indiana property after local authorities got a tip about an alleged dog fighting ring. The Humane Society of the United States was there to help rescue the dogs. Four suspects were taken into custody.
Because you Responded the Steve Irwin is Free
2011 Leave a Comment
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson
Thank you for your generous efforts to help us secure the release of the Steve Irwin. Thanks to you, we did it! In less than two weeks, our wonderful supporters raised enough that we were able to post the bond. Fortunately for us, the bond was reduced from the one million British pounds the Maltese fishing company demanded, to 520,000 pounds. While this is still a very large sum of money, it was well worth it to free our flagship.
Hopefully, we will get these funds returned after the civil case against us is heard in the British courts. We feel we have a strong defense and that we can prove illegality of the operation that we intervened in off the coast of Libya. This company, Fish & Fish Limited, has a history of using litigation to silence their opposition. They presently have muzzled Maltese newspapers with lawsuits that prevent them from further exposing illegal activities until the suits are settled. In other words, it is not the verdict that the company is interested in winning, it is the inconvenience, intimidation, and most importantly, the silencing of their opposition that they are trying to achieve through punitive pre-trial actions such as demanding a bond and muffling the media.
Sea Shepherd is not an organization that is easily intimidated. This is our first experience with a civil lawsuit; we have retained a law firm in London to defend us and present our own arguments before the court. We believe that our evidence is strong and we can win this suit, but even if we lose, the fact remains that our opposition to the intensive poaching of endangered bluefin will not be deterred.
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