“I posted this, way back in February, but have just noticed the video’s were removed??…so here it is again!”
“Question?, why do humans inflict & perform the most heinous acts of cruelty on animals??
“Answer:- Because they can – simple! Animals can’t talk, they can try to fight back; but when they do, humans just use brute force to overpower them. When you think of it like that…you soon start to realise…it is humans that are the cowards; moreover it is humans are the animals!.”
“By posting this, I’m certainly not trying to convert everyone to become vegetarian or vegan…I’m just sharing the truth about what happens to animals from birth to slaughter. For those that choose to stay meat eaters, watching this might just give you a better understanding of why so many people are choosing to be vegetarian or vegan. Seriously, all I ask is that you try to watch as much as you can…as difficult as it is in some parts…it is very informative.”
“After viewing it, people are entitled to their own opinions regards the subject matter! I am not telling people what they should or should not eat, it’s a personal preference. However, the best thing that has happened since the release of this film, is that public attitudes have changed & paved the way for better animal welfare!”
“More & more people are learning, through video films like this, exactly what happens to animals, & more are demanding changes. Like the great saying by Sir Paul McCartney “If slaughter houses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian’ not sure about all, but it would change many people!”
“Please read everything below the video first, as this gives information about watching in other languages, turning annotations on & off because this is a multi subtitled video. If you can follow English by listening, then you may want to turn off the subtitles to concentrate of the subject matter. Plus it gives a list of websites full of information about food!”
Earthlings – Full length documentary (multi-subtitles)
Uploaded on 13 Dec 2010
EARTHLINGS is the single most powerful and informative documentary about society’s tragic and unforgivable use of nonhuman animals, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix with soundtrack by Moby. Directed by Shaun Monson, this multi-award winning film by Nation Earth is a must-see for anyone who cares about nonhuman animals or wishes to make the world a better place.
PLEASE: don’t run from reality, watch the film and share your thoughts with other viewers in the comments section. Thank you.
UNITY is the newest film by Shaun Monson for Nation Earth. Written and produced over the past five years, it will be released in 2012. The structure of the film comprises six acts, which are as follows: Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, bookended by a Prologue and Epilogue.
The subject of the film focuses on humanity’s propensity for apathy and empathy. Shaun has described UNITY as a film about opposites, or rather, “Why we perceive opposites in one another despite our various religions (88% of the planet is religious), all our Self-Help books, our 12-Step programs, even our philosophies and vast technology.”
The imagery in UNITY will be an intricate collage of everyday life, some beautiful, some horrible. The film is filled with joy, wonder, sorrow and maturity. As with Shaun’s previous film, EARTHLINGS, the editing once again manages to lead viewers into new and intriguing directions by a mix of unprecedented beauty with heart-breaking tragedy. While it is a cautionary tale, UNITY also hopes to introduce a little grace, philosophy and awareness into more lives than ever before.
A web search will reveal how EARTHLINGS has been the subject of some of the most fanciful descriptions, tributes and accolades ever lauded on a documentary, especially one that tackles such a difficult subject matter. And even though the film was roundly ignored by distributors upon its initial release in 2005, there is no doubting the influence the film had on future documentaries dealing with the same topic, including three films by HBO: DEALING DOGS (2006), I AM AN ANIMAL (2007), and DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM (2009), as well as two Academy Award® nominated films in 2010: FOOD INC., and the Best Documentary Feature, THE COVE.
UNITY picks up where EARTHLINGS left off, except instead of focusing on our relationship with animals, the film explores man’s dualistic relationships with each other. Therefore, the point we wish to make with UNITY is to cast a light on this essential contrast between apathy and empathy. Our principle intention is to indicate to those who see the film that we have all (human, animal or tree) sprung from the same root: that root being the earth.
“As the CITIES conference comes to the end of its first week, I thought I would just add the video in along with this post. Born Free’s CEO Will Travis, talks about some of the issues raised. Although I can’t believe the bid to halt the polar bear trade, was just swept under the table…WTF… Russia, Canada & the US…really have left the polar bears out in the cold…literally! I’m disgusted with their decision; same goes for the poor manatee!! I can’t wait to see what rubbish they come up with next week, for protecting species round the world; who are just about hanging on with their teeth!! Do the delegates from their respective country, actually know the danger some species are in?? I have my doubts given the first weeks bungles, honestly some of them are about as much use as a chocolate fire guard. Take about 30 of us animal advocates from face book, stick us round a table; & I’m sure we could come up with plans to help those in need!!”
Today saw the launch of the first ever internationally coordinated enforcement investigation into the online ivory trade.
Summing up week one at the CITES meeting in Bangkok
Published on 8 Mar 2013
Will Travers, CEO of Born Free, sums up week one at CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) meeting, covering secret ballots, elephants, rhino, polar bears, manatees and turtles.
The report revealed that there were hundreds of ivory items conservatively valued at approximately EUR 1,450,000 for sale during a two-week period on Internet auction sites in nine European countries.
During this survey of sites by enforcers, more than 660 advertisements for ivory on 61 different auction sites were analysed and as a result of the surveillance, six national and three international investigations were launched in cases where ivory was described as new or where ivory was being traded from abroad.
The 177 countries that are Party to CITES have already agreed, thanks in part to IFAW’s lobbying efforts, to investigate and prosecute wildlife criminals trading online as well as evaluate or develop their domestic measures to ensure they are sufficient to fight online wildlife crime.
While at least one country has strengthened their legislation to specifically target online wildlife crime and a small number of countries have started to develop strategies for tackling illegal wildlife sales on the internet, many more countries need to deliver on their promise and stamp out online wildlife crime.
Since 2004 IFAW has been highlighting the growing global threat posed by online wildlife crime to endangered wildlife. A series of IFAW investigations have repeatedly shown that there are thousands of wild animals and wildlife ‘products’, such as ivory, available for sale on the internet all over the world.
Stop The Ivory trade
IFAW has found live primates, big cats, birds and reptiles advertised online while animal parts from rhino’s, elephants, sharks, Tibetan antelopes and sturgeon have also been available to purchase on the internet.
In January 2012, IFAW’s online monitoring found 17,847 ivory products listed on 13 Chinese websites, even though none of these products had the necessary Government approval.
Meanwhile, a four-week investigation in the United Arab Emirates and some neighbouring Arab countries in the same year found 796 adverts featuring live wildlife over 11 websites. None of the adverts had any documentary proof to demonstrate that the sales complied with the law.
In Europe an IFAW investigation in 2011 found a thriving trade in ivory items. The investigation tracked 43 sites in the UK, France, Portugal, Spain and Germany for a two-week period and found 669 advertisements for ivory.
The statistics are disturbing but can be hard to comprehend so let me give you one example that shows the horrors of this illegal trade.
In 2010 a British couple admitted 12 counts of illegally exporting, three of illegally importing, seven of illegally selling and two of illegally possessing specimens under the Customs and Excise Management Act.
The couple in question had been selling animal body parts from owls, a baboon, macaque monkeys, a python, an African penguin, an African lion cub and a Malaysian flying fox.
These items were kept in a store room full of skulls and other animal body parts which, when I saw the pictures, made me think it as a room of death for wildlife.
Highlighting the problem of this trade is an important first step but IFAW has been going one stage further and engaging website companies, law enforcers and Governments in our campaign to stamp out online wildlife crime.
After our 2008 Killing with Keystrokes investigation, where we found ivory was the number one wildlife product being traded online, we encouraged eBay to ban the sale of ivory on their websites and IFAW was very pleased to see them announce this ban in January 2009.
Meanwhile other websites have since followed suit including Alibaba (www.taobao.com) in China, the world’s largest business-to-business and outsource portal site for traders.
However, while banning the sale of wildlife products on websites does restrict unscrupulous traders’ ability to easily profit from these products, there is clearly a need for enforcers to ramp up their efforts.
We have seen traders time and again attempting to disguise their wildlife products to avoid detection by police, customs or website companies such as eBay.
In addition to working with INTERPOL IFAW is working with enforcement agencies across the world to catch online wildlife criminals by sharing the findings of our online investigations, facilitating international enforcement operations and by bringing together website companies and enforcement agencies in order that they can work in partnership in their fight against illegal wildlife sales on the internet.
“I started off with the intentions of just posting the news below…but as always, I get side tracked. (please remember, anything I have to say in a post is in this blue writing) I’ve heard about this gorilla but not seen much, until I saw this. It’s most remarkable, a great ape, capable of killing a human, in an instant; but instead, Koko the Gorilla & Robin Williamspreferred to have a chit-chat, through sign language, then a tickling session I’m more than aware that humans share between 80% to 98.5% (The reason for the big gap in % is because not all agree) of DNA with chimps, gorillas & orangutans. This really does show the fact that humans & apes are so very much alike, when it comes to feelings & behaviour etc. So we can’t let these magnificent species be taken to the edge of extinction; due to the bushmeat trade!!.”
Koko the Gorilla with Robin Williams
“After watching the above , now, try to comprehend my other video & the article below; posted for & on behalf of Tony Zadel. This shouldn’t be happening, yet it continues & is a thriving business!”
“Bushmeat, popular in many parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, is the meat of hunted wild animals; including shark fin. reptile & whale meat, birds & turtles eggs! So whilst on your travels please don’t ever buy; ANY TRINKETS MADE FROM ANIMALS, or EAT EXOTIC CUISINE…YOU MAY NOT BE AWARE IT IS FROM AN ENDANGERED SPECIES OR THAT EXTREME SUFFERING WAS INVOLVED IN ACQUIRING IT. “The trade in bushmeat has become highly commercialized in recent years and is the most significant immediate threat to the great apes in Africa today.“
“Don’t think for one minute, if a female chimpanzee is caught, her babies will be left alone…no way! There is just as much demand for babies as there is for the meat, perhaps more! Any nursing monkeys or apes could be targeted by the poachers, who without empathy, drag the babies from their mothers, still warm but breathless bodies! As if that wasn’t cruel enough, the callous barbarians, set about hacking the mothers into pieces; all, whilst in full view of the babies! I can’t begin to imagine how those poor babies must feel, or how long the nightmares will last.
While most CITIES countries dilly dally, about this & that…you can be helping end the bushmeat trade by simply signing a petition or sending a pre-written letter by email; small things that will soon add up. We need to make it our goal, to educate & raise public awareness of this diabolical trade; that could eventually see some species become extinct! One voice can say a lot but may not be heard, but a chorus of voices, can demand attention! So if you want your grandchildren, to still be able to see these exotic species, please, just spend a couple of minutes signing petitions etc! I want my great-grandchildren to be able to see the fascinating creatures of the rain forests, roaming wild;where they belong!”
Illegal Commercial Bushmeat Trade
Uploaded on 24 Jun 2009
At the heart of the declining chimpanzee population is the illegal poaching of chimps and other great apes for bushmeat. The Jane Goodall Institute is working with governments and local communities to end this horrible practice.
“Posted below, as is, for & on behalf of Tony Zadel – Please sign the petitions & take note of the links, inc. video, providing more information. Thank you!”
The Bushmeat Trade – Threat of Primate & Wildlife Extinction !!!
The unsustainable commercial and illegal bush meat trade is threatening extinction of apes, chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates and wildlife. Not only are the primates killed for food and body parts, orphaned primates are being sold on the exotic pet market, and they are also losing their habitat through logging and commercial development.
In Africa, forest is often referred to as ‘the bush’, thus wildlife and the meat derived from it is referred to as ‘bushmeat’ (in French – viande de brousse). This term applies to all wildlife species, including threatened and endangered, used for meat including: elephant; gorilla; chimpanzee and other primates; forest antelope (duikers); crocodile; porcupine; bush pig; cane rat; pangolin; monitor lizard; guinea fowl; etc.
Though habitat loss is often cited as the primary threat to wildlife, commercial hunting for the meat of wild animals has become the most significant immediate threat to the future of wildlife in Africa and around the world; it has already resulted in widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa. This threat to wildlife is a crisis because it is rapidly expanding to countries and species which were previously not at risk, largely due to an increase in commercial logging, with an infrastructure of roads and trucks that links forests and hunters to cities and consumers
The bushmeat crisis is a human tragedy as well: the loss of wildlife threatens the livelihoods and food security of indigenous and rural populations most depend on wildlife as a staple or supplement to their diet, and bushmeat consumption is increasingly linked to deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, Ebola, andFoot and Mouth disease. You can also help with organization like the BCTF, CWAF, and much more..
Forests are being cleared at an alarming rate to make room for new palm oilplantations. Take action!
Palm oil is used in thousands of products we use every day, from baked goods to shampoo.
Unfortunately, palm oil is produced at a tremendous expense to our planet’s forests.
These forests are being cleared at an alarming rate to make room for new palm oil plantations.
This deforestation causes about 15 percent of global warming emissions worldwide!
The good news is that we have the power to change this story.
Businesses can grow palm oil on degraded land instead of forested land and existing plantations can increase crop yields to avoid the need to further expand into forests.
In June, the U.S. government announced a new joint initiative with the Consumer Goods Forum to make ingredients like palm oil deforestation-free.
Please click the link below to find out exactly what you need to do!!
It’s very easy & simple…everything you need is in the link below, including a pre-drafted letter; you just need to find the people to send it to from where you live, the email addresses are included for each country (just below the letter)
PLEASE HELP...sign share of FaceBook & Twitter. On March 16th WE MUST have an international ban on Ivory; before these magnificent & gentle giants leave this earth…via mans bloody hands!!!
FOLLOW THE LINKto Send 1 Email, Sign 2 Petitions, 3 Share the actions with all your friends:
The copyrights to the music and lyrics are reserved by the artist. We hold them in deep respect. Video created and produced by Elephant Advocacy. The images in this video are not the property of the producer, but belong to the photographers who have been credited for their beautiful work. This video was made as a contribution to the salvation of the African Elephant. It is only for non-profit educational purposes, without any intention of commercial advantage or private financial gain. There is no intention of copyright infringement. We offer our deepest gratitude to the organizations listed who work heroically on behalf of the African Elephant.
Wildlife rangers believe that the creatures could have eaten toxic substances laid to keep away ‘pests’ from the highly lucrative crop.
The animals live on land in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve which is very close to palm oil fields.
Thriving: The orphan pygmy elephant is being cared for at a wildlife reserve where it was taken after the death of its mother
A total of 14 pygmy elephants are now know to have died. Four adults were discovered yesterday in addition to ten bodies found earlier in the week.
Vets said that all the dead elephants had suffered severe bleeding and gastrointestinal ulcers, suggesting they had been poisoned.
Among the survivors is a three-month-old calf which was pictured pitifully trying to rouse his mother after she dropped down dead.
It is now being cared for at a wildlife park inSabah where rangers have found it a home with other orphans.
Wildlife workers fear that more elephants could have been poisoned and are lying undiscovered in the remoter parts of Borneo.
Laurentius Ambu, Sabah’s director of wildlife, said: ‘We are very concerned that many more carcasses are going to turn up.
‘Because the elephants travel in herds they are going to be picking up the poisons together so we fear that there are still more dead that are going to be found.
‘Great loss’: A three-month-old elephant calf attempts to wake its mother; one of ten pygmy elephants found dead in Malaysia’s Sabah state
He said that rangers were scouring the island for areas where poison could have been laid.
‘My hunch is that there may be more (carcasses). I don’t think it’s an accident,’ he added, explaining that the area where the dead elephants were found is part of a 100,000-acre (40,469-hectare) piece of ‘commercial forest reserve’ land managed by state agency Sabah Foundation.
He said the area was slated to be used as a tree plantation for sustainable logging. So far, two palm oil plantations and a logging company operate in the area, he said.
Mr Ambu said far too many jungle areas in Sabah were being broken up by agricultural or logging activities, without corridors linking them to allow animals to pass through.
‘This shouldn’t be. The fragmentation of forests has disrupted the elephants’ traditional routes to look for food.
‘It is highly suspected that the poisoning is blatantly done or that it’s a well-planned programme.’
Attached: The baby elephant sticks close to the body of its mother, while a wildlife department official gives it a drink
Police are investigating the deaths and officials have declined to say whether there are any suspects.
Meanwhile, conservationists say they are deeply concerned about the effects the palm oil industry is having on the wildlife of Borneo.
A spokesman for the WWF said that the dead elephants were found in areas being converted for plantations, giving fresh urgency to activists’ warnings of rising conflict between man and wildlife as development accelerates.
‘The central forest landscape in Sabah needs to be protected totally from conversion,’ the group said in a statement.
‘Conversions result in fragmentation of the forests, which in turn results in loss of natural habitat for elephant herds, thus forcing them to find alternative food and space, putting humans and wildlife wildlife in direct conflict.’
‘Sad day’: A total of seven female and three male pygmy elephants have been found in the forest over the past three weeks
The first ten known deaths of the pygmy elephants were made public this week, capturing wide attention as only about 1,200 of the elephants exist worldwide.
Authorities released several photographs of the elephant carcasses, including a particularly poignant one of the three-month-old surviving calf trying to wake its dead mother.
Most of the pygmy elephants live in Sabah and grow to about 8 feet (245 centimetres) tall, a foot or two shorter than mainland Asian elephants.
Known for their babyish faces, large ears and long tails, Borneo pygmy elephants were found to be a distinct subspecies only in 2003, after DNA testing.
Sabah is one of the pooreststates in Malaysia. Sabah Foundation was granted huge forest concessions, totalling about 14 percent of total land area in Sabah, by the state government to enable it to generate income to fund its aim of improving the lives of poor rural people.
The Sabah Foundation website said it had adopted sound forest management policies to ensure the areas are managed on a sustainable basis.
Tragic: The carcasses of the endangered animals were found in the forest over a period of three weeks
Pygmy elephant calf desperately tries to wake up dead mother who was one of ten animals found poisoned
A baby pygmy elephant tries in vain to rouse its mother, one of ten of the endangered creatures found dead in a Malaysian forest.
Experts believe the rare, baby-faced animals, whose bodies were found in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Sabah state, Borneo, had been poisoned. Wildlife officials rescued this three-month-old elephant calf, which was found glued to its dead mother’s side in the jungle.
The seven female and three male elephants, which were all from the same family group, have been found over the past three weeks.
Sabah’s environmental minister Masidi Manjun said the cause of death appeared to be poisoning, but it was not yet clear whether the animals had been deliberately killed.
There are believed to be fewer than 1,500 Borneo pygmy elephants in existence. While some have been killed for their tusks in the area in recent years, there was no evidence to suggest the elephants had been poached.
“I have previously posted news on this topic…yet feel it is time again to let everyone know what is happening to these baby elephants, taken from the wild, then beaten until their spirit is broken; to be used in the tourist industry.”
“We need more people to see these atrocities & act on things that can be done to help save the Asian elephant. The world has lost up to 90% of the Asian elephants in the last 100 years! So, unless more is done to protect this species & stop such activities as the illegal trade; we are going to lose the Asian elephant in the world, forever!!.
“Below is a joint post from myself & fellow animal warrior Tony Zadel who has provided a lot information & petitions. We need for people to get involved…PLEASE…watch, read & share the following with all your friends; these elephants need our help, please send letters to the appropriate people below…just do what you can to ensure these beautiful noble, gentle giants are around, for our children’s children!”
“The following Videos are heartbreaking, one can literally see the elephants cry, their screams are not easily forgotten. Their captors do not listen, nor care…which is why we must! Although they are difficult to watch, please try to watch them; for only then will you have any idea of how they suffer & why it is imperative, they receive our help! Then, hopefully you will forward this post on to friends everywhere…show others the atrocities….then unite & help the elephants; in anyway we can.”
“By signing petitions, writing letters to Thailand’s Tourism Authority, etc. we can at least feel we are trying to help! Please do not support any entertainment that involves elephants, especially whilst on vacation in Thailand!! If there are no tourist for business, then they have no need to capture & break these animals in such a brutal manner; they need to remain within their family groups & forge future generations of wild Asian elephants.!
STOP THE BRUTAL “ILLEGAL” BARBARIC TRADE OF BABY ELEPHANTS SMUGGLING EXPOSED – Viewer Discretion Advised
Published on 18 Jul 2012
Thailand’s tourist industry is driving a brutal trade in baby elephants. Illegal and brutal cross-border trade in endangered wild Asian elephants continues. On the Thai-Myanmar border at least 50-100 calves and young females are removed from their forest homes every year and are traded illegally every year to supply tourist camps. Countless elephants die in the process threatening the remaining populations of this endangered species.
Capturing elephants from the wild for this trade often involves killing of mothers and other protective family members with automatic weapons. Captured calves are subjected to an extremely brutal breaking-in process where they are tied up, confined, starved, beaten and tortured in order to break their spirits. It is estimated that only one in three survive this inhumane “domestication” process. This original investigative report by The Ecologist Film Unit in association with Earth Focus/Link TV and Elephant Family exposes this practice.
Breaking the spirit of the elephant – Viewer Discretion Advised
Published on 8 Mar 2012
Here are the images of the training of wild elephants that are caught for the tourist trade. Please remind yourself and tell others that by visiting elephant camps you are supporting this!
Edwin Wiek of the WFFT and Khun Lek (Sangduan Chailert) of ENP are now targeted by the DNP for speaking up about the illegal wild elephant poaching and trade. This video shows what the DNP doesn’t want you to see or know about!
“I can’t help but cry, when I see these babies tortured, agony sketched over their entire faces, their bodies flinching with every whip, punch or strike, left for days without food or water; from those trying to break their noble spirit! They suffer greatly, untold agony…audible screams ring out through the dank rain forests. Did you know, these beautiful creatures who appear to have thick skin…can tell when a fly lands on them? So imagine their pain, their torture, their lives…encroached, only to be used in the tourist industry; for unsuspecting visitors.”
“Be honest, after watching these videos, could you take an elephant ride whilst on vacation?? knowing the elephant you are riding, was so viciously tortured & his spirit broken as a younger elephant, for your pleasure??
Elephant Training Abuse (AAA Video) In English – Viewer Discretion Advised
Published on 30 Mar 2012
A video that explains the torturous training of elephants for logging and tourism. Video made by the Animal Activist Alliance (AAA Thailand)
Going on an elephant ride is a key part for many on vacation trips to Thailand and elsewhere in South-East Asia. Doubtless few realize the cruel treatment involved in capturing and “training” these intelligent creatures.
Baby elephants stolen for tourism endure unthinkable suffering. “They are immobilized, beaten mercilessly, and gouged with nails for days at a time. these ritualized “training” sessions leave the elephants badly injured, traumatized, or even dead.”
Help protect the elephants in Thai sanctuariesand the brave people who care for them and speak out on behalf of wild elephants, by sending Thailand’s TourismAuthority a message that you will not visit Thailand until the government stops raiding elephant sanctuaries, returns confiscated animals and takes effective action to protect wild elephants.
Elephants are experiencing the most awful abuses in the name of tourism – travellers to Thailand are often totally unaware of the real story. Travel agents worldwide sell Thailand with images of happy tourists riding on elephants with saddles (howdah) and patting young street elephants.
To educate the travelling public we need travel agents to:-
Be aware of the problem
Agree to corporate responsibility in the promotion of humane and ethical travel choices.
Boycott these types of vacations until the Government does something to stop the atrocities
PLEASE CONTACT Thailand’s Tourism Authority by email to share your concern & protest:- Tourism Authority of Thailand 1600 New Phetburi Road, Makkasan, Rajatevee, Bangkok 10310, Thailand Tel +66 2250 5500 Fax +66 2250 5511 Email: center@tat.or.th URL www.tourismthailand.org
PLEASE SIGN & SHARE WIDELY THESE 7 PETITIONS TO HELP STOP THIS CRUELTY
“After watching some of these videos, one must be able to understand, why some of these performing elephants snap & retaliate? As humans, we are the ones that can truly relate to pain & anguish! As humans who try to dominate, we should totally understand, that any human or indeed any species…can only suffer so much abuse; before totally losing their mind, which sadly ends up when that person or species ends up injuring or killing others!”
“It is hard to lose a human life, or any life, but do elephants know or even acknowledge that their rampage’s can kill?? They simply break down & can’t stand any more torture or repetitive labour! They certainly know who inflicted their pain, as that person is surely the one the elephant will target first! But they have also stood & watched other elephants be beaten & broken etc. They simply try to get their own back, on those who have done them wrong; much like any human would do!”.
“The following videos are hard to watch, it’s hard to watch any species be beaten etc. But please try to watch, even if it’s only 1 video; only then, will you see their pain, understand them & want to help protect their species & their babies!”
The brutal capture, torture and subsequent death of a young tusker in a capture operation authorized by the government, prompted Mike Pandey to stop filming his documentary on Elephants in Crisis and turn it into a news feature.
This news feature exposes the cruel and archaic methods of capture being used with no concern for the animal, a protected and endangered species.
The news feature is a protest and demand for immediate cessation of capture of elephants in this brutal way and a call for policy changes if elephants are to be protected.
Within 3 days of the release of this news feature the Government of India suspended all capture of wild elephants. Individuals in charge of the botched capture operation were suspended.
The news created international outrage. International news agencies picked it and activists from all over the world joined in triggering a global signature campaign.
In India changes in policies and rules were made at a national level ensuring that all future captures take place with modern facilities and in the presence of experts to avoid trauma and cruelty after capture. Elephant welfare became top priority.
IFAW undertook a global signature campaign against elephant capture.
Unfortunately in recent months after this news, deaths had been reported. Laws without proper implementation are of no use. Nothing has changed…we need your voice to support
►IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THAILAND’S ELEPHANTS PLEASE VISIT : ►http://www.elemotion.org/
The world’s 5 rhino species (white, black, greater one-horned, Sumatran and Javan) are facing a poaching crisis of alarming proportions and many fear that extinction looms for one of our planets most charismatic animals if effective action cannot be taken now.
Most of Africa’s rhinos are found in South Africa and rates of poaching are escalating. Between 1990 and 2005 only 14 rhinos were poached each year on average. Despite having the continents best developed anti-poaching structure, in 2008 this jumped to 83, in 2009 it was 122, in 2010 it more than doubled to 333 and in 2011 448 rhinos were killed. With 394 rhino’s already killed this year, it is predicted that more than 530 and perhaps as many as 600 rhino’s will be poached this year.
Why the demand?
Despite the restrictions put in place by CITES related to rhino horn trade, poaching is now a sophisticated and lucrative high stakes affair, fuelled by a seemingly insatiable illegal market based on traditional Asian medicine. This is especially the case in countries like China and Viet Nam where it is falsely believed that consuming rhino horn can boost sexual performance and combat diseases including cancer. Increasingly, some of Asia’s growing wealthy class are also buying rhino horn as an investment commodity and buyers are willing to pay more than £30,000 per Kg. Rhino horn is therefore worth more than its weight in gold.
What can be done?
The current poaching crisis in South Africa has provoked a huge debate about the best way to stop poaching and save rhino populations. In the short-term, greater investments are being made in law enforcement with mixed results due to the incentive for unscrupulous wildlife managers to get involved with the illegal trade. The legalization of trade in ivory horn is also being proposed as a means of raising additional funds to conserve wild rhino’s, but as Born Free CEO Will Travers explains, this is a flawed argument from a variety of perspectives:
A 3ft pet monkey who dressed as Santa, wore diapers and played with his family’s children has been shot dead after the creature ‘flipped out’ and attacked his owner, ripping apart his hand.
JayJay the Macaque monkey unleashed his attack after escaping his home in Okeechobee, Florida and evading capture by his owner, Jimmy Schwall, who tried to catch him in a net.
The monkey wriggled free and clamped down on Schwall’s buttocks and thigh and tore apart his right hand. A friend grabbed a gun and Schwall told him to shoot, killing the monkey.
Loved: Mona and Jimmy Schwall with JayJay the Macaque monkey, left, and Bratt the marmoset monkey. JayJay, whom the family had had for nine years, was shot dead after he attacked Jimmy
The bite was so deep that Schwall suffered seven injured tendons and one injured nerve, and has had to undergo two three-hour surgeries on his hand, he told MailOnline. He had around 200 stitches and must take pills for two weeks to keep infections at bay.
The attack shocked his owners, Jimmy and his wife Mona, who welcomed JayJay into their family when he was just three weeks old. He was nine when he died.
They kept the pet in a large enclosure in their yard, dressed him in costumes and clothes, placed him in diapers and let him play with their children in the pool.
‘He was very much part of the family,’ Mona told MailOnline. ‘Me and my husband didn’t have children together and he was basically our child. He was very much loved and he is very missed.’
The family would dress him up as a pumpkin or bumblebee so he could go trick-or-treating at Halloween. He would squeeze into clothes for children aged 12 to 18 months, Mona laughed.
‘In all the time we had him, he never even so much as knocked a thing over in the house. He didn’t even pull down the Christmas tree. We’d dress him as Santa and he’d open his presents – and ours.’
Her husband, who is recovering at home, said it had been heartbreaking to lose JayJay.
‘We’re just upset,‘ Jimmy Schwall said. ‘We were discussing which urn to put his ashes in and it was really hard. We really miss him.’
Schwall, who still faces rehabilitation to regain use of his hand, said he had no regrets about keeping the monkey, who he claims just ‘flipped out’ after he tried to use a net to catch him.
And he maintained he would keep all the remaining animals at his five-acre ranch, including a Marmoset monkey named Bratt, llamas, miniature horses, chickens and dogs.
Schwall escaped further injury as the monkey did was not carrying any viruses – but his wounds still proved a challenge for doctors at Martin Memorial Hospital.
‘I’ve seen dogs bites, cat bites, an occasional snake bite, human bites, but I’ve never had a monkey bite,’ plastic surgeon Avron Lipschitz told the Palm Beach Post. ‘I feel like my physical repertoire has expanded.’
But experts have warned that the incident, which took place on August 15, is just a latest in a string of attacks that proves the dangers of keeping wild animals.
‘Anybody that keeps a monkey is going to get bit,’ said Lion Country Safari wildlife director Terry Wolf. ‘I haven’t heard of a monkey that wouldn’t bite somebody.
‘The baby grows up and becomes an adult, the adult resents confinement. You can not change a monkey into something it’s not.’
It came a week after a man from Port St. Lucie was riding a motorcycle with his pet Marmoset when he crashed, and the animal bit the finger of a fire rescue chief.
JayJay, who measured three-feet tall and weighed 26 pounds, was a Macaque monkey, which are native to Asia and Northern Africa. They are also found in numerous zoos, kept as pets and are often used for medical research.
They are heavily-built creatures and feast on bamboo, fruit, insects and leaves in the wild.
They have strong social hierarchies, allowing the higher-level creatures to pinch resources the lower-level monkeys have collected.
More than three quarters of macaques kept in captivity in zoos or as pets are carriers of the herpes B virus, which is harmless to the monkeys. While infections in humans are rare they can be fatal, which makes macaques unsuitable as pets.
“Please watch the video, at the link below that accompanies this news – Note -there are some graphic images of poached elephants.”
Published: September 3, 2012
GARAMBA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — In 30 years of fighting poachers, Paul Onyango had never seen anything like this. Twenty-two dead elephants, including several very young ones, clumped together on the open savanna, many killed by a single bullet to the top of the head.
There were no tracks leading away, no sign that the poachers had stalked their prey from the ground. The tusks had been hacked away, but none of the meat — and subsistence poachers almost always carve themselves a little meat for the long walk home.
Several days later, in early April, the Garamba National Park guards spotted a Ugandan military helicopter flying very low over the park, on an unauthorized flight, but they said it abruptly turned around after being detected. Park officials, scientists and the Congolese authorities now believe that the Ugandan military — one of the Pentagon’s closest partners in Africa — killed the 22 elephants from a helicopter and spirited away more than a million dollars’ worth of ivory.
“They were good shots, very good shots,” said Mr. Onyango, Garamba’s chief ranger. “They even shot the babies. Why? It was like they came here to destroy everything.”
Africa is in the midst of an epic elephant slaughter. Conservation groups say poachers are wiping out tens of thousands of elephants a year, more than at any time in the previous two decades, with the underground ivory trade becoming increasingly militarized.
Like blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or plundered minerals from Congo, ivory, it seems, is the latest conflict resource in Africa, dragged out of remote battle zones, easily converted into cash and now fueling conflicts across the continent.
Some of Africa’s most notorious armed groups, including the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Shabab and Darfur’s janjaweed, are hunting down elephants and using the tusks to buy weapons and sustain their mayhem. Organized crime syndicates are linking up with them to move the ivory around the world, exploiting turbulent states, porous borders and corrupt officials from sub-Saharan Africa to China, law enforcement officials say.
But it is not just outlaws cashing in. Members of some of the African armies that the American government trains and supports with millions of taxpayer dollars — like the Ugandan military, the Congolese Army and newly independent South Sudan’s military — have been implicated in poaching elephants and dealing in ivory.
Congolese soldiers are often arrested for it. South Sudanese forces frequently battle wildlife rangers. Interpol, the international police network, is now helping to investigate the mass elephant killings in the Garamba park, trying to match DNA samples from the animals’ skulls to a large shipment of tusks, marked “household goods,” recently seized at a Ugandan airport.
The vast majority of the illegal ivory — experts say as much as 70 percent — is flowing to China, and though the Chinese have coveted ivory for centuries, never before have so many of them been able to afford it. China’s economic boom has created a vastmiddle class, pushing the price of ivory to a stratospheric $1,000 per pound on the streets of Beijing.
High-ranking officers in the People’s Liberation Army have a fondness for ivory trinkets as gifts. Chinese online forums offer a thriving, and essentially unregulated, market for ivory chopsticks, bookmarks, rings, cups and combs, along with helpful tips on how to smuggle them (wrap the ivory in tinfoil, says one Web site, to throw off X-ray machines).
Last year, more than 150 Chinese citizens were arrested across Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, for smuggling ivory. And there is growing evidence that poachingincreases in elephant-rich areas where Chinese construction workers are building roads.
“China is the epicenter of demand,” said Robert Hormats, a senior State Department official. “Without the demand from China, this would all but dry up.”
He said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who condemned conflict minerals from Congo a few years ago, was pushing the ivory issue with the Chinese “at the highest levels” and that she was “going to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to address this, in a very bold way.”
Foreigners have been decimating African elephants for generations. “White gold” was one of the primary reasons King Leopold II of Belgium turned Congo into his own personal fief in the late 19th century, leading to the brutal excesses of the upriver ivory stations thinly fictionalized in Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness” and planting the seeds for Congo’s free fall today.
Ivory Coast got its name from the teeming elephant herds that used to frolic in its forests. Today, after decades of carnage, there is almost no ivory left.
The demand for ivory has surged to the point that the tusks of a single adult elephant can be worth more than 10 times the average annual income in many African countries. In Tanzania, impoverishedvillagers are poisoning pumpkins and rolling them into the road for elephants to eat. In Gabon, subsistence hunters deep in the rain forest are being enlisted to kill elephants and hand over the tusks, sometimes for as little as a sack of salt.
Last year, poaching levels in Africa were at their highest since international monitors began keeping detailed records in 2002. And 2011 broke the record for the amount of illegal ivory seized worldwide, at 38.8 tons (equaling the tusks from more than 4,000 dead elephants). Law enforcement officials say the sharp increase in large seizures is a clear sign that organized crime has slipped into the ivory underworld, because only a well-oiled criminal machine — with the help of corrupt officials — could move hundreds of pounds of tusks thousands of miles across the globe, often using specially made shipping containers with secret compartments.
The smugglers are “Africa-based, Asian-run crime syndicates,” said Tom Milliken, director of the Elephant Trade Information System, an international ivory monitoring project, and “highly adaptive to law enforcement interventions, constantly changing trade routes and modus operandi.”
Conservationists say the mass kill-offs taking place across Africa may be as bad as, or worse than, those in the 1980s, when poachers killed more than half of Africa’s elephants before an international ban on the commercial ivory trade was put in place.
“We’re experiencing what is likely to be the greatest percentage loss of elephants in history,” said Richard G. Ruggiero, an official with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Some experts say the survival of the species is at stake, especially when many members of the African security services entrusted with protecting the animals are currently killing them.
“The huge populations in West Africa have disappeared, and those in the center and east are going rapidly,” said Andrew Dobson, an ecologist at Princeton. “The question is: Do you want your children to grow up in a world without elephants?”
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PLEASE NOTE.....
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If I have anything to say on any post, you will see it in bold blue writing. I try to remain a lady, but it's hard to contain my anger & emotions at the some of the stories I post; I don’t have a heart of stone, tears stain many articles I write!
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ABOUT THESE POSTS
I would just like to make readers aware, that I search for stories on the internet; regards animal abuse etc. I copy stories etc. from the internet; assuming these stories are correct at time of publishing. Having said that, sometimes the press get it wrong! So I just want to add that at the time of me posting a news story, I presume all the facts seem present & correct.
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DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS BLOG - SOME PICTURES & VIDEOS CAN & WILL BE VERY GRAPHIC - SO PLEASE, VIEW THIS BLOG AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
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