“I’m posting again as there seems to be a problem with people copying this link.!
“Well you learn something everyday! I had no idea that coffee was made out of civet poop! Hopefully it will put people off drinking it, then the poor things won’t be caged like battery hens; so pass the word around!!”
Coffee Maker Gourmands the world over savor the flavor of the coffee known in Indonesia as Kopi Luwak. The coffee gets its taste from coffee berries that the luwak, a kind of civet consumes and then excretes in its stool.
The globe’s most expensive java, which is madefrom the faeces of catlike mammals called Asian palm civets, is raising concern among animal-welfare organizations, the Guardian reports.
Producers of kopi luwak, based primarily in Indonesia, are facing accusations of “horrific” abuse against the civets, who are kept in cages and fed a diet comprising almost exclusively coffee berries in order to produce a usable excrement. The creation of the predigested coffee has transformed a small rural trade into an intensive farming industry, the Guardian notes.
The reporter from the British papervisited a café on theIndonesian islandof Sumatra and discovered a female civet confined to a tiny cage in the back of the shop. The Guardian also found the creature’s two young offspring in a separate cramped enclosure, as well as 20 other civets in concealed cages on the roof of the building.
According to the paper, animal-welfare groups believe comparable civet “farms” are cropping up acrossSoutheast Asia and creating a serious ethical problem. As of now, tens of thousands of the animals are likely cooped up in cages and forced to live on the unwholesome berry diet. Although Asian palm civets, called luwakin Indonesian, are not endangered, a similar species called the binturong is also used for kopi luwak and has been classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Sorting Stool The beans do not get digested by the civets, thus making it possible for farmers to collect them. Here, Wayan Dira collect the excrement so that the coffee beans can be processed
“The conditions are awful, much like battery chickens,” Chris Shepherd, deputy regionaldirector of the conservation group Traffic in Southeast Asia, told the Guardian. “The civets are taken from the wild and have to endure horrific conditions. They fight to stay together, but they are separated and have to bear a very poor diet in very small cages.”
Shepherd said the conservation risk comes from the high mortality rate of some civet species, as those figures are “ spiralling out of control.” He noted that there is little public awareness about how kopi luwak is made.
“It would put people off their coffee if they knew,” Shepherd said.
“I know I have just recently done a post on palm oil, but the following web site gives so much more information…stuff I had no idea about! So please, protect the environment & save the orangutan…read the following then visit the links at the end. Please also sign the petitions below!!
A Bit more info on Palm Oil…I think you might find useful; find out more at the link below:-
Rescue by COP
Palm oil is mainly used in foods, cosmetics and cleaning agents, but it can also be found in some bio-fuels.This fatty vegetable oil is mixed with a number of other fuels and liquids to create an ‘Eco-Friendly‘ bio-fuel.
This ‘Eco-Friendly’ bio-fuel has already become mandatory in numerous countries including Malaysia (where 5% of all fuel must contain palm oil), and if it continues to be voted into petrol stations around the world, the future for our orange primate cousins and their rainforest homes will be very bleak.
In supermarkets in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom and many European countries, 50% of all baked goods, confectionery, spreads, body products, cosmetics, cleaning agents, air fresheners and sometimes even paint and printer ink contain palm oil, and the average first-world citizen consumes at least 10kg of palm oil each year.
These statistics dramatically increase with countries that span across Asia. Fact is, a large percentage of products in your household will contain palm oil, and almost anything that contains a high level ofsaturated fatwill have palm oil in it (except for some dairy products, which gain their saturated fat from full cream milk).
However, you often don’t know if products you are buying contribute to this detrimental destruction?You see, there are no laws on the mandatory labelling of palm oil in most countries, so palm oil is often hidden under the name of ‘vegetable oil’ or over 170 other names.
This means that consumers are blinded as to which products they buy are contributing the destruction of our natural world and it’s inhabitance.
Due to its high saturated fat content, palm oil promotes heart disease, increases cholesterol levels, raises blood pressure and therefore is a contributing factor to obesity. These four health issues are the main causes of one of the world’s biggest killers; cardiovascular disease (also known as heart disease). This extremely common disease claims one life every two seconds. Palm oil is also high inOmega 6 fatty acid, which is associated with arthritis, inflammation, and even breast and prostate cancer.
Some people argue that we need palm oil in this day and age in order to produce certain foods and products. But what about 30 years ago?
Back then, palm oil was virtually non-existent in most supermarkets in the first-world, so why is there such a high demand for it now? Unhealthy, processed foods, chemicals to add to cleaning products, and fuel. We don’t need palm oil.
Alternatives to palm oil include: canola oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil and coconut oil, but unfortunately none as cheap or efficient, which is why companies are reluctant to switch.
Did you know that each and everyone of us is fuelling one of the world’s biggest ecological disasters and acts of primate genocide in history?
Despite this amazing biodiversity and delicate web of species, AN AREA THE SIZE OF 300 FOOTBALL FIELDS OF RAINFOREST IS CLEARED EACH HOUR in Indonesia and Malaysiato make way for the production of one vegetable oil.
That’s 6 football fields destroyed each minute.This vegetable oil is called palm oil, and is found in hundreds of the everyday products, from baked goods and confectionery, to cosmetics and cleaning agents… many of which you buy in your weekly shopping.
Due to the massive international demand for palm oil, palm oil plantations are rapidly replacing the rainforest habitat of the critically endangered orangutan; with
Orangutan killed to make way for Oil plantation
over 90% of their habitat already destroyed in the last 20 years.
Orangutans are some of our closest relatives, sharing approximately 97% of theirDNA with humans. Orangutan means ‘Person of the jungle’ in the Indonesian language. It is estimated that 6 to 12 of these ‘jungle people’ are killed each day for palm oil.
These gentle creatures are either killed in the deforestation process, when they wonder into a palm oil plantation looking for food, or in the illegal pet trade after they’ve been captured and kept as pets in extremely poor conditions and provided with extremely poor nutrition.
Orangutans are considered as pests by the palm oil industry. In the deforestation process, workers are told that if wildlife gets in the way, they are to do whatever is necessary inorder to dispose them, no matter how inhumane.Often orangutans are run over by logging machinery, beat to death, buried alive or set on fire… all in the name of palm oil.
Government data has shown that over 50,000 orangutans have already died as a result of deforestation due to palm oil in the last two decades.Experts say that if this pattern of destruction and exploitation continues, these intelligent acrobats of the jungle will be extinct in the wild within 3 to 12 years (as early as 2015). It is also thought that their jungle habitat will be completely gone within 20 years (approximately 2033).
Around 50 million tons of palm oil is produced annually; with almost all of that being non-sustainable palm oil, that replaces 12 million hectares of dense, bio-diverse rainforest. That’s the equivalent landmass of North Korea deforested each year for palm oil alone!
Think of the consequences next time you do your weekly shopping; the consequences not only for orangutans and other animals, but for us as the human race; for we cannot survive without the rainforests either.
Pictures of Orangutans on site -Click link below: – Locked away, chained up, boxed in – Rescues by COP
“When we saw the big male approaching our camp we were afraid. So we quickly ran over to him, doused him in petrol and set him on fire.” – Fermin, a bulldozer driver at a logging sight in Borneo.”
Dedicated rescue teams, such as COP, devote their time to rescuing orangutans from logging sights, palm oil plantations, zoos/ animal parks and pet owners.
These strong teams face the reality of the palm oil crisis each day, being their first-hand to save the orangutans from their horrible fate.
Groups like COP rescue many orangutan from the local people who have been keeping the apes as pets in small cages, boxes or tied-up on chains.
Willie Smits, Sean Whyte and Richard Zimmerman are the pioneers in orangutan protection and conservation.
If you would like to help raise awareness about the palm oil crisis and raise funds for orangutan centres, take a look at the ideas and suggestions below.We must work together to give the orangutan a voice!:-http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/how-to-help.php
The animals are not only losing their habitat, but the roads constructed for the plantation workers expose the forest to poachers and animal smugglers.
Roads in a drastically deforested area close to Sentarum Lake National Park. The land has been cleared by PT KPC, a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group, Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer Coordinates: N 000 05 22.83 – E 110 33 30.06 . By Daniel Whittingstall
These roads allow the poachers and smugglers to access the forest and capture the exotic wildlife within. These animals are often sold on the illegal pet trade market, used in the entertainment business, slaughtered in order to make medicines, killed for their fur, skin or ivory, or, in the case of Sunbears; put in small cages and milked for their bile (fluid in liver). Orangutans, along with many other endangered South-East Asian animal species, can now only be found living in fragmented pockets of remaining rainforest. This is not only due to habitat destruction, but also these sickening acts of cruelty and murder.
Below are just a few of the many wildlife species under threat due to palm oil.
PLEASE SIGN & SHARE WIDELY THESE PETITIONS – Petitions below
POPULATION OF THE TIGERS IN INDIA DECLINES ENORMOUSLY FAST !
1900 – 100,000 exist
1950 – 40,000
2007 – less than 5,000 survive; 2,500 in India, IUCN status ‘Endangered’
2010 (Year of the Tiger) – only 3,500 remain in the wild globally (1,400 in India)
Tigers are a conservation dependent species, requiring large contiguous forests with access to water and undisturbed core areas in which to breed. Tiger range throughout India, Indochina, and Southeast Asia is now 40 percent smaller than it was in 1951, and today tigers occupy a mere 7 percent of their historical territory in increasingly fragmented and degraded landscapes.
Amidst this, the threats are mounting. The main threats to wild tigers include:
Habitat loss and fragmentation due to mining
Logging, farming
human settlement
Depletion of their prey base
Conflict with humans – villagers wander the forest for grass to feed their animals
Poaching for their skins, and other parts for Traditional Asian Medicines, such as bone.
–Latest figures show there may only be 400Sumatran tigers left in the world. Unless we take action now we could lose these magnificent animals forever.
Tiger skins are still in demand as luxury items in some countries, and tiger parts coveted for their ‘medicinal’ properties.
The tigers’ forest habitat is vanishing too. Destruction of forests for timber, agriculture and road building has forced tigers into ever-smaller areas, where they’re even more vulnerable to poachers.
Poachers also hunt the tiger’s prey species, and tigers are forced to target domestic animals, bringing them into fatal conflict with local people.
Watch this insightful video to see what the problems are: Please note, some scenes contain graphic images.
101 East: India Last Of The Tigers
Uploaded on 18 Nov 2011
Conservationists are in a desperate and uphill battle to save India’s tigers from extinction. Video Link: ! http://youtu.be/VlcGI_J7Jho
LATEST UPDATE :Tiger smuggling ring busted inNepal ….
Nepalese police have arrested 7 people involved with tiger smuggling in the country and recovered 7 tiger skins, hundreds of tiger parts and bones. Two operations were undertaken by the Nepalese authorities following specialist intelligence training by Interpol in December.
The first operation was on 11 January.
Officers of Manaslu Conservation Areaseized four tiger skins, 53 kg of tiger bones and arrested four people who were allegedly trying to smuggle the tiger parts into Tibet, China. The following day, police conducting road checks near the Chinese border seized 5 tiger skins and 114 kg of tiger bones that were concealed in bags of rice in a van also heading to China.
CAIRO: Egypt’s ministry of agriculture reported on Thursday that they had slaughtered over 30,000 baby cows who had been stranded for weeks at a Red Sea port. The ministrysaid that it had discovered what it described as “hormonal capsules” in the animals, local newspapers reported.
The stranded cows had made international headlines after Bikyamasr.com first reportedtheir situation on September 1, including a Care2.com petition that was signed by over 25,000 people globally urging the Egyptian government to free the baby cows from their horrific conditions.
The ministry chose to slaughter the animals instead.
Egypt slaughtered over 30,000 baby cows, but the anti-live export protests are growing.
The baby cows had remained on board the ships for over 6 weeks at Port Sokhna in what animal rights groups told Bikyamasr.com are “horrendous and inhumane” conditions.
It is yet another incident that revealed the horrors of the live export trade.
Live export from Brazil and Australia to the Islamic world is a controversial practice that sees thousands of animals crammed into small crates and transported by sea to their destination to be slaughtered for food.
According to the ministry, tests had been conducted to learn more about the potentialcarcinogen that had been given to the animals before they would be unloaded. Tests had reportedly been ongoing for the past month at a private lab in Egypt, but no results had been conclusive.
According to a al-Shorouk newspaper report, the animals are likely to remain in their confinement for a number of weeks more in order for further tests to take place.
Earlier this year, some 3,000 of the cows died on a ship destined for Egypt after the Egyptian government refused to allow the ship to dock at a Red Sea port.
They were slaughtered as a “precaution,” the ministry said, outraging a number of Egyptians.
Animals Australia, the leading organization reporting on the controversial live export trade to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, said the incident was among the worst the industry had witnessed in years.
Animals Australia’s Campaign Director, Lyn White, said in a statement to Bikyamasr.com that the ship was anchored at sea after being refusedport in a number of countries,includingEgypt, where the cattle were supposed to be offloaded.
It’s understood that ventilation problems on the converted livestock vessel, the MV Gracia Del Mar, had caused the deaths of more than half of the animals on board since the ship left South America for Egypt a few weeks ago. The ship was anchored in the Red Sea for weeks and saw more animals perish as a result.
“This is nothing short of an animal welfare disaster. If remaining cattle are not offloaded more of these animals will suffer appalling deaths at sea. We are appealing to authorities in Egypt to offload the remaining cattle at al-Sohkna, as was originally intended.
“This disaster is just another example of the inherent risks of transporting animals by sea. It was only nine years ago that 5,000Australiansheep perished on board the MV Cormo Express after country after country refused to allow it to berth.
“And this isn’t the first time that mechanical issues have caused mass deaths on live export ships. We only need to look to the breakdown of the Al Messilah in Adelaide last year. Had that vessel broken down on the open ocean it would have caused a similar welfare catastrophe — as thousands of animals would have died.
“Australia also exports cattle to Al Sohkna Livestock company in Egypt. Whilst we have an MoU with Egypt which should ensure the offloading of our animals, it has never been put to the test. The Egyptians thus far have flatly refused to allow the MV Gracia Del Mar to dock despite the mass suffering of the animals on board.
“If they continue to refuse to allow the surviving animals to be unloaded it would providelittle confidence that the non-binding agreement with Australia would be honoured if a similar incident were to occur on an Australian livestock ship.
“It should not matter if these cattle aren’t Australian and if Brazil doesn’t have a similar piece of paper, they should not be abandoned to suffer and die at sea. We are appealing to Egyptian authorities to offload these cattle as a matter of urgency.”
Australia’s live sheep exports have fallen significantly over the past decade.
In 2010, three million sheep were exported compared with 6.3 million in 2001.
Australia’s government last year was to see a bill that would have banned live export to the world, but industry lobbyists fought back and forced the legislation off the table in a move that angered animal activists in the country and across the world, notably the Islamic world, which receives the lion’s share of live cattle and sheep from both Australia and Brazil.
KUALA LUMPUR: Animal rights activists in Thailand praised the seizure of around 700 dogs who had been caged and ready for transport into Vietnam where they would have been slaughtered and eaten, the Nakhon Phanom Animal Quarantine Center said on Saturday after receiving the animals as part of their recuperation.
Thai police said that they arrested a truckdriver in the Ban Phaeng district on Friday evening and discovered the animals in the back.
Driver Salud Khottakok was transporting the dogs from Sakhon Nakhon to the border in a six-wheel truck when he was stopped.
He reportedly confessed to police of being hired by aVietnameseinvestor to deliver the dogs to Ban Phaeng Pier, from where they were to be taken down theMekong River to Vietnam.
Center chief Chusak Pongpanich said in a statement that the latest batch “took the center’s dog population to about 2,000.
“The shelter has Bt8 million (S$316,800) in donated funds left, but it spends Bt30,000-40,000 a day to care for the dogs,” he said.
He urged people to donate more money, food and medicine in order to assist in the dogs recovering from the traumatic experience.
Animal trade is not uncommon in Southeast Asia, where Vietnamese and Chinese business people often hire neighboring countries out to transport dogs and cats into the country, where they will be slaughtered and served up for dinner.
The Soi Dog Foundation (SDF) is pleased to announce the release of the full-length feature documentary Soi Dogs, produced by Environment Films. You may view a 3 minute trailer of the film above. The 66-minute documentary is far from the standard charity campaign film. Although it does give an insight into the day-to-day challenges of the foundation, it is also a human story, one that combines tragedy and compassion with humour and excitement. It is inspirational and involving throughout and is suitable for the entire family to watch.
“John and Gill Dalley moved from England to Phuket in 2003, after having visited many times before on vacation. The Dalleys had married in Phuket and decided to come back permanently to retire. Little did they know that instead of a leisurely retirement, they would work harder with Soi Dog than they ever had in England. What they found in Phuket after getting settled was a massive stray dog problem that was growing rapidly due to the growth of Phuket as a tourist destination and a place where Thais from all over Thailand came to find work. The Dalleys knew they had to try to help somehow.”
“Please, if you want to see elephants on your vacation in Asia, visit them at a shelter or sanctuary…please do not feed this appalling industry by riding on an elephant, no matter how inviting it looks…remember how horribly abused they are as babies!!”
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.
Recent video has captured the dreadful treatment of captured endangered Asian elephants as a result of cross-border capture and trafficking in the animals. The Ecologist Film Unit in association with Earth Focus/Link TV and Elephant Family shows the inhumane practices involved in capturing the baby pachyderms, often by killing their mothers and others of the herd, and the brutal “breaking in” of baby elephants before they are sold into animal slavery:
This is the despicable way baby’s are treated, beaten, tortured, deprived of food & water…until they stop resisting humans, then they can be trained. Trained to carry tourists, performing in circuses, or begging the streets with their mahouts for money. Is their any wonder some of them go crazy??
Going on an elephant ride is a key part of many vacation’ trips to Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Doubtless few realize the cruel treatment involved in capturing and “training” these intelligent creatures. The video claims that for every captured calf, five adult elephants are killed while trying to protect their young.
Supply and Demand Endangers a Species
Though elephant hunting is illegal in Thailand, it is widely practised in neighbouring Burma, and an active smuggling has been documented as poor Burmese capture, break and sell the baby elephants for what is, to them, huge sums of money. With so much money involved in poor countries with corrupt officials, it is hardly surprising and profoundly depressing that 90% of Asian elephants have been lost in the past century.
The NGOs trying to halt the cruel capture and treatment of the elephants call for practical steps to at least regulate the trade in elephants to require earlier registration of captive-born calves and a DNA database to ensure that the few remaining wild Asian elephants stay both wild and protected by international efforts to enforce the law.
SURABAYA, Indonesia(AP) — The tigers are emaciated and the 180 pelicans packed so tightly they cannot unfurl their wings without hitting a neighbor. Last week, a giraffe died with a beachball-sized wad of plastic food wrappers in its belly.
That death has focused new attention on the scandalous conditions at Indonesia‘s largest zoo. Set up nearly a century ago in one the most biologically diverse corners of the planet, it once boasted the most impressive collection in Southeast Asia.
But today the Surabaya Zoo is a nightmare, plagued by uncontrolled breeding, a lack of funding for general animal welfare and even persistent suspicions that members of its own staff are involved in illegal wildlife trafficking.
The rarest species, including Komodo dragons and critically endangered orangutans, sit in dank, unsanitary cages, filling up on peanuts tossed over the fence by giggling visitors.
“This is extremely tragic, but of course by no means surprising in Indonesia’s zoos, given the appalling way they are managed on the whole,” said Ian Singleton, a former zookeeper who now runs an orangutan conservation program on Sumatra island.
The zoo came under heavy fire two years ago following reports that 25 of its 4,000 animals were dying every month, almost all of them prematurely.
The government appointed an experienced zookeeper, Tony Sumampouw, to clean up the operation and he struggled, with some success, to bring the mortality rate down to about 15 per month.
But following last week’s death of the 30-year-old giraffe “Kliwon” — who had for years been eating litter and trash thrown into its pen and was found with a 18-kilogram (40-pound) ball of plastic in its stomach — Sumampouw said he’s all but given up.
In this Sunday, March 11, 2012 photo, activists hold placards during a protest against the use of plastic bags, locally known as ‘kresek’ following the death of a giraffe who ingested pounds of plastic food wrappers at Surabaya Zoo in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Indonesia’s biggest zoo, once boasting one of the most impressive and well cared for collections of animals in Southeast Asia, is struggling for its existence following reports of suspicious animal deaths and disappearances of endangered species. (AP Photo/Trisnadi
In this Saturday, March 10, 2012 photo, a bengal white tiger which is missing an ear and suffers from a spinal problem lays inside a cage at the quarantine section of Surabaya Zoo in Surabaya, East Java, indonesia. Indonesia’s biggest zoo, once boasting one of the most impressive and well cared for Zoo’w
(APPhoto/Trisnadi
In this Saturday, March 10, 2012 photo, a moon bear which suffers from a skin tumor sits inside a cage at the quarantine section of Surabaya Zoo in Surabaya, . (AP Photo/Trisnadi)
DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS BLOG - SOME PICTURES & VIDEOS CAN & WILL BE VERY GRAPHIC - SO PLEASE, VIEW THIS BLOG AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
You can find out more about me & this blog by reading "ABOUT THIS BLOG" on the menu (when i finish it) lol
PLEASE NOTE.....
Not all of my posts will be current news, or even about animal abuse! I do like to share other animal news, uplifting stories or videos; some that are funny or just touch the heart!
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!
Lastly, my apologies for any errors; I am learning whilst posting, so if you find anything that doesn't work or a broken link, sorry, I'm only human!!!!
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.
Please note....all people mentioned in this blog, are presumed innocent, until proven otherwise, in a court of law.
For anyone wishing to connect to me via my Facebook page...PLEASE NOTE, ONLY PEOPLE I ADD AS ANIMAL ADVOCATES CAN SEE MY WHOLE PAGE...I do this out of respect for those friends I have who do not wish to see graphic images, videos or links of animal abuse!
As 99% of my page is animal related; anyone not in the above group of friends; will only see a limited amount of posts!!
DUE TO ANIMAL HATERS...I WILL ONLY ADD PEOPLE WHO CAN PROVE WHO THEY ARE via Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter etc. & WHO HAVE A GENUINE INTEREST IN ANIMAL WELFARE... i.e. if your Facebook page has absolutely nothing to do with animals, I see no point in joining my page. My Facebook is solely for animal welfare, I am not interested in playing games etc. I don't mean to sound rude but I am not interested in the amount of friends I have, its the quality of those friends that count.
PLEASE DO NOT SEND REQUESTS FOR YOUR FRIENDS TO JOIN. I do not want anyone to be upset by graphic images etc.
My aim is to educate & raise awareness to the horrors animals face, at the hands of humans, every day, around the world!!
We can not hope to achieve better laws, to protect animals, unless we unite as one, to speak up for those who are voiceless!!
.
Zoo’w
DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS BLOG - SOME PICTURES & VIDEOS CAN & WILL BE VERY GRAPHIC - SO PLEASE, VIEW THIS BLOG AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
STOP ANIMAL ABUSE 
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