The National Park Service in California are being sued for causing the agonising deaths of hundreds of Tule elk.
Over 150 elk have so far died from starvation and dehydration at Point Reyes National Seashore after they were prevented from travelling out of the drought-stricken area to find food and water. More are expected to succumb unless action is taken quickly. The park service leases public land which is in their care to cattle ranchers and in a bid to protect the financial interests of these wealthy tenants have erected a huge fence to prevent the elk 'competing' with cattle for food and water. Clearly, these cattle barons have no care for animals at all and are driven solely by profit. They breed cattle by the hundreds in order to slaughter them for a quick buck and in order to protect those profits they have no compunction about causing the suffering of other animals along the way. The National Park Service, on the other hand, aught to know better. They are tasked with protecting the land and the wildlife that lives there and are clearly failing to fulfil that responsibility. Although they have brought in a handful of water troughs, these have only been made available to one of the four herds of elk in the park at Tomales Point. The rest have been left to die after their usual water sources dried up in the drought. Elk typically live within half a mile or so of water as they need to drink around 4 gallons a day, as well as using it to cool off in. They will naturally travel 25 miles or more if water sources dry up. These elk were reintroduced here in 1978 after previously being hunted almost to extinction and the park service owe them a duty of care. Yet, as we see so often all over the world, the financial interests of the animal agriculture industry continue to be put before all else. So three California residents, along with the Animal Legal Defence Fund, are suing the park service for negligence in the San Francisco federal court. They fear that unless the service is forced to provide food and water for these fenced-in animals, many more will suffer and die. Chinese activists have rescued 68 dogs that were destined for Yulin dog meat festival.
The activists intercepted a truck headed for one of the Yulin slaughterhouses and found the 68 terrified animals on board. Having already endured a long road trip without food or water, the dogs were exhausted. Crammed tightly together in rusty wire cages in suffocating heat, panting and traumatised, many were in poor health. Some of the dogs showed signs that they were stolen family pets, such as clean, well cared-for teeth and offering their paws to the activists. Liang Jia is one of a new generation of activists in China who reflect a change in hearts and minds. She says the group had been waiting on authorities to set up checkpoints outside Yulin to stop inbound trucks and confiscate dogs, after a recent ruling by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs that dogs are companion animals and not “livestock” for eating. But after seeing truck after truck full of dogs passing them by, the activists couldn't stand by doing nothing any longer and flagged down the next approaching truck. After finding evidence that the dogs were stolen family pets for which the driver did not have the required paperwork, they persuaded him to hand over the dogs for rehoming. The dogs were taken to a temporary shelter to rest and recover and receive veterinary treatment. Now the pressure continues to eradicate the dog meat trade altogether. In 2010 approximately 15,000 dogs were killed during the core days of Yulin festival but campaigners have now reduced this number to around 3,000. However, many hundreds are also still killed in the weeks leading up to the festival. According to a 2017 survey conducted by Chinese state-registered charities and assisted by Yulin municipal government research staff, most people in China don't eat dog meat (around 70% never have) and more than half think the dog meat trade should be banned entirely. Two major cities in China, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, have banned the consumption of dog and cat meat but there are still 30 million dogs killed for their meat every year across Asia. However, as stunning and horrific as this figure is, it is still only a tiny fraction of the total number of animals killed for the meat trade worldwide. Pigs, for example, are every bit as sentient as dogs, feel pain just as dogs do, feel terror just as dogs do. Indeed, pigs are as intelligent as a three year old human toddler and there is no reason at all to believe they want to live any less than dogs do, yet they are killed in their hundreds of millions every year around the world. Cows, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys... the death toll is counted in billions, while fish and other sea animals are killed in such astronomical numbers that they cannot even be counted and are number in tons. So while we need to keep up the pressure against the Yulin festival and against the dog meat trade in general, we must also continue to campaign on behalf of all animals around the world, to fight against all cruelty and oppression and to spread the vegan message. Because, although it's easy for those of us who don't live in China to point the finger at Yulin and express moral outrage for a couple of weeks every June, we must not forget that we can have a much more direct and life-long influence by refusing to be a part of the wider animal agriculture industry. Being vegan makes a powerful impact and as more of us give up the consumption of meat and other animal products, we are creating a tsunami of compassion all around the world. If you are not yet vegan but care about animals enough that you want to make a difference, visit Challenge22.com and take that step. You won't regret it. A pregnant pig named Matilda has captured the hearts of the nation after escaping from a commercial farm and giving birth to a litter of beautiful piglets in a nearby woods near Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.
Matilda was destined to be slaughtered for the meat trade when she made her escape in a desperate bid to save herself and her babies. She managed to get as far as a nearby wood before giving birth to her new family and raising them there for about three weeks in secret. Despite having a cruel ring through her nose which stops her rooting for food, she stayed with her babies as she grew hungrier and hungrier, determined to care for them no matter what. It was there that she was spotted by a walker, Anna Aston and her dog Pugsley. Anna quickly contacted Brinsley Animal Rescue, a local animal sanctuary near the site, who agreed to give the happy family a permanent, safe and loving home where Matilda could bring up her piglets in peace. However, the farmer had other ideas. Before the sanctuary could rescue the pigs from the wood, they were recaptured by the farmer and taken back to Warren Farm, Haughton, Retford DN22 8DY so that Matilda could be slaughtered and her babies mutilated. It seems that for the farmer, who owns Wolds Farm Breeding Ltd and supplies Marks and Spencer with meat from those slaughtered pigs, profits come before principles. But Matilda had allies... Having been moved by her story, people were not about to let this happen. A petition was quickly set up to appeal for Matilda's release to the rescue centre, Marks and Spencer were lobbied to put pressure on the farmer and a demonstration was rapidly mobilised. And it worked! Within a very short space of time, eager to avoid any further adverse publicity, M&S spoke with their supplier, the farmer negotiated with Brinsley Animal Rescue and less than an hour before the demonstration was due to take place, it was confirmed that the whole family had been relocated to their temporary haven at the sanctuary and are soon go to a permanent home at Surge Sanctuary, safe and sound to live out their lives in peace, cared for by people who see them as individuals and not just products. Thank you to everyone involved - we did it! On June 19th 2021 it will be exactly one year since peace-loving animal rights activist Regan Russell was crushed to death by an angry lorry driver as she protested the cruel abuse of pigs outside Fearman's Pork slaughterhouse in Burlington, Ontario.
Vegan since 1985 and a passionate campaigner for animal rights, Regan was an active member of Toronto Pig Save and frequently attended vigils at the slaughterhouse, during which activists would give drinks of water to the pigs being taken into the abattoir to be murdered. Regan and her fellow Save Movement activists knew it was vitally important that someone be there to witness these daily shipments which are part of the ongoing holocaust against non-humans. They also knew the value of acts of compassion and mercy, trying to show these terrified, abused and soon-to-be-murdered victims that not all humans are monsters. Regan strove to make their last moments on earth a little more comfortable, a little less traumatic and to give the victims an experience of tenderness and care, however brief, that they had been denied their entire lives in the factory farms where they were reared. They also filmed their interactions with these shipments of death in an effort to make the world aware of what was going on here and in thousands of other slaughterhouses across the globe. With awareness comes choice - the choice whether to be a part of this holocaust against defenceless, innocent animals, or to be part of the solution. Regan showed people an alternative to the violence that is the meat industry and invited people to give up their addictions to animal flesh in favour of a more gentle, more compassionate, vegan lifestyle. On the morning of her death, like many times before, Regan was stood in full view of the lorry driver, who had stopped at the request of activists to give water to the pigs. There was a long-standing agreement between the Save Movement and the slaughterhouse that lorries would only be held up for two minutes. However, on this occasion it seems that even this was too long for the impatient driver. As soon as the two minutes was up, he accelerated across the junction and straight into Regan, dragging her body along the road under the wheels of his truck. She was dead long before the emergency services arrived. The shock and horror experienced by her companions on that terrible day quickly reverberated around the world. This was not the first time animal activists had been mown down and killed by animal abusers but, surely, this time there had to be some justice. Sadly, this has so far proved not to be the case. Despite multiple testimonies that Regan was in full view of the driver, he was merely charged with a traffic offence involving 'careless driving' as the courts refused to accept there was any ill intent on his part. To mark the first anniversary of the killing of Regan Russell, there will be three local events held this coming Friday and Saturday as well as memorial vigils around the world. Click here to find your nearest vigil. You can also watch the full documentary made about Regan's tragic death, 'There Was A Killing' on YouTube. We all know that tweets with images tend to get more engagement than plain text - tweets with videos even more so, but finding a continuous supply of high quality images and videos to engage your existing followers and grab the attention of new ones can be a challenge. To help provide a solution to this problem, I've shared three of my favourite sources of free images below. Each one provides a different type of content and you will probably have your favourite, depending on what kind of tweets you prefer, but they are all very valuable resources and I would recommend you use a mix of all three... Pexels Pexels contains thousands and thousands of photographs and videos which you are free to use for your social media posts, YouTube content, websites or pretty much anywhere else. I wrote about Pexels previously here and it's still one of my favourite resources. Many of the images really are of world class quality, from professional photographers seeking to showcase their work and gain more clients or commissions. Although most of them don't require you to credit them in any way, this is always a nice thing to do and is a great way to repay their kindness. Check out Pexels here. Canva Canva is a fantastic resource if you are wanting to post something more than just a photo or video because it allows you to add text and clip art, create infographics, marketing materials, physical print products, etc. There are tons of ready-made templates to choose from to give your creations a professional look and which you can also use to create your own branded style. Not all of the images are free, but plenty of them are and you can also upload your own images to the templates. Check out Canva here. The Vegan Truth Because most of the readers of this blog post will probably be my own Twitter followers, who are mostly vegans, I wanted to include this excellent resource. The Vegan Truth is a blog by M. 'Butterflies' Katz which includes 100 Vegan and Animal Rights Memes specifically sized for Twitter. 'Butterflies' happily shares these memes she creates in order to spread the vegan message and further the cause of animal liberation. She invites you to share them too and demands no credit or acknowledgement in return (but you can follow her on Twitter at @VeganPoet). Check out TheVeganTruth here. |