animalsrights

In Bara district, where the ‘living Buddha’ meditates, more than a million Hindus are preparing to sacrifice half a million animals during the festival of Gadhimai Mela. Actress Brigitte Bardot wants the inhumane practice stopped. More than 12,000 police agents are mobilised for the occasion.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – Hundreds of Buddhists and animal rights activists are protesting against the Hindu festival of Gadhimai Mela in Bayapur, Bara district (southeastern Nepal). During the event, half a million animals will be slaughtered. More than a million Hindu pilgrims are expected to gather for the occasion on 25 November. Nepali authorities have deployed more than 12,000 police officers.
Gadhimai Mela is one of the most important festivities on the Hindu calendar and the largest sacrificial happening in the world. It usually lasts a week, ending on the third Friday of November.

During the celebrations, the faithful sacrifice animals like buffaloes, sheep and chickens in honour of the god Gadhimai. According to Hindu belief, such offerings reduce the god’s anger, and bring people luck and prosperity.

However, Bara district is also a major Buddhist pilgrimage site. This is where Ram Bahadur Bomjan, known as the living reincarnation of the Buddha, meditates year round.

At present, hundreds of Buddhists and activists are praying with him to stop the animal sacrifice.

“The killing of animals in the name of sacrifice is the most serious crime. So it must be stopped immediately,” said Rinpoche Sange Rangjung, a Buddhist monk and protest leader. “In no religion are animal sacrifices prescribed”.

Demonstrators, who are backed by French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot, are calling on the Nepali government to legislate in the matter to ban the practice in the future.

The other day I found out you are allowed to put dogs on tredmills! I'm not sure if this is fair?

The elephant may be one of the national emblems of India, but animal-rights activists have long lamented the squalid conditions that most of the country’s captive jumbos endure.

Now the activists — and the animals — have cause to celebrate, after officials ruled that all of the elephants living in the country’s dingy zoos and dismal circuses must be moved to newly established “elephant camps” deep in the countryside.

The move, which came after a long-running campaign by animal-rights activists, will affect about 140 elephants in 26 zoos and 16 circuses across India, according to B. K. Gupta, an officer for the Central Zoo Authority (CZA).

It would be hard to begrudge them the prospect of a new life. In 2005, Peta, the campaign group, investigated 14 of India’s largest zoos. It reported “appalling neglect at every single facility”, including instances where hungry animals were forced to forage through rubbish for rotten food. It also discovered scores of animals that were given no shelter from India’s torrential monsoon rains and blazing sun.

Some of the worst abuses and most squalid conditions involved elephants. At the Aurangabad Municipal Zoo, Peta found that all of the elephants — animals that in the wild spend up to 18 hours a day roaming, feeding, bathing and socialising — were kept in a bleak concrete enclosure. One had both front legs tethered with a spiked chain, which “prevented him from moving more than a few shuffling steps in any direction”. After Rajkumar, an elephant at the Mumbai zoo, attacked his keeper, Peta filed a lawsuit complaining about his intensive confinement. The court ruled in the campaign group’s favour, and Rajkumar was moved to another zoo in 2007.

Such animals will now be re-homed in special “elephant camps”, which officials say will be established on protected land close to existing wildlife reserves. Under the plans, the transplanted animals may be put to work on eco-tourism projects and for patrolling tiger reserves.

There are doubts, however, over whether sufficient resources will be made available to provide for the newly moved elephants’ upkeep and protection — especially as other landmark projects, such as a drive to protect India’s shrinking tiger population, are failing dismally.

“Special facilities have to be created , which will add to the pressures faced by natural habitats,” said Raman Sukumar, a professor of ecology at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

There is also disappointment that the move will not affect the 3,500 elephants who live in captivity in temples, or who work lifting timber.

India has between 24,000 and 33,000 elephants in the wild — by far the largest population left in Asia, where wild animals have fallen prey to ivory poachers while their working cousins have steadily been replaced by trucks and tractors, leaving their handlers, or mahouts, dependent on begging.

Temple elephants, which are used in religious processions, often become scared by the large crowds that gather and run amok, trampling people. In the southern state of Kerala, 40 mahouts and 45 onlookers died in 2006.

There are signs that such incidents are stoking the realisation that India’s attitudes towards elephants will have to change as the country becomes increasingly urban. In 2007, the animals were banned from the city limits of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital after a series of accidents.

In 2006, an elephant named Laxmi was hit by a water tanker in the city. Because proper medical attention could not be provided, she suffered with her injuries for more than a day before dying. When another elephant in Mumbai was frightened by a fire cracker and fell onto a car, the mahout fled the scene. The elephant subsequently went on the rampage, requiring an entire platoon of paramilitary police troops to subdue her.

I've just read something and I need to vent my anger and sheer horror at this disgusting thing.

I've just read that fish are still alive, been half fried and eaten ALIVE.

This isn't a joke, this is real and I've just read the news paper article to prove it on the metro.

I really don't know who to contact about this and actually feel sicken that this practice is being carried out.

Fish are living creatures, they feel pain.

I'm actually shaken to the core after the reading the article.

I don't want to put the link on this blog. I don't want to advertise to these EVIL people.

Can someone please tell me what organisation covers this I haven't a clue, I do know, I'm not standing for it AT ALL.

Thank you for reading this blog and I hope that you help me STAMP out this sickening practice quickly. it's bad enough that lobsters are killed in boiling water, as well as oysters and mussells being eaten alive...

Thank you.

A recent outbreak of rabies on this otherwise idyllic island has seen government authorities rush headlong into a mass elimination programme – except they’re focussed on eliminating dogs, not rabies.

Although the government claims to have vaccinated 70,000 dogs, they have also reportedly killed around 20,000 – some of which are known to have been recently vaccinated. WSPA has been working with member society the Bali Animal Welfare Association (BAWA) to fight this.

The current situation
WSPA is now in Bali, joining local veterinarians and government officials in lobbying the authorities and asking intergovernmental organisations to support our call for a sustained mass dog vaccination programme to eradicate rabies – for good.

In just one week, our staff have already witnessed culling in two villages. We have seen local government officials lure dogs with strychnine-laced meat, or fire strychnine darts with blow pipes.

In both cases, the strychnine dosage paralysed the dogs almost instantly. They suffered massive convulsions for several minutes before succumbing to a horrific death.

Culling: not the answer
A year ago, in response to a few reported rabies cases, Bali’s Governor ordered a mass cull intended to ‘eliminate rabies’ from the island.

This was despite being made aware of international case studies proving that culling is ineffectual in preventing the spread of the virus and the fact that the World Health Organization supports mass dog vaccination as the best public health response to rabies.

Over 35,000 WSPA supporters took part in our online campaign (now closed), asking the Governor to put an end to this cruel response. The cull did stop, but only temporarily.
Renewed ‘fight’ against rabies
In October, WSPA received an urgent request for further help from BAWA, which runs several welfare programmes in Bali – population management, education, a veterinary and adoption clinic, an animal ambulance, and most recently, a rabies vaccination campaign hoping to prevent perfectly healthy dogs from being killed simply because they are ‘roaming’.

BAWA and WSPA are part of the Bali Rabies Forum, a coalition of animal welfare groups that has developed a series of recommendations to effectively control the spread of rabies through a sustained vaccination programme that would strike at the very root of the problem.

But at the first signs of another outbreak, the government has shown utter disregard for the evidence showing vaccination best halts the spread of rabies, and restarted the culling.

WSPA staff on the island, working with the Forum, are currently trying to reach authorities at the highest levels possible, presenting evidence from around the world – including from Flores, also in Indonesia – to prove that culling does not eliminate rabies.

Lack of balance misleads public
Pak Ineng, village headman, plays with a dog that he considers a pet, despite its roaming lifestyle
© WSPABali press carries almost daily stories about the ‘war against rabies’ – spelling out in macabre detail the number of dogs killed, accompanied by gruesome pictures of carcasses.

Hardly any reference is made to fact that culling has failed to control the spread of rabies in many locations.

In our conversations with Balinese people, WSPA has discovered a minority do support the culling programme, but only because they presume that there is no other way to protect themselves against rabies.

When told about the success rates of well-managed vaccination programmes, their stance changes – “Without the threat of rabies, of course we would want our dogs to live!”

Bali cares for its dogs
Ignoring modern evidence, the Balinese government is following a Dutch law dating from 1926, that recommends culling all ‘outside’ dogs (meaning any dogs that are not caged, chained or confined) as a means to control rabies.

But confined dogs are not the only ‘owned’ dogs in Bali.

Pak Ineng is the Klian Banjar (village headman) of Darmasaba in Padung residency. He has one pedigree pet dog, but cares for at least three other dogs that roam the streets in front of his home.

He says many village dogs are routinely fed and cared for and describes how villagers brought two or three street dogs each to a vaccination camp held earlier this year.

“They may not be in cages or on a leash, but these dogs are looked after. These dogs are ours,” he says.

Dear anya,

For most people, the sale of cats and dogs from animal shelters for use in laboratories seems like a barbaric practice from the distant past—as it should be. Shockingly, in some states homeless animals are still purchased from shelters and then used in cruel and painful experiments, even at seemingly reputable universities. PETA's newest investigation goes undercover inside the University of Utah to reveal the school's shocking experiments on homeless animals.

One of these animals was an affectionate orange tabby cat named Robert. University of Utah experimenters drilled a hole into his skull and implanted electrodes in his brain in order to run an electric current through it. The university also paid a shelter $20 for a skinny black-and-tan German shepherd mix named Lady. Lady's neck was cut open and a medical device was implanted as part of a cruel heart experiment. Kittens born to a cat purchased from a shelter had chemicals injected into their brains. All the kittens died during the course of the experiment.

In other experiments, mice were given enormous tumors and monkeys had holes drilled into their skulls. These monkeys were also kept constantly thirsty so that they would "cooperate" with experimenters in exchange for a few drops of water. These are just a few examples of the many instances of cruelty documented by PETA's undercover investigator at the University of Utah.

PETA is taking swift action by filing formal complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health alleging violations of federal law and noncompliance with federally mandated guidelines. We are also filing a criminal complaint with local law-enforcement officials. However, as long as any university or company continues to blind, poison, maim, torture, and kill animals, our job isn't done. PETA—and supporters like you—are often the only hope for these animals.

Please be a voice for the animals suffering in laboratories at the University of Utah. Urge the university to end the use of animals from shelters in its laboratories.

Thank you for speaking out for animals in laboratories. Your voice makes a difference to the countless helpless animals who have no voice.

Very truly yours,

down, the soft feathers that start out on geese and ducks -- who need them -- but end up in humans' pillows, comforters, and jackets, but only after we force much suffering on the birds, who are ultimately destined for violent slaughter.

Despite the fact that down and its victims do not generally get as much attention as other animal products and animal victims, animal activists have been stepping up and standing up for these birds noticeably recently. First, Ari Solomon wrote an excellent piece titled "Down with the Truth" at Huffington Post in late September, after listening to a Food for Thought podcast on the topic (which I'm afraid I haven't heard), and last week, my friend and animal advocate Marie from Texas shared a video on Facebook I'd never seen before -- showing the live-plucking. The latter is what reminded me that down still needs to be addressed in this space (thanks, Marie).

As Ari pointed out, people may assume that the feathers fall out, and humans merely collect them. But that's not at all how it happens. Explains Ari,

If you're taking feathers off a bird, there are two ways to do it: you can rip them off while the bird is still alive, or you can rip them off after the bird is dead. The feather industry considers feathers from live birds better quality, hence they're more valuable. So geese and ducks get "live-plucked" 3 to 4 times a year. This happens from the time they are 10 weeks until they're 4 years old. Then they're sent to slaughter for their flesh. Ducks and geese in the wild have a lifespan of 12-15 years.

They suffer through a life of repeated trauma, pain, and suffering, right up until brutal slaughter. And the similarities to (1) wool and "mutton" or "lamb" and (2) leather and "beef" (and, really, dairy and "veal" too, as well as eggs) are notable. The exploitation of and injury to animals for their wool, feathers, milk, and eggs and the killing of animals for their skin are tied up in the killing of animals for food. If you don't eat animals, but you still use down, wear leather or fur, or consume dairy and eggs, you're still a part of the processes. You're still creating demand and paying for these young animals' slaughter. The killing of animals for food is profitable not just because people will buy their flesh and milk -- but also because people will buy the other so-called products and byproducts of these industries. And whatever the animals are initially exploited for, they're always slaughtered in the end.

Back to specifically down: Down-alternative pillows and comforters are widely available and just as comfortable as those that depend on the suffering and killing of geese and ducks. Winter jackets with alternative fills, such as those made from recycled plastic bottles or bamboo fibers, will keep you just as warm. Please, for the birds, ditch the down.

Animal rights activists are pressuring the Indian and Nepalese governments to ban a mass sacrifice by Hindus of goats and other animals after 50,000 were killed in one week in one city alone.
Every 5 years hundreds of thousands of Hindu worshipers make a pilgrimage to temples dedicated to Kali, the goddess of destruction, and also Gadhimai, the Hindu goddess of power.
Many of these pilgrims offer animal sacrifices, mostly goats, to the Hindu god to stave off bad luck.
East Indian governments are under pressure to ban the practice.
One campaigner told the Austrian Times, "There are so many sacrifices now that they have started to affect the country's agriculture. There are whole farms devoted to raising goats for slaughter rather than producing food."
The religious festival, which has been celebrated for the past 300 years is scheduled to take place in the small village of Bariyapur in Nepal close to the Indian border.
For two days, November 24 and 25, the village will "flow with blood" as many travel from India for the world's biggest ritual slaughter of animals, reports AFP.
Animal Nepal is one such group that will pit themselves against Hindu worshipers to stop what they call senseless cruelty to animals and they have also launched an online petition calling on the banning of the practice.
In an interview with AFP, Pramada Shah, director of campaign group Animal Nepal said, "We launched our campaign to put a stop to the gruesome killing of animals in the name of God. Even in the 21st century, innocent animals are facing cruel treatment due to people's superstition."
The campaign to stop the slaughter did receive a boost this year when Ram Bahadur Bomjam, nicknamed "Buddha Boy" by Nepalese media said, "Human beings have turned brutal by offering animal sacrifices to the goddess. This practice must be stopped now."
Bomjam is a young Nepalese man who is believed to be the reincarnation of Buddha by his followers, reports AFP.

Some states in India have outlawed the slaughter making the event in Nepal hugely popular.
The temple of Gadhimai's head priest, Mangal Chaudhary Tharu said in an AFP interview that the last festival in 2004 saw approximately 800,000 attendees with over 400,000 animals being sacrificed, and he expects the crowds to be even larger this year.
Tharu said, "We are not forcing devotees to sacrifice animals. It is an age-old practice and it must continue. The festival will lose its charm and become meaningless if we break with tradition."
The Nepalese government has allotted $60,000 for this year's festival.