Rosemary Donovan outside Mandurah Magistrate’s Court, Western Australia today after being found guilty of 24 counts of animal cruelty.
[Photo by ABC News]
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The RSPCA is calling for a West Australian woman to be banned from ever owning animals again after she was found guilty of animal cruelty.
Rosemary Muriel Donovan was charged after RSPCA inspectors visited her residential property in Coodanup, south of Perth, in July 2011.
The inside of the house, where the birds and cats were living, was in a filthy condition. There they found about 80 animals in what the society has described as “seriously appalling conditions” at her residential Coodanup property.
RSPCA inspectors said they found 30 cats in the living room, faeces on the floor and the smell of ammonia so strong that one inspector had to leave the house because he felt sick. Among the animals RSPCA inspectors found an aviary where a rabbit was found walking over dead budgies lying on the floor. Dead guinea pigs were also found on the floor in some of their cages.
Former RSPCA inspector Nat McWhinney said the stench in the house reminded her of a piggery. Another former inspector, Ken Ostle, claimed there were guinea pigs and birds in cages in some bedrooms of the house. He said there were 50 birds and some rabbits in aviaries in the backyard.
The court was told about cats allegedly riddled with mites, fleas and ringworm. Witnesses for the prosecution described a rabbit with an infected eye and another rabbit with wounds.
RSPCA inspectors said the cats had ringworm and fleas, the guinea pig cage had dead animals on the floor, and birds were kept in cages that were too small.
The RSPCA says the animals did not have sufficient food or water. The RSPCA has called for a large fine and a ban on Rosemary Donovan owning any more animals.
Donovan is facing five years in prison or a $50,000 fine after being found guilty of 24 counts of cruelty. She will be sentenced on Friday.
Common Wombat
(Vombatus ursinus)
A legally protected native animal throughout Australia
[Source: Healesville Sanctuary, Victoria, Zoos Victoria,
^http://www.zoo.org.au/healesville/animals/wombat]
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June 2013:
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Tragically, a native Wombat has been deliberately poisoned this month in Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains, and so the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is appealing for information from the local community.
Ranger Neil Stone of the NPWS Blue Mountains Region:
“A Wombat was recently found at Mount Wilson village (population 220), suffering from what a local veterinarian thinks was poisoning and sadly the animal had to be euthanized.
“Wombats become unpopular with landholders when they damage fences and infrastructure or trample on gardens. But there are methods, including installing Wombat Gates, that enable Wombats to pass through properties without damaging them.”
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An example of a purpose-built Wombat Gate
If one can afford property at exclusive Mount Wilson with average prices currently $750,000 [^Source]
then one can afford to contribute a few purpose-built Wombat Gates across their property,
constructed by wildlife experts who know what they are doing!
[Photo Source: Rocklily Wildlife Refuge, Taralga, NSW, ^ http://rocklilywombats.com/blog/rocklily-history/]
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NPWS Ranger Neil Stone:
“Wombats are extremely strong and determined, constructing their burrows (often under homes) to escape from the heat and to hide from predators (typically domestic and feral dogs nowadays). The burrows can be up to 30 metres long which can cause conflict between Wombats and humans.”
“Wombats and all other native animals are protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 and Regulations and it is illegal to harm them without a licence. There are fines and possible imprisonment for people found to have intentionally harmed native wildlife.”
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[Source: ‘Not so divine: Wombat dies in suspected poisoning’, 20130612, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper (print only), p.15]
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Wildlife Poisoning is Animal Harm
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Wombats being mammals are sentient animals, meaning that they feel emotion and pain. An animal is ‘sentient‘ if it is capable of being aware of its surroundings, its relationships with other animals and humans, and of sensations in its own body, including pain, hunger, heat or cold.
Individuals who harm animals including the harming of wildlife such as by poisoning, tend to harbour a personality disorder. Statistically, animal abusers are five times more likely to go on to commit violent crimes against people.
Deviant behaviors like animal abuse generally originate from a traumatic childhood. The American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty as one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.
The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) defines conduct disorder as “a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age appropriate societal norms or rules are violated.” Conduct disorder is found in those who abuse animals and abuse people.
Clinical evidence indicates that animal cruelty is one of the symptoms usually seen at the earliest stages of conduct disorder, often by the age of eight. This information has only recently been included in the DSM so some psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers are just now becoming aware of it. Many psychological, sociological and criminology studies in recent decades have clearly shown that violent offenders have adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty.
Director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia, Jason Baker, has said, “We believe that cruelty to animals is not inherent, but learned. That being said, teaching kindness and respect for animals – in our schools and homes – will foster empathy, the ability to understand what someone else feels.” He added, “Incorporating the simple concepts of kindness and respect into our daily lives and teaching our children to respect and protect even the smallest and most despised among us will help kids value one another.”
The link between animal abuse and interpersonal violence is becoming so well established that many U.S. communities now cross-train social-service and animal-control agencies in how to recognize signs of animal abuse as possible indicators of other abusive behaviors. >>
Martin Bryant as a teenager nursing a juvenile Wombat
Bryant reportedly tortured animals as a child.
In 1996, at age 29 Bryant murdered 35 people and injured 21 others
at Port Arthur Tasmania
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Penalties in NSW for Harming protected Fauna
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Sect 98 ‘Harming protected fauna, other than threatened species, endangered populations or endangered ecological communities’
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(Ed: i.e. Wombats)
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(1) In this section, protected fauna does not include threatened interstate fauna, threatened species, endangered populations, endangered ecological communities, or locally unprotected fauna under section 96.
(2) A person shall not:
(a) harm any protected fauna, or (a1) harm for sporting or recreational purposes game birds that are locally unprotected fauna, or
(b) use any substance, animal, firearm, explosive, net, trap, hunting device or instrument or means whatever for the purpose of harming any protected fauna.
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Maximum penalty:
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(a) 100 penalty units and, in a case where protected fauna is harmed an additional 10 penalty units in respect of each animal that is harmed, or
(b) imprisonment for 6 months, or both. >>
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Note: As at 2013, 1 penalty unit in NSW equates to $110. So 100 +10 penalty units incurs a fine of $12,100 per protected Wombat harmed [Calculation: (100 + 10) x $110]
It is likely that Mount Wilson’s Wombat was poisoned by an ignorant and frustrated local landholder. He is one of just a few hundred residents living at remote Mount Wilson village, and probably he is some arrogant newcomer with no respect for the natural environment or its resident wildlife who were there first. It is extremely rare for a female to commit wildlife poisoning.
The perpetrator is likely to be someone holding an Anglicised mindset toward rural property, desiring the exotic deciduous garden and with a phobia towards the natural Australian bush. Whereas the more established residents tend to be respectful towards the special environment in which they live and have become more accommodating towards the place’s resident wildlife.
Mount Wilson lies in a remote forested wilderness region of the Blue Mountains
And the native Wombats have lived there thousands of years before
Colonial DeforestationHousing DevelopmentAnglicised Garden Romanticism
[Source: Google Earth]
(click image to enlarge)
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Mount Wilson Best described as a remote hilltop residential hamlet Situated on an ancient volcanic hill Since the 1870s, logged, burned and settled by English colonists amongst the ‘Wombat Holes’
[Source: Google Earth]
(click image to enlarge)
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Hillcrest Lane (right), Mount Wilson
[Source: Google Maps, 2013]
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Mount Wilson before the Anglicising
[Source: Mt Wilson/Mt Irvine Historical Society, ^http://www.mtwilson.com.au/]
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Consistent with the profile of the typical member of the Game Council NSW, the perpetrator is likely to be a middle-aged or older male Babyboomer approaching 65, having an anthropocentric worldview of Nature, and an evangelistic belief that economic growth and personal wealth accumulation is a right – Wombats being collateral damage in rural housing development.
Mount Wilson bushland
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The perpetrator has not yet been confirmed, and anyone with information about this harmful offence is asked to contact the closest NPWS base at the Blue Mountains Heritage Centre in nearby Blackheath.
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NPWS Blue Mountains Heritage Centre
Located towards the eastern end of Govetts Leap Road
outside the nearby township of Blackheath
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The ‘Common‘ Wombat?
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The Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) is also known as the Coarse-Haired Wombat or Bare-Nosed Wombat. In the case of the Bare-Nosed Wombat, this reference to its nose, distinguishes it from its other two subspecies, the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) and the endangered Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii).
The ‘Common Wombat‘ is a nocturnal marsupial native to south eastern Australia and is found in small sections of southeast tip of Queensland, eastern New South Wales, eastern and southern Victoria, and south-east South Australia. They are common throughout Tasmania and also on Flinders Island in Bass Strait.
The head of the Common Wombat is more rounded than that of the hairy-nosed subspecies. Their short ears are triangular and slightly rounded. Their nose is large, shiny black and furless. Their fur is coarser, thicker and longer than that of the Hairy-nosed Wombats, better suited to a colder, wetter habitat. Fur colour varies from sandy to brownish black or even grey, sometimes flecked.
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Bare-Nosed Wombat
a more respectful naming than ‘Common’
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Wombats have short legs, and the second and third toes of the hind feet are fused, with a double claw used in grooming. Wombats are solid and stocky, with short legs and tail. Their front legs and shoulders are powerful. Their front feet are large, with bear-like long claws. They use their front legs for digging burrows. The dirt is pushed to one side and the Wombat backs out, moving loose dirt with front or back paws. It grows to an average of 98 cm long and up to a healthy weight of 26 kg.
Wombats are stilll classed as ‘least concern’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (on the IUCN ‘red list’). [Ed: So were the Koala and Tasmanian Devil until recently].
At Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria, more than 2,000 sick and injured native animals treated each year including Wombats at its Australian Wildlife Health Centre.
Situated on Badgers Creek
A place of inspiration to this Editor,
when visited as a child.
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Although Wombats have been named by European Australians as the ‘Common Wombat‘, their numbers and their existence value does not translate to anyone treating them as commonplace.
Common Wombats were once widespread from south-eastern Queensland, through NSW along the Great Dividing Range and most of Victoria. Now they have a fragmented distribution in NSW, being most abundant in the south-eastern parts of the state. Remaining populations are under continued pressure from land clearing, road mortality, disease and illegal shooting. These pressures may be acute for some local populations.
While the word ‘Wombat’ is derived from the Aboriginal name for the animal, ‘common’ was added at a time when these animals were plentiful and the Australian bush landscape relatively less destroyed by colonial settlement. Wombats were likened to European Badgers by the early colonists.
We prefer the more respectful name, ‘Bare-Nosed Wombat‘.
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In 2010, university student Nikki Selles, from the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Western Sydney, undertook a field fauna study on Wombats in the Mt Wilson and Mt Irvine area. Due to the behaviour of slow moving, ground-dwelling Wombats being sensibly shy and noctural, Selles used camera-trap data to identify their habitat and distribution in the urban-bush interface.
Results ought to be obtainable from the university.
While the Bare-Nosed Wombat is not yet threatened with extinction, the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat is endangered. This is mainly due to overgrazing by sheep and cattle destorying their fragile semi-arid habitat across more central Australia, as well as the culture of broadscale hazard reduction and uncontrolled bushfires.
Mount Wilson also provides vital native habitat for fauna species that are recognised as endangered. These include the Sooty Owl (Tyto tenebricosa), the Eastern Bent Wing Bat (Miniopterus schreibersii oceanensis), the Large eared pied bat (Chalinolobus dwyeri), Little John’s Tree Frog (Litoria littlejohni), and the Eastern False Pipistrelle (Falsistrellus tasmaniensis).
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Living with Resident Wombats
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Wombats are locally territorial, like HumansTry to relocate them, and they will stubbornly resist – even after repeated flood, drought, bushfire and earthquakeAsk any Human who has endured such tempest.
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<<Wombats are an iconic part of the protected fauna of NSW. They are extremely strong and determined animals.
They can build their burrows under Human-introduced houses, driveways and cattle stock routes. This may cause Humans inconvenience and conflict between Wombats and non-Indigenous Humans.
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But Newcomer Humans need to respect that Wombats were there first.
Who likes Invasion or Displacement?
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Human-Wombat conflicts can be respectfully resolved and accommodated by wisdom – by learning about the behaviour of Wombats and understanding their habitat needs.
The Bare-Nosed Wombat is the species most frequently found in NSW. They prefer temperate forested areas of the coast, ranges and western slopes. Slopes above creeks and gullies are favoured sites for burrows and they like to feed in grassy clearings, including farm paddocks.
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Wombat Habitat Needs
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Wombats construct burrows to escape the heat and hide from predators. They prefer areas where it is easy for them to dig. The burrows can be up to 30 metres long and several metres deep and are usually situated above creeks and gullies and may have multiple entrances. Active burrows are often characterised by fresh cube-shaped droppings and scratch marks as well as freshly dug soil at the burrow entrance. Wombats will often build more than one burrow within their home range of 5 to 25 hectares.
Wombats are mostly solitary animals, but overlapping home ranges can occasionally result in a number of Wombats using the same burrow. Wombats are possessive about their particular feeding grounds and they will mark out these areas by leaving scent trails and droppings. These markings are prominently placed on rocks and logs around the boundaries. If an intruding Wombat encroaches on another’s territory it will be discouraged through a series of snorts and screeches and at times physical aggression.
Breeding occurs year-round with each female typically producing one young. In some areas, however, Wombats are seasonal breeders and may have dependent young in burrows from April to June. Young Wombats take up to 21 months to reach full independence and two years to become sexually mature.
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Wombat Behaviour
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Wombats become unpopular with landholders when they damage fences and infrastructure or trample upon gardens. Undetected burrows can be a hazard to livestock as they may trip or fall into burrows and injure themselves.
Many of the problems caused by Wombats can be resolved with some patience and innovation. Landholders willing to share their property with Wombats may find that there are simple solutions to most problems. For example, a post or small strand fence can be used to mark burrows in paddocks or driveways to keep stock away from burrow entrances.
Wombats use the same trails to get to and from their preferred feeding areas. Instead of going around an obstacle, such as a fence, a determined Wombat will try to go through, or under it instead. Installing purpose-built ‘Wombat Gates’ at known Wombat breech points along a fence will allow them to pass through a fence without damaging it. The fence needs to continue to exclude other animals such as wallabies, rabbits and foxes.
Removing the lowest fencing wire (15 cm above ground level) will also allow Wombats to move through an area without damaging the fence. This is a much cheaper option than excluding them completely.
Check first with a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
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Excluding wombats from Rural Property
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It is possible to exclude Wombats from continuing to use a burrow that is under a building but this requires intervention by a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
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Increasing Native Vegetation
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Wombats prefer to burrow in areas of vegetation and rocky debris. Land clearing has forced Wombats to build burrows along creeks and drainage lines where vegetation still exists. Wombats are also often incorrectly blamed for causing erosion, which is more likely due to poor land management practices.
Planting trees and revegetating areas away from creeks can play a vital role in reducing Wombat burrowing activity along creek beds. Retaining existing trees, logs and rocks, and establishing new areas of native vegetation encourages Wombats to construct burrows in less fragile areas and reduces the risk of erosion.
Check first with a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
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Trapping or Relocating Wombats Prohibited
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The trapping and relocation of Wombats is prohibited and attracts heavy fines.
Wombats are territorial animals and if relocated, they are likely to be harassed or even killed by resident Wombats. Wombats are classified as protected fauna under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
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Can I bulldoze or infill a Wombat burrow?
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No! Only inactive Wombat burrows may be destroyed, but each one needs to be first validated by a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
Bulldozing an active burrow can lead to wombats being buried alive and suffering a slow and painful death. Even if you have located an apparently vacant burrow, you must not fill it in without confirming that it is inactive. Burrow activity can be confirmed by placing sticks across each entrance and checking (every day for at least a week) if these are disturbed.
Remember that if you think you have an inactive burrow, check first with a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
contact your local National Parks office for expert verification before any action.
<< In Australia native animals are “the property of the Crown”. This means that no-one owns wombats, they can’t be kept as pets and to do anything with them you have to be licensed by government departments.
Government Departments do little to protect or help wombats. Most research and all welfare (rescuing injured wombats, raising the joeys of mothers killed in collisions with vehicles, removing wombats from unsuitable places) is undertaken by voluntary organizations. While penalties exist if someone is found to hurt or kill a wombat, the same government departments charged with wombat care issue permits to farmers to cull wombats. Sadly, there is often no check whether this is necessary, whether it is done humanely or any insistence that alternative options be employed before issuing such permits.
On the other hand although penalties exist for the illegal killing of wombats, such killing occurs every night where on a farms they are shot, buried alive and gassed and on the highways of Australia vehicles indiscriminately drive directly at wombats without penalty. Live joeys left in their dead mother’s pouches die slowly and a lack of public education means few Australians understand how to rescue a joey still living after its mother falls victim to road kill. >>
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The Crown
Disinterested in protecting Australian wildlife
The kangaroo and emu images are but token symbolism
<<The Wombat Foundation is a charitable organisation set up to support activities that aim to bring the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat back from the brink of extinction.
The Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat is one of the world’s most endangered species – it is more endangered that the Panda.
In the 1980s, there were as few as 35 wombats remaining on the planet – all at Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland. A second population was established at Richard Underwood Nature Refuge in southern Queensland in 2009. At last count, in 2010, there were a total of 176 wombats across the two sites. Since then, the population has continued to grow: in 2012, the combined population at the two sites was estimated at 200 wombats. >>
<<We are a charity established to help save the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) from extinction.
The wombat is an Aussie icon but few people are aware of the peril these gorgeous little animals face: drought, floods, climate change, disease, vehicular incidents and culling – both legal and illegal. It’s not rocket science to see these animals are in trouble but thanks to the work of WAO volunteers, there is hope!
Currently, the wombats are being affected by an unidentified disease outbreak. The visual symptoms are hair loss and emaciation, internally the wombats are anemic and in some cases there is liver damage and heart disease. The direct cause is unknown however it is suspected that due to an increase in weeds there is a decrease in food availability therefore the wombats are forced to eat what they can most of which unfortunately is toxic. >>
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[7] WIRES
NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service Inc.
<<This website is about Rocklily Wildlife Refuge, and a few other wildlife carers we know in Australia too. Providing a safe place for our native flora and fauna and the various wildlife projects we are undertaking can be an expensive business, so we sell reasonably priced, quality Australian-made gifts and artisan products to raise money for our wildlife projects.
..This website has come about with our move to Rocklily Wildlife Refuge: a safe place for wild native animals just inside the SW border of the Greater Blue Mountains National Park, and within the locked gate of the Sydney Water Catchment. >>
<<Healesville Sanctuary, or the Sir Colin MacKenzie Fauna Park, is a zoo specializing in native Australian animals. It is located at Healesville in rural Victoria, Australia (east of Melbourne), and has a rare history of successfully breeding Australia’s native animals.
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[9] People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
‘The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness’, 20120707, by Philip Low, Paper presented at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-Human Animals, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, England, ^http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
<< In 2012, an international group of eminent neuroscientists signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which confirmed that many animals, including all mammals and birds, possess the “neurological substrates that generate consciousness.” >>
Australian cattle with no pasture, no water, no shade, in baking desert heat. Typical is the wrath of Northern Australian Cattle Farmers.Southern Australian Cattle Farmers would never allow this treatment to their prized herds.
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<<The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, has joined Lyn White from Animals Australia ( ^http://www.animalsaustralia.org/ ) to release new footage of cruelty to Australian livestock exported to Egypt and announce another attempt to progress legislation to ban the trade.
Mr Wilkie said his Bill would phase out live exports in three years, as well as immediately impose mandatory stunning of Australian livestock slaughtered overseas.
Mr Wilkie:
“The live export industry is systemically cruel, opposed by the vast majority of Australians and not in our economic interests. This latest evidence of horrific animal cruelty in Egypt demonstrates that this trade will never have appropriate animal welfare outcomes and must be stopped.
I have given formal notice of my intention to introduce the Live Animal Export (Restriction and Prohibition) Bill 2013 into Federal Parliament. A similar Bill was rejected by the Government and Opposition in August 2011. Since then we have seen shocking evidence of more live export cruelty in Kuwait, Pakistan, Israel, Egypt and Indonesia.
It is my hope that the Government and Opposition will now see sense and support the end of this cruel trade.”>>
Outback Queensland depends upon the inflated outback cost of diesel to freight cattle hundreds of kilometres to abattoirs or to port for live export
Australia’s native northern has since colonial times been abused, overgrazed, broadscale burned uncontrollably until the savannah has become desert
Seasonal drought has struck northern Australia’s savannah yet again, like in 2011 and many times prior – nothing new there.
Greedy cattle farmers have built up excess herds, creating over-supply in cattle at meatworks, meaning cattle prices have plummeted below the cost of getting them to market
Indonesia’s live export market was always a short term option as Indonesia built its own herds to a point of self-sufficiency – no news there
Starved cattle stock with visible bony ribs are currently selling for $20 a head at Longreach. It happened before in the 1974 beef crash – no lessons learnt from that.
Western Queensland land values have slumped and northern and western Queensland stations — like their excess cattle — are virtually impossible to sell
Australia’s rural sector is now weighed down with $66 billion of combined debt, many cattle farmers are in a debt crisis and marginial equity in properties
Bankers are now starting to call in debts, especially in the north, triggering a new round of station sales and mortgagee auctions.
Three of Australia’s biggest cattle companies, Macquarie Agricultural Fund’s Paraway Pastoral, the stock-exchange listed Australian Agricultural Company and North Australian Pastoral Company have already written down the value of their vast portfolios by a combined $80m.
AACo announced yesterday that fast-falling cattle prices had forced a $43m writedown of the value of its 600,000-head herd.
The Cattle Council of Australia yesterday warned that this week’s disastrous $20-a-head sale prices had created a critical situation.
“These prices are indicative of the critical conditions our northern producers are experiencing; unseasonably dry conditions, suppressed market conditions and the continued fallout from the live trade suspension,” CCA president Andrew Ogilvie said. “I fear that the situation will continue to get worse.”
A survey by rural bankers Rabobank this week reflected widespread fears of approaching drought. It showed 37 per cent of farmers had lost confidence in the future and expect the next year ahead to be tougher than the past 12 months. About one third expect to suffer a fall in income in 2013-14.>>
Ain’t a farmer’s duty to leave a place better than how one found it?
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Not looking good.Generations of Cattle Overgrazing of Australia’s Northern Savannah has decimated it to desert.It’s similar to the 1930s dustbowlers of the American midwest; farmers abused the land and now they expect charity?Snap out of the family history dogma. While you have life and limb, relocate to reliably greener pastures!
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[Ed: A previous image here has been removed by us upon becoming aware of its alleged copyright. We obtained the image from the Internet and there were no copyright notices. We noted multiple copies attributable to different sources. Nevertheless we have removed the image immediately and offer our apologies to the owner/s of the image.]
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Australian Drought Every Decade
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Australia is subject to seasonal drought commonly at intervals of 11 to 14 years. This has nothing to do with Climate Change theory. Think more El Niñoand the varying Pacific Ocean currents and temperatures. The pattern is historically consistent since at least colonisation and probably through millennia.
Major droughts have included 1803, 1809-10, 1813-15, 1826-29, 1835, 1838-39, 1846, 1849-50, 1864-66, 1868, 1877, 1880-86, 1888, 1902, 1911-15, 1918-20, 1937-47, 1965-68, 1982-83, 1991, 1994-2006, 2013.
Australia is the driest continent on Earth. Don’t rural Australian kids get that drummed into them in primary school? Northern Australia’s vast and dry savannah country, inland and west of the Divide is marginal at best for pasture, let alone cropping. Yet after a few bouts of rain, short term memory kicks in. The marginal farmer’s false hope of good timely rain is legendary chronic folklore full of wishful thinking, short term memory loss and denial of Australia’s weather.
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Occasional rain has become the Marginal Farmer’s Pyrite – fool farmer’s gold.
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Overgrazing
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One of the risks associated with arid and semi-arid grazing systems in particular, is land degradation as a result of overgrazing. Overgrazing can be defined as the practice of grazing too many livestock for too long a period on land unable to recover its vegetation, or of grazing ruminants on land not suitable for grazing as a result of certain physical parameters such as its slope.
Overgrazing exceeds the carrying capacity of a pasture. However there may be other factors involved or contributing to apparent overgrazing such as climate change. Overgrazing often results in soil erosion, the destruction of vegetation, and other problems related to these processes.
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Overgrazing is repeating the US Dustbowl of the ’30s
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<<Extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains in the preceding decade had displaced the natural deep-rooted grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. Rapid mechanization of farm implements, especially small gasoline tractors and widespread use of the combine harvester, were significant in the decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.
During the drought of the 1930s, without natural anchors to keep the soil in place, it dried, turned to dust, and blew away with the prevailing winds>>
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The glut of unwanted cattle is a symptom of an industry run by incompetents. Cattle farmers who put their trust in government and industry big wigs do so at their peril.
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Australia has only 6% Arable Land
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<<The Arable land (% of land area) in Australia was 6.14 in 2009, according to a World Bank report, published in 2010.
Arable Land includes land defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as ‘land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted once), temporary meadows for mowing or for pasture, land under market or kitchen gardens, and land temporarily fallow‘. Land abandoned as a result of shifting cultivation is excluded.>>
Case Study of Good Rainfall and Sustainable Location
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Corumbene Brangus Cattle
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<<At Corumbene Brangus we are dedicated to producing the type of stock that you would be proud to have in your herd. We have taken the time to assess, improve and adapt our breeding herd to the Southern Australian climate and producing cattle of distinction and character that we love.
Our property is situated in the Western District of South West Victoria. We have a high average rainfall of about 30″, with temperature ranging from mid 40’sC (104 Fahrenheit) in summer to low minus in winter. Our pastures are predominately rye and clover kept productive with an extensive pasture renovation and soil conditioning program.
Corumbene Brangus cattle are raised solely on these healthy pastures. Brangus cattle are known for their ability to excel on pasture alone with early finishing and easy fleshing ability no matter what season or time of the year, in all our weather extremes. We calve down during Spring (August-October) each year.>>
Observations about MLA’s herded strategy for Northern Australia
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1. Putting all cattle into a single export market to Indonesia is poor strategy – remember that proverb, don’t put all your eggs in one basket – what action has been taken to develop other export markets?
2. Indonesia has long indicated to Australia that it is breeding towards self-sufficiency in its own live cattle supply, so the decrease in live cattle demand was on the cards, to eventually dry up.
3. Northern Australia’s drought and flood cycle is not new. Farmers must have been aware of the likelihood of drought following the floods of the past four years, so why risk excessive stock?
4. Poor quality control of live export to ensure Australian standards were being met was slack. The strategic risk of discovery of cruel abuse of cattle by an Indonesian abattoir was high. So given that risk, the Meat and Cattle Association (MLA) should have been proactive and diligent in ensuring such abuse was not possible. When abuse is systemic it is only a matter of time before it would be publicly exposed. And the likely consequences of a trade shut down would be been reasonably forseeable.
5. Aside from the above live export has an ongoing record or cruelty and abuse under industry self regulation. So it is always going to be high risk from a social stakeholder perspective. Those who live by the sword…
6. In Australia, in any industry – media, agriculture, mining, forestry- self-regulation never works to the standard expected of Australian society.
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We have no sympathy for the industry. May the northern Australian cattle industry linked to live trade go bankrupt as it morally deserves.
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Once a farmer can inflict such upon his stock, he possesses such evil to do so the same to his children Criminal bastardry deserves criminal justice.
<<She won’t mind if the place we stand is marked by ash.
She believes what doesn’t kill her only takes more time to kill her.
Then she smiles as she paints her lips and does her lashes.
Stunning as a taxidermy victim in a silver cage.
I’m arrested by an aria brought from the country.
Stuck in dumb amazement like a dog who’s told to levitate.
This smash number-one goes to her lover in the belfry,
Singing like a bird in flames and headed for the window pane.
In the coming years, let’s try and milk a fortune off them.
I think we’re qualified by now.
Alouette, gentille alouette.
Head to toe so thoroughly until we’re both dismembered.
Alouette, gentille alouette.
Naá¯ve, yes, but none the worse, spinning glue back into horses.
I’ll never leave the place where you are.
Hand-in-hand into a rented car.
Merrily into the abattoir.
Spilling out all over, I’ll be Noah on the storm.
And two-by-two in love we’ll speed back into bed and never leave it.
In the coming years, let’s try and milk a fortune off them.
I think you’re qualified by now.
Alouette, gentille alouette.
Head to toe so thoroughly until we’re both dismembered.
Alouette, gentille alouette.
Naá¯ve, yes, but none the worse, spinning glue back into horses.
Alouette, gentille alouette.
Head to toe so thoroughly until we’re both dismembered.
Alouette, gentille alouette.
Alouette, gentille alouette.>>
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[Source: The Pernice Brothers’, Cruelty To Animals’]
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[Ed: My father’s family heritage was sheep farming in Victoria’s west dry marginal Wimmera and our sheep farming roots extended back to 18th Century England. That tradition ended under tragic circumstances near Stawell in 1942; yet in hindsight, subsequent generations of our family are far better for it. Relocating takes more guts than putting up. Honour is more deserving of our future generation; the oldies should understand.]
Australia’s live animal trade cannot be trusted. Animal cruelty offence after offence ignored by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) has become recidivist.
This organisation has not only neglected the welfare of Australian animals to slaughter time and again, it has sacrificed the standards of the Australian industry it supposedly represents.
Australian farm animals are being shipped live overseas to be tortured by cultures below Australian morality.
Australia’s entire live export industry needs to be shut down for it systemically being complicit in persistent animal cruelty and immorality.
If that means Australian participating farmers and their families go broke, so be it. Australian farmers complicit in this immoral, unscrupulous and unaccountable trade are unworthy of profiting from it. They are no better than those of previous centuries who profitted out of the misery of the human slave trade or the child sex trade.
Australia’s Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Joe Ludwig, ultimately responsible needs to be sacked for recklessly presiding over repeated Australia’s agricultural trade immorality and for his gross incompetence in failing to address systemic animal cruelty for now years.
Senator Joe Ludwig’s legacy of prevailing over an immoral trade and doing nothing but allow it to perpetuate
The entire Meat and Livestock Australia Board of Directors needs to be sacked:
Chairman, Robert Anderson
Managing Director, Scott Hansen
Director, Michelle-Allen
Director, Lucinda Corrigan
Director, Greg Harper
Director, Christine-Gilbertson
Director, Geoff-Maynard
Director, John-McKillop
Director, Peter Trefort
Director, Rodney-Watt
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Dodgy Ships, Dodgy Trade
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WARNING: THE FOLLOWING VIDEOS CONTAIN IMAGES OF ANIMAL CRUELTY
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‘Indonesian torture of Australian Cattle in June 2011’
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‘Shocking undercover live export investigation: Tnuva, Israel‘
<<New vision obtained by Fairfax appears to show cruelty to cattle in Israel, one of the countries to which Australia exports its livestock.
Fresh evidence of cruel treatment of Australian livestock in foreign markets has raised new doubt about the ability of the government and industry to ensure the welfare of animals exported for slaughter.
Footage obtained by The Age shows filth-covered cattle being belted with spike-tipped poles as they are unloaded from a cramped truck in Israel. More than 43,000 cattle were exported there in 2010.
It comes as cattle exports to Vietnam are about to resume after a seven-year break, raising concern among Labor backbenchers and Animals Australia because of Vietnam’s animal welfare record.
An image taken from the video appears to show cattle being belted with spike-tipped poles.
The film, shot by Israeli group Anonymous for Animal Rights on August 12, shows cattle covered in faeces after their long boat voyage. ”It was quite obvious that the handlers had no training at all, and that the poles had nails or something sharp on the end,” spokeswoman Hila Jerem said.
While the footage is not as confronting as that from Indonesia, welfare groups say it is further evidence of how little Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) know about foreign markets but are still willing to promote exports to them….>>
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Immoral Trades are Not Worth a CentSome would sell their children for money too.
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The immoral, illegal Sex Trade still flourishes in some countries too.
Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)
Also known as Green Turtle, Black (sea) Turtle, or Pacific Green Turtle and can be found on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
The species is listed as ‘Endangered‘ by the IUCN and CITES and is protected from exploitation in most countries where it is illegal to collect, harm or kill them.
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Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s seven natural wonders. It is the world’s largest reef system stretching over 2,600 kilometres from Lady Elliot Island off Gladstone Harbour up to the top of Cape York Peninsula at the Torres Strait.
The Great Barrier Reef has 411 types of hard coral, comprises 900 islands and 2,900 individual coral reefs as well as many cays and lagoons . It is a natural sanctuary for 36 species of marine mammals including whales, dolphins and porpoises, some 1500 fish species, 134 species of sharks and rays, 4,000 types of mollusc and is home to 215 species of birds either migrating, nesting or roosting on the islands.
The Reef and associated beaches provide vital habitat home to six species of sea turtles which swim vast distances to the reef to breed including the Green Sea Turtle. Both the Green Sea Turtle and the unusual Dugong are species particularly threatened with extinction due to Aboriginal Poaching and associated non-traditional commercial exploitation.
Dugong (Dugong dugon) feeding on Sea Grass Meadows
(Photo by Barry Ingham)
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Dugongs?
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Dugongs were hunted toward extinction by European colonists during the 19th Century for their meat and oil.
Most Dugongs now live in the northern waters of Australia between Shark Bay and Moreton Bay particularly in the Torres Strait and along the Grest Barrier Reef. Ongoing ‘traditional’ hunting is driving populations close to extinction. Consequently the IUCN lists Dugongs as ‘Vulnerable‘ to extinction, while the CITES limits or bans the trade of derived products.
Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders ignore this and continue to poach Dugongs for non-traditional commercial exploitation. ^Read about Dugongs
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In 1981, The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List under all four natural World Heritage criteria for its outstanding universal value:
Outstanding example representing a major stage of the Earth’s evolutionary history
Outstanding example representing significant ongoing geological processes, biological evolution and man’s interaction with his natural environment
Contains unique, rare and superlative natural phenomena, formations and features and areas of exceptional natural beauty
Provide habitats where populations of rare and endangered species of plants and animals still survive
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The IUCN-protected Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is 345,000 square kilometres in size; five times the size of Tasmania or larger that the United Kingdom and Ireland combined!
As scientists have become to understand more about the Reef’s complex ecosystem, they have discovered that damaging fishing practices, pollution and coral bleaching exacerbated by increased sea temperatures due to global warming are compounding to jeopardise the Reef’s future.
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The ecological protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is delegated by the IUCN to the safe custody and sovereignty of the Australian Government, currently under the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Tony Burke MP. The management task in turn has delegated the responsibility to The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority guided by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 (Cwlth), which is headquartered in Townsville and with regional offices in Cairns, Mackay, Rockhampton and Canberra.
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“The Great Barrier Reef is internationally recognised for its outstanding biodiversity. The World Heritage status of the Reef recognises its great diversity of species and habitats. Conserving the Reef’s biodiversity is not just desirable – it is essential. By protecting biodiversity, we are protecting our future and our children’s future.”
Because of the Reef’s magnificent biodiversity, diving on the Reef is very popular
(Diver with Green Sea Turtle)
Tourism Australia promotes the Reef thus:
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‘Once you’ve experienced the Great Barrier Reef you will know why it is one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Diving and snorkelling are a must. Stay at a one of the many heavenly island resorts. Charter a yacht and sail The Whitsundays. Find your own uninhabited island. Where else in the world can you find a beach where the only footprints in the sand are your own.
There are hundreds of dreamy islands and coral atolls on the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, so take your pick. Luxury lovers and honeymooners will be in heaven on Lizard Island, exclusive Bedarra or privately-owned Double and Haggerstone Islands. For a wilderness experience, bush camp on Fitzroy Island or trek the Thorsborne Trail along mist-cloaked Hinchinbrook Island. Day trip to Green and Fitzroy Islands, snorkel the brilliant coral reefs of the Low Isles or sea kayak around Snapper Island, Hope Islands National Park with an Aboriginal guide. Townsville, Port Douglas and Lucinda are just some of the mainland gateways.’
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And at the northern tip of the Reef, Cape York and the Torres Strait Islands are promoted thus:
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‘Sitting just north of Cape York, between Australia and Papua New Guinea, the Torres Strait Islands are made up of 274 small islands, only 17 of which are inhabited. These communities have developed a unique blend of Melanesian and Australian Aboriginal cultures. Get a glimpse with a trip to Thursday or Horn Island, the group’s most developed islands. Learn about the local pearling and fishing industry on Thursday island, reached by ferry from Cape York. Visit the museum, art gallery and historic World War II sites on Horn Island, accessible by flight. Both islands are blessed with pristine beaches, azure waters and vivid fringing reefs supporting dugongs and sea turtles.’
Australia’s disturbing reality on The Reef and at Cape York
There are thousands of native Sea Turtles dying on our Great Barrier Reef as a result of:
Water Pollution from sewage and stormwater
Water pollution and farm pestidices, herbicides and fertilisers
Damaging Fishing Practices
Illegal Poaching
Cyclones and Flooding
Tredging of Gladstone Harbour and associated coastal Industrial Development
Bulk Cargo Ships leaking contaminants
Gladstone Harbour dredging in 2011-12 by the Gladstone Ports Corporation and LNG
..continues to muddy Barrier Reef habitat and destroy Sea Grass Meadows critical to Sea Turtkes and Dungongs
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The recent Queensland floods and cyclones have starkly shown the impacts of water pollution on the marine environment. Pesticide and mud pollution from out-dated farming practices has led to a massive spike in Dugong and Sea Turtle deaths.
In addition, poor fishing practices can still kill too many of our Sea Turtles and Dugongs, and industrial development is proliferating along the coast and removing remaining habitats, such as Sea Grass Meadows that Sea Turtles and Dugongs depend on for their survival.
Over the past 12 months, more than 1,400 turtles and 180 dugongs have washed up on our beaches. Clearly our Reef is under enormous pressure and our wildlife is suffering.
The Great Barrier Reef is a World Heritage global icon and something that Queenslanders are proud to be the custodians of. It is unacceptable to many of us that the Reef would be under this amount of pressure. We’re not alone in these concerns – UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee also expressed serious concern recently about the long-term health of the Great Barrier Reef.
Oil is seen next to the 230-metre bulk coal carrier Shen Neng I about 70 kilometres east of Great Keppel Island, 20100404.
“damage to the reef is significant, with large parts of Douglas Shoal “completely flattened” and marine life “pulverised”.(Maritime Safety Queensland/Reuters)
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‘130 turtles stranded this year‘
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‘The Scientific Advisory Committee has been charged with the task of investigating this year’s spate of marine animal deaths in Gladstone Harbour.
Responding to calls for all results to be made public, the environment minister’s office provided the following data:
130 turtle strandings were reported; 11 of those were released or in rehabilitation
Of 119 turtles found dead in the harbour this year, only 24 had autopsies conducted
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Of those 24 turtles, 13 were identified as dying from human activity (11 boat strikes and two undetermined); 11 were identified as dying from natural causes (10 from ill health and disease and one undetermined).
Eight Dugongs have been found dead. One was killed by boat strike and one from netting. The remaining six were too badly decomposed for autopsies.
Five Dolphin deaths were reported. One was caused by unspecified human activity. The remaining four were too decomposed.
Because floods damaged seagrass levels, marine animals are more vulnerable to human activity.’
This dead dugong was found on Witt Island by Clive Last (July 2011) who is increasing worried by marine animal deaths in Gladstone Harbour (Great Barrier Reef).
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‘Another dead Dugong has been found in Gladstone Harbour, and the man who found it wants some answers.
Clive Last, who in May discovered a dead dolphin on Turtle Island, was shocked on Friday afternoon when he found the body of a dead Dugong on Witt Island.
Mr Last is wary of suggestions marine animal deaths this year can be attributed to boat strikes and net fishing. He said those explanations didn’t match his observations on the harbour.
“I honestly believe it’s either starvation (from damaged seagrass meadows) or there is something in the harbour,” Mr Last said. “Right now, Turtles and Dugongs are continually coming up. That means there is (something) going on.”
He believed the Dolphin he found in May had no injuries to indicate it had been killed by boat strike or fishing nets.
The Department of Environment and Resource Management reported the Dolphin’s body was too decomposed to conduct a necropsy.
Mr Last said, once again, the dead Dugong’s body showed no sign of injury. He took five photos and called Queensland Parks and Wildlife.
Mr Last, whose work requires him to spend a lot of time on the harbour, is increasingly disturbed by the trend of dead marine animals in Gladstone Harbour.
“If I don’t see another one after today, I’ll be very happy,” he said. “I’d also be very happy if someone would come up with the truth about what is really killing them. “You can’t keep saying it’s boat strike, when I’ve got photos showing it’s not boat strike.”
Mr Last said he was worried the scientific advisory committee’s investigation into the deaths in Gladstone Harbour would take too long to come up with results.
DERM (Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management) could not be contacted over the weekend.
The list goes on:
The dead Dugong found on Witt Island was the latest in a long, mysterious list of marine animal deaths this year.
Three dead Dolphins were found in Gladstone Harbour in May, within two weeks of each other.
The latest discovery is the fourth Dugong found dead in the harbour since May
More than 40 Turtles have washed up dead in the harbour since April. The Turtle deaths have been the subject of intense debate between environmentalists and commercial fishermen.
Marine experts from various organisations have told The Observer seagrass levels, damaged by the floods, are putting stress on the animals.
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“LNG will deliver billions of Australian Dollars to be shipped overseas as profit we will be left with the rotting carcasses of dead dugongs, poisoned water tables, destroyed farmland and a bill for the infrastructure the council builds for them.”
~ Comment by Chris Norman from Agnes Waters (July 2011)
Heinous cruelty as Aborigines hack live pregnant Green Sea Turtle
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There’s tension in far north Queensland between Traditional Hunting rights (Ed: read ‘perversion’) and the protection of Turtles and Dugongs, and it is resulting in some horrific treatment of native animals.
Transcript from ABC Broadcast (extracts of video added):
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CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Protected Dugongs and Sea Turtles are being cruelly slaughtered in Queensland’s Torres Strait to supply an illegal meat trade.
Tranquil coastal tip of Cape York Peninsula and the Torres Strait
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An investigation by 7.30 has found deeply confronting footage that we are about to air. It shows the brutal methods used to hunt the animals, with turtles being butchered alive and dugongs drowned as they’re dragged behind boats.
The investigation throws into sharp relief the conflict between Indigenous Australians and animal rights activists over traditional hunting and exposes a black market in animal meat.
And a warning: this report by Sarah Dingle and producer Lesley Robinson contains disturbing images and coarse language.
SARAH DINGLE, REPORTER: At the northern-most tip of Australia lie the serene islands and waters of Queensland’s Torres Strait, the birthplace of Native Title. But on those beaches, there’s a slaughter underway.
7.30 travelled to far North Queensland where IT entrepreneur turned eco warrior Rupert Imhoff has been investigating the fate of threatened turtle and dugong populations. And what he found is shocking. A turtle lies tethered for up to three days, waiting to die.
Green Sea Turtles are routinely tethered by rope by local Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander men in the shallows, then inverted on to their backs so that they tire from struggling and often drown.
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RUPERT IMHOFF, ECO WARRIOR: They dragged it out of the water, flipped it on its back. You could see it was already terrorised. It was flapping around madly. And they came up with this concrete block and basically tried to slam it in the head, obviously to stun the animal. Didn’t quite work.
Man uses a concrete block and throws it twice at the Turtles headbut the female Turtle continues to flap. She has no voice.
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SARAH DINGLE: The images become even more confronting.
RUPERT IMHOFF: Before they started hacking off its fins, they wanted to check if it was pregnant, and sure enough this turtle was a mature aged turtle. Had up to 125 eggs in it. It was gonna be the next generation of turtles, but they decided to cut it up right there and then.
Aboriginal man knifes into the womb of the female Turtle to see it if pregnant – she is.
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SARAH DINGLE: Even as it’s hacked, the turtle clings to life, apparently in agony for seven and a half minutes.
The man then starts hacking into the live healthy TurtleLeft flipper already hacked off, the still live turtle has its right flipper hacked off, while the men keep it helplessly lying on its back
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RUPERT IMHOFF: Didn’t actually die until they took off the bottom shell, they actually peeled off the shell and then it just let out one gasp – one last gasp of air and passed away.
SARAH DINGLE: Using a hidden camera, Rupert Imhoff spent two weeks in the Torres Strait filming the hunting of sea turtle and dugong which are both listed as vulnerable to extinction.
RUPERT IMHOFF: They go out, they spear them at sea, they then tie the tail to the back of the boat and they hold the head underwater. And it can take up to seven and a half minutes again, so I’ve been told, for that dugong to drown.
Speared Dugong, still alive is tied by the tail fin to the side of the boat so it drowns as the boat returns to shore
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SARAH DINGLE: Here, a Dugong is methodically carved up for consumption. For anyone else, this kill would be illegal, as dugong are protected under federal law. However, the Native Title Act allows traditional owners to hunt to satisfy their personal, domestic or non-commercial communal needs.
Anywhere in Australia, this horrific cruelty would be will illegal. But in Queensland alone, Native Title hunting is exempt from animal cruelty laws. Animal rights activists are appalled.
Lawyer Rebecca Smith was a paid consultant on the turtle and dugong hunt for the Torres Strait Regional Authority.
REBECCA SMITH, LAWYER: Most conservation groups won’t touch this issue. It’s just too hard, too prickly, too sensitive. It’s often deemed – people who are opposed to traditional hunting are often called racist, but there’s nothing racist about saying, “This is cruel. We’ll move on from there. We’ll do this humanely now. We’ve progressed.”
SARAH DINGLE: Aerial surveys of dugong and turtle numbers are imperfect and no-one knows exactly how many there are. Green sea turtles face an extra pressure. They’re by far the turtle species most intensively hunted for their meat. But locals say there are bigger threats for turtle and dugong.
???: You know we are under threat from pig predation, our – one of the greatest, biggest rookeries in the Southern Hemisphere on Cape York, Rain Island, is under threat from climate change, but we seem to be concentrating I think far too much on, you know, Indigenous people hunting them.
SARAH DINGLE: What is known is that the Great Barrier Reef is a last stronghold. It’s home to the biggest sea turtle rookery in the globe and one of the world’s largest population of dugong.
Cairns-based Colin Riddell calls himself “The Dugong Man”. A former abattoir worker, he’s an unlikely but tireless campaigner for animal rights.
COLIN RIDDELL, ANIMAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNER: I have to pursue it to the end because otherwise the end may be for the animals.
SARAH DINGLE: Colin Riddell’s investigations have revealed the slaughter goes on far to the south in coastal Queensland waters.
Green Island is one of the jewels in the crown of Cairns tourism. We’ve been told just last week at this spot Indigenous hunters chased down and took a green sea turtle in full view of shocked tourists. There’s no way of knowing where those hunters came from, but locals say this is a weekly occurrence on this island.
STEVE DAVIES, TOUR OPERATOR: They can be out there a lot, you know – three, four, five times a week. They come across in quite large tinnies with large outboard motors on board and they chase the turtles till they’re completely and utterly exhausted.
SARAH DINGLE: The culture clash between hunters and tourists has led to heated confrontations.
INDIGENOUS HUNTER (Amateur video): This our land! We don’t list end to your shit, mate! We can do anything on this land we wanna do, mate!
SARAH DINGLE: This video was shot two weeks ago by a tourist and given to 7.30. It shows an allocation between a tour boat and three Indigenous hunters.
INDIGENOUS HUNTER (Amateur video): Ya just don’t tell us what to do on our land! You’re not from this f***in’ land; we are! We’re the traditional owner! We own every f***in’ reef around here, mate!
SARAH DINGLE: It’s not clear what they’re hunting for, but there’s no mistaking the tensions.
INDIGENOUS HUNTER (Amateur video): You f*** off back to your country. This is my country, c***.
SARAH DINGLE: Is there a sense in your area that the Indigenous hunters are untouchable?
STEVE DAVIES: Without a doubt. And they believe they’re untouchable.
SARAH DINGLE: But there are conservation efforts.
Well away from the glitzy marinas and the tourist strip, here in the industrial area of Cairns is the town’s only turtle rehabilitation centre. It’s run on the smell of an oily rag. Here, injured and starving turtles are treated and brought back to full health.
Today, Jenny Gilbert and her team are readying a 180 kilogram breeding age female green sea turtle for release. By the look of things, this 80-year-old turtle has already survived a number of hazards.
Turtles like this are being hunted not traditionally, but for a very modern purpose. Our investigations have revealed the hunt is feeding a flourishing black market.
JAMES EPONG, MANDUBARRA LAND & SEA CORP.: Well nine times out 10 the illegal trade is to sell the meat for the benefit – for grog money or drugs.
SARAH DINGLE: And can you can make a buck out of it?
JAMES EPONG: Yes. There’s one person that we know of in Yarrabah made $80,000 one year.
SARAH DINGLE: James Epong is a Mandubarra man who lives on his traditional lands an hour south of Cairns and Yarrabah. The Mandubarra have declared a moratorium on taking turtle and dugong from their see country, but around them, the illegal meat trade continues.
JAMES EPONG: I myself went to a pub on a Friday afternoon to go and have a coldie with one of me mates and was approached by some other Indigenous people with trivac (phonetic spelling) meat for sale, which was turtle and dugong.
SARAH DINGLE: On four separate occasions 7.30 has confirmed multiple eskies arriving on the afternoon flight from Horn Island to Cairns.
RUPERT IMHOFF: I do not know 100 per cent for a fact what was in those eskies, but I have heard numerous reports and been told by the islanders themselves that they are transporting an excessive amount of turtle and dugong down to Cairns. Now on my flight I think there was about six or seven eskies that come off and I’ve been told that it almost a daily routine.
SARAH DINGLE: Indigenous sea rangers are employed and equipped by governments to care for marine wildlife. This esky was addressed to a ranger.
RUPERT IMHOFF: From what I understand and what I observed and what I spoke to the islanders about is the head hunters on all these islands are actually the rangers themselves. Now this money has gone into their pockets. It’s gonna help them buy outboard motors and help them basically go and hunt these turtle and dugong down in bigger numbers.
SARAH DINGLE: Were any of the people you saw hunting and killing animals rangers?
RUPERT IMHOFF: Yes, they were 100 per cent.
SARAH DINGLE: Did you pay those people in your footage to do what they were doing?
RUPERT IMHOFF: We did not pay a single person any money while we were up there.
SARAH DINGLE: And the illegal trade continues further south.
SEITH FOURMILE, CAIRNS TRADITIONAL OWNER: I know that there’s a lot of non-Indigenous people that are doing it as well.
SARAH DINGLE: Are they doing the hunting or are they involved in other way?
SEITH FOURMILE: They’re involved with the trading of it, or selling it and passing it down, and some of the turtle meats has gone far down as Sydney and Melbourne.
SARAH DINGLE: And it’s not just dugong and turtle meat being sold. Traditional owners from Cape York are pushing to end the indiscriminate slaughter and stop the esky trade.
Sea Turtle air freighted from Cairns to Sydney and MelbourneNothing to do with ‘Traditional Hunting’, which is a low-life smokescreen for what it really is: Illegal Wildlife Poaching and Trade for personal commercial profit.
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FRANKIE DEEMAL, TURTLE AND DUGONG TASKFORCE: We don’t have that kind of legislative assistance to do that. What do you do when you confront a rogue killer?
SARAH DINGLE: And we’ve heard a lotta people talk about rogue killers. Who are these rogue killers?
FRANKIE DEEMAL: They’re there.
SARAH DINGLE: Who are they?
FRANKIE DEEMAL: They know who they are.
SARAH DINGLE: For those with Native Title rights, customs can change.
LOCAL MAN: We’re gonna name this turtle Bumbida (phonetic spelling), after our grandmother.
SARAH DINGLE: But the Mandubarra people at least have sworn to protect these animals.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Sarah Dingle with that report, produced by Lesley Robinson.
And 7.30 contacted the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. In a statement it said it takes, “the claims very seriously and will investigate all reports of illegal hunting and poaching”.
You can follow the progress of the turtles released in this story by going to the sea turtle satellite tracking page.
Editor’s note: (April 16) the ABC also approached the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA) several times over the course of a week prior to broadcast but their spokesperson was unavailable for comment.
Watch the entire Documentary aired nationally across Australia in March 2012:
WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS DISTURBING ANIMAL CRUELTY WHICH MAY OFFEND. WE INCLUDE IT TO PORTRAY THE REALITY OF AUSTRALIA’S TREATMENT OF TURTLES AND DUGONGS IN THE NAME OF ‘TRADITIONAL HUNTING’
[Source: ‘Hunting rights hide horror for dugongs, turtles’, by reporters Sarah Dingle and Lesley Robinson, documentary presented by Chris Uhlmann, 730 Programme, 20120308, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ^http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3448943.htm]
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‘Queensland to outlaw Dugong-hunt cruelty’
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Animal activists have welcomed moves by the Queensland Government to outlaw hunting-related cruelty to dugongs and turtles.
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‘Under the Native Title Act, traditional owners are allowed to hunt Turtles and Dugongs.’
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Footage aired on the ABC in March showed animals being butchered alive by some Indigenous hunters and sparked an investigation into the practice.
Queensland Fisheries Minister John McVeigh yesterday introduced legislation into Parliament to outlaw any unreasonable pain being inflicted during hunting.
The RSPCA’s Michael Beatty says the Government should be commended.
“No-one thinks – including the Indigenous leaders – that this type of cruelty, if you like, is necessary,” he said.
Mr Beatty says authorities need to continue to work with traditional owners. “It isn’t simply a case of just outlawing it, it really isn’t that simple because obviously it has to be policed as well,” he said.
But animal activist Colin Riddell says the hunting should be banned altogether. “People flock to Australia to see our Great Barrier Reef and see those beautiful animals and I fear for the day that my children, your children don’t get to see those animals,” he said.
Native title hunting rights would not be extinguished by the Bill.’
But this heinous cruelty by Indigenous Australians has long been know by the Australian Government..
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Back in 2011: ‘Call for inquiry into marine animal poaching‘
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The Federal Opposition has called for a judicial inquiry into Dugong and Turtle poaching in far north Queensland. Tourism operators say tourists have been exposed to mutilated and slaughtered turtles on island beaches, off Cairns. Four far north Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) candidates say they want that stopped at key tourism sites.
Pictures of a mutilated turtle found on Green Island by tourists at the weekend have prompted public outrage. The animals are legally protected but the Native Title Act allows for hunting by traditional owners.
But Federal Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt says legal hunting is not the problem.
“The advice we have from Indigenous leaders is that the vast bulk of hunting is poaching,” he said. Mr Hunt says inaction on poaching is causing problems.
“There really has to be a crackdown on poaching,” he said. “The vast bulk of the take of Turtle and Dugong is coming from poaching. “There is a trade in illegally obtained meat and animal product. “This is a complete breach of the law.”
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is investigating the issue.
Back in 2010: ‘Cairns Turtle and Dugong activist campaigns against slaughter caught on video’
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Former union activist turned environmental defender Colin Ridell, who counts Bob Irwin, John Mackenzie, Derryn Hinch and Greg Hunt MP among his loyal following, says the silence is deafening from the government to stop slaughter of turtles on the waters around Cairns.
Riddell is campaigning to reduce the taking of turtle and dugong, that is occurring under the protection of Native Title, until a complete scientific study is done to determine the actual numbers to be taken.
“It will be tightly controlled by the EPA and the elders with a permit system, that is monitored by special investigators. I and other indigenous elders support a moratorium to determine the take,” Riddell says. “The skulls of each to be kept to determine actual permitted numbers taken, as is done in other permit systems.”
He says that any breach would carry a substantial penalty, however advocates a complete ban in green zones, like all our coastal tourist areas. “I don’t want international tourists and interstate visitors to take home horror stories.”
The campaign follows the leaking of a graphic video showing a turtle having its flippers hacked off while still alive. RSPCA Queensland has called for a review of traditional hunting.
“It’s just not good enough, this is a violent and obscene way to treat these animals, ” Cairns resident Colin Riddell told CairnsBlog. “Any indigenous person is allowed to kill sea turtles and dugongs for weddings or funerals, but it has far beyond that, and is being commercially moved around the state.
“I don’t want international tourists and interstate visitors to take back horror stories home,” he says Riddell, who has taken his campaign to every State and Federal Government minister.
“I’ve written to the Minister for Local Government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships who have acknowledged my letter,” Riddell says. “The replied thanking me for me letter and said it ‘will be actioned as appropriate.’ However I have received no response,” he says.
Riddell has also wrote to Greg Combet for support, who he engaged with as a Manufacturing Workers Union site convener at the Australian Defence Industries Benalla plant. He says that Environment Minister Peter Garrett has also given him the “bum’s rush.”
“I received a response from the ‘Parliamentary Clearance Officer’ however it was totally unsatisfactory,” Riddell said. “I told them to get my message Peter Garrett, which was a direct result of Jim Turnour’s and Peter Garrett staffers. Weak efforts.”
Another response from the International Whaling Commission fell on deaf ears. “I asked them why we condemn Japan when Australians do the same,” Colin Riddell said. Julie Creek, responded. “Your message was deleted without being read.”
The original poster of the graphic video says that it’s fair enough if you have to kill turtles because it is a “traditional right” but who cuts the leg of a cow first and let it die in its own blood?
“No one is going to starve in Australia because we stop the killing of turtles. Australia earns millions of dollars with the tourism industry – with tourists who come to dive with turtles and in the same country we torture the turtles to death,” the anonymous poster wrote. “Species will vanish forever and in the end it does not matter whose fault it was. This is not a question of human races this is a question of respect and ethics towards other creatures.”
Colin Riddell and the RSPCA are trying to track down who shot the video and where it was taken, so they can investigate the incident. It is believed it was filmed in North Queensland mid last year.
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“Until now cruelty to animals using traditional hunting methods has been put in the too hard basket by governments.”
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Mark Townend of the RSPCA said. “Far from it, he said. We have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island elders who support us on this issue.
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“Hunting from tinnies with rifles is not traditional.”
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“We’re committed to ensuring that any breaches of the Animal Care and Protection Act are fully investigated while at the same time taking into consideration traditional hunting rights,” RSPCA chief inspector Michael Pecic says. “We can’t do this alone. We’re a charity and yet it appears we’re the only organisation that is taking this matter seriously.”
“We have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island elders who support us on this issue,” Riddell says. “Hunting from tinnies with rifles is not traditional. Leaving turtles and dugongs to be butchered alive and left to die on the beach is not traditional. We’re not attacking the indigenous community. This is simply not an appropriate way to kill these animals.”
James Epong, son of an aboriginal elder says that Ma:mu traditional owners have a right to hunt for protected species such as dugong and marine turtles that is recognised by Australian Law.
“Our Ma:mu traditional owners, who are also called the Mandubarra mob, have put aside some of these rights and signed a Traditional Use Marine Resource Agreement so they can protect rather that exploit dugong and marine turtles,” James Epong says.
The agreement for their turtle business is co-ordinated through the Mandubarra Land and Sea Corporation and was finalised in June 2008.
“I am very proud to see that Ma:mu traditional owners are prepared to sacrifice rights and traditions, for the sake of helping threatened turtle and dugong stocks recover,” Epong says. “Keep in mind the Ma:mu people are setting aside hunting and cultural practices that go back tens of thousands of years for the future benefit of all Australians.”
In 1996, a landmark High Court decision concerned with particular pastoral titles, was passed regarding Native Title hunting rights. The decision did not allow anyone simply to claim Indigenous links and then hunt and kill native animals anywhere in Queensland. It authorised any legitimate native title holder to hunt and kill for genuine sustenance and other needs and without first obtaining a licence, but only in areas over which native title is held by that group.
The decision did not allow native title owners to trap or kill wildlife for commercial purposes, however Colin Riddell says that this is occurring. “These area being transported through the Cairns Airport in Eskys,” he says.
Riddell says on his website that the 1996 decision says nothing one way or the other about using modern weapons like guns and powered boats to undertake traditional hunting. It is interesting that the use of harpoons, outboard-powered boats, and steel axes to kill the crocodiles as an exercise of native title hunting rights.
“It seemed to concern nobody on the High Court bench, with the possible exception of Justice Callinan. Followers of native title developments need to keep in mind the distinction between exercising an established native right in a modern way, as in the Yanner case, and the loss or abandonment of traditional and established native title rights themselves, as found by the trial judge to be a fatal flaw in the Yorta Yorta decision.”
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Commercial Exploitation of Hunting and Fishing Rights
This issue, namely the extent to which the holders of native title may exercise the relevant rights in a “modern” fashion, and indeed the connected issue of whether they might even commercially exploit those rights, are difficult ones. Whilst not directly in issue in the Yanner case, these issues are of considerable importance in the broader scheme of Australian native title law – and are yet to be answered conclusively.
Some important developments in this area are taking place in Canada. In the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1997 decision in Delgamuukw v British Columbia, the majority judges noted that, while the rights of Indigenous title holders in that jurisdiction are not limited to engagement in activities which are aspects of practices, customs, and traditions integral to the claimant group’s distinctive Indigenous culture, lands held by Aboriginal title cannot be used in a manner that is irreconcilable with the nature of the claimants’ attachment to those lands.
So, for example, tribal hunting areas may not be “strip mined” or, so it would seem, “hunted out” or “fished out” in a large-scale commercial operation. Contrast this with small-scale trading between local Indigenous people and others, for which there is some historical and anthropological evidence in Australia and elsewhere.
There are important legal differences between the doctrines of Aboriginal title in Canada and Australia, but there are also some important similarities which indicate that these Canadian developments might in the future be of relevance in Australia. Of course, it is also important in Australia to note that the Commonwealth Native Title Act moderates but does not destroy the capacity of the States and Territories to regulate the exercise of native title rights along with other rights, as in fishing, conservation, and safety legislation which might apply equally to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike.
“Jim Turnour says this is a racial issue,” Colin Riddell says. “You know, I’m disgruntled as well. You know what I do. I tell you what, I’m begging people to vote for Warren Entsch in and get rid of Jimmy,” he says.
See the shocking video here…
WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS DISTURBING ANIMAL CRUELTY WHICH MAY OFFEND. WE INCLUDE IT TO PORTRAY THE REALITY OF AUSTRALIA’S TREATMENT OF TURTLES AND DUGONGS IN THE NAME OF ‘TRADITIONAL HUNTING’
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been aware, so is complicit, immoral, incompetent and so entire Board should now be immediately sacked, and any government employee (rangers or otherwise found to have been in anyway involved with the killing of Dungongs or Turtles or trading in their body parts.
The killing of Dungongs or Turtles in Australia is to be immediately policed and investigated jointly by the Australian Government, whatever the causes of the deaths
The Australian Government needs to amend Australia’s Native Title Act 1993 and Australian Crimes Act 1914 to make any cruelty toward any wildlife in Australia and its territories a criminal act under Australian Crimes Act. Traditional Hunting that involves cruelty is to be outlawed. It is Commercial Exploitation of Traditional Hunting and Fishing Rights.
“It could take 20 years or more for the Great Barrier Reef to recover from three kilometres of destruction caused by the grounding of a Chinese coal ship, authorities have revealed. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says the damage to the reef is significant, with large parts of Douglas Shoal “completely flattened” and marine life “pulverised”.
The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll entitled ‘US Republican Katherine Harris – a Presbyterian ‘pro-lifer’ who treats animals like this!‘ and published on CanDoBetter.net 20091129.
Animal Cruelty by US Republican Katherine HarrisThe woman should have a criminal record and be prohibited for life from holding public office
(Photo: AP)
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In rural Wassau in the southern US state of Florida, the Wausau Possum Festival has become an annual summertime folk festival over the past forty years. This event is said to celebrate the role of the opossum in the survival of the populace of Northwest Florida during the depression. Aside from the music, a key feature is the fundraising possum auction for the local Wausau Development Club, which involves holding opossums by their tail. Possum is served up as a main fare.
The Virginia oppossum (Didelphis virginiana Kerr) is the only marsupial native to the south eastern region of North America and extending through Central America.
American Republican politician Katherine Harris of Florida is shown here in August 2006 during her campaigning for the 2006 Florida United States Senate election, holding a possum by the tail and is said to have bid $400 at the so-called ‘possum auction’.
According to the festival’s sick tradition, every election year, national and statewide candidates in Florida must prove they are good country folk by mistreating a possum at the Wausau Possum Festival. “Candidates bid for a possum, taking it out of a holding area by its tail and giving it a shake to terrify the creature into going limp so it won’t claw them. They’re later fed and released into the wild“.
African Elephant at Franklin Zoo & Wildlife Sanctuary
situated outside the town of Tuakau near Auckland, New Zealand.
Its wildlife veterinarian surgeon (the late) Dr. Helen Schofield stands in front.
[Ed. Note elephant’s tusks have been previously sawn off by a circus] (Photo by Associated Press, 20091220)
[Source: ^http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/ca-sanctuary-says-killer-elephant-still-welcome-1.3684690]
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Last Wednesday afternoon (20120425) New Zealand wildlife veterinarian surgeon, Dr. Helen Schofield, was tragically crushed to death by an African Elephant who sat on her at Franklin Zoo & Wildlife Sanctuary near Auckland, according to emergency officials and reports.
Reports say the female elephant was trying to protect the vet after the elephant got a fright and wrapped her trunk around the vet, before going down, killing the vet. [Ed. This suggests that it was an accident caused by fright, and not the intention of the elephant to kill the vet]. Emergency services say the woman died at the zoo/sanctuary at around 4.30pm local time.
What is significant is that this 39-year-old African elephant was formerly used and abused in circus entertainment (Loritz as well as Webers), where she had lived shackled for 28 years with no other elephants. The circus had not surprisingly named the elephant ‘Jumbo‘.
Same elephant back in 2009, named ‘Jumbo’, tethered to Loritz Circus trailer for 28 years
African elephants in the wild live up to 70 years, but in captivity only to 50, not surprisingly.
[Watch Video at Webber’s Circus in 2009].
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About three years ago, the elephant was given to the SPCA Auckland (Society for the Prevention Against Cruelty to Animals, ^http://www.spca.org.nz/) which then found a refuge for it in 2009 at the Franklin Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary just outside Auckland. The elephant has for the past three years been under the care and rehabilitation at the zoo/sanctuary.
Dr Schofield at Franklin had previously stated that the elephant (renamed by the zoo ‘Mila‘) had settled in well and developed close and affectionate relationships with her team of keepers. She wrote: “Our dream for Jumbo is to get her in a situation where she can have other African elephants for company.”
A woman who lives in a property neighbouring the zoo, who declined to be named, said she had seen the activity at the zoo when the ambulances arrived.
“We look out and see the elephant every day,” she said. “I don’t think it’s very friendly. It hasn’t had a very happy life.”
Same elephant in 2009
SAFE (Save Animals from Exploitation, NZ) animal rights protest group stage a protest outside the circus at Avalon Park, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
[Source: ‘Loritz Circus Jumbo the Elephant’, YouTube, ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5c00551DUw]
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Sad circus scenes only three years ago (different elephants)
[Source: ‘Jumbo Stars: Elephants in Carson & Barnes Circus’, YouTube,
^http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=jX58pNwWcRY]
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New Zealand Police have stated that if the death is confirmed as an accident it is unlikely the elephant will be put down, but a final decision will be made in 24 hours. At the time of writing six days hence, the elephant is still alive and under care at the nearby Auckland Zoo (^http://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/) awaiting her fate.
Same African Elephant, renamed ‘Mila’
Elephants are social creatures and there was concern Mila had been lonely.
Mila was the only elephant at the Franklin Zoo, which built a new enclosure for her in 2010.
(Photo Franklin Zoo/Sanctuary)
Franklin Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary was nearing the end of a two year preparatory re-adjustment process for the elephant to have her ultimately crate shipped to California (USA) to Pat Derby’s Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) ^http://www.pawsweb.org/ in San Andreas outside Sacramento. Since 1984, The Performing Animal Welfare Society has provided a sanctuary for animals that have been the victims of the exotic and performing animal trades. PAWS also investigates reports of abused performing and exotic animals, documents cruelty and assists in investigations and prosecutions by regulatory agencies to alleviate the suffering of captive wildlife.
Despite the tragic accidental killing of Dr Schofield, Pat Derby has confirmed that it remains committed to receiving the elephant into its Californian sanctuary.
Hans Kriek, executive director of New Zealand based Save Animals from Exploitation ^http://www.safe.org.nz/, said he had talked to Dr Schofield the day before she died and that she told him she believed Mila was ready to ship.
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Pat Derby advised her experience with elephants rescued from circuses:
“All elephants, particularly Africans, suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ed. like humans).
“They’re captured from the wild. The capture usually involves killing their whole family unit, which is a terrible drama.
They all suffer horrendous physical and psychological problems. You just never know when it will express itself.”
In addition, Derby said she is sure the stress of circus life contributed to the trauma of adjusting for Mila.
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In San Andreas, near Sacramento in Northern California, where Mila was headed, three African elephants are kept separate from other elephants, Derby said.
“We always keep safe distances and safety barriers between the elephants and the people so there’s no opportunity for accidents to happen“, she said.
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Elephant Shipment Trauma
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Transporting an elephant halfway around the world is extremely tricky, Derby said. Flying is the fastest way but also the most expensive and “I don’t know what the funding issue is there,” Derby said.
If a ship and truck are used, it’s a “long, long journey,” she said. Once an elephant leaves on such a trip, it is stuck in the crate until it arrives, she said.
“When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals”
~ Peter Singer, Author/Philosopher, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, USA
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Animal abuse and cruelty is immoral. Most modern civilized societies have outlawed animal cruelty, making it a crime.
Entertainment involving animals is a form of animal abuse. Circuses and zoos conceived for human entertainment are primitive and barbaric, dating back to 18th Century Georgian times when human slavery was cultiraly acceptable. The first modern zoo evolved out of an aristocratic menagerie in Vienna in 1765.
Although many circuses have been banned from using wildlife in their entertainment, disgustingly it has only been in recent years. But still, organisations such as Sea World (^http://www.sea-world.com.au/) still entertain the public using dolphins, seals and orcas.
Jumbo was the last of New Zealand’s circus elephants, retired in 2009 after a concerted pressure campaign by Save Animals from Exploitation (SAFE), and there are no more circuses that use wild animals in this country. But the practice has still not been banned outright. This puts it in the category of anachronistic laws which should be repealed at the earliest opportunity.
In New Zealand, Dunedin and Wellington City Councils have local bans on the use of wild animals in circuses. There is a Circus Welfare Code, but like many of the codes under the Animal Welfare Act 1999 appears to contravene the Act under which it was created, particularly section 4(c) which stipulates that animals must have the ‘opportunity to display normal patterns of behaviour.’ A requirement that is by definition outside the performance expected of a circus animal.
The plight of elephants in circuses is particularly troubling. Elephants are majestic creatures who are intelligent and self-aware. They are among the most socially- bonded animals on the planet, and display a complex array of emotions, including expressions of grief and compassion. They mourn their dead, use tools, and communicate with each other over vast distances through sound. They are biologically designed to browse, constantly on the move for 18 or more hours out of the day, even where food is readily available…
But enslaved in circuses, far removed from conditions they need to thrive, elephants:
Spend days at a time chained in cramped train cars or trucks, eating and sleeping in their own excrement, exposed to temperature extremes, for much of their lives. When not in transit, they are chained or confined in tiny pens, usually on concrete.
Perform unnatural tricks that are often damaging to their bodies. Wild elephants do not stand on their heads or on two legs.
Often display neurotic behavior, such as swaying and head-bobbing, from boredom and severe stress (Ed. like Jumbo in the video above).
Suffer from painful foot and joint disease, a leading cause of premature death in captive elephants, from standing too long on hard surfaces and in their own waste.
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Circuses Tear Families Apart
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Elephants have intense, strong family bonds. Wild females stay with their mothers, aunts and cousins for life. Males do not leave the herd until their teens. The entire extended elephant family helps nurture and care for the young.
Most of the elephants performing in circuses today were captured from the wild, violently separated from their mothers, and shipped to the U.S. when they were very young. Every Asian elephant taken from the wild has endured a brutal breaking process (“the crush”), which involves beating with nail-studded sticks, sleep-deprivation, hunger, and thirst to break the animals’ spirits.
Elephants born into captivity in circuses are routinely torn from their mothers as infants younger than two years old, for training and performance.
For anyone who knows about elephants, seeing these complex, family-centered individuals chained and broken, performing demeaning tricks is simply heartbreaking…
There’s no family fun to be had at an event that involves such cruelty and suffering. Let’s teach our children to respect animals by seeing them in their natural states, not as captives forced and beaten into unnatural displays for our entertainment.
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“We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves”
As of 1 July 2010, the use of any animal in a circus has been banned in Bolivia. A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses but only Bolivia has banned exploitation of domestic animals in circuses as well.
The Bolivian law, which states that the use of all animals in circuses ‘constitutes an act of cruelty’ was enacted on 1 July 2009, with operators given a year to comply.
The bill took two years to pass through both chambers of the Plurinational Assembly, meeting stiff opposition from the eastern states of Bolivia where there was concern that the law would be expanded to include bullfighting, which is popular in rural villages. Bullfighting remains legal in Bolivia.
The legislature were eventually won over by a screening of videos shot by undercover circus infiltrators in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia co-ordinated and funded by Animal Defence International (ADI), a London-based NGO which found that ill-treatment and violence against animals in circuses is commonplace.
The harsh Bolivian climate alone claimed has claimed many victims. Just last year, a hippopotamus died in his sleep when the circus pool froze over in the Andean city of Potosí, 4000 metres above sea level. A dwarf elephant died of exposure in La Paz’s dry winter of 2007.
The follow-up to this law change is also important; with a number of wild animals no longer economically useful to their owners, many will be either killed or turned loose. Animals released from captivity generally do not re-integrate and are likely to die from starvation or attack from other animals. To avoid this, Ximena Flores, sponsor of the law, has said that “[a]bout 50 animals are circulating in national and international circuses at the moment [in Bolivia] and we want to negotiate to make sure that the animals aren’t eliminated.”
Austria, Costa Rica, Hungary, Finland, India, Israel, Singapore and most recently China have banned the use of wild circus animals while Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic have limited the use of certain species. The State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the cities of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Porto Alegre (Brazil) have implemented full bans on both wild and domesticated species. Nationwide bans on all animals in traveling circuses are under consideration in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, where legislation is expected in the near future. Several major European towns and cities have either banned all circus animal acts or wild animal acts, including Thessaloniki (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Cork (Ireland) and Venice (Italy). In Croatia, most major cities have bans.
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Australia
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In Australia, Ipswich Council (Queensland) and Parramatta (Sydney, NSW) have local bans of wild animals in circuses.
Around the world, the plight of animals in circuses is increasingly heard. National, regional and local governments in at least 30 countries have already banned the use of exotic or all animals in circuses. But the Australian Federal and State Government policies are failing these animals. The requirements in the — mostly voluntary — guidelines for the keeping of animals in circuses in Australia are far below what is generally required for the same species kept in zoos and are totally inadequate to protect their welfare. Thankfully an increasing number of Australian councils are taking an ethical stance by adopting a ban on exotic animal circuses on council land.
For Animals Australia, entertainment stops where animal suffering begins. Circuses can not recreate a natural environment nor can animals in circuses perform much natural behaviour. A non-domesticated animal’s life is consequently impoverished and the keeping of exotic animals in circuses should therefore be banned. The animals currently being kept by circuses need to be re-homed in a quality sanctuary or zoo.
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Britain
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Currently, Britain appears to be at at a critical juncture with regard to banning the use of performing wild animals. A ban in the UK would affect around 40 animals owned by four circus companies. On 25 March 2010, Labour’s environment minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, said he was “minded” to ban performing wild animals after research showed that 94 per cent of the public supported a ban. A survey by the Animals Defenders International (^http://www.ad-international.org/adi_uk/) of 310 local authorities (town and county councils) showed that 39% had already banned all animal acts and 17% had banned wild animal acts.
However, while the new Coalition government has said it is considering whether or not to proceed with the ban, 143 politicians have now signed a parliamentary Early Day Motion, (EDM) 403, calling for the wild animal ban to finally be implemented.
Exotic animals in circuses are routinely subjected to months on the road confined in small, barren cages. These animals are forced to live in enclosures denying them every opportunity to express their natural behaviour and their training is often based on fear and punishment as revealed by numerous undercover investigations.
As circuses play no meaningful role in education or conservation, the lifelong suffering of these animals continues only for the sake of a few minutes of entertainment.
Below: How do you get a wild animal to perform unnatural circus tricks?
This shocking undercover footage from the U.S. shows Carson & Barnes ‘trainers’ using bull hooks, electric prods, and even blowtorches on their elephants. Footage thanks to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, ^http://www.peta.org/). ^http://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/circuses.php
Saved by the Mail: Anne the elephant, pictured with former owner Bobby Roberts, who along with his wife Moira has been charged with causing the animal suffering
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Circuses will be banned from keeping wild animals within two years. Ministers will today announce the U-turn after coming under intense pressure from MPs and celebrities to implement the crackdown. The Department for the Environment will confirm plans to introduce a law within this Parliament.
Last year, MPs inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Government by backing a backbench motion by Tory MP Mark Pritchard, which called for a ban.
Until this is introduced, ministers will bring in a tough licensing regime for the few circus owners still using wild animals.
An estimated 150 to 200 animals are currently held in circuses, 37 of which are wild. They include zebras, lions, tigers, camels, a kangaroo and crocodiles.
Sir Paul McCartney, comedian Ricky Gervais and actor Brian Blessed are among the celebrities who have called for a ban, which 94 per cent of the public supports.
The Daily Mail has been at the forefront of the campaign after highlighting the plight of Anne, Britain’s last circus elephant.
Former owners Moira and Bobby Roberts have been charged with causing Anne suffering by failing to prevent her groom beating her.
The 59-year-old elephant now lives at Longleat safari park in Wiltshire thanks to our readers, who donated £340,000 for her care.
The prosecution is believed to be the first of a circus owner for animal cruelty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
An estimated 150-200 animals are currently held in circuses, and an estimated 37 of these are wild animals. These include zebras, lions, snakes, tigers, camels, a kangaroo and crocodiles.
Prime Minister David Cameron has previously signalled his support for the crackdown by acknowledging that it was ‘not right’ to still have lions and tigers performing in the big top.
A Defra spokesman said: ‘We always said we were minded to ban wild animals performing in travelling circus, the only issue being that we have to be sure that it cannot be overturned legally. ‘Therefore in the meantime we are proposing a tough new licensing regime which can be introduced quickly, to ensure high welfare standards.’
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Entertainment Zoos or Wildlife Sanctuaries?
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Removal of wild animals from their habitat is wrong. They should be left in their natural surroundings and not exploited as objects for human entertainment.
In situ wildlife refuges or wildlife sanctuaries play a critical role in habouring wildlife at risk from poaching and from the many human drivers of extinction. Wildlife refuges or wildlife sanctuaries situated in the native country of origin are best placed to enable wildlife to survive naturally. Zoological captive breeding programmes that facilitate wildlife reintroduction into the wild in safe sanctuaries are to be commended. This is where the resourcing, efforts and research need to be channelled globally.
But shipping wildlife over long distances to foreign and typically urban zoos, benefits human entertainment not the wildlife. Elephants belong in Africa or Asia according to their supbspecies, not in New Zealand. Petting zoos that encourage the public to get up and close with the animals are a mere extension of circuses – wildlife for human entertainment and as tourist drawcards/attractions.
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Compare the Old Urban Entertainment Zoos:
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Example 1: Auckland Zoo
The Tourist child spiel:
‘Auckland Zoo is home to the largest collection of native and exotic animals in New Zealand, set in 17 hectares of lush parkland and just five minutes from central Auckland. There is lots to see and do all year, including events, animal encounters, Zoom (behind the scenes) tours and more! Our Zoom (behind-the-scenes) Tours offer you an exclusive backstage pass to go behind the scenes. Imagine helping a keeper wash down an elephant, coming eye to eye with New Zealand fauna, a tiger, or one of Africa’s big five.’
‘Function and Venue Hire:
‘With 180 degree, uninterrupted views of Sydney Harbour, Taronga Zoo provides a picturesque backdrop and unique setting that is guaranteed to make any event truly memorable. With a wide a variety of venue options available, both in and outdoors,Taronga Zoo is an ideal setting for all occasions ranging from gala dinners, conferences, Christmas and cocktail parties as well as boasting a truly stunning venue for Weddings.The Taronga were the proud winners of the 2010 Restaurant and Catering Awards for Excellence -Wedding Caterer in a Function Centre AND voted in the Vogue Top 3 wedding locations 2012. With both these outstanding recognitions for excellence, the Taronga centre combining their passion and enthusiasm for food and their excellence in service and events is certainly an ideal choice to host your next event.’
Example 3: Orokonui Ecosanctuary (Waitati, Dunedin, New Zealand)
‘What began as a mere dream to restore an entire forest ecosystem to its pre-human state, is now a reality.
In less than 10 years, the Orokonui Ecosanctuary has become the only place on mainland South Island of New Zealand where native birds, animals and insects can live a life safe from predators. They are free to fly, feed, mate and nest wherever they wish, exactly as they would in the wild.
Since the $2.2 million, 8.7km pest-proof fence was erected around our 307 hectares of protected habitat in 2007, pests have been almost entirely eradicated. This has allowed us to reintroduce a number of endangered species and there are encouraging signs they are adapting well to their new home. In fact, it is becoming increasingly common for native birds to find their own way to the ecosanctuary and take up residence.
To support the Ecosanctuary, a multi-million dollar eco-friendly visitor and ODT education centre has been built into the hillside above Blueskin Bay. Here, visitors can learn about the Ecosanctuary and the native species it contains, take a guided tour through the Ecosanctuary, purchase gifts and educational material from the souvenir shop, or simply have a coffee and enjoy the view. All of the funds generated from visitors contribute to the ongoing conservation work at Orokonui Ecosanctuary.’
Example 4: Enkosini Wildlife Sanctuary (Northern Provence, South Africa
‘The Enkosini Wildlife Reserve was formed in 2001 to protect and preserve Africa’s wildlife and habitat. Enkosini (derived from the Zulu word meaning “place of kings”) was established as a conservancy, by purchasing and joining together large South African farms with the aim of restoring the environment back to its natural state and establishing a larger reserve for the benefit of African wildlife. Enkosini is a unique conservation initiative that will re-introduce indigenous wildlife onto land they once naturally roamed, ultimately re-establishing all of the original flora and fauna to the area. Enkosini will also continue to acquire habitat for the long-term survival of the wildlife and the preservation of their eco-systems.
Enkosini’s goal is to create a self-sustaining model of responsible conservation that preserves Africa’s natural heritage (habitat and wildlife); enhances the South African economy through overseas capital infusion, local and international eco-tourism, and job creation; and promotes education and awareness of conservation issues.’
Halal Religious Slaughter
..requires throat slitting with a steel knife
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The conditions required for ‘halal slaughter‘ require no stunning, instead death is executed manually using a steel knife, irrespective of the consciousness of the victim.
A sentient animal (like this healthy goat above) is initially trusting of human caretakers, but upon the knife stroke and pain is conscious of being killed, and is so stressed (as any human would be).
The animal dies from bleeding to death while conscious. It suffers pain from the knife cutting into its flesh, its arteries, its oesophagus. To eat meat killed without instant death by stunning/shot, any alternate practice is unnecessary, by choice, barbaric and immoral. All animal cruelty must be outlawed, and prescribed into every country’s Crimes Act. The United Nations else needs to universally deem recalcitrant nations, barbaric. Thus Australia is barbaric, along with Indonesia, Israel and the United States!
This article expresses horror and disgust at the immoral treatment of animals by any human. While this article criticises religious and cultural practices, it is only in respect of how these may cause cruelty to animals. This article and this website respects the freedom of all human religions and cultures. But the moment anyone for whatever reason, belief or justification inflicts cruelty upon any animal, we utterly condemn it as wrong, barbaric and prescribe such action as a crime equal and deserving of the same crime inflicted on a human.
Animals are not anyone’s property, just as women are not the property of men, just like children are not slaves.
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The Golden Rule of Human Morality
Morality condemns the inflicting of pain and suffering on any sentient being. The hahal practice is immoral. It is only performed for religious ritual reasons by barbaric patriarchal extremists. Halal needs to be banned globally.
In Australia, predominant modern Christian values prescribe moral human conduct based upon the fundamental universal premise:
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“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
~ Luke 6:31
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Sensibly, no halal executioner or eater of halal meat would want to be killed by having their throat slit. Indeed, no rational person would want to be killed at all. Animal liberationists would argue that no animals should be killed and that to eat meat is murder.
While the ethics of killing animals for meat is a debated issue, inflicting cruelty on sentient beings is one of clear immorality. Inflicting cruelty is a discretionary choice and is avoidable.
The moral maxim that one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself, indeed extends beyond modern Christian values. It is more broadly referred to as the ethic of reciprocity or ‘Golden Rule’ prescribing human moral conduct. Conversely, the Silver Rule is the negative interpretation: ‘One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated.’ The Golden Rule dates back to Ancient Egypt and has prescribed standards of human morality across almost every ethical tradition of civilised human history including Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Baha’i, Brahmanism, Brahma Kumaris, Indigenous, Interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American, Neo-Pagan, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophist, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian.
The Golden Rule has universally become the common principled base for the “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” from the Parliament of the World’s Religions. The Initial Declaration was signed by 143 respected leaders from all of the world’s religions in 1993. Outside that global ethic there of course are those who justify killing anthing for their own ends. There will always be extremists.
By instinct, an animal trusts us, but learns to fear us for its life
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Throat Slitting Slaughter is Immoral
The cruel practice of ‘halal slaughter‘ is one of the Islamic faith that has become a deviant abberation of that faith by men, just as the practice of patriarchal honour killings breach the ethical tenets of Islam.
Label used for Halal Meat
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A fundamental Quranic concept and a Pillar of Islam is ‘forbidding what is evil‘ and ‘opposing injustice‘. Those who choose to selectively exclude sentient beings are applying an extreme and narrow interpretation on their faith. Killing is wrong. Cruelty is wrong, evil and unjust.
Similarly, Jewish orthodox ‘kosher slaughter‘ practices prescribes ritual killing of an animal by slitting its throat with a knife. Kosher slaughter is simply a extreme and narrow interpretation of the Bible and the Torah, the Judaic scriptures. Somehow that interpretation claims that stunning before throadt slitting means the animal is unfit for Jews to eat, but nowhere in the Judaic scriptures is this explicitly prescribed.
Label used for Kosher Meat
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Mutual respect applies not just between human beings but between humans (who have the intelligence to recognise) and all sentient beings – those living creatures that can feel, perceive or be conscious, including being able to feel pain and suffering.
Whereas morality is essential for civilised humanity, religion is a choice of faith. One’s choice of religion is a subset of human morality. Without a sound moral code, humanity descends into an uncivilised state – one that is barbaric, vicious, primitive and wicked. Those who inflict cruelty on any sentient being, either other humans or animals, act immorally. It is not as if they are ammoral (unaware of what morality is); they are decidedly immoral – they knowingly do what is wrong. Those who support the eating of animals cruelly killed are similarly immoral.
Ancient Greek society primitively and self-righteously viewed animals existing only for human benefit. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle viewed animals as ‘natural slaves‘ made for humans to be used as a means to an end. Aristotle assigned animals toward the bottom of a hierarchical pecking order, where somehow things lower on the chain were made for those higher on the chain. So plants were made for animals, animals were made for people, slaves were made for masters, women were made for men, and men were at the top of the earthly chain, made only for God. Aristotle was a man so may be that had somethig to to with his patriarchal world view. Civilised society rightly rejects such male hegemony and any form of enslavement.
Ancient Christianity similarly viewed animals existing only human use. In the Bible’s old testament book of Genesis, God gave man dominion over every living thing that crept on the earth. Every moving thing that lived was meant for man. Some people argue that this is the reason why animals can be treated as property, or in some cases, as machines. It is easy to justify the use of animals for food, research or pleasure when it is believed that they exist for humans.
Such narrow simplistic and self-serving world views reinforce the scope of religion being a subset of the universal holistic concept of human morality.
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Animal Welfare Law in Australia
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In modern best practice civilised societies, cruelty against animals is enshrined in law. In the United States, animals are viewed as property, but then that same society’s legislators reinstigated human torture and built Guantanamo Bay prison. Animals in the United States are segregated into being viewed as companion animals for humans, or lesser farm animals, or research animals or wildlife. It is practically an animal apartheid. In respect to the slaughter of farm animals, under the the Humane Slaughter Act in the United States ritual throat slitting is legalised.
In Germany, legislation has expressed the responsibility of human beings to protect animals. This idea steps away from the belief that animals are here for us to use as a means to an end.
In Australia, there is still no national law applying to animal welfare. Instead there is a hotch potch state and territory based regulations.
New South Wales has its Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979
Vic has its Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986
Queensland has its Animal Care and Protection Act 2001
South Australia has its Animal Welfare Act 1985
West Australia has its Animal Welfare Act 2002
Tasmania has its Animal Welfare Act 1993
Northern Territory has its Animal Welfare Act
Australian Capital Territory has its Animal Welfare Act1992
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Even though the designated government departments charged with the administration and enforcement of the respective Acts are the primary industry departments, it is a government cop out that standard practice is to delegate enforcement to the RSPCA, a community charity.
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The RSPCA in Australia
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The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals is a community based charity that works to prevent cruelty to animals by actively promoting their care and protection. RSPCA Australia is a Federation of eight independent State and Territory RSPCA bodies called member Societies. RSPCA member Societies do much of the hands on work traditionally associated with the RSPCA such as the operation of shelters and the Inspectorate plus community education and fundraising.
The RSPCA’s Inspectorate’s primary role is:
To investigate complaints of cruelty and neglect
To provide guidance and education to animal owners where necessary
To initiate prosecutions for offences
To attend to sick and injured stray animals or those that have been abandoned
To carry out regular inspections of saleyards, pet shops, abattoirs, livestock export operations, animal boarding and breeding establishments, intensive and non-traditional farms, and all places where animals are kept and used for public entertainment.
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Editor: What a government cop out! – getting charities to do its dirty work. And how effective can a charity be to monitor, police and prosecute such industries and cultures?
Meat Standards Australia – whose cultural definition?
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The standard for ‘meat production‘ (aka farm animal slaughter) in Australia is that all animals must be effectively stunned (unconscious) prior to slaughter. Kosher slaughter does not comply with this standard (Ed: nor does Halal slaughter).
Despite the Australian standard requiring stunning, there are instances where the relevant Australian state or territory meat-inspection authority can provide an exemption and approve an abattoir for ritual slaughter without prior stunning – either halal or kosher – for the domestic market. For cattle and sheep, the requirements for this type of slaughter are set out in a nationally adopted guideline Ritual Slaughter for Ovine (Sheep) and Bovine (Cattle):
For cattle, this means the animal must remain in an upright position with the head and body restrained. The animal must be stunned with a captive-bolt pistol immediately after the throat is cut (known as ‘sticking’). Two separate people must perform the sticking and stunning. If there are any problems restraining the animal while attempting to stick it, then it must be stunned immediately.
For religious slaughter of sheep, the guideline requires cutting both the carotid arteries and the jugular veins. This must be confirmed — if they are not completely severed, then the animal must be immediately stunned.
Cattle and sheep requirements are different because cattle have an extra blood supply to the brain through the back of the neck. Therefore, cutting cattle’s throats results in less rapid loss of consciousness.
Kosher beef, sheepmeat and chicken are produced from animals that have not been stunned prior to having their throat cut.
‘The RSPCA is strongly opposed to all forms of slaughter that do not involve prior stunning of the animal.‘
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The RSPCA is concerned there are greater risks of animal suffering during religious slaughter without stunning than for conventional slaughter. The number of animals involved is a tiny percentage of all animals killed but, regardless, the method is distressing to the animal due to:
Increased restraint
Injury caused by the slaughter methods
Subsequent bleeding out
The use of stunning during the slaughter process can remove some, but not all, of these concerns.
The RSPCA definition of humane killing is: ‘an animal must be either killed instantly or rendered insensible to pain until death supervenes’. When killing animals for food, this means they must be stunned before slaughter so they immediately become unconscious. The RSPCA policy on ritual slaughter is clear: slaughter without prior stunning is inhumane and completely unnecessary.
The RSPCA is opposed to inhumane methods of killing and continues to promote this view to governments and the public. This view of animal welfare and animal slaughter of the RSPCA is supported by The Habitat Advocate, although we consider that concerted effort needs to be made to reduce human reliance upon animals for food.
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End ‘cruel’ religious slaughter, say (British) scientists
Religious slaughter techniques practised by Jews and Muslims are cruel and should be ended, says a scientific assessment from the (UK) Government’s animal welfare advisers.
The Farm Animal Welfare Council (UK) says that slitting the throats of the animals most commonly used for meat, chickens, without stunning, results in “significant pain and distress”. The committee, which includes scientific, agricultural and veterinary experts, is calling for the Government to launch a debate with Muslim and Jewish communities to end the practice.
One Muslim organisation, the Halal Food Authority, already insists on the slaughterhouses it regulates stunning animals first on welfare grounds, as long as they are still alive when their throats are slit. But in other halal and almost all kosher slaughterhouses, animals have their throats slit without prior stunning which would render them insensible to the pain. Religious groups say that doing so would be against their interpretation of religious texts.
They are granted an exemption to the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995, which stipulates that creatures such as cows, goats and chickens be stunned first.
In a report into the slaughter of white meat, the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) said evidence suggested that chicken and turkeys were likely to be conscious for up to 20 seconds as blood seeped out of them. The animals are killed by a transverse incision across their neck, cutting skin, muscle, trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins and major nerves.
“Such a large cut will inevitably trigger sensory input to pain centres in the brain,” the council said. “Our conclusions … are that such an injury would result in significant pain and distress … before insensibility supervenes. Fawc is in agreement with the prevailing scientific consensus that slaughter without pre-stunning causes pain and distress. On the basis that this is avoidable and in the interests of welfare, FAWC concludes that all birds should be pre-stunned before slaughter.”
While recognising the difficulties of reconciling scientific findings with matters of faith, it urged the Government to “continue to engage with religious communities” to make progress. In a 2003 report on red meat, FAWC called for ministers to repeal the religious groups’ legal opt-out.
The Shechita Council, which oversees kosher meat, was contacted but did not supply a comment. Massood Khawaja, president of the Halal Food Authority, insisted that its animals were stunned, unlike those regulated by another group, the Halal Monitoring Committee. “The Koran says use your brain, ponder about things and that’s what we are doing,” he said. “It’s a question of animal welfare.”
The Government no longer keeps statistics on religious slaughter, but five years ago, the Meat Hygiene Service suggested 114 million animals were killed under halal and 2.1 million under kosher methods each year in Britain.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it would not change its “long-standing policy of religious tolerance” by ending the opt-out. “And while the Government would prefer to see all animals stunned before slaughter, we will continue to ensure that required standards of animal welfare are effectively monitored and enforced in all slaughterhouses,” it said in a statement.
Last year, Lord Rooker , a minister in the department, called for meat slaughtered without stunning to be labelled for the public’s benefit, since some cuts were considered unacceptable to eat, and sold back into the food chain. The Government no longer keeps statistics on religious slaughter, but five years ago the Meat Hygiene Service suggested 114 million were killed under halal and 2.1 million under kosher methods each year.
Last night, the vegetarian organisation Viva!, Tom Lane, said: “How many times does the Government’s own advisory committe on animal welfare have to ask for a ban on slaughter without pre-stunning before action is taken? Viva! embraces multiculturalism and all religious faiths, but the suffering of these animals is so extreme that a line has to be drawn somewhere.”
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What is Kosher Slaughter?
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‘At every kosher slaughterhouse, animals are killed by a ritual cut to the neck called ‘shechita‘ that severs the esophagus and trachea (or at least one of these in the case of chickens and turkeys). Ideally, the cut also severs blood flow to the brain and, after a variable period of time, leads to unconsciousness. Jewish law specifies that a razor sharp blade must be used and that the slaughter must be performed by a properly trained individual called a shochet.
‘These rules are particularly important for animal welfare because the sharpness of the blade and its proper use seems to reduce the pain caused by the cut and speed unconsciousness. Most, though not all, authorities in halakha (Jewish law) have further argued that the animal must be conscious while shechita is performed. In non-kosher slaughterhouses, U.S. law requires that animals be stunned before being slaughtered on humane grounds.’
[Editor: Illegality and immorality receive a blind eye when Religion overrules State. Communities have a right to expect their political representatives to appropriately represent community values and for their government to set and maintain high standards, else community faith and trust in political process and in government are undermined].
‘I’m going to be frank—after a minute and a half of Global Action in the Interest of Animals (GAIA)’s latest undercover video footage from a halal slaughterhouse in Belgium, I had to stop watching. But while I was able to hit a pause button, the more than 250,000 cows, sheep, and goats who are slaughtered while they are still conscious must endure prolonged torment. Animals killed halal (according to Islamic law) cannot be stunned before their throats are cut, which means that many animals—including the cow shown in this video—fight and gasp for their last breath, struggling to stand while the blood drains from their necks.
Belgium forbids slaughter without prior stunning, but the law does not apply to ritual slaughter practices, even though much of the halal meat produced in the country is distributed both to religious and nonreligious markets. Islamic teachings encourage kindness and compassion toward all creatures, which is why many Muslims make the humane decision to go vegan.
Visit IslamicConcern.com to learn more about cruelty-free alternatives to halal meat.
Editor: What has become regarded as politically correct has been allowed to descend into morally incorrect. Ritual slaughter is religious tolerance at any cost. If halal and kosher is permitted what is stopping tolerance of voodoo, pagan animal sacrifice, Indian Khond human sacrifice, Sumatran Batak canabalism? Humans can justify any practice on the basis of cultural tradition.
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What has Australia’s Meat and Livestock Association have to say?
MLA: ‘Animal health, welfare and biosecurity are important at all stages of the livestock production chain. Each can have potentially adverse impacts on productivity if managed poorly and because producers have a duty of care to their livestock. If not upheld, these issues have the potential to reflect badly on the whole industry.’
Producers must consider the five freedoms for animals and the need to incorporate these into property management plans and procedures:
Freedom from hunger and thirst
Freedom from discomfort
Freedom from pain, injury and disease
Freedom to express normal behaviour
Freedom from fear and distress
‘Attention to health, welfare and biosecurity is easier during good seasons, but is equally important during poor seasons or during foreseen circumstances likes floods, drought, fires and other adverse events. Special attention needs to be paid when these circumstances necessitate the humane destruction of large numbers of animals.’
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Animal welfare
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‘The welfare of sheep, cattle and goats affects the productivity, profitability and sustainability of the Australian livestock industries. The welfare of livestock is important during all stages of production, from birth to slaughter. Good animal welfare practices are an integral part of a property management plan.
MLA is committed to investing in animal welfare research that provides tools and knowledge to producers to help them improve the wellbeing of their livestock and address issues of community concern.’
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Editor: Well, that is Meat Industry spin. The following articles reveal Australia’s meat industry reality.
A Sydney abattoir that has been shut down because of gross animal mistreatment is a rogue operator and not representative of the industry, the NSW Food Authority says.
The Authority suspended operations at Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors at Wilberforce on Thursday after it received video footage depicting “acts of gross animal mistreatment”.
The footage, shown on ABC’s Lateline program on Thursday night, showed a worker bashing a pig several times over the head with a metal bar. [See Video – WARNING contains disturbing footage].
Another pig was hit 13 times because it had not been stunned properly.
Abattoir worker bashed pigs over the head with a metal pole to kill them
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Investigation Launched
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The Authority, the RSPCA and NSW Department of Primary Industries have launched an investigation into the abattoir, while the operation has been ordered to make a submission as to why it shouldn’t lose its licence.
Peter Day, executive director of compliance at the authority, said it was the worst animal welfare breach at an abattoir that he has ever seen, but defended the industry as a whole.
“Obviously the footage we have seen, we would be of the view that it is not representative of the industry as a whole, and that this is a rogue operation, that is in no way compliant with what is expected of abattoirs,” he told reporters in Sydney.
“We will work with the relevant other agencies… to ensure that we fully uncover why this has occurred and how we can ensure operations like this don’t occur into the future.
“There is no denying that the footage is disturbing. I’m shocked. I think it is the worst case I’ve seen in an abattoir in terms of animal welfare breaches.”
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Workers Sacked
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Workers involved in the mistreatment of animals at a Sydney slaughterhouse have been sacked or moved to other duties, the abattoir says.
Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors said it was extremely concerned about video footage aired on television on Thursday night showing animals being bashed to death while conscious.
“Casual staff involved in the incident have been stood down and permanent staff have been moved to other duties until the investigation has been finalised,” the abattoir said in a statement on Friday.
Hawkesbury Valley said it reported the incident to authorities as soon as it became aware of the video and was cooperating with the current investigation.
Wilberforce’s Halal House of Horror
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Wake-Up Call
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NSW Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson on Friday said the footage should act as a “wake-up call” for all abattoir operators, and flagged a review of the state’s abattoirs.
“I’ve seen this footage, and it may well be a one-off, but we’re certainly going to review the operations in all abattoirs as a result of this,” she told ABC Radio.
“I want to make sure that all operations right across NSW are being conducted in a manner which follows those animal welfare guidelines.”
The body representing NSW farmers said it was appalled by the cruelty depicted in the video and welcomed the investigation into the abattoir.
NSW Farmers president Fiona Simson said animal welfare had to be a priority for everyone in the meat production chain.
“After the live export issue in 2011, our membership reaffirmed that the highest level of animal welfare should always be carried out, whether at home or abroad,” she said in a statement.
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Call for CCTV Cameras
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Animals Australia called for closed circuit television cameras to be installed in all Australian abattoirs.
“One of the problems is that unlike export abattoirs, domestic abattoirs don’t have an inspector or government officer on site most of the time,” campaign director Lyn White said in a statement. She said Animals Australia was calling on authorities to follow the lead of the UK where one in five abattoirs was fitted with CCTV cameras.
“Only the presence of cameras will actively discourage workers from engaging in such wanton acts of gross cruelty,” she said.
The food authority’s Mr Day said there were a number of risks with CCTV.
“It is something that we will look at in terms of whether that could have worked in this regard,” he said. “But I think that raises a lot of other questions around who watches the video, who owns the video footage, compliance and so on. I think we are really focussing on the fact that this a one off, in terms of a rogue operator. “We’ve taken the necessary action, they’re not operating now, and we’re doing our full investigation.”
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Inspected 4 Times
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Mr Day said the Sydney abattoir had been audited or inspected four times in 2011. “(But) there was nothing to indicate the levels of the problems that were revealed in the footage were
occurring there”.
Asked if the authority’s compliance procedures had failed, Mr Day said it carried out unannounced inspections and audits.
“I don’t know what more we can do there in that regard,” he said. “I think that our compliance program is as good as it can be at the present time.” Mr Day said part of the investigation would also look at ongoing investigation and compliance activities. “I think we need to be clear that ultimately the responsibility to comply with the legislation lies with the abattoir owner operators,” he added.
“As the regulator our action is to respond and react and take action appropriately, where we do uncover breaches, and I think we’ve done that in this regard.”
NSW Chief Veterinary Officer Ian Roth agreed that the Hawkesbury operation was a rogue operator. “We were horrified – we were shocked,” Dr Roth said.
“We think it’s very appropriate … to immediately suspend the operation at the abattoir and also to refer it to the RSPCA for a full investigation.”
Dr Roth said he had never seen cruelty like that filmed at the Sydney abattoir. “I was shocked, and we were horrified, and I obviously didn’t like it at all,” he said.
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Real halal…real horror
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Editor: How do we know this practice is not representative? From the footage it is a clear workplace culture!
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Not a One-Off – ‘Vic abattoir probed over cruelty claims’
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A Victorian pig abattoir (LE Giles Abattoir, in Trafalgar, west of Melbourne) has been ordered to stop operations while it is investigated over animal cruelty claims.
Cruel animal treatment – out of sight, out of mind
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Victoria’s department of primary industries announced on Friday it has launched a full investigation into slaughter practices at the Gippsland abattoir following serious animal welfare complaints.
Video footage allegedly taken inside the L.E. Giles and Sons Abattoir will be analysed as part of the probe, which will determine whether animal cruelty prevention laws have been broken.
PrimeSafe Victoria, which licenses the state’s domestic abattoirs, has ordered the abattoir owners to stop operations by suspending its licence.
PrimeSafe chief executive Brian Casey said he ordered the immediate cease after viewing the video footage. Mr Casey said it will vigorously pursue the complaints to ensure any inhumane treatment of animals is stamped out.
“I am appalled by the treatment of animals shown in the video footage,” he said in a statement.
As the abattoir is now prevented from slaughtering livestock, there is no ongoing risk to the welfare of livestock at the facility or to public health.
Mr Casey said he was prepared to cancel the abattoir’s licence once the probe is complete. “I have advised the abattoir owners that it is my intention, immediately the investigation is concluded, to take action with a view to cancelling their PrimeSafe licence,” he said.
PrimeSafe is empowered to cancel the operating licence of any abattoir which does not meet animal welfare standards. The investigation will also uncover any potential breaches of the Meat Industry Act.
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The RSPCA took its concerns over the welfare of cattle exported to Indonesia to the federal government in writing two years ago. But the animal welfare organisation was denied permission by the government to investigate, for fear of offending its closest trade partner.
The government also ignored alarm bells that rang 18 months ago, when a departmentally endorsed report designed to document the improvements Australia had achieved in Indonesian abattoirs instead identified serious animal welfare issues at the point of slaughter.
As another ship, the Hereford Express, prepared to leave for Indonesia from Darwin yesterday with about 2000 head of cattle aboard, the Australian Veterinary Association joined the growing call for an immediate ban on all live exports to Indonesia.
So far, the Agriculture Minister, Joe Ludwig, has only declared a moratorium on the supply of cattle to 11 targeted abattoirs, but has declined to specify exactly how the government might enforce such a limited ban while continuing the live export to Indonesia of some 500,000 cattle every year.
”The live export of all cattle to Indonesia should be suspended until the same animal welfare standards as Australia’s can be assured,” said the president of the Australian Veterinary Association, Barry Smyth.
“This means that pre-slaughter stunning must be mandatory and the appropriate use of restraining boxes is enforced.”
The RSPCA has told the Herald it sought to travel to Indonesia to inspect conditions in the abattoirs in 2009, but the then agriculture minister, Tony Burke, brushed off the concerns and referred the matter to the Meat & Livestock Association.
The RSPCA was subsequently refused permission to conduct its own investigation.
”There were suggestions that the minister felt it could upset the Indonesian government,” said the RSPCA’s chief scientist, Bidda Jones. ‘‘But no reason was ever given in writing.’‘
Then last November, the RSPCA received a request by the Department of Agriculture to attend a briefing in Canberra, where Dr Jones was told an independent report had found that slaughter conditions in Indonesia had been ”generally good”.
Dr Jones received a copy of the report, which had been completed six months earlier. The Herald has also since obtained a copy of the report, which documents a variety of substandard practices that would be illegal under Australian laws and in violation of international guidelines.
Examples included head slapping, where the panicked prostrate animal constantly bangs its head on the steel draining trough as a result of the design of the Australian Mark 1 boxes, and the finding that the average number of cuts to an animal’s throat prior to loss of conscience was four, with up to 18 cuts recorded.
”From the information available in the report it is clear that the majority of the animals observed were subjected to significant levels of pain, fear and distress during handling and an inhumane slaughter,” Dr Jones’s analysis concluded. ”It is therefore both perplexing and extremely disappointing that the report takes the range of conditions observed and summarises them into one sentence: ‘Animal welfare was generally good’.”
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What’s wrong with the RSPCA?
Despite the hard work of volunteers, RSPCA management consistently fails animals. by Patty Mark and Erik Gorton
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Q. Why is the RSPCA in business with the largest battery egg producer in Australia?
The RSPCA says it’s against the cruel battery cage yet maintains a business arrangement and accepts sponsorship from Pace Farms, Australia’s largest battery egg producer. The RSPCA say their Liberty Barnlaid Egg Endorsement Scheme with Pace will ensure some hens get out of their cages, yet the number of battery hens in cages has not decreased while the RSPCA gets paid (to date) over $182,560 in royalty payments. Meanwhile, Pace Farms has just built the largest battery hen factory in the southern hemisphere (West Wyalong).
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Q. Why does the RSPCA justify overcrowding, beak mutilations, lack of perches, prevention of roosting, chronic stress and electric shock training to the hens they abuse for their barnlaid approved eggs?
The Animal Liberation Victoria undercover rescue team repeatedly videotape and photograph all of the above cruelties inside RSPCA approved barnlaid sheds.
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Q. True or False: The RSPCA is the only animal organisation legally able to prosecute for cruelty in Victoria?
True. (Section 24 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act – POCTA). Other Victorian animal organisations depend on the RSPCA to investigate their cruelty complaints. For twenty years Animal Liberation Victoria has presented clear violations and gross suffering in egg-laying factories, broiler chicken sheds and intensive piggeries, yet the RSPCA ignores this evidence and fails to prosecute.
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Q. How often do the RSPCA routinely inspect those businesses and industries that use the majority of animals in Victoria?
Chickens are the most numerous animals used in Victoria requiring the protection of the RSPCA.
Millions of birds in hundreds of breeding farms, battery/barnlaid and free-range egg farms, and broiler (chicken meat) farms rated only three routine inspections in 2002. The inspections are cursory. What hope do the animals have, especially if inspections are at Pace Farms?
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Q. Killing them softly? Is the RSPCA involved in sending animals to the slaughterhouse?
The RSPCA is also in business with pig producers. Otway Pork was a sponsor of 2006’s Million Paws Walk and the RSPCA makes $$$ from pigmeat sold by Otway Pork. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Would the RSPCA send all the unclaimed lost dogs who they euthanise to a slaughterhouse to be electrically prodded, terrorised, have their throats slit, then hung up by one leg to bleed out, with some possibly entering a scalding tank alive? Ask them why they treat pigs this way.
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Q. What creatures (great and small) does the RSPCA serve or cook at it’s fund-raisers and family days?
The RSPCA consistently serves animal flesh at their public functions knowing the enormous pain and terror these animals suffered during their rearing, transport and finally their slaughter at the abattoir. There are numerous meat-free alternatives they could use to spare these creatures this torment while also leading the community forward with a truly humane and healthy food choice.
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Q. What did the RSPCA do to help 378 dogs at a cruel Ballarat Puppy Farm?
Eurovision’s Puppy factory which was situated near Ballarat had been farming thousands of puppies in extremely cruel conditions for over twenty years. Repeated evidence of abuse presented to the RSPCA was dismissed, who claimed that the farm’s operations were legal. After video evidence of an undercover rescue was presented, the RSPCA still maintained “No animal welfare issues observed”. Finally, sustained protests and lobbying of Ballarat’s local council by campaigner Debra Tranter and Animal Liberation Victoria resulted in the farm’s closure due to appalling conditions.
The RSPCA then delivered it’s greatest slap in the face when it mislead the public in it’s newsletter, implying that the closure of the factory was due to their efforts! A very cleverly worded article proclaimed the closure of the Puppy factory, and while it never actually claimed victory, the clear impression given to the reader was that the RSPCA had ordered the closure.
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Q. How is the RSPCA currently handling the case of starving horses in Tolmie?
For seven months now the RSPCA have issued four compliance notices to an animal hoarder who has red-worm infested horses in her care. To date, nine horses have died as a result of insufficient nutrition and lack of adherence to a proper rehabilitation regime. Many more horses are still in danger and yet the RSPCA refuses to seize the horses, claiming that they cannot do so while the owner complies with veterinary advice. The RSPCA appointed vet, however, has since discontinued involvement due to frustration that the owner is not following the procedures he has set out. (Read: ‘RSPCA fails horses in need‘ for the full story).
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Editor:
Australian Governments (national and state) are turning a blind eye to animal cruelty in farming and this is unacceptable. Agriculture Minister, Joe Ludwig, needs to be sacked for gross neglect and immoral complicity. The MLA’s previous bossDon Heatley and the Cattle Council’s past boss Greg Brown need to be investigated and both organisations wound up over complicity in the known cruelty of the Indonesian livestock trade.
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Reform Initiative:
The current inspectorate functions of the RSPCA charity is a government cop out of responsibility for law and order. That animal welfare is regulated undre multiple state-based systems is a legacy of colonialism. The entire inspectorate role needs to be wholly transferred to a new dedicated national agency, fully national government-funded and transparently independent from industry and government departments. Essentially this is a veterinary standard that applies to all animals in Australia – farmed, companion animals, and wildlife. So perhaps a suitable title for the new agency should have a veterinarian board of management and be called the Australian Animals Police to operate under a strict new national Animal Crimes Act.
Refer to previous The Habitat Advocate articles on this issue:
Rosemary Donovan outside Mandurah Magistrate’s Court, Western Australia today
An example of a purpose-built Wombat Gate
If one can afford property at exclusive Mount Wilson with average prices currently $750,000 [^
