One Voice partner of Photogr’Africa exhibition for African wildlife

One Voice partner of Photogr’Africa exhibition for African wildlife
17.08.2018
France
One Voice partner of Photogr’Africa exhibition for African wildlife
Wildlife

With his project Photogr’Afrque and his beautiful photos, Mathieu Courdesses raises public awareness about the protection of wild animals.

From the small golden mole to the majestic lion, Africa abounds with breath-taking wildlife. With his Photogr’Afrique project and his beautiful photos, Mathieu Courdesses, a photographer passionate about the African continent, wants to raise public awareness about the protection of wild animals in this endangered territory.

A »s a child, during a trip to Namibia with his family Mathieu fell in love with the African continent. Today, a safari guide during the high season, he travels the territory in search of its majestic wildlife and takes the opportunity to satisfy his passion for photography.

Aware of the stakes at work in this region of the world where lawful hunts, poaching and animal tourism are intertwined, Mathieu Courdesses wishes, through his photographs, to show all of the beauty of the African fauna and to alert the European population to the importance of preserving it. « I realized that some species are going to disappear, it touched me a lot and I told myself that I needed to raise awareness. To show people that there is still a very wild region in Africa and that it must be preserved. »

In Africa, poaching effectively destroys an elephant every 15 minutes and 4 rhinoceros a day. After drugs and guns, trafficking of endangered species is third in the world.

Thus, even if there are very large disparities on the continent, some species are alarmingly scarce: « In Namibia, there is a big problem with black rhinos, which are increasingly difficult to find. Their population is very threatened. On my first trip to Namibia, rhinoceros were easily found on the way to water points. Today it is much more difficult because poachers hunt them for their horns. »

The moments immortalized by Mathieu are wild and unique moments. They capture the look, the emotion. His photos are his response to the widespread belief that we humans are at the centre of the world. These images seek to challenge the viewer, to bring home an awareness. The world does not belong to us! « Humans can have a huge negative impact, but I’m convinced that they can also play an important role in protecting animals. »

For Mathieu, it is essential to keep hoping: « Everything is not negative, everything is not black. I see a growing awareness for the preservation of the great African wildlife. » He is currently working on a web documentary series for animal protection with the director Gilles de Maistre.

Humans are able to fight against the killing of these animal species. Some, more and more numerous, are fighting on the spot for the protection of the animals, and with very beautiful successes: « While there is almost none in the Congo, one sees more and more elephants, in Southern Africa for example. A few years ago, I followed herds of elephants with 10 or 15 individuals. Today, I come across the same herds with 30 or 40 individuals of all ages! »

The Photogr’Afrique exhibition is currently running in different locations in France. 50% of the proceeds from the sale of photographs and photo albums from the exhibition are donated to One Voice to support its fight in the preservation of wildlife.

Stay informed of upcoming dates on his website.

«Beyond its seriousness and its dynamism, One Voice is a great arch that welcomes all animal welfare sensitivities. It accepts both the most ardent defenders and the soul who is sensitive to animal welfare. It is for this reason that I chose to put my photographs at the service of this association.»Mathieu Courdesses

Pictures: Mathieu Courdesses

 

Let’s rally against the shooting of red foxes at night in Moselle

Let’s rally against the shooting of red foxes at night in Moselle
14.08.2018
Moselle
Let’s rally against the shooting of red foxes at night in Moselle
Wildlife

In Moselle, the Prefect published a decree ordering the night shooting on red foxes. We have filed an appeal for excess of power. Let us defend them!

Indeed, we could believe that the red foxes’ bad reputation precedes them… But it subsists in the collective imagination relating to a bygone era! The fox is a useful scapegoat for the system in place that justifies and consents to the slaughter of wild animals all year long – or even the initiative – of public services!

The prefect of Moselle remains adamant … against general opinion

Although several departments of France’s eastern regions – Aube, Meurthe-et-Moselle and the Ardennes – have renounced this year’s night massacres of foxes through a massive mobilisation, and despite the decision of the Administrative Court of Strasbourg who ruled the previous decree illegal, the Prefect of the Moselle remains adamant and issues a new decree which this time authorises the night shooting of the red foxes for 2 years over the whole department in order: « to protect the chicken coops » … even though no numerical data supports the claim that they represent an actual threat! It has been done in forceful manner, totally anti-democratic, the citizens being almost unanimously opposed to the shots at night: the public consultation reported 372 out of 380 against the night shots on these small mammals! 98%! The list of responses to advisory opinions is uplifting. It is only lip-service and bypassing the main subject. A prefecture which circumvents the decisions of justice and opposes the opinion of the population … Is this not a denial of democracy?

As for issues linked to foxes, they have been resolved for a long time (i.e. rabies), or had simple solutions not been applied despite common sense!The facts are there: they have a role to play in the ecosystem, without them, the whole thing is unbalanced. We cannot continue to hunt, dig up and kill these animals with impunity, all year long! Foxes are sentient beings and merely because of this, they should be protected. Since 2015, the Civil Code stipulates that animals are sentient beings, what is the use of having improved it if we are to maintain the same hunting practices towards them?

Foxes represent such a wealth, and have the right to live in peace in our forests (when our species does not know how to make the most of another animal species, most of the time, the latter is in danger of death)! They are intelligent and sensitive, and we continue to make them suffer martyrdom… The real reason for their hunting: the so called competition they represent to humans in view of the chicken farms (that are poorly protected), at the level of reared « game  » which are released by the hunters themselves, as well as the pleasure of killing that hunting provides under the cover of the regulations … The forest ecosystems could perfectly do without humans, by the way. The foxes and even the wolveswould have their place!

An abuse of power that must be denounced: Let’s rally!

While in recent years the population of foxes seems to be decreasing, these additional means of « destruction » appear disproportionate and dangerous for the inhabitants of our villages and can have serious consequences on the ecosystems given this small animal’s way of life. They are more than 500 000 that disappear every year, that’s enough, it has to stop ! We file a lawsuit for abuse of power together with several of our partners in the Renard Grand Est Collectiveagainst this shameful prefectural decree!

Please sign our petition to warn everyone about the fate of red foxes in France!

South African lions slaughtered for so called miracle cures

South African lions slaughtered for so called miracle cures
10.08.2018
Afrique du Sud
South African lions slaughtered for so called miracle cures
Wildlife

In South Africa, lions have been stalked by poachers and trophy hunters in a perfectly legal way for years, as high as 500 individuals per year. This number does not appear to be sufficient since the South African government has just decided to double its annual lion bone exports to China! What an abominable sadness. Protest your anger to their president!

This increase in export quotas has an obvious economic role, so that money from illegal trafficking enters the coffers of the state and benefits the whole country … and not just the smugglers and poachers. Lions are also bred in captivity specifically for this purpose!

The placebo effect is only a dream in the far east but devastates the lion populations of the rainbow nation.

When you see the lion’s magnificence & beauty, you wonder why anyone would want to kill him for ‘medicine’ that doesn’t work.
South Africa has doubled their annual quota of lion bones exported for traditional Chinese medicine. RT to ask @CyrilRamaphosa to reverse this. pic.twitter.com/oeZYsAQM8X

— Bella Lack ? (@BellaLack) 10 août 2018

There is nothing that has been allowed so animals can be slaughtered for so called miracle cures! « Love Potions », « Tiger Wine », the skin and head of lions serve as carpets or stuffed for trophy hunters or the carcass is sent to China to be crushed and serve the financial windfall of farcical quackery to be elevated to the rank of medicine …

This is all the more serious as lions are endangered.

When we see the magnificence of the lion and their solar beauty … some, like us, are filled with a sense of fullness and satisfaction when contemplating this calm and majestic power, for others, jealousy and envy, who want to appropriate this. These are very sick societies, like those of humans, who want to appropriate the wealth of others, and that of animals, for their deepest gain: their very lives, through their fur, their skin, their flesh and their bones….

Let’s lobby the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa on social networks (@CyrilRamaphosa on Twitter and @MyANCza on Facebook), to cancel this unbearable decision!

Emergency for Scarlet, the youngest orca of the clan J is dying from starvation!

Emergency for Scarlet, the youngest orca of the clan J is dying from starvation!
04.08.2018
Canada
Emergency for Scarlet, the youngest orca of the clan J is dying from starvation!
Wildlife

A little angel is dying before our eyes, surrounded by her mother Slick (J16) and her big brother Echo (J42). Scarlet is not sick. Finally, though… She is sick from certain human aggressions on her planet, this blue planet that we all share.

A population weakened by the captivity industry

Scarlet (J50)’s family have lived here in Puget Sound, off Seattle and Vancouver for hundreds of years. In the 70s, armed men came, hungry for money, to capture these resident orcas, easy to track down. Nets, fast boats, dynamite, 13 of them were captured and sent to dolphinariums. How many died during these indescribably violent hunts ? Lolita was one of those little ones captured and taken away… Now after 48 years, still going around in circles under the tropical sun of Miami.

Their super pod of three family clans could never really recover, despite their solidarity, despite the active and benevolent watch from their matriarch Granny, who died in January 2017 at the age of 105. Granny had experienced hardships, catches from industry, pollution, tankers and fishermen… But the worst was yet to come: to see her grand children die from hunger and thirst. A slow agony, a constant stress. If the disappearance of this species is a tragedy for all of us, then it is above all a martyrdom for the individuals concerned.

Scarlet is in immediate danger

Scarlet, is the last born of the J pod, she is still a child, but her birth dates back to 2014. Granny had watched over her as a godmother for her first three years. If only she knew… At four, Scarlet should be growing. She shows all the signs of severe dehydration! One of the specificities of cetaceans is to extract from their solid food the water they need. Now we can discern the shape of the skull under the skin of Scarlet, to the point that we are, like the specialists, extremely worried about her survival, estimated in days if nothing is done. She urgently needs salmon! Scarlett is dying… from hunger and thirst.

The situation is all the more dramatic because ten days ago her clan had just lost a little one having lived only half an hour after its birth; her mourning mother, Tahlequah (J35) and her group cannot bring themselves to leave the body of this lifeless baby, taking turns to carry her since then. The pregnancies of orca mothers are no longer viable. The main cause: nutritional stress.

Overfishing and dams are the cause

Overfishing and large dams are killing chinook salmon, large fish that live in the northern Pacific Ocean and which feed the resident orcas of the Salish Sea… some even say they have already disappeared, as their numbers are now very small…

There are more than eight dams on the Snake River. For the specialists, to each dam, we can lose up to 10% of the chinook salmons. But for these fish, a long journey is necessary for their reproduction. It is a pilgrimage to the places of their birth. But this upriver journey to the spawning ground is so difficult that they lose their reserves, their bodies are transformed and the future parents die, exhausted, as soon as they have spawned. For them too, the Salish Sea becomes their tomb…

To save these resident orcas is to repair a little of this Earth that is suffering. Because the return of salmon would be good news for these fish, kings of the rivers and the ocean of the Pacific coast. Biologist Ken Balcomb, head of the Centre for Whale Research, of which One Voice is a member, has devoted his entire life to the South Resident Killer Whales, the SRWK, as he calls them; he has been studying them for 43 years. And when he goes out to sea with his boat, they come to greet him by bringing him fish, they who do not already have enough to survive. Because these orca people are not just only majestic, but, they are the best thing in all of us, this small patch of true and fragile humanity that we should stand up and support while there is still time.

Ken Balcomb fights tirelessly for the reopening of the dams. Let’s all support his call on social networks using #FreeTheSnake in our publications on this topic!

Photo: Slick (J36) and Echo (J42) surrounding Scarlet (J50) on July 2015.
Credit: Heather MacIntyre / Nature’s Keeper Photography / Maya’s Legacy Whale Watching.

Photographer Laurent Baheux supports One Voice

Photographer Laurent Baheux supports One Voice
02.08.2018
Monde
Photographer Laurent Baheux supports One Voice
Wildlife

Thanks to his photos, the talented Laurent Baheux immortalizes rare and precious scenes of nature. This self-taught photographer, who claims to feel « less of a danger to the intimacy of wild animals than to live among men », engages, through his art, in the protection of nature and the defence of animals. He invites the public to discover the last vestiges of a wild world in reprieve.

First attracted by journalism and the profession of editor, Laurent Baheux quickly discovered a passion for photography. Always fascinated by Africa, this regular sports and news photographer went on a trip to Tanzania in 2002, where he began a personal work on wildlife. His striking photos, in black and white, reveal all the beauty, strength and individuality of the free beings that he photographed. Thanks to them, Laurent Baheux transports the public to territories where wild life can still flourish freely.

Through these animal encounters, which testify that of a wild world in peril and thus raises the question humans in its environment. His photos, touching with their authenticity, lead those who admire them to feel the emotions and fragility of animals in the face of a world turned upside down by human activities. They beautify their subjects, raising humility and respect for life. With his pictures, Laurent Baheux calls to us to engage in the protection of wild animals and nature.

In 2013, thanks to his photographic commitment, he became Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program on the international anti-poaching campaign Wild & Precious. He actively campaigns for conservation organizations and has chosen to support One Voice’s fight for animal rights.

On the occasion of his birthday, Laurent Baheux organized a collection on behalf of One Voice, which received more than 1500 € of donations. A huge thank you to him and to those who contributed!

Find his news and his wonderful work on his website:

http://www.laurentbaheux.com/