One Voice leads a nonviolent fight to defend animal rights and respect all life forms. The organization operates independently and is thus free to speak and act freely.
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Franck Sorbier commits to One Voice!
Franck Sorbier, a great name of the French Haute Couture, is engaging with One Voice in the program “Fur Free Retailer” to say no to animal fur!
Luxury, from the mink point of view: an unprecedented investigation by One Voice!
One Voice leads a nonviolent fight to defend animal rights and respect all life forms. The organization operates independently and is thus free to speak and act freely.
The hidden face of the fur industry in France: Mink farm revelations
One Voice reveals its breaking images, filmed in six mink fur farms amongst the 14 currently in operation1. The evidence exposes the mink’s suffering, as well as the particularly worrying environmental practices. Reinforced by the French public’s opinion, the majority of whom do not want fur, the association is demanding for the rapid closure of these mink farms.
Tilikum has gone home
Tilikum has gone home
Tilikum has gone home
06.01.2017
Tilikum has gone home
Dolphinariums
Tilikum life has just been extinguished at SeaWorld. The one who inspired the film Blackfish ended up succumbing to despair and illness. Will his death mean the end of SeaWorld and the captivity industry?
In his last days, Tilly was barely moving
He remained a float in a semi-comatose state behind the grid of his medical pool, at the back of the show pools. He watched the others dance to the thunderous music that had twisted his skull for
twenty-four years. Never again would he come back on stage. Never again would he obey. He was going away and we can imagine that, far from being afraid, this idea soothed him.
The drugs blurred his mind, the fever made him shudder. Sometimes the young Kayla came out of the fog and held him on the other side of the bars. Or it was Trua, his grandson, or little Unna … No, his daughter was dead, he could not remember when. He confused them all now. But he was happy that we cared about him. He felt death and it did not matter.
Then he plunged back into his waking dream and saw before him the vast open seas of Iceland and the fjords of his childhood. Far over there, on the edge of the horizon, his mother called out to him louder and louder, the piercing eerie cry of the orcas to call those who are far away. And he was swimming towards her.
SeaWorld will do everything to clear Tilly’s memory
The company will continue to tell us that thirty-six years is very old for an orca, and that everything has been done to treat him at best. But this time, it will not work anymore. People know. And if they
know, it’s thanks to Tilikum. The whole world knows today the atrocious fate of this little orca snatched from his mother, locked in the dark with two mad females, who went mad and who killed three times before being lobotomized by drugs. They know that pneumonias, such as ulcers or “bowel twists,” are diseases directly related to captivity. Stress, hunger, fear causes a massive immune system failure among these giants in jars, opening the door to all types of infection. They know the lies of this industry. In no case, ever, anywhere, can a cetacean live happily in slavery.
Anyway, no one is listening to what SeaWorld is saying
The group of amusement parks can publish all the videos they want, pay for the most expensive advertising campaigns, for them it’s over. The mask has fallen off and the king is naked. Through the magic of the movie Blackfish, Tilly revealed everything about this hell of sadness, boredom and shame that he suffered like all captive orcas. He showed us that slaves can revolt and turn into killer orcas, who can kill humans, a species that exists only in pools.
Keiko was the first orca whose fate moved the public thanks to the movie Free Willy
His tragic death in the wild was a windfall to SeaWorld and its clone companies, who then repeated in a loop that freedom was killing orca’s. But it’s Tilly who opened the eyes of the world to the true face of captivity. And SeaWorld will be his fourth victim.
Beyond his death, the powerful memory of Tilikum will continue to guide us towards this goal that we will reach: free all orcas from their concrete pits!
What did Aicko die of?
Croatia bans fur farms!
A new victory in the fight against fur! After Japan in November, it is the turn of Croatia to ban fur farms, becoming a fur free country!
Dolphins, France against history
Dolphins, France against history
Dolphins, France against history
22.12.2016
Dolphins, France against history
Exploitation for shows
The Ministry of Ecology is preparing to revise the decree on dolphinariums, not to ban them as requested by One Voice, but to encourage dolphin battery farming. The few changes to be made are just a smoke screen. Enough is enough!
On November 24th 2016, One Voice had been received by the ministry regarding this subject. We brought our investigation reports, supported by the opinion of world-renowned scientists. We had been pleading for the end of this toxic industry. But the text has just been approved.
It is a shame because this decree is only a ridiculous update of a text 35 years old. It ignores the ethical advances and scientific discoveries that disrupt our view of the animal world, including a clear shift in public opinion against these pools of prison.
How can we still, in the 21st century, exhibit captive cetaceans in an aquatic circus arena?
Innumerable scientific research reveals to us today that the dolphin is endowed with a prodigious intelligence, cultures and self-awareness. The mere fact of keeping these animals born for the vastness of the ocean and to be locked up is in itself a major abuse.
What could be crueller than to deprive them of the complex social life that is the essence of their happiness, of any decision-making opportunity, of any sensory stimulation, of any long-distance group voyage or of any deep dive to the ocean bed?
The fact that there are five shows a day instead of three, three pools instead of two and a scientific committee charged with the idea of “enriching” their environment – with more balloons and rubber hoops? – This can never compensate for the lack of freedom.
The draft decree however intends to perpetuate this practice by producing “dolphins for shows” as a production line
They would like to make us believe that the born-captives are “domestic dolphins” who have miraculously adapted to the dreary life in these pools, and in less than two generations. The dramas of Lucille, killing a baby and Galéo covered with wounds, the little Aïcko, died despite of our appeals; show us enough evidence that this is not the case.
At the same time, the public has stopped being fooled
Because of their intrinsic cruelty, dolphinariums have been banned in India and banned in 14 European states. In Finland, the only dolphinarium closed due to lack of spectators. The phenomenon is now affecting the Netherlands.
Throughout Europe and the United States, a fundamental movement fuelled by social networks, documentaries and widely disseminated scientific information, is leading consumers away from these cruel spectacles. In France, an IPSOS survey conducted for One Voice on December 19th 2016, tells us that most French people are in favour of banning dolphins and orcas shows. 62% believe that cetaceans suffer from stress, 60% from boredom and depression. Finally, for more than one in two French persons, dolphins and orcas are unhappy in captivity.
In September, One Voice had already issued a warning about the content of the new decree, denouncing the policy on reproduction.
The international coalition Dolphinaria-Free Europe is now supporting us by denouncing the tentative planned developments that only validate the principle and future functioning of marine parks. But these seriously affect the individual freedom and dignity of dolphins, slaves who are forced to perform until their death. It is an insult to their sophisticated cultures, dialects, and hunting techniques to believe that balls and hoops or even contact with their trainers could actually “enrich their environment” and replace the incredible richness of a free life at sea.
Because it is impossible to really improve a dolphinariums, unless you turn it into a marine sanctuary or better still return to the ocean. In the United States, we are already preparing for this inevitable deadline. While a sanctuary in Canada is preparing to host captive orcas in 2017, the Baltimore Aquarium announces that it will move its dolphins into a closed bay in the Caribbean before 2020. In Spain discussions are underway to move the last captives of the Barcelona Zoo to Lipsi Island, after the closure of the dolphinarium.
How can France be so blind? It is only in Russia, China, Dubai or Japan that the industry of captivity continues, nourished by Taiji dolphins. Is this really the path that our country intends to follow?
The only decree that One Voice will support is therefore the one that will put in place the closure of all dolphinariums in France, through firm and progressive procedures, associated with the establishment of marine sanctuaries.
2017: The fight against feline strays
2017: The fight against feline strays
2017: The fight against feline strays
08.12.2016
France
2017: The fight against feline strays
Domestic animals
10.7 million homeless cats, hundreds of thousands killed each year… It cannot go on any longer. For felines without families, One Voice asks the presidential candidates for a plan of action that finally puts an end to the wandering and suffering associated with it.
They are called Sheila, Mahalo, Felix, Mr. Chat… They once had a home but one day were deemed undesirable. For them, the time to stray had begun. Find shelter from the cold or the rain, find food and drink, protect yourself from attacks, those from other cats, dogs and humans too. Because in the street, cats are victims of a thousand abuses: stones being thrown, burning, smacks… So many trials that they have to survive on a daily basis.
Some, however, have a chance to meet a benevolent human. Someone who will help them a little, or adopt them to offer a new family and this time, someone who will not betray them. But despite these women and men who, for some, dedicate their lives to helping them, the problem does not go away. It never stops getting worse. Because at the origin
of strays, at the base of the overpopulation feline, there is the rate of reproduction: in seven years, it is estimated that a cat and its offspring can give birth to as much as four hundred thousand kittens, of course, there are those who are thrown into the street, but also those who are born there.
One Voice asks the authorities to react. It is time for this to stop. It calls for a national plan to fight feline straying in France, including mandatory sterilization and the ban on the sale of animals by classified ads (paper and Internet). In the run-up to the 2017 presidential elections, this is one of the questions the association will ask the candidates to answer. Because straying is a public order problem, which is not only the cause of abuse, but also an environmental nuisance.
The One Voice Action Plan for Cats Without Families
- Denounce their torturers and make the voices of homeless cats heard
- Actively lobby the government for mandatory sterilization
- Take steps at a territorial level to stop the sale of animals by classified ads (paper and Internet)
- Help our partners in the field bring care, food and love to the surviving felines.
Help cats without families by supporting our campaign.
The dogs of Darjeeling
The dogs of Darjeeling
The dogs of Darjeeling
30.11.2016
India
The dogs of Darjeeling
Domestic animals
In 2002, One Voice financed the construction of the Darjeeling Animal Centre in Western Bengal, India, allowing thousands of dogs and cats to be given medical care and to be sterilised. In 2016, the adventure goes on!
The town of Darjeeling is found nestled in a valley at the foothills of the Himalayas, with tea plantations covering the hills. Originally a British colonial’s resort, who came every summer to refresh themselves from the Calcutta heatwaves, Darjeeling has since become an Indian town like the others: touristic, polluted, crowded and populated by the bolting shadows of the outcasts of all outcasts, stray dogs.
These poor individuals, covered in dust, worn down by parasites, and exhausted from hunger, live in constant fear of being kicked or having stones thrown at them. We see them scuttling around, heads down, between the shop stalls, shooed away into traffic jams where many of them finish under a lorry’s wheels. The people throwing stones at them do it mostly in fear. In India, rabies is still a real risk: 18,000 people die of it each year.
In order to reduce the spread of the disease, the Darjeeling municipality regularly launch street dog eradication campaigns, whose bite is the main transmitter of the virus.
In Jaipur, Christine Townend and her husband Jeremy have already set up an ‘ABC’ programme (Animal Birth Control). They were prepared to invest in Darjeeling as in the neighbouring town of Kalimpong, but how would they find the money? Who would finance the project? Because of a lack of answers to these questions, the project remained dormant. However, in 2002, after having obtained commitment from the town, One Voice offered all of the funds necessary to buy the land and to construct Darjeeling Animal Shelter, without looking back. The ABC programmes could start!
Today, the first thing we notice when we arrive in the town, is that there are less stray dogs, they look happier, and are in better health. The veterinary centre, still financed by One Voice, and fully active since 2008, has been looking after them ever since. Thousands of dogs, and more recently, cats, have been looked after in the refuge; treated and sterilised. Some are released, others stay in the centre, and others are adopted. Going further afield, the Darjeeling Animal Centre team has expanded its remit, with a veterinary van that visits the villages to treat animals. Vaccination camps are also installed in isolated hamlets that are only accessible by foot.
Gradually, more individuals are getting involved, volunteers are presenting themselves at the refuge, people are adopting cats, and mentalities are changing. People’s points of view are shifting for these animals that were once seen as untouchable. They have seen the centre personnel catch them gently, give them medical care, sterilise them and let them go once they are back in good health. On top of this of course is the essential work undertaken by the centre, creating awareness in a population who mistreat dogs out of fear of rabies, and persecute cats out of superstition.
To support this wonderful project, which will surely be a useful pilot for many other Asian and African towns, One Voice is looking for sponsors for Darjeeling’s ‘stars’. The oldest one, Dolly, an adorable dog, was found abandoned on the return from a mission. Forced to scrounge in rubbish bins to feed herself, she was sadly no stranger to human abuse. Thanks to the refuge team, she quickly regained her strength and high spirits with her best friend Nuri, a stocky little dog who she loves playing with. Dolly has not been adopted but everyone at the refuge loves her: she is welcome wherever she goes, even if she is quite imposing! Dolly loves inspecting visitors and the dogs that they bring with them. It is without doubt a job that she has allocated to herself and she executes it with great seriousness.
Alongside One Voice, please help Dolly, Cricket, Soumil, Pikachi and all of the other residents in the Darjeeling refuge! They are counting on you!