News Archive - Page 138 of 145

A gathering for mice!

A gathering for mice!
18.07.2016
Japon
A gathering for mice !
Animal testing

While manufacturers of botulinum toxin are committed to no longer using the LD50 test, a Japanese firm continues to sacrifice mice on masse. One Voice and Doctors against Animal Experiments are mobilizing !

Since 2010 One Voice has campaigned for mice killed in large numbers inlaboratories (see the history of its actions for the abolition of animal experimentation). The case of those sacrificed for the production of botulinum toxin is particularly cruel. The LD50 (or median lethal dose) test is performed for each batch of toxin to determine the dose that will kill 50% of the mice. The substance is injected into the abdomen, causing them intolerable suffering. Gradually paralyzed, they finally die by suffocation.

In 2011 the Allergan laboratory, the American manufacturer of Botox®, announced that it had found an in vitro method for the development of its product, signing a first victory for the European campaign led by the ECEAE, of which One Voice is the representative for France. Its direct competitors, IPSEN and Merz, have recently followed suit, although validation procedures are still in progress. Only a Japanese firm is still reluctant to give up using mice …

Eisai is a Japanese laboratory. It sells in Europe Neurobloc®, a botulinum toxin type B drug. Initially intended for the treatment of torticollis, its use is spreading today among those whose wrinkles have become resistant to botulinum toxin type A the competition … According to our sources, the German laboratory LPT, which carries out the tests for its account in Europe, was authorized to carry out the LD50 on 60,000 mice in 2014! And if Eisai declares that a replacement procedure is being studied, how many will still be tortured before the final analysis? Let’s mobilize for an immediate stop of the sacrifice of these mice !

Action for the mice

One Voice and Doctors against Animal Experiments, its German partner in the ECEAE, launches a pressure campaign on Eisai.

Write to their representative in France !

laboratoire@eisai.net

Or Eisai SAS 5/6,
Place de l’Iris Manhattan Tower 92095 LaDefense

France

You will find below the text we recommend you to use:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am horrified to learn that your firm is commissioning the LPT contract laboratory to do tests using LD50 your NeuroBloc® product with botulinum toxin B. In 2014, no less than 60,000 mice have been killed! Other have already abandoned animal testing in favour of
methods using human cells.

Therefore, I ask you to immediately stop the LD50 tests on mice and replace it with an ethical alternative, one without animals.

Regards,

Name_________________________

Address________________________

Support the actions of One Voice for the abolition of animal experimentation !

Three elephants in the prairie

Three elephants in the prairie
11.07.2016
Périgord
Three elephants in the prairie
Exploitation for shows

Lechmee, Mina and Kamala, who are now quite old, are still locked up in the Medrano circus. Thanks to Code Animal and One Voice, they can have the retirement that they deserve in a sanctuary in France. It is just up to the circus to make this choice.

Three elephants walk in the prairie. The blind Lechmee is guided by her friends, Mina and Kamala, to the chestnut trees where she inhales the smell of the leaves and delightedly muzzles the rough bark with her trunk. Hills and scattered clumps of trees stretch out around them, with crop fields and the road on the foggy horizon. Lechmee can’t see any of this, just vague shapes, but she feels it, she listens, and she shakes her ears. She is happy. The noise of the circus is behind her. After fourty-three years of noisy fanfares and cracks of the whip, she finally discovers birdsong, mumbling conversation with her two companions and endless promenades in the heather land against the setting sun.

How peaceful! How exquisite it is to finally live for these much-travelled elephants! Born in Asia in the 1960’s, they were taken away from their families and then bought as children by Tyseley Pet Stores. Once in Britain, Lechmee, Mina and Kamala were first sold to the Chipperfield circus, and then found themselves under the iron rule of the Medran circus, but luckily always together.

Today, their suffering has ended. Lechmee and her friends have come to the Elephant Haven sanctuary, in the Périgord-Limousin regional park, receiving the very best care from the elephant experts there. They have joined other elephants, all tired by a life in captivity, who occasionally jump into a compulsive dance from one foot to the other, or swing their trunk manically. The trace of chains will remain in their minds long after the physical signs have gone, probably forever. Their memory is powerful, they can recall every detail of their violent lives: the prods in their groin, barked orders, the shouting of the crowd, the shows, the travelling, the carparks and the freezing mornings with the pain in their joints against the metal lorry floors. Lechmee has lost the use of her front right foot, and can only move slowly now. But her friends wait for her and stay close, as they always have done.

We have to stop dreaming now…This happy picture is still just a dream. Lechmee, Mina and Kamala are still shackled to the Medrano circus and still take part in shows. Lechmee is required by the 18^th of March 2011 decree to be placed in a fixed residence, due to her state of health. But not on her own, this would kill her, and would destroy her two companions. These old elephants, who have been inseparable for half a century, should be able to live the rest of their lives together in peace. This is what Code Animal and One Voice are asking for with Elephant Haven.

Their destiny is hanging by a thread. One word. One decision. The circus can allow for a dignified and peaceful retirement for its elephants in a natural sanctuary. This gesture would be received by the public with gratitude.

If this decision is not taken, Lechmee, Kamala and Mila will die one by one from exhaustion, without ever having found the happiness of walking free, unchained, as when they were children. And that will be a failure for everyone.

But we don’t think for an instant the Medrano circus will make the right decision!

Arturo, polar bear

Arturo, polar bear
05.07.2016
Mendoza
Arturo, polar bear
Exploitation for shows

Arturo has just died in Mendoza zoo, having spent 31 years of his life suffering in a cage. One Voice is demanding a ban against keeping polar bears in zoos in France and around the world.

Lying on the floor with his mouth open, eyes closed, Arturo has just been put down. His lifeless body can be seen through the cage bars. These are the final images of the « world’s saddest bear ».

Born in the United States in 1985, Arturo was transferred in 1993 to the grim Mendoza Zoo, near Buenos Aires, which is temporarily closed at present following the deaths of too many animals. Arturo endured the Argentinian sun and heatwaves but at least he was not alone. For 23 years, he just had a small puddle of lukewarm water a couple of centimetres deep to refresh himself in, and a small red ball to play with around the cell perimeter. But in 2012, his friend Pelusa died of cancer. Arturo’s fragile world came crashing down, and he plunged into a depression which would last until his final days.

As he battled the heat by spreading himself out as long as possible on the floor, and his state of health deteriorated in front of the worried international public, 1.5m people signed a petition demanding his transfer to Canada. Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg was prepared to offer him a place of refuge, where he could see snow for the first time in the company of other bears.

But the offer fell on deaf ears. Gustavo Pronotto, the director of the Mendoza Zoo affirmed that the old bear would not cope with the journey and that he wasn’t used to the cold. On the 3^rd of July 2016, at the age of 31, Arturo died just before his euthanasia, despair in his heart.

We know that all polar bears suffer in captivity, with all of them demonstrating behavioural problems to various degrees, like Rasputin in Marineland, Antibes. And all of them without exception have to cope with climates that are far from being ‘polar’. Arturo is probably the most tragic symbol of their distress.

But why? What good does this suffering do? Has Arturo’s despair been in vain? Did Argentinian visitors act to save the Antarctic after having seen him in his cage? Was Arturo a martyr who prompted the rescue of other polar bears? No, of course not. The only way to save the polar bears is to respect the minimal commitments of the COP21, to stop building useless airports on wetlands, to urgently stop the global warming which is destroying the bear’s habitat as well as ours. But it is important to remember that if the polar bear or the panda have been chosen as ambassadors for menaced species, rather than the southwestern water vole, it is because of their spectacular image and the positive impact on a zoo’s turnover that a bear’s birth can have.

Captivity is a stretched out torture for polar bears in France, Europe, Chile, South Africa, and all around the world. Russia captures dozens every year to sell to Chinese zoos. Little by little, the leisure industry is becoming their principal threat. This is why France must set the example and stop exhibiting these wild and magnificent creatures in attraction parks. The tragic death of Arturo should not be in vain.

Fort Boyard: circus and vermin

Fort Boyard : circus and vermin
02.07.2016
Fort Boyard
Fort Boyard : circus and vermin
Exploitation for shows

Fort Boyard is back on our screens with its big cats and mishandled « vermin ». One Voice is firmly opposed to these cruel games and demands the ban of all animals trained for television.

At the same time as the movement in many French towns against circuses with animals gains ground, France 2 is screening the second edition of its televised ‘middle-age style’ circus show, Fort Boyard, which starts this Saturday.

It is a shame that a public TV channel is broadcasting these types of programmes. Without doubt, the sports challenges and the boldness of the competitors are admirable, which alone is worth seeing. But the Fort Boyard concept repeats the Fear Factor principal, a phobia based game which involves the presence of some four hundred animals shut up night and day, from June to August in a fort in the La Rochelle sea, who are used to scare the players, make the spectators tremble, and to impress viewers.

The ‘ferocious’ big cats are always part of the game, even if in the real world it should be their decimation that is generating concern, not them. Myn, Cali and Kanji, the tigers in the programme, were born in captivity. Trained from the beginning of their lives, they mope around all day long in their damp cells on the ground floor, bored, beneath the Treasure room. They wouldn’t hurt a fly, well aware of the price they would pay for a roar too far. Yet they perform the role of the blood thirsty tiger. Big cats don’t cope well with production sets and bright stage lighting. This is why contemporary cinema has stopped using them, as well as large primates and other animals, and has replaced their use by computer images. But French TV hasn’t stopped, or at least, not yet.

The eels, maggots, cockroaches, bats, craps, toads, grasshoppers, frogs, lizards, flies, tarantulas, rats, scorpions, snakes, mice and other little swarming creatures who participate against their will in the Fort Boyard challenges since 1998 play into the old cliché, from ancient times, defining ‘vermin’.

Vermin, for the much older generations, was the dark mass of pests swarming under the wooden boards of the thatched cottages, and descended from the devil. According to the chemist Van Helmont, this shady fauna was born spontaneously, a generation at a time, in a dirty shirt rolled into a ball in a bottle, in a time when the noxious vapours of pests, black bile and rat invasions were chased by processions. This same evil vermin was thrown at people’s heads to treat anxiety. Just some poor rats that drown, some spiders that are crushed, some cockroaches that are trodden on, some snakes handled violently, some mice bred to feed the snakes, all conscious and sentient beings, who experience fear and are capable of suffering.

By incessantly repeating the same phobic stereotypes regarding ‘vermin’ and big cats, France 2 can maintain the public’s interest. Nothing is more fun than reaffirming old anxieties and preconceived ideas. But surely the role of public television is to move forward, to distance itself from this blind clamouring for market position and to renew TV content with modern paradigms? Jacques Chancel said: « We mustn’t give people what they like, we must give them what they could like »; a citizen-based approach, based on morals and respect for the living, for example? Surely people would like this!

A summer school on meat consumption!

A summer school on meat consumption!
27.06.2016
Oxford
A summer school on meat consumption!
Other campaign or multi-campaigns of One Voice

Arriving from all over the world, researchers studying human sciences, ethics, philosophy, art, and politics will come together in July for a summer school on the ethics of eating meat, organised by One Voice and the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics!

Just months after the COP21, whilst scandals associated with the farming and slaughter of animals multiply, One Voice and the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics are organising the third summer school on animal ethics. From the 24^th to the 27^th of July, at St Stephens House, the ethics of animal consumption will be the hot topic…

There has been such high interest from universities all over the world wanting to participate that there was not enough place to accommodate everyone. Amongst the participants will be the French philosophers Corine Pelluchon and Thomas Lepeltier. The collective objective of the event is to conduct a knowledge overhaul on the themes relating to the consumption of animals, with particular emphasis on the moral, philosophical and religious aspects as well as the historical, legal, psychological, scientific and sociological ones. The moral issue linked to the act of killing will be high on the agenda, as well as the subject of suffering experienced by animals in the food industry, animals portrayed as meat, the link between meat consumption and climate change, the impact of industrial farming on the environment, the use of meat substitutes, in vitro meat and strategies for change…

The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, founded in 2006 at the prestigious Oxford University, explores the questions of animal ethics through university research, teaching and publications. It is run by Professor Andrew Linzey, who is also One Voice’s vice-president.

Each conference member’s contributions will be compiled in a book edited by the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in English and in French. It could serve as a base for work to come, as did the first conference on the
Link in 2007.

Notre-Dame-des-Landes: The southwestern water vole’s little kingdom

Notre-Dame-des-Landes: The southwestern water vole’s little kingdom
26.06.2016
Notre Dame des Landes
Notre-Dame-des-Landes: The southwestern water vole’s little kingdom
Wildlife

The active and capable southwestern water vole trots happily along the marsh shores. This small furry round vole with bright eyes is a species is on the point of extinction. The construction of the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes airport could spell the end for its final territory.

What the south western water voles love above all is to swim in the turbid wetland waters, snack on the reeds, peck at the watercress or catch a dragonfly. They are very much at home in these calm waters hidden in the bushy lands, to which their bodies have evolved. They don’t want to be anywhere else.

Even more so than the farmers who are fighting valiantly against the airport, their rights should be respected so that this fatal project does not go ahead. There is talk of creating an artificial marsh to ‘compensate’ to 200% this natural habitat.

And then what? Catch all of the water voles with a net? And those who live alongside them, the rare Blasius newt (
Triturus x blasii), or the water shrew for example? Should they too be caught in a net to be moved to a faraway concrete pond? And the rushes? The flowers? The trees? The birds? The bats?

If this was a childhood tale, the little water vole would be furious. She would climb up onto a platform wearing her crusader colours and she would shout into a megaphone at the politicians: « I don’t want to be a refugee! Leave me to live in peace in my homeland! »

Of course, it’s only the tiny homeland of the southwestern water vole. But it’s their homeland and they love it. Why would we not take them into account?

This useless and destructive airport does not respect France’s commitments to the COP21, and equally, it undervalues the southwestern water vole, which is precious and non-replaceable. All over the world, the wetlands are being destroyed, and with them the rare flora and fauna that prosper there. As for the
Arvicola sapidus water vole, its population is considered « vulnerable » by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and « near threatened » in France. Although they have never caused any damage to crops, the southwestern water voles have been hunted, eaten, poisoned, destroyed or pushed out by construction work on the riverbank. The American minks who have escaped from their breeders have invaded their vital habitat and agricultural pesticides are on the point of killing them.

Change the paradigm before it is too late. Stop devastating this world that we share with others. The survival of the southwestern water vole is infinitely more important than this bad idea dating from 1963, when the idea of climatic change did not even exist in the human conscience.

The appalling shark massacre

The appalling shark massacre
22.06.2016
Perou
The appalling shark massacre
Wildlife

Exposing unimaginable violence, these images of shark fishing off the Peruvian coast are simply horrifying. One Voice had to act: in collaboration with its international partners, the campaign has been launched to put an end to this barbaric practice!

In Peruvian waters, sharks baited by dolphin meat are hauled onto the deck, where their noses are cut off and they are left to agonise in a corner. The pregnant mothers are gutted where their baby sharks are then trampled on. The images filmed by our partner Mundo Azul (Blue World) are disturbing but leave no doubt: this must stop!

Sharks aren’t the most popular of creatures, which is probably why this appalling practice continues. But because they engender fear, does this mean that they do not deserve respect? Because their reputation is as bad as it is unfounded, can we allow them to suffer without consequence for their aggressors? They don’t belong on the (illegal) menu in restaurants, nor on the market stalls. Their place is in the ocean, their home, where they play a fundamental role, impacting the balance of the entire planet…

These horrific images must lead to the end of these barbaric practices! One Voice is launching a campaign on behalf of the sharks. We have joined forces with Blue Voice, OceanCare and Mundo Azul to act locally with an information and awareness campaign for the Peruvians. In parallel, we are going to undertake spot checks in restaurants. Because it mustn’t be forgotten, sharks are protected species!

And because international opinion counts, One Voice has launched a petition in France which will be addressed to the Peruvian ambassador.

To support our work; to save the sharks in Peru, please sign and share the petition!

The educational alternative in the city of yulin

The educational alternative in the city of yulin
21.06.2016
The educational alternative in the city of yulin
Other campaign or multi-campaigns of One Voice

June 21st: Each year the barbarity of the dog meat festival strikes at our conscience. One Voice supports the struggle of local campaigners so that attitudes will finally change.

China, which accounts for 20% of the world’s population, is a huge machine engulfing natural resources, animal-products and biotopes to satisfy its needs. Here primary needs prevail and the consideration such as giving a little humanity to dogs still appears secondary. It should be remembered that, under Mao, the central party banned the possession of a pet animal, because it was considered as a by-product of a decadent bourgeoisie culture. And in a country where the Mandarin word for an animal simply means « moving object, » the domestic companion is far from being worthy of any protective legislation.

At the root of it all is evil

It is in this unfavourable context that ACTAsia, a Chinese association born ten years ago, works on many fronts to advance the animal cause. Since 2008 its investigations into Chinese Zoos and the dog meat trade has been supported by One Voice who is a partner of this association. An active financial support helps to educate Chinese fashion designers and consumers in anti-fur ethics, through which hundreds of Chinese veterinarians are being trained in animal welfare and to promote new practices.

With One Voice, ACTAsia has of course mobilized every year to express its anger, to protest officially, to attract the attention of the media about the organizational conditions of the Yulin festival. Some animals were saved from the massacre, alas they are soon replaced by others, and notable advances have been made by the local authorities. But this mentality is resilient to change, the declared hostility towards these humanitarian hindrances and the weight of the monetary interests at stake marked the limits of the eventual protest. Therefore, among the different possible paths in which to irrigate people’s consciences, one is digging deeper, longer, and strategically.

Schooling in empathy and respect

The idea at the heart of the battle undertaken by One Voice and ACTAsia is that education, especially among the younger ones, will sow the seeds of compassion for animals, humans and the environment. As early as 2006, an ambitious educational program called
Caring for Life was developed, with the conviction that in the long term learning how to care for an animal and protect the weak is the source for a more harmonious society.

In 2012 the pilot project Caring for Life was introduced with the blessing of the authorities into Chinese public schools. Developed by experts, it proposes ten or twelve teaching modules that are adapted into the framework of associations, community clubs and summer camps; it’s informal teaching methods are participatory and playful, which delights the students.

This project has been propagated through the training of educators who have stimulated the program:
Caring for Life is now followed in about 100 schools in the eight largest Chinese cities. In Dalian, with the approval of the school authorities, it reaches 20% of primary school pupils in 21 different schools.

An auspicious success

In three years, Caring for Life has trained more than 800 educators and sensitized 35,000 children aged between 5 and 8 years old to have respect for life, whatever it may be. The program is also deployed in the most rural areas of the country where the cause for animals and the very perception of the concept of « feelings » are crushed by very harsh economic and social conditions.

Everywhere, the learning delivered through Caring for Life has brought out notable benefits among children: a sense of valorisation, an improvement in classroom behaviour and social relationships, a reduction in aggression and stress. These are all key elements to prevent a behavioural drift in disadvantaged areas, and certainly the seeds have been sown for a different future, where the Yulin festival will no longer be tolerated by the collective conscience.

Supporting the action in the field

The fight is long-term; it spreads certainly through petitions and is relayed by the Chinese authorities. By supporting One Voice financially, you will also be able to equip, train and motivate a new educator to spread the message of humanity in future Chinese classrooms by the simple sum of 10 euros.

Photo caption: In Guizhou, Isobel Zhang, national director of ACTAsia, presents the Caring for Life program in schools. Hope is on the move …

Dogs in China: what happens when there is no animal protection law…

Dogs in China: what happens when there is no animal protection law…
20.06.2016
Chine
Dogs in China: what happens when there is no animal protection law…
Other campaign or multi-campaigns of One Voice

In 2008, One Voice conducted a survey in China on the dog meat industry. The way they live is a nightmare.

A high-risk survey

China was preparing for the 2008 Olympics when One Voice investigators began their investigation. They had managed to infiltrate the network of the dog meat producers. At the risk of being arrested – or worse – if their true identity was discovered, they managed to gain the confidence of their guides and were able to film some particularly violent scenes. While the country was cleaning up Beijing and closing the restaurants selling dog meat, the investigators had uncovered a sinister reality.

The horrors and the suffering

The conclusion of their investigation is without appeal: in China dogs are not « only » eaten, they are mistreated beyond all comprehension and put to death through unbelievable cruelty. Crammed into cages while they are still alive, deprived of water and food for days, they are sometimes fed with the flesh of other dogs to enhance the taste of their meat … Among them, dogs with necklaces, probably abandoned by their owners, others come from specialized farms. In their eyes can be seen the sheer terror of their situation.

Extremely violent killings

Our investigators witnessed industrial killings, within the « production factories » but also on the sidewalk, in front of the specialty restaurants: live dogs wait at the entrance and are killed in public. There is no less violence here. Before they are immersed in boiling water the dogs are beaten, knocked out with a club then disembowelled. They do not die straight away. In an atmosphere of growing panic they suffer for a long time under the gaze of their fellow captive companions.

For China to change

Faced with so much violence, more and more Chinese people are becoming indignant and are joining animal protection associations. The consumption of dog meat is decreasing but it is not enough. To help them obtain animal welfare laws in their country One Voice has launched a petition to the Chinese president: You can download and sign the petition on this website. The more we are, the stronger our voice will be!

Support the One Voice campaign and please sign our petition to demand animal protection legislation in China.

Dog and cat abattoirs in France

Dog and cat abattoirs in France
17.06.2016
France
Dog and cat abattoirs in France
Domestic animals

Tens of thousands of dogs and hundreds of thousands of cats are killed there. Their bodies end up in the knackery. No longer required after an often short life, they are abandoned and thrown away…

Euthanasia. We are not talking about putting down an animal out of love to relieve pain. We are talking about euthanasia being performed for commercial reasons, or being performed reluctantly when no alternative is available due to ignorance, a lack of awareness or a ‘consumer’ attitude. This is unacceptable! It is undergone on a large scale, in unimaginable proportions. Every year, tens of thousands of dogs and hundreds of thousands of cats are forgotten, thrown away and put down following irresponsible breeding, or because they are no longer useful, they get in the way, or they are traumatised from bad practices which makes living with them impossible, or even because they don’t live up to our expectations…

This ‘complaisance’ massacre is staged in veterinary surgeries. Overwhelmed refuges are resigned to this sacrifice because they have no other choice, and the commercial pounds that have already made their money from the victims play a strong part…

In certain refuges there are weekly ‘slaughter days’, and more frequently for the pounds. The killing takes place on a production line, with corpses taken away by utility vehicles, filling big freezers… Imagine the cat kennels; the floor covered in bodies, cats killed one after the other by intra-cardial injection (a highly technical act used for efficiency to avoid the expensive preliminary anaesthetic). There is also home ‘euthanasia,’ avoiding expensive fees. This is mass killing, no less.

However, there are simple solutions which can be put in place to protect animals from this cruel practice.

These abandonments are often the result of big misunderstandings which make living together impossible and sometimes result in serious traumas. This has been brought to light in
our investigation into canine clubs. For a harmonious life with our animal companions, One Voice has launched the ‘Companionship’ campaign, which has already hosted successful conferences on cats and dogs in the last two years!

But what also fills up the refuges is the overpopulation caused by random and irresponsible repeated breeding… In making sterilisation obligatory, we can avoid mass euthanasia and the unlawful commerce which goes in parallel with it. Our companions are not consumables!

Please help us correctly protect our dogs and cats, sign and share the petition:
« Dogs and cats: our family ».