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Hundreds of monkeys unloaded from the cargo of an Egyptair plane at JFK Airport

Hundreds of monkeys unloaded from the cargo of an Egyptair plane at JFK Airport

Hundreds of monkeys unloaded from the cargo of an Egyptair plane at JFK Airport
04.07.2022
Egypt
Hundreds of monkeys unloaded from the cargo of an Egyptair plane at JFK Airport
Animal testing

Despite public opposition, Egyptair continues to play a major role in the worldwide trade of non-human primates for research and toxicity testing (poisoning). On 23 June 2022, hundreds of long-tailed macaques were filmed by PETA in the process of being unloaded from an Egyptair cargo plane which had just landed at JFK Airport in the United States. The monkeys, native to Cambodia, had been subjected to a traumatising ordeal lasting up to 30 hours. And that is nothing compared to what awaits them…

Image: monkeys unloaded at JFK Airport, New York, USA – Credit: PETA

Now that Air France has announced their intention to stop transporting non-human primates for research purposes, we have to maintain pressure on Egypt air so that they will do the same. All the more so as we believe that the airline company will only increase their monkey transportations once Air France stops. We know that Egyptair has already transported long-tailed macaques from Vietnam and Mauritius, the two countries from which Air France regularly transports monkeys. Thanks to all those who have contributed to the worldwide campaign that we are leading with Action for Primates and Stop Camarles and have written to Air France. We are now asking you to join us in our appeal to Egyptair so that they will follow Air France’s example and stop their involvement in the trade of non-human primates.

Send an email (even if you already have done so) urging Egyptair to join Air France and the many other airline companies who have refused to be implicated in the worldwide transport of monkeys for animal testing:

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

A deliberation in Marineland’s favour: a representation of the road still to be travelled to defend the orcas at the dolphinarium

A deliberation in Marineland’s favour: a representation of the road still to be travelled to defend the orcas at the dolphinarium

A deliberation in Marineland’s favour: a representation of the road still to be travelled to defend the orcas at the dolphinarium
30.06.2022
Antibes
A deliberation in Marineland’s favour: a representation of the road still to be travelled to defend the orcas at the dolphinarium
Exploitation for shows

We suspect that our request for an independent expert has been refused by the Grasse Administrative Tribunal. However, we are not asking for the impossible, just for the justice system to agree that a study will be carried out that is not done by, or to serve the interests of, those who have exploited Inouk, Moana, and the other orcas and dolphins at the dolphinarium.

Apparently, principles count very little in administrative justice. Above all, it must be shown that the necessary steps have not been taken by the parties concerned. And unfortunately, even if we consider the fact that the case file presented by Marineland at the hearing on 25 May 2022 is clearly biased in favour of the dolphinarium, its mere existence is enough to have convinced the judges that another independent expert is not useful…

The last straw, knowing that we were not asking that they entrust the orcas to us, just that the justice system can objectively recognise the facts regarding the state of the water and the infrastructures (which we contest in view of the images that we have published) and the orcas’ follow-up medical care, which is not done by a veterinarian that has been paid by the dolphinarium…

The reports from Ingrid Visser on Inouk and Moana, are, in this respect, shouting about how urgent it is to get them out of there. We are wondering how the urgent applications judge could decide that the images and reports were not sufficient to establish that an interim period had to be set up between the documents from the dolphinarium and ours.

They preferred to only hear the opinions of a land-based wildlife veterinarian not specialising in orcas and a Marineland employee.

«We are not asking for the impossible but for an independent expert whose specialist would have been appointed by the tribunal and whose work would have been invoiced to One Voice. Therefore, this will not impact either the taxpayer or anyone else, all while being entirely directed by the court. We are studying the possibility of appealing this decision.» Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice

With the law against animal mistreatment, voted in in November 2021, dolphinariums (Planète Sauvage [Wild Planet] and Marineland Antibes) will be able to continue to exploit cetaceans, provided that the experiments are carried out on animals… a gift from parliamentarians to captivity lobbies. Just like Wikie was already subjected to: a researcher ‘taught’ him to repeat English words, giving the illusion of speaking and understanding the language. But orcas already have ultra-developed ways of communicating. It is us who are still incapable of understanding them…

We will stop at nothing, of course, in our fight for the orcas kept at Marineland: Wikie, Moana, Keijo, and Inouk. We are also continuing to lead our sanctuary project with our partner, Whale Sanctuary Project.

We have other ongoing complaints against the park and we are looking into the possibility of appealing this decision due to the fact that the tribunal has ignored orca specialists’ opinions and has only followed up on the opinion of a veterinarian who has no expertise in orcas and does not even work in the region where Marineland is, and a Marineland employee who is not a scientist. Impartiality is rearing its head again.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice and its partners are getting Air France to stop transporting primates for animal testing!

One Voice and its partners are getting Air France to stop transporting primates for animal testing!

One Voice and its partners are getting Air France to stop transporting primates for animal testing!
30.06.2022
One Voice and its partners are getting Air France to stop transporting primates for animal testing!
Animal testing

It is official: today, Thursday 30 June 2022, Air France has just publicly announced it on Twitter under a post supporting our campaign: “Air France has decided to stop transporting primates”.

Bonjour, en cohérence avec sa stratégie RSE, Air France a décidé d’arrêter le transport de primates. Elle y mettra fin dès l’issue de ses engagements contractuels en cours avec les organismes de recherche.

— Air France Newsroom (@AFnewsroom) June 30, 2022

 

After years of relentless struggles, One Voice have got Air France to stop primate transportation. It is a huge victory that we share with our British partners, Action For Primates, and Spanish one, Stop Camarles, but also with members of the European coalitions that we are part of, the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE) and Cruelty Free Europe, and who, for many among us, have taken on the fight that has stopped the transport of monkeys from and to foreign countries into France.

Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice, stated:

“France is one of the rare countries in Europe which continues to experiment on primates, experiments in which the suffering inflicted on our cousins is generally severe. Since 1996 (One Voice was called Aequalis at the time), we have requested that Air France stops taking part in this torture inflicted on primates. We are extremely happy about this decision, even if it comes late in relation to what is at stake and in relation to other companies.”

Air France was one of the last large national companies to continue taking part in the cruel trade of animals for laboratories, and monkeys in particular, coming mainly from the Republic of Mauritius where they are violently captured in the wild and destined for breeding (at Biosphere Trading for example) and many among them are sent abroad, turning France into a hub for this trade that is certainly legal, but despicable. European parliamentarians have thus themselves also taken part in our fight for the Mauritian macaques destined to die on laboratory benches.

This decision is in part due to collecting a million signatures under the framework of the European Citizens’ Initiative in favour of stopping testing on animals for cosmetics, and a unanimous vote by Members of the European Parliament for a progressive elimination of animal testing in the EU in September 2021, as well as the effective implementation at the end of the year for the ban on using F1 primates (from the first generation born in captivity from parents captured in the wild), and many other national and freight companies having stopped these activities.

We spare a thought for the macaques in Indonesia, Cambodia, and Mauritius, passing through the Silabe
platform (in collaboration with the University of Strasbourg), and for those still being transported by other companies (Wamos Air or EgyptAir, Air Bridge Cargo…), but also via Russia or the United States, against which our work to raise awareness will continue tirelessly.

Of course, we are going to contact Air France as soon as possible in order to learn more on the terms of this cessation, because the publication mentions that it will not be effective immediately but at the end of the contracts in place with research laboratories.

We are counting on you to continue to sign the petition to put a stop to transporting monkeys from Mauritius. And you can always add your voice to the European Citizens’ Initiative SaveCrueltyFreeCosmetics, which, as you may know, does not have a direct link with primates, but also calls for an eventual stop to testing on all animals within the European Union.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

SIVU 47: The pound and the authorities prefer to attack whistle-blowers than to resolve the problems highlighted

SIVU 47: The pound and the authorities prefer to attack whistle-blowers than to resolve the problems highlighted

SIVU 47: The pound and the authorities prefer to attack whistle-blowers than to resolve the problems highlighted
24.06.2022
France
SIVU 47: The pound and the authorities prefer to attack whistle-blowers than to resolve the problems highlighted
Domestic animals

Reading the reactions from the pound and the authorities, we can only be left gobsmacked. Their responsibilities are totally side-lined by their own interests; their motto is to refute problems and to blame those who are absent. All while attacking those who have reported on the serious problems in the way they treat the animals. We cannot allow them to diminish their role in this way.

After the publication of our survey at the Lot-et-Garonne dog pound and our work in Paris with euthanised cats, responses have increased.

Tous ces chats ont été euthanasiés car errants… D’autres solutions existent que les abattages en masse: identifier, stériliser, vacciner. @MFesneau @Agri_Gouv, il faut un plan d’urgence nationale contre l’errance féline! #UrgenceErranceFéline pic.twitter.com/jRK83JOP5C

— One Voice (@onevoiceanimal) June 23, 2022

In the press, those in charge of the pound and the authorities have refuted the problems or tried to hide them with excuses that are not true (the absence of a veterinarian or images that were out of context), including directly on their Facebook page.

New damning descriptions

At the same time, numerous people came forward to let us know or to confirm that the problems date back at least five years. Some of our supporters even telephoned the authorities who responded to them that “the images [could be] misinterpreted”, that there is “a difference between reality and what we see”. The only difference is that our investigators only stayed for a few days… What would it have been like if they had stayed for a month or more?!

Regulations make no distinction between stray cats and others

for them, there is a distinction between wild cats and others. Are we expected to understand that the wild ones can be tormented without being affected? If this is the Prefecture’s discourse, it is a serious problem because cats, free, stray, or at home, are all called ‘domestic’ cats in the eyes of the law and must be protected in the same way.

A ‘healthcare’ organisation which can give animals back to their humans… except…

The elected official in charge of communication for the pound states: “We are retrieving stray animals at the request of the town halls (Editor’s note: members of SIVU), and our primary mission is to identify them and reunite them with their owners. If they are not found once eight days have passed, we vaccinate the animals and offer them to charities to be placed.” Is this really the case for cats? Given the difference in treatment between cats and dogs, we are able to ask ourselves the question, mainly when we hear the words of the staff who, in one clip, doubt the sincerity of a lady who says that she recognises her cat and would like it back. We will never know if it was returned to her…

Upon leaving the pound, cats are condemned to death and risk amputation

Several weeks after our investigation, the cats were given away to a shelter. They were not unwell according to the pound’s claims, but the FIV test for one of them was positive upon arrival. And, as they are all enclosed together and this one likes to mate with all of the others, it is a certain death sentence for any cat sent there and potentially for all those in the shelter. Add to this that one of their paws was in a catastrophic state, to the point that it had to be amputated.

No really… and even if our images are difficult to endure for those who are sensitive, they only reveal a tiny part of the problem. In what ‘context’ can we get away from this mistreatment that justifies it?

Kind staff? Words have meaning!

The person in charge of communication at SIVU 47 defends the staff: “Those who work here are kind” and “I can testify that our technical agents take the animals out, play with them” all while explaining the absence of enrichment and comfort in quarantine by the fact that a pound’s function is solely for healthcare reasons.

That is all you need to know! Either it is a healthcare organisation or the staff play with the animals… knowing that in one week at least, none of the dogs were taken out of their cages to go for a walk and that our cameras recorded almost all of the time what was happening in the cats’ quarantine.

Mistreatment made commonplace

Why push the cat clinging to the fence to clean the floor? How did it get in the way of cleaning the floor? Two violent acts: pushing him when he is already frightened and getting him wet once he is on the ground… and this is not permitted in a ‘healthcare’ organisation. One more instance that confirms to us that the cats are treated as rubbish, as inanimate objects, as unfeeling, as if they can be treated with no respect. When the lifeless body of cat 162 is thrown in a bin bag on the ground to clean the cage and clear up, it is no different.

The problems are in particular attributed to the overall situation of straying in France (by the President of SIVU 47) or off the back of circumstances, as always deemed exceptional when we reveal an investigation. In the present case, their veterinarian is absent. But it would almost be worse, according to those who reported to us, when this director-veterinarian is present!

We are convinced of the importance of this fight for neglected, mistreated, abandoned, poorly treated animals… The information in our possession against this place has been sent to the legal system. But the problem does not end there.

We are still calling for an end to the mass euthanasia of stray cats, as we did in Paris on Thursday 23 June, and to put in place a major national emergency plan against feline straying. Continue to sign our petition to close the pound in its current state (leading to the resignation of the management team and doing the necessary compliance work), and write to the authorities.

In any case, we are of course calling on all of our supporters to show restraint and to remain in absolute non-violence, as we have always done. Insults, threats, and injuries never help the animals or the fights that we are leading together.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Letter from the coalition of environmental, land and human rights civil society organisations in the Virunga landscape

Letter from the coalition of environmental, land and human rights civil society organisations in the Virunga landscape

Letter from the coalition of environmental, land and human rights civil society organisations in the Virunga landscape
20.06.2022
International
Letter from the coalition of environmental, land and human rights civil society organisations in the Virunga landscape
Wildlife

The coalition of environmental, land and human rights civil society organisations of the Virunga Landscape calls on the Presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Rwanda to exercise greater caution in the face of hostilities in the great ape area of the Virunga Landscape.

The coalition of environmental, land and human rights civil society organisations of the Virunga Landscape calls on the Presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Rwanda to exercise greater caution in the face of hostilities in the great ape area of the Virunga Landscape.

Indeed, as you know, in their respective countries, namely the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Rwanda, their two countries share a common and exceptional natural heritage represented by a flagship and endemic species of Great Apes, namely the « Mountain Gorilla« . There is no need to recall that it is a great pride for our two countries at the international level to be the only ones to host this species which attracts tourists from all over the world. Thus, in the recent past, thanks to the combined efforts of our two governments supported by both national and international partners, the Mountain Gorilla population has grown from 70 to at least 700, and even 1000 individuals, which we warmly congratulate.

Their Excellencies the Presidents, Unfortunately, since the last quarter of 2021, we have observed a resumption of hostilities between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, FARDC, and the M23 rebel group in this area, which is the natural habitat of the Mountain Gorilla, with all the related environmental consequences, namely

  • The exposure of gorillas to crossfire and other explosive devices;
  • The psychological trauma of these animals linked to the detonations, especially of heavy weapons;
  • A disorderly migration of these animals fleeing in all directions and exposing them to poaching.

Furthermore, in this period of major pandemics such as COVID19, Ebola fever, monkey pox, etc., the installation of positions and camps of the belligerents in this fragile ecosystem exposes these primates to possible epizootics that could decimate these animals.

This dramatic situation that these animals are currently experiencing concerns our two countries indiscriminately because these animals have no nationality; they are a common heritage that we must absolutely safeguard for the benefit of our two countries.

Therefore, Your Excellencies, Presidents, here are some recommendations we would like to make to you in this regard:

  • Jointly secure this strategic ecological area for this flagship and endemic species, by demilitarising it and leaving its protection to the eco-guards of our two respective countries;
  • Strengthen the joint and permanent monitoring mechanism for this species.

Their Excellencies, this is how our three countries will not only be able to protect this endangered species but also to strengthen their credibility in the nature conservation sector both nationally and internationally.

Our highest consideration.
For the coalition’s focal point
Mr BANTU LUKAMBO

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Forced swimming: footage

Forced swimming: footage

Forced swimming: footage
17.06.2022
France
Forced swimming: footage
Animal testing

We talked about it in our previous post: the Ministry of Research has just approved a project that involves inflicting electric shocks and forced swimming on rodents. It is difficult to imagine the fear felt by these animals as they float in a bowl where they do not know if they can ever get out. The footage of their attempts to escape speaks volumes, however.

In 2015, the University of Alaska Fairbanks put videos online of lessons to teach students to correctly decipher the behaviours of rodents subjected to forced swimming tests. The professor described, in a completely detached way (or with an occasional smile), the mice’s attempts to get out of the container or to stay alive by floating.

Forced to swim and held up by their tails

In the second video, the mouse appears terrorised from the beginning, floating and defecating before starting to move, which the professor finds very interesting. He does not reveal that defecation is a long-known stress marker among mice – and does not do it more in the fourth video, faced with a mouse that alternates between floating and desperate attempts to escape from the container.

At the end of the last two videos, we see the professor’s hand retrieve the mice in the container by grabbing them by the tail – again, a practice known to generate stress for mice as well as rats.

The footage cannot show, and we cannot imagine, the terror felt by these mice when they are immersed in this container with no possibility of getting out. How can you not show minimal empathy watching four mice adopting four different strategies, four different reactions faced with this situation? These are in fact four individuals who very much want to get out of this container without knowing that they are entirely subject to the good will of the researcher.

This is happening in France

These practices do not disappear at the French border. Don’t forget about our previous blog, which talked about the authorisation of a new project of this kind this year by the Ministry of Research.

Between 2019 and 2022, we have found many publications from French teams having controlled the effects of molecules or genetic modifications specifically by using the forced swimming test*. Three cases deserve particular attention:

  • instead of one six-minute session, the Universities of Toulouse and Lyon 1 subjected the mice to a forced swim of ten minutes a day for five days in a row, with the idea of making it a better model for testing a medication;
  • elsewhere, the NutriNeuro team (INRAE/ Bordeaux University) worked with Activ’Inside (a company from the Bordeaux region that produces ingredients for sellers of ‘natural’ dietary supplements) for testing the effect of one of their ingredients (saffron) on depressive behaviours — showing that ‘natural’ health cannot mean that cruelty is not involved.
  • in a video article published at the end of 2021 and nicely entitled ‘The chronic despair model’, Strasbourg and Fribourg Universities showed procedures carried out over the last few years — the first two minutes of the video, available for free, show a part of what the rodents are subjected to in this context.

Animal Models of Depression – Chronic Despair Model (CDM)

Help us to put a stop to these tests

Rodents are incredible animals, they laugh, they play, they feel emotions as complex as regret and have an interest in their own lives. It is unacceptable that these tests carry on nowadays. We have no right to make these animals suffer for our own interests.

So that we can fight for the abolition of animal testing, we need to take care of our health. Everyone is likely to need medication at some point. Now, all branded drugs involve research using animals to develop them and require testing on animals to put them on the market. While waiting for a ban on animal testing, we therefore recommend, where possible, buying generic drugs, that can be put on the market without involving animal testing – which at least makes it a symbolic choice.

Over the next few weeks, we will tell you more about the international campaigns against the use of forced swimming and the alternatives worth considering to help people suffering with depression.

Join us in asking the Ministry of Research to forbid these tests.

Copy this posts on Twitter: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming for animals! Public authorities should not authorise such cruel experiments! @sup_recherche
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: .@sup_recherche, France must commit, like laboratories abroad, to put an end to cruel forced swimming tests on mice and rats!
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: Making rats depressed with electric shocks will not give more effective treatments! #EndAnimalTesting, @sup_recherche !
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: Instead of torturing rats to produce yet more medications, train psychologists and psychiatrists with 21st century tools! @sup_recherche https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming! More funding for in vitro methods! @sup_recherche https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale #StopForcedSwimming

This article is the second in a series of five on forced swimming:

  1. Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
  2. Forced swimming: the images
  3. Forced swimming: the companies that advance and the industry that resists
  4. Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
  5. Forced swimming: a long-term battle

* The recent publications are signed by teams from Neurolixis & Pierre Fabre, from the Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris (Inserm U12266), from the Paris-Saclay University, from a coalition between the university hospital and universities supported by the French National Research Agency, from the Charles Gerhardt Institute and from Montpellier University, from the Neurocentre Magendie at Bordeaux University, from the Institute of Biology Paris-Seine, from the Côte d’Azur University, and many others.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Jackdaws are being spared in Brittany!

Jackdaws are being spared in Brittany!

Jackdaws are being spared in Brittany!
14.06.2022
Bretagne
Jackdaws are being spared in Brittany!
Wildlife

Joy and relief. That was what we felt after hearing the decision that has just been made by the Rennes Administrative Tribunal. The hearing took place on 25 May 2022 and related to One Voice’s emergency interim proceedings in the Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, and Morbihan departments: the three prefectural decrees have been urgently suspended. Some have unfortunately already been killed due to the delay between the publication date of the orders and their implementation being shorter than before, and not allowing the procedure to happen as quickly as we would like. Jackdaws will therefore be spared from today!

During the hearing dealing with the three cases concerning the Breton departments involved in our emergency interim proceeding suspensions, the president wanted us to address the prefectural decrees one after the other because the prefectures each had two representatives who wished to speak. She asked them several questions and was surprised by how vague their responses were.

She wanted to know in particular, in very concrete terms, the methods for implementing alternative solutions and of slaughtering jackdaws and, among other things, the election of the points of contact in each department in charge of observing the damage.

Her surprise that the prefectures could not give objective criteria of the ‘insurmountable’ character of the damage noted, which could ‘justify’ (in the name of the law in any case) the plea to massacre jackdaws, gave us hope.

But this did not end here! She also learnt on this occasion that the points of contact did not follow up, little by little, year after year, on their responses and the demolitions. Classic. The Crow Life Association, also present, also spoke to support these corvids, supposedly protected by law.

Côtes d’Armor:

«1st Article: The execution of the Côtes d’Armor Prefect’s decree of 6 May 2022 derogating from article L. 411-1 of the Environmental Code and the authorisation of the destruction of 8000 Western jackdaws (Corvus Monedula) by shooting or trapping is suspended until 30 September 2022, until the merits of its legality have been decided by a collegial formation of the court.»

Finistère:

«1st Article: The execution of the Finistère Prefect’s decree of 3 May 2022 derogating from article L. 411-1 of the Environmental Code and the authorisation of the destruction of 16,000 Western jackdaws (Corvus Monedula) by shooting or trapping is suspended until 31 March 2023, until the merits of its legality have been decided by a collegial formation of the court.»

Morbihan:

«1st Article: The execution of the Morbihan Prefect’s decree of 26 April 2022 derogating from article L. 411-1 of the Environmental Code and the authorisation of the destruction of 1800 Western jackdaws (Corvus Monedula) by shooting or trapping in the year 2022 is suspended until the merits of its legality have been decided by a collegial formation of the court.»

After years of jackdaws being repeatedly shot down for deceptive reasons, we are delighted that once again the prefectures’ arguments that do not seek animal-friendly solutions will be ruled out by our proceedings. In Brittany, jackdaws will therefore be spared from today. Unfortunately, they did not get this chance in Maine-et-Loire.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Official opening of the Chatipi for stray cats in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse

Official opening of the Chatipi for stray cats in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse

Official opening of the Chatipi for stray cats in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse
14.06.2022
Aude
Official opening of the Chatipi for stray cats in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse
Domestic animals

One Voice, who has fought against feline straying for years, is implementing three-way partnerships with towns or drop-in centres and local associations to microchip and neuter homeless cats and release them, while finding them a wooden chalet for them to rehydrate themselves, eat, and take comfort. The Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse commune in the Aude department contacted the One Voice Association to take charge of the issue of stray cats in the town. Amicale Féline de Lagrasse [the Lagrasse Feline Association], an animal protection association, is also participating in the project. The Chatipi programme therefore means that cats without a human family no longer suffer from deprivation. The official opening of the Chatipi will take place in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse on 14 June 2022 at 4pm.

The official opening will take place in front of the chalet on Tuesday 14 June 2022 at Place du Boulodrome in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse (11220) in the presence of the Mayor, Xavier de Volontat, Christine Dayer, the elected representative of the Committee for Social Affairs and Town and Country Planning who is also part of the Amicale Féline de Lagrasse Association, chaired by Patricia Bonutto, who will be accompanied by volunteers from the local association which is a member of the project. And finally, we have Justine Audemard, Campaign Manager, who will represent One Voice.

This is the second Chatipi to be opened in Aude, after Davejean, and the project has been carried out with the greatest efficiency thanks to the responsiveness of our partners. The agreement was signed in January and, six months later, the chalet is open! Other projects are underway in the department: in Ribaute with the same local association and in Lairière.

Chatipi: a lasting solution for the vicious circle of feline straying

Chatipi is a plan with the ethical aim of creating areas for stray cats in order to keep them safe while raising awareness among citizens of their suffering and needs. Around twenty are currently being developed. Several Chatipis have been established near residential care homes for the elderly, nursing homes, or hospitals to bring comfort to the residents, and close to schools as One Voice’s goal is fundamentally to teach about cats.
In fact, we too often mistakenly describe these small felines as independent animals, when they are very affectionate, loyal, and dependent, which makes them vulnerable in the event of being abandoned.

That being said, feline straying is not only caused by abandonment. This vicious circle that involves eleven million cats per year in France, at first glance begins with erroneous assumptions about them, particularly that they have an intrinsic need to reproduce in order to be happy, which leads to their human families not always getting them neutered. Many cat births take place in the wild. In any case, these kittens, when they survive, are hit by hunger, cold, and illness. They are neither microchipped nor neutered, because their humans are sometimes not even aware that these kittens exist. And so, litters only continue to multiply in these circumstances. Towns or drop-in centres must manage these individuals faced with this misfortune, which also has an impact on biodiversity.

Sharing out tasks and responsibilities

One Voice, who invented the concept of a Chatipi, provides the chalet, the protective enclosure, and educational information boards. The layout of it is designed for a colony of twenty cats that were already supported by the town hall and local association; One Voice will take responsibility for neutering and microchipping of three cats. The town hall has financed the neutering and microchipping of stray cats for several years and also provides equipment to trap them to volunteers. This is proof of their significant investment in the fight against feline straying, which One Voice is very happy to join in with.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022

Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022

Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
13.06.2022
France
Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
Animal testing

If you think forced swimming tests and electric shocks live in the past, you are going to need to reassess your position: despite the controversy of the subject, the Ministry of Research has just approved a project that is going to electrocute 600 rats repeatedly and force them to swim with no way out to study the way in which chronic stress can lead to depression. How can these practices be accepted in France in 2022?

You have probably already heard about ‘forced swimming’ tests, which involve putting a rodent in a container of water to observe how long they will struggle for and try to get out. The test generally lasts six minutes, an eternity during which the rodent cannot know if they are going to survive or end up drowning. First, they struggle, before abandoning the idea of getting out, then limiting themselves only to movements that are necessary to keep their head above the water.

During this time, they are filmed. Nowadays, the footage will be analysed by specialised software, developed by Bioseb in Vitrolles or Viewpoint in Lyon for example, to automatically decipher the behaviours observed, that are used to assess the ‘depression’ or the distress of these animals, most often to predict the effectiveness of antidepressant medications.

A new project approved in France

Thanks to the European Commission, France has finally published recent abstracts of projects involving the use of animals since 2022. I am sure you have understood: a project recently approved by the Ministry of Research is going to use the forced swimming test to study ‘the development of depressive symptoms brought on by chronic stress’.

In short, this is to say that 600 rats, after they have had cannulas implanted in their brains, will be subjected for two days straight to a fifty-minute session of ‘inescapable and unpredictable’ electric shocks.

Then the research team will assess their depressive behaviour and the effect of a molecule of interest with behavioural tests, including a fifteen-minute forced swimming test.

Help us to put a stop to these tests

It is unacceptable that these tests carry on nowadays. Rats are intelligent, playful animals and are sensitive to the needs of their companions. Sentient animals, in short. Nothing justifies using them for our own interests.

Over the next few weeks, we will tell you more about forced swimming, its practice in France, the international campaigns against its use, and the alternatives worth considering to help people suffering with depression.

Join us in asking the Ministry of Research to forbid these tests.

on cruelty

Copy this posts on Twitter: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming for animals! Public authorities should not authorise such cruel experiments! @sup_recherche https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: .@sup_recherche, France must commit, like laboratories abroad, to put an end to cruel forced swimming tests on mice and rats!
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

on alternatives

Copy this posts on Twitter: Making rats depressed with electric shocks will not give more effective treatments! #EndAnimalTesting, @sup_recherche !
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: Instead of torturing rats to produce yet more medications, train psychologists and psychiatrists with 21st century tools! @sup_recherche https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale

Copy this posts on Twitter: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming! More funding for in vitro methods! @sup_recherche
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/electric-shocks-and-forced-swimming-in-france-in-2022/ #StopNageForcée #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #ExpérimentationAnimale #StopForcedSwimming

/ ? Electric shocks and learned helplessness — Inflicting electric shocks with no way out on animals is a common method in research on depression. ‘Learned helplessness’ was conceptualised by Martin Seligman and James Bruce Overmier in 1967 after they subjected dogs to inescapable electric shocks, observing afterwards that the dogs did not even make an effort to avoid new electric shocks in a situation where it was possible for them to do so. Their experiment was reproduced many times afterwards, using different animals, leading to numerous interpretations, and has been the basis of a model of depression that is well-used today on rodents. Electric shocks used to provoke learned helplessness are also part of the examples of ‘strict’ procedures provided under French regulation.

© Rose M. Spielman, PhD – Psychology: OpenStax, p. 519, Fig 14.22 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness#/media/File:Shuttle_Box_Dog_Orange.png / CC BY 4.0

This article is the first in a series of five on forced swimming:

  1. Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
  2. Forced swimming: the images
  3. Forced swimming: the companies that advance and the industry that resists
  4. Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
  5. Forced swimming: a long-term battle

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Badgers will not be dug out in Haute-Garonne this summer!

Badgers will not be dug out in Haute-Garonne this summer!

Badgers will not be dug out in Haute-Garonne this summer!
13.06.2022
Haute-Garonne
Badgers will not be dug out in Haute-Garonne this summer!
Wildlife

One Voice filed a request to the Toulouse Administrative Tribunal on 20 May to urgently suspend the Haute-Garonne prefectural decree authorising an additional period for underground badger hunting with hounds from 15 May this year in their department. We will win for these badgers: the urgent applications judge suspended the decree on 13 June 2022!

This was urgent. The badgers were going to be massacred deep in their setts, where they feel safest, in the period when they are raising their young (babies that are weaned but not yet independent). All of this during four months with no limit on numbers, while the state of their population is being ignored… there was therefore a risk of jeopardising it.

According to Muriel Arnal, Founding President of One Voice:

«Badgers are protected in numerous countries such as England, Wales, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, and Hungary. It is implausible that, every year in the majority of departments, hunters succeed in lengthening the hunting season, which is already too long and unbearable for the animals as it is for those who love nature; all this to have something to do in the summer when they cannot shoot and the earth is loose and easy to dig.»

Consulting the public who are kept totally in the dark…

What did it matter to the Prefecture when providing the necessary elements to be able to form an opinion during the public consultation for their draft decree…?
Everyone, to make an informed opinion, should have the means to judge a project with concrete information. Especially those enabling an assessment of reality and the extent of the damage attributed to badgers, the state of their population in the department, as well as the repercussions of the order on the environment… but where are they?!

The young still in the setts and unlimited hunting

On the other hand, the Prefect has not only authorised the hunting of an unlimited number of badgers, but what is more is that they have done it during the reproduction period and the scientifically proven presence of young still in the setts in this period (an argument rarely listened to by courts in the past) without proving that there will not be an impact on the equilibrium of the species. We know however that a litter of badgers is rarely more than two and that their weaning time is a lot longer than it is for other species. These are therefore an animal whose population is growing very slowly. A combination which could turn out to be harmful for badgers in Haute-Garonne.

The order did not even purport to defend farmers with the hypothetical excuse of damages

It is not the agricultural interests of the department that are being defended here — since it is not a question of damage to crops — but the private interests of the hunting hobby of underground badger hunting with hounds in the spring… a frank power-lobby collusion to the detriment of the animals.

Badgers are good neighbours!

Lastly, badgers often cohabit in the same burrows as other animals, such as foxes, wild cats, or European otters. The last two are threatened and therefore protected. This implies that the setts ripped open by hunters in search of outdoor activities in the summer could have endangered these even more vulnerable animals.

The violence of underground hunting with hounds is equal to our pleasure to be able to save badgers!

We are delighted with the decision of the urgent applications judge at the Toulouse Administrative Tribunal, after the one in Corrèze. The Haute-Garonne badgers will be saved this summer. But we can only regret that the prefects stubbornly want to flatter hunters’ cruel desires and fantasies.
Because so-called ‘small-game hunting with hounds’, which consists of locating badgers in their setts, ‘terrier’ dogs being sent into the tunnels then digging abruptly, thus ripping open the woodland or the field concerned with no hesitation in slicing open the tree roots if they are impeding the diggers, features among the cruellest of hunting practices. The animals have no chance of escaping. As we well know with our investigators having led an undercover investigation some time ago alongside a crew and having brought back supporting footage.

Since 2018, we have been calling for a radical hunting reform consisting of around ten measures including a ban on underground hunting with hounds. We are also calling for a ban on badger digging in particular. Continue to sign these petitions! And do not forget the one on the Senate’s website.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice