Sustainable farming: making sure people and nature thrive

Wildflower meadow by Richard Croft on Wikimedia

Across the world, extreme weather is causing devastation as wildfires destroy natural habitats, leaving any surviving animals homeless and hungry. In the UK, raging storms erode coastal cliffs, while inland, rainwater gushes down sheep-grazed hillsides and rivers burst their banks, putting animals and people in danger. Climate change also impacts animals’ migratory, feeding and breeding strategies, in positive ways for some species and negative ways for others. There are various drivers of the climate and nature crises, but one contributor often downplayed is food production.

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Can we justify culling some animals to save others? 

Bellbird on Tiritiri Matangi Island, New Zealand

Humans have a complex relationship with animals, ranking them in a hierarchy of utilisation and affection according to human cultures and values. While some animals are saved, others are slaughtered.

Depending on where you live in the world, elephants, rhinos and lions might be seen as endangered species to be protected or they might be used for pseudo-medicine, trinkets and trophies. Cats are beloved pets for some but for others, they are bird killers or meat. It can be difficult to balance cultural differences, species conservation status and ethics to find the best outcome.

But questionable cultural practices aside, even evidence-based conservation science faces an ethical dilemma.     Continue reading

Why there should be no black and white in veganism

Black and white cows

How can veganism not be a black-and-white philosophy? After all, causing pain and suffering to animals is black and white – you either do or you don’t. You’re either vegan or you’re not.

This all-or-nothing premise was used by TV host Piers Morgan to attack environmental journalist, author and recent vegan advocate George Monbiot on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. Monbiot was under the impression he had been invited to discuss the ethics and impact of animal farming. But Morgan clearly had other ideas. Continue reading

Pollution from pipes beached in Norfolk puts wildlife at risk

By Tracy Brighten

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency says pipes washed ashore in Norfolk pose no danger of pollution. Are they unaware of, or simply ignoring plastic fragments scattered along the coast?

The MCA’s announcement on the pollution risk from four gigantic plastic bore pipes washed up on Norfolk’s east coach beaches was reported by The Guardian. Twelve pipes were being tugged from Norway to Algeria when they came loose after a collision with a container ship. While there are reports that the recovery operation is underway, no-one is talking about the plastic fall out on pristine beaches used by seals and rare seabirds. Continue reading

Pasture Promise: Asda leads the way for free-range cows and fair deal for farmers

A major supermarket chain supporting farmers and animal welfare is welcome news, especially in light of past price wars

Asda will be the first supermarket to stock Free Range Dairy Network milk carrying the Pasture Promise, which is encouraging news for animal welfare advocates. To be awarded Pasture Promise certification, free-range dairy herds must be grazed outside for a minimum of six months each year and farmers aren’t permitted to shoot calves at birth. Continue reading

Rocky flies across the world against the odds

The story of a remarkable cockatiel travelling 20,000 km as cargo
Rocky the cockatiel

The house is empty, our life packed into a shipping container quick as a flash by a removal squad. We had booked a local motel, three of us and Rocky, in the hope of a comfortable night before the long drive north to Auckland airport. But with Rocky worryingly ill over the weekend, I’m staying here with him in familiar surroundings while my husband and daughter crash out in the motel.

I put the oil heater on in the bedroom and sleep on an air bed covered with old linen I will throw away tomorrow. This last night is special. I know it might be the last peaceful moments I have with Rocky before the long flight to England and the possibility he won’t survive. Continue reading

Licence and lunacy in driven grouse shooting

By Tracy Brighten

Conservationists call time on a blood sport damaging the environment 

grouse-1107406_1920

Social media has provided an important platform for raising awareness of the wide-reaching implications of driven grouse shooting in the UK. Birders Against Wildlife Crime, League Against Cruel Sports and Raptor Persecution have been highly effective on social media and it was through Twitter that I first heard about hen harrier persecution.

Since conservationists Mark Avery and Chris Packham organised the first official ‘Hen Harrier Day’ in 2014, the campaign to ban driven grouse shooting has been gathering momentum. Continue reading

Why we need to re-think cultural traditions

By Tracy Brighten

How we justify cultural traditions that exploit animals and why that needs to change

Culture and animals

Cultural traditions are passed on through generations, perpetuating our use of animals for food and pleasure. In upholding religious festivals and food practices, medicinal ‘cures’, and superstitious beliefs, animal abuse continues without question. We can be reluctant to let go of cultural traditions, seeing change as a rejection of our culture, or even an attack on our identity. Continue reading

Rabbits blasted by hunters in New Zealand Easter fun day

By Tracy Brighten

Children in Central Otago see a dark side to the Easter bunny

Rabbit    

Easter is a time for celebration, whether it’s the Christian celebration of resurrection, or the Pagan celebration of fertility, symbolised in community Easter egg hunts and the Easter bunny.

What you wouldn’t expect is a family bunny hunt involving the slaughter of 10,000 rabbits. But that’s what happens every year in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island. The Great Easter Bunny Hunt seems to be a celebration of killing. Continue reading

New Zealand dairy cruelty divides opinion and loyalties

By Tracy Brighten

Dark side of the dairy industry could see consumers making ethical choices

Dairy calf

Animal welfare group Save Animals from Exploitation (SAFE) has released shocking footage of dairy cruelty filmed by Farmwatch in an undercover investigation of dairy industry practices in New Zealand.

Video footage from hidden cameras shows cruelty to cows and bobby calves involved in producing milk products. A byproduct of dairy production, bobby calves are calves under 30 days old taken from their mothers to stop them drinking milk that will be used for human consumption. While female calves are usually reared as replacement dairy cows, male calves have no use and most are killed at only a few days old.

Farmwatch’s evidence of dairy cruelty was broadcast on New Zealand’s TV ONE Sunday program. Continue reading

Taiji fishermen dump Risso’s dolphins at sea

By Tracy Brighten

Marine conservationists claim that dolphin hunters may be dumping slaughtered calves and juveniles at sea to avoid quota counts

Risso's dolphin on rocks

Young Risso’s dolphin washed up on rocks in Taiji

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Cove Guardians are on the ground in Taiji, documenting the dolphin hunt season from September through March. Operation Henkaku is reporting the drive hunts to the world through live stream, press releases and social media.

This season, Cove Guardians have documented small boats covered by tarpaulin leaving Taiji cove after the slaughter of Risso’s dolphin pods. Continue reading

Should there be equal consideration for people and animals?

Animals feel pain and suffering, so why do we deny them equal consideration, placing human preferences above compassion? 

veal calf

Calf in a veal crate

Philosopher Peter Singer criticises philosophy for failing to challenge accepted beliefs. He argues for a change in traditional Western ethics, which is human-centred or anthropocentric and which denies any direct moral obligation to the natural environment. In his book All Animals are Equal (1986), Singer calls for a change in attitude that gives animals equality of consideration regardless of any differences in their capabilities compared to humans. He makes a strong case for a shake-up in our cultural thinking. Continue reading

Elephant orphans find comfort in wool blankets

By Tracy Brighten

When baby elephants lose their mother, soft blankets give comfort and protect them from wind, rain and sun at an elephant nursery in Nairobi

DSWT elephant orphan

When elephants become victims of habitat destruction, human-elephant conflict and ivory poaching, their young calves can’t survive without help. Fortunately, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in collaboration with the Kenyan Wildlife Service, provides a lifeline for elephant and rhino orphans.

Set up in 1977, the Trust is an anti-poaching, rescue and rehabilitation charity. With decades of experience on the front line, the Trust warns of the devastating consequences of elephant poaching. Continue reading

Operation Henkaku exposes Japan’s dolphin slave trade

By Tracy Brighten

Hunters chase profit as they drive bottlenose pod into Taiji Cove; dolphins sold from this single dolphin hunt could bag over US$7 million

Taiji dolphins trapped 

Each year from September through March, hundreds of dolphins are caught in one small cove along Japan’s Pacific coast and either traded as a live commodity, or slaughtered and sold as meat. Continue reading

Blue whale drags fishing line from Los Angeles to Mexico

By Tracy Brighten

The blue whale entangled in fishing line off the Californian coast has moved south towards Mexican waters and could die if not found

Blue_whale_tail by Michael Baird

On Friday, whale response teams attached a buoy to the whale, found between Santa Catalina Island and the coast, to make it more visible before high seas thwarted rescue efforts, reported the Guardian.

Federal government officials assisted by boats, aeroplanes and helicopters searched the West coast on Saturday and Sunday, but were unable to locate the whale. Continue reading

Disturbing truth behind Australia’s shark nets

By Tracy Brighten

Shark nets and baited drum lines in Australia have killed thousands of marine animals in the bid to protect ocean users from shark attacks

whale in shark net

Whale entangled in shark net

Since 1962, a staggering 84,800 marine animals have been caught in Queensland’s shark control program alone, including vulnerable and endangered species such as turtles and whales, as well as shark species that do not threaten human life. Over 9,000 unborn pups have been lost. Continue reading

Rising tension between Faroe Islands and anti-whaling Sea Shepherd

Sea Shepherd’s Bob Barker vessel, with 21 activists on board, has been refused entry to the Faroe Islands by Danish authorities protecting whaling. 

A Faroese government statement said the decision was to protect “the legal and regulated activity of driving and killing pilot whales for food,” reported The Guardian. Sea Shepherd believes the action by Danish Customs at the port of Sund is unlawful.

Although Denmark is a member of the European Union that bans whaling, Denmark supports whaling in its Faroe Islands self-governing territory. Continue reading

Gadhimai slaughter festival to be reincarnated

By Tracy Brighten

The Gadhimai Temple Trust says the slaughter festival will be ‘free from bloodshed’ in 2019, but over two million pilgrims must be persuaded first

Calf in Gadhimai killing fields

The statement made by the trust chairman at a press conference in New Delhi this week is an important milestone, with a compassionate plea to make this traditional slaughter festival a blood-free celebration of life.

The decision follows negotiations and campaigning by Animal Welfare Network Nepal, Humane Society International/India and People for Animals, who organised the conference.

Heartbroken at witnessing the bloodshed at Gadhimai, Gauri Maulekhi, of HSI/India and People for Animals, welcomed the announcement. “Animal sacrifice is a highly regressive practice and no nation in the modern world should entertain it.” Continue reading

Faroe Islands pilot whale massacre ‘a natural way of life’

By Tracy Brighten      Contains graphic images

Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd estimates 250 pilot whales were killed last week. Is it time tradition was buried with whale bones littering the seabed?

Pilot whale slaughter 2 by Sea Shepherd Peter Hammarstedt

Sea Shepherd protestors have been arrested trying to stop the pilot whale hunts in the Faroe Islands, but video footage and photographs by other group members captured the horrors of the mass slaughter.

The whale hunt known as the grindadráp, or “grind”, is a centuries old tradition with recorded history dating back to 1584, according to whaling proponents Whaling.fo. The whale meat and blubber once provided an important food source for the Faroese people, and whale oil was used for cooking and export. Continue reading

Endangered porpoise thrown lifeline as dolphins drown

By Tracy Brighten

The Mexican government makes a late bid to save the world’s smallest marine mammal, while New Zealand lets the world’s rarest dolphin drown 

Vaquita porpoise Natural History Magazine

The vaquita porpoise population has declined as a result of drownings when porpoises are unable to reach the surface to breathe after entanglement in gillnets used in shrimp fishing. More recently, the gillnet threat has increased with the illegal fishing of the endangered totoaba fish, whose swim bladder is a Chinese delicacy fetching up to $10,000 a kilogram, smuggled to China via California. Continue reading

Condemnation and controversy over live export of 50,000 sheep

By Tracy Brighten

Animal welfare groups and opposition MPs say slaughter, not breeding, awaits livestock export survivors

The News Hub - Sheep Muster med

The Green party, NZ First and animal welfare group SAFE are concerned the New Zealand government may be using a breeding claim to circumvent the ban on livestock exports for slaughter. The ban was implemented by the NZ Labour government on animal welfare grounds after international public outcry when 5,000 sheep perished in an Australian shipment bound for Saudi Arabia in 2004.

Animals loaded in secrecy

Livestock carrier NADA, registered in Panama, docked in Port Timaru in the South Island on Thursday when 50,000 sheep, and 3,000 cattle were loaded on board the multi-storey vessel overnight. NADA departed on Friday morning carrying the largest ever livestock cargo to leave New Zealand since 35,000 breeding sheep were exported to Mexico in 2007. Continue reading

World’s rarest dolphin faces extinction

By Tracy Brighten

Will the New Zealand government protect the last 50 Maui dolphins from fishing and oil industry threats?

Science Nutshell Single Maui dolphin by Will Rayment

Experts presented new research on the critically endangered Maui’s dolphin that sends a clear message to the New Zealand government: act now or be responsible for following in China’s footsteps after the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin in 2006.

In May, the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee held its annual meeting in San Diego, U.S, where 200 of the world’s leading scientists presented their latest cetacean research.

In 2014, Otago University professors Dr Liz Slooten and Dr Steve Dawson, the world’s leading New Zealand dolphin experts, estimated the Maui’s dolphin population at 55 adults over one year old. Continue reading