meat is murder

The advert below is an advert from a professional ad agency tackling the subject of shark fin soup. It is always great to see fresh eyes approaching Animal Rights topics and the subsequent results. Hopefully presenting the subjects favourably to a new audience. As an Animal Rights Activists there is always a difficulty in campaigning against one type of animal product over another. More chickens are killed every year (800m+ per year just in the UK) than sharks so why spend time and energy campaigning against shark fin soup and not broiler chickens? The truth is that the general public are speciesist and certain subjects press buttons and repulse people. When they are repulsed and they have their concious pricked it opens up an oppurtunity for a campaign that can be won. If burgers on the UK high streets were to suddenly be made of fluffy cats for example, one weekend of leafleting and the burger trade would collapse. It’s also a matter of convenience and custom. It’s easy for the average person to stop eating shark fin soup without a moments further thought, but if you take way their chicken and chips what are they going to eat? As a vegan I know that the answer is that if you take away meat and the laziness that this diet engenders, a 100 new foods appear everyday. It’s also true that exotic foods bring out simmering xenophobia. People get enraged that the French eat horses whilst blithely ignoring their own cow intake. People are also not prepared to see the animals they eat as individuals. Their dogs yes. Their freinds’ cats, sure. But not the pigs that go into a bacon sandwich. But strangely you can make them care about a species. If a species is near extinction people care. Then the individuals seem to matter as part of a bigger picture. But I would argue that animal suffering and early slaughter is the same whether that animal is loved as a companion animal, is a member of an endangered species, or is considered livestock. Wildaid who are behind the campaign to ban shark-fin soup are an environmental organisation against the practice of ‘fiinning’. More details about finning here.

Ad from ACAP, the Active Conservation Awareness Program of Wildaid. Name of the restaurant on the sign above the door is a typical name for a shark’s fin restaurant, “King of Shark’s Fins”
Copy:
 ”Every year, more than 100 million sharks are slaughtered by pretentiousness.”
Agency JWT Shanghai

[Thanks Marc Wang]

King of shark’s fins at Houtlust CBS News Story about Shark Fin and Mercury Poison

The president of a militant anti-whaling group has vowed to “do whatever it takes” to disrupt a Japanese fleet planning to harpoon nearly 1,000 whales in the waters off Antarctica.

Sea Shepherd, notorious for its aggressive tactics, has two ships and one helicopter stalking the Japanese vessels in the Ross Sea, south-east of Australia.
Japan, which has been whaling in the area since mid-December, aims to catch up to 935 minke whales and 10 endangered fin whales this summer, supposedly for scientific research purposes.
The Canadian-based conservation group, which Japan has denounced as an “eco-terrorist” organisation, is promising a major confrontation. But first it has to find the fleet, which it says is using a new satellite tracking system to elude it. Sea Shepherd has offered a $25,000 (£13,000) reward to anyone who can provide the ships’ coordinates. It has also appealed to the New Zealand government, whose air force has filmed the fleet, it believes. But it has not yet received “anything conclusive”, Paul Watson, the group’s president and founder said yesterday. “We’ve covered a lot of ground so far,” said Mr Watson, the captain of the flagship vessel Farley Mowat. “But it’s a large area. The Ross Sea is 700 miles across.”
Sea Shepherd’s tactics, which include ramming, disabling and sinking ships, have put it at the forefront of the anti-whaling movement. “We’re not down here to run up banners and sing protest songs,” said Mr Watson, speaking by satellite phone from the Farley Mowat. “We’re here to obstruct and harass and intimidate, to do whatever it takes to disrupt the illegal slaughter of whales. “As far as we’re concerned, this is a criminal operation by Japan, and we are upholding international conservation law. We look on this as a policing action, not a protest action. They are no different from elephant poachers or bank robbers.”
Despite international opprobrium, Japan is determined to maintain its activities in the Southern Ocean, and from next year will add endangered humpback whales to its quota. It circumvents an international moratorium on commercial whaling by exploiting a loophole that permits whaling for scientific purposes.
In dramatic clashes off Antarctica last year, Sea Shepherd managed to disrupt Japan’s operations, but was then outrun by the whaling fleet. This year it has a new, fast ship - the Robert Hunter, a former Scottish fisheries vessel - which it believes will be able to keep pace. The Farley Mowat, meanwhile, has new weaponry including a hydraulic “tin opener” - a solid steel ram with a bulldozer-strength blade, which Mr Watson said would help to keep Japanese vessels at bay. It also has water cannon, to repel people trying to board.
Mr Watson founded Sea Shepherd in 1977 after a split over tactics with Greenpeace, of which he was a co-founder. Since then he claims to have sunk 30 ships, all in port. Asked how far he was prepared to go this time, he said: “All of my crew are asked before they come on board whether they are prepared to risk their life to protect the whales. If they answer no, we don’t take them. We are all ready to risk life and limb.”
Independent Online Edition

Japan has called a special meeting of members of an international whaling group next month to help lift a global moratorium on hunting of whales, but several countries opposed to the practice may boycott the assembly.

The absence of anti-whaling nations from the meeting of members of the International Whaling Commission could leave the future of the world body in doubt. Japan, which with other pro-whaling nations has long argued that the fractious IWC is no longer functional, offered last year to host a first-ever gathering to “normalise” the group. The meeting, to be held from Feb. 13 to 15 in Tokyo, was officially announced on Thursday, just a day before international environmental group Greenpeace will set sail from New Zealand to again confront Japanese ships in the Southern Ocean which are carrying out what it calls scientific whaling. Invitations were issued to all 72 IWC members, but so far only a handful of anti-whaling nations have said they will attend, Fisheries Agency official Hideki Moronuki said. Some 26 anti-whaling nations, including Australia, have agreed to boycott the meeting, an Australian government official was quoted by the Fairfax newspapers in Australia as saying.

Remainder of article at Reuters.co.uk:

Toronto - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning consumers not to eat certain brands of canned crab meat that may be contaminated with botulism.

“Phillips Foods Inc.” pasteurized crab meats are affected.

The crab meat is a product of Indonesia and has only been distributed in Canada.
So far, no illnesses have been reported.
Botulism-tainted food may not look or smell spoiled, but can be deadly.

The following Phillips brand products of Indonesia packed in 440 gram drained weight cans are affected by this alert:

- Claw Crab Meat UPC 0 70057 00601 0
- Jumbo Lump Crab Meat UPC 0 70057 00603 4
- Colossal Lump Crab Meat UPC 0 70057 00602 7
- Special Crab Meat UPC 0 70057 00605 8
- Backfin Crab Meat UPC 0 70057 00604 1

Consumption of food contaminated with the toxin may cause nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness, headache, double vision, dry throat, respiratory failure and paralysis. In severe cases of illness, people may die.

The importer, Export Packers Company Limited, Brampton, Ontario, is voluntarily recalling the affected products from the marketplace. The CFIA is monitoring the effectiveness of the recall.

For more information, consumers and industry can call one of the following numbers:
Export Packers Company Limited
John Harris (Western Manager) 778-229-5020
Mark Tytel (Ontario Manager) 416-587-4010
Florence Tang (QA Manager) 905-792-9700 x266 / 647-297-1852
CFIA at 1-800-442-2342 / TTY 1-800-465-7735 (8:00 a.m. to
8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday to Friday).

For information on Clostridium botulinum, visit the Food Facts web page at www.inspection.gc.ca.

Like with Monday’s post, I’ve spent the day watching people get upset by what foreign people do to beautiful animals…

Iceland criticised for hunting whales, defying Global Moratorium

REYKJAVIK, (AND) The government of Iceland has announced today that it will commercially hunt whales for the first time in more than two decades, contravening a moratorium established in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission

(IWC). The announcement has drawn sharp criticism from the global community including the UK government, which today called on Iceland to reconsider its decision, and experts with IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare).

The announcement was made by Iceland’s Ministry of Fisheries, which said permits had been granted for the commercial hunting of 30 minke whales and nine endangered fin whales.

While Iceland has not officially hunted whales commercial over the last two decades, it has hunted whales for what it calls “scientific” purposes that are allowable through an IWC loophole — though the meat from the whales is sold commercially within Iceland — generating outcry from both the global conservation and scientific communities.

In criticizing Iceland’s decision to resume the commercial hunting of whales, the U.K. government noted today in an official statement that: “Few Icelanders eat whale meat regularly; there is limited, if any, world market for the meat; and there is little scientific support for the theory that whales have a significant impact on the depletion of fish stocks.

Furthermore, a growing number of jobs in Iceland depend on the developing whale-watching industry. In the past year, thousands of visitors from overseas (over 70.000 were British) have experienced the joy and excitement of sailing off the coast of Iceland to see whales swimming in their natural habitat.” IFAW’s Director of Wildlife and Habitat Protection, Dr. Joth Singh, agreed, saying, “Commercial whaling is an out-dated and unnecessary industry that should have ended a century ago with the use of whale oil lamps.

The government of Iceland should be supporting its nation’s thriving and growing whale watching industry rather than sinking money and its political reputation into promoting the hunting of whales.” Recent Gallup polling commissioned by IFAW confirmed how unnecessary commercial whaling is to Iceland, revealing that only 1.1 percent of Icelanders eat whale meat once a week or more, while 82.4 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds never eat whale meat.

Contact:
Jennifer Ferguson-Mitchell - 508-737-1584
or
Michele Duff - 508-744-2235
both of the International Fund for Animal Welfare

But everyone who is appalled by this activity will equally happily tuck into a Sunday roast or grab a quick pasty at lunchtime; we’re back to that old argument again that if abbatoirs had glass walls (or newspaper campaigns) everyone would be a vegetarian…

The slaughter of farmed animals in the UK

In the UK, there are over 350 licenced slaughterhouses. Secrecy surrounds the killing business and individuals and animal welfare organisations are rarely permitted to visit slaughterhouses. Even the government’s own advisory body, the

Farm Animal Welfare Council, has been refused access to some of the larger plants.

Viva! has been able to obtain video footage of stunning and killing and we have also reviewed the latest scientific research on slaughter. As a result, we have built up an extremely disturbing picture of the reality of Britain’s killing factories.

How many animals are killed?

The total number of animals killed in British slaughterhouses in 2003 was approximately 900 million.

This included 9.35 million pigs, nearly 15 million sheep, 28 million turkeys, 20 million ducks, over 850 million chickens and 2.25 million cattle.

This equates to 2.4 million animals slaughtered every day; 100,000 an hour; 1600 per minute and 26 every second +++

As we continue to fish the planet into twelve stages of oblivion people come up with plans to only fish it into eleven stages of oblivion…

what a relief

Japan

Japan Agrees to Halve Fishing Quota of Southern Bluefin Tuna
By Tak Kumakura
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Japan has agreed to reduce its annual fishing quota for southern bluefin tuna by half to 3,000 tons next year because of concern the stocks of the fish are falling to dangerously low levels, the Fisheries Agency said.
Japan accepted the reduction during a four-day meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna that ended Friday in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki, said Ryo Ohmori, an official of the ministry’s fisheries division.
Most of the southern bluefin tuna caught around the world are sold in Japan, which annually imports about 10,000 tons of the fish for use in sushi or sashimi. Bluefin tuna is prized as a delicacy in Japan because it’s fattier than bigeye tuna.
Bluefin tuna is selling at about 2,000 yen ($16.7) a kilogram at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market, while bigeye tuna costs about 800 yen a kilo, Ohmori said. The price of bluefin tuna may further increase as a result, he added.
Bluefin tuna is only available at high-priced sushi shops and restaurants, not at regular supermarkets.
Representatives from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and the European Commission gathered for the commission meeting and decided on the new quotas.
The participants agreed to cut combined catches of the southern bluefin tuna by some 20 percent to 11,530 tons for 2007 from 14,030 tons for 2006.

Europe

EUROPE’S fishermen should stop catching North Sea cod and Bay of Biscay anchovy next year if the two species are to stand a chance of survival after years of chronic overfishing, scientists said today.
Despite improvements in the numbers of northern hake, herring and mackerel, other species living in northeast Atlantic waters need more time to rebuild stocks, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) said.
European Commission fisheries experts use the ICES advice to calculate quotas for each commercial species for the following year. These are presented to EU ministers for approval.
For North Sea cod, scientists have repeatedly said numbers are so low that the only solution is to ban fishing otherwise cod will disappear from these waters altogether.
The Commission has usually rejected this idea for fear of wrecking communities that depend on fishing for a livelihood.
Now, its focus is on multi-annual management where a limited amount of fishing, strictly controlled, is allowed.
more

all very helpful for the individual fish…who according to this article about fish pain, do suffer…