Plants and Animals

Hi Jennifer,

We run a small animal rehab centre north of Stockhom in Sweden. Due to some problems with rooms, activity has slowed downed a bit. Usually we have about 1200 patients each year – all species of birds and small mammals (mostly hedgehogs). Mortality rate is about 50 percent. This is not too bad as the patients usually arrive in a pretty bad shape.

I’m sending you a pictures from the centre of a Sparrow owl, Glaucidium passerinum. This is Sweden’s smallest owl.

The owls are are not much bigger than a sparrow, but very greedy bird which eats prey much larger than themselves!

This individual suffered from a broken wing.

Cheers,

Ann Novek.

“Extreme drought, ferocious bushfires and urban development could make koalas extinct within seven years, environmentalists are warning,” in an article in new online journal The Brisbane Times.

“Alarms about the demise of the iconic and peculiar animal, which sleeps about 20 hours per day and eats only the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, have been raised before.

“But Deborah Tabart, chief executive officer of the Australia Koala Foundation, believes the animal’s plight is as bad as she has seen it in her 20 years as a koala advocate.”

I don’t know.

I reckon Debbie might be exaggerating.

In fact, it might well be concluded that the economics of conservation in Australia currently favour ignorance and failure. I’ve written that before: http://www.ipa.org.au/files/57-2-arekoalasindecline.pdf

And that was before I visited Gunnedah, ‘The Koala Capital of the World’: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001916.html.

Seal pups have been drowning because of thin and melting ice due to warmer than usual weather. So, the Canadian government has reduced the hunting quota by about 20 percent according to Doug Struck writing for the Washington Post:

“Canadian authorities reduced the quotas on the harp seal hunt by about 20 percent after overflights showed large numbers of seal pups were lost to thin and melting ice in the lower part of the gulf, off Prince Edward Island.

“We don’t know if it’s weather or climate. But we have seen a trend in the ice conditions in the last four or five years,” said Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “The pups can’t swim for very long. They need stable ice. If the ice deteriorates underneath them, they drown.”

“We’ve brought this seal herd back from 1.8 million in the 1970s to 5.5 million in 2004…

“Our scientists say that the 5.5 million population can sustain this kind of event, but it has to be managed” with the lower hunting quotas, he said.

Read the complete article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040301754.html

Hi Jennifer,

In the spirit of Steve Irwin, we have learned that no wild animals should be killed for food as we have an abundance of farm animals. Also, many people believe that activities such as whaling belong in the past.

However, a report from LEAD, which also has been refereed to by FAO, stated

“The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

“Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost.” [end of quote]

The report also stated that cattle fed on artificial fodder in factory farms constantly suffered from stomach ache. (Maybe not a problem for Australian cattle, as I understand they are kept in big paddocks.)

From a strict animal welfare aspect we also know of the cruelty associated with pig farms. Here’s an example:

“Gestation crates are 2-foot by 7-foot metal cages used to confine breeding pigs for months on end. Pigs confined suffer leg and joint problems and psychosis resulting from extreme boredom and frustration. Confinement in gestation crates is so abusive that the entire European Union is phasing out the practice, with a total ban taking effect in 2013.”

In light of these issues, I wonder if it is time to re-evaluate our opinion of factory farming relative to the harvest of natural resources, such as eating organic kangaroo meat or a minke whale steak?

In whaling discussions at the blog, there have been slight cultural differences.

Also, most Norwegian NGOs (except Greenpeace and WWF) are not opposed to whaling. Their main argument being that it’s more eco-friendly to consume minke whales than factory farmed meat. Note these NGOs have in other cases a similar agenda to most large, international NGOs.

Regarding factory farming, the animal welfare organisation WSPA stated : “In terms of numbers, intensive farming is the biggest cause of animal suffering in the world.”

Travis provided evidence in a previous post on kangaroo culling, and as I have understood, it is done in a humane way.

Whaling is perhaps more controversial in this aspect, as we know, for example, from the Norwegian hunt that 20 percent of the whales don’t die instantly (statistics submitted by Norwegian researchers to the IWC). The time to death , TTD, varies between some minutes to one hour, but is seems like a majority of the whales die within some minutes.

So the final question to you is:

“Would you prefer to be kept in captivity, without sunlight for the rest of your life, or is whaling a better alternative?”

Note, in this globalized world, it would be very difficult to Valtrex completely abandon factory farming.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden

“The Thortons and a group of their friends had traveled to the Dominican Republic to swim with whales in a sanctuary off the coast. On the last day of their week-long trip, they were snorkeling near a sleeping mother and her calf. Mother whales push their calves to the surface to teach them to breathe, so the calf was above the adult.

“We had gotten extremely close, closer than we had been all week …

“But the ocean current pushed the group even closer than they had intended, directly over the sleeping calf.

“It surfaced right underneath us,” Randall Thornton said. “The calf got spooked. It startled the mother, and all hell broke loose.”

“A whip of the mother whale’s tail sent Gwen Thornton flying 20 feet, knocked another woman unconscious, and broke Randall Thornton’s leg.”

Thanks to Ann Novek for the link to this story at ABC News.

“The Japan Whaling Association today congratulated the All Japan Seamen’s Union (AJSU) in their support for the safety of martime workers at sea by protesting the arrival of Greenpeace vessel Esperanza and preventing it from docking in Tokyo harbour.

That’s according to a media release from the Japan Whaling Association. The media release continues:

“Over years, Greenpeace has committed illegal and dangerous activities at sea, including in the Southern Ocean against Japan’s Antarctic research program. Their violent actions have consequences and Greenpeace is now experiencing one of those consequences,” the President of the Japan Whaling Association, Keiichi Nakajima said today.

Greenpeace is an eco-terrorist organization who last year illegally used the bow of the Arctic Sunrise to ram the Japanese research vessel Nisshin Maru midway along the starboard side. As a result of direct contact with the ultra-violent Sea Shepherd group, Greenpeace were able to find the Antarctic fleet this year. Not only did Sea Shepherd deliberately ram the Kaiko Maru this year as well, they also threw acid at Japanese sailors and shattered glass bottles on the Nisshin Maru deck, resulting in injuries to two Japanese crew.

“Greenpeace actions over the years have put Japanese sailors’ lives at risk and the AJSU has sent a clear message to the world that they can’t support such violence. You cannot conduct close quarters harassment on the high seas, ram vessels and prevent others from going about their lawful work and claim it is non-violent activity,” Mr Nakajima said.

Greenpeace Japan in the past has been embarrassed by the organization’s responses to Japan’s research whaling. In a handwritten faxed letter intimidating the skipper of the Nisshin Maru which made an emergency call to Noumea after a fire in 1998, Greenpeace wrote:

“To the vessel’s captain: We have fastened tightly the propeller of this vessel with chains. Our diver is now in the water. You cannot start the ship’s engine. Signed: GREENPEACE ”

Embarassed by the fax, the then Secretary of Greenpeace Japan, Sanae Shida, wrote to the skipper saying, “I hereby profoundly apologize for a handwritten letter of inappropriate content addressed to the vessel’s captain that was sent by Greenpeace today.”

“We applaud the seamen’s union and encourage others around the world to protect maritime workers’ safety by condemning dangerous actions by Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd and other eco-terrorist organizations,” Mr Nakajima said.” [End of media release]

Strong words from the Japanese.

So is Greenpeace an eco-terrorist organisation?