Tag: Europe

Ah, To Be a Bear in Bulgaria

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Matthew Brunwasser wrote an interesting article a few days ago about efforts to help dancing bears in Bulgaria. Dancing bears are illegal in Bulgaria, but the government does not strictly enforce the ban.

Enter Four Paws, a European animal organization that in November 2000 built a square-kilometer park in Belitsa, Bulgaria, for the bears. It buys bears from entertainers for about $5,000 per bear and retires them to the park.

All of which has some in Belitsa wondering about the priorities of European donors. Each bear eats about $200/month in food, whereas the per capita monthly income of Belitsa residents is a mere $120/month.

Belitsa resident Kostadin Trichov told Brunwasser, “There’s a saying in town: ‘There’s nothing better than to be a bear in Belitsa.'”

Bulgarian filmmaker Assen Valdimirov has produced a documentary about the park called “Of Bears and Men” and complained to Brunwasser,

The people in town are shocked, all of Bulgaria is shocked. It’s ridiculous to spend such money for six bears here. They are more horrified by the conditions of the animals than the people.

For his part, Four Paws’ Josef Pfabigan says that the poverty in Belitsa is not his problem.

It’s not my business to think about money. My business is a project for animal protection. Bears are the point. For the people in the region it’s about business.

According to Brunwasser, the bear park has changed attitudes in Bulgaria about bear dancing, but Bulgarians may be getting a mixed message. He reports that one couple took the $5,000 they received from selling their bear and promptly bought a monkey to use for street busking.

Source:

Dancing bears get help, but not Bulgaria’s poor. Matthew Brunwasser, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 3, 2002.

Iceland's Membership in IWC Rejected; Threatens to Resume Whale Hunts

This year’s meeting of the 56-year-old International Whaling Commission started with a bang when the 48-country commission voted to deny Iceland membership. Iceland’s delegation responded by walking out of the meeting and threatening to resume commercial whaling with or without IWC approval.

Iceland was a member of the IWC until 1992 when its delegates pulled out of a meeting due to the IWC’s anti-whaling stance. Since then it has been relegated to having observer status.

It has been kept out of the IWC for one reason — if Iceland is admitted, pro-whaling countries would likely have enough votes to open discussion about lifting the ban on commercial whaling. Anti-whaling countries have demanded that Iceland accept the ban on whaling as a precondition for rejoining the IWC.

Asked about the possibility of his country resuming commercial whaling, Iceland Whaling Commissioner Stefan Asmundsson said, “From the political point of view, it is much better to do it within the framework of the international organization. We were hoping to do this within the IWC.”

The IWC also rejected Japan’s request to kill an addition 50 whales annually for research purposes. On the other hand, pro-whaling nations failed in their attempts to create new whale sanctuaries in the South Pacific and South Atlantic, which drew the ire of British Fisheries minister Elliot Morley who said,

There’s no doubt whale-watching eclipses the whaling industry. . . . [Japan’s harvesting of whales is] the kind of unstable approach to whaling which threatens to collapse this whole enterprise. Particularly when countries like Japan treat science with such contempt.

Japan threatened to remove Japanese scientists from the IWC’s scientific committee after losing the vote to harvest more whales.

Sources:

Iceland hints it may hunt whales as summit falters. Richard Lloyd Parry, The Independent (London), May 22, 2002.

Iceland quits whaling conference: Country threatens to resume hunt. Associated Press, May 21, 2002.

Group Wants an End to Hanging of Dogs

The World Society for the Protection of Animals recently highlighted its call for a national animal protection law in Spain by turning the spotlight on a gruesome practice — the hanging of greyhounds.

The WSPA claims that every year thousands of greyhounds are hanged after the conclusion of the annular hare-coursing season. The dogs are then dumped in shallow graves or rubbish piles.

Spain has no national animal protection law and its regional laws are spotty at best. In at least two parts of Spain, Andalucia and Extremadura, there are no animal protection laws and hanging greyhounds is not a crime.

Other regions do have animal protection laws, including laws that specifically forbid the hanging of greyhounds, but they are not rigorously enforced. According to the WPSA, for example, not one person has been prosecuted under Castilla y Leon’s law banning the hanging of dogs.

Sources:

Campaigners call on Spain to outlaw hanging of dogs. Elizabeth Nash, The Independent (London), April 29, 2002.

Animal charity uncovers hanging of unwanted greyhounds. Ananova, April 29, 2002.

Germany On Its Way to Embedding Animal Rights Into Its Constitution

Members of Germany’s Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, voted 543-19 to amend that nation’s constitution to include rights for animals.

The proposed law would amend Article 20a of the German Basic Law. That section is concerned with requiring the state to protect human dignity and will now read,

The state takes responsibility for protecting the natural foundations of life and animals in the interest of future generations.

The bill will be taken up by the Bundesrat, the upper house of the German parliament, later this year where it is expected to pass.

The German Society for Health and Research called the proposal’s passage Black Friday, fearing the change will inevitably lead to restrictions on medical research.

Source:

Germany votes for animal rights. CNN, May 17, 2002.

Germany to grant animal rights. The BBC, May 17, 2002.

Covance Should Not Bury Its Head in the Sand

Just when you think testing firms are finally getting the message about the animal rights movement, along comes somebody to prove that some folks in the industry still have not learned a thing from the campaign targeting Huntingdon Life Sciences.

In an article for The Financial Times (London), David Firn contacted several biotechnology and testing firms. Most of the firms seem to grasp how dangerous the animal rights movement is to their business. The BioIndustry Organization, which represents British biotech firms, supports efforts to allow shareholder anonymity in companies likely to be targeted by violent protesters.

But the folks at animal testing firm Covance just don’t get it. Covance’s market is largely the same as that of HLS. It is a contract research organization — pharmaceutical firms that need to test drug compound contract with Covance to perform such tests. Covance has facilities in the United States, Germany, Great Britain and elsewhere, and does extensive animal testing including with specially-bred dogs and rabbits.

Yet Chris Springall, head of toxicology for Covance’s UK operations, tells Firn that his firm is not too concerned about animal rights activists targeting his firm. The way Firn describes it, Springall sees HLS as a special case. Huntingdon was targeted because of 1998 documentary that made allegations of cruelty against HLS. Because of this, Springall argues that,

HLS was targeted by a special organization, SHAC. (SHAC) could easily be transferred to the US but we are not anticipating any difficulties.

Springall and others at Covance are burying their heads in the sand if they think that SHAC is going to simply fade away should it ever achieve its goal of driving HLS out of business. Such a victory would immediately make Covance, Quintiles, and other testing firms immediate targets of opportunity, using the same strategy that has been deployed relatively successfully against HLS.

Whether or not it is accurate, clearly Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty clearly believes it has the pharmaceutical industry on the run and living in fear, and it is hardly like to be satisfied for long with simply harassing HLS.

Source:

Silent message to animal rights activists: The events at Huntingdon Life Sciences have cast a shadow of fear over the pharmaceutical industry. David Firn, The Financial Times (London) January 11, 2002.

Mink Releases in Spain and Holland

Sometime the night of August 1st or the early morning of August 2nd, animal rights activists released 3,000 mink from a fur farm near the Spanish city of Teruel.

The Guardian (London) reported that the mink are an American variety not native to Spain and officials were concerned that the mink might displace local native species. Although Spain is generally too dry to allow the mink to survive very long, local officials told The Guardian that mink who escaped from a farm a decade earlier had set up a small colon on the banks of a nearby river.

Even local ecologists who oppose mink farming were appalled at the action. Teo Oberhuber of Ecologists in Action told The Guardian, “Despite the terrible conditions in which they are kept and the shameful systems employed to kill them, setting the animals free into the wild is an act of gross irresponsibility.

A few weeks later in Holland, activists freed almost 17,000 mink from a farm in Valkenswaard. As of August 24, about 1,500 mink had been recaptured and about 200 ofthe animals had been killed, mostly after being struck by automobiles.

Sources:

Mink ‘liberation’ sparks mass hunt. Ananova, August 24, 2001.

Fur flies as 3,000 mink freed in raid. Giles Tremlett, The Guardian (London), August 2, 2001.