This week, people from around the world are joining together to tell the Australian Government that the live export trade is cruel and should no longer be tolerated.
Australia is the largest exporter of animals for slaughter in the world, and each year millions of Australian sheep are loaded onto ships and transported long distances to ports in the Middle East, simply to be slaughtered at the journey's end.
These terrified sheep spend up to three weeks on crowded ships, where they have little room to move and are given unfamiliar and low quality food. During the journey they will suffer from heat exhaustion, stress, and disease, and many will die on board. In 2007 alone over 35,000 Australian sheep died during sea voyages to the Middle East.
For sheep that survive the journey, a much more cruel fate awaits them in the hands of countries that have no animal welfare laws. Despite Australian industry claims that it is helping to improve welfare standards in the Middle East, it is common for sheep to be horrendously handled and slaughtered in ways that would not be legal nor tolerated in many countries.
Australia already has a growing trade in chilled meat from animals that have been humanely transported and slaughtered in Australia - this makes the transport of the live animals unnecessary and all the more cruel.
We need your help to persuade the Australian Government to work towards replacing its cruel live animal trade with the humane alternative of chilled and frozen meat exports
For more information how you can help visit Animals Australia http://www.LiveExport-Indefensible.com
There were ruffled feathers and no small amount of flapping at the world's most genteel tennis tournament yesterday after a threat of legal action from animal rights lobbyists over the culling of pigeons that had the temerity to bother some players.
As The Independent revealed on Monday, marksmen armed with rifles and employed by The All England Club spent part of Sunday evening stalking the grounds. Several birds were killed. Wimbledon usually uses a hawk to scare away the troublesome creatures. But some players had complained that they were being dive-bombed and rapid action was deemed necessary before the gates opened to the public.
Yesterday, the club was reported to the Metropolitan Police wildlife crime unit for alleged infringement of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. In a letter to the club's chairman, Tim Phillips, from Bruce Friedrich, the vice- president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), which bills itself as "the world's largest animal rights organisation", the club was warned it could face court action for shooting pigeons.
The letter says: "The wildlife crime unit of the Metropolitan Police has also advised us that in its view, pigeons qualify as protected animals under the Act."
Peta has asked the club to "order an immediate halt to this cruel and illegal behaviour".
The club has made no formal response but it is understood it will respond after the tournament. It is expected to say that guns were raised only as a last resort. The club is not expecting that police will swoop into action imminently.
Mr Friedrich wrote in his letter: "What seems to have happened is that since you last updated your protocol for dealing with pigeons, a law was passed – the Animal Welfare Act 2006 – that you must not know about... Lethal control can only be used if the target species presents a demonstrable risk to public health and safety. [The club] will have to be able to present evidence in a court of law which confirms, beyond any reasonable doubt, that a real and severe risk to public health existed prior to using lethal controls."
The club also took action on Sunday to eradicate a swarm of bees. They too were seen as a threat to players' welfare.
A COURT has issued a protection order for a duck after it was shot by a neighbour.
Ylik Mathews, 21, pleaded guilty to shooting the yellow-billed Pekin duck - named Circles - in the neck on March 17 in Long Island, near New York in the US, newsagency AP reported.
Circles survived the attack and is expected to recover fully from gun pellet wounds to the throat.
Mark G. Kirshner, the lawyer for Mathews, said his client is "happy the duck is doing well" because the attack was an accident.
However Mathews is expected to be sentenced next month to a year in jail after pleading guilty to aggravated animal cruelty.
The presiding judge also continued the order of protection for Circles and his owner.
A SYDNEY man charged with causing two bull terriers to maul a toddler remains on bail but has been ordered not to approach the boy or the boy's mother.
Police said the one-year-old was attacked by two Staffordshire bull terriers at a home in Hobartville, in Sydney's west, about 1.15am (AEST) on Saturday.
He was initially taken to a home in Cranebrook before ambulance officers arrived and transported him to Westmead Childrens Hospital. The toddler arrived in a serious but stable condition, with head, chest and leg injuries.
A 36-year-old man was arrested at the scene about 6.25pm and later charged with causing a dog to inflict grievous bodily harm.
Police have said the man was related to the boy but have not confirmed media reports he is the child's father.
Police have taken out an interim apprehended violence order on behalf of the boy, which prevents the man from approaching him or his mother.
The man appeared at Windsor Local Court today but did not enter a plea.
His bail was continued and he is next due to appear at the same court on August 6.
It's not every day a croc wanders into a pub.
But for regulars at the Noonamah Tavern, on a dusty stretch of outback highway, it's all in a day's drinking.
Buffaloes, horses, frogs and even cane toads have propped up the bar at the Northern Territory watering hole.
But a 60cm saltwater crocodile, found outside the front of the pub on Sunday night, might be their strangest drinking-buddy yet.
"You could say we were a bit surprised,'' said barmaid Sarah Sparre.
"He was pretty complacent, easygoing, but we weren't going to test him out.''
The 22-year-old said the male saltie was discovered by three drinkers near some gas bottles out the front of the pub about 8pm (local time).
"They brought him in so everyone could have a look,'' she said.
"We took a photo of him and then put him in a box with his mouth taped.''
What confounded the pub patrons, 40km down the Stuart Highway from Darwin, was how the little croc had got there.
"We don't have a clue,'' Ms Sparre said.
"There's a croc farm up the road, he's sure a long way from town.''
The Noonamah Tavern is famed territory-wide for its frog racing on Melbourne Cup Day, when thousands of punters pack the bar to bet on the best hopper.
Cane toads also have made an appearance on race day - and made a dash for the finish line - although Ms Sparre said locals could take their pick of the animal kingdom.
"We had a buffalo in once and he had his photo taken,'' she said.
"He was brought in for some story but I can't remember what it was about, the horses came with him.''
It might be some time before the croc catches up with his buddies again.
Parks and Wildlife took him to the Darwin Crocodile Farm.
Australian sheep farmers will from July 1 separate out wool at auctions that has been produced without using "mulesing", which is condemned by animal rights activists and has led to boycotts from major fashion houses.
The practice of cutting the skin from the hindquarters of sheep to prevent fly larvae from feeding on the tissue has been in use since the 1920s, but in 2004 Abercrombie & Fitch banned use of such wool in its garments.
It has been joined by fashion houses and retail chains including Hugo Boss, Timberland, Hennes & Mauritz of Sweden, Perry Ellis International and Victoria's Secret of the United States, posing a major threat to Australia's A$3 billion ($2.9 billion) a year wool export industry.
"We've really seen a change. Retailers say 'now'," said Greg Weller, executive director of Wool Producers Australia.
The wool auctions covers 85 percent of fleece sold in Australia.
Weller could not say exactly when Australia will be entirely out of mulesing, but said it is committed to a 2010 deadline and steering as much of the industry out of the practice as soon as possible.
Farmers and the government-backed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) are trying to breed merino sheep without heavy folds of skin around the breach, while methods such as injections to remove wool and better methods of controlling flies have been tried.
Using clips attached tightly to the skin, causing it to eventually fall off, is being used as an interim measure, although it has been rejected by animal rights activists.
Unmulesed wool has begun to command a premium of 10 percent, while mulesed wool is harder to sell, according to Jason Baker, spokesman for U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has campaigned against mulesing for a decade.
"The key that is driving the change is economics. Farmers are now seeing for the first time that mulesed wool is not in demand, and unmulesed wool is," he said.
Don Hamblin, president of Wool Producers Australia, cites a price premium of 7 percent and says that talk of 10 percent is yet to be proven.
The Australian wool industry would have a constant image problem until it did away with mulesing, he said.
"Its all extra cost. But its part of doing business in the 21st century. The sooner we can put it behind us the better."
A 65-year-old Queensland puppy farmer has been fined and ordered to pay more than $86,000 in compensation for failing to properly look after 67 chihuahuas and chihuahua-crosses.
Patrick Doran from Kalbar, south of Brisbane, was found guilty of acts of animal cruelty, including failing to provide adequate food and water, accommodation and necessary veterinary treatment to the dogs.
Queensland's Maryborough Magistrates Court fined him $4000, and ordered he pay the RSPCA $86,792 in compensation.
RSPCA Queensland chief inspector Michael Pecic said the organisation was delighted by the ruling.
"It shows that gross neglect will no longer be taken lightly," he said.
"At the moment we have over $400,000 owing to us in fines. In this case we know the money will be forthcoming."
IN another blow to Australian wool farmers, global sportswear giant Adidas is the latest major company to ban wool sourced from mulesed sheep.
The ban is a victory for the US-based animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Adidas' decision is also a blow to federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke, who recently wrote to Adidas and other leading retailers thanking them for supporting Australian wool.
The list of companies that have sided with PETA in its four-year anti-mulesing campaign includes some of the biggest names in fashion.
Hugo Boss, Timberland, Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, suit retailer Perry Ellis and more than 10 other retailers have announced they will not use wool from mulesed sheep.
Adidas announced its decision in a statement sent to PETA today.
"Adidas has given a clear briefing to its development and sourcing teams to not use merino wool from sources where mulesing practices are applied," Frank Henke, global director of social and environmental affairs for Adidas, wrote.
Mulesing, a practice used largely by Australian farmers, involves cutting skin from the hindquarters of sheep to prevent potentially painful and fatal flystrike.
PETA claims mulesing is cruel and there are more humane methods farmers can use to protect sheep from flystrike.
Adidas also announced it did not accept clip-mulesing, an alternative to traditional mulesing, which the Australian wool industry had hoped would satisfy retailers and PETA. "Clip-mulesing is also rejected by our internal policy," Mr Henke wrote.
Last month PETA offered the Australian wool industry's research and development body, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), a peace deal that called for the immediate end of clip-mulesing.
AWI rejected the deal, although its board said it would maintain a commitment to phase out surgical mulesing by December 31, 2010.
When AWI dismissed the peace deal, PETA vowed to recruit more companies to join the boycott.
"As more retailers like Adidas condemn clip-mulesing, we hope the AWI and woolgrowers will replace it with humane flystrike control methods like bare-breech breeding, early crutching and jetting," PETA's director of corporate affairs, Matt Prescott, said.
Adidas said it uses only a "very small" amount of wool, but with annual revenues of $16.7 billion and clothing sales throughout the world, the sportswear giant's decision will have an impact on Australian farmers.
"Due to the very small amount of wool used we would select another material unless we obtain clear confirmation from the source that mulesing practices were stopped," Mr Henke wrote.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has pledged to end its boycott of KFC Canada, after the chicken chain agreed to a new animal welfare plan including support for controlled-atmosphere slaughter.
The Norfolk, Virginia-based advocacy group, operators of the "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign, said KFC Canada has pledged to phase in a plan that would eventually see all the company's chicken purchased from suppliers who use "controlled-atmosphere" slaughter.
That pledge makes KFC Canada -- which is owned and operated separately from the U.S. chain, itself owned by Louisville, Ky.-based Yum! Brands -- the first major restaurant chain to commit to phasing in the exclusive purchasing of chicken meat from slaughterhouses using the gas-slaughter method, PETA said.
PETA said it will continue its boycott of KFC restaurants in the U.S. and other countries until they follow KFC Canada's lead.
According to the group, KFC Canada has also pledged to improve its animal welfare audit criteria to reduce the number of broken bones and other injuries to birds.
The company also reportedly promised to urge its suppliers to adopt practices such as improved lighting and lower stocking density and phase out use of growth-promoting drugs and breeding practices that PETA said "painfully cripple chickens."
The company would also strike an animal welfare advisory panel to "monitor the changes and recommend further advancements," PETA said.
Furthermore, PETA said, a vegan faux-chicken item will be added to the menu of all 461 KFC restaurants owned by Toronto-based Priszm Income Fund -- which account for about 60 per cent of the KFC outlets in Canada.
Priszm, which owns franchises in all provinces except for Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and P.E.I., confirmed the pledges outlined in PETA's announcement. Other KFC restaurants in Canada, owned by other franchisees or independent operators, have all agreed to the same pledges, except for the vegan menu item.
"Our preference is to have nothing negative attached to our brand," said Steve Langford, who was named in March this year as president of KFC/Taco Bell for Priszm, quoted in a report Monday by news agency Canadian Press.
PETA's announcement, titled "KFC Canada Gives In to PETA's Demands," was prominent on the group's "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" web site on Monday. A blog by PETA's Matt Prescott described the announcement as following months of negotiations, e-mails and phone calls with company officials.
PETA, best known for public pressure tactics including media events, on-site demonstrations, celebrity endorsements and provocative ad campaigns, has operated its "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign since 2003, with endorsements by a number of celebrities including Canadian actors Pamela Anderson and Ryan Gosling.
GRAPHIC footage of the first polar bear seen in Iceland in 20 years being shot dead by police has been posted on the internet.
The bear, an adult male weighing around 250kg, was presumed to have swum some 300km from Greenland or from a distant chunk of Arctic ice to Skagafjordur in northern Iceland.
It was planned to sedate the animal and move it back to Greenland but the police decided it was safest to kill the bear immediately.
"There was fog up in the hills and we took the decision to kill the bear before it could disappear into the fog”, said police spokesman Petur Bjornsson.
Caution graphic footage: A video of the polar bear's death was posted on the internt by a news channel.
Environment Minister Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir gave the green light for police to shoot the bear because the correct tranquiliser was not available in Iceland and would not be flown in for a day, Icelandic news channel Visir.is reported.
However, a veterinarian said he had the drugs available in his car. He also criticised police for not closing a mountain road where people congregated after hearing news of the bear, the Associated Press reported.
Polar bears were recently listed as a threated species by the US because its Arctic sea ice habitat is melting due to climate change.
US government scientists have predicted that two-thirds of the polar bear population of 25,000 could disappear by 2050.
COCKROACHES, mice and even rats are rated good tucker at Darwin's Berrimah Jail these days.
As part of a novel rehabilitation program, though.
Inmates at the correctional centre are harvesting vermin to feed orphaned wildlife, such as wallabies, possums, whistling kites and blue-tongue lizards.
NT Justice Minister Chris Burns said the program was so successful it had branched into commercial production.
"The food is used for the animals being cared for at the prison or by carers in the community, as well as being sold by Wildlife Rescue," he said.
"The produce is packaged into containers by inmates and will be marked with new stickers created by the Department of Justice."
The partnership between Wildlife Rescue and the jail initially involved the prisoners taking care of injured or orphaned wildlife.
"(It) fulfils a key role in our drive to provide rehabilitation options and stop recidivism among prisoners," Dr Burns said.
"The program gives inmates a sense of achievement and pride, and provides many who were involved in building cages and other infrastructure with a new set of skills."
But with the day-to-day care of a range of animals, from ever agile wallabies to lizards, proving such a hit, Dr Burns said the program was expanded to food production.
"Prisoners are harvesting wildlife food such as mealworms, cockroaches, mice and rats," Dr Burns said.
Its popularity ensured the product was commercially viable.
Since December 2007, a total of 4494 units of food have been produced at a retail value of $9198.
Dr Burns said any money raised by the program would go directly to Wildlife Rescue.
Overfishing driven in part by an insatiable appetite for shark-fin soup has threatened 11 species of the ocean-dwelling predators with extinction, according to a report released on Thursday.
The first study to assess the worldwide status of 21 species of pelagic sharks and rays -- those living and hunting in open seas -- found that more than half are rapidly being fished out of existence.
Particularly vulnerable species include the short-finned mako, the thresher and the silky, said the report, to be published in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems.
"Despite mounting evidence of decline and increasing threats to these species, there are no international catch limits for oceanic sharks," said co-author Sonja Fordham, a researcher at the Oceans Conservancy and Shark Alliance in Brussels.
"Our research shows that action is urgently needed on a global level if these fisheries are to be sustainable."
Many big shark species have fallen prey to booming Asian economies where shark-fin soup is prized as a must-have delicacy at weddings and other banquet occasions. The fins are often sliced off of living fish which are then discarded in the sea.
Accidental "by-catch" by industrial fishing operations have also decimated shark populations, the study said.
Sharks and big rays are especially vulnerable to overfishing because they take many years to reach sexual maturity and have relatively few offspring.
"We are losing species at a rate 10 to 100 times greater than historic rates," said the study's lead author, Nicholas Dulvy, a professor at Sime Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.
The report, presented at a major UN conference on biodiversity in Bonn, calls for the establishment and enforcement of science-based catch limits for sharks and rays, and a ban on the practice of "shark finning."
The 11-day Bonn conference seeks to prevent the destruction of countless plant and animal species.
It is the ninth of its kind of countries who signed up to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
For years wildlife poacher Lean Kha had prowled the war-ravaged forests of Mondulkiri Province in eastern Cambodia looking for meat.
A former teenage soldier for the Khmer Rouge political party, he estimates that he killed a thousand animals, including ten tigers, after the fall of the brutal Pol Pot regime in 1979.
Once dubbed the "Serengeti of Asia," almost all of Mondulkiri's wildlife was wiped out by poachers during decades of conflict, which began with the war in neighboring Vietnam.
Now, with Cambodia finally at peace, small but growing populations of animals—including Indochinese tigers, Asian elephants, and critically endangered species such as the giant ibis—are returning to one of Southeast Asia's last remaining dry forests.
And Kha, now 45 years old, is helping to protect them as a head ranger supported by the international conservation group WWF.
"At the time I was ignorant and did not think there was a problem when I shot those tigers," he said, sitting at the forest headquarters in Mereuch as the Srepok River rushed behind him.
"Now I know we need to protect these animals for our children and grandchildren."
Humans cannot live inside the protected Mondulkiri Protected Forest reserve. A visitor can walk for miles without seeing any sign of humans, an unusual experience in otherwise densely populated Cambodia.
And with the region's searing summer temperatures and open, shadeless terrain, it's also usually hard to spot wildlife during the day.
But camera traps that take pictures at night show a different story.
A few years ago park rangers caught their first Indochinese tiger on camera. In 2007 a camera trap produced a picture of a female leopard and her cub.
Other wildlife returning to the area include banteng, a type of ox; Eld's deer; several species of wild cats; and one of the region's last remaining wild water buffalo populations.
"There is a lot of wildlife out there, considering the beating that this area has taken," said Nick Cox, who coordinates WWF's regional dry forests program and is based in Vientiane, Laos.
While leopards are now relatively common, there may be only five to ten Indochinese tigers in the forest today.
But conservationists say that as the density of prey species increases, the number of tigers could rise to at least 30 in as little as five years.
That is, if the 70 rangers working the forest can keep poachers at bay.
Like Kha, many of them are former hunters who have spent their whole lives under the forest canopy. Now they spend at least 16 days on patrol every month, keeping strict records of wildlife numbers.
"All protected areas need to know the number of important prey species and carnivores, because if we don't know the credit in our bank account, we can't monitor our wealth," said Prach Pich Phirun, a research coordinator for WWF's Srepok Wilderness Project.
Even without the threat of poachers, the battle for this vast forest of almost a million acres (close to 400,000 hectares) is far from over.
Cambodia's popularity as a tourist destination is skyrocketing, with foreign tourist arrivals topping two million last year, according to the country's tourism minister. And the remote Mondulkiri Province is becoming the country's new hot spot.
Draped over several rolling hills, Sen Monorom, the tiny provincial capital, has the feel of a Wild West boomtown.
A plethora of hotels and backpacker lodges have opened up, and wealthy Cambodians are streaming to the area to snap up any available land. The main road being graded and paved by Chinese contractors will ease access to the region.
"This increased activity could put a lot of pressure on the environment," said Craig Bruce, WWF's technical advisor on protected areas in Cambodia, who is based in Sen Monorom.
A housing building boom, he warned, could also lead to a surge in illegal timber cutting.
And there are signs that poaching and illegal wildlife trade are on the rise in Cambodia, where animals are being smuggled through Vietnam with the involvement of Chinese traders.
Conservationists are now investing in ecotourism projects in the hopes of keeping the Mondulkiri forest protected.
WWF is planning an upscale eco-resort with eight cottages along stilts on the banks of the Srepok River.
Yet money earned from such eco-projects must benefit local communities living around the forest, said James MacGregor, an environmental economist at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, which backs the WWF project.
"There are a lot of poor people in this area who have traditionally generated their livelihood through hunting and collecting wood," MacGregor said.
"We're asking people to forgo doing something that has helped them for years."
Planners envision that Mondulkiri could also become a destination for adventurous travelers, such as mountain bikers.
Mark Ellison of Cambodia-based Asia Adventures said tour operators are looking to offer tourists additional activities in Cambodia besides visiting the popular Angkor Wat temples.
"Here's an opportunity to go mountain biking in an area that is for all intents and purposes undiscovered," he said.
While a recent bicycle trip of conservationists and journalists showcased the unchartered nature of the terrain, it also turned into a harrowing ordeal at one point, with bikers getting lost without any means of communication.
Luckily a passing elephant driver had noticed tire tracks from the bikes going the wrong way and tracked down the team just as its water supply was running out.
Cox, the WWF dry forest program coordinator and one of the most experienced bikers on the trip, admitted that some work needed to be done before Mondulkiri would be ready to welcome visitors.
"There are a few kinks that need ironing out, that's for sure," he said.
ONE dog is dead and another injured after three armed men forced their way into a couple's Sydney home and assaulted them.
Police said the three men, one armed with a machete, are on the run after they knocked on the door of the couple's Airds home in Sydney's southwest, about 9.45pm (AEST) yesterday.
They forced their way in, demanded cash and punched the 60-year-old man and the 56-year-old woman in the face and to the body.
During the attack, the victims' two Maltese terriers tried to protect their owners.
The man armed with the machete slashed one of the dogs a number of times while the other dog was kicked repeatedly by one of the other men.
The offenders rummaged through the house before running from the premises into an adjoining reserve.
After the alarm was raised, the couple were treated by ambulance officers at the scene and the dogs were treated by a veterinarian.
The dog that was slashed with the machete had to be euthanised while the other dog was treated for internal injuries.
The three men are described as being of Pacific Islander appearance and about 185cm tall with solid builds.
One of them was wearing a black balaclava and the other two were wearing grey hooded jackets.
GOURMETS in Chicago can order foie gras again after the city council today repealed a two-year restaurant ban on a delicacy that critics say is produced at cruel expense to geese and ducks.
The aldermen voted 37-6 to drop the ban on restaurants serving foie gras, an ordinance that had passed with a single dissenting vote in April 2006.
The city had issued a few warnings to restaurants for flouting the ban and one defiant eatery was fined.
Mayor Richard Daley had called the ban the "silliest ordinance" the city council ever passed and said it made Chicago "the laughing stock of the nation".
Animal rights groups decry foie gras as a product of inhumane treatment as it is made by force-feeding geese and ducks through a steel pipe put down their throats, expanding their livers to 10 times normal size.
In 2004, California passed a law that will end the production and sale of foie gras in the state in 2012. Similar laws have been proposed in a few other states.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals criticised Chicago's move to overturn the ban.
"This is industry's dirty political maneuvering at its worst," the group said.
"Today, that compassionate decision was reversed in a secretive, rushed bow to special interests that benefit from the cruel treatment of animals. It goes against what the vast majority of Chicagoans believe in."
Some restaurant owners, whose association lobbied for the ban's repeal, worried that other items such as lobster, veal and even eggs could be barred from their menus.
"I thought it was us sticking our nose in something we probably shouldn't have even been in," Alderman Dick Mell told the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, adding that veal calves and chickens also suffer in confinement.
"There's some cruelty out there, folks."
HUMAN-generated climate change made flowers bloom sooner and autumn leaves fall later, turned some polar bears into cannibals and some birds into early breeders, a vast global study has found.
Hundreds of previous studies have noted these specific changes and most suggested a link to so-called anthropogenic (human-generated) global warming, but a new analysis published in the journal Nature has correlated earlier studies with changes in temperature, the study's lead author said.
The study found the early arrival of migratory birds in Australia, declining water levels in western Victoria and a 50 per cent decline in Antarctica's Emperor Penguin population were linked to rising temperatures.
There was also a close relationship between temperature shifts between 1970 and 2004 and changes in plants, animals and the physical world, such as the retreat of glaciers and the water level in desert lakes.
"When you look at all of the glaciers and all of the snowpack and all of the birds laying eggs earlier and all of the plants having spring earlier across a continent, then we see we can detect anthropogenic signals," said Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
They study's authors worked to rule out observed changes that could have been caused by other factors besides anthropogenic climate change.
Ms Rosenzweig and her co-authors brought together nearly 30,000 sets of data about biological and physical changes around the world, and then matched that up with a detailed database of global temperature change.
The link between human-caused global warming - generated by industrial and vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide to produce a temperature-boosting greenhouse effect - and observed biological and physical changes is very strong, she said.
On a global scale, the correlation is more than 99 percent between the two factors; on a continental scale, she said, the correlation if very likely between 90 and 99 percent.
Going continent by continent, here are some observed changes in the natural world attributable to climate change, according to the study:
Australia
Early arrival of migratory birds including flycatchers and fantails; declining water levels in western Victoria.
Antarctica
50 per cent decline in population of emperor penguins on Antarctic Peninsula; retreating glaciers.
North America
Cannibalism and declining population of polar bears; earlier breeding and arrival dates of birds including robins and Canada geese.
Europe
Glaciers melting in the Alps; changes in 19 countries of leaf-unfolding and flowering of such plants as hazel, lilac, apple, linden and birch.
Asia
Greater growth of Siberian pines in Mongolia; earlier break-up and thinning of river and lake ice in Mongolia; change in freeze depth of permafrost in Russia.
South America
Glacier wastage in Peru; melting Patagonia ice fields contributing to sea-level rise.
Africa
Decreasing aquatic ecosystem productivity of Lake Tanganyika.
LUCY the Shetland pony thinks she's a dog - she can fetch, heel and even play dead.
This weekend Lucy, who lives at the RSPCA in Malaga, will be showing off her dog talent surrounded by about 10,000 real ones.
Lucy is expected to take part in next Sunday's Million Paws Walk through Sir James Mitchell Park -an important event to raise awareness and much-needed funds for the RSPCA.
Ferrets, camels, cows, horses, cats, rats and a ‘geep’ (a cross between a sheep and a goat) are all attending the usually pooch-dominated event.
Richard Barry, spokesman for the RSPCA, is encouraging people to bring their own unusual pets along to join the fun.
“It is sure to be a fantastic event this year and as it gains momentum, so its diversity grows, I mean, how many people have ever met a geep?”
Lucy was surrended to the animal shelter a few years ago and Mr Barry believes her dogisms are the result of being brought up around more canines than ponies.
Currently she hangs out with three goats so, "maybe in a couple of years time she will behave like a goat," Mr Barry said.
This year’s walk is expected to be the biggest in its 12-year history which last year attracted more than 10,000 people in Perth alone.
“We’re hoping to attract between 10,000 and 15,000 people this year,” said Richard Barry, spokesman for the RSPCA.
“Even if we don’t hit 15,000, 2008 is sure to have the most diverse range of animals taking part.”
Ahead of the event Michael Schultz and Dougal Wallace from Channel 10, Brent Staker from the West Coast Eagles and Wippa from 92.9 all turned up to support to the RSPCA and its most important annual event.
“It’s a fantastic event and a very worthy cause,” said Staker who made a new friend on the day – Navarro, a two-year-old ferret.
Behind the scenes, staff and volunteers – all 160 of them – are gearing up to make sure the event goes smoothly and raises much needed funds for the RSPCA.
“People seem to think we get most of our money from the government,” said Barry “but the truth is we rely almost entirely on charity from the people of WA to keep going and the Million Paws Walk is our most important fund-raising event.”
The Million Paws Walk, on May 18, starts at 10am at Sir James Mitchell Park. As well as the Walk around the Swan River foreshore, the event includes a pet show, dog washes an animal masseuse and pet photographer.
Hyundai is giving away an i30 car.
Phone 9209 9300 or go to www.millionpawswalk.com for more information and registration.
A SOUTH Australian couple on the run from authorities with up to 100 dogs in a trailer has numerous convictions for animal cruelty around Australia
Adelaidenowcan exclusively reveal that fugitive animal hoarders Joseph and Margarete Higham have convictions in two other states for mistreating hundreds of dogs.
The RSPCA today said it had discovered the couple – who went missing this month after being convicted of 11 counts of animal cruelty – had been convicted of 123 offences in NSW and an unconfirmed number in Queensland.
The convictions had escaped the organisation's notice until now because the Highams had used false names interstate.
Spokeswoman Aimee McKay today urged the public to be on the lookout for a Nissan twin-cab ute with an enclosed, metal trailer it believes is being used to transport up to 100 dogs interstate.
"Unfortunately, we believe they now have another 100 dogs in their possession," she said.
"We're obviously concerned about them, especially given we've found out they cannot seem to have animals without being cruel to them."
The Adelaide Magistrates Court this month convicted Joseph, 66, and Margarete, 73, in their absence of 11 counts of ill-treating an animal.
The charges relate to raids on properties near Swan Reach and Eudunda in 2006 and 2007. In total, 120 dogs were seized, 70 were left behind, 70 were destroyed, 15 were re-homed and three remain under observation.
Witnesses told the court one dog's breed was unrecognisable because it was bald and so affected by mange its skin had turned black.
The court heard that dog had "suffered every day of its life" and "never received proper nourishment".
The RSPCA has been looking for the Highams since the guilty verdict was handed down – an arrest warrant has also been issued.
Ms McKay said the NSW court had sentenced the Highams to suspended 12-month jail terms for 123 counts of animal cruelty.
She said it was possible the Highams were making multiple trips between states to transport the animals.
"Anything that resembles that at all, it's better to call police and we'll check it out," she said.
"It's better to report it and nothing come of it than to let an animal cruelty offender slip through the radar. Like people hoard things in their garage, they hoard dogs."
ANIMAL welfare workers rallied outside an Australian parliament today in support of an MP's bid to ban pet-shops from selling kittens and puppies.
The protest outside the NSW Parliament was in support of a Bill proposed by Independent MP Clover Moore.
Doggie Rescue managing director Monika Biernacki said the ban, if made law, would slash the estimated 60,000 dogs put down each year in NSW pounds and animal shelters.
The number of cats put down every year because they were dumped and no alternative home could be found was much higher, Ms Biernacki said.
``We've just got to stop the over-breeding of animals ... the kill rate is so high, each year it goes up and up, and groups like us are struggling to cope,'' she said.
``It is also to stop the impulse buying, to get consumers a little bit more educated about what they are taking on instead of it being about a cute fluffy thing in the window.''
The Animals (Regulation of Sale) Bill, introduced in the lower house by Ms Moore, seeks to ban pet shops from selling cats and dogs, but would not prevent the sale of birds, fish and a wide range of pet products.
People wanting to buy a cat or dog would instead have to go to a registered breeder, the pound or the vet.
Ms Biernacki, whose organisation has 200 dogs rescued from pounds and now available for adoption at www.doggierescue.com, said the changes would clamp down on the backyard breeders and puppy farms who stocked the pet stores.
``These puppy mills are driven by profit,'' she said.
``Animals are not cared for particularly well ... it is mass production.''
The proposed ban is supported by the RSPCA and the Humane Society, and Ms Biernacki said pet shops would not be driven out of business.
She said there were businesses that relied solely on sales of pet products and that market was huge.
About 70 people, many with previously abandoned dogs in tow, took part in the rally.
POACHING and trafficking in wild animals such as monkeys and parrots is reaching critical proportions in Brazil, a non-profit group has said.
The trade is so attractive that it is even prompting drug traffickers to turn their attention to animals.
Police confiscated more than 50,000 captured animals in one part of Brazil's Atlantic rain forest in 2005, up from 15,000 five years earlier, according to a report by the National Network Against Wild Animal Trade, or Renctas.
"Sadly the situation is still critical," Dener Giovanini, founder of Renctas, told a congressional environment committee.
Mr Renctas estimates Brazil accounts for about 10 percent of the world's illegal trade in wild animals.
Nearly half the animals - mostly parrots and other birds - go to Europe and the United States.
Brazil's endangered blue Hyacinth Macaw can sell for $25,000, it said.
Big profits and lax laws are attracting criminals from other trades, said committee chairman Jose Sarney Filho.
"Some drug traffickers are moving to animal trafficking because the penalties are less stiff," Mr Sarney said.
The global trade in poached animals and their hides, tusks and bones is worth $10 billion to $20 billion a year, ranking third after illegal arms and drugs trafficking, the group said.
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The kindess of strangers when it comes to animals
DOES community spirit reign supreme when there is an animal in need?
I’m at home in an inner-city suburb – very unusual on a Saturday night. It’s the anniversary of my late father’s birthday and I’m preparing the soup my late mother used to make for us with chicken stock, simmered for six hours. The world is good. Actually, the world is always good when stock is simmering on the stove.
Then I hear a frantic knock at our front door. Two young women – barely into their 20s and clearly on their way out by the way they are dressed – had spotted a large dog, cream and very furry, wandering up the street: "Excuse me, I think one of your dogs is loose. We saw him heading up towards the park."
It’s one of those horrendous moments real parents must live in dread of all the time. While I can never claim to feel exactly the same intensity of emotion because we forgot to have human kids (ours are fur kids), I felt closer to empathising with parents that night than at most times in my life.
There’s that moment. You check. You check again. No, our two "babies" are still inside. I even check that Malawi, my 14-year-old cat who likes to threaten everyone with the same warmth as the local mafia, is safe.
It’s then that I am suffused with emotion – pure relief over the possibility that something could have happened to my babies but hasn’t, and overwhelming gratitude that these young women have taken the time to stop their lives for a moment and seek to help a stranger.
I know lots of people in my short street but I don’t recognise these two. They don’t know me either, but the dogs are not exactly a secret. We have an enormous 50kg long-haired shepherd that tends to bark his butt off at anyone who ventures too close. The other "non-secret" is my husky with perfect sky-blue eyes. While she cannot bark, she can be an escape artist, so is well known through my barking her name out in a very non-modulated radio voice.
Happily, I’m not frightened of any dogs so I set off in pursuit of the canine escapee, a dog I recognise as living in a street near me. It’s quite a rare dog, too – a pure cream swiss shepherd. It was beautifully natured. A good thing, too, as I straddled him before he headed on to William St. I walk him to the house where I think he lives and notice open gates. I bang on the door.
A young man sees my form and bolts into the bedroom. I wait and bang again. When he opens the door finally and sees the dog, he explains the regular carer for "Ice" is away. In his own intoxicated kind of way he, too, seems grateful the dog has been returned.
I, though, am still revelling in the heightened emotions that come when you least expect a kindness or feel connected to your community. Dogs were part of my marriage contract – I’m a cat person or at least used to be. Now I have dogs, I can’t imagine not having them in my life. You become part of a community.
You become identified as The Beagle Lady or Caesar’s Dad.
Maybe because it involves an animal with which humans bond that we let down our usual barriers with strangers and more openly care. Whatever the reason, my experience left me with a joy of the potential goodness of all humans – and thus a double gratitude to those two girls.
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This Mother's day—and every other day—there are over 200,000 mother pigs confined in barren metal cages little bigger than their own bodies. Day after day these pregnant and nursing mothers are forced to stand on hard cement floors—not even afforded the space to turn around or lie down properly.
Animals Australia is working tirelessly to expose the cruelty of factory farming—but how effective we can be depends on you. Our Mother's Day appeal allows those who share our goal to free animals from cruelty to help by giving a thoughtful Mother's Day gift or donation to support our work.
To ensure that you don't miss out, we have extended our popular Mother's Day gift offer with the option of express postage to ensure that orders placed before Wednesday May 7th will arrive in time for Mother's Day.
STRUGGLING graziers have been kicked in the guts by foreign animal rights activists trying to shut down one of our iconic national industries.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has persuaded two more major European retailers, AB Lindex and RNB Retail and Brands, to boycott Australian wool from mulesed sheep because it claims there are more humane methods to protect sheep from flystrike.
The ban comes one week after Australian Wool Innovation spent thousands of dollars on a special collection at Australian Fashion Week, featuring everything from dresses to leggings.
Angry farmers have urged the retailers to get all the facts instead of relying on misinformation from PETA.
Wool growers have agreed to phase out mulesing by 2010 and are already using alternatives, including widespread use of local anaesthetic.
But the animal rights group ignored the pledge and has succeeded in having Australian wool banned from hundreds of stores across the US and Europe.
Sheep farmers told The Daily Telegraph they wanted the Federal Government to intervene to save the $2 billion industry.
Wagga Wagga wool grower Alan Brown said he was disappointed to hear about the latest boycotts.
Mr Brown said, along with anaesthetic, plastic clips had also been designed to remove skin in a bloodless manner.
He said the industry was also looking at injections, which remove the wool growing on the skin.
"We are trying to breed sheep that don't require mulesing but that takes time, we are certainly not sitting on our hands," he said.
Norm Blackman, a veterinarian and the manager of the Australian industry's Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce, said the reality was totally opposite to what PETA was claiming.
AB Lindex has 346 stores in northern Europe while RNB Retail and Brands has 450 stores in 12 countries.
The companies have joined more than 10 other fashion giants, including Hugo Boss, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Victoria's Secret and Liz Claiborne, in placing pressure on farmers to end mulesing.
In the past four years, singer Chrissie Hynde has spoken in support of PETA while former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson - credited for turning Australian ugg boots into a fashion statement - has denounced the footwear.
Celebrity A-listers Toni Collette and Pink did backflips on boycotts of Aussie wool when they heard the facts.
Last week PETA offered Australian farmers a peace deal to ends its four-year campaign but claims it is yet to hear back from growers.
FEELING blue? Mung beans, asparagus, sunflower seeds, pineapple, tofu, spinach and bananas could lift your spirits.
A diet high in tryptophan — an amino acid converted by the body into the feel-good chemical serotonin — can improve mood and wellbeing, a pediatrician and natural health expert, Caroline Longmore, said.
The body cannot produce tryptophan so unless we get enough through diet, we may suffer a deficiency, leading to low serotonin levels, which is associated with mood disorders, anxiety, cravings and irritable bowel syndrome.
"Following a diet which contains foods rich in naturally occurring serotonin will improve your mood, leaving you energised and in a state of harmony and wellbeing," Dr Longmore said. Mental health experts say that while the theory behind tryptophans for improving mood is solid, their use by depressed patients has a chequered history in Australia.
Gordon Parker, from the Black Dog Institute, said tryptophan supplements were widely used before the 1990s but after several patients suffered serious side effects from a contaminated batch they were temporarily taken off the market.
In her e-book, The Serotonin Secret, Dr Longmore claims the best way to get optimum tryptophan levels is through a carefully devised eating plan.
Britain's Food and Mood Project recommends tryptophan-rich foods to boost serotonin levels. But Associate Professor Michael Baigent, clinical adviser to the BeyondBlue anti-depression organisation, said there was only low-level evidence to suggest tryptophans had a medical effect.
Statistics show that in any 12 months, almost 17% of adult Australians have a mental disorder, with anxiety, depression and bipolar the most common.
In February, a major international review of clinical trials of new generation drugs, including Prozac and Aropax, found they were no more effective than a placebo, or sugar tablet, for most people with depression.
Read full article...In March 2008, WSPA began investigating claims that a mass 'cat cull' was planned in China in advance of the Olympic Games, as was reported in several news sources.
To date we have found neither evidence nor direct reports of indiscriminate catching/trapping of cats by the authorities of Beijing. However, a service was established via the 18 district offices in Beijing offering a cat ‘collection' service apparently intending to operate as a ‘pound'. Information via local media advertised this service for citizens, stating some unsubstantiated information about cat diseases, subsequently spreading fear among cat owners. As a result many people either abandoned or requested collection of their own, healthy cats or community colony cats (some already cared and fed by members of the community, some even neutered by the 'Lucky Cats' group of Beijing). Cats were collected and then held at a central holding adoption facility. Reports of some killings were conveyed but none witnessed.
This facility was visited on March 28, 2008 by representatives of some international and local animal protection organizations. Over 50 cats remained in individual vertically stacked cages, most with signs of infectious viral 'cat flu'. They did have food and water at the time of visit. Some cages had dates as far back as March 2007, so it is possible the collection service has occurred over the past year. Cats were apparently only available for adoption if healthy, which was few.
The unbalanced information from the authorities has, and continues to cause the unnecessary abandonment or surrender of animals. WSPA's Beijing office is providing Responsible Cat Ownership educational material for Beijing animal protection organizations to distribute to Beijing citizens and cat owners to counter further abandonment and explain ways to care for cats as pets. Our office in Beijing will continue to monitor this situation, and China Small Animal Protection Association, Lucky Cats and other local contacts have also met with the authorities offering advice and suggestions.
Promoting long-term solutions
WSPA works with local animal welfare groups and governments around the world to address stray cat and dog problems humanely and comprehensively. Effective long term management can only be achieved through working with the local communities to encourage responsible ownership.
Kate Blaszak, Veterinary Programs Manager for WSPA Asia, emphasizes the importance of education about pet ownership to prevent cats from being unwanted and abandoned in the first place:
“We are working to get the message out that cats are safe pets, particularly if vaccinated, de-wormed and sterilized, to encourage people to be responsible pet owners and not let their cats or unwanted offspring end up homeless”.
Norwegian whalers yesterday made the first kill of the season: a calf. Though the majority of Norwegians are against the cruelty inflicted by whaling, Norwegian whalers are set to kill 1,052 whales in the hunts that started on Wednesday morning.
The Norwegian whaling season, which normally runs from April to August, began with the killing of a Minke whale calf. Sadly this will be the first of up to 1,052 whales which Norway is set to kill this season, in hunts which result in prolonged and extreme suffering as many whales do not die straight away.
Data from the Norwegian Government itself reveals that 1 in 5 whales suffer long and painful deaths, some taking an hour or more to die after being hit with explosive harpoons. A recent poll showed that almost two thirds of Norwegians believe that it is unacceptable for a whale to take more than 15 minutes to die once shot.
The start of this year's season follows news in early April that Ellingsen Seafood, Norway's largest whale meat supplier, plans to stop producing whale meat in 2009. Ellingsen is currently responsible for processing approximately a third of the total catch each year.
WSPA programs manager Claire Bass said:
“The appetite for whaling in Norway is dwindling: only 1 in 4 Norwegians under 30 strongly support the continuation of whaling in their country. It's clear that this cruel and outdated industry is on borrowed time in a progressive country like Norway.”
As a child we were told to always drink lots of milk to make sure our bodies would grow tall and strong.
But little did we know that much of the milk on our supermarket shelves have been modified with a secret ingredient the milk industry doesn't want us to know about.
The mystery substance the major companies are adding is called permeate.
The cheaper substance can make up as much as 12 percent of milk depending on the brand.
So what exactly is permeate?
"It's a by-product that's made during the manufacture of dairy products. They actually make skim milk out of it," farmer Paul Weir said.
"But what the major companies are doing is adding this stuff back into full cream milk. The effect is to dilute the milk and make more of it. And you and I have no idea if we're drinking it."
So which two companies admit to using permeate?
National Foods- which make Pura Milk and Dairy Farmers.
Both companies also make the generic brand milk for both supermarket chains.
Milk from the farm c$osts processors about 50 cents a litre, while permeate costs only half that amount - just 18 cents a litre.
HEALTH concerns over Italian mozzarella cheese resurfaced today as more than 100 buffalo farms around Naples were quarantined amid fears of potential dioxin contamination.
"The 102 potentially contaminated buffalo farms were placed under sanitary quarantine," Italy's health and agriculture ministries said.
Serious concerns over Italian mozzarella first emerged in mid-March when samples of the cheese, made from buffalo milk, were found to have raised levels of dioxin, which increases the likelihood of cancer.
A total of 83 buffalo farms in the southern region were quarantined then. Of those, 20 were found to have higher than approved dioxin levels.
A crisis was averted then after Italy recalled the contaminated mozzarella and the European Commission declared itself satisfied and France lifted restrictions it had already put in place.
Nevertheless, Singapore subsequently joined Japan and South Korea in banning Italian mozzarella sales as a precautionary measure.
Today's latest data showed that of 271 samples of buffalo milk taken from 173 makers of mozzarella cheese in the southern Naples, Caserta and Avellino provinces, 14.4 per cent did not conform to the advised European Union limits for dioxin.
Milk samples from the neighbouring Benevento and Salerno provinces were found to conform with EU regulations, the ministries said.
Naples and the surrounding Campania region is still struggling to recover from the crisis provoked by thousands of tonnes of uncollected rubbish.
However, Laetitia Luiga, a chemical engineer working for one cheesemaker in the region, said the possibility the higher dioxin levels were produced by people burning their household rubbish was remote.
Most of the buffaloes they used were raised in paddocks and 98 per cent of them were outside the crisis zone created by the build-up of rubbish, she said.
An EU source said today the European Commission is poised to sue Italy before an EU court for failing to resolve its rubbish collection crisis in the Naples region.
The Commission will decide in a meeting next Wednesday whether to ask the European Court of Justice to order Italian authorities to take action or face fines, the source said.
SCIENTISTS have discovered a legless lizard, a toad and a dwarf woodpecker among 14 species believed to be new to science in central Brazil.
A four-week expedition to the Cerrado region, a wooded savannah under threat from the expansion of farming, found eight apparently unknown types of fish, three reptiles, one amphibian, a mammal and a bird, Conservation International said.
"The lizard, of the Bachia genus, resembles a snake due to its lack of legs and pointed snout, which help it move across the predominantly sandy soil," the US-based non-profit group said.
Susan Bruce, a spokeswoman for Conservation International, said the lizard was about 15-20cm long. Other legless lizards around the world include ones related to geckos in Australia or slow worms in Europe.
The lizard was found during the expedition to the Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station, a 716,000ha protected area in the Cerrado.
Other suspected new species include a dwarf woodpecker and horned toad.
Conservation International seeks to preserve biodiversity and argues that human societies can live in harmony with nature.
"Protected areas such as the Ecological Station are home to some of the last remaining healthy ecosystems in a region increasingly threatened by urban growth and mechanised agriculture," said expedition leader Cristiano Nogueira.
The Cerrado region, part of Brazil's central high plains region that once covered an area half the size of Europe, is being converted to crops and ranch land at twice the rate of the nearby Amazon rainforest, Conservation International said.
The expedition also recorded threatened species such as the three-banded armadillo, the marsh deer and hyacinth macaw among more than 440 species documented in the expedition comprising 26 researchers.
YOUNG children who live with a dog may get an immune-system boost against asthma and other allergies, researchers say.
Joachim Heinrich of the Institute of Epidemiology at the Heimholtz Centre in Munich, Germany, led an investigation into more than 3000 children, whose health was closely monitored from birth to the age of six.
Blood tests showed that children in hhouseholds with dogs were less at risk from becoming sensitised to pollens and inhaled allergens - the triggers for asthma and wheezing, allergic rhinitis and eczema - than their counterparts in dog-free homes.
Mr Heinrich believed early exposure to germs brought into the house on dog fur could stimulate maturation of the immune system.
In other words, the body's defences did not go into allergic overdrive when they were suddenly exposed to dust house mites, pollens and other triggers.
Oddly, though, the benefit in the children's antibodies did not show through in terms of symptoms, the study found.
Children with a dog were as susceptible to asthma and the other problems as counterparts without the pets.
"It is not crystal clear why this is so,'' Mr Heinrich said, but suggested it could be that the protective benefit may show up when the children in the study were a little older.
Further assessments would be made when they reach the age of 10.
Further work was needed to understand why dogs appeared to deliver this protection before a recommendation could be made to get a canine companion, said Mr Heinrich.
The paper appears in the European Respiratory Journal, published by the European Respiratory Society (ERS).
A DOLPHIN was killed when it collided with another dolphin while performing a mid-air trick at a Florida marine park.
Sharkey, a 30-year-old dolphin, died on Saturday at the Discovery Cove park - a sister property to Sea World in Orlando, the Associated Press reported.
About 30 spectators were watching when the dolphins went through their routines before something went horribly wrong and they hit each other as they leapt out of the water.
The second dolphin was uninjured, Discovery Cove spokeswoman Becca Bides said today.
"This is a very unfortunate and very rare incident," she said.
Park officials were reviewing dolphin training "to ensure that even such a random incident like this can't occur again", Ms Bides said.
THE head of animal rights group PETA has called on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to outlaw the controversial practice of mulesing.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) say mulesing, the cutting of skin from around sheep's tails to reduce potentially fatal fly-strike, is cruel because it is done without painkillers.
Major US and Swedish clothing retailers Abercrombie & Fitch and H&M recently announced a boycott of Australian wool because of the practice.
In response, the wool industry has vowed to stop mulesing by the end of 2010.
The industry is looking at alternative methods such as attaching clips to the skin on lambs' backsides to cause the skin to rot off.
Head of international activist group PETA Ingrid Newkirk said the wool industry's response was not adequate.
She has written to Prime Minster Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the organisation's 1.8 million members, calling for an immediate stop to any form of mulesing.
"The wool industry has not responded adequately to this issue and that is why it is losing support,'' she has written in the letter.
Australian sheep farmers were marking their products as "non-mulesed'' but were still using an unacceptable procedure called clip mulesing, she said.
"The storm will only continue brewing if clips are used instead of actual humane solutions, like good husbandry practices and a switch to bare-breech sheep,'' she said.
Bare-breech sheep do not grow wool below their tail areas.
"International clothing retailers won't accept this bait-and-switch tactic, and will demand that their wool come from lambs who haven't been mulesed using either shears or clips, so any resources put into clip mulesing will be wasted.
"It is time for the Australian government to step up, as the roar of disapproval will only increase, and put an end once and for all to cruel shear and clip mulesing mutilations.''
TWO British men have been found guilty of harassing a "celebrity" dolphin during a booze-fuelled late-night swim in the English Channel.
Michael Jukes, 27, and Daniel Buck, 26, were each ordered to do 120 hours of community service and pay £350 ($744) costs at Dover Magistrates Court on the southeast English coast.
They were found guilty of intentionally or recklessly disturbing a wild animal - tourist attraction Dave the dolphin - when they decided to have a swim while heading home from a drunken party at about 5am on June 9, 2007.
Buck admitted being pulled along by the dolphin after grabbing hold of its dorsal fin. Jukes said he had stroked its belly.
A witness told the court that one of them shouted: "People pay hundreds of pounds to do this in Florida and I'm doing it in Folkestone!''.
Experts were called to give their opinion as to whether the dolphin had been disturbed by the men's antics.
The pair said they did not realise they were doing anything wrong and said they even thought the animal had "enjoyed itself'' as much as they had done.
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Animal Logic wins $100m film contractVISUAL effects company Animal Logic has won a contract believed to be worth more than $100 million to produce a new animated feature, Guardians of Ga'hoole.
Animal Logic will utilise the expertise it developed on George Miller's Oscar-winning animated film Happy Feet on the new production.
Guardians of Ga'hoole is based on the popular children's book series by American author Kathryn Lasky, about a young barn owl and his friends as they escape the evil clutches of a band of rogue owls and embark on a journey to reunite with their families.
Work on the film will take place at the company's Moore Park studios in Sydney and will employ approximately 300 artists.
Zack Snyder, whose work includes the movies 300 and Watchmen, will direct the film, and Animal Logic's managing director Zareh Nalbandian will produce.
"This film is a huge win for the Australian film industry," Nalbandian said.
"We will have another opportunity to show the world that Australia is home to world class filmmaking, and to employ and retain so many talented artists.
"With Guardians of Ga'Hoole we are aiming to reinforce the foundation for a robust animation business here in Australia."
Premier Morris Iemma said New South Wales beat Victoria and Singapore to secure the contract.
The film is set for a 2010 release.
THE RSPCA hopes television networks will broadcast an ultra-violent ad featuring a man bashing a women as the animal welfare group steps up its campaign to stamp out cruelty.
The campaign shows the woman being bashed as the sounds of a dog whimpering are heard each time she is hit.
The voiceover to the ad says that 37 per cent of violent criminals admit to having been cruel to animals as children and that the RSPCA is committed to running programs teaching children how to treat animals.
The ad, unveiled yesterday, is part of a series of images that show the unlikely face of the RSPCA, including a shirtless, tattooed RSPCA officer.
Women attending the launch of the campaign in Sydney yesterday were reduced to tears at the ferocity of images showing the man relentlessly punching the woman and throwing her around a room.
Sydney advertising agency The Campaign Palace, better known for Target ads and environmentally focused Westpac promotions, created the campaign for the animal welfare organisation with a clear brief to shock people out of their complacency about cruelty. The campaign is also aimed at helping raise funds for the RSPCA.
Lindsey Evans, managing director of The Palace, refused to apologise for the brutality of the images, saying the RSPCA desperately needed help.
"There is a perception abroad that it has plenty of support and money; that it rescues kittens stuck up trees and finds nice new homes for unwanted dogs," Ms Evans said.
"But there is a dark side to animal welfare and it is this, plus the enormous and varied workload of the RSPCA, that we want to bring to public attention."
The decision to focus the ads on domestic violence came out of agency research that showed many women stayed in an abusive domestic relationship because they feared what their partner might do to their pet.
The agency has begun talking to TV networks about running the ad, but one network source said broadcasters would be hesitant to put it to air.
In the past, ads featuring images of domestic violence have been subject to complaints to the Advertising Standards Board.
A BEAR that almost starved to death in a private Bosnian zoo has been rescued by an animal protection group and taken to France.
"The bear Miljen is (being) transported in a special van, with a special cage. He is sedated and a French veterinarian is accompanying him,'' Bogdana Mijic, of the local animal protection organisation NOA, said.
Miljen would go to a life of luxury with two female companions at an animal rehabilitation centre, NOA said.
The eight-year-old brown bear, weighing only 75kg instead of the average 200kg, was discovered alone and starving last month by Serbian actor Miljenko Kljakovic who was shooting a movie in Bosnia, local media reported.
After he saw the animal suffering in the improvised zoo of a hotel near the northwestern town of Prijedor, the actor alerted local animal protection groups which got into contact with the French Respectons association.
The bear, who fell into the hands of mobsters and taken to the Servud hotel while he was a cub, was neglected for years and managed to survive due to the mercy of a man who fed the animal a loaf of bread every day - all he said he could afford.
"I was bringing him bread and that was enough for him not to die,'' the man, Darko Sevic, told local media.
"I am happy someone initiated a rescue action for him.''
MELBOURNE University is using healthy dogs - some of them pregnant - for student vet operations, then killing the animals.
The dogs are anaesthetised before students carry out surgical procedures, then put down before they are likely to regain consciousness.
A student who did not want to be named said she had been given a bitch carrying seven unborn pups for surgery practice.
She said other students had been given two-month-old pups.
The university and its practices on dogs were dubbed "inhumane" by RSPCA Australia president Hugh Wirth.
Dr Wirth yesterday urged an end to the practice at the Faculty of Veterinary Science on the Werribee campus.
Every year, dozens of dogs are taken out of the faculty's special "dog colony" - a row of cages - for student operations.
Former student Lisa Elsner said: "Most dogs were absolutely petrified - so scared that the students couldn't walk them on a lead through the door of the hospital.
"Some would lie close to the ground shaking all over, so in the end many had to be carried in."
Dr Elsner, now a qualified vet, said she refused to operate on animals that were to be put down.
Several other students claimed laboratories were often under-supervised - leaving baffled trainees to leaf through text books as they operated.
Dean of Veterinary Science Prof Ken Hinchcliff confirmed the surgery practice, but said it was common.
"We use both dead and live animals in the instruction of veterinary students," he said.
"Use of live animals is a small but vital part of our surgery teaching program before clinical training.
"Dogs used in surgical teaching are anaesthetised before any surgical procedures are performed and are euthanised before awakening.
"All animals are treated with the utmost care and compassion. All procedures, sourcing, and housing of animals ultimately used for teaching is with the approval of the Animal Ethics Committee of the University of Melbourne."
Prof Hinchcliff refused to reveal where the dogs came from, saying only they were "donated".
An RSPCA spokesman said the society believed the university advertised for unwanted pets and former farm and breeding dogs.
Greyhound Victoria admitted it provided dogs to the university.
Dr Wirth said the use of the dogs was a waste of life.
"We don't support any operations on live dogs by students," he said.
"And we don't think that because a vet student has desexed one or two (dogs or cats) during their studies that it makes them a better vet."
Australian singer and songwriter Xavier Rudd first got our attention with his addictive blend of socially charged lyrics and reggae, acoustic, and folk-infused sound. Then we saw him on stage. And anyone who has ever seen this didgeridoo-playing dude perform at a music festival or a concert knows that he is one of the most exciting live performers to come out of Australia since … well, forever! Then we found out that this platinum-selling environmentalist and bare-footer was also a vegetarian! First-rate music and a love for animals is a match made in PETA heaven (if we do say so ourselves).
Luckily for us, PETA got to interview Xavier to ask him how he got to be so darn cool. Not only did we get insider info on his latest record, White Moth, we also found out what made him realize that going vegetarian was the right thing to do.
Xavier, how are you?
Great, thanks! Right now, I'm watching the sunset in Australia—so I guess everything is great.
You've been a vegetarian for quite a while; how's that going? What motivated you not to eat meat anymore?
When I realized how animals have to suffer in the meat industry, I decided never to eat meat again. The industry's anonymity and the treatment of animals as worthless beings used only for production really annoyed me. That's why I turned vegetarian.
Was there one specific event or a story that you can remember?
Yes—due to my life on tour, I've been to a lot of places and I've experienced different situations. Anyway, there was one specific journey that I remember very well. It really was an experience that made me change my diet. We drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco and passed a huge piece of land where cattle were kept. But the animals didn't walk around freely on large pasture lands. Far from it! They stood crammed together on this piece of land. They could hardly move as the area was too small for all those animals. Plus, they'd already eaten or trampled down the grass and all the feces were just left there. They were standing in their own waste and—what I found worse—even had to eat it because the workers didn't offer them anything else. I asked the driver about it and he said, "Well, that's California's biggest beef producer." I could still smell it after we had driven for another 30 kilometers. That was when I knew it was the right choice to go vegetarian.
Do you think that people generally don't know enough about those details of factory farming?
Definitely. Nowadays most people don't even know where their food comes from. They don't consider food that important. There's so much stress and busyness in the Western World that people don't think about where their food comes from and how it was produced. To me, it's very important to know where it comes from and which way it took to finally reach my plate. Many people just don't have this awareness and therefore don't think about all the animals suffering to get them their steak. That's what makes such disrespectful treatment of animals on factory farms possible in the first place. I respect all beings, and that's the reason why I turned away from a diet that includes meat.
Do you think that, as a musician, it's your duty to tell your fans about topics like vegetarianism or being active in organizations like Sea Shepherd?
It would be a shame not to do it. You have the possibility to turn to a lot of people and tell them about grievances as well as make them think critically. Therefore, I'd say yes, I see it as my duty to tell my fans about that as well as about other topics like climate protection.
Are you of the opinion that climate protection has always been a critical topic but is now being turned into a topic of mainstream politics?
Yes, I think that's the case. Numerous scientists have been warning us for years about the negative results of global warming—they just haven't received as much public attention as they should have from the beginning. On the other hand, I don't want to underestimate the enormous amount of attention that they are getting now. Finally, the world starts to care about climate change and that even the most influential politicians talk about it is a positive thing, although it comes a bit too late. Better late than never, I'd say. Humanity has left a big footprint on Earth and now we finally think about how our lifestyle influences nature and what we can change so that our behavior will be less influential in the future. And to be vegetarian is a great thing for a start.
Now let's talk a little bit about your latest record, White Moth. What was your approach for that record? Do you write your songs very deliberately and with set standards? Or do they just appear somehow?
My songs come very natural to me .... I hardly ever think about how I wanna write a song or what it should sound like. I just let my emotions guide me and therefore try to make every song a little snapshot of my emotions and how I feel. That's exactly how I've always written my songs, from the very beginning in my childhood, and now I would have no idea as to how I could express my feelings differently. That would just leave out the feelings that I had when I started writing the song.
But you don't have logjams where you find it impossible to express a feeling in a song?
Oh, sure! It's not that I can always write songs. Sometimes it just doesn't work at all—I can sit there for hours on end not being able to come up with a melody. And then there are days where it just flows. So I really can't plan when to write songs—it appears whenever it's ready.
That sounds almost spiritual.
It really is. I'm a spiritual person, and I'm inspired by a lot of things. And I really don't want to restrict that inspiration but rather be led by it when writing a song. Therefore there are just a few songs that tell you something about me, but there are a lot of songs that tell about my inspiration. And because I'm inspired by a lot of different things, all my songs are very different.
Koalas at risk as trees lose nutrientsKOALAS and other leaf-eating animals face a bleak future, with new research showing eucalyptus leaves are becoming inedible because of climate change.
Australian National University science professor Bill Foley says: "What we're seeing, essentially, is that the staple diet of these animals is being turned to leather. This is potentially a very significant development for the future of some marsupial populations. Life is set to become extremely difficult for these animals."
James Cook University researcher Ivan Lawler found through experiments in greenhouses that increased levels of carbon dioxide reduced the levels of nitrogen and other nutrients in eucalyptus leaves and boosted tannins, a naturally occurring chemical toxin.
As a result, the levels of protein in the leaves, essential to the survival of leaf-eating marsupials, fell sharply.
Dr Lawler said eucalyptus leaves were already poor nutritionally, with low protein levels, requiring a koala to eat 700g a day to survive.
"With more carbon dioxide, animals need to eat more and more leaves to get their required protein levels," he said.
"The balance in the leaves shifts from nutrients to non-nutritional fibre. It eventually reaches a threshold when leaves are no longer tenable as a food source.
"The food chain for these animals is very finely balanced, and a small change can have serious consequences."
Koalas and greater gliders depend entirely on eucalyptus leaves for food, while some other marsupials, including brushtail and ringtail possums and many wallaby species, feed extensively on the leaves. And numerous insect species feed exclusively on eucalyptus leaves.
Scientists have reported mysterious declines in populations of greater gliders and brushtail possums in parts of Queensland in areas where the bushland remains in pristine condition, and where there are no apparent pressures from hunting, disease or other factors. Greater gliders have disappeared from places where they were numerous 20 years ago.
Zoologist Jane De Gabriel said the falling nutrient levels in eucalyptus leaves could explain the population declines. Ms De Gabriel found from her research in woodlands west of Townsville that brushtail possums bred more frequently in areas of bushland with high levels of protein in the eucalyptus leaves. The breeding success rate was five times that of possums in areas with low protein levels.
"This suggests that in areas where nutrient levels are inadequate, animals will not be able to reproduce successfully," Ms De Gabriel said.
"What follows from that are extinctions of wildlife populations. It's pretty scary stuff."
Climate change has been linked to changes in the status and distribution of many wildlife species. Animals most at risk in this country are those living at high altitudes in Queensland's wet tropics and in the alps.
SCIENTISTS in Borneo have discovered a lungless frog that breathes through its skin - a species thought to have been extinct for 30 years.
A research team, led by National University of Singapore biologist David Bickford, discovered the frog, Barboroula kalimantanensis, in western Kalimantan in August and published its findings in Current Biology overnight.
The tiny amphibian, which has an average length of less than 40mm and weighs about 6.5g, lives in cold, fast-flowing water and breathes through its skin.
Medical-Veterinary Authorities from Bacau decided to place the city under quarantine, after discovering several centres of rabies carried by stray dogs. Approximately 60 dogs from the animal shelter of Bacau were euthanasized until Monday.
Since the beginning of the year and up to this moment, 33 centres of rabies were discovered in Bacau County, the most of them carried by dogs and foxes.
The latest case of rabies was discovered at the end of last week, at the Bacau animal shelter. According to the Manager of the Bacau Medical-Veterinary Department (DSV), Vasile Zaharia, the rabies was diagnosed at a stray dog recently captured in the city and brought to the shelter. The animal died in two days. Laboratory analyses established that the animal suffered of rabies.
Under the circumstances, the authorities decided to euthanasize the dogs kept at the shelter. Initially, 40 stray dogs were euthanasized. Shortly, another stray dog was found dead and analyses confirmed rabies in this case as well; therefore, 20 animals were euthanasized additionally.
The Manager of the Bacau DSV declared that the situation is extremely worrying, as these animals might get in touch with human beings, and the disease sets on eight days before the first symptoms appear. The same decision was taken in the cases of ten localities nearby, on a distance up to thirty kilometres.
Initially, the local authorities had decided that all stray dogs from Bacau would be captured and euthanasized, yet, protests from behalf of animal lovers determined them to reconsider their decision.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday it will not lift a voluntary moratorium on selling meat and milk from cloned animals to consumers any time soon.
In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled that products from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe as milk and meat from traditional animals.
Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary ban on the sale of cloned products.
After the FDA's ruling, USDA asked the cloning industry to prolong the ban for a transitional period expected to last several months.
"We have asked those companies to continue with that voluntary moratorium," Bruce Knight, USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said at the National Association of Agriculture Journalists conference. "I do not have an end date on that."
Knight added the marketplace so far has "been very accepting, very understanding" of the moratorium.
USDA is now responding to questions and concerns in the sector and working with other countries reviewing cloned products.
Even after the ban is lifted, it could take three to five years before consumers are able to buy clone-derived food as animals need to be cloned, and then mature and give birth.
Milk and meat would come from the offspring of cloned animals, which the industry and FDA view like any other offspring from traditional animals. Currently, an estimated 600 cloned animals exist in the United States.
So far, major food companies including Tyson Foods Inc, the largest U.S. meat company, and Smithfield Foods Inc have said they would avoid using cloned animals.
"There is still substantial doubt about the safety of cloning," said Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst with The Center of Food Safety, citing a list of polls showing the public is skeptical about consuming cloned meat and milk.
He called the FDA assessment of cloned products "inadequate" because it relied on limited data. Hanson added the moratorium should continue "until FDA or USDA has conducted a more wholesome review" to address a list of concerns.
Proponents, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, say cloned animals are safe and a way to create animals that produce more milk, better meat and are more disease-resistant.
"It's a slow adoption. It's not like switching a light switch," said Barbara Glenn, a spokeswoman with BIO. She said that cloning will one day be "a tool in the toolbox of farmers ... to help them produce better livestock."
A pet duck named Circles, shot and wounded by a neighbor with a pellet gun, has received an order of protection to keep it safe, the first duck in New York state's Suffolk County to benefit from such an order.
Circles was in its owner's backyard on Long Island -- long known as a habitat for wild waterfowl -- when it was shot by a neighbor through the neck, said Michelle Auletta, prosecutor at the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.
Circles, a white, yellow-billed duck, was treated by a vet and survived, she said.
The neighbor was charged with animal cruelty. At the attacker's arraignment on Thursday, Circles' owners received an order of protection.
"It's the first case that I know of in this area where a duck got an order of protection," Auletta said. "And in Suffolk County, Long Island, it is the first case where an animal was included in an order of protection that was not a domestic violence case."
In 2006, former New York Governor George Pataki signed into law a provision to include pets in orders of protection.
A THIEF has walked unnoticed out of a Norwegian aquarium carrying a crocodile and now risks losing a finger or two, the head of the aquarium said.
"I think whoever did this knew what they were doing," Bergen aquarium director Kees Oscar Ekeli tsaid, suggesting the young crocodile was smuggled out in a bag during the busiest hours on Saturday.
The stolen reptile, named Taggen (Spike), is a 70cm smooth-fronted caiman also known as Schneider's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus Trigonatus).
Taggen eats "a good mix of fish and meat", may grow to be about 2.5m, and has a solid bite.
"Considering it is not bigger than it is, you could lose a few fingers, but no vital organs," Mr Ekeli said.
It is normally found in much warmer habitats in South America and is one of the world's smallest species of crocodile.
Mr Ekeli feared that the four-year-old would have poor chances of surviving outside its habitat in the aquarium, and said it would probably die from stress.
The theft was immediately reported to the police.
"We have offered a reward of 25,000 Norwegian crowns ($A5350) to anyone who can give us a tip that leads to finding the crocodile," Mr Ekeli said.
THEY flirt, hold hands and guard their lovers jealously - yet they don't even have bones. That's octopus romance.
The love lives of octopuses are far more complex than anyone thought, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, says.
Graduate student Christine Huffard snorkelled in the waters off Indonesia to watch Abdopus aculeatus, an octopus with a spiky tan body the size of a small orange and arms 20-25cm long.
Octopuses are well-studied in captivity but because they are shy and often nocturnal, their natural wild behaviour is less understood.
"Each day in the water, we learned something new about octopus behaviour, probably like what ornithologists must have gone through after the invention of binoculars," said Ms Huffard, now at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Bay, California.
"We quickly realised that Abdopus aculeatus broke all the rules, doing the near opposite of every hypothesis we'd formed based on aquarium studies."
They saw male cephalopods guarding the dens of their mates for several days, warding off rivals and even strangling them if they got too close.
Small males would sneak in to mate by swimming low to the ground in feminine fashion and not displaying their "male" brown stripes, the researchers reported in the journal Marine Biology.
And size matters, although perhaps not in quite the same way as for humans.
"If you're going to spend time guarding a female, you want to go for the biggest female you can find because she's going to produce more eggs," biology professor Roy Caldwell said.
"It's basically an investment strategy."
Prof Caldwell said he believed the behaviour was common to many of the nearly 300 species of octopus.
The animals usually mated several times a day once they reached sexual maturity.
Males had a specially designed arm they used to deposit a sperm packet into the female, who retired to her den to lay tens of thousands of eggs.
Both parents died within a few months of mating, leaving the newborns to fend for themselves.
RSPCA officials are talking to a far north Queensland horse owner after a severely malnourished ex-racehorse was found wandering in bushland.
The chestnut thoroughbred gelding had a torn upper lip, cuts on its legs and a skin infection when it was found on the bottom of the Gillies Range, south of Cairns, on Sunday.
RSPCA far north region inspector Cameron Buswell said the horse was thought to be around 15 years old and weighed about 350 kilograms.
"A horse that size should be around the 450kg mark," Mr Buswell said.
"We occasionally encounter horses in poor condition, but this horse in particular was probably on the more severe side."
Mr Buswell said the owner had contacted the RSPCA today and was being interviewed.
He said the owner could face neglect charges.
"We're just trying to work with the owner at the moment but there may be a possibility of charges," Mr Buswell said.
A CANADIAN Coast Guard icebreaker and a ship from the Sea Shepherd conservation group collided overnight in the Gulf of St Lawrence where the annual harp seal hunt is taking place.
A Fisheries and Oceans department spokesman said the Coast Guard vessel Des Groseilliers "twice grazed'' the Farley Mowat owned by the militant Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
There was "no damage done'' nor any injuries reported, he said.
Alex Cornelissen, captain of the Farley Mowat, said his vessel was "twice rammed'' in the port stern after he ignored warnings not to approach sealers on the third day of Canada's annual hunt.
"They are ramming ships in dangerous ice conditions,'' Mr Cornelissen said.
"This is unbelievable. It's like the Coast Guard has declared war on seal defenders.''
Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn said the allegations were completely untrue and accused the Farley Mowat crew of attempting to provoke a confrontation with the Coast Guard ship.
"The Farley Mowat manoeuvred itself in front of the Coast Guard vessel Des Groseilliers to cause a collision between the two vessels,'' Mr Hearn said.
He said such tactics jeopardised the safety of people involved in the annual seal hunt and he called on the Farley Mowat crew to leave the area and "not attack Coast Guard vessels while they protect our sealers".
The annual harp seal hunt began last Friday with a handful of sealing vessels setting out before dawn from the Magdalen islands to reach the seal herds, and with activists close behind.
Animal rights groups, including the Sea Shepherd, say they document the "cruel'' slaughter and "atrocities on the ice".
Officials accused them of interfering in the hunt.
Sealers routinely face shifting ice, high winds, freezing temperatures and unpredictable seas during the controversial sea hunt.
One vessel was forced to return to port on Friday after being slammed by huge chunks of ice.
On Saturday, a boat accident left three sealers dead and one missing.
The 12m trawler had steering problems and later capsized while it was being towed back to port by the Coast Guard.
Mr Cornelissen said the Coast Guard's "incompetence'' cost the lives of the four sealers and now it "has demonstrated extreme recklessness'' by bumping into the Farley Mowat.
"It appears that Canada is prepared to use violence to cover up the truth of this slaughter,'' echoed Sea Shepherd's head Paul Watson.
"Our duty is to resist their violence and continue to document the truth.''
Fisheries and Oceans Department spokesman Phil Jenkins said: ``It's despicable that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society would use the death of Canadian sealers to try and advance its campaign of misinformation against the seal hunt.''
"This is really a new low and it's extremely distasteful,'' he said.
Queensland Senator Andrew Bartlett says that while tomorrow night’s Earth Hour is a welcome initiative, we could all make a bigger and more immediate difference by going without meat or dairy products for a day.
“Overall greenhouse emissions from livestock are greater than that from all forms of transport put together, yet the significant impact we can make from the simple action of changing our diets is still rarely talked about,” Senator Bartlett said.
“Earth Hour is a worthwhile way to raise awareness about the urgent need to significantly cut greenhouse emissions, but the lasting impact comes from permanent changes to our lifestyles which will make a meaningful difference to reducing greenhouse emissions.”
“There is no easier, cheaper and more immediate thing we can do to significantly reduce our personal contribution to greenhouse emissions than to cut the amount of meat and dairy products that we consume.
“It is something which has clearly verified health and environmental benefits that we can do straight away, rather than have to wait for new technology, better public transport services or renewable energy options to be provided, it saves money rather than costs it and it doesn’t cause any ongoing harm to our economy.
“We can’t keep kidding ourselves that major climate change can be prevented while we maintain our existing lifestyles. There needs to be actions from governments and widespread adoption of lower energy technologies, but we also need to change our individual behaviours in substantial ways.
“We can’t afford to keep sitting back and waiting for governments, technology or markets to fix things on their own. Consumers will drive change far more quickly than governments or business.
“Earth Hour is about reminding ourselves that small changes can make big improvements on the environment but it must only be a first step.
“The whole world doesn’t have to go vegetarian or vegan tomorrow to save the planet from climate change, but we also have to acknowledge the scientific facts that if we don’t substantially cut back on the consumption of animal products, our chances of stopping major climate change are almost nil,” Senator Bartlett concluded.
THE planned cull of kangaroos on defence land in Canberra has been put on hold after the department asked the ACT Government to approve a trial of moving them.
Defence contractors had been preparing to cull about 400 kangaroos on a former naval site in Canberra's north, after the ACT Government rejected a plan to relocate them.
A report to the ACT Government released this month recommended the cull go ahead without delay to protect lowland native grasslands and threatened species, and said relocating them would be inhumane.
But defence today said it remained interested in researching options other than a cull, particularly given public opposition to that plan.
"Approval has therefore been requested from the ACT Government to undertake a scientific trial of kangaroo management techniques, including translocation,'' defence said.
"Pending the ACT Government's response to the defence proposal, the cull of kangaroos ... will be placed on hold.''
Defence said it wanted to take every precaution to ensure the matter was dealt with responsibly.
"The trial would deliver scientific evidence relating to translocation, assist the protection of endangered ecological communities and threatened species, and inform the debate on humane management of eastern grey kangaroos,'' the department said.
The planned cull has drawn condemnation from animal rights activists, including from British group Viva! which has the support of celebrity rock stars Sir Paul McCartney and Chrissie Hynde.
The cull would have been carried out by tranquillising the animals with darts and euthanasing them with a lethal drug.
FOOD prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it's already boiling over.
Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 per cent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 per cent.
In 2007 alone, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 per cent and grain 42 per cent.
Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports, a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming