Agriculture
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
Twelve activists were arrested and
two hurt at Brightlingsea, England, on
April 18, as they failed to halt the export of
1,200 sheep to Belgium, following an April 12
ruling by the High Court that local authorities
had no right to ban live animal exports. The
ruling undid export bans won through a winter
of protest at all major British cattle ports.
Australia’s effort to resume sheep
sales to Saudi Arabia after a four-year hiatus
hit a snag on May 8 when Saudi inspectors
diverted the first cargo of 75,000 sheep to
Jordan because they didn’t think the sheep
were healthy enough to be unloaded at Jeddah.
A second ship carrying 30,000 sheep changed
destinations voluntarily. Australia sold up to
3.5 million sheep a year to Saudi Arabia before
1991, when the frequent arrival of diseased
sheep caused the Saudis to cut off the trade.
Human exposure to organophos-
phate-based sheep dips harm memory and
reaction times, and increase susceptibility to
psychiatric disorders, researcher Anne
Spurgeon and colleagues at the University of
Birmingham in England reported in the May 5
edition of The Lancet, the journal of the
British Medical Society. Sheep farmers use
the dips to rid sheep of parasites.
The Union Against the Abuse of
Animals, a German group, on April 21 peti-
tioned France to ban foie gras, produced by
force-feeding fowl. Germany is the biggest
foie gras importing nation, buying more than
100 tons per year. The petition bore 65,203
signatures of German residents.
Failing in a multi-year effort to
promote earthworm-based meat substitutes,
Cuba is now boosting soybean production to
compensate for a perennial scarcity of animal
products. Soy yoghurt, soy ice cream, and
soy burgers all show promise of catching on,
partly because they are also popular in the U.S.
Eleven volunteers from the
Toronto Animal Rescue Mission and the
Animal Liberation Collective at the
University of Guelph, including the TARM
cruelty officer, are pressing the Ontario gov-
ernment and Agriculture Canada for action
against the driver of a cattle truck whom they
observed in the act of kicking and elec-
troshocking a downed cow on the night of May
5 at a gasoline stop on Highway 401, the main
corridor between Montreal and Toronto. ALC
member Mark McAlpine told ANIMAL PEO-
P L E that the whole truckload of animals
appeared to have serious injuries, including
bleeding wounds and apparent missing eyes
(indicative of perhaps having been packed too
tightly together, resulting in horn injuries).
After calling the provincial police, the
activists followed the truck to an unmarked
slaughterhouse just north of Nepanee. Despite
the number of violations, the number of wit-
nesses, and the advice of the cruelty officer,
however, the police laid no charges.
