Category: Europe

Donkey Sanctuary founder Elisabeth Svendsen, 81

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

Elisabeth Svendsen, 81, founder of The Donkey Sanctuary,
died of a stroke on May 11, 2011 in Exeter, England. She appeared
to be “the picture of health” two days earlier, said Donkey
Sanctuary chief executive David Cook, when she gave the closing
speech at Donkey Week, celebrated at the Donkey Sanctuary
headquarters in east Devon.
Born Elisabeth Knowles in York-shire, “She became enamored
of donkeys when she was a girl,” wrote Emma Brown of the Washington
Post. “She worked as a teacher and a secretary before she and her
husband Niels started a family. They devised a dryer for baby
diapers, sold their invention to a manufacturer, and bought the
Salston Hotel at Ottery St. Mary in Devon.”

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Ecuador proposed ban on blood sports is narrowed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
QUITO–Ecuadorans may vote to ban Spanish-style bullfighting on
May 7, 2011, as part of a 10-point set of constitutional amendments
proposed by President Rafael Correa, but the measure before them
appears to be narrower than the total ban on blood sports that Correa
promised before the ballot language was finalized.
“The question concerns spectacles in which the goal is to kill
the animal. Cockfights are not affected by this problem and will be
allowed,” Correa told Radio Huancavilca in Guayaquil. But Correa
muddled the matter in statements to the government news agency Andes.

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Dutch to get 500 “animal cops” — may ban kosher & halal slaughter

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
DEN HAAG, The Netherlands– The politics of assembling the
present Dutch coalition government are expected to put 100 new
“animal cops” on the beat in the Netherlands by the end of 2011, and
to eventually increase the Dutch animal police force to 500 officers.
Dutch coalition politics could also lead to the passage of a
proposed ban on slaughter without pre-stunning, which within the
European Union is done by electroshock for cattle and by carbon
dioxide gassing for pigs and poultry. The proposed Dutch law would
prohibit kosher and halal slaughter, practiced by Jews and Muslims.
Pre-stunning has traditionally been interpreted by most Judaic and
Islamic religious authorities– though some differ–as a violation
of the requirements of Mosaic and Islamic religious law that animals
be conscious when their throats are swiftly cut with a sharp blade.

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Editorial feature: Art, nukes, & ethical energy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:

Chilean shock artist Marco Evaristti won global notoriety in
February 2000 with an exhibit at the Trapholt Art Museum in Kolding,
Denmark, consisting of 10 blenders containing live goldfish.
Visitors were invited to puree a goldfish.
Friends of Animals/Denmark, not affiliated with the U.S.
organization Friends of Animals, won an injunction ordering that the
electricity supply to the blenders should be cut off. When two
goldfish were pureed anyhow, FoA/Denmark pursued criminal charges
against Evaristti and museum director Peter Meyer. The case against
Meyer went to court in May 2003. Meyer was acquitted, but even in
Denmark, whose national identity is intertwined with commercial
fishing, whale massacres in the Faroe Islands, and the Copenhagen
fur trade, public opinion clearly rejected the notion of pulverizing
live fish as “art.”

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Northern Ireland gets new anti-cruelty law

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:

 

STORMONT, Northern Ireland –The first update of the
Northern Ireland Welfare of Animals Act since 1972 cleared the
Northern Ireland Assembly on February 22, 2011. It is expected to
take effect in April 2011, after the formality of royal assent.
Ulster SPCA director Stephen Philpott called the update “A
complete sellout,” because it gives law enforcement authority for
non-farmed animals to local councils, as in Britain. Such authority
had by default devolved to the Ulster SPCA.

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Oslo Fashion Week bans fur from catwalk

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:


OSLO--Oslo Fashion Week founder Pål Vasbotten on January 8,  2011 confirmed to ANIMAL PEOPLE that the only Norwegian fashion event of global note has banned fur from the catwalks. Oslo Fashion Week, held twice a year since 2004,  will next be celebrated from February 15 through February 21,  2011.

Unconfirmed reports quoting Vasbotten with a variety of different attributions circulated for more than two weeks before the Oslo Fashion Week web site first mentioned the ban by including a third-hand account by Katherine Sweet of the fashion publication Radar. Sweet reported that Vasbotten told The Huffington Post that banning fur from the catwalk “has been a very natural choice for us because we do not want [Oslo Fashion Week] to appear as an arena in which to promote products based on the treatment of animals [as] prohibited by animal welfare concerns in several countries.” Read more

Spanish national broadcasting agency banishes bullfights to protect children

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

 

MADRID–The Spanish national broadcasting agency,  Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (RTVE)  on January 8,  2011 made official that it will no longer televise bullfights.

 

RTVE “has not shown bullfighting in any of its programs for months,  citing low audience ratings and budget problems,”  wrote Associated Press correspondent Harold Heckle. RTVE made the de facto exclusion of bullfights from broadcasts official in the 2011 edition of the corporate stylebook.  A chapter titled “Violence against animals” says RTVE has ceased broadcasting bullfighting in part because bullfights are usually held at hours when children are likely to be watching. Read more

Reptile refuge downsizes after caiman deaths

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

 

SURREY, B.C.–Urban Safari Rescue Society and Cinemazoo
Animal Agency founder Gary Oliver on November 23, 2010 agreed to
reduce by about a third the number of animals housed at the former
Rainforest Reptile Refuge.
The Urban Safari Rescue Society came under investigation by
the British Columbia SPCA after three caimans died of suspected
hypothermia.

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Is it “The great animal rights betrayal” or just business as usual in Britain?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:
LONDON–Is the Conservative-led British coalition government
engaged in “The great animal rights betrayal,” as the newspaper The
Independent alleged on November 13, 2010? Or has the transition
from Labour to Conservative government changed nothing much, as
representatives of several leading British animal welfare
organizations told ANIMAL PEOPLE?
“In a series of little-noticed moves,” The Independent
charged, “the coalition has scrapped or stalled Labour initiatives
to improve animal welfare. Agriculture minister James Paice, who
part-owns a farm in Cambridgeshire, has been behind most of the
moves,” The Independent said. “Paice this week delayed by five years
a ban on beak mutilations of laying hens due to come into force in
January.

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