Kim Stallwood

Frightened Panda clings to Policeman's leg after the Earthquake in Japan.

This photo, which I originally published here, is challenged.

It’s not a fake, exactly; the image is real, but it’s five years old, and was taken at a panda research center, and not in Japan but in China, and the guy isn’t a policeman, he’s a keeper, and it was feeding time, and the panda wasn’t terrified but hungry.

Read more here.

Thanks to those who got in touch about this.

Yesterday’s announcement of the backer’s withdrawal of the proposed mega-dairy is a victory. But this issue will resurface elsewhere in another form. Vigilance is needed. The dairy industry must be closely monitored. We need to be ready to act again.

But who is “we”?

We, in this case, were national animal welfare organisations (e.g., CIWF, WSPA, Animal Aid, VIVA), national environmental organisations (e.g., Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth, Soil Association), progressive political organisations (e.g., 38 Degrees) and local residents associations (e.g., Campaign Against Factory Farming Operations). This coalition mobilised support from Parliament and the entertainment industry. Further, the campaign was emboldened by reports challenging the application from the Environment Agency and Anglian Water. And, of course, tens of thousands of people who added their voice in a variety of ways.

This impressive coalition of diverse interests demonstrated why the proposed mega-dairy had to be opposed for various reasons (e.g., animal welfare, environmental protection, sustainable farming practices).

This is the lesson to be learned from Nocton. When the case for animal welfare is framed within a progressive agenda of interests there will be increased chances of success.

The challenge to establishing moral and legal rights for animals will not be found in a fundamentalist, moral crusade espousing vegan absolutism.

It will be achieved when animal advocates position animal interests as a natural fit alongside those of the environment and human well-being.

Comprehensive and progressive agendas of social change, as demonstrated by yesterday’s decision to withdraw plans for the mega-dairy, will propel animal issues into the public mainstream and establish moral and legal rights for animals as a public policy issue.

Congratulations to Animal Aid for their excellent undercover campaign in British slaughterhouses which included installing CCTV cameras to record not only the routine killing of farmed animals but also their cruel treatment. The Guardian prominently features the campaign today. Here’s the link: animal-welfare-abuse-slaughterhouse. To learn more about Animal Aid’s campaign go here.

Animal Aid Slaughterhouse Footage

And here’s the link to today’s report in The Guardian.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Go to this link to access additional segments of the programme. And, of course, go to Oprah’s Web site.

Compassion In World Farming’s CEO Philip Lymbery concludes,

So, it’s not the size that is bad, but the direction of travel that it represents. At a time in history when pigs and poultry are now increasingly being kept in more extensive ways, often outdoors, it is ironic that dairy cows potentially face the opposite direction of travel.

So, the size of a ‘mega-dairy’ of thousands of cows is symptomatic of a system that has become divorced from the land and is pushing the dairy cow to its physical limits. It also plays into the hands of those who see milk as a low quality commodity with little value. Devaluing the dairy industry seems to me to be the road to ruin, not sustainability.

Trying to solve a systemic problem of the marketplace by tweaking the mechanics of production isn’t the way forward. Instead, it is a cul-de-sac that will see many dairy farmers go out of business to the detriment of a sustainable food system. In my view, there is an urgent need for key stakeholders to work together; dairy farmers, retailers, milk processors and government, to work out how to bring about a market environment that supports the sustainable, human-scale dairying that we otherwise face losing. The welfare of our cows, the future of many dairy farmers and the integrity of milk is depending on it. A different direction of travel is now essential.

Not satisfied with wanting foxes, stags, deer and hares to be hunted legally by pledging support for the repeal of the Hunting Act, Hastings and Rye MP, Amber Rudd, now wants to see Britain’s beloved badgers killed next.

On November 29 I wrote to Amber this letter on the government’s proposed badger cull. I concluded,

I ask respectfully that you reply by stating clearly your position on this issue, including whether you are for or against the government’s proposed badger cull and why.

As is clear from her response reproduced in full below, her failure to answer directly my question can only mean she supports the government’s plan to kill badgers. If, indeed, this is incorrect I invite Amber to email me directly. I pledge to publish in full here any clarification of her position.

Thank you for contacting me about the control of bovine TB.

Bovine TB is having a devastating effect on many farm businesses and families. Thousands of cattle are slaughtered each year at huge financial and emotional cost to farmers. Last year over 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England because of the disease.

The cost to the taxpayer of controlling bovine TB in England was over £63million in 2009/10 (excluding scientific research). These costs are rising year by year. Eradicating bovine TB is our long term goal, but it is clear that the approach to date has failed. We need to take additional measures urgently to stop the disease spreading and to start to reverse the rising trend.

No single measure will be enough to tackle the disease on its own. We need to use every tool in the toolbox. However, the science is clear, there is no doubt that badgers are a significant reservoir for the disease and without taking action to control the disease in them, it will continue to spread. That is why the Coalition Government committed, as part of a package of measures, to developing affordable options for a carefully-managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine TB.

Defra is currently running a public consultation on “Bovine Tuberculosis: The Government’s approach to tackling the disease and consultation on a badger control policy”. This consultation will run until 8 December.

A decision on our approach will be taken following the consultation on badger control. The Government intends to publish a comprehensive and balanced bovine TB eradication programme early in 2011.

Kind regards,

Amber

The Mammal Society in Britain issues a statement opposing the badger cull. Here is a link to their full statement. Here is the society’s conclusion:

The Mammal Society believes that the Government’s proposal is a roll-out of predetermined policy: it is not a controlled, randomised, replicated experiment (as would be required to demonstrate reliably the effects of badger culling). The Government undertook such an experiment – the RBCT – and has chosen to ignore the advice of the eminent scientists of the ISG who ran it. The Mammal Society regrets this.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, 8 December) is the deadline for submissions to the public consultation led by the UK government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on its proposed cull of badgers in an attempt to address the problem of TB in cattle. Please submit your comments by tomorrow’s deadline . There are many excellent resources on the Web to help you. Start here with these:

Badger Protection League

Badger Trust

Save Me

Here is the text of the letter I emailed this morning to Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State, DEFRA.

I totally oppose killing badgers and find it difficult to understand how DEFRA can state that the policy of badger control is science led. If this was the case simple recognition of the results from extensive scientific investigation that saw many thousands of badgers killed, would not support further killing of badgers.

It is well known that the current tuberculin test applied to cattle results with many inconclusive, false positive and false negative results. This unacceptable regime leaves infected cattle to re-infect other cattle, it removes animals for slaughter that are not infected and causes misery to many farmers. This is the most significant area where major improvement can be gained and where significant improvement must be targeted, until we have the long awaited cattle vaccine.

Cattle contract TB from other sources, principally other cattle. This is why TB in cattle is spreading across south-west England and Wales to the rest of the country. Badgers generally do not roam far from their dens. They live within a relatively small area. They certainly do not make long journeys across the countryside. So, it is more likely that the spread of TB-infected cattle is due to the movement of these animals, from farm to farm, from farms to auctions, and from farms to slaughterhouses.

If action against badgers must be included in the policy to reduce Bovine TB in cattle then it should be well recognised that the cost of trapping, killing and disposing of a badger is significantly greater than trapping, vaccinating and releasing the same animal. The advantage of vaccinating is that over a similar time period to killing badgers you would in fact end up with a badger population that was not a risk to cattle. It makes sound economic, political and indeed common sense to vaccinate not exterminate.

I agree with the Mammal Society, which states “that the Government’s proposal is a roll-out of predetermined policy: it is not a controlled, randomised, replicated experiment (as would be required to demonstrate reliably the effects of badger culling). The Government undertook such an experiment – the RBCT – and has chosen to ignore the advice of the eminent scientists of the ISG who ran it. The Mammal Society regrets this.”

Thank you.

Kim Stallwood

Very interesting feature article in today’s Guardian, “A tale of two herds,” which juxtaposes the proposed mega-dairy for Nocton, Lincolnshire and the treatment of a small herd of cows cared for by the Hare Krishnas at their Hertfordshire estate.

I like how the feature contrasts the attitude towards dairy cows by Peter Willes, one of two directors backing the mega-dairy, who says, “Cows do not belong in fields,” with Hare Krishna Shyamasundara, who says their cows are

part of our community. They give us their lifeblood in the form of milk and we care for them all their life. Of all the animals in the world the cow is the most important to humans. The cow replaces the role of the mother. You wouldn’t bump your mum off if she stopped giving milk.

The Independent publishes today, The Great Animal Rights Betrayal, a front page lead story continued onto pages 4 and 5, which includes several side bars under the banner, “The Betrayals,” on Game birds, Slaughterhouse cruelty, Circus animals, Beak trimming and Badger cull. There’s also a Comment by Peter Stevenson, Chief Policy Advisor, Compassion In World Farming.

Millions of hens will have their beaks mutilated; game birds will remain in cages; pigs, sheep and cows in abattoirs will lose crucial protection from abuse; badgers will be culled and lions, tigers and other wild animals will continue to perform in the big top. In a series of little-noticed moves, the Coalition has scrapped or stalled Labour initiatives to improve animal welfare some weeks before they were due to come into force. The Agriculture minister James Paice, who part-owns a farm in Cambridgeshire, has been behind most of the moves – which have infuriated welfare groups. In the latest of a series of controversial decisions, Mr Paice this week delayed by five years a ban on beak mutilations of laying hens due to come into force in January.

Hats off to The Independent for giving such prominent attention to the British government’s indifference to animal welfare and support for the commercial exploitation of animals. Difficult to imagine The Guardian publishing such an article, given its track record of indifference and, at times, hostility to animal rights and vegetarian living. Today’s Guardian, however, has below the front page fold the story this story, McDonald’s and PepsiCo to help write UK health policy.

The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald’s and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned. In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five “responsibility deal” networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month. The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises. Working alongside them are public interest health and consumer groups including Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health. The alcohol responsibility deal network is chaired by the head of the lobby group the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. The food network to tackle diet and health problems includes processed food manufacturers, fast food companies, and Compass, the catering company famously pilloried by Jamie Oliver for its school menus of turkey twizzlers. The food deal’s sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, owner of Walkers crisps.

The common link between the two articles is the ConDem’s cosy relationship with industry. Their governance is based on the premise that business must have a dominant say in determining public policy. In order for the economy to flourish, industry must be free from such irritating restrictions as concerns about human health and animal welfare.