This month, China’s National People’s Congress is soliciting public comments on a draft revision of the Wildlife Protection Law. Ironically, the law, supposedly designed to protect wildlife species, has witnessed the enormous rise of a wildlife exploitation industry unlike anything in China’s past.
Asia for Animals urges India’s Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change to take strong and immediate action to prevent bull taming/ racing, and other associated events, from taking place, by upholding the Supreme Court’s order, prioritising public safety and animal welfare, and India’s international image and reputation.
H.G. Wells’ 1896 novel The Island of Doctor Moreau is remembered as a powerful attack on vivisection, yet he himself would come to defend the practice later in life. How can we resolve the paradox between the strong pro-animal themes of Wells’ famous stories, and his own callousness toward animals harmed in the name of science?
No other animal has come close to the cow and the bull in sharing a viscerally intimate relationship with humans, or possibly suffered more for it. The spectacular rituals around bull sports involve young men who sought to demonstrate their virility, masculinity, and ultimately, their sexual domination of the raw potent power of an angry bull.
When the birds are gone
Will we care?
Will we sit outside
And mourn the quiet?
…
“The only way to save our wild birds for future generations to enjoy is to cancel all collecting permits and close the wildlife markets throughout Indonesia – now. If this is not done immediately we risk seeing many birds and animals becoming locally extinct. Can you imagine a forest and sky with no wildlife – because this is a reality facing us all unless our government takes immediate action.”
His Holiness Chatral Rinpoche, the inspiration for the Jangsa Animal Saving Trust and who dedicated his life to saving the lives of other beings, passed away on January 5, 2016. This is a transcribed text of His Holiness Chatral Rinpoche, on his reasons for being a vegetarian.
As I made clear in the TV interview, “This [cutting up of cats by high school students] engenders a lack of respect for companion animals, and that’s the complete opposite of what we should be telling our students.” My daughter Brynnan further drives home the point in the interview: “We can’t dissect these cats, they are our companions…they are what we love, what we come home to, what we care about.”
Come with me
To the forest’s heart
Where the green tapestry
Starred with jeweled birds
And fragrant flowers
Enters the blood
And calls you home…
A bull is every bit as capable of feeling anguish, distress and suffering as a human being, and to justify making any sentient being feel thus for the sake of a sport is offensive to the principles of Indian Dharma. In this regard, Prakash Javadekar has betrayed the very Hindu Dharma that he used as a platform to get himself elected in the first place.
As we begin the new year, Animal People looks back on the Forum’s accomplishments so far, and the promise that awaits in 2016!
Consider what happened in one Oklahoma City classroom as a result of cat dissection in the classroom: “The disturbing footage posted to Facebook shows nine young students from the flagship charter school – which is rated among the best schools in the USA – making the cat corpses ‘dance’ to music in a school laboratory while being ‘conducted’ by another student.”