Spaniards Are Giving Up their Horses Due to Economic Conditions

.....and they are ending up in slaughterhouses or are being abandoned.

Economic Troubles in Portugal Lead to More Abandoned Animals

From the Portugal News Online.....sad stuff.

Thousands of pets are being abandoned across Portugal, either being dumped at the gates of charitable associations or simply taken far from home and left behind, as owners struggle to make ends meet due to the continuing financial crisis.

Figures released by the National Veterinary Authority, Direção Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária, show that in the Lisbon area alone, a total of 5,629 stray cats and dogs were caught last year, up from the 4,442 caught in 2010. Data for this year is not yet available, but signs are that this problem is not only continuing but also on the increase, everywhere, especially in the Portuguese capital.

Adding to the problem is the fact that Lisbon's municipal kennel is not collecting stray animals and is currently closed for refurbishment work but has no date for reopening, Lisbon's urban environment councillor, José Sá Fernandes told Expresso newspaper this week.

Animal associations around the capital are also struggling to make ends meet and pay the expenses of looking after other people's unwanted animals as the number of paid members has fallen, along with the number of animal adoptions.

Mexico and US Go at it Again Over Dolphin-Labeling and Tuna

From the Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest....

The long-running dispute between the US and Mexico over Washington’s ‘dolphin safe’ labelling practice for tuna products is likely to see a WTO appeal, after the two parties together asked for an extension of the appeals deadline. Meanwhile, animal welfare and consumer advocacy groups in Washington are urging the US to look into options outside the global trade body for resolving the trade row.

WTO appeals deadline extended to January

At its last meeting on 11 November, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) decided to extend the deadline for submitting an appeal on the latest Tuna-Dolphin (DS381) ruling issued in September (see Bridges Weekly, 21 September 2011).

.....Washington had partially lost its claim in this high-stakes dispute over the US “dolphin safe” label for tuna products when a panel ruled the US practice unnecessarily trade restrictive (for further analysis on the tuna-dolphin case, see Bridges Trade BioRes Review, November 2011).

Commissioned Study Shows Namibian Seals Worth More Alive than Dead

Seal tourism brings in more revenue for the African country than the seal hunt. These are the results of a study commissioned by Bont voor Dieren (BvD), Humane Society International (HSI), Respect for Animals (RFA) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), and produced by the Australia-based independent economics consultancy Economists at Large.

Excerpted from PR Newswire...

"Each year, up to 85,000 seals are killed in Namibia to make just a few dollars from their furs, when they would be worth so much more to the Namibian economy alive," said Claire Bass, WSPA International Oceans Campaign Leader. "Eco-tourism is a growing part of Namibia's identity, but tourists will be shocked to learn that a seal they photograph one day may be clubbed to death the next morning. There is a clear economic case for the government to protect these animals."

Animals as Inputs in Accounting

I'm studying for the CPA exam and am working through Becker's online course review for the business section. Here's an example of "joint costs" that says all you need to know about animals as nothing more than inputs in a manufacturing process.

"The meat packing industry takes a single input, a steer, and produces many different final products. Each product must be assigned a cost including the different cuts of meat for human consumption, different food products for animal consumption (pet food) and basic ingredients for glue."

Boston Zoo May Close and Kill Animals

I'm not a fan of zoos on principle. But I know there are good zoos and bad zoos. Unfortunately I think there are way more bad zoos than good ones.

But even for a bad zoo, this is awful. From the Boston Globe online....

The Franklin Park Zoo, a Boston institution that has drawn generations of city and suburban families, might be forced to close its doors and possibly euthanize some of its animals as a result of the deep budget cuts imposed by Governor Deval Patrick, zoo officials said Friday.

Without more state funding, those zoo officials said, they will run out of money by October and have to close both the Franklin Park Zoo and its smaller counterpart, the Stone Zoo in Stoneham. They would lay off most of their 165 employees and attempt to find new homes for more than 1,000 animals, the officials said.

The zoo officials, in a written statement that echoed a letter sent earlier to legislative leaders, said they would be unlikely to find homes for at least 20 percent of the animals, “requiring either destroying them, or the care of the animals in perpetuity.”

Isn't the fact that they'd mention euthanizing a mockery of the vaunted principles upon which zoos are always promoting themselves? That they care for the species and animals? Examples like Franklin Park's just create cynics among us.

Who would they euthanize? It doesn't say. It could be a ploy to pressure the State government, but still...that's not just not something you should pose as an option or throw around as an idle threat. It's contemptible and shows you for who you really are.

PS. Look at the comments at this. A lot of the comments are just about keeping zoos open for families and children. "Where will our kids go to see the animals?" Uh, your kids will at least be alive while the animals are the ones who die. That kind of sucks for the animals, don't ya think?

Animal Health Care is Part of the Bottom Line

We've argued in previous posts that factory farming is simply not conducive to animal welfare. Better conditions for animals hurt the bottom line. Animal welfare is a cost of doing business, not a moral obligation.

Here's an example. I'm not arguing about the methods as I'm not a veterinarian, but it's a good example of the clinical discussion of costs when it comes to managing farm animal health.

The pig industry, says Dr MacDougald, is marked by generally poor production and financial analysis. This means poor assessment of ROI {Return on Investment} for interventions and little focus on opportunity cost. However, research based on finishing pig group opportunity costs calculated on mortality, culls and feed conversion to target reveals startling results, with the best to worst sites varying by $11 per pig, with the widest variance per site at $34 per pig.

These pigs are simply raw materials.

The Simple Economics of Pet Overpopulation

It seems to me that the root of the problem in pet overpopulation can be expressed simply in economic terms. The supply of pets is way, way greater than the demand for them. What we need to do is reach an equilibrium where the supply for pets equals the demand.

Many groups and individuals are working very hard on this by trying to decrease the supply. The primary tool for this is spaying and neutering to decrease the population. A second strategy is limiting the number of breeders out there who simply keep adding to the supply for their own personal profit.

Some may argue that we should also increase the demand, but I think the demand for pets, such as it is, is actually artificially high. Many people don't want animals...they want toys. They want something they can take home for their kids or something they can use as an accessory for a while. Then, when the work sets in, they dump the animals....pumping them back into the supply chain.

Body Shop Not Performing Well for L'Oreal

The Body Shop is causing some headaches for L'Oreal right now.

The Body Shop said that 150 UK jobs are at risk after the French-owned cosmetics retailer announced a restructuring drive.

The company said it was consulting employees about proposals to reduce its global workforce by 275 jobs to make the business more efficient. The retailer is streamlining operations in certain office-based areas, but the reorganisation will not affect store staff.

...The Body Shop recently revealed that like-for-like sales dipped 0.9% to 249.5 million euros (£223 million) in its last quarter.

Parent L'Oreal said the difficult economic climate hit Body Shop sales in Britain, Spain and North America.

I was stunned when Anita Roddick sold the Body Shop to L'Oreal a few years ago. I had read one of her books and had often pointed to her company as an example of a successful marriage between ethics and business. When she sold to L'Oreal, with its questionable history and animal testing, it was a real betrayal of the company's practices and principles (in my opinion.) I know she thought the Body Shop could change L'Oreal, but, come on, how naive can one be...

But it's better than believing she just wanted the money.

Economic Conditions Make People Eat Less Steak

...but don't get excited. They're just eating chicken instead.

PAH!

The Economist Looks at Illegal Wildlife Trade

Leave it to The Economist to provide an insightful analysis of CITES' effectiveness in actually preventing illegal trade in wildlife and their parts. It's a good article and worth your time and thought...whether you agree with it or not.

The point is not that bans never work. They can, especially in the short term or when species are in dire danger. But their longer-term success depends on three factors. First, they must be coupled with a reduction in demand for the banned products. If a ban helps to shift people's tastes, so much the better. Second, they must not undermine incentives to conserve endangered species in the wild. Third, they have to be supported by governments and citizens in the countries where these species live. If these conditions are not met, bans are unlikely either to reduce trade or to maintain endangered species. They may even make matters worse.


Photo by IFAW Think Twice.