Despite a ceasefire in the months-long fighting, tracer from a heavy machine gun streaked across the sky close to the rangers headquarters late Thursday. Answering gunfire rattled up from the valley, in what a ranger said was a clash between the CNDP and the Rwandan Hutu rebels based in the park.
The wife of the Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens said {November 18} that she would create a refuge for wild horses, after the federal agency that manages them said it might have to kill some to control the herds and protect the Western range.
About 33,000 wild horses and burros roam the open range in 10 Western states. The federal Bureau of Land Management wants that population to be around 27,000 to protect the herd, the range and other foraging animals.
Horses that are too old or not adoptable by the public are sent to long-term holding facilities. The bureau now has about the same number of animals in holding facilities as on the range. The agency has said the costs of keeping horses in the holding facilities has caused officials to consider euthanasia as a last resort.
Mr. Pickens’s wife, Madeleine, said that she had proposed buying about one million acres to be a refuge for the horses now in holding facilities and that the bureau had agreed to give her the horses once she had the land."
Bottom line: If you’re running a business where you allow the kinds of shortcuts that let animal abuse happen, please sell it and leave the industry now. Find another line of work. If you’re caught by PETA or HSUS, please do not plead ignorance and vow to clean it up. It will be too late.
Mr {Emmanuel} de Merode and the 650 Virunga rangers have been forced to rely on second-hand reports from amateurs who paid their way into Mikeno where General Nkunda has been using some former rangers who defected to the CNDP.
Spirits are now high at Rumangabo. Within the last few days the Belgian conservationist led a posse of rangers back to their former patrol post at Bukima, inside the Mikeno sector of the park. Outside, Mr Mwanake is talking to Innocent Nburanumwe, another veteran ranger. They remain fretful over the situation and aware that the crisis could take another turn for the worst. "When there is a war there is no certainty, no security. We are not sure when we go to sleep if we will wake up in the morning."
Another nagging worry remains: the gorillas simply won't be there any more. Mr De Merode is refusing to think that way. Over the next month he and his staff will conduct a census of the mountain gorillas, hoping to find the population of roughly 200 unaffected by the tempest that has raged around them in the past 18 months. He says: "We've not had reports of any gorilla killings. It's incredibly exciting and any day now we're expecting good news."
On the night of 21 November more than 100,000 salmon were liberated from two fish farms in northen Sweden.
These two fish farms are a part of the huge Swedish fish farming industry that kills over 5 billion fish every year.
In a fish farm, tens of thousands of fish live cramped in net-cages without any chance to engage in their natural behaviors, like traveling long distances.
Fish are individuals who feel both pain and stress, and to breed, keep them in cages and kill them, however it is done, is unacceptable.
We wanted to give as many of these individuals as possible a chance to live the rest of their lives in freedom, instead of ending up on a dinner table.
We realise that some of the released fish will die in the wild because they were born in captivity and may have trouble learning to finding their own food, etc. But there is a big difference between dying in freedom than in captivity, and it is guaranteed that more fish are going to survive in the wild than if they were left in the fish farm.
We are also aware that the liberation of the fish may have a negative effect on the ocean ecosystem. We hold the farmers responsible for any such effects, because it is their oppressive actions that forced us to act.
At Näske Lax AB more that 100,000 salmon were liberated by cutting all the net-cages that were holding the fish. A boat motor was also destroyed and some tires slashed. A spray can was emptied painting messages from the DBF.
The farm is not insured and after economic loses of millions of Swedish Kroner, the farmer doesn't think he will be able to open up the business again.
The second farm visited the same night was Ålands fiskförädlings, a big floating facility hundreds of meters out in the sea. After rowing out to the facility we cut as many net-cages as possible before dawn, releasing lots of fish.
Direct action saves lives!
Both by saving individual animals and also by economic sabotage we make it harder and less profitable to continue to torture and kill animals.
For the animals!
DBF (Swedish Animal Liberation Front)"
Animal cruelty occurs when someone intentionally injures or harms an animal or when a person willfully deprives an animal of food, water or necessary medical care. Here are some signs that may indicate abuse or neglect:
* Tick or flea infestations
* Wounds on the body
* Patches of missing hair
* Extremely thin, starving animal
* Limping
* An owner striking or otherwise physically abusing an animal
* Dogs who are repeatedly left alone without food and water, and often chained in a yard
* Dogs who have been hit by cars—or are showing any of the signs listed here—and have not been taken to a veterinarian
* Dogs who are kept outside without shelter in extreme weather conditions
* Animals who cower in fear or act aggressively when approached by their owners
Restaurants are always hit hard during economic downturns, but one restaurant in Japan has a novel approach to cutting costs: replace the wait staff with monkeys. The monkeys only work two hours a day, but bring in tourists from around the globe. They've even been deemed sanitary, so long as they wear their miniature uniforms.
