Tourists contributing to the abuse of Asian Elephants.
Looks fun doesn’t it. Tourists happily larking about on the back of Elephants that have endured years of abuse of which you the tourist have provided funding for more Elephants to be ripped from their mothers and fathers then crushed, smuggled, beaten and shot dead. Fun isn’t it? If only you knew the real truth behind the ride.
International Animal Rescue Foundation.Org.Uk have become increasingly frustrated with American and European tourists that still fail to see that what they are participating in only fuels more abuse and deaths of many Elephants. A picture can tell a million stories. This picture hereto doesn’t just show happy tourists; unfortunately it depicts a very emotionally distressed Elephant that has suffered years of abuse so that tourists are able to clamber aboard the Elephant without this largest land mammal going berserk.
Dear tourists please stay alert and please read all the facts below.
Elephant crushing or a training crush is a supposed method by which wild elephants can be tamed for domestication, using restriction in a cage, sometimes with the use of corporal punishment or negative reinforcement. Used for centuries to domesticate wild elephants, this torture training method is still accepted as the only viable training method for elephant handlers and is used in almost every elephant attraction in Thailand. And, once they have their souls stomped out, they are simply vessels entertaining people. They are chained.
People who visit Thailand — and other countries with elephant tourism — don’t realise the damage they cause these elephants when they support trekking camps, go to circuses or buy the paintings done by these creatures. Without knowing, they send a clear message to the elephant tourism industry that shows they support the torture these animals go through early in their life, as well as the horrific conditions they live in as cogs in the tourism wheel.
The process used to tame wild Elephants is called the elephant phajaan process. Below are some of the abusive regimes Elephants are put through jut to satisfy tourist demand in Thailand.
- Still-nursing calves are forcibly separated from their mothers and placed into a tightly constricted pen known as a “crush”.
- There they are tied down in such a way that they can’t move or turn around, and are unable to sit or even lie down.
- Over the next several days they are deprived of food and water, and they’re not allowed to sleep.
- Hour after hour, day after day, they are repeatedly beaten, burned, and stabbed with an array of crude weapons. Hit again and again over the head, back, and legs with bamboo sticks that have nails pushed through the ends, stabbed over and over in their delicate inner ears, struck repeatedly on their sensitive trunks — tortured in an unending variety of unimaginable ways.
- The abuse continues until the baby Elephant stops crying for its mother and its captive keepers are happy that the soul of the baby Elephant has been removed. Commonly known as (Broken or crushed” baby Elephant will be so terrorized and fearful of being hurt further, it will submit to being trained. Bloodied and broken, the baby elephant is now ready to learn how to perform tricks and tasks with little protest.
Half of the elephants put through phajaan will die. Of those that survive, “About half will go mad,” says Elephant Nature Park founder Lek Chailert. “This brutality can make them aggressive and dangerous.” Still thinking of riding an Elephant this summer in Thailand? Think again as you the tourist that pays to ride on these splendid land mammals are no better than the captive keepers that perform daily abusive acts towards their non-human inmates to satisfy your demands.
Thailand’s current population of domesticated Elephants is about 2,700. After a precipitous decline from about 100,000 domesticated Elephants in 1850, numbers are now stable. About 95% of Thai Elephants are in private ownership. Wild Elephants in Thailand are very difficult to count given their dense, forested habitat, but most experts would agree there are between 2,000 3,000 wild Elephants.
In 1989 the Thai government banned all logging in protected areas, effectively closing all remaining natural forests. While undoubtedly a very wise choice, one unfortunate side effect was that it threw many logging elephants out of work. Luckily, that loss coincided with a rapid rise in tourism, which was able to employ many elephants. Today, probably more than half of Thai elephants work in tourism.
Thailand pumps a lot of propaganda into the public domain from which it states Animal Rights and Conservation groups are barking up the wrong tree. Elephants are apparently cared for and not abused at all. The Thai government travel and tourism sector quote;
Disturbingly, some overseas animal rights groups have argued that tourists should not visit elephant camps, claiming it promotes cruelty. In fact, most Thai elephants are very well cared for, partly because most Thai people are intrinsically kind and humane but also because elephants are simply too valuable to abuse. (A beautiful calf or a healthy, young breeding female is worth as much as 700,000 baht or US$22,000.) Although the camp to be visited should be carefully selected, the kindest thing that ethical, elephant-loving tourists can do is to visit a camp and enjoy elephants. Without work in tourism, elephant owners will have no means to care for their animals.
Let’s take a more in-depth look into this propaganda from which it’s stated “In fact, most Thai elephants are very well cared for, partly because most Thai people are intrinsically kind and humane but also because elephants are simply too valuable to abuse.
The Thai Elephant Conservation Centre actively promotes the abuse of Thai Elephants as well as denouncing any conservation or activist group that dares speak out against them.
A tourist that recently visited Thailand wrote the following, it makes very uneasy reading and completely de-bunks the so called humane treatment of Thai Elephants.
The unnamed tourist writes the following; We have highlighted areas within this email for your information.
I have just returned to Canada from a 4 week backpacking trip in Thailand. As with most backpackers who visit Thailand, part of my trip entailed a 3-4 day trek in Chiang Mai through the Doi Inthanon National Park & entailed an elephant trek. I was extremely apprehensive about this portion of our trek, and asked our guide Nikon “Dragon” repeatedly if the elephants were well treated, and he repeatedly tried consoling me by saying that the elephants were in fact well treated.
Upon arriving at the elephant camp, and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of elephants (approx. 15 in total). The first thing I saw was a VERY young baby elephant chained by her neck to her mother’s neck, with about 6 feet of chain separating them. I immediately noticed that the mother of the baby had enormous large purple marks on her skull, with a clear wound located in the middle of the purple. This purple mark looked like iodine and it surrounded almost the entire one side of her upper skull. I asked our guide what the purple mark was, and he said it was for insect bites.
We were quickly ushered up on a platform where we were to get on the back of the designated elephant. Our group had a total of 12 people, so we required 6 elephants. Once our procession of elephants began to walk, I was able to turn around and view the other 5 elephants, and noticed that almost every one of the other elephants had the same large purple markings, with what looked like a hole / wound in the middle of the purple. Some elephants had these holes on both sides of their skulls.
Within the first 2 minutes of the trek, the elephants had to make their way down a rather steep decline in the embankment, and understandably the mother with her baby chained to her, was apprehensive of the embankment….most likely for the safety of her still awkward baby, more so than for herself. All of a sudden I heard banging and turned around the witness the mahout of one of the other elephants violently hitting the apprehensive mother with his pointy hammer like instrument directly on the area where the hole and purple iodine markings were on her skull. I immediately yelled at the top of my lungs for the mahout to stop hitting her, and my co-travellers quickly supported me. The mahout stopped hitting her, but it was a little too late, as we saw puss & blood being dispelled from the already pre-existing wound on the elephants skull. It was now painfully clear what the “insect bites” really were.
Because of our anger at the treatment of the elephant, the mahouts didn’t beat the elephants again in our presence. I desperately wanted to get off the elephant, but the mahout insisted that there was no place that I could get off safely, and was therefore forced to continue on one of the single most horrifying experiences of my life. I was so upset; I literally threw up, through my tears. I was forced to continue to watch the baby elephant being forced to climb embankments that were 4 times her height, while her mother desperately tried to help her up the embankment. This scene continued for 50 minutes
The grounds and path of the elephant camp was repulsive. The entire grounds and path were covered in several layers of elephant faeces, including the part of the grounds were the elephants were to eat. There was a pregnant elephant that was chained to a stump with no more than 4 feet of chain to move, and she was eating a small pile of bamboo sticks that laid upon the faeces laden ground. My heart broke for this gentle giant and the life that her baby was unknowingly about to be born into.
All of the elephants on the camp were chained, and there was one elephant in particular that looked in dreadful health. This particular elephant had the same purple iodine markings as the others at the camp, but he had the markings over his entire back spine area. Once I was able to get a little closer, I could see that he also had holes from the mahouts hammer instrument covering his entire spine (which was protruding). It was clear to me that this elephant was in very ill health.
Unfortunately I do not know the name of this particular camp, only where it was. I made complaints to our tour guide as well as the owner of the BMP Residence, and pleaded that they demand that the owners of the elephant camp better treat the elephants, or else they will no longer be able to bring tourists to their camp because they have received numerous complaints from travellers. The owner of the BMP Residence said he had a meeting with the owner of the camp the following week and said he would bring up my concerns at that time. My gut feeling is that the owner of the BMP Residence is also the owner of the elephants, as they owned both the property as well as the lodges that we stayed in during our entire trek.
I apologize for the long email, but felt it important to make other travellers aware of the dreadful mistreatment of the elephants at the camp used by the BMP (Backpackers Meeting Place) in Chiang Mai. I am sure that there are Thais that treat their elephants with the loyalty, respect, and love that you would expect for Thailand’s “most sacred animal”, however they seem to be few and far between……or at least NOT used for tourist enjoyment.
International Animal Rescue Foundation.Org.Uk has been monitoring the abusive elephant mistreatment in Asia now for several years. What we are seeing is that many tourists are feeding this abusive culture without knowing how these Elephants are tamed and beaten in the process. The laws that surround the welfare of Elephants within Thailand (example) are quite shady too, to say the least. Ceasing this barbaric torturous tourism attraction is going to prove difficult (within Thailand) from which we have highlighted some points below for your information.
The Draught Animal Act of 1939
Under The Draught Animal Act of 1939 (phrarachbanyat sat phahana, B.E. 2482) the domesticated elephant was specifically classified as a draft animal (sat phahana in formal Thai) along with the cow, water buffalo, horse, donkey, and the mule. The Act of 1939 was written at a time when domesticated elephants were still found in great numbers, certainly several tens of thousands. Responsibility for enforcing the 1939 Act necessarily fell to the Ministry of Interior, the ministry that controls the police, because one of the prime motivations for creating the law was to suppress the rampant theft of cattle and water buffalo - and elephants. Registration thus became the duty of the LAD and its provincial offices.
The 1939 Act is still in effect today, although updated by over fifty years of instructions on implementation called kot krasuang or ‘ministerial regulations’. From its inception The 1939 Act made it mandatory for all owners of draft animals to register their animals with the LAD. Draft animals are required to be registered at different ages according to the animal’s species and sex; the age for registration of elephants is “going into the eighth year,” the oldest by far for any animal. This provision specifying the age of mandatory registration is the only section of the 1939 Act (other than fees, which are paltry) in which the elephant is treated any differently from the cow, the water buffalo, or any other draft animal. Like them, the domesticated elephant is clearly considered to be private property.
The sole intent of the 1939 Act is to define the rights and obligations of ownership. Five sections deal with subjects such as changing ownership, using elephants for security for loans, moving domicile, registration fees, etc.
The greatest shortcoming of the 1939 Act for modern management purposes (beyond the difficult question of jurisdiction) is that it imposes no obligations on owners to treat elephants properly. There are no provisions prohibiting cruelty, overwork, or unsuitable employment. As stated by Lair (1988), “Elephants in Thailand are basically private property to be treated howsoever the owner wishes.” This conception of the elephant as property is mirrored in other government realms; to this day, in inter-ministerial understandings between the Ministries of Interior and Agriculture regarding property confiscated from illegal loggers, elephants are classified as upakorn (‘equipment’) along with oxen, trucks, chainsaws, walkie-talkies, etc.
The Draught Animal Act of 1939 quietly held steady for over fifty years with nobody giving a thought to the legal status of domesticated elephants. In the interval, two bodies of law applying to wild elephants were passed by the Thai Parliament and signed by the King. The first law, the Wild Elephant Protection Act of 1960, had absolutely no impact on domesticated elephants except a slight increase in the fee to capture a wild elephant. Lekagul and McNeely (1977c) imply that the major force of law remained with the prior Law for the Conservation of Elephants of 1921, the so-called ‘special law’, but that, “Unfortunately, even the special law is not well enforced.”
Note; The greatest shortcoming of the 1939 Act for modern management purposes (beyond the difficult question of jurisdiction) is that it imposes no obligations on owners to treat elephants properly. There are no provisions prohibiting cruelty, overwork, or unsuitable employment. As stated by Lair (1988), “Elephants in Thailand are basically private property to be treated howsoever the owner wishes.” This conception of the elephant as property is mirrored in other government realms.
The Wildlife Reservation and Protection Act of 1992
The passage of The Wildlife Reservation and Protection Act of 1992, however, soon provoked conservationists to turn their eyes to the status of the domesticated elephant. (The Act is in Thai called phrarachbanyat sanguan lae khumkhrong sat paa B.E. 2535, and is henceforth called ‘The Wildlife Protection Act of 1992’ or ‘The WPA of 1992’.) In 1994 an informal coalition of “elephant-loving NGOs” and environmentalists suggested that the domesticated elephant should be excluded from The Draught Animal Act of 1939 and included in The Wildlife Protection Act of 1992. The concept of applying to elephants in captivity a law devoted to protecting wild animals is very pleasing to conservationists, seeming to promise absolute protection.
The legal obstacle to bringing the domesticated elephant under The WPA of 1992 Act is that in defining ‘wild animal’ (sat paa), the Act very specifically states that the term does not apply to species required by The Draught Animal Act of 1939 to register as draft animals, nor to their offspring born in captivity. This exclusion is phrased very oddly indeed because while the law does not once use the word ‘elephant’, the elephant is clearly the animal intended because none of the other draft animals, all genetically altered for millennia, has a wild relative with which it could ever be confused. (Except just perhaps for the few remaining wild water buffalo, but even there the wild and domesticated animals have a quite different appearance.)
A close reading of The WPA of 1992 leads to two prime conclusions. First, in many instances the law, by Western standards, is not particularly clear, probably because traditionally such a law is seen primarily as a master framework on which to attach the ministerial regulations (kot krasuang) which define the duties required of civil servants. The intent of The Act of 1992 is not to establish premises on which to steadily build case law, the intent of most Western law.
Second, the intent of the parts of The WPA of 1992 pertaining to captive animals is to control the trade in protected wild animals (and the products derived thereof), and to regulate the captive breeding of protected wild animals by commercial businesses. These provisions were never designed or intended to apply to domesticated elephants, which in practical terms are little different from other draft animals except that elephants must normally move around to find work.
The possibility of using The WPA of 1992 to protect domesticated elephants poses so many complex questions that rather than lengthily examining both sides of many separate issues side by side, it makes sense to, perhaps exaggerating a bit, succinctly make the strongest possible arguments both for and against inclusion.
Arguments against the inclusion of domesticated elephants
A strong case can be made for why the domesticated elephant should not be included in The Wildlife Reservation and Protection Act of 1992. The WPA of 1992, just like The Draught Animal Act of 1939, has absolutely no provisions for penalties or confiscation in cases of owners conducting unsuitable work or severe overwork, much less mechanisms for preventing subtler forms of abuse such as premature weaning, keeping infants as solitaries, chaining elephants for long times, etc. Stipulations in The WPA of 1992 for licensing, breeding, buying, selling, and moving protected species would, if strictly applied to elephants, be not only extremely restrictive but, worse, ultimately unenforceable. The law divides wild animals into two types, “reserved wild animals” (sat paa sanguan) and “protected wild animals” (sat paa khum khrong), and for the elephants the nuances of enforcement would depend on how they were classified; the inclusion of domesticated elephants in the law might force Elephas maximus to be moved from “protected” to “reserved,” which is even more restrictive. Probably only wealthy entrepreneurs could meet many of The WPA of 1992’s requirements, and many conservationists and NGOs have questioned the domesticated elephant’s possible inclusion, fearing that some provisions could greatly impair the owners’ and mahouts’ ability to make a living. The provisions on travel, for example, could be interpreted to require owners to seek the written permission of the Director General of the RFD for any “transitory movement,” which makes good sense for rare animals or animals destined for international trade but would clearly be ludicrous every time a domesticated elephant left home. Even more unreasonable, strict enforcement would subject thousands of elephant owners to a lengthy licensing procedure before they could breed their elephants. Most absurd, if applied to the letter of the law, the 1992 Act would seem to require owners, mostly poor villagers, to surrender their elephants to the RFD; owners who refused would be committing a crime. Such an extreme will never happen, both because the RFD could not provide for over 3,000 elephants and also because such a mass confiscation is the goal of neither the law, nor the RFD, nor of society at large. Nonetheless, if, as many people wish, domesticated elephants were included and the law strictly applied, The Wildlife Protection Act of 1992 would be a nightmare not just for thousands of owners of domesticated elephants in Thailand, but also for the RFD.
Arguments for the inclusion of domesticated elephants
An equally good case can be made to explain why the domesticated elephant should be included in The Wildlife Reservation and Protection Act of 1992. Placement alongside wild elephants feels conceptually and morally right. One very useful aspect of The WPA of 1992 is that it requires licences and the RFD would thus be empowered to scrutinize owners for suitability, a screening procedure impossible under The Draught Animal Act of 1939, where anybody who comes along must be registered. One RFD official {Tunhikorn, 1996} pointed out that bringing all elephants under the 1992 law would close the loophole of easily absorbing illegally captured wild elephants, calves in particular, into the domesticated population; he added that another loophole closed would be the ability of people with fresh ivory to protest that it came from a domesticated elephant, a problem that has left Thailand open to criticism on CITES grounds. As for strictness of application, it can be argued that The WPA of 1992 need not be so restrictive as described in the section above because several provisions give the Director General great leeway in determining policy {Srikrajang, 1996}. Section 26 in particular allows the DG to waive some of the most restrictive aspects if the intent for keeping a wild animal is to survey, conduct research, protect, or breed wild animals. Another beneficial effect of inclusion of domesticated elephants would be greater involvement by NGOs, given the RFD’s long and productive history of working with private organizations. The empowerment of the RFD would also facilitate a seamless interface between the management of the wild and domesticated elephant subpopulations.
Objective analysis of the opposing arguments above shows that neither law is appropriate. Clearly, to adapt either The Wildlife Protection Act of 1992 or The Draught Animal Act of 1939 to protect and manage domesticated elephants would not only be incredibly complicated but would also violate the spirit of either law. The Draught Animal Act of 1939 could more easily be amended, but only by lengthily giving special privileges to one eccentric and aristocratic species amongst a barnyard of more plebeian animals. It would be much more appropriate and efficient to write a special law devoted solely to the domesticated elephant’s unique needs.
One class of domesticated elephants does indisputably deserve full legal protection by the RFD under both The Wildlife Protection Act of 1992 and CITES: elephants smuggled illegally into Thailand. Wildlife law for these elephants takes clear precedence over the law on draft animals. But in any case the RFD lacks the vast resources needed to police this shadowy trade, and very few elephants smuggled in from Myanmar, Cambodia, or the Lao PDR have been confiscated by the RFD. Outside of its own prescribed areas, the RFD is poorly equipped to do law enforcement.
Tourism contributions / Elephants in entertainment and tourism
In 1994 Thailand was visited by 6,166,496 tourists who brought 127.8 billion baht (just over five billion US dollars) of foreign exchange into the Thai economy (Muqbil, 1995). Not surprisingly, tourism has put many elephants to work, mostly working in shows or giving rides to tourists, both foreigners and middle-class Thais.
Three areas each have several entertainment venues offering shows: Bangkok, Pattaya, and the north, cantered around Chiang Mai. Thailand never having had a circus tradition, all performances fall far below the standards of a circus in Europe, North America, or India. Shows performed in the Bangkok area are fairly polished, shows in Pattaya often a bit rough, and the shows in the north are always downright rudimentary except for a polished demonstration of traditional logging at the FIO’s Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. Many of the elephants at show venues, especially in the north, do not perform at all but rather give rides or simply stand around as set-dressing.
Approximately 300 elephants are employed at fixed show venues, about 85 in Bangkok and Pattaya and at least 220 in the north. This is approaching 10% of Thailand’s total population, indicating both the importance and the limits of tourism and entertainment as elephant work. (As for wandering shows in rural regions, their numbers are anybody’s guess.)
In the north there are three large venues with about 40 to 50 elephants each and many smaller ones. The largest venues in the Bangkok-Pattaya area have only about 20 elephants, and an educated guess would say that about half the elephants are owned by the proprietor of the venue while the other half are owned by mahouts working under contract. Generally speaking, elephants working at central region show venues are well cared for and the mahouts receive reasonable pay, the contracted elephants with the most behaviors or ‘tricks’ pulling in as much as 30,000 baht (US$1,200) a month.
In the north, the situation is not nearly so happy. At the larger show venues, most proprietors are purely businessmen out to cash in on the tourist dollar. Two or three places would seem to have the big money cornered, being swarmed everyday by tour buses and minivans; smaller venues depend on a drop-in clientele consisting of budget travellers and people with their own transportation. Many proprietors decide it makes more business sense to buy elephants than to endlessly waste good money paying mahout-owners, and one proprietor now owns about 90 elephants. Ownership by businessmen is generally bad for elephants since businessmen will rarely have either the ability or the conscience to hire good mahouts, pay them well, and then supervise them carefully.
Sadly, there are relatively few traditional northern Thai mahouts still working, most of them having graduated to better jobs. Many show venue owners hire tribal, often illegal immigrants, some with prior elephant experience and some without. Most often Karen but occasionally Shan, illegal-immigrant mahouts from Myanmar are particularly desperate and will work very cheaply, as low as meals and 500 baht (US$20) a month. Proprietors can easily squeeze illegals, being able to provide protection from the police. Even mahout-owners under contract are easily squeezed because of fierce competition for work; very few mahout-owners make more than 10,000 baht (US$400) a month out of an elephant in northern Thailand. Mahout-owners working on contract must pay for all supplementary food and veterinary care.
There is no insurance, whether for visitors, mahouts, or elephants. In one tragic instance known to the author, a mahout-owner and his family brought their elephant to give rides under contract at a barely developed performance venue at Mae Sa valley, near Chiang Mai. In the very first week, the elephant slipped off a dangerously steep walking path and fell to its death. The proprietor, although quite wealthy, gave the family 500 baht (US$20), just enough for bus fare home, and sent them packing.
View more here http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e0h.htm#bm17..15.5.1
Elephants are seen as sacred within Thailand. Elephants were not only used in war and transportation, but are also worshipped as sacred animals in Thailand according to beliefs transferred from India. In sacred Buddhist texts, it is said that elephants are important, powerful, very patient, intelligent, and good at remembering and familiar with people. Tourists visiting Thailand and other countries in Asia need to understand that their money directly supports and legitimizes these abuses. If you visit a trekking camp and ride Elephants, if you give money to an Elephant begging on the street, if you buy a picture painted by an Elephant, you are directly contributing to a cycle of violence and terror.
Things to remember when thinking of riding Elephants or contributing to Elephant amusement in Thailand;
- Visiting trekking camps and rising Elephants – contributes to more Elephants being abused.
- Donating money to tenders/Elephants begging on the streets – contributes to increased fear and violence within the entertainment business.
- Purchasing pictures painted by Elephants – contributes to more Elephants beaten/crushed/broken for your entertainment.
- Tipping Elephant mahouts – directly contributes to purchasing of torture equipment used to crush Elephants.
Camps that actively abuse Elephants within Thailand;
- Elephant camp at Chiang Rai
- Elephant camp at Ruammit village
International Animal Rescue Foundation.Org.Uk has begun targeting its awareness campaign at specific international citizens known to be frequenting Thailand the most based on travel and tourism investigations from 2012-2013. On investigating the tourism market and the animal rights community it was seen that most awareness campaigns seem to be aimed at the wrong people or awareness is published in mostly English. Below are some facts for your information that may help you too in creating a more direct awareness campaign aimed at those that are frequenting Thailand aiding Elephant abuse more.
Most recent up to date tourism statistics from 2012-2013 and who to target awareness at;
- Chinese tourists from 2012-2013 – 2.7 million
- Malaysian tourists from 2012-2013 – 2.5 million
- Russian tourists from 2012-2013 – 1.3 million
- Japanese tourists from 2012-2013 – 1.3 million
- Korean tourists from 2012-2103 – 1.1 million
- British tourists from 2012-2013 – 870,164 thousand
- German tourists from 2012-2103 – 681,566 thousand
- America and Canada was below - 100,000 thousand
- Some 22 million tourists visited Thailand from 2012-2103
Whist the “some” Elephant camps located all over Asia and within Africa are actually non-abusive regrettably the majority of them are. While some are doing good work, the vast majority of Elephant camps are commercial enterprises, making money from tourists keen to have their photos taken with the young ones, bathing with the Elephants or riding them, or watching them paint.
Some camps even dress up their Elephants and have them perform unnatural and demeaning tricks, all in the name of entertainment. But beyond the happy smiles of tourists posing with Elephants, there is a hidden dark reality, of murder, smuggling and torture for the calves on show. The booming Thai tourist industry is fuelling a huge illegal trade in baby Elephants that are taken from the wild in Burma, beaten, starved and tortured to break their spirit before being paraded in front of fee-paying holidaymakers. WHY tourists still ignore the basic and in-depth evidence of abuse, smuggling, and torture is beyond us.
What the TOURIST needs to remember before parting with hard earned cash to elephant ringers.
~Mail investigations –
- Fact - It is estimated that for every calf smuggled across Burma’s 1,200-mile border with Thailand, up to five adult female and adolescent elephants from the calf’s immediate family group are gunned down in cold blood. Your money funds this.
- Fact - The forests of Burma are one of the last strongholds for Asian elephants and second only to India. But such is the scale of the trade, it is thought that the endangered wild elephant population there – estimated at up to 5,000 individuals – could be wiped out or damaged beyond repair within ten years or so. Your money is funding this trade.
- Fact - While African elephants and ivory have dominated discussions on conservation, very little attention has been given to the Asian elephant. Why, because your money goes directly into funding an abusive regime that you believe is “sweet and cuddly”.
- Fact – Baby calves undergo a cruel, spirit-breaking ritual where the baby calves will be tied up, with no food and water, and beaten relentlessly for days on end. Your money funds this and purchases more Elephants to be beaten and crushed.Fact - very often the calves will die from their injuries or from stress, starvation or the sheer heartbreak of seeing their family killed in front of their eyes. After they have been taught to be afraid of humans, the calves that do survive are smuggled across Thailand. When they reach the tourist elephant parks, many of them will be chained to a surrogate mother in an attempt to suggest they have been bred in captivity. Your money funds this.
- Fact - The current market price for a healthy broken-in baby elephant is £14,000 to £20,000 and with the rapid growth of tourism and demand for elephants in entertainment – we calculate the tourism industry in Thailand employs up to 2,000 elephants – there are strong incentives for the trade. Your money is funding the purchase of more Elephants.
- Fact - If Thailand’s brutal baby elephant trade is not ended soon, Asia’s last remaining populations of wild elephants in Burma may be lost for ever. Your money and YOU will if this occurs contribute to the extinction of the Asian Elephant.
Still want to ride an Elephant?
Sign the petitions below and please report all acts of Elephant cruelty in Thailand to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (Cites), the Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA) and local and international Conservation NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organisations).
Petitions to sign please share this document and sign all petitions SHOUT the word out to your friends and family that are visiting Thailand this year to not participate or contribute to Elephant cruelty.
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-baby-elephants-of-tourist-destinations-have-brighter-futures
https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/please-help-lek-save-her-elephants
http://www.change.org/petitions/bali-elephant-camp-stop-daily-abuse
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/495/471/507/stop-thailand-elephant-crushing/
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/518/210/575/
http://forcechange.com/99141/stop-cruel-elephant-training-practices/
Contact the Prime Minister of Thailand here via Twitter and Facebook. Politely ask Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra https://twitter.com/PouYingluck to take action to cease illegal smuggling of Elephants from Burma into Thailand and to cease all Elephant crushing and tourist activities that see many Elephants brutalised.
Contact the Prime Minister via Facebook too - https://www.facebook.com/Y.Shinawatra
International Animal Rescue Foundation’s publication team takes great care and pride to proof read all documents before publication. Should you notice an error please be most kind to inform us via the address below. Thank you.
info@international-animalrescue-foundation.org.uk
Hunting is not conservation.
Within the past few years International Animal Rescue Foundation America and Africa has noticed the increasing trend of feminine hunters from which take their pseudo conservation to an all-out extremity than that of the male hunter angering activists and conservationists furthermore.
Within this brief article we look at hunting in general, whether hunters are psychotic or not, and dispelling some of the myths that many hunters state the reason why they have to hunt. Providing factual insights that hunters men and women fail to recognise.
We can just about get our heads around hunting, but when one poses with the mammal they have just shot dead whether it is in a bikini, stilettoes, or just bare naked then hunting becomes more an “antisocial personality disorder” or “sociopathology.” Whatever the feminine or male hunter wishes to reveal their hunt as, it most certainly is not conservation. More concerning is that female and male hunters are becoming more younger.
Keeping on track and not swaying into the unknown we have to understand that both male and female hunters are not criminally insane unless they have been labelled by a clinical psychiatrist with a psychiatric illness that would then progress onto further anti-social behaviours or even killing. Psychopaths often make successful businessmen or world leaders. Not all psychopaths are motivated to kill. But when it is easy to devalue others, and you have had a lifetime of perceived injustices and rejection, murder might seem like a natural choice.
The following are environmental factors, psychiatrists say, which create a sociopath:
- Studies show that 60% of psychopathic individuals had lost a parent;
- Child is deprived of love or nurturing; parents are detached or absent;
- Inconsistent discipline: if father is stern and mother is soft, child learns to hate authority and manipulate mother;
- Hypocritical parents who privately belittle the child while publicly presenting the image of a “happy family”.
Hunting is a very basic instinct programmed into the master computer of our species for survival purposes that has been elevated by ethics to become a “sport,” which enables us to express our basic biological identity, “The Id,” guided social ethics, religious teachings and laws. Erich Fromm, one of the most widely-respected behavioural scientists of the 20th century, summed up these opinions in his widely-acclaimed study of the causes and prevention of violence, “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”.
To date there has been no proven field evidence that supports what many activists quote “hunting is a form of mental illness”. We have researched into this area in great depth but have located very little evidence to prove this theory. The main concern here though is that of female hunters and how their children now want to do what mommy does best – kill for the thrill of it. Hunting is not conservation unless we are killing the human population that increases habitat fragmentation, increased urbanization and industrialization that decreases habitat loss thus forcing animals out of their natural environment encroaching onto humans.
In recent years, American women are spending more time in tree stands and deer blinds—and putting fresh meat on the table. Although men still account for the majority of the 13.7 million U.S. hunters, the number of women actively hunting is on the rise. The total number of women hunters surged by 25 percent between 2006 and 2011, after holding steady for a decade, according to Census Bureau statistics. At last count, 11 percent of all U.S. hunters were women, compared to 9 percent in 2006.
Many state departments of natural resources have begun hosting Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW) workshops that offer instruction in skills such as archery, shotgun, and rifle shooting. “There is definitely a high demand. We have over 3,000 women on our mailing list, and workshops fill up quickly,” says Patricia Handy, Information & Education Program Manager at the Department of Natural Resources in Maryland. Retailers have taken notice, too. Companies like SHE Outdoor Apparel, Cabela’s, and Próis are outfitting women hunters with clothing and accessories created for the female body, and archery manufacturers like Mathews Inc. are designing lighter bows scaled for shorter arm spans.
“Across the board, women are more independent than they’ve ever been, and they realize they are capable of hunting,” says Brenda Valentine, national spokesperson for the National Wild Turkey Federation and the self-proclaimed “First Lady of Hunting.”
The Next Food Frontier?
Gender roles in America have changed in many ways through time, but women still dominate household food and nutrition decisions. The Bureau of Labour Statistics’ 2012 American Time Use survey found that nearly two-thirds of women are involved in daily household food preparation and clean-up, compared to 39 percent of men—and women spend triple the amount of time on such tasks in an average day.
Women are also leading a surge of support for sustainable food and agriculture initiatives like CSAs and farmers markets. One of the main ideas of such initiatives is eating locally, generally meaning foods produced within your state or about 100 miles of your home. This not only supports the local economy and environment, it also means the food often tastes better because it can be harvested and sold at its peak rather than spending days in transport.
But in many parts of the country, local meat can be difficult to find. Most of the available meat at U.S. grocery stores comes from one of the large-scale commercial farms, often called factory farms, concentrated in a few regions. Hunting offers an alternative to the grocery store that lets women provide truly free-range and organic meat for their families while also helping create a more sustainable food system, says Lily Raff McCaulou, author of Call of the Mild: Learning to Hunt My Own Dinner. “Hunting may be the next frontier for local food,” says McCaulou, who lives in Oregon. She regularly hunts deer and elk, and recently added grouse and duck to her repertoire.
“I was pretty detached from what I ate before I started hunting. Since I’ve started hunting, I’ve changed my relationship with the meat that I eat, and I eat a lot less meat than I did before. Hunting’s a way to reclaim some closeness to the food chain.” It can make chefs more thoughtful, too, says Georgia Pellegrini, author of the book Girl Hunter. “Hunting made me realize that there’s a lot that has to happen before that piece of meat gets to your plate,” says Pellegrini. “As a chef, I wanted to participate in that process because it makes the experience more meaningful. You think about the ingredients differently, you think about the experience of eating it differently, and you have more control over how the animal was treated.”
Making Connections
Many hunters—both men and women—say their hobby is not just about food. It also creates a sense of intimacy and respect for both the animals and their habitats. Writer Tovar Cerulli was a longtime vegetarian when he took up hunting, deciding that eating “the ultimate free-range meat” was an ethical and sustainable choice. “Hunting also allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the place I lived,” says Cerulli, author of the book A Mindful Carnivore. He argues that in a regulated, well-managed system, “there is nothing inherently ecologically damaging about hunting.” It can actually benefit the animals by preventing overpopulation, which can lead to starvation during winter months.
Hunters are also quick to note that funds from purchases of licenses, equipment, and ammunition go to support conservation efforts for a variety of species. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, every year nearly $200 million is distributed from the federal taxes associated with hunting to support wildlife management programs, the purchase of lands for habitat conservation, and hunter education and safety classes. There’s another factor, too: fun. Hunting is a way for women to be outdoors and enjoy nature while spending time with husbands and children who hunt.
“Women are realizing how much fun hunting is and how close it can actually bring them in their relationships with their families,” says Tiffany Lakosky, co-host of the Outdoor Channel hunting show Crush with Lee and Tiffany and a top bowhunter. “The whole concept is that I am shooting my family’s dinner tonight and we’re eating something I shot. I would say probably 90 percent of the meat we eat, we hunted.” While shooting the family dinner isn’t a realistic option for everyone, especially in urban areas, Lakosky says she hopes even non-hunters will start giving more thought to where their food comes from. “We are all part of the food chain. There is a balance in nature,” she says. “People go to the supermarket and they think that somebody’s growing a TV dinner somewhere to feed them. They are just not connected to it like people were 100 years ago.”
Hunters will speak the same lame excuses that their food is not free range, there is a lack of hypermarkets within their area or farmer markets thus forcing them to hunt for their dinner. They have to keep animal overpopulation controlled to thwart human species attacks and farmland-ranch attacks from predatory big cats and so on.
Hunters quote they have to hunt for their dinner because there are vast “food deserts” within the United States. Basically meaning that there are a lack of if any food outlets within their state or country; Below are some of the key points that hunters need to take on board before accusing conservationists and animal rights activists of attacking them. From which we/they are trying to educate them of their own wrongdoings.
- There are approximately 131000 people employed as a butchers and meat cutters within the United States of America. There are over 100 grocery stores in the USA. There are over 75 large well-known grocery retailers and 50 small chain grocery stores located all through the United States.
- Approximately 23.5 million Americans live in a food desert, says the USDA, including vast, rural swaths of West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, as well as urban areas like Detroit, Chicago, and New York City. The government believes food deserts are contributing to the obesity epidemic in the U.S., by forcing the rural and urban poor to rely on processed foods and fast food, instead of fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit. Today, more than one third of adult Americans are obese.
- Will people choose healthy food? Not necessarily. Many Americans have little experience eating or preparing broccoli, asparagus, and other produce; in fact, only 26 percent of the nation’s adults now eat three servings of vegetables a day. The poor, in particular, have become so accustomed to salty packaged foods and sugary beverages that they find fresh food bland, strange, and off-putting. “It’s simplistic thinking that if you put fruits and vegetables there, they’ll buy it,” said Barry Popkin, author of the UNC study. “You have to encourage it, you need advertising, you need support.” Changing Americans’ diets, in other words, won’t be as simple as telling them to eat their peas.
One female hunter Linda Hall Houle that wishes to argue facts with us states “Wow you all are something else.. Why don’t you take care of people in your own country … God Bless America and our right to hunt…If a wolf ever came to my property dam right I will shoot it.. I am thrilled to see more women hunting putting meat on the table is #1
What is a ‘food desert’?
A community in which residents must travel at least a mile to buy fresh meat, dairy products, and vegetables. More precisely, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a food desert as any census district where at least 20 percent of the inhabitants are below the poverty line and 33 percent live over a mile from the nearest supermarket (or in rural areas, more than 10 miles). Approximately 23.5 million Americans live in a food desert, says the USDA, including vast, rural swaths of West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, as well as urban areas like Detroit, Chicago, and New York City. The government believes food deserts are contributing to the obesity epidemic in the U.S., by forcing the rural and urban poor to rely on processed foods and fast food, instead of fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit. Today, more than one third of adult Americans are obese.
How can Americans solve this problem that sees some 13.5 million hunters actively taking out many species of mammals just within the United States for example? Simple they start taking a leaf out of the Europeans book of how to provide for the community. Take a look at the UK Cooperative Society for example and how well they have progressed from a simple “community based food shop” to now a thriving international food and beverage seller. If it can be achieved here it can also be accomplished within the United States from which hunters would not need to hunt. However we then have the other quote that hunters constantly chirp on about. “We have to hunt to keep overpopulation of species controlled”.
http://www.co-operative.coop/corporate/aboutus/ourhistory/ History of the Cooperative Food Society
The average female and male hunter seem to disagree with us that overpopulation of humans is not a problem but more overpopulation of animals. This is completely absurd and something many hunters now need to wake up too. The more we argue that hunting has to be practiced because of species human and species-species conflict the more we will continue to eradicate many countless number of animals globally. Taking the United States for example again the hunter wishes to quote overpopulation is not a primary concern.
“There’s a cost that comes with having 7-9 billion people on our planet, especially when it comes to species already on the brink of extinction,” said Amy Harwood, the Center’s 7 Billion and Counting campaign coordinator. “The polar bear, Florida panther and bluefin tuna are just a few of the species being pushed toward extinction by the world’s rapidly growing population. People have taken away habitat for plants and animals, sucked up their water, and surrounded them with pollution, causing a global mass extinction crisis.” As the human population grows and rich countries continue to consume resources at voracious rates, we are crowding out, poisoning and eating all other species into extinction. With the world population hitting 7-9 billion, the Center is marking this milestone by releasing a list of species in the United States facing extinction caused by the growing human population.
The 10 species represent a range of geography, as well as species diversity — but all are critically threatened by the effects of overpopulation. Some, like the Florida panther and Mississippi gopher frog, are rapidly losing habitat as the human population expands. Others are seeing their habitat dangerously altered — like the small flowering sandplain gerardia in New England — or, like the bluefin tuna, are buckling under the weight of massive overfishing. Still others, like the polar bear, are facing extinction because of fossil fuels driving catastrophic global warming. “Human overpopulation and overconsumption are simply taking away the land, air and water other creatures need to survive,” Harwood said. “The world population is expected to hit 10 billion by the end of this century. Left unchecked, this massive population growth will have a disastrous effect on biodiversity around the globe — biodiversity we need to maintain the web of life we’ve always depended on.”
Top 10 U.S. Species Being Driven Extinct by Overpopulation
Florida panther: The Florida panther once ranged throughout the southeastern United States, but now survives in a tiny area of South Florida representing just 5 percent of its former range. It was listed as an endangered species in 1967 because of habitat destruction and fragmentation through urban sprawl. Large numbers of panthers died as the expanding network of roads connecting Florida’s rapidly growing human population spread throughout its range. As of 2011, there are only 100 to 120 panthers left.
As Florida’s panther numbers plummeted, the state’s human population nearly doubled over the past 30 years. Recent development patterns pose extreme threats to panthers. As the Florida coasts approach full buildout and have become unaffordable to most people, development has moved inland to the same places panthers retreated to as safe havens decades ago.
A recent study concluded that current conditions “provide just enough space to support a [panther] population that is barely viable demographically as long as the habitat base remains stable.” Unfortunately, the habitat is anything but stable: The five counties containing the last remaining panther population are projected to grow 55 percent in the next 30 years. A single proposed development among many, Big Cypress, would destroy 2,800 acres to make way for 9,000 new homes.
Atlantic bluefin tuna: Marine fish provide 15 percent of all animal protein consumed by human beings. Fisheries management, however, has been outpaced by our population growth, causing global fisheries to collapse under the unsustainable pressure. A 2009 assessment found that 80 percent of global fish stocks are either overly and fully exploited or have collapsed. Though a catch reduction of 20-50 percent is needed to make global fisheries sustainable, the demand for fish is expected to increase by 35 million tons by 2030.
Of greatest concern is the western Atlantic bluefin tuna that spawns in the Gulf of Mexico and has declined by more than 80 percent since 1970 due to overharvesting. Prized as a sushi fish around the world, it has become more valuable as it has become rare. One fish in 2011 sold for $396,000. The large, warm-blooded bluefin tuna is a common, upscale sushi menu item and has been severely overfished. The Atlantic bluefin, like so many other ocean species, is threatened by humans’ ravenous appetites: Demand far exceeds sustainable fishing levels.
Loggerhead sea turtles: More than half the world’s 7 billion people live within 150 miles of the coast, putting tremendous pressure on species trying to find space to live and reproduce among the crowds. Among them is the loggerhead sea turtle, which was listed as a federally threatened species in 1978 owing to destruction of its beach nesting habitat, harassment while nesting, overharvesting of its eggs, and bycatch death via commercial fishing gear.
Ninety-five percent of the U.S. breeding population of loggerheads nests in Florida, whose human population has doubled in the past 30 years. Thanks to careful management, the species’ population increased 24 percent from 1989 to 1998, but under intense pressure from development and recreational beach use, it declined dramatically thereafter, raising concerns it should be uplisted to “endangered” status. The population has increased in recent years, but is still highly vulnerable to nesting habitat destruction and disruption. Just 42,000 nesting attempts were made on Florida beaches in 2011.
Sandplain gerardia: As the human population has increased, it has consumed remote landscapes with houses and other structures. The natural disturbances caused by fire, flood, drought and storm patterns, are suppressed despite playing essential roles in ecosystem health. In conflict with the permanence of human development, these disturbances create an ever-changing blend of meadow and forest, young and mature vegetation patterns. By controlling, limiting and often stopping these essential natural processes, we have changed ecosystems across America, eliminating habitat for rare and endangered species that depend on open habitats.
In New England and the Atlantic coast, brush fires once thinned out dense pine forests and created a constantly moving mosaic of grasslands and prairies. The fires have been suppressed to protect human structures, causing open habitats to be permanently replaced by forest and brush. This nearly caused the extinction of the sandplain gerardia, a coastal plant in the snapdragon family.
The sandplain gerardia was listed as an endangered species in 1998 when just 12 populations remained. Several were in historic cemeteries on Cape Cod as these made up some of the only open areas not covered by roads or development. Twenty-two populations exist today throughout the species’ range from Massachusetts to Maryland. Many are threatened by development and fire suppression, needing constant, active habitat maintenance.
Lange’s metalmark butterfly: Many endangered species are endemics, meaning they naturally have very small ranges and populations sizes, and usually require very particular soil, vegetation or climate conditions to survive. These species are especially vulnerable to human encroachment. Among them is Lange’s metalmark butterfly, protected as endangered in 1976.
Lange’s metalmark lives only in the Antioch Dunes at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. This unique ecosystem harbored many unique species, and many species have gone extinct as its dunes were hauled away in massive increments. After the 1906 fires, the city of San Francisco was rebuilt using brick-building material removed from the dunes.
Lange’s metalmark is one of the most endangered species in the United States. It declined from some 250,000 in historic times to just 154 in 1986. It improved a bit, but then declined to just 45 butterflies in 2006. Today the species is still on the knife edge of extinction, with about 150 individuals remaining.
To save Lange’s metalmark and two other endemic dune species, 55 of the remaining 60 acres of its habitat were purchased and turned into a national wildlife refuge — the first of its kind devoted entirely to endangered species. Under siege in one of the most densely populated regions in the country, however, the tiny refuge is surrounded by mining, oil and gas facilities. Recreationists have also taken a toll, causing several devastating fires; they trampled much of the butterfly’s habitat in 1986. Such is the fate of an extremely rare, highly endemic species trying to eke out an existence in a highly urbanized landscape.
Mississippi gopher frog: The Mississippi gopher frog lives in stump holes and burrows dug by other animals, laying its eggs in ponds so shallow they dry up for several months of the year, keeping them free of fish that would eat frog eggs. It was placed on the endangered species list in 2001.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate 7,015 acres as protected critical habitat for the Mississippi gopher frog in Mississippi and Louisiana in 2011.
Reduced to approximately 100 individuals in the wild, the Mississippi gopher frog exists in just three small ponds just outside the proposed “town” of Tradition, Mississippi. Planned development would have a devastating effect on this rare frog.
White River spinedace: The human population of Nevada grew by 35 percent between 2000 and 2010, nearly four times faster than the national average. Las Vegas was one of the fastest-growing areas of the state. But the city is in the middle of a desert, so accommodating that explosive growth requires securing more water from nonlocal supplies.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority has proposed a massive project to pump billions of gallons of groundwater a year from eastern Nevada and western Utah through a 300-mile pipeline to supply rapidly growing urban areas like Las Vegas. The project will have a disastrous effect on dozens of imperiled species, including the White River spinedace, which was protected as an endangered species in 1985. One population of this rare fish was extirpated in 1991 because of irrigation diversion, and fewer than 50 fish remained in a single population in northeast Nevada.
The White River spinedace’s population at the Wayne E. Kirch Wildlife Management Area is directly threatened by the proposed pipeline, which will cut through the management area, draining and destroying critical habitat for the remaining populations. A recent environmental impact statement for the proposed pipeline project disclosed that major vegetation and ecosystem changes would occur on more than 200,000 acres, including wetlands that will dry up and wildlife shrubland habitat converted to dryland grasses and noxious weeds. More than 300 springs would also be hurt, along with more than 120 miles of streams.
Polar bear: A polar bear is fit to swim 100 miles for food, in search of mates or, more recently, just some ice to stand on. With five inches of blubber keeping this enormous bear prepared for subzero temperatures, the largest member of the bear family has adapted to remarkable Arctic conditions. The fat stored in a polar bear carcass becomes essential food for other Arctic species, like the Arctic fox. However, the extreme impacts that human-caused climate change has had on the Arctic is pushing the polar bear closer to extinction.
The rapid growth of the global human population — which has doubled since 1970 — has fed a massive push for more and more polluting fossil fuels and dramatically altered the planet’s atmosphere. A 2009 study on the relationship between population growth and global warming found that the “carbon legacy” of just one person can produce 20 times more greenhouse gases than one person saves by carbon-reducing steps such as driving high-mileage, using energy-efficient applicants and light bulbs. Few animals are bearing more of the brunt of the global climate crisis than the polar bear.
Listed as a “threatened” species in 2008, polar bears are rapidly losing the sea ice they use to hunt, mate and raise their young. Polar bear numbers increased following the establishment of hunting regulations in the 1970s and today stand at 20,000 to 25,000. However, the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice because of global warming has reversed this trend, and currently at least five of the 19 polar bear populations are declining. The U.S. Geological Survey predicts that under current greenhouse gas emission trends, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears, including all those in Alaska, will likely disappear by 2050.
Gulf sturgeon: Lake Lanier, a manmade reservoir in Georgia, feeds several important river systems in the southeastern United States and has been the site of a longstanding conflict between Georgia, Florida and Alabama over water-use rights.
The gulf sturgeon, an anadromous fish, was placed on the threatened species list in 1991. Its most imperiled populations occur in the Apalachicola River, fed by rivers from Lake Lanier. Gulf sturgeon lay eggs on the waterlines along the banks of rivers, and maintaining the right level of water is critical to their breeding success.
Population growth has strained the capacity of Lake Lanier to supply water to Atlanta and other urban areas. A 2009 study explicitly identified explosive population growth as the cause of the ensuing water war between Georgia, Alabama and Florida following a regionwide drought: “…Nineteenth-century droughts, which are perhaps better thought of as a single multi-decadal dry period, are well within the range of historical records and could potentially have had an agricultural effect but probably would not have had an effect on water availability for people given the generally wet climate of the Southwest and the much smaller population then as opposed to now.”
Gulf sturgeon numbers initially declined due to overfishing throughout most of the 20th century. Habitat loss was exacerbated by the construction of water control structures, such as dams, mostly after 1950. Other habitat disturbances such as dredging, groundwater extraction, irrigation and flow alterations also threaten the Gulf sturgeon. Poor water quality and contaminants, primarily from industrial sources, also contribute to population declines. Today the gulf sturgeon remains threatened as the tug-of-war continues over the supplies that feed the river where it lives and the region’s ever-expanding human population.
San Joaquin kit fox: The San Joaquin kit fox was relatively common until the 1930s, when people began to convert grasslands to farms, orchards and cities. By 1958, 50 percent of its habitat in California’s Central Valley had been lost, due to extensive land conversions for agriculture, intensive land uses and pesticides. By 1979, less than 7 percent of the San Joaquin Valley’s original wildlands south of Stanislaus County remained untilled and undeveloped.
The kit fox was listed as endangered in 1967. Today there are fewer than 7,000 scattered among fragmented populations. The four counties with known San Joaquin kit foxes have grown by 60 percent — by another 1.5 million people — since 1983.
Besides habitat loss, the San Joaquin kit fox is threatened by pesticides and rodenticides associated with intensive agricultural use, industrial activities and residential areas in the Central Valley. Kit foxes’ small-mammal prey base has been significantly reduced by rodenticides, which not only kill life-sustaining prey but can also kill kit foxes when they build up in the foxes’ bodies. Kit foxes have adapted to get their water from the prey they eat making them even more dependent on their food source. They also often burrow in other animals’ dens, leaving them vulnerable to other human activities such as fumigants used to kill coyotes.
In addition to impacts from farmland conversion, the San Joaquin kit fox is severely stressed by the changes to annual rainfall caused by climate change. Hunters that wish to argue with us stating animals are indeed the moral problem now need to evaluate their original status. Ignoring the increasing human overpopulation problem will see countless more species pushed from extant into extinction.
Feminine intimacy and respect for both the animals and their habitats.
Intimacy and respect for both animals and the habitat we see little of within the hunter world especially within the United States of America and Australia from which we see as second to that of America with regards to their sick predatory hunting lifestyle and complete disregard for animals and their natural environment.
Respect for animals within the environment?
Intimacy?
Respect for both animals and their environment practicing intimacy and love?
Female hunters have taken hunting to new levels, they pose scantily clad with with many different species of animals in the belief that it makes them feel somewhat more superior than that of others? This behaviour is typical of many serial killers that feel they need to prove themselves to their family or victims. It gives them a form of sexual gratification, a feeling of power and lust. Three female Michigan State University professors studied the magazine “Traditional Bowhunter,” and concluded that hunting is a form of sexual violence with animals substituted for women. They describe hunting as, “erotic heterosexual predation, sadomasochism, restraint for aggressive sexual energy, and allied with the abuse of women.” I think I need to take up bowhunting.
The article entitled, “Animals, Women and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting” was published by the Society & Animals Forum. The genesis of the article was the 2003 video “Hunting for Bambi,” which reached national attention that year when many news-outlets reported a group in Nevada was selling “hunts” which men paid thousands of dollars to shoot naked women with paintball guns. The producers of the DVD later admitted the hunters and women involved were actors. Like in high-budget porn, the star is only an “actor” and really cannot fix the cable. Hunting for Bambi was indeed somewhat of a hoax however please read the hoax article in full here at Snopes.com
Concluding that men turn bows and firearms into phallic symbols, the researchers point to terms and jargon found in the magazine in order to reaffirm their belief of displaced sexual drive. “Climax,” “big’uns,” and “homely cow” are but a few of the many terms with which they took issue. Two things, first, using terms out of context allows anyone to make them sexual. Second, we are talking about hunting, not sex. The study fails to see the subject matter as merely hunting. The outrageous links between sexual violence and hunting would cause sensible readers to scoff, but remember, the authors are members of MSU faculty, which makes this paper all the more scary.
Apparently, the woman-is-an-animal argument is only valid until the kill. “When alive and being chased in a sport of hunting, animals are given human characteristics…but when dead and displayed as a trophy, anthropomorphism is no longer necessary…and the animal is simply dead.” Why anthropomorphism would be necessary in the first place is not explored. Furthermore, why is it not necessary in the second place? Indeed, their argument is that men are violent creeps who beat up on poor, cuddly animals because there are no women running around the woods. “Violence against animals and women is linked by a theory of ‘overlapping but absent referents’ that institutionalizes patriarchal values…animals often are the absent referents in actions and phrases that actually are about women-and women often are the absent referents for animals.” Therefore, when men are hunting they do so because there are no women present, conversely, when men are with women they are doing so because there are no animals present.
Absent from this study is where the millions of female hunters fit For that is the only logical conclusion of the animal-is-a-woman and woman-is-an-animal thesis. Not far removed from their illation would be to say women obtain sexual gratification from hunting but actually wish they were sexually abusing women, or maybe themselves. What would an academic study be these days without a conclusion that points to racism? The study encapsulated that hunting is “cultural messages that validate and exacerbate white male dominance and power.” The argument of racial oppression and hunting goes out the window because one can only shoot one Black Duck a day as apposed to five of another species.
When read in its entirety, the syllogistic argument takes on the seriousness of a Mad TV skit.
Maybe it is “Traditional Bowhunter” that is laying the groundwork for world takeover. Once again, the paper’s authors come through and leave the reader not disappointed. They warn that, “[T]he underlying messages of the sexualizing of women, animals, and weapons in Traditional Bowhunter cannot be dismissed simply as a hoax. They are resilient popular culture images that celebrate and glorify weapons, killing, and violence, laying the groundwork for the perpetuation of attitudes of domination, power, and control
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513585/Meet-big-game-huntresses-killed-70-species.html
International Animal Rescue Foundation was outright accused along with its vast network of supporters, subscribers and fundraisers that we do not provide a single buck for conservation efforts or welfare. International Animal Rescue Foundation in year 1 raised over £12,955 year 2 we raised exactly £26,000 year three we raised £45,000 and in year five we raised the some £47,000 from which did not come from the public purse - all monetary funding came directly from our own pockets. International Animal Rescue Foundation has only ever had two public fundraisers from which in year 6 we are now hoping to raise a substantial amount more via the public and again from our own pockets providing monetary funding back into conservation. We are proud that not one single animal perished/or/ was barbarically abused through the monies raised yearly. Thats surely conservation isn’t it?
Female hunters are also quick to note that funds from purchases of licenses, equipment, and ammunition go to support conservation efforts for a variety of species. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, every year nearly $200 million is distributed from the federal taxes associated with hunting to support wildlife management programs, the purchase of lands for habitat conservation, and hunter education and safety classes.
Hunters claim to push that $200 million into conservation though from which I have highlighted below for your information;
- ** $746 million — Annual amount of money spent by hunters in the United States on licenses and public land access fees alone. Sportsmen’s licensing revenues account for more than half of all funding for state natural resource agencies
- $300 million — Additional monies contributed to wildlife conservation every year by the more than 10,000 private hunting-advocate organizations, like the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
- ** $4.2 billion — Amount of money sportsmen have contributed to conservation through a 10% federal excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and gear since the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act established the tax. Millions of acres of public-use land has been purchased, preserved, and maintained with this money.
$ 4.2 billion is quite a hefty amount of money allegedly raised from the 13.5 million United States hunters, yet they still cannot;
- Conserve mammal-aquatic or botanical species decline caused by American human overpopulation - http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/7-billion-10-28-2011.html
- Fail drastically in reducing overseas species decline caused by overhunting - http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/27/15485662-african-lions-could-end-up-on-us-endangered-species-list?lite
- And are the second largest illegal animal parts importer.
The Daily Reckoning quotes;
In case you’re wondering how much money animal rights groups devote to habitat preservation and the welfare of wild species, take a gander at PETA’s 2004 financials. Straight from its Web site, I discovered that PETA’s prodigious revenue of over $29 million bought:
** 2,700 media interviews
** 703 organized demonstrations
** Nearly 11,000 mentions in print
** Coverage on at least seven major TV networks
** 150,000 “vegetarian starter kits” disseminated to the public
** Enough “educational materials” for 235,000 teachers and 11,000,000 students…
But not a single acre of land for wildlife preservation — not even for endangered species!
What Mr Propaganda forgot to show was PETA’s success victories too. http://www.peta.org/about-peta/victories/
Now where were the hunters here from which “billions” of animals were saved using public donations, people power, undercover investigations and engaging red carpet celebrities. Hunters will only show one side to every story in the hope that they will make many people believe that animal and environmental activists do little if anything. Linda Houle quotes “If it wasn’t for the hunters in the United States all of the national forests and blm lands would be in disrepair the hunting fees pays for all of the roads access and repairs and planting of trees…hunters are the biggest conservationists in the world” … If this was actually remotely factual we would not now be fighting to preserve so many species of animal and plant life that US hunters are pushing to extinction.
Linda quotes from her ranch - “We also support our local farmers market here in the Upper Arkansas Valley in Salida CO” but wait! Colorado is apparently in a food desert and they need to hunt to live? Linda supports the avid hunter photographed at the top of our page and is regular visitor spouting such utter drivel. Feel free to leave her a comment - Buena Vista Colorado at 8500 feet above sea level, approximately 3 1/2 hrs west of Denver on Hwy 285, or 2 hrs west of Colorado Springs on Hwy 24. Please feel free to call us at any time at (719)395-9448. We love to talk goat..Or hunting or anything else.
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