News & Information
Ban puts live animal exporters on notice
January 3rd 2003
By Anne Calverley
FARMERS and an animal welfare group have welcomed moves to stop a major WA livestock exporter shipping sheep overseas until it improves the care of animals.
The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service ordered Rural Exports and Trading WA to boost its quality assurance program before it sends any more livestock to Middle Eastern countries.
The deaths of more than 15,000 head of sheep and cattle on board four ships leaving Fremantle and Victorian ports in July sparked calls for the ban of the controversial live animal exports.
Two of the shipments were organised by RETWA.
The Federal Government issued the company with a show-cause notice after its massive losses more than trebled the number of deaths allowed under law.
Sheep deaths must be reported if more than 2 per cent of the stock being carried dies.
RETWA proposed the interim ban itself after realising it would be unable to meet the standards within the specified time.
Federal Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said the company's poor performance record meant action had to be taken to safeguard the industry's reputation abroad.
"This decision effectively puts all Australian exporters on notice," Mr Truss said.
Head of the livestock exports' industry body, Livecorp, Kevin Shiells said yesterday RETWA was a well-respected company confident of resuming trade within three months.
He said the company felt it needed more time to prove to the Government it had adequate control over its export business.
WAFarmers meat section president Mike Norton said the suspension was long overdue and necessary to sort out problems within the live shipping industry.
"The ships are not the problem," he said. "Rather the troubles arise from poor genetics, feed regime and preparation prior to travel."
He said exporters needed to provide producers with more feedback on what happened to their stock en route.
"If one or two of the big exporters lose their licence, this may encourage others to get their management practices in order," Mr Norton said.
RSPCA national president Dr Hugh Wirth said the decision would serve as a major wake-up call to live exporters.
Many had failed to abide by recommendations of an independent task force, of which he was a member, which examined management practices within the industry.
The RSPCA had been pushing for changes to stock selection and preparation for long sea voyages since another export ship, the Charolais Express, suffered heavy losses in 1998.
© 2002 West Australian Newspapers Limited
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Cattle slaughter stepped up
January 06, 2003
News.com.au / AAP
CATTLE slaughter numbers have increased for the tenth month in a row as farmers continue to offload animals because of the drought.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said today 748,300 cattle were killed during November, an increase of more than six per cent.
The big kill also contributed to a lift in beef production which climbed to 182,009 tonnes, seasonally adjusted.
Lamb slaughter numbers rose to 1.5 million, while the sheep slaughter number stayed static at about 1.3 million, the ABS said.
Pig slaughtering dropped after 25 months of rises, down to 470,000 animals.
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'Farmers surviving on roo meat'
By Chris Herde
January 06, 2003
News.com.au / AAP
MANY drought-stricken Queensland farmers have been forced onto a diet of kangaroo meat as the big dry continues, it has been claimed.
Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) central western president Gwen Rogers said some families were "subsisting" on kangaroos, which competed with livestock for valuable food and water supplies.
"I think people on some of the smaller properties would be eating roos to supplement their diet," she said.
"That might sound bad but actually kangaroo meat is quite nice and the kangaroos are probably healthier than the stock.
"So we're thankful there's something that's good about 'roos, that might be a terrible thing to say, but it's how we feel at the moment."
Last month the federal government teamed up with the CWA to throw a $1 million lifeline to Australia's drought-stricken farmers.
The CWA will dole out emergency cash assistance to struggling families too proud or too shy to formally apply for other forms of financial help to survive the drought.
NSW has received the biggest portion of the money, with Queensland receiving about $260,000.
Needy people will be able to approach their local CWA branch to get grants of up to $1,000 for non-farm purposes.
Mrs Rogers, who has a property near Longreach in western Queensland, said there was some rain in the area on New Year's Eve but it had little impact.
She said many people continued to struggle and the grants would be used to help pay for essential items like water, medicines, electricity, telephone services and food.
"There's cases of people without the money for the essentials and this is where these funds can help," she said.
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PETA LAUNCHES WORLDWIDE KFC CAMPAIGN
Company Stonewalls on Animal Welfare Reforms
Toronto - After 21 months of failed negotiations and following victories over McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's-all of which bowed to PETA pressure to reduce cruel treatment of animals raised and slaughtered for food-PETA has declared its latest campaign target: KFC, owned by Yum! Brands, Inc. and franchised by priszm brands in Canada. PETA will formally launch the campaign by unveiling new "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" posters, leaflets, stickers, and more and will show broadcast-quality footage of abusive animal treatment by KFC suppliers at a news conference on January 7 near the company's Toronto headquarters.
Date: Tuesday, January 7
Time: 11 a.m.
Place: Comfort Suites City Center, 200 Dundas St. E.
PETA attempted to negotiate with Yum! Brands executives for 21 months prior to the campaign launch, but despite assurances made long ago by Senior Vice President Jonathan Blum that KFC would "raise the bar" on animal welfare, the company refuses to eliminate the worst abuses.
Among the improvements that PETA wants KFC to implement are the following: replacing crude and ineffective electric stunning and throat-slitting with gas killing; phasing out the forced rapid growth of chickens, which causes metabolic disorders and lameness; increasing the space allotted per bird; adding minimal enhancements, such as sheltered areas and perches in order to provide chickens with some semblance of their natural environment; and implementing automated chicken-catching, a process that reduces the high incidence of bruising, broken bones, and stress associated with catching the chickens by hand.
"KFC has shortchanged the chickens, leaving us no choice but to turn up the heat," says PETA Vegan Outreach coordinator Dan Shannon. "McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's responded to consumer pressure; KFC would do well to follow their lead."
News conferences are also planned in Vancouver, Louisville, Ky. and London. For more information, please visit KFCCruelty.com.
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Gaoled for crushing dogs' skulls
January 15, 2003
News.com.au / AAP
A MAN has been gaoled for six months for throwing his two dogs against a wall, and crushing their skulls with his bare hands before dumping their bodies in his wheelie bin.
Eric Pike, 52, of Dundas in Sydney's west, told RSPCA investigators he killed his fox terrier-cross dogs because they attacked his cat, Parramatta Local Court heard.
He led the investigators, who attended after receiving a complaint, to a hole in the wall of his fibro house where he had thrown the animals on December 10, 2001, a fact sheet tendered to the court said.
He admitted having then punched their skulls with a clenched fist before disposing of their bodies in his council bin.
"What about it? I killed them. I had to. You'd have done the same thing," he allegedly told the two investigators as other fox terriers, including a puppy, ran around the back yard.
Of one of the dogs he said: "Bloody mongrel thing - I'm glad I threw it," the court heard.
Police prosecutor Clint Nasr said it was "the most horrendous, most vicious case of cruelty on an animal" he had encountered for a long time.
After Pike pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated cruelty on an animal, Magistrate Graham Johnson gaoled him for a maximum of six months, ordering him to serve at least two before he could be released on parole.
Documents tendered to the court showed Pike had a long history of violence against people from 1967 to 1992, including rape and assault, meaning the self-proclaimed karate expert could have faced a maximum of two years gaol.
RSPCA chief executive Steve Coleman said he believed only 10 people had been sent to gaol for cruelty to animals over the past decade, and no-one had got the maximum.
"It's pleasing to see a local court magistrate sees this matter as important enough to send someone to gaol," Mr Coleman said.
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Sixth mad cow case confirmed
From correspondents in Tokyo
January 20, 2003
Agence France-Presse
TESTS have confirmed a sixth case of mad cow disease in Japan.
The affected animal was a seven-year-old Holstein cow in Wakayama Prefecture in the country's south-west.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said it was confirmed infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
The cow was born in 1996 on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido Prefecture, the ministry said.
More conclusive results were to be made available tomorrow, the Kyodo News agency reported.
The animal is the sixth cow to be confirmed infected by the disease, which was first discovered in September 2001.
Since October, Japan has tested all beef cows for BSE. Its last positive test came last August.
Japan is currently the only Asian nation to confirm the presence of the brain-wasting disease, which triggered a health scare that has decimated beef consumption and exports.
BSE is linked to the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans.
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Australia-wide "STOP STALLING" pig campaign
20th January
Animal Liberation branches in all states and other groups today launched the National "STOP STALLING" campaign.
The campaigns objective is to have the confinement and farrowing stalls banned. Approximately 200,000 of Australias 300,000 sows spend virtually their entire life in one stall or the other. They are repeatedly impregnated to produce approximately 5,000,000 piglets each year for slaughter. This means that they can spend upto 4 years in stalls before they are no longer fit for breeding purposes and are sent off to slaughter themselves.
The campaign revolves around thousands of postcards being distributed to each state, in turn to be re-distributed to the public for mailing to each states Minister for Agriculture. There are also posters and video CD's available, each state will also be undertaking various actions to raise public awareness of this disgraceful treatment of an intelligent animal - this is how the real "Babe" lives!
The National meeting of Ag Ministers will be later this year - it is hoped that these stalls will be banned, with new codes of practice put in place and made legally enforcable.
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Cloned cows to boost milk protein
January 27, 2003
The Daily Telegraph
SCIENTISTS have produced the world's first genetically modified, cloned cows - a breakthrough that is set to become the latest controversy in the biotech business.
A team in New Zealand say they have produced nine duplicate, transgenic calves whose milk boosted yields of two types of proteins by up to 100 per cent.
The two proteins help liquid cheese to solidify and expel whey, a by-product that is unwanted in cheese making.
The researchers, led by Goetz Laible at Ruakura Research Centre in Hamilton, south of Auckland, say the technique offered "substantial economic gains".
It could be widened, to "tailor" milk for human consumption, they add.
Scientists have genetically modified and cloned farm animals for medical research.
But this is the first time a cow has been both engineered and cloned to produce an altered milk for human consumption.
Dr Laible's team inserted into a bovine cell two additional genes responsible for two casein proteins, beta and kappa.
The modified cell was then fused with an egg whose core had been removed, the standard technique in cloning, and the embryo implanted into a cow uterus.
Out of 126 transgenic, cloned embryos, just 11 (nine per cent) survived to become healthy, viable calves.
That was even lower than the 20 per cent success rate among non-transgenic cloning, whose toll reflects the many risks from genetic duplication.
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Nine gaoled over gorilla killings
By Rodrique Ngowi in Kigali, Rwanda
February 06, 2003
NINE people, including three park rangers, have been gaoled and fined in Rwanda for killing two adult mountain gorillas and stealing a baby gorilla.
The three park rangers - who were supposed to track and protect the endangered gorillas in Volcanoes National Park - were each sentenced to four years in gaol and fined $US6,000 ($10,170), said Claude Seruhungu, who manages the rangers at the park.
Four other men - all residents of Ruhengeri, a town bordering the park in northeastern Rwanda - were gaoled for two years and fined $US3,000 ($5,080).
A woman, who was caught trying to sell the baby after the May 2002, attack, was gaoled for one year, Seruhungu said.
All nine were convicted of poaching an endangered species and sentenced on January 29, he said today.
Seruhungu said authorities hoped the gaol sentences and fines "will discourage others from considering poaching as an economic activity".
There are only 670 mountain gorillas in the wild.
About 350 live in the Virunga Mountains, which straddle Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. The park covers part of the mountains in Congo and Rwanda.
The other 320 gorillas live in another park in Uganda.
Mountain gorillas have been the focus of international research and conservation efforts. Diane Fossey set up camp in the park in the 1960s and documented her work in the book Gorillas in the Mist.
Killing of the gorillas remains rare - the May 2002 attack is believed to be the first time in 17 years that adults were killed to steal a baby.
But there are concerns attacks are on the rise. In June 2001, Rwandan rebels killed two young mountain gorillas, apparently for food.
In September 2002, another four adult gorillas were killed and a baby stolen on the border between Rwanda and Congo.
Poachers targeted baby gorillas because they were less aggressive and easier to handle and transport, Seruhungu said.
The Associated Press
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Skippy park raided
February 06, 2003
WELFARE officers have raided a Sydney wildlife park and removed animals following unacceptably high death rates and complaints about conditions there.
The NSW Government said the action followed repeated warnings to improve standards at Waratah Park, where the famous 1960s television series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was filmed.
Agriculture Department officers, aided by the RSPCA and Taronga Zoo, removed animals from the park in Sydney's north and said they would be rehoused in other animal parks.
"I support the department's actions given that Waratah Park has been given repeated warnings that it needed to improve standards of care for the animals," Agriculture Minister Richard Amery said in a statement.
"Most disturbing is the unacceptably high number of animal deaths at the park.
"There has been a litany of complaints about the conditions at the park and yet the operators have continued to trade even though their licence to exhibit animals was not renewed by the department last year."
Reasons for removing the animals included more than 30 per cent animal deaths a year, failure to obtain veterinary treatment and keep animals' records, inadequate staffing, poor diet and husbandry standards, and insufficient maintenance of facilities, Mr Amery said.
The park houses various animals, including koalas, eastern grey kangaroos, wallabies, a dingo, Tasmanian devils, and a pony.
The 12ha park at Duffys Forest backs onto the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park.
In November last year, Opposition Leader John Brogden said the park was under threat. However the NSW government said there were no plans to develop the site.
"Current planning laws prevent its development and ... if Ku-Ring-Gai council seeks to rezone this site, we will not accept their application," Mr Amery said.
Comment was being sought from the operators of Waratah Park.
AAP
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Man accused of killing wombats
February 07, 2003
A MAN who allegedly killed several wombats by repeatedly running them over has been charged with cruelty.
Bathurst Police today said they had charged a 46-year-old man from Portland, near Lithgow, after the bodies of 12 wombats were discovered in NSW's Wollemi National Park last week.
Investigators believe the wombats were killed early last week. It is alleged the wombats were run over by a vehicle, in some cases several times.
The body of one animal has been sent to Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney, where it is hoped an examination will determine how it died.
The man has been charged with aggravated cruelty, cruelty and harming native fauna. He was released on conditional bail to appear in Lithgow Local Court on March 6.
Detective Senior Constable Ian Mitchell, from the Chifley Area Rural Crime Command, said police were working closely with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to find out whether any other animals in the national park had been injured or killed.
"The roadway where the wombats were located has been searched, but we would like to talk to anyone who might have heard or seen anyone travelling through (Wollemi) National Park last Wednesday afternoon or evening," he said.
Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
AAP
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Cloned sheep death a mystery
By Kim Arlington
February 07, 2003
AUSTRALIA'S first cloned sheep, Matilda, has died unexpectedly of unknown causes, the South Australian Research Institute (SARDI) has announced.
Executive Director Rob Lewis said an independent autopsy failed to identify what killed Matilda, who died at the Turretfield Research Centre, north of Adelaide, on the weekend.
Her body was found by staff on Sunday morning.
"On Saturday, when she was last inspected, she was remarkably healthy," Mr Lewis said today.
"The animal has been particularly sprightly and her death was very unexpected."
He said on-going observations of Matilda since she was born in April 2000 showed she was a healthy animal.
Scientists cloned Matilda using a technique similar to that used for the world's first cloned sheep, Dolly, in Scotland in 1996.
At the age of nine months, she gave birth to healthy triplets using a speed-breeding technique.
That was more than a year younger than most sheep, and her offspring have also gone on to successfully reproduce.
Mr Lewis said SARDI scientists were recognised internationally for their cloning expertise and had produced several other fit and healthy cloned sheep since Matilda.
He said Matilda's cloning was a breakthrough.
"That we could clone sheep highlighted the potential of the technology, particularly to livestock producers wanting to protect or rescue the genetic material of superior or elite animals," he said.
"Matilda has made her contribution to the program.
"She was the first of the cloned sheep, she was the one that provided the confidence to our science community that we could do this technology, she was the one that gave us standing internationally.
"The program continues and Matilda was a very important part of that."
Mr Lewis said SARDI was continuing to develop the cloning technology, which was also valuable for scientists studying how cells could be reprogrammed to function like seemingly unrelated cells.
AAP
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Dolly the cloned sheep dies
From correspondents in Scotland
February 15, 2003
DOLLY the sheep, the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell, has been put down after she was found to have a lung disease, the Roslin Institute in Scotland's capital Edinburgh said today.
The decision to put the six-year-old animal to death was taken after a veterinary examination showed that she had a progressive lung disease, a statement from the institute said.
Dolly made scientific history when, in 1996, she became the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.
The Roslin Institute is one of the world's leading centres for embryonic research on farm and other animals.
Dolly was cloned from the breast cell of a six-year-old adult ewe and born on July 5, 1996 at the Roslin Institute.
Her birth was only announced seven months later and was heralded as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the decade.
But it also triggered furious debate about the ethics of cloning -- a row which has deepened with allegations of human cloning.
Dolly, a Finn Dorset named after the country and western singer Dolly Parton, bred normally on two occasions with a Welsh mountain ram called David, first giving birth to Bonnie in April 1998 and then to three more lambs in 1999.
But alarm bells began ringing in January last year when she was diagnosed with a form of arthritis.
Agence France-Presse
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Biodiversity Update
In the second half of the 20th century, the Earth lost 300,000 species. Humanity has created its own mass extinction
THE best guess of biologists is that species are disappearing between 100 and 1000 times as fast as they were before Homo sapiens arrived. But our impact is different from the mass extinctions of the past. They wiped out whole groups of animals, notably the dinosaurs, whereas humans are picking off individual species. In the past, biodiversity recovered as species spread into new ecological niches, but humans are wiping out niches as well as organisms. Wildlife will have a tough time regenerating.
The winners after the mass extinction that finished off the dinosaurs are about to become the losers. One in four mammal species and one in eight bird species face a high risk of extinction in the near future: the population of each species is expected to fall by at least a fifth in the next 10 years. Almost all are endangered by human activity. The invertebrates are tipped to dominate the new world order. Only around 0.1 per cent of the 1.6 million known species are thought to be threatened, though many undiscovered species are likely to be dying out before we even know of their existence.
As global climate change shifts temperatures across the planet, species may not be able follow fast enough. According to UNEP, they will have to migrate 10 times as fast as they did after the last ice age. Many won't make it.
Species that do up and leave will move at different rates, breaking up existing communities. At high latitudes, entire forest types are expected to disappear, to be replaced by new ones. During this transition, carbon will be lost to the atmosphere faster than it can be replaced by new growth, accelerating climate change.
The romantic notion of "wilderness" is fast becoming outmoded. Lee Hannah at Conservation International in Washington DC found that human activity has displaced the natural habitat over two-thirds of the habitable surface of the planet. Much of the undisturbed land is merely rock, ice and blowing sand, already shunned by wildlife.
After habitat destruction, the biggest threat to biodiversity is invasion by alien species. These have arrived mainly through trade, tourism and biocontrol. Invasive plant species already cover 400,000 square kilometres of the US, and are spreading at 12,000 square kilometres a year. At that rate, the whole of the US will fall to outside species within 750 years.
Darwin's laboratory, the Galapagos Islands, now has almost as many introduced species as native ones.
Biodiversity is good for humans. By destroying it, we could bring the axe down on our own heads. Rural communities in more than 60 countries get much of their meat from wild animals. Overpopulation, famine and the spread of high-powered rifles are killing off these creatures. In many areas local people are going hungry. In the Congo basin, conflict has forced people to sell wild meat, putting the squeeze on creatures such as large antelopes, gorillas and chimpanzees. This bush meat trade is growing so fast it will soon be unsustainable, warns Douglas Williamson of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Fewer species will mean fewer potential medicines. Three-quarters of the top 150 prescription drugs in the US are lab versions of chemicals found in plants, fungi, bacteria and vertebrates. The WHO estimates that more than 60 per cent of the world's population relies on plants for primary healthcare. There are 3000 plant species used in birth control alone.
Even if we stop killing species today, nobody reading this will see wildlife restored to its former glory, says Anne Weil of Duke University in North Carolina. Weil and James Kirchner from the University of California, Berkeley, carried out the first comprehensive analysis of mass extinctions and recoveries. The dent already made in biodiversity will take 10 million years to repair itself.
Matt Walker
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Man gaoled for mutilating cat
From correspondents in Toronto
July 12, 2003
A MAN who pleaded guilty to animal cruelty for the videotaped mutilation of a cat was sentenced to six months in prison today, but went home due to credit for time served awaiting trial.
Matthew Kaczorowski, 21, also received three years probation for mischief.
As a 15-minute videotape of Kaczorowski and two others torturing and killing the cat was shown in the courtroom, those present wiped away tears and plugged their ears to block the cat's moans.
Kaczorowski watched most of the tape, occasionally bowing his head.
Judge Brian Young said he would have handed down a longer sentence if
allowed to under the law.
"I was sickened by the torture and the methodical nature of what
the accused did in this case," Young said.
Reading from a letter he wrote to the court in his defence, Kaczorowski said: "What I did was abhorrent," he said.
"In the end all I can do is apologise and say I'm sorry."
Under the conditions of his probation, Kaczorowski is prohibited from owning any pets.
After the trial, prosecutor Robin Flumerfelt said it was up to the government to strengthen laws against animal cruelty.
"The courts can only do so much, only Parliament can change things now," he said.
"Until they do, we're going to be stuck with a six-month maximum."
Jesse Power, 22, and Anthony Wennekers, 25, pleaded guilty last year to mischief and animal cruelty for their role in the cat killing.
Power's lawyer told the court the videotape was intended to be an art project showing the hypocrisy of society that allows some animals to be killed for meat, but not others.
The Associated Press
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Cattle herd down 7pc in drought
By Shane Wright
August 18, 2003
THE nation's cattle herd has been slashed seven per cent by the drought, with consumers likely to pay higher prices for another two years, a report has found.
Meat and Livestock Australia's mid-year update on the cattle market found the national herd down by almost two million to 26 million to June 30, due to the drought.
Peter Weeks, chief market analyst for Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), said tight supplies and strong demand from Japan and Korea would keep saleyard prices strong for the next three to five years.
While this would be good for farmers, it would not be good for consumers, with higher prices in supermarkets and butchers.
Mr Weeks said beef consumption was likely to fall seven per cent because of the higher prices. "With high retail beef prices and an expected tightening in supply over the second half of the year, domestic consumption is forecast to fall ... to 34.3 kilograms per person in 2003," the report said.
Mr Weeks said the drought, and the higher dollar, would hit those farmers forced to sell off their herds.
He said with signs of the drought continuing in many cattle producing areas, it would take several years for the herd to rebuild.
"Another poor breeding season in many areas is likely to prevent a quick rebound in the herd over 2003/2004," he said.
"As a result, we believe Australian beef production will fall eight per cent this year and is now likely to contract further in 2004 before recovering."
The total cow and heifer slaughter was up 12.3 per cent for the full 2002-03 financial year, and the calf kill up 19 per cent.
The MLA said live cattle exports lifted 19 per cent to almost 400,000 head in the first half of 2003, with sales to Indonesia (up 39 per cent), Malaysia (up 15 per cent) and Japan (up 68 per cent) all growing strongly.
Sales to Egypt collapsed 90 per cent, while sales to the Philippines (down 27 per cent) and the rest of the Middle East (down six per cent) all fell.
The MLA said the greatest risks to the domestic industry in the next five years were a protracted mad cow disease outbreak or scare, another drought, a rapid rise in the dollar or an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
Australia is the world's biggest exporter of beef.
AAP
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Calls for 50,000 sheep to be put down
September 12, 2003
A SHIPLOAD of more than 50,000 Australian sheep which have been rejected by two countries should be put down, RSPCA President Hugh Worth said today.
Dr Worth said the RSPCA had been advised that nearly six per cent of the 57,000 sheep had already died.
The shipload of sheep was last month denied entry to Saudi Arabia after a Saudi vet found six per cent of the sheep had the disease scabby mouth.
A second, unnamed country this week refused to allow the sheep to be unloaded.
Dr Worth said the sheep were facing temperatures of between 45 and 50 degrees Celsius and many had died over the past few days.
"The number of sheep dying is rapidly increasing because now they've been idle in the water for over five weeks," Dr Worth told ABC radio.
"It's a fairly hefty option to kill 57,000 sheep, less the 3,500 that have already died, but the fact of life is, what alternative have we got?
"You can't have sheep just roaming around the ocean for five weeks.
"We believe to end further suffering they should be put down."
Dr Worth said Livestock Export Corporation (LiveCorp) should not be given any more time to find an alternative destination for the sheep.
"They were very confident last Wednesday that they were going to disembark the sheep at a second port and that was untrue," Dr Worth said.
The sheep are owned by a Saudi importer.
AAP
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Fines for animal cruelty to double
September 14, 2003
FINES for individuals who commit aggravated acts of cruelty on animals will be doubled to $22,000 this week, a NSW government minister said today.
NSW Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Ian Macdonald, announced that the state government would introduce a bill to Parliament this week to double the maximum penalties for the acts of cruelty.
"This is a very important piece of legislation, which aims to give even more protection to animals," Mr Macdonald said.
"The legislation doubles the fines for individuals who commit aggravated animal cruelty acts, from $11,000 to $22,000, or two years jail, or both."
Fines for corporations are also being doubled from $55,000 to $110,000, he said.
"Clearly, doubling the fines will send a strong signal to anyone who violates the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (POCTA) Act that the Government is serious about stamping out this unacceptable behaviour," Mr Macdonald said.
In 2001-02, the RSPCA investigated more than 23,000 complaints of animal cruelty and laid nearly 360 charges.
In the same year, the RSPCA prosecuted 106 defendants for 346 offences under POCTA.
AAP
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Sheep ship leaves for Mid-east
September 26, 2003
AN international livestock carrier, held up by animal welfare protesters at a Victorian port, has departed for the Middle East.
A spokesman for the Port of Portland said the Al Kuwait left the port about midnight (AEST) last night, 28 hours after its scheduled departure.
The transfer of 28,000 Australian sheep onto the Al Kuwait was completed late last night after protesters earlier delayed its docking.
A flotilla of protesters prevented the ship's scheduled arrival at the port on Wednesday morning.
It eventually docked about 7.30am yesterday without incident, after strong winds prevented protesters entering the water.
But police clashed with the animal welfare protesters mid-morning, when they chained themselves to a feedlot fence to prevent sheep being transported to the wharf.
Officers removed the protesters with no arrests.
The Animal Liberation Group said the protest was aimed at highlighting the animal welfare risk posed by live exports.
It came amid growing controversy over the live sheep trade, with a shipload of Australian sheep still aboard the MV Cormo Express in the Persian Gulf.
Al Kuwait is bound for the Persian Gulf, via Fremantle, where it is expected to be the subject of further protests.
AAP
contact our office or PACAT for Fremantle demo times
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US loses 90 pc of beef exports
From correspondents in Washington
December 27, 2003
JUST days after discovering its first case of mad cow disease, the United
States has lost nearly all of its beef exports as more than a dozen countries
stopped buying American beef as insurance against potential infection.
Gregg Doud, an economist for the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association,
said yesterday that the United States, at today's market level, stands to lose
at least $US6 billion ($8.17 billion) a year in exports and falling domestic
prices because of the sick cow.
"We've lost roughly 90 per cent of our export market just in the last three days," Doud said.
Keith Collins, the Agriculture Department's chief economist, said the market probably will not see the full economic impact of the mad cow case until trading intensifies after the holidays. He has said that 10 per cent of US beef is exported.
Japan, South Korea and Mexico are among the top buyers that banned American beef imports this week after the US government announced it had found a cow in Washington state sick with the brain-wasting illness.
An international lab in England confirmed the results on Thursday.
As a safeguard, countries usually shut down meat imports from countries where the illness was found.
A US delegation is bound for Japan, which takes about one-third of all US beef exports, and possibly other Asian countries that imposed bans on American meat and livestock this week. The Treasury Department said it is monitoring developments.
Mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a public health concern because it is related to a human disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob. In Britain, 143 people died of the human illness after an outbreak of mad cow in the 1980s.
People can get it if they eat meat containing tissue from the brain and spine of an infected cow.
Federal officials quarantined a herd of 400 bull calves yesterday, two of which were offspring of the sick cow. During its life, the infected cow bore three calves.
One calf is at the same dairy near Mabton, Washington, that was the final home of the diseased Holstein cow, one is at a bull calf feeding operation in Sunnyside, Washington, and a third died shortly after being born in 2001, said Dr Ron DeHaven, chief veterinarian for the Agriculture Department.
"There is the potential that the infected cow could pass the disease onto its calves," he said. No decision has been made on destroying the herds, he said.
Investigators are focused on finding the birth herd of the cow, since it likely was infected several years ago from eating contaminated feed, DeHaven said.
Scientists say the incubation period for the disease in cattle is four or five years.
Since 1997, the Food and Drug Administration has banned giving grazing animals feed that contains brain and spinal tissue to prevent the disease from appearing.
DeHaven said the investigation could lead to other states or Canada, which found a case of mad cow disease in Alberta in May.
If US officials determine the sick cow was imported from Canada and its offspring has been destroyed, they could protect the American beef trade from economic fallout, said Michael Stumo, an attorney for the organisation for Competitive Markets, a nonprofit group in Nebraska whose mission is to ensure fair markets for farmers.
But investigators have not yet found where the sick cow was born.
US officials have repeatedly said the food supply is safe because the cow's brain, spinal cord, and lower part of the small intestine - where the disease is found - were removed before it was sent for processing.
Authorities are tracing where the meat from the animal was sent and
the Agriculture Department has recalled 4500 kg of beef slaughtered on
December 9 at Vern's Moses Lake Meat Co in Washington state. Agriculture
Secretary Ann Veneman said it was an extra precaution.
The Associated Press
US recalls cow parts in byproducts
From correspondents in Portland, Oregon
December 27, 2003
COW parts - including hooves, bones, fat and innards - are used in everything
from hand cream and antifreeze, to poultry feed and gardening soils.
In the next tangled phase of the US mad cow investigation, federal inspectors
are concentrating on byproducts from the tainted Holstein, which might have
gone to a half-dozen distributors in the US Northwest, said Dalton Hobbs, spokesman
for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Now, it's the secondary parts - the raw material for soil, soaps, candles - that are being recalled.
Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities, Inc, announced yesterday it has voluntarily withheld 800 tonnes of cow byproduct processed in its Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, plants, said company spokesman Ray Kelly.
The company, like other "renderers", takes what is left of the cow after it is slaughtered and boils it down into tallow, used for candles, lubricants and soaps, and bone meal used in fertiliser and animal feed.
If the US Food and Drug Administration determines that the material is tainted, the company's loss could total $US200,000 ($272,000), Kelly said.
"It's obviously a tragic thing for the whole beef industry, but it's definitely a sizable hit for us," he said.
Darling International, Inc. the largest independent rendering operation in the US, has also been contacted by the FDA. But officials at their Tacoma and Portland plants, as well as at their international headquarters in Irving, Texas, declined to comment on how their operation had been affected.
"Our first priority was to make sure it didn't go into the food supply," said Hobbs, reiterating that meat sent to two Oregon distributors was recalled earlier in the week.
But tracing all of the sick cow's parts to their final destination, including numerous possible incarnations in household products, has proved challenging.
"We have nearly 100 per cent utilisation of the animal," Hobbs said.
"But when you have so many niche markets, it makes it incredibly challenging to trace where this one cow may have gone."
Companies that use bone meal from cows to create fertilisers - a kind of soil popular with rose growers - may find themselves under the spotlight. At the height of Britain's mad cow epidemic in the 1990s, three victims of the human form of mad cow were found to be gardeners.
In 1996, the Royal Horticultural Society of London released an advisory, cautioning gardeners to wear face masks after it was reported that the dust from the bone-meal soil could carry the mutated protein.
But Scientific American editor Philip Yam said there was no conclusive evidence the gardeners died from inhaling soil containing the infected cow tissue.
A far greater risk is the cow material - including roughage and offal - used in animal feed, Yam said.
In 1997, the FDA banned cow feed that included cow byproducts, after scientists concluded that the feed was the main transmitter of mad cow. The disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is found in a cow's nervous system.
Yam said that while giving cow feed to cows was outlawed, feeding it to poultry was still legal. Some US farmers, he said, are still in the habit of feeding their cows "chicken litter" - the remains of the poultry feed, scooped off the ground, feathers and all.
"It's one of those loopholes. It sounds good in theory - don't feed cow to cow, feed the remains to chickens. But in practice things happen," said Yam, whose book - The Pathological Protein - is a scientific account of the disease.
Industry experts say the animal feed link is tenuous at best.
"It's very unlikely," said David Kaluzny of Joliet, Illinois, vice chairman of the National Renderers Association, who explained the feeds were made by boiling the cow remains at exceedingly high temperatures.
"Even anthrax is killed off," he said.
The Associated Press
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