Naked protesters simulate killing of animals in Barcelona

Message: How many lives to a shelter?

BARCELONA - About fifty animal advocates rallied Sunday lying completely naked in a square in Barcelona to denounce the "cruelties" inflicted on the animals whose skins are used to make garments.

"How many lives for a coat?" Asked a sign of a young woman lying among the demonstrators at the Plaza de Sant Jaume, in the historic center of Barcelona.

Those who lay on the floor were smeared with red paint that simulated blood, symbolically representing the remains of dead animals to make fur coats.

"People are sensitive to the suffering of animals is the fur garments as acts of cruelty and pain, not as objects of luxury. The animals need their fur, we do not," said Leticia Olivares, a spokesman for the international advocacy group of AnimaNaturalis animals, which organizes the event.

Millions of foxes, minks, otters, beavers, bobcats and other species are bred in captivity in small boxes, or captured and killed in very brutal conditions, such as drowning or electrocuting them, to make fur coats, the group said.

Spain and Greece, Germany and Italy are important fur, according AnimaNaturalis. In Spain, breeding farm animals whose fur is used to make clothes are usually in the north, and the fur industry is implanted in Catalonia

DECEMBER 10. INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE LAW OF THE ANIMALS.

Practiced cruelty to animals, as well as the cruelty committed against the people, has the same meaning for those who suffer, the pain is incomprehensible. And the same origin: the same cruelty.

On Sunday 12 December and to mark the International Day of Animal Rights, Plasencia Ecologists in Action will hold a series of activities in the Plaza Mayor of the town in order to raise public awareness about animal sentience and respect for nature.

The events will begin at 11 am with the presentation of an information booth which illustrates the history of suffering Artik, the Siberian husky at the hands of those entitled to her protection suffered brutal abuse. Also it will perform a mini Canine Education Workshop, which will present the basic skills to understand and comprehend, the dogs and the basic rules to develop a respectful relationship. Finally, at 12 hours calls for a concentration in the same place to express the revulsion at animal abuse.

Although the law sets out rules to know, protect and respect animals as living beings and part of the same common nature in order to give appropriate treatment and to avoid unnecessary suffering, the practice persists, not infrequently, in return the worst image of human nature: cruelty to which is subject to the weakest. You need to realize that the mistreatment of animals is a stimulus, and early warning, development of other undesirable behaviors. For this is the task of society to promote educational processes that demonstrate a sense of respect and protection for animals as living creatures and sensitive part of our nature. Develop educational programs where children form sensitive to nature and animals in order to help form good men and most likely responsible pet owners and protectors of nature ...

And also because of the holiday season, Ecologists in Action notes that "An animal is not a toy," the avalanche of acquiring pet as a Christmas gift, of which a large percentage end up being abandoned. Also worth recalling the various problems that are causing the "fashion" of acquiring exotic animals as pets, so we encourage you not to buy animals such as spiders, reptiles, parrots and other exotic birds and wild animals are not exotic ( partridge, finches).

And if you really want to help alleviate animal cruelty, you can adopt a pet (dog, cat ...) from an abandoned animal shelter. Before their rejection is the best gesture from abuse.

Thanks to EXTREMADURAPROGRESISTA

The extinction of species increases the occurrence of infectious diseases

The disappearance of all species, from bacteria to mammals, represents a threat to human health because it increases the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases, according to a study released yesterday by the journal Nature.
Protecting biodiversity is more than fighting for the environment as a rich variety of animal and plant species in ecosystems helps prevent infectious diseases, according to the detailed study by experts from the universities of Princeton (New Jersey) and Cornell ( New York) and the New York Bard College.
The work of these scientists, entitled "Impact of Biodiversity in the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases, reveals a direct connection between the two, to point out that the loss of species in ecosystems such as forests and woodlands resulting in an increase in pathogens.
Experts say that animals, plants and microbes that tend to disappear when destroyed biodiversity are those that dampen the transmission of infectious diseases like West Nile virus, Lyme disease and hantavirus.
"We knew about specific cases in which an increasing biodiversity decline in the incidence of disease, but we have found that this pattern is much more general. This decline increases the transmission of a wide range of infectious systems," said Felicia Keesing, environmental expert at Bard College in New York and one of the authors of the study.
This paper shows that this pattern is for different types of infectious entities such as viruses, bacteria and fungi, and a wide range of organisms that host, whether human, animal or plant.
"As species disappear, the disease transmission rates can be accelerated. If you protect biodiversity can reduce the incidence of established pathogens," said Professor meanwhile Drew Harvell, an expert in ecology and evolutionary biology Cornell University said in a statement.
The study's authors insist that, in cases such as Lyme disease, which can be transmitted to humans by ticks that carry certain animals, their incidence is higher in ecosystems where biodiversity has been reduced.
They claim, for example, that in places where there is opossums intact communities, the rate of transmission of disease to humans is reduced, because the ticks are capable of surviving in these animals. If the presence of these mammals decline, increases the chance of infection.
The study also shows that the protective effect of different species is clearest in the land than the oceans, and that they produce "a new equation in respect to the transmission of diseases, climate change and biodiversity" , according to Harvell.
"Outbreaks of disease are accelerating due to global warming and this happens when we do not know the direct links in the chain of transmission of diseases," said the expert from Cornell.
In the work of these scientists and experts also made an appeal to authorities to carry out a follow-up "more rigorous" areas where there are large numbers of domesticated animals or farmed, whether land or marine.
"That would reduce the ability of infectious diseases jumping from animals into wild habitats to domestic and then to humans," said Andrew Dobson on the other hand, a professor at Princeton University.

Thanks to SPECTATOR