Putin bathes in the blood of living red deer whose antlers have been sawn off

Here are some interesting facts about Vladimir Putin and his health. It comes from The Times. I thank them for it.

They have been lots of discussions online about Putin's health and whether he is suffering from Parkinson's disease or even cancer but there are no signs that he is seriously ill. Hundreds of millions want him to be gravely ill but apparently he is not but he does have an army of doctors who follow him around on a day-to-day basis just in case.

Putin bathes in the blood of living red deer whose antlers have been sawn off

And no doubt he enjoys top quality healthcare but he is said to take regular baths in a liquid made from the blood of severed antlers of living Siberian red deer. Some Russians apparently believe that in doing this you can rejuvenate your powers and it can perform wonders for male potency. In an act of gross cruelty, I'm told that the answers are sawn from living dear once a year. I presume that the deer die from blood loss but I am not told this.

Secondly, Kremlin scientists have been ordered to unlock the secret of eternal life. Russian scientists have been ordered to come up with anti-ageing remedies by an official close to President Putin. This person is obsessed with eternal life. Putin will be 72 years of age next month.

The average life expectancy in Russia 67.

Research institutes have been told by the Russian health ministry to report as soon as possible on their efforts to tackle cellular ageing and osteoporosis, boosting the immune system and tackling cognitive and sensory disorders and decline.

They have to do it immediately as a matter of urgency. The anti-ageing research is thought to involve Mikhail Kovalchuk, 77, one of Putin's close friends.

He's the head of a nuclear research Institute and a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He oversees a programme, financed by the state, into genetics that involves Putin's eldest daughter. He's crazy about eternal life and he told the president about it. And we are told that the "big boss [Putin] set the task and officials rushed to implement it in every possible way." That task is to find the secret of eternal life.

Clearly, Putin wants to be president for all eternity. That's another reason why he needs to be stopped as a matter of urgency.

Also, Mikhail Kovalchuk suggested to, I presume, Putin, that the Western countries are developing biological weapons that would only affect ethnic Russians. He has accused the United States of creating an artificial "sub-species of service people" who have limited self-awareness.

These are more examples of Putin's madness in my view. Of course, the deer therapy is accompanied with animal cruelty of the gravest kind but that doesn't seem to disturb them in the slightest. He presents himself as an animal lover but obviously isn't because in addition he has killed hundreds of thousands of animals both wild and domestic in Ukraine with his bombing, shelling and cruise missile attacks.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

HISTORIC EVENT: Listen to Justin Goodman of White Coat Waste Project explain that VA have stopped testing on cats

The X video interview pretty much explains it all. White Coat Waste Project (WCW) is a charitable campaigning group in America. Their objective is to stop the waste of tax dollars on cruel and unnecessary animal experiments including experiments on domestic cats conducted by various government agencies including in this instance by the Department of Veterans Affairs, I guess to improve knowledge on rehabilitating military vets who've been injured in conflicts. 

Goodwin says that American politicians in general want to stop these experiments. WCW have campaigned and lobbied for a long time and this is a break through. They hope for more success with other agencies.

Animal testing should be a thing of the past. It does not sit well with modern thinking about animal welfare. The vast majority of the public - I would argue - also want an end to it.

"This is a monumental moment because this marks the complete end to dog and cat testing at the VA. This is the first federal agency that has completely eliminated dog and cat testing and now we are hoping we can get other agencies and get Congress to follow suit and do it elsewhere," says Justin Goodman with White Coat Waste Project.

HISTORIC EVENT: Listen to @JustinRGoodman with @WhiteCoatWaste about discovering the @DeptVetAffairs was about to start experimenting on cats again. How a huge public push & federal lawmakers coming together aided in halting the research. pic.twitter.com/dzxWzK0eRE

— Scott Taylor : 7 News - WJLA TV (@ScottTaylorTV) August 7, 2024

U.S. Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York, co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, pushed to end the VA experiments.

I think taxpayers would be very upset to know their money is being used not on just unnecessary experiments but on inhumane ones that really torture these poor innocent animals," added U.S. Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY).

Justin Goodman is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at White Coat Waste Project (WCW).

Associated: White Coat Waste Project campaign success. Congress votes to defund Pentagon’s dog and cat experiments.

If you'd like to learn more about the work of WCW and their successes, CLICK HERE.

There are a number of federal agencies that continue to do this so we need to make sure every agency uses these alternative methods to protect animals and as I said early to protect the taxpayer," says U.S. Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA).

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

British zoologist jailed for grotesque and shocking abuse of dogs

NEWS AND OPINION: Sadly, this new story is all over the Internet probably because it is so "grotesque". It is one of the most sickening examples of animal abuse by an individual ever recorded in my view. The British zoologist who committed these crimes is Adam Britton, 53, a crocodile expert. He pleaded guilty to 63 charges in an Australian court including bestiality, animal cruelty and possessing child abuse material. He was jailed for 10 years and 5 months in Australia yesterday. He admitted to killing dozens of dogs.

Image: MikeB based on an image deemed to be in the public domain.

He was a globally renowned crocodile expert. His reputation now, of course, is completely trashed. He had worked on BBC and National Geographic productions prior to being arrested in 2022. I can remember when that story first emerged.

The judge who sentenced Mr Britton to 10 years in jail described his behaviour as "unspeakable" and "grotesque".

Michael Grant, the Northern Territory Supreme Court Chief Justice warned that some details of the crimes that he had committed were too graphic to be published and he recommended that members of the public leave the court room.

Britain acquired 42 dogs online between 2020 and 2022. He promised their owners she would give them a good home as per an ABC report (Australia's national broadcaster).

Rather than giving them a good home as he promised, he filmed himself raping, torturing and killing them in a shipping container on this property in Darwin according to the ABC report. He shared the video footage on Telegram under a pseudonym.

People who attended the trial in the public gallery were seen crying and gasping as the offences were read out.

The judge said during sentencing: "You're sheer and unalloyed pleasure is sickeningly evident from the recorded material." Britton showed no emotion during sentencing.

Britain grew up in West Yorkshire. He obtained a PhD at the University of Bristol and then moved to Australia. He settled in the Northern Territory. He became a respected academic at Charles Darwin University.

He was considered to be an expert on saltwater crocodiles. He appeared on TV with celebrities including David Attenborough.

Outside the court, animal rights advocates gathered and labelled him a "zoo-sadist". They say that he deserves the death penalty. The death penalty has been outlawed in Australia since 1985.

He can apply for parole in April 2028. He is banned from owning mammals for the rest of his life.

Although the newspapers don't discuss this and I can only touch on it, he must have learnt this grotesque form of animal abuse somewhere from someone. I don't think humans inherit this kind of behaviour. And therefore, I would respectfully suggest that he learnt it from his parents perhaps his father. I think that point needs to be investigated actually. And we don't know whether he has children. If he has children has he passed on his miscreant behaviour to his kids? There is always a cycle of violence within a family. One generation passing it on to the next. It applies very starkly in the area of sport and trophy hunting. We see parents teaching their kids to hunt for pleasure. All animal advocates detest trophy hunting because it's so cruel and it is for the pleasure of the hunter.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Everyone screamed as police 4x4 hit the calf at 30 mph and 4 more times!

This is the viral news story of a police officer driving his police vehicle into a female calf on a suburban road because that police officer feared for the lives of pedestrians in the area and the police claim that the calf rammed cars and by implication therefore damage them.

Everyone screamed as police 4x4 hit the calf at 30 mph and 4 more times! Screenshot from resident's video

The truth of the story is different to the one presented by the police which isn't unusual in my experience. This, by the way, is an opinion article based upon the news. I will declare right away that I don't like the police. Some like the police and some don't. I am in the latter group. My dislike of the police come from personal experience and encounters with them.

Initially in a news report it was said that the police car rammed the calf twice and on the second occasion the calf ended up under the vehicle. The latter is true but an eyewitness said that the police officer rammed the calf five times. And to all intents and purposes it looks very much like this police officer wanted to kill the calf in a panicked judgement.

The officer who used his police car to ram the escaped cow has been removed from frontline duties while witnesses said they were disgusted by what they saw. They screamed and cried and howled in anguish at what they saw.

And it appears to me that it was bystanders who successfully intervened and helped the police to get the calf into a horsebox and back to the farm from where it had escaped. The owners of the farm are bemused as to how the cow escaped but they think it might've swam over a river. It would seem, too, that without wishing to be too critical, they are also negligent.

Everyone screamed as police 4x4 hit the calf at 30 mph and 4 more times! Screenshot from resident's video

And I'm making an allegation here that the police were negligent and I will also make an allegation that it is possible that the police committed a crime. A crime under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 in the UK.

It's being investigated. Advocates for Animals a law firm, said that they had been instructed by the charity Humane Society International UK to look into prosecutions. It isn't me who believes that this might have been a crime which it looks like.

Under that act it is a crime to unnecessarily cause pain in an animal. The argument here is that it was unnecessary to ram the calf because there were many other more humane options. The police needed to seek help. They were involved with this calf for a few hours we are told. They had plenty of time to assess the situation and seek proper assistance from experts who could have dealt with the calf humanely.

The calf was knocked down near Bedfont Lakes Country Park and Saint Dunstan's Meadow in Feltham in west London. Hounslow Heath has been a home for a herd of cattle for a long time and is about 3 miles away.

What's amazing about the story is that the police officer decided to ram the calf knowing full well that it was likely that there'd be someone somewhere filming the incident and that is what happened. A resident's video footage shows the police car speeding into the back of the stray animal sending its sprawling down the road. And in another video seen by The Times newspaper a female police officer tells a witness that she understood their anger and said, "I feel awful."

That's an admission by a fellow police officer that what the behaviour of male police officer driving the vehicle was awful and wrong. Here, here!

The calf has a name: Beau Lucy, indicating that this was a pet of some sort or at least they have a close relationship with the owner.

James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, called for a "full and urgent explanation" having seen the video I believe on social media where it has been shared extensively.

Deputy Chief Constable Nev Kemp, of Surrey police said: "I fully appreciate the distress our handling of this incident has caused and will ensure that it is thoroughly and diligently investigated. In addition to an internal referral to our professional standards department, we have also referred the matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. At this time, the officer who was driving the police car has been removed from frontline duties pending the outcome of these investigations. I know there is much concern around the current welfare of the cow. She continues to be monitored by a vet and our rural officers are staying in contact with the owner for updates."

Kai Bennett, 22, a warehouse worker, was an eyewitness to the events. He said the animal was struck five times and not two as initially reported. He said he was returning home after visiting a friend when a group of people ran towards him. "They carried on past me and I asked them what they were running from and they just shouted 'cow'. I then saw a black baby calf running at me."

"I didn't want to get hurt so I decided to follow it and called the police. A big police 4x4 turned up and hit the cow at about 30 mph. I went ballistic. The car wasn't hurting anyone. They did it again and this time they pulled forward so the car was pinning it down by the neck. It was disgusting. It managed to get up and walked off very confused. The police officer got back in the car, did a U-turn and ran it over again. Everyone was screaming, thinking it was dead."

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Police try to stop an escaped cow by ramming it with their car in Feltham, West London.
byu/Xisrr1 inPETA

Labour Party will ban imports of foie gras into UK

As you can see from the title, this isn't about cats but it's about something which concerns me all the time: animal cruelty. And the creation of foie gras, a delicacy in France, is a form of animal cruelty; no question about it. The world knows it but it continues and I'm pleased to note that in The Times today, there is a report that "Imports of foie gras will be banned under Labour".

Foie gras. Looks great, right? Shame it's the product of gross animal cruelty. Image: MikeB.

The journalist, Tom Ball, says that "A Labour government would ban the importation of foie gras, in effect outlawing the sale of the French delicacy in Britain."

In the UK, production of foie gras has been bound for a decade but, regrettably to animal advocates, 200 hundred tons of the food is imported from Europe into Britain annually.

For the sake of complete clarity, the process of creating foie gras involves force-feeding ducks and geese using a foot long tube stuffed down their throats until their livers become diseased swelling up to 10 times their natural size. Cruel? It is hard to deny that it is anything but horribly cruel.

In the UK, the Animals Abroad Bill had been introduced by the Conservative party but it was thought that it had been shelved under pressure from Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and other MPs on the right of the party.

Animal advocates revolted at the dropping of the bill including high profile personalities and actors such as Mark Rylance who wrote a letter to Rishi Sunak demanding Britain end its "complicity in this appalling trade".

Competition law prevents a product being banned outright. But if Labour wins the election on July 4 they will ban the importation of any products made through the force-feeding of ducks and geese.

Labour's shadow environment secretary said: "Labour has a proud track record on animal welfare from ending the testing of animals for cosmetic products and the cruelty of fur farming. The next Labour government will build on this. We will ban the commercial import of foie gras, where ducks and geese are aggressively force-fed."

Foie gras has been a staple in the French diet since 17th-century when it was a regional delicacy in the south-west of the country and in Alsace.

Production has declined from around 19,000 tons annually about 10 years ago to 10,000 tons in 2023. The reduction is due mainly to outbreaks of bird flu but since the late 1990s, there's been a halving in the number of European countries making foie gras. In short, there's been a gradual change in attitude towards the production of foie gras which is welcome but it is too slow for many animal advocates.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Holocaust engulfs Gaza according to Palestinian poet

A Palestinian poet novelist and activist, Susan Abdulhawa, living in Cairo, who's just returned from two weeks in Gaza described what has happened there is a holocaust. She was reluctant to use that word and did not use it lightly but she says that "it is absolutely that".

“What I witnessed personally in Rafah and some of the middle areas is incomprehensible, and I will call it a holocaust — and I don’t use that word lightly. But it is absolutely that.”

Gaza mass destruction is like a holocaust as per the definition of the word.  Image: Wikipedia.

Definition of 'holocaust'

So what is the definition of the word "holocaust"? Here it is: "destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war", according to a Google search.

Destruction of buildings and infrastructure

It can't be denied that Israel has destroyed large parts of Gaza and I'm talking about the buildings including homes, hospitals and other administrative buildings and of course roads and other infrastructure. The pictures confirm that there has been mass destruction.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Damage_in_Gaza_Strip_during_the_October_2023_-_28.jpg#/media/File:Damage_in_Gaza_Strip_during_the_October_2023_-_28.jpg

Destruction of innocent people

The information from the Palestinian authorities tell us that about 30,000 people have died in Gaza as a result of the Israeli bombardments. Nearly all of these are innocent men women and children. 

Obviously some of them are Hamas terrorists, the target of Israel's invasion and bombardment of the Gaza Strip but I would suggest that the terrorists are a tiny proportion of the overall number of Gazans guilt in this war.

Conclusion

It is difficult to avoid coming to the same conclusion as this poet and novelist. You make up your own mind but to me it does look like a holocaust and if that is true it is shatteringly ironic that the Israelis are causing holocaust when in the history of the Jewish race they were, as the world knows, the victims of the ultimate holocaust, the Holocaust, perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II between 1941 and 1945 when 6 million Jews were systematically murdered.

Obviously nothing can match that horror but even if we can discuss the possibility that what is going on in Gaza has some resemblance to a holocaust it is very sad and shocking bearing in mind this history.

Animals of Gaza

And I want to briefly mention the animals of Gaza. The news media talk about the innocent women and children being killed in their homes but we must remember the animals, the domestic animals killed with their owners or if they survived, left starving on the streets. 

They have nowhere to go, no one to look after them, no one cares except the odd and very fine individual who is engaged in animal rescue. Yes, there are still people in Gaza engaged in animal rescue despite the most horrific conditions.

There are still some veterinarians operating in Gaza as I understand it but I'm sure their medications are running out or have run out. I feel for the animals terribly. It is depressing to think about them. They are entirely innocent as are the children.

Domestic animals live in the human world. When the human world is destroyed by humans in the most violent of ways, domestic animals are either violently killed or they slowly die. Humankind should be ashamed of itself. Thoroughly ashamed.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Marlin's police chief, city manager and animal control officer accused of animal cruelty

NEWS AND COMMENT/OPINION: In Marlin, Texas, USA, the police chief, city manager and animal control oversee a dog shelter (dog pound). And within that dog pound there were dogs that were starving and living in filth and on the verge of death. Many had died. It was a vision of Armageddon in the dog shelter world.

Starving dog at Marlin's dog pound. Image: KWTX.

This appears to have been a complete failure by the city officials in caring for shelter dogs. It's the kind of failure which would normally result in arrests and prosecutions of the administrators of the shelter. 

But, as we know, when the authorities are the alleged perpetrators of animal abuse they are protected because they close ranks and the law is not applied equally. The old adage that everyone is equal under the law is simply a false concept.

In this instance, Marlin's mayor promised accountability but has so far failed to deliver according to Nathan Winograd in his email to me.

There's been a promised investigation by the Falls County Sheriff's Office which has not materialised. Sheriff Joe Lopez of that office said that dogs were not his priority! Yes, we understand that anywhere on the planet, for the police, dogs are not a priority and neither are cats.

The police are invariably engaged in speciesism by which I mean they prioritize humans over companion animals.

As a consequence of this failure of the authorities to act, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has become involved and he is reviewing the case. He told local news reporters that "the Marlin Animal Shelter investigation is now one of his top priorities."

The residents in the area are becoming restless and irritated by the lack of action. They are protesting according to local news reports (which is why the Governor is involved 🙄). They want accountability. A local news station reports that multiple dogs were found dead. They must've starved to death.

Around 40 peaceful protesters are demanding change. They've been protesting in Moody, Temple and Thornton to demand that Marlin's city manager, animal control officer and the police chief be arrested for animal cruelty under the law. They want prosecutions and they want accountability.

The mayor, Susan Byrd, said, "As a proponent of dog rescues we are all working to cooperate with the investigation by the Falls County Sheriff's Office. Upon completion of the investigation, the City of Marlin will do our best to ensure the responsible parties are all held accountable."

It would seem to me that she is in charge and therefore she should also be accountable 🤢. The local newsgathering station that I referred to here, KWTX, said that they tried calling the Marlin Police Chief multiple times for his comment but nothing was forthcoming.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Woman train conductor throws pet cat off a moving train in -30°C temperatures

NEWS AND COMMENT - RUSSIA: this is an extraordinary story; of a type that I have never read before and I have read many thousands of cat stories. The detail is a little thin but we have enough.

Note: I believe that the train was moving at the time. Although this is not stated. Update: the train was not moving. I have just seen the video on Reddit. Here is the video. There was thick snow on the ground.

A train conductor threw out the passenger’s cat with no reason. Volunteers are rescuing him. (Kirov)
byu/grekules- inThatsInsane

Why have I mentioned that it is woman in the title? Because historically woman are more prone to be kind towards cats which makes her behaviour all the more astonishing. 

Twix, the ginger tabby-and-white pet cat thrown from a moving train in Russia by a female conductor as she believed he was a stray cat as if that is an excuse! Image: Guardian newspaper.

The Guardian newspaper reports that a female train conductor mistook a pet cat for a stray cat and threw the animal off the train as it was moving - as if that is a good reason! The cat had escaped from his carrier and was wandering around the carriage.

It is still gross animal cruelty 😧. At the time, the climatic conditions were as low as -30°C with snow and ice.

She threw the cat off the train near the railway station area in Kirov. The woman in question works for the state owned railway company RZhD. A spokesperson for the business apologised for the actions of their conductor.

"We sincerely regret that the cat Twix died", the state-owned RZhD said, vowing to change its regulations. Comment: the regulations allowed or perhaps demanded that the conductor threw the cat off if he was a stray! Weird.

On Saturday, the RZhD said it was already implementing changes that would prohibit company conductors from "disembarking animals from trains". 'Disembarking'! 👿

The cat, a ginger tabby-and-white (and therefore almost certainly a male) was found dead on Saturday after a search. I believe that this was a few days after the cat was thrown off the train. The cat has been identified by his owners.

There are calls for the conductor to be sacked and prosecuted for animal cruelty. The petition has gathered 70,000 signatures online which demands a criminal investigation which has been refused by the local authorities.

"A separate petition - signed by more than 200,000 - is asking for the female conductor, who has not been publicly identified, to be sacked" (source and words: the BBC).

Comment: I am distinctly unsurprised by the fact that nothing will happen in terms of punishment for this woman. No doubt she will retain her job and not be prosecuted for animal cruelty. This is Russia. I don't want to denigrate the country unjustifiably but animal welfare is not one of their greatest and strongest suits.

When bearing in mind that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has killed hundreds of thousands of animals in Ukraine as well as tens of thousands of innocent civilians including children by bombing and shelling civilian areas, we can't expect Russia to have a good animal welfare record can we?

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Closure of cat meat restaurant, Vietnam. For an animal advocate this is a great Christmas present.

NEWS AND OPINION. THIS IS AN OP-ED. I VOICE MY OPINION: For an animal advocate like myself and there are many millions of others the news that the Vietnamese restaurant that killed 300 cats a month to make cats soup has closed for good is the best Christmas present they could have. 

This restaurant was a blot on the animal welfare landscape. They drowned 300 cats a month to make cat soup and presumably other cat meat meals. Can you imagine that? Drowning 300 cats a month? Every act an act of gross cruelty multiplied by 300 in a 30 day period which is 10 acts of gross cruelty every day against innocent animals.

And the people who did it had no qualms about it at all. Not an inkling of conscience. Nothing, nada, zero. The brain was dead. Or perhaps I am wrong and they did grow a conscience (see below).

Education

Actually, I think this is about education. I think the owner of this restaurant learned through the Internet and through the Humane Society that stealing people's pets and cruelly killing them and then eating them was immoral, wrong and entirely inhumane. It's about education ultimately. If you want to stop the cat meat trade then you need to educate people.

Pham Quoc Doanh, the restaurant owner tears down the signage on the closure of his cat meat restaurant. Image: Daily Mail.

Internet and sites like this and news media educate

This restaurant has been in the news quite a lot recently and I'm delighted that the news media are picking up on cat meat stories from Asia. I know this is a cultural thing and I know that we have to be sensitive about cultural differences and I try to be. We have to be sensitive and I understand that but when a culture fosters animal cruelty I think it becomes a universal issue and I also think under those circumstances we have a right to criticise.

I believe that anybody anywhere should do their best to stop animal cruelty by anybody anywhere.

This was the Gia Bảo restaurant in Thai Nguyen city, in the country's northeast. It was a profitable enterprise. Where did the cats come from? The Daily Mail says that they were "likely including stolen pets". They were drowned in a bucket one after another the newspaper says. Horrendous. Don't dwell on that thought.

The business was run by a 37-year-old man called Pham Quoc Doanh who took to this horrendous business because she was struggling to feed his family selling "other normal food and drinks". He's the man in the picture above.

He discovered that there was no other restaurant in the area where he lived selling cat meat so he decided on that type of business. No issue in his mind about animal cruelty by the way? And I am sensitive to the fact that he was struggling to survive. That is one aspect of the cat meat business. He had to find a way to feed his family and sometimes we have to give up on principles. 

However, putting criticism aside, he appears to have changed his mind because he reached out to the Humane Society International which has been campaigning for some time to stop the cat meat trade in Vietnam. The Humane Society offered him a one-off grant to change businesses to a grocery store. Perhaps he had seen the negative publicity and experienced falling trade?

He took up the offer and the picture you see on this page is him symbolically tearing down the signage outside his restaurant to begin a new business and a new way of life.

He said that he became upset with the cat meat business. These are his words:

"For a while now I have felt a genuine desire to leave the cruel cat meat business and switch to something else as soon as possible. When I think of all the thousands of cats I've slaughtered and served up here over the years, it's upsetting."

He added: 'Cat theft is so common in Vietnam that I know many of the cats sold here were someone's loved family companion, and I feel very sorry about that.'

Well, those words warm my heart in one way - his change of heart but he has committed horrendous crimes for a long time. And my eternal thanks to the Humane Society International which is doing such great work. It must have been a real struggle to encourage this man to do, what I would regard to be, the right thing.

The Daily Mail says that about 1 million cats are killed annually for their meat in Vietnam. I think you'll find that about 10 times that number is killed in China for the same purpose.

Vietnamese no longer believe in the cat meat business

Remarkably, the newspaper tells us that 71% of Vietnamese people living in Vietnam are in favour of a ban of cat meat. So perhaps his business was beginning to lose trade anyway. He found a way out.

We know that many domestic animals i.e. people's pets including stray cats are stolen for the cat meat trade. The same, by the way, applies to dogs in China and other Asian countries.

Education about superstitions

And you might know this but you might not: people who eat cat meat believe that it carries health benefits such as alleviating arthritis or that it has aphrodisiac properties. Sadly, I have to say that no science supports these views. It is all superstition; a superstition which results in mass cruelty against millions of companion animals. It is simply intolerable to any decent-minded person.

Massive amount of theft

The newspaper also tells us that 87% of people in Vietnam have had their pets stolen for the cat meat business or know of somebody who's pet was stolen.

That's another topic: the theft of domestic cats. The cat meat business is not only causing mass animal cruelty but mass criminality. Clearly nobody has been prosecuted for theft even though it happens up to a million times a year. This points to a lack of enforcement of criminal legislation in Vietnam because theft must be a crime in Vietnam. It begs the question as to whether animal cruelty is a crime in Vietnam. I would have thought that it was but once again there is a lack of enforcement.

The cats that were at the restaurant have been rescued. They were traumatised and they have been vaccinated and checked over for health issues and treated by veterinarians after which they will be put up for adoption and rehomed.

The companion animals and engagement programme manager of Humane Society International in Vietnam said:

"We are thrilled to be closing down our first cat meat trade business in Viet Nam, and hope it will be the first of many as more people like Mr. Doanh turn away from this cruel trade."

A big pat on the back to this man or woman. Let's hope that this cat meat business closure becomes a catalyst for similar events across Vietnam and in the wider region.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Emaciated, abused tigers in a Thailand breeding farm. Wrong attitude by humankind to save the tiger.

NEWS AND COMMENT: There is a relatively small minority of people on the planet who genuinely want to protect and conserve the tiger in the wild. Certainly they do their best but overall, it's impossible to come to the conclusion that humankind is genuinely concerned about the tiger when a story such as in the press today comes to light which is about a starved female tiger reduced to skin and bone who could barely stand in a disgusting Thai breeding farm.

Emaciated tigers in a Thailand breeding farm. Wrong attitude to save the tiger in the wild.

The Daily Mail reports on this tiger whose name is Salamas. She is one of 53 big cats rescued from a Thai breeding farm. You see, if the tiger is seen as a commercial asset and starved to near death through negligence while being abused, it is possible to be optimistic about the chances of protecting the tiger in the wild going forward.

There's just not enough will and determination to achieve the goal of saving the tiger.  It is  shocking to see to be honest. It is depressing to see it and read about it. This poor tiger was found struggling to stand or walk because she had lost so much weight in her cage in this rundown facility in northern Thailand.

The pictures are harrowing. Patches of her fur were missing and she was skeletal. She was exhausted lying on the concrete.

Utter abuse of the tiger. 

The farm is facing bankruptcy and prosecution as it was involved with illegal wildlife trading. The tigers and leopards spent their lives in captivity. They are going to spend the last moments of their lives on grassland in sunlight at a woodland sanctuary around 550 miles away in the south of Thailand.

The founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, Edwin Weik, said "'It was feared that she was too weak to walk, but eventually she gathered her strength and stumbled over to the cage.  She was then able to be lifted to the specialist wildlife ambulance that made the twelve hour overnight drive to the wildlife rescue sanctuary. Although alarmingly skinny and with huge patches of fur missing across her body, rescuers are hopeful that Salamas will now begin to recover."

The picture shows an horrendously cramped and barren enclosure which would make any animal advocate weep.

In total, 35 tigers and 18 leopards were rescued from this farm. Twelve old tigers and three ill leopards were the first to be saved. They were sedated and underwent health checks before being loaded into cages and then into wildlife ambulances. They will transported out of the facility in the coming days.

Pictures of the rescue show an immense operation. This was a massive project and it's been described by Edwin as "an incredible rescue. It's the biggest by any NGO in Thailand. The tigers, leopards and other animals will finally see freedom for the first times in their lives. They will experience direct sunlight and the feel of grass on their feet. They will have the freedom every animal deserves.'

He added: "After months of planning the biggest tiger rescue by an NGO in Thailand's history, we are thrilled to now finally give these magnificent animals a new life at WFFT's Tiger Rescue Centre.

'Sadly, they will never be able to return to the wild, but we can offer them the next best thing: a safe, sanctuary home where they can roam forested land, socialise with other tigers, and even swim in the lake.

'We are grateful to the Thai government's Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNP) for taking action against the illegal wildlife trade and for collaborating with WFFT to help give these tigers the second chance that they deserve.

'The first twelve tigers and three leopards have been rescued, but there are many more who remain at the farm still waiting to be saved.

'We are desperate to return as soon as possible to rescue them, but as an NGO without government funding we rely solely on donations to make these rescue missions a reality."

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Veterinarians who declaw cats must HATE them

The argument is that only a veterinarian who hates cats could declaw them because declawing is so obviously a form of punishment for the independent cat who refuses to be submissive towards the human as dogs are to their owners.

All declawing vets should be behind bars for the crime of animal cruelty. This vet declaws cats. His name is Dr Glenn Ephraim. Image: MikeB

That is a theory. Why and how else can a vet act so obviously and blatantly in clear violation of their oath not to cause harm? Declawing is non-therapeutic. It is elective. Elected by the cat owner who is scared of cat claws and perhaps scared of cats in general.

In the cat world in the United States, the elephant in the room is how the heck the veterinarians have got away with brutally and cruelly mutilating innocent kittens and adult cats since the 1950s.

You think I am exaggerating about the cruelty of the operation? No, I am not. It is the partial amputation of the ten toes of the forepaws of the cat. And sometimes all the hind leg paws as well. It causes excruciating pain and can ruin the cat for the rest of their life. Declawed cats are 7 times more likely to inappropriately eliminate. And they commonly bite their owners as their claws are gone. They compensate.

RELATED: Judgement Day for Declawing Vets.

You think the owners who declaw their cats are better off? No, many of them abandon their declawed cats because their cats' behavior has gone wrong. Declawing can change a cat's character for the worse.

Only vets who hate cats could be so horrible towards them in doing something which is a clear-cut crime in many other countries. These vets should all be in jail.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Chinese infant indoctrinated by no animal welfare laws tosses kitten onto street where it dies.

I have said it before a thousand times and I will probably say it again a thousand times but there are no general animal welfare laws in China which is of course a result of their attitude towards animals but a lack of law also helps to mould attitudes. Countrywide laws can change attitudes. They can change human behaviours. And conversely, a lack of adequate nationwide law does the same thing but in a negative way.

This is what is happened in China and will continue to do so while Beijing abjectly refuses to introduce animal welfare laws that have been in place for over a hundred years in Britain and in America. China is so massively out of step in this regard. They just don't get it and this is because of a 3000-year history of animal abuse.

This picture comes from Twitter X where it has been posted by an animal advocate. It shows a Chinese infant chucking a kitten into the air and then onto the pavement or road where it dies. And this child will grow up and perpetuate this animal abuse by teaching their children to do the same thing.

It is all so unnecessary and so cruel. It's about attitude and in another post, I have said that the thread that runs through the concept of karma is attitude.

Eventually a bad attitude to something comes home to roost. It is cause and effect. What goes around comes around. If a country does something negative for so long such as abuse animals, karma will insist that that country will eventually suffer the consequences of this lacuna in their animal welfare laws. For me, the sooner the better.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

6.5 years in jail, the longest Canadian sentence for animal cruelty

Aleeta Raugust. Image: Screenshot from video.

A young woman, living in Calgary, Canada, Aleeta Raugust, told police that she deliberately bought kittens through an online marketplace called Kijiji between 2018 and early 2023 with the intention of killing them, videotaping the killing and watching them to entertain herself. She also placed the bodies in public places to watch the reactions of those who saw them.

She underwent a psychological assessment before sentenced and was described as an impulsive psychopath with no remorse.

Her mother said that if she is released from prison that she will commit more horrific crimes.

The prosecution at her criminal trial requested an 8-10 sentence but the judge - arguably too soft - said that he did not want to give her the maximum sentence allowable under Canadian law to ensure that the sentence wasn't "crushing for a youthful offender."

She was 26 years of age in March of this year. She pleaded guilty to 9 charges involving animal abuse as well as a charge of threatening to damage property. She tended to burn down her former residence.

The news media headlines are that a Calgary woman tortured and killed cats. I don't have details about the torturing but she did video her cruelty towards the cats. I think it is better that we don't have to read a horrendous description of what she did but rather leave something to the imagination.

It is certain that she was horrendously cruel but without any remorse or sensitivity towards the animals. Arguably, she is more in need of psychological treatment then she is in need of an extended punishment but perhaps she requires both.

The previous longest sentence of animal cruelty in Canada was three years. Clearly, for many animal advocates, three years is far too short. But historically judges are reluctant to give extended sentences to those convicted of animal cruelty because animals are devalued in my opinion.

So, this 6.5-year sentence is the longest ever handed down to a criminal convicted of animal cruelty in Canadian history.

Vodka-soaked grandmother tried to stone her cat to death in her neighbour's waste bin

NEWS AND COMMENT-UK: The word "grandmother" conjures up the image of a benign, pleasant elderly lady who loves to be with her grandchildren and provides wise words of wisdom while sitting on her armchair with a loving cat on her lap. In the case of Pamela Mattison, 49, this image could not be further from the truth.

Mattison leaving court. It looks like she is enjoying the celebrity. Image: Cavendish Press.

She admits to dumping her cat in a neighbour's waste bin before trying to stone the cat to death using a brick. Apparently, she threw the brick four times into the wheelie bin with both hands. None made direct contact sufficient to kill the cat thankfully.

She was confronted by her neighbour into who's waste bin she had thrown her cat. The neighbour had heard a loud banging noise from the rear window of his property and he also heard the screams of what sounded like an animal.

He went to investigate and he saw Pamela Mattison standing by his waste bin. She was picking up a large brick and throwing it with two hands into the bin. She did this four times. The neighbour then opened the back door to his garden and asked what was going on.

Mattison fled to her backyard next door. The neighbour then called the police. Shortly afterwards Mattison returned to the bin and pulled her cat out. It appears that they were in a black bin bag. As she pulled the cat out, she asked her neighbour why her cat was in his bin.

She then marched off towards the local veterinarian but was detained by the police. The police constable saw that the cat was frightened and took him/her from Mattison.

The cat was distressed with injured legs. One of their paws was bleeding heavily. Mattison was arrested and admitted to committing animal cruelty offences.

Mattison's cat who survived Mattison's attempt to stone them to death but was injured. Image: Cavendish Press.

The cat was then taken to the Pet Medic Center in Worsley for treatment. They remained at the center for four days. On arrival they were unable to place weight on their hind legs. With great good luck they made a full recovery.

Madison agreed to sign over the cat to the police. It appears that the cat has been rehomed but we don't know the name of the owner which is normal.

Madison, we are told by the news media, had 13 previous offences but this was the first for animal cruelty.

At her trial, her defence counsel said that there was another large cat in the area which would harass the abused cat. Comment: is that relevant? It is not.

Also, in mitigation, her lawyer said that, "At the time she had come back from work and went for a bottle of vodka before letting a kitten out."

Apparently, Madison claimed that she threw the brick at the larger cat but then decided she would put her cat out of its misery because she had her cat by mistake. Believable? No.

Mattison was convicted of animal cruelty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (although the act is not mentioned in the news media reports). Her punishment is to complete 20 hours rehabilitation activity days as well as 180 hours of unpaid work. She was referred to the Women's Problem-Solving Court where she will appear on November 6. Comment: is this to deal with her drinking habit which she appears to have?

The judge told Madison:

"The footage taken by the other party in the case shows a most despicable crime. It is quite sadistic to place the cat in the bin and then target it with such forceful blows. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that no further damage befell that poor creature. This particular animal got off lightly, although it was extraordinarily frightened. You have previous convictions for aggression, including domestic abuse convictions against your former and current partner. However, most of these offences are linked with excessive alcohol. You also have PTSD stemming from abuse you suffered as a child. Your behaviour can be addressed should you engage with probation."

Yes, the judge said that she was sadistic which is entirely correct. The case is interesting because it sheds some light on the contributory factor of alcohol leading to animal abuse. I suspect that many examples of animal abuse are as a result of alcohol abuse or drug abuse combined with a callous character.

It is also interesting for the fact that this is a grandmother albeit at the age of 49. I have a strong suspicion that she is a person of disreputable character and that her sadistic behaviour towards her cat is an extension of her unpleasant character. She smiled as she left court having avoided what might have been a prison sentence.

Tomohon Extreme Market has stopped selling cat and dog meat. It is hell on earth for animals

NEWS AND VIEWS: The Tomohon Extreme Market on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may be the most hellish place on planet Earth for dogs, cats and other animals. It reminds me of other Asian animal wet markets where the animals are brutally killed. In this instance, there were reports that animals were bludgeoned and blowtorched to death. That is, indeed, extreme. It is extreme violence and cruelty of the most heinous and obscene kind. But I will tell you this: it is not that unusual in some Asian countries such as Vietnam, and China.

Members of Humane Society International transport a cage containing dogs from a slaughterhouse in Tomohon, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Friday.

 

(Mohammad Taufan / Associated Press)

I hate saying it but I must say it over and over again: the culture in Asia vis-à-vis companion animals can be utterly uncivilised. I must not generalise because there are some really beautiful people in Asian countries who love animals and care for them and rescue them.

But if we do generalise then the general culture is very poor indeed concerning animal welfare and that clearly is the case in the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This cannot be denied.

That is why the headline news is extremely welcome for people like me and other animal advocates, particularly those animal advocates with a much higher profile than me such as the celebrities Cameron Diaz, Simon Cowell and Ricky Gervais who have signed a letter calling on Indonesian president Joko Widido to ban the cat and dog meat trade in Indonesia.

I don't know the Tomohon Extreme Market except that there is extreme violence at it but I suspect that other animals are slaughtered there or by suppliers. This story is about cats and dogs. What about the other animals.

The mayor of the district concerned has, we are told, decided to ban the selling of cat and dog meat at this marketplace. I don't know how profound a change that will make re: animal welfare because does it mean that all animals will be protected for the future? I don't know. It is a step in the right direction however.

The new policy will make the Tomohon market the first market in Indonesia to stop selling cat and dog meat according to Humane Society International.

A Sky News report on the market in 2020 following the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic found carcasses of dogs, bats, snakes and other animals at the market in unsanitary conditions. That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

I suspect that the Covid-19 pandemic had something to do with this change in policy because Covid either started in the Wuhan research laboratory or in the Wuhan wet market where similar animal cruelty took place. The Chinese have cleaned up their wet markets they say in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But in China and I would argue in Indonesia, the law is badly enforced. We don't know whether the banning of the sale of cat and dog meat in the Tomohon market is pursuant to a change in legislation or whether it is simply a declaration by the mayor. I should like to know how well this change in policy is going to be enforced.

RELATED: Indonesia - cat supersition. Superstition about the medicinal benefits of cat meat is a reason why they are slaughtered. Mass re-education is desperately needed.

There is a YouTube video on the Internet about the extreme Tomohon market and I'm not going to show it here but I can say that there is a warning against it which says that "this video depicts graphic scenes that are hard to take in. If you feel uncomfortable, please stop watching". That gives you a clue as to how bad it is. And it makes me wonder how Indonesians can behave like this towards animals. They must be completely desensitised to the concept that animals are sentient beings.

The only way you can be this cruel to animals is to regard them as objects and what I mean is inanimate objects such as televisions and armchairs. You cannot believe that they are sentient beings with the capability to feel pain if you treat them this badly and put them through human hell.

There is a picture on the Los Angeles Times website of members of Humane Society International transporting a cage containing dogs from a slaughterhouse at the Tomohon market. It is on this page.

The newspaper also tells me that on Friday, 21 July 2023, the authorities announced an end to the cat and dog meat slaughter at this market. They appear to correct another report by saying that the "permanent end of the slaughter and trade was announced Friday by the regional secretary of the city of Tomohon, Edwin Roring". The Humane Society International said that they would rescue the remaining live dogs and cats from the slaughterhouse suppliers and transport them to sanctuaries.

The authorities believe that if they stop selling cat and dog meat at this market it will reduce "people's interest in consuming dog and cat meat in Tomohon".

You wonder whether that will work. The cat and dog meat is a deep cultural habit. Simply stopping its availability in one marketplace won't stop the habit in my view. And I believe that the reason behind it is not animal welfare but to prevent zoonotic diseases being transmitted from distorted animals to people.

Other welfare groups have called the treatment of the animals at the market brutally cruel and like "walking through hell".

In the letter I refer to above by the celebrities, they stated: "These animals, many of them stolen pets, are subjected to crude and brutal methods of capture, transport and slaughter, and the immense suffering and fear they must endure is heartbreaking and absolutely shocking."

North Sulawesi province is home to more than 2.6 million people. Most of them are Christian in what is a mostly Muslim archipelago nation. That interest me. Clearly, Christianity which in its pure sense would abhor this kind of animal cruelty, is no deterrent to Indonesians committing these extreme acts of cruelty against animals.

Thousands of dogs and cats are slaughtered weekly in North Sulawesi and I'm sure that the closure of the Tomohon market will not stop the brutality across the area. It will simply reduce it.

One person involved with the mass slaughter of cats and dogs for the market said that he is disappointed but will continue to supply the market with pork. The cruelty will continue with different animals. 

As I said, the habits will continue and I'm not that optimistic for the long term but this is good news nonetheless because it is the beginning hopefully of the end of the cat and dog meat market in Indonesia.

It will, though, take a very long time to eradicate it completely. There are also changes afoot in Vietnam along similar lines. I think it is because there's been a lot of pressure from the West through social media against this animal cruelty. These countries want to be perceived by developed countries as civilised societies. You cannot be regarded as civilised if you treat animals that appallingly.

Clean-cut Chicago man allegedly a kitten torturer and killer

NEWS AND COMMENT-Chicago, USA: The New York Post tells me that Thomas Martel, 22, turned himself into the police after his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or a woman filed a complaint about him concerning animal cruelty.

Clean cut Thomas Martel. An alleged kitten torturer/killer. Image: Cook County Sheriff's Office.

Some websites have put a warning on their article to protect readers because it is alleged that he put one kitten in a bag and then in a microwave. It is also alleged that he drowned and squeezed to cats to death and a third he mutilated.

Bizarrely, each of the kittens that died had the name 'Shelly'. Apparently, the arrest warrant has been made public and within it there is a record of Martel taking prescribed medications and that he allegedly suffers from mental health issues.

Comment: you have to suffer from mental health issues if you did what he is alleged to have done. Nobody normal cannot do what he allegedly did.

He has a clean-cut look as I say in the title. I think it is relevant to the discussion. He is not a dishevelled, ill-educated young man as you might think, on drugs and a low-lifer. 

He appears to be well educated, well brought up and the kind of young man you would pass in the street in a respectable suburb and believe that he was a contributor to society but apparently not. 

We will have to see how it pans out because these are allegations but then again, he did turn himself in which indicates an admission to the allegations.

His alleged perverted behavior reminds me of Jack Spicey Strip in China who apparently went on a rampage an cat killing including using a microwave. Maybe be got the idea from Jack.

The tweet from Phaedra updates the page. It looks worse than I had thought. His girlfriend allegedly found the kittens on Craigslist! Why did she expose the crimes?

#ThomasMartel of #WickerPark is out on $7,600 dollar bail. His family got him out. His girlfriend would go and get kittens for him off #Craigslist.
Laws are weak because #lawmakers don't want #dogfighters to go to #prison. #FACT
Hes been enjoying killing animals since he was 8,… https://t.co/sjjIPrRrpS

— Phaedra (@PhaedraXTeddy) July 16, 2023

Shocking video footage shows a male teenager hurling a cat off a quarry ledge to water hundreds of feet below

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is another one of those sick videos. Made doubly sick by the fact that the young man who throws the domestic cat off a cliff into water hundreds of feet below allowed himself to be videoed by his friend and then they upload the video to the Internet. These are young people who simply do not have a moral compass. Nobody has taught them the difference between right and wrong. Nobody has taught them about criminal behaviour, about animal sentience, about pain and distress that can be suffered by animals under the circumstances that they have created.

UPDATE 17th July 2023: The police say that the event took place some time ago and the cat was dead when the man threw it off the cliff. No crime was committed.

18-year-old male throws cat off the edge of a cliff to water hundreds of feet below in a quarry. Image is a video screenshot.

They are entirely ignorant and it is a shocking reflection, in my view, of broken Britain which includes broken parenting. This is an abject failure in parenting. And so often the victim of this miscreant, criminal behaviour is the domestic cat because they happen to be there. They are available as victims. It's just pure bad luck. The cat is no doubt trusting of this person. They allowed themselves to be picked up (or the man killed the cat beforehand).

Domestic cats should not trust people that they don't know because they can be untrustworthy. The story is all over the Internet and there is a video which I will not put on this webpage. The pictures at the beginning of the article are screenshots from the video. They are adequate to tell the story.

The young man appears to be holding a black-and-white cat in one hand before hurling it over the ledge and watching the cat as it falls into the water far below. He says "I'm sorry" before throwing the animal. Another bizarre aspect of this video and of his behaviour. If he is sorry for what he is about to do why do it? Mixed up kid, right?

A second young person is watching in the background. A third person recorded the video and we can hear him laughing while he records it. That, too, is very typical of this form of highly ignorant behaviour.

As expected, there has been a huge backlash online from decent-minded people who simply scratch their heads and ask how could the person do it. One person remarked that it was "absolutely disgusting [and that it] makes me feel sick".

Lancashire police (the North of England) responded to the video clip and posted: "Thanks for flagging. We are aware and we are looking into the incident and where it happened."

A spokesperson for the police force said: "We are aware of a video which has been posted on social media which appears to show an act of cruelty to a cat in the Carnforth area. This is a matter which we are investigating. We are establishing the exact circumstances and where it happened. Anyone with information is asked to call 101, quoting log 1803 of July 10, 2023."

No one knows whether the animal survived while others speculated that the animal may have been dead before he threw him/her over the edge of the cliff.

Later, the police confirmed that they had made an arrest. They said: "Further to our earlier post about a video of a cat appearing to be thrown from a cliff into water, we can confirm a man has been arrested. An 18-year-old man from Carnforth has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty and is in custody."

Animal advocates say school kids swung around dead cats (they'd shot) in front of them saying "meat, meat, meat"

NEWS AND VIEWS - NORTH CANTERBURY, NEW ZELAND: Animal advocates were present at the North Canterbury Hunting Competition in Wellington, New Zealand. You may have read about this competition in which adults and schoolchildren under the age of 14 go out and shoot wild animals including feral cats. The kids were offered a £100 cash prize for the most cats shot dead! Great.

There was uproar about schoolchildren shooting feral cats. The first problem is that it indoctrinates the children into believing that shooting animals for fun is a good thing. Secondly, you can never be sure that you are shooting a feral cat or a domestic cat; someone's pet.

Animal advocates say schoolkids swung around dead cats they'd shot in front of them saying "meat, meat, meat". Image: NZ Herald.

Because of the uproar, 'on the ground' and online, the people who made the rules about the competition said that children under 14 couldn't shoot feral cats in order, I guess, to appease the animal advocates who were protesting.

But the adult version of the events still took place. Adults still shoot feral cats and perhaps occasionally someone's domestic cat companion. There is a photograph online of what appears to be hundreds of animals piled up as the end result of this shooting competition. To an animal advocate it looks disgusting.

But the point of the article is that a group of six protesters at the event were taunted by children who began repeatedly chanting the word "meat" while swinging around dead cats presumably by the tail. Charming.

It's reported that before they did this the children told the animal advocates to go and eat carrots and grass. They added that the protesters were going to die from a lack of protein and iron.

One animal advocate, Sarah Jackson, said, "The first thing we saw when we arrived was children having relay races with the deceased bodies of animals. These included baby pigs, rabbits and possums."

The organisers of the fundraising event said that the protesters had provoked the children. And they justify the shooting of feral cats because of the devastating impact that they have on native species. Comment: that does not address the problem of indoctrinating children into accepting what most people regard as unethical and immoral behaviour. And it does not address the problem about shooting domestic cats by accident.

So, the conclusion from this story is that the children concerned are beyond redemption. The world has lost them to animal cruelty. They will be cruel to animals all their lives and people are going to have to accept it. They've been taught that by their parents and by the hunters and shooters of New Zealand who see nothing wrong with destroying sentient creatures to protect native mammals and marsupials.

There must be a better way. I'm sympathetic about protecting native species but to do it this way is very crude and cruel. And it doesn't really work except to entertain the people doing the shooting. You can't simply eradicate all the feral cats in New Zealand or in a certain area of New Zealand by shooting them. They come back; they breed. 

There has to be a far more sensible, efficient, practical and long-lasting solution and of course one which is humane and decent.

147 words which explain why cat declawing is barbaric and unnecessary

This is a 147-word letter to the editor on the Detroit Free Press website that was pointed out to me by a mate of mine, Doug, and which needs to be aired and recycled for as many people as possible to see. It sums up what is so immoral and cruel about this operation which has been and continues to be encouraged by many thousands of veterinarians in the United States. It is a shocking state of affairs when you consider that each vet who amputates the distal joint of each fore-toe of a kitten does so in gross breach of their solemn oath not to harm patients. In 99.99% of cases declawing is carried out for non-therapeutic reasons and therefore is a breach of oath. As such the operation is arguably a assault by a professional on a kitten and a crime under America's animal welfare laws.

RELATED: Epidemic of Botched Cat Declaw Operations.

Here is the letter - thanks Melissa Sanger in Brighton:

As a licensed veterinary technician, I have tried to comfort cats as they writhe in pain, desperately trying to pull the blood-soaked bandages from their mutilated paws after being declawed. This barbaric disfigurement — which involves severing the first digit of every toe, bones and all — should be banned everywhere.

Cats claw to exercise, stretch and mark territory. Cutting off their body parts cuts off their ability to engage in these natural and important behaviors, and can cause them lifelong back and joint pain.

Without claws, many cats resort to eliminating outside the litterbox to mark their territory. Once-friendly cats often become withdrawn and aggressive. Studies show that declawed cats are more likely to have behavioral problems, often resulting in abandonment by the very people who had them declawed.

Providing plenty of scratching posts and regular nail trims will protect furniture, and cats’ physical and psychological well-being.