Worldlog week 40 – 2014
Breaking news! At our urgent request, the Netherlands is finally going to try and impose a European import ban on angora wool.State Secretary of Agriculture Dijksma advised against the motion that we had submitted before because she felt hunted by the House. But the House wants her to take action any way. The majority agrees with us that it’s unacceptable that products are sold in the Netherlands that contain wool of angora rabbits that have suffered so badly.
Pictures of the animal rights organisation PETA demonstrate how rabbits are subjected to indescribable suffering for the production of angora wool in China. Rabbits scream of pain while their fur is ripped out. After their fur has been ripped out, they are left in shock to lie motionless in their small, dirty cages. After they have had to suffer this process every three months for two to five years, the animals are slaughtered and their fur is removed. Ninety percent of angora wool is from China, where there is no punishment for cruelty to animals in rabbit farms and where there are no rules for looking after animals.
Last year, I already asked parliamentary questions after seeing the pictures of PETA. Big fashion chains like H&M and WE stopped the sale of products containing angora wool after a protest mail campaign set by us. It’s great that more steps have been taken to completely ban angora.
The House also adopted a motion that the Socialist Party submitted together with us for a European trade and import ban on raccoon dog fur.
Last week I asked questions about the risks that people encounter when eating meat for the barbecue. Research has shown that fresh meat in supermarkets contain life-threatening and pathogenic bacteria. As much as 80 percent of poultry appears to contain bacteria that seriously threaten human health!
Every summer hundreds of thousands of people get sick because of contaminated meat. Supermarkets just focus on the price of the barbecue meat. Producing as much as possible meat at a minimum price is detrimental to animal welfare, but also to human health. Consumers currently run a great risk of getting food poisining due to contaminated meat. Even life-threatening bacteria were found.
I have also asked questions on trophy trips during which endangered species are hunted abroad. It’s possible in the Netherlands to go to a travel agency to book a trophy trip to go hunting for endangered and protected species. This is just bizarre…
We want research into the possibility of withdrawing the hunting licences of Dutch hunters if it is evidenced that they have killed an animal abroad that is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. We also want it stopped that such trophy trips can be arranged from the Netherlands.
Great concern arose in the Netherlands about the testing that is to be carried out on labradors by the University of Maastricht. Over the last few weeks, many people signed the petition that wants to stop the testing on dogs. The University suspended the testing at first.
However, last week it was on the news that this University has decided to continue the testing on labradors any way. The fact that they had suspended the testing did unfortunately not mean that they would stop the testing all together. Their statement to clarify this intention did again result in many indignant responses.
We asked parliamentary questions on this and we managed to arrange a debate in the short term about animal testing. We want to ban all animal testing as soon as possible. It’s great to see that so many people are protesting against animal testing. That will help us during the parliamentary debates.
Some great words by Obama, all we need now is action!
Have you ever heard Paul McCartney rapping? Click here for his Meat free Monday rap video.
Greetings, Marianne