Why this is important

Daily Mail:

A deputy sheriff has been charged with animal cruelty after she allowed her four miniature horses to starve – one of them to death.

Pamela Belo, 48, worked at the Community Outreach Division of the Hillsborough County sheriff’s department in Florida.

Despite promising to ‘protect and serve’, Belo’s 14 year-old miniature horse, Warrior, died three days after he was confiscated…

Wildlife Extra:

It was recently brought to our attention that EBay was still selling ivory. We were surprised at this, so we contacted EBay to find out why this was. The conversation (live chat over the web) was frustrating to say the least. The first two conversations were terminated by “technical faults” when we asked questions about the ivory; and in the third it almost seemed like they were being deliberately thick in answer to our questions. Interestingly, although we had the text of our first two conversations emailed to us, we didn’t receive an email with the text of the 3rd chat. No doubt another technical error.

EBay have a process in place whereby it is possible to report a listing. We reported a couple that seemed to be ivory, but they were still on Ebay when we last looked. If anyone lives near Portobello Road, there was an ‘Ox bone’ Chinese puzzle ball for sale, by someone in Rogers Arcade. It is probably still on Ebay as Ox bone, so pop into Rogers and see if it is listed as Ox bone on the stall that is selling it…

Wildlife Extra:

Countries with operations farming tigers and other Asian big cats must shut down such facilities and destroy stockpiled body parts and derivatives. And China – which has the world’s greatest number of tiger farms – must terminate its ‘legal’ domestic trade in tiger and leopard skins as an indication of genuine commitment to ending the tiger trade and reducing demand.

Cites 
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is submitting both calls to the 62nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), in Geneva, Switzerland from July 23-27. Under CITES regulations, operations to breed tigers and other Asian big cats are restricted to the purposes of conservation; CITES specifically states ‘tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives’.

Stockpiling tiger products
However, some tiger farms in China are understood to be stockpiling skins and bones, fuelling speculation that some of these ‘products’ may be leaking onto the market and that they are being held in anticipation of a ‘legalised’ trade…

Care2:

UPDATE: The cull was ruled legal and pilot killings start this autumn. It is more important than ever to tell the UK Government to stop this ill-thought-out and cruel scheme.

Two proposed pilot culls of badgers were proposed earlier this year, but stopped by the Badger Trust, which demanded a judicial review, which in turn ruled against the culls.

Now it seems to be starting all over again, on a much larger scale. Justice Ouseley must decide whether to open the way to the wholesale slaughter of badgers or declare the killings unlawful.

If it is decided that the culls could go ahead, they would involve the free-shooting of badgers. This would inevitably lead to horrific injuries and terrible suffering for many badgers.

Badger culls don’t work. Scientists suggest the impact would be negligible, or more likely make matters worse. Badger vaccination could be far more effective. There is no real reason to kill hundreds of thousands of wild British animals for the sake of an emotional reaction from cattle farmers.

Ask for a massive and brutal cull of badgers to not take place.

Sign the petition here: Care2