Salborün Festival Kyrgyztan - Captured Wolf vs Trained Hunting Eagle. Please send pre-written letter

This 2 day festival on the northern shore of Lake Issyk Kul in the town of Cholpon-Ata draws the region’s best hunting dogs, eagle hunters, and falcon handlers in all of Kyrgyzstan. Such festivities reflect the Kyrgyz people’s nomadic past.

The final event of the festival is only opened to the most respected Berktuchi and Taigen who must hunt a live wolf. This fierce and sometimes gory battle frequently results in mortal wounds. For the sake of sportsmanship, festival officials attempted to place a bit in the wolf’s mouth to no avail, settling for a heavy chain tethering her to a lead weight.

Within rural communities, Kyrgyz have long raised Taigen and trained Eagles to protect both the lives of their livestock and family. This captured wolf was responsible for killing 68 sheep, 20 cows, and 17 horses. Such an unfathomable number of lost cattle and sheep is enough to impoverish any community.

Chained wolf and golden eagle fight to the death at hunting festival.

Links:
http://theanimal-zone.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-sided-battle-of-bird-and-beast.html

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/12/using_eagles_to_kill_wolves.php?utm_source=combinedfeed&utm_medium=rss

Please find Kyrgyztan's Embassy in your country:

http://www.worldembassyinformation.com/kyrgyzstan-embassy/index.html

Please send this pre-written letter:

To whom it may concern.

Dear Sir/Madame,

I would like to refer you to the article I read about the 2-day festival in February on the northern shore of Lake Issyk Kul in the town of Cholpon-Ata, which draws the region’s best hunting dogs, eagle hunters, and falcon handlers in all of Kyrgyzstan.
The final event of the festival is only open to the most respected Berktuchi and Taigen who must hunt a live and tethered wolf that is therefore unable to escape or fully defend itself. This fierce and often gory battle frequently results in mortal wounds.
For the sake of ‘sportsmanship’, festival officials attempted to place a bit in the wolf’s mouth to no avail, settling for a heavy chain tethering her to a lead weight.

I know that within rural communities, Kyrgyz have long raised Taigen and trained Eagles to protect both the lives of their livestock and family.
I fully agree that their sheep, cows and horses need protection, but there are other and more humane ways of doing this.
In fact, this cruel and slow killing of a wolf has nothing to do with protection. Rather, it is a long standing tradition within the Kyrgyz culture and reflects their nomadic past.
For them the hunting is a sport. But this is not an excuse to conduct animal abuse.

And not only the lives of the wolves are at stake, but also that of the dogs, the hawks and eagles.
These animals are abused in a most horrific way to glorify the Kyrgyz and for so-called human entertainment.

Such barbaric traditions cannot be tolerated.

Animals are inherently sentient and possess the capacity for thought and emotion, including contentment, loneliness, fear, stress, and agony. All animals, human and non-human,
experience the desire to live free from exploitation and suffering and fear the manifestation of death. Humans have adopted dangerous constructs of speciesism, the prejudicial regard of non-human species, to try to ‘validate’ the brutality inflicted upon them by humans. Using this human-centred and fabricated status of superiority, humans have sanctioned the use of animals as commodities, regarding them only as products to benefit our goals and needs – including that of entertainment.

We embrace inequity to justify our treatment of animals, yet euphemistic descriptions meant to facilitate morality cannot disguise the fundamentally unethical parameters with which we surround ourselves to distinguish our dominance.
As dangerous as racism and sexism, speciesism further divides the chasm between species, which desensitizes us to cruelty and inevitably leads to human inequality and injustice.

Furthermore, it is also important to recognize the potential environmental ramifications of such a species decline; the ecology is a delicate entity whereby all elements work with and amongst each other in symbiotic manners; any one imbalance will cause negative influence throughout all species, plant and animal. It is therefore ecologically necessary that you acknowledge your contribution to this damage and adopt immediate measures discontinuing such. Although you may not consider the wolves as having essential worth, they value their own lives, and your blatant disregard not only has broad consequences outside your borders, it also has potentially criminal repercussions based on established EU protocols; you should be aware that in surrounding areas wolves are protected species.

The hunting and killing of this vulnerable group of beings is unacceptable, and the celebratory nature with which the slaughtered animals are displayed is indicative of only self-serving indulgence.

This reversion to an archaic and cruel tradition is a disgrace for Kyrgyztan.
These noble animals deserve respect and protection of their population!
Please act in a compassionate and empathetic manner and ensure that barbarities like this will end

Thank you for your time and attention.

Yours sincerely,

Your name and Country

Please sign petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/please-take-action-against-this-horrible-festival-in-kyrgyztan

Wolves in Russia

The history of the wolf is closely linked to the political and social life in ex-USSR. Although this region has a high wolf population, it is estimated that the soviet government financed the elimination of more than 1.5 million wolves between 1925 and 1992. A bounty was given for each wolf killed. This system offered a supplement to those who could hunt: a single adult wolf could bring an extra month's pay!

At present in Russia, there is no real program to control wolves and it is now the responsibility of the regional administrations to manage their wolf population. However the wolf is still considered vermin: it is not protected by any law and its hunting is possible all year round, by any means (rifle, steel-trap, poison,aircraft, motorized vehicles) . Moreover, the bounty system is still in force: a bounty of 1500 roubles (about 50€) is given for any wolf killed, regardless of its age or its sex.

The wolf population in Russia, according to statistics is about 28,000 wolves, which is considerably less than in Canada.

400 Wolves on The Prowl In Russia
http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/newshound/2011/02/400-wolves-threaten-russian-town

Please sign petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/russanwolf/

Please write to the President of Russia and ask that this be stopped (You can send a letter with your own words. Many times it has more effect)

http://eng.letters.kremlin.ru/

http://premier.gov.ru/mail/step2.html

Russian letter: 

Уважаемый господин Президент

Я глубоко обеспокоен тем, что в России нет закона о защите волков. . Они могут охотиться круглый год, и все методы. Использование воздушных судов, автотранспортных средств, ловушки и яд не допускается. Щенки выкопали из своих пещер и бросить постигнет та же участь.

Волки нуждаются в защите. Пожалуйста, не предлагает вознаграждение охотникам, когда они убивают волка.

Популяция волков в России сегодня меньше, чем в Канаде. Пожалуйста, укажите, волки, как вымирающий вид.

С уважением,
Name and Country

Attacks on livestock, spreading of rabies and predation on game animals are the arguments advanced in favour of culling. But everything is not lost, the wolf is still in a position to recover if changes are made to protect the animal and its ecosystem. In the cities, opinion has started to change in favour of protection of nature. In the countryside, education and information have an important role to play to make the population aware.

Since he is 10 years old, Vladimir Bologov has followed his father Viktor on the tracks of wolves. Based on hunting knowledge of wolves' suspicion of landscape changes, Viktor proposed a simple method of protection of livestock, consisting in placing unusual objects such as balloons in an area to protect. Vladimir Bologov inherited a fascination for the predator and took up the torch of his father's studies. Powerless concerning a modification of the status of the wolf in Russia, Vladimir became a wolves' advocator in his own way. In 1993, he started a program of rehabilitation of orphan wolf pups purchased from hunters.

Read more:

http://ukwct.org.uk/index.php?page=russia

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/from-orphaned-pups-to-howling-in-the-wild/195051.html

Russian officials look for scientist who released wolves into wild near Finnish border
 Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Republic of Karelia are looking for researcher Vladimir Bologov who has released six wolves raised in captivity into the wild in Karelia.

“When we find him he will be fined. Transplanting wolves is illegal, and he did not get our consent”, said Yegor Ruppiyev, head of the hunting section of the Karelian Ministry of Agriculture.

 Ruppiyev says that the case is an isolated one, and releasing wolves into the wild is not common in Russia. “Nobody wants to take on such responsibility and create artificial problems.”

 The wolf population in Russian Karelia is about 340. Ruppiyev says that 150 would be a more appropriate number. Killing a wolf brings a bounty of about EUR 100.
 If the transplanted wolves are caught, they are to be killed.

 Bologov’s wife Natalya Bologova says that her husband is currently in Karelia in the area where the wolves have been released. She has helped her husband in feeding the wolf cubs at their wolf refuge in Tver.

“The transfer of the wolves is part of a study in which Vladimir is testing the adaptability of animals raised in captivity for life in the wild. Later the aim is to apply the method to rare species such as Amur tigers and snow leopards”, Bologova says.
 The two would also like to release otters, lynxes and wolverines. “But we don’t yet know where”, she added by telephone.

 Ruppiyev says that Bologov initially said that he would be releasing wolverines in Karelia.
 In Murmansk there have been efforts to artificially boost the wolverine population.
 Vladimir Bologov left six wolf cubs born in captivity on an island covering 20 hectares in Russian Karelia last summer. The island is 30 kilometres from the Finnish border and 60 kilometres from the centre of Lieksa.

 Bologov visited Karelia nine times. In his reports he describes how the cubs were so big in August that they were capable of swimming away from the island. It is quite possible that they may have crossed into Finland.

 Last year Bologov received a donation of more than EUR 22,000 from three small European environmental organisations and from various private donors in Central Europe.
 Special researcher Ilpo Kojola of the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute says that releasing wolves into the wild is harmful. The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, WWF Finland, and the Finnish Nature League also denounce the activity.
“It is an extremely rare, and the last possible method”, says Tapani Veistola of the The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation.

 The wolf cubs were about two months old when they were left on the island. They had been kept in a zoo in Tver, where Bogolov maintains a biological station specialised in caring for animals and releasing them into the wild.
“There is the risk that the wolves are now probably more or less accustomed to being near humans”, says Petteri Tolvanen, programme director at WWF.

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Russian+officials+look+for+scientist+who+released+wolves+into+wild+near+Finnish+border/1329103753066

If you want to help Vladimir Bologov by donation you can do it here:

http://www.lupuslaetus.org/

Please help wildlife in Scandinavia

Scandinavia could have been a paradise for wild animals. There is plenty of room and few inhabitants.

Instead it is a hell for them. They are hated by farmers, hunters and Sami people and therefore close to extinction. They are hunted from helicopters, exposed to bow hunting, woundings etc.
Extreme many lynxes, wolves, wolverines and bears are killed in 2011 by licensed hunting and illegal shooting.

Wolves were hunted down and run over by snow mobiles.

Norwegians and Swedes ready to start illegal wolf hunting if wolf puppies from Swedish zoos are put out in the wild for saving the Scandinavian wolf tribe. The wolves can be set up near the border with Norway.

Bears in hibernate has been chased by hunting dogs

305 lynx killed in Sweden and Norway

PETITIONS

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/nei-til-buejakt-i-norge-say-no-to-bowhunting-in-norway/

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/nei-til-buejakt-i-norge-say-no-to-bowhunting-in-norway.html?utm_medium=RSS

http://www.change.org/petitions/ban-bow-hunting-in-denmark

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-extermination-of-norwegian-predators

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-the-big-carnevores-of-norway-from-total-extinction/

http://forcechange.com/8247/protect-swedish-wildlife-from-government-sanctioned-murder/

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-extinction-of-wolves-in-sweden

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/8/stop-the-extinction-of-wolves-in-sweden/

http://www.skrivunder.com/sag_nej_till_utokad_skyddsjakt_och_licensjakt_pa_varg_2012

Name - Surname - City - Country - Email – Send (Remember confirm your emailaddress)

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-poaching-of-wolves-in-finland

http://forcechange.com/11882/only-135-remain-protect-wolves-in-finland-before-it-is-too-late/

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/7/stop-the-extermination-of-wolves-in-norway-now/

http://www.change.org/petitions/please-help-the-norwegian-wolves

http://www.gpfweb.com/ulv/protest.htm

Name and Email-address

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ulven/

Name - Email - Place (Country) - Age

http://www.change.org/petitions/save-the-brown-bear-in-norway

http://www.change.org/petitions/sweden-please-stop-extermination-of-your-bears

http://www.change.org/petitions/please-stop-hunting-of-lynx-in-sweden

http://www.skrivunder.com/stoppa_licensjakten_pa_lodjur

Name – Surname – City – Country – Emailaddress

Click on “Skriv på denna petition” and send (Remember confirm your emailaddress)

http://www.change.org/petitions/save-wolverines-in-norway

POLL:

Shall Wolves be in Sweden? Please scroll down to "Ska vargen få finnas i Sverige?" and vote JA (Yes) then click "Rösta"
http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/jagarforbund-utrota-vargen-fran-sverige/

LINKS

http://www.dalademokraten.se/Dalarna/2012/01/19/Jagade-vargen-fran-skotrar--aklagaren-vadjar-om-tips/

http://arbetarbladet.se/torget/1.4347309-detta-blir-loshundsjaktens-konsekvenser-

http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/nordmenn-og-svensker-klare-til-aa-starte-ulovlig-ulvejakt-3698420.html



Wolves and bears are coming

Wolves and bears are after centuries of absence on the way back in countries like Germany, Switzerland, France and Scotland. Continued exodus of people from rural to urban areas gives the wildlife improve conditions and the economic upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe has created a wildlife trek westward.

The wild - really wild - nature is on the march in Europe.

Changes in EU agricultural policy, rural depopulation and the great economic upheaval in the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe means that the previously displaced and exterminated species such as wolves, bears and wild cats is again moving into areas where you do not have seen them for several hundred years.

From Germany to Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and down into Italy and Spain, the World Wildlife Fund received eyewitness reports of an increasing number of encounters with these species.

The last wolves were exterminated in Germany in 1850, but now they are moving into East Germany again. They started in the last year to move from the former Soviet Union through Poland into Saxony in the south of East Germany, where they have settled on the large practice ground, as the Soviet military left in 1990 and now lies unused. At least two wolf packs have been seen in Saxony.

"In the long run we can expect that wolves would settle down again in most of East Germany - if people then allows," says Frank Mörschel from World Wildlife Fund.

But south of the Alps beats the wild again.

Brown Bears are starting to migrate from the Balkans into the Alps. In Slovenia live there today 700 brown bears, and they are also beginning to show up in the Austrian wooded province of Carinthia, where they have frightened tourists who had not been previously warned accordingly. They have also been seen in the Italian South Tyrol and the end of July there were reports of the first reliable sighting of a brown bear in southern Switzerland, where the last of the species was shot for two hundred years ago.

Nature takes over

Packs of wolves are still seen more often in the Alps between Italy and France where they have left the protected national parks in the Italian Alps and now hunts in the French alpine valleys.

The wolves and bears are on the march again because not only that in some countries have deliberately chosen to introduce the species again, which has been done in Italy and on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.

The economic and political changes in Europe over the last fifteen years has also promoted the wildlife. Europe's population is in these years, stagnant or declining, and still more Europeans will be living near big cities. This trend is especially evident in the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where the abandonment of unprofitable industries, collective-farm and mines in rural areas has led to an exodus from rural to urban. Most of the Central and Eastern European countries will lose population at the moment; only one million East Germans since reunification moved eastward, and in countries like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are also an increasing outflow of population away from the economically backward rural areas.

It has given nature better conditions, and where people disappear, move into other species. It is also true in Western Europe, where agriculture is expressed in growing areas. Several changes in EU agricultural policy in the 1990s has made it more financially attractive for farmers to 'set aside' rather than to continue with intensive cultivation. That means growing forest land, especially in the outlying districts of France, Italy and Spain, it becomes harder and harder to get young people to stay in the villages.

Still larger areas of Europe are again on track to become a form of informal nature parks where nature highest bump into tourists.

 

Complaints from agriculture

The development is not popular in all countries. Sheep farmers in Spain, Italy and France complain that they lose more and more animals to pack of wolves, because they these days no longer afford to let the shepherds - or can find shepherds all - to look after the sheep. In Switzerland - where there are still farming in the mountains because of a massive state aid - have farmers in the Bernese Oberland protested violently against a postponement of the lynx - large wild cats - recently, which has led to a decline in both sheep and cattle. The first wolf that wandered into Switzerland from France some years ago, is believed to have been shot.

And in Scotland there is a heated debate on whether to begin exposing wolves in the highlands after more than two hundred years of absence. The plan is that they only move within a larger fenced area and thus do not pose a threat to sheep farming. But there has been protests from other than farmers. The British hike guild considers that exposure of dangerous wild animals and fencing of natural areas, is an attack on the court that you have in Britain to visit all areas.

The prospect of having brown bears running around in the Alps - one of Europe's main tourist areas - also arouses mixed feelings in the tourism industry. From the North American experience, we know that the meeting between tourists and bears do not always run peacefully launched. Nature strikes once in a heavily again.

 

Source: http://www.b.dk/verden/ulvene-kommer

Fur belongs to the Animals - Stop Danish Fur Industy (Petitions and sample letter)

Fur Trade Facts
http://www.lcanimal.org/index.php/campaigns/fur/fur-trade-facts

Denmark is the world's largest producer of mink pelts, and each year are killed between 10 million to 13 million mink, which represents about 40% of the total world production. Most skins are exported to Asia or South-Europe. Fur factory farms are therefore a big business, and the animals pressed as hard as possible to provide farmer profits. Although a mink coat is expensive, so the real price are paid by the animals and the environment.

In addition, Denmark has 18 fox farms.

In 2009, the Danish Parliament passed a new law banning fox breeding in Denmark. Before 31 december 2016, all fox farms in Denmark would be closed.

The animals are subjected to extreme cruelty which can be seen in this video

Copenhagen has just completed the Copenhagen Fashion Week, which is named the world's second largest Fashion Week.

One of the sponsors of this event is Kopenhagen Fur. The event was represented by several fur companies

Kopenhagen Fur is a fur trade owned by Danish fur breeders, Kopenhagen Fur is the leading provider of all kind of fur and one of Denmark's largest companies.

Please sign petitions:

 http://www.change.org/petitions/ban-fur-industry-in-denmark-2

http://action.peta.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=5&ea.campaign.id=13101
 

Ask Second Female stop using of fur:
http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/bed-second-female-droppe-pelsen
(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Malene Birger abuses foxes:

http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/malene-birger-mishandler-raeve

(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Boycott Canada Goose:

http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/boykot-canada-goose

(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Intersport and Sportmaster sell Canada Goose jackets
http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/intersport-og-sportmaster-saelger-canada-goose-jak
(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Max Mare:

http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/max-mareridt

(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Rabbit Fur out of supermarket:

http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/kaninpels-ud-af-foetex 

(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Baum und Pferdgarden mistreats animals
http://anima.dk/kampagner/aktuelle-kampagner/pelsdyr/pelsfri-mode/baum-und-pferdgarden-mishandler-dyr

(Dit navn = Your Name, Din e-mail = Your Emailaddress. Then click “Send mail”)

Please send letter to these firms:  

sales@danmarkoutlet.com, bc@birger-christensen.com, shop@mink-pelse.dk,

Annil.Vestergaard@sand-europe.com, pelsallan@get2net.dk, mr@skindoguld.dk, sb@stenbergstrom.dk

Please copy and paste the letter and send it via these contact form on their websites:

http://www.monclerdanmarkjakke.com/index.php?main_page=contact_us

http://www.uggbootsidanmark.eu/contact_us.html
(Included this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3STJZzbMWE )

Sample Letter:

Dear Sir/Madame

I am aware you currently stock items that use real fur.

I am writing to enquire about your procedures for scrutinizing the ethical credentials of the designers you choose to stock.  How far do you check that the public are not being sold items which mistreat animals in their production?

Several EU countries have taken the compassionate step and banned fur farming, including the UK, Austria and Croatia.  The Netherlands has already banned fox and chinchilla farming, and is currently discussing legislation to ban mink.  However, as you will be aware, the trade of fur is still legal worldwide.  It is therefore up to retailers to take responsibility for how the products they sell are made.

At the very least, retailers wishing to stock fur products should engage with the designers they stock, and ensure that they are sourcing their products responsibly. The public are increasingly concerned about the way the clothes they purchase are manufactured, and are seeking assurances that animal welfare is never compromised in their favourite outlets. 

Retailers must acknowledge their role in creating demand for a product which has consistently been exposed as inherently cruel and inhumane.  I for one refuse to shop somewhere which sells such products.

I urge you to take responsibility for how the products you sell are produced and watch the video from TV2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2O2rXONyas.  After viewing the footage, I hope you will reconsider stocking fur in your store in the future.

Sincerely,

Name, Country

We must fight against the spirit of unconscious

cruelty with which we treat the animals.  Animals

suffer as much as we do.  True humanity does

not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. 

It is our duty to make the whole world recognize

it.  Until we extend our circle of compassion to

all living things, humanity will not find peace” 

~Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization