An Abu Dhabi court has ordered the deportation of a woman who kept 40 cats in a crammed room in her private villa. 

Area residents had reported her to authorities after noticing foul odors coming out of her villa, which was also infested with flies. Abu Dhabi Police found 40 cats in her home, all malnourished and in poor health. One cats was found dead. “The cats were found crammed in a small place and in a manner that would not allow them to move freely.

“The place was also dirty with cat feces scattered everywhere,” said authorities. Subsequent medical examination showed that the cats suffered from fever, had intestinal worms and skin rashes that required urgent treatment.

Officials stated that the Arab woman had been rounding up cats and keeping them in her villa. She would then sell them to people without having a commercial permit. She was detained, and ordered to pay a fine for mistreating the pets and “denying them freedom”. Prosecutors also ordered that all the cats be transferred to the Emirates Wildlife Center for proper treatment and care.

The woman denied mistreating the cats, saying that raising and selling them was her hobby and that she has been keeping pets for over 40 years. She told the court that she loved pets and that she only gathered them so she could take good care of them and provide them with food.

The Abu Dhabi Appeal Court, however, found her guilty on all charges.  She was fined and ordered to be deported from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

According to UAE law on domestic animals, anyone who harms, mistreats pets, denies them food and healthcare or keeps them in a poor environment that can harm them or restrict their free movement and other related violations, faces a penalty including an imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year and/or a fine of not more than USD $55.  And then there’s the risk of deportation.

Kudos to the situationally-aware neighbors who phoned this in to the police.

The post Cruel Cat Woman deported from Abu Dhabi appeared first on Green Prophet.

Whether it’s disappearing elephant herds in Botswana (or ones smuggled in suffering at the Abu Dhabi zoo), dying coral reefs in Australia, or near silence of small tropical tree frogs in a Central American rain forest, the vanishing of animal and plant species all over the world is finally being directly attributed to manmade causes. This mass nature depletion, despite previous “wake up call warnings” is now occurring at an even faster rate than biologists and climatologists had previously imagined.

A recent CNN program, Vanishing, dealt with a variety of creatures presently in danger of simply vanishing from the face of earth due to direct and indirect influences of global warming, climate change; and human caused decimation. Ranging from some of the earth’s smallest animal species, such as coral and bees, all the way to the earth’s largest land mammal, the African elephant, the program gives a graphic account of how many of these animal species are in danger to becoming extinct.

Starting with African elephants living in Botswana, one of Africa’s largest remaining concentration of the species, the number of elephants remaining have dwindled dramatically in the past 10 years; and by more than 20% in the past few years alone: “If present elephant depletions continue at this rate, the entire elephant population here could be gone in the next 20 years,” said a Botswana based zoologist.

Although elephants and other large animal species like giraffes are more noticeable as being severely endangered, the fate of many small creatures are mentioned as well. These include Oregon bumble bees, Central American rain forest amphibians like tree frogs; and coral reefs off the coast of Madagascar. These animal species in particular appear slated to become part of the Sixth Mass Extinction, according to the CNN program.

As pointed out in the program, the resident bumble bee populations of many areas have declined so dramatically in recent years that local farmers are now importing bees to be used to pollinate their crops.

One of the most graphic examples of mankind’s adverse influence on natural habitats, according to the Vanishing documentary, takes place on the Pacific Midway Island atoll. Located virtually midway between the continental USA and Japan the atoll is home to large colonies of albatrosses and other marine birds. It is also a “collection point” for huge quantities of plastic wastes that wash up on the island’s beaches from the ocean. Located in the vicinity of what is known as the Great North Pacific Gyre, this plastic waste is often ingested by the birds, eventually killing them.

The tragic result are large number of dead birds; their gullets literally filled with this plastic material the birds thought to be food. Studies of the large “plastic island” waste patch in the Pacific Gyre estimate it to be larger than the American state of Texas.

In a region closer to home, the Middle East, the demise of animal species is no less alarming. The last lion was killed in Palestine more than 150 years ago; and the few remaining leopards in Israel and Jordan are now on the critically endangered list. This also goes for the once common Syrian bear; now seen more in zoos than in the wild. Hoofed animals such as the oryx and Nubian Ibex are also on the endangered list. These are only a few of formerly indigenous mammals that have either become extinct or are in danger of becoming so due to human encroachment and climate change.

It may be already too late to significantly reverse these disturbing trends. But at least we need to make a more concerted effort to save what’s left of the world’s animal species. If not, humankind will be directly affected by this Sixth Mass Extinction as well.

Read more on wildlife extinction and endangered species threats:
Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction – wake up call, folks!
Oceans spiralling downwards, threatening life on earth
Israel Animals Killed by Economic Development

The post The Sixth Mass Global Extinction has arrived appeared first on Green Prophet.

Zookeepers at the Giza Zoo in Egypt accidentally killed three black bears and officials then tried to cover up their negligence. A local newspaper, Al Watan, uncovered their deception and now activists are calling to close all seven government zoos due to prolonged abuse of wild animals throughout the system.

After three black bears died overnight on May 5, 2013 at the Giza zoo in Egypt, officials released an official report claiming that they had mauled each other to death.

Two females were said to have fought each other over a male bear – a fight that lasted from 3pm to midnight, they said.

An in-house pathology report detailed injuries sustained by the bears, including broken necks and lower jaws, chest bones and spinal cords.

Suspicious of the various inconsistencies revealed in the report, local press and animal activists decided to investigate further, and it didn’t take long to realize that zoo officials had masterminded a terrible cover up that would be comical if their negligence was not so complete.

An anonymous witness revealed that the zookeepers tranquilized the three bears in advance of the Sham el Nessem Easter holiday that attracts up to 70,000 people.

But instead of calming down the bears to cope with the human mob, the zookeepers administered too much of the sedative and two of them subsequently tried to climb out of their enclosures and fell, and the third bear drowned.

And then, Instead of owning up to their mistakes, Giza Zoo attempted to cover up their mistakes with a bogus statement published on their Facebook page.

While it is easy to blame zookeepers for tragedies like these, which have occurred consistently for as long as Green Prophet has existed, activists warn that the problem is more complicated than that.

“The zoo keepers are given very low monthly salaries, around EGP 200,” according to Occupy For Animals.

“To make ends meet, they depend on tips from visitors who, in turn, require tricks from the animals. The keepers have to care about the animals because they are their livelihoods. Unlike zoo keepers aboard, they are not given any awareness or animal behaviour courses.”

The best that zookeepers can do with the limited money they receive to do their jobs is keep the animals alive, one keeper told OFA.

Then when an animals dies from malnutrition, a preventable illness or – in this case – a drug overdose, the zookeepers are held responsible instead of the administration.

General Organisation of Veterinary Services (GOVS) head Osama Selim, who oversees public zoos, veterinarian quarantine, veterinarian preventive medicine, and slaughterhouses also heads veterinary services, while Giza Zoo director Fatma Tamam is the person in charge of all complaints.

“The duality of positions means that complaints fall into a vicious cycle; if an animal dies at Giza Zoo, a complaint is then filed to the zoo director, who is Tamam,” according to OFA.

“All complaints against the zoo are handed to the head of the public zoos- Tamam- too. Complaints filed with the Environment Police are also handed to Tamam for investigation!”

The group is calling for the closure of all seven zoos. If you want to help, visit Occupy for Animals.

The post Giza Zoo Kills Three Black Bears, Tries to Cover it Up appeared first on Green Prophet.

Last week police arrested ten 269life activists in connection with these rather visual public protests, which included dyeing the water of fountains red to resemble blood. Today 300 animal rights activists descended on Tel Aviv in a show of solidarity eclipsed only by the tent social protest movement.

A founding member of 269life, 27 year old Sasha Bojoor issued the following statement upon his arrest last week:

Got arrested today, along with 9 more activists. For suspicion of doing illegal 269life activities. Seemed like a whole police station, was dealing with only us. They been raiding and ransacking activists houses since about 6am today.Considering how much money and man power they are wasting to try and silence us, i think its safe to say. We’re hitting some sort of nerve…

The Yarkon police district carried out a “covert investigation,” according to Ha’aretz, and discovered 269 life materials at the activists’ homes upon raiding them.

Ranging in ages from 25 to 65, according to the paper, and from various parts of the country, none of the activists have a prior criminal record.

Albeit very active in Israel, which has a growing and vocal vegan movement, 269life was founded to draw attention to the plight of animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption.

269 is the number given to a white calf, who will be slaughtered this year.

The group has garnered international momentum in recent months with supporters from all reaches of the planet  either branding or tattooing the number 269 on different body parts – sometimes in public.

In so doing, the activists hope to create a personal and visual connection with animals that are treated cruelly in large feed lots that are typically shielded from public view.

But many people claim that the group’s rather aggressive tactics alienate would-be sympathizers. Bojoor addresses just this question in an interview with Negotiation is Over:

I can surely understand where they are coming from. In my early days of activism, I held such views myself. The thing is with time I saw how deeply entrenched speciesism is in our culture and how absolutely essential it is to forcefully engage people on a more complex and visceral level. Instead of just presenting them with facts and figures. Often it is much more effective to use more forceful tactics.

Let us know what you think: are 269life’s tactics effective at engaging the public to pay closer attention to animal cruelty wrought by the burgeoning food industry?  

All images via 269life Facebook page

The post Israel Arrests Ten 269life Animal Rights Activists, 300 Protest in Tel Aviv appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s not easy being an animal in Jordan.  One of our pair of mini-dachshunds escaped to the street last November and was killed in a hit and run.  Distraught, we called friends asking what Amman regulations were regarding burying an animal.  We were told to drop Toby in the trash can, leave him in the street, toss him in an empty field, or set him on fire: I can only guess this heartless advice was well-intended. We buried Toby in our garden.

I understand the Islamic attitude toward dogs: a majority of both Shi’a and Sunni Muslims consider the animals to be unclean, and it’s uncommon for practicing Muslims to keep dogs as pets. There is contradiction, as it’s written that the Prophet Mohammad advocated kindness to all animals.

Ex-pat friends have since told stories that will make your tail curl.  Neighbors, annoyed at a dog’s barking, fired a shotgun over a garden wall and blew off its head.  Others left bowls of poisoned meat out for a pair of poodles to munch on, they experienced an excruciating death.

Perhaps this isn’t as extreme as the Chinese practice of cooking pups alive, but dogs and cats suffer a terrible existence in Jordan.  Rejected by the local population as little more than vermin, they are also targeted by well-publicized government elimination campaigns that include inhumane Strychnine poisoning and mercenary snipers (gunmen are paid by the number of  kills).

Children regularly torture animals, dousing them in acid, setting them afire, and mutilating their tails and ears with rough knives and razors.  A rural practice to “toughen up” puppies involves hacking off their ears and then forcing the animals to eat them.  Cats are moving targets for lethal rock-throwing, and following heavy rainfall, they’re often drowned in standing water.

Working animals also suffer immensely.  They are beaten, starved, dehydrated, and tied with tight wires or ropes that, over time, grow into their necks.

The Humane Center for Animal Welfare is the sole animal shelter and hospital in Jordan,  a private humanitarian facility dedicated to raising awareness, particularly in poverty pockets, and providing mobile veterinary services for working animals across the Kingdom.  There are other rescue groups run out of private homes by animal lovers with unflagging dedication. (I’m fostering a pup from one right now – oh, who am I kidding? He’s a keeper, look at that face!)

Interested in making a difference?  Start by signing the AVAAZ petition (<-direct link there) to urge the Jordanian government to immediately stop brutal killing of their stray population. They also seek to implement an improved “Animal Protection Act”, and to enforce that law.  Share it with friends and post it on your Facebook page.

Are you local to Amman?  Stop by the Humane Center for Animal Welfare – Jordan’s ersatz petting zoo where at any time you can see monkeys, eagles, peacocks and turtles (in addition to rabbits, guinea pigs and an astounding array of cats and dogs all available for adoption).  Check out their website for volunteering opportunities.  They also seek steady donations of goods and, of course, money.

Or if you are interested in simply fostering a local dog (all ages available), drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with one of the privately run shelter groups.

Image of injured dog courtesy of Jordan’s Humane Center for Animal Welfare – NOTE: He fully recovered!

The post Act Now to Help Jordan Learn to Befriend Man’s Best Friend appeared first on Green Prophet.

Following the TV exposure of severe animal abuse in Israel at the Tnuva Adom Adom livestock slaughterhouse  a public outcry has been raised among Israel animal rights activists over the cruel tactics used on livestock brought there for slaughter. In addition to public demonstrations outside the Dairy Giant Tnuva’s headquarters in Tel Aviv  petitions are being circulated to have the slaughterhouse closed down due to cruel and unusually harsh treat of animals.

This  abuse included hitting and kicking the animals and poking them continuously with iron bars and  electric “shockers” to force them to move along quicker to the area where they would be slain. This cruel treatment of animals has resulted in the  Tnuva company facing criminal charge of abuse and cruelty to animals, as reported afterwards by  Haaretz.
Enraged Israelis protest in front of Tnuva’s Adom Adom offices

The treatment of livestock at the Adom Adom slaughterhouse, often from the hands of inexperienced employees, has been brought to the attention of Israel’s Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan who said that “this exposure of abuse is added proof that the protection of animal rights shouldn’t be left in the hands of the Agriculture Ministry, which is mainly concerned with the best interests of the food industry.”

The use of electric shocking devices appears to have set off a number of alarm bells in Erdan’s environment protection ministry and resulted in confiscation of the shocking devices by the police .

Erdan, one of the rare ministers who actually knows something about environmental issues, is concerned that the abuse practiced at the Adom Adom slaughterhouse is in violation of Israel’s Animal Welfare Law in which is stated: “A person shall not torture an animal, treat it with cruelty or mistreat it in any way.”

Animal abuse at slaughterhouses and similar facilities, especially during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) has also occurred in Palestine, where a frightened cow about to slaughtered in Gaza turned on its proposed slayer and killed him.

A member of the Jordanian royal family, Princess Alia, has spoken out in favor of more humane animal slaughter during festivals like Eid al-Adha.

In regards to the revealed animal abuse at the Adom Adom slaughterhouse, the petition submitted to Israel’s High Court of Justice by the NGO’s Anonymous and Let Animals Live informed the High Court that the abuse the animals have been subjected to “was not exceptional, but was methodical, routine and continuous.”

The petition states that  animals suffered electric shocks to all their body parts, including their heads, faces and testicles.

It’s more than enough to make consumers think twice when considering purchasing a beef roast, steak, or package of ground meat under the Adom Adom label.  Those of you are meat eaters and wherever you live, when biting into your favorite hamburger think of the suffering the poor cow who “contributed” the meat patty for it had to endure.

::Haaretz

More articles on animal slaughtering and abuse:

Israel’s Cruel Meat Industry Exposed by Watchdog TV Show

Angry Cow Murders Its Gazan Slaughterer During Muslim Eid Festival

Jordan’s Princess Alia Calls for Humane Animal Slaughter Ahead of Eid al-Adha Festival

The post Israel’s Animal Abuse Story in Tnuva Meat Plant Causes Furor appeared first on Green Prophet.

An Israel TV commercial about the Adom Adom (Red Red) meat packing company’s products seems pleasant enough.  A smiling butcher shows a well dressed matron the wonderful meat cuts being offered by this company which claims to sell “real red meat” and not meat that is loaded up with chemicals and other additives. The issue of meat additives is a concern in Israel and covered in a Green Prophet article dealing with Israeli meat being “fed with feces and pumped with toxic contaminants.” Now we go back to the commercial: At the end of it the butcher pleasantly sends the lady on her way saying “Adom Adom – Shalom Shalom” , which roughly translated means: “Thanks for buying our real red meat products”.

Real meat indeed. Although the processing of meat products at this company appears to be of fairly high standards, what happens physically to the animals brought to what is advertised as being Israel’s best meat packing company, was revealed December 6 on Channel 2 TV by the well known Kolbotek investigative program.

Kolbotek is the same program which also revealed recently the possible dangers of cooking foods with some brands of ceramic coated cooking ware. Rafi Ginat, Kolbotek’s popular host, pulled out all the stops this time when hidden cameras were installed in an Adom Adom slaughter house located in Israel’s northern Galilee region.

Although the actual processing of the meat itself was portrayed by Kolbotek to be relatively clean and sanitary, what happens to the animals who “contribute” their bodies for the epicurean enjoyment of the general public is something out of the worst nightmare or horror story. Don’t read on if you are queasy.

Scenes of cows being prodded by poles and electronic “shockers” to get them to move along to where they would be slaughtered were very disturbing to say the least. With the cameras being audio equipped, the sounds of the cursing plant employees and screaming animals where quite shocking.

What I saw was that some cattle could not stand up and were literally crawling on their knees or being dragged along by straps (one cow actually had its legs broken, and had to be dragged accordingly). Sheep, being smaller animals than cattle, were somewhat more “manageable” although their panicky attempts to escape were graphic; and many of them were literally picked up alive and thrown towards the slaughter bins by the plant workers.

Hagai Almagor, a spokesperson for Israel’s Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, made this comment when interviewed by Kolbotek: “I can’t understand why these poor animals are being abused too much when they arrive at the slaughter house. After all, they really don’t have any place to run to.”

Indeed they don’t! Several Adom Adom professional staff members were interviewed by Kolbotek, including two veterinarians who for various reasons will remain nameless in this article. Both of them claimed they know nothing about the severe mistreatment the animals have been receiving; especially by the electric shocking devices.

Adom Adom Plant Manager, Moshe Ben Shushan, flatly denied that animals brought to be slaughtered are being abused. “It’s not correct” he says.

Erez Wolf, Managing Director of Adom Adom, told Kolbotek that “these things don’t happen here at our slaughterhouse. If we find out that there are employees causing undue pain and suffering to animals, they will be released from their positions.”

It was also mentioned on the program that Adom Adom purchases live baby calves from Australia and ships them to Israel in special livestock vessels in a voyage that takes more than two weeks, even via the Suez Canal. One of the conditions set forth by Australia’s RSCPA is that the livestock will not be abused – especially by electronic shocking devices. “The Australians probably want to make sure that animals being shipped to the Holy Land are not abused. But the obvious reality shows this does happen, day by day, and hour by hour, once the animals reach their final destination,” says Rafi Ginat.

The above animal abuse issues could be compared to an earlier Green Prophet article dealing with animals being ritually slaughtered by amateur slaughterers during Muslim festivals like Eid al Atah. One incident resulted in causing one angry cow to murder its Gazan slaughterer.  

A professionally run slaughterhouse like Adom Adom should be dealing better with the animals brought to it. The findings by Kolbotek seem to indicate that in regards to the treatment of animals moments before their death, this company’s “professionalism” needs a severe looking into or more people will turn vegan.

READ this Dec 19 update article on the meat story here.

More on abuse in animal slaughtering and on meat processing issues:
Israeli Meat Fed With Feces and Pumped With Toxic Contaminants
Angry Cow Murders Its Gazan Slaughterer During Muslim Eid Festival
Holland’s Proposed Ban on Ritual Slaughtering Affects Jews and Muslims

Stock image of Cow_on_Knees via  Shutterstock

The post Israel’s Cruel Meat Industry Exposed by Watchdog TV Show appeared first on Green Prophet.

Amateur slaughterers are often injured on the job. Should slaughtering be left to the professionals?

The annual Hajj pilgrimage, on which we wrote about efforts to make it more green, has also become an event in which animals are being slaughtered inhumanely for the accompanying Ein al-Adha  or the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice holiday.  This form of ritual slaughtering  is also becoming an issue by animal rights activists. An attempt at slaughtering a cow went wrong this year as a Gazan animal took revenge by killing the man about to slaughter it. 

What happened in Gaza may be happening in other parts of the Muslim world as well; and we welcome other stories of similar occurrences. Perhaps these examples could result in more humane treatment of animals being sent to be slaughtered for both festive and daily consumption.

The large numbers of animals that are slaughtered for the four-day Eid al Adha holiday feasting and the frenzy in which many of these animals are slaughtered resulted in a tragic incident in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in which a panicking cow killed a man who was trying to slaughter it on Saturday for the Eid al Sdha feast.

The article reported by AP went on to say that a Gaza health official, Asraf al-Kidra said that around 150 people had been wounded by either knife wounds or by the animals themselves during the slaughtering process. Al-Kidra added that the main reason this was happening was that people who had purchased live animals for the feast had attempted to slaughter the animals themselves instead of letting professional ritual slaughterers do the job for them.

Although countries like Holland are speaking out against ritual slaughtering of animals, according the Jewish Kashrut or Muslim Hallal methods of religious animal slaughter, if conducted properly this method of slaughtering animals for food is said to be humane if done by people who are trained properly.

In the Gaza case, much of the animal slaughter appears to have been done by ordinary people who try to slaughter the animals themselves. On a day to day basis, the process of slaughtering animals for food, even by so-called professional slaughterhouses, has often been criticized for mistreating and even abusing animals brought there to be “processed” into meat products.

The entire meat processing industry needs more inspection and control as meat is often contaminated by animal feces and meat contaminants.

Read more meat and man:
Eid al-Adha Across the Middle East: Celebration, War, Death, and Charity
Israel Meat Contaminated with Feces and pumped with Toxic Contaminants
Syria’s Cattle Caught in the Crossfire
Hollands Proposed Ban on Ritual Slaughter Affects Jews and Muslims

Image of Id al-Adha cow slaughter from Shutterstock

The post Angry Cow Murders Its Gazan Slaughterer During Muslim Eid Festival appeared first on Green Prophet.

For one year, the animal conservation group worked with the Agricultural and Environmental Ministries to emigrate the two animals, which are badly stigmatized in the Middle East. Some critics said they should have been released back into the wild, but there aren’t sufficient resources in Lebanon to rehabilitate the animals and they almost certainly would not have survived.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dt5Po8Rclw[/youtube]

“The Minister of Environment, His Excellency Nazem El-Khoury, called a meeting of experts that would determine whether the hyenas were sent to a sanctuary or returned to the wild, according to Animals Lebanon.

For one hour, the hyenas’ future was discussed.

“These animals are being moved for the benefit of the welfare of the two hyenas and the value to conservation,” Minister El-Khoury wrote when giving final approval for the transfer at the end of the meeting.

Before the two ladies could be moved to Tonga Terre d’Accueil sanctuary in Saint Martin la Plaine, France, a host of measures had to be taken beforehand.

The hyenas received vaccinations and a check up, and then Dr. Jean-Christophe Gerard conducted the final blood tests and treated them for parasites to ensure that they were fit for travel.

In order to get them into their cages, which were specifically designed at $1,000 a piece to be extremely strong since hyenas have powerful jaws, they were first tranquilized. Then they were de-tranquilized because animals are not allowed to fly while anesthetized.

One of Animal Lebanon’s corporate sponsors, Middle East Airlines paid for their flight.

The 4,000 kilometer journey went without a hitch and the two girls are currently in the same enclosure but separated by a fence. Sara is very skittish as a result of her trauma, but in time it is hoped that she and Rita will become friendly so that the fenced wall can come down.

“These were not killers, they did not have magical powers as so many people believe,” Animals Lebanon wrote in a recent release.

“Rita and Sara were both as curious and interesting as any other animal, they had foods and treats that they preferred more than others, they each had their own special characters and behaviors, and we should see them as two examples of why we need to better protect the remaining population of hyenas in Lebanon.”

The post Heart-wrenching Video of Two Hyenas Rescued from Lebanon appeared first on Green Prophet.

We urge you to peruse the fruits of Amalia’s landmark investigation, but in the meantime, we’ve digested a fast scorecard of the cowsheds, goat farms and a buffalo farm she visited in her quest to find dairy that can be consumed with a clear conscience.

Amalia arranged her story so that the dairy industry’s worst offenders appear first.

In so doing, she is able to delineate exactly what makes this business so unnatural and so inhumane so that once you reach Neot Semadar, the kibbutz whose goats receive the best treatment of them all, you’re emotionally invested in their relative freedom.

Ronen Bar from Anonymous for Animal Rights told Amalia that “reducing the suffering of animals” takes precedence over protecting their right to live a pain-free, natural life, and she unveils to what extent each facility is willing to forego profits in order to prevent the suffering of sentient beings in their care.

We followed Amalia’s extraordinary journey from enormous commercial cow sheds to boutique goat farms and pulled out some of the main differences between each facility, as outlined by Amalia.

Kibbutz Sa’ad

Near Gaza, this cowshed is home to Harata, a cow named regret who has produced 18,208 liters of milk in her life.

This facility separates calves from their mothers immediately. They are fed colostrum the first day to build up their immunity, after which they are fed cow milk for one week and then milk powder.

Allowing the calf to drink their mother’s milk poses a hygiene risk, so the argument goes.

This kibbutz uses a freeze brand to mark each cow, and prevents the growth of horns with an ointment that would kill the animal if it reached the brain.

Each dairy cow starts producing calves when they are roughly two years old and typically give birth to four each, through artificial insemination controlled by ‘genetic improvement’ that optimizes milk production.

Cows are not put out to pasture. In fact, not a single cow in all of Israel, according to Amalie, is put out to pasture.

Rosenberk & Ashkenazi Goat Farm

Northwest of Safed, this goat farm has 2,000 milk goats that are kept in giant, overheated hangars.

Kids are separated from their mothers immediately, which is so distressing to the mothers that they cry. They go through this four or five times in their lifetime.

Horns are shorn off using a serrated knife and soldering iron, which puts the animals into ‘crisis mode’ for an hour. During this time they sit in a corner, where they reject food until they are able to recover from the trauma of this painful experience.

The billie goats, as well as the mothers that perform poorly, are usually sold to the local Druze community for goat meat.

Harduf

This Galilee kibbutz is an organic dairy farm, where each cow produces on average about 10,500 liters of milk each year.

They are not branded and they are allowed to keep their horns and this is the only cowshed that Amalia encountered that gives expecting mothers a break so that they can gather strength to give birth. Other cows are fed antibiotics at this time.

For now, babies are taken from their mothers and fed colostrum the first day, but then for the next 70 days they are fed mother’s milk instead of powdered milk. After that they receive hay and silage grown on the grounds of Harduf.

No chemicals or hormones are used at all.

Eventually this kibbutz, which is staffed by men and women undergoing some kind of rehabilitation, hopes to experiment with allowing the mother to feed their babies after giving birth. While this would have both health and psychological benefits, there is a chance that the separation of the calf from its mother after two weeks might be more traumatic.

These cows are not put out to pasture because it’s too “hot.”

Moshav Bitzaron

East of Ashdod, this buffalo farm is run by a very compassionate family.

The buffalos are harder to control than cows, and therefore have an easier time. They are neither branded nor dispossessed of their horns.

They live twice as long as cows but their birth experience is distressing. Buffalo cows will spend three days in a similar crisis mode after they give birth and their babies are taken away from them, which poses a danger because they need to stand up and express their milk so that their uterus can shrink.

Baby buffaloes will refuse artificial teats if they so much as catch a whiff of their mother’s teat, and the male calves are sold to a slaughterhouse within three days.

They are given mother’s milk for three days, following which they are fed with with powdered milk for two months.

Neot Semadar

We have espoused the greatness of this desert kibbutz on several occasions, but we didn’t realize they are also rock star goat farmers.

240 Milk goats, 60 young females and 10 billies are given plenty of open space in which to roam each morning during the milking process. Thereafter they are put to pasture for two hours.

Since it is hot in the desert, this depletes the goat’s energy and therefore its milk production, but it’s a loss the kibbutz is willing to accept just to hear mama goat bleat and have her kids come running.

Their horns are not shorn off.

Still, only one quarter of the goats that are born are able to stay at the farm. The rest are sold to the local Arabs or Bedouins for meat.

And that’s a wrap. Please read Amalia’s full story here for a deeply illuminating look at the inner workings of Israel’s dairy industry. This is a surprising tale of supply and demand, which puts the cruelty and suffering almost squarely on the consumer’s shoulders.

Image credit: Goat udder being milked, Shutterstock

The post A Scorecard: Who Milks Israel’s Animals Humanely? appeared first on Green Prophet.