Dear All,

please find below the text and link to an ePetition to permanently ban live animal imports for Zoo or Circus captivity into the UK and the EU.

Please circulate this and let us build the critical mass to banish this obscene profiteering trade.
if you are not in the UK but have contacts here, please forward this to them and perhaps start your own ePetition, if you are in the US, ask Barak Obama to make this the year the US closed its ports of entry to live animal imports!

Many thanks in advance for your support.

Toni Massari
BSc Hon. EQRM - webmail:  toni.massari@yahoo.co.uk


I hope you won't mind that I send you copy of the email below. This is not something I do not often do, but I believe this cause is just and "the thin end of the wedge" when it comes to rejecting cruelty for profit. I believe that justice is served by cultivating respect for all living creatures and that we can roll back the culture of profit-at-all-costs, worldwide, if we make a stand, together.

Circus elephants article, from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in Kenya (see BBC's Elephant Diaries)

 https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/updates/updates.asp?ID=195

As the wording of the petition explains, the practice of capturing animals to export to Developed Nations for zoos and circuses is both cruel and environmentally disastrous.

It is unbelievably cruel: Most frequently perfectly healthy animals have to be killed to capture their infants young enough to handle and train. This means that intelligent animals, which range from parrots to tigers, bears, elephants, monkeys and apes, will have to endure often lengthy, terrifying hunts and witness the bloody massacres of their mothers and other herd/family members. Following this harrowing experience, these young babies will be caged or shackled, alone and terrified, tranquillised without the benefit of a vet, crated and transported, often for tens or even hundreds of thousands of miles, then caged again and gradually trained by a combination of methods, which may involve starving, beatings, electric cattleprods and other, inhuman practices.

It is damaging the ecoystem: The environemtal impacts of removing animals at the top of the food pyramids are long-term and wide-ranging; for example: elephants very effectively broadcast the seed of plants around their vast territories. Their dung provides these with a perfect growing medium that ensures germination, as well as supporting insects of crucial importance to the food chain. Thus, by extending the range of brush and woodland, which would otherwise be limited in their spread, elephants unwittingly help to retain soil and maintain its fertility, protecting it from erosion and providing habitats for a large number of other species. Soil takes many decades, in some regions hundreds of years to form and, once it is eroded, it is gone forever and the desert follows close behind.

Humanity begins with animals: But there are hidden benefits to human communities too, quite apart from the wood that rural communities need for fuel and building, it can be shown that respect for animals and ecosystems fosters a feeling that all life deserves respect and undermines the notion that trading in animals OR people for profit is an acceptable practice, while the reverse is also true: where animals are abused, abuse of humans follows close behind.

Please sign and circulate the online petition: If you care for the few remaining areas of wilderness, if you believe that the way to stop this trade is to cut off the income it generates through circuses and zoos, please sign it online and circulate the link to your contacts. It is self-explanatory so, if you won't need to write lengthy emails.

If you believe your child's school, or your college, University or place of employment will allow it, please circulate this there too. let us build a critical mass and call for a permanent UK ban and all over the EU.

Petition text and link, below

e-Petition address:

 http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/animalimports/

Petition text:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Permanently
ban entry into the UK of live animals for circus or zoo
captivity

We ask the Prime Minister to amend UK Law to make it illegal to
import live animals into the British Isles except, under
exceptional circumstances, for their welfare.

Many animals, like elephants, bears, tigers, lions and
chimpanzees, are sensitive, social animals with a capacity for
suffering that exceeds humans'. They have to be captured as
babies, in order that they be safely handled and trained.
Captivity is for these creatures a harrowing and prolonged
agony, ending in neglect, once their useful working lives
finish.

Permitting live import of animals sends the wrong signal to
unscrupulous groups and individuals all over the world

Only a comprehensive ban on trade can prevent it and support
education to protect endangered species.

We ask the Prime Minister to provide the necessary leadership,
introduce the legislation in the UK and propose it to the EU,
to be translated into a Union-wide Directive to Member States.

Or write to:

Jane Kennedy MP
Defra
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR