Anna's Sharebook 

The Veganmania Season in Austria and Germany is beginning again. In some cities only one day, in others three day long festivals promoting human- and animalrights and environmentalism.

It is becoming more colourful and better-attended every year. Also during the years more and more cities joined in with the celebration because the number of caring humans is rising every day - so does the number of vegan cakes served at the festival. But the ethical evolution of humans isn't complete yet. Ethics is still sometimes devided between human beings and "the others".

But during the festival many people learn to open their minds and hearts also to animals, wildlife and environmental concerns.
The food served is always vegan, biological and fairtrade/regional and of course delicious. This way people get to know the huge variety of vegan food. By adopting it in their daily lifes they also get to know the health benefits. 

This year at the Fair Planet (Veganmania in the Upper Austrian city Linz) the author and cook Katja Kaminski was invited to cook a three-course meal which she shared with the winners of the creative contest offered there.

But also everybody else was able to enjoy hot vegan meals cooked by committed activists and inform themselves about how they can affect the welfare and life of other humans, animals and the environment in their daily lives.

Links:
http://katja-kaminski.blogspot.co.at/
http://www.fairplanet.at/
http://www.veggies-linz.at/
http://www.meinbezirk.at/linz/leute/das-war-fair-planet-2013-d574792.html

(sign says: "When is Animal Welfare in the constitution?")

Animal Rights Activists of VgT  (Verein gegen Tierfabriken – Association against factory farming) and Veggies-Linz met on 5th April 2013 in front of the OEVP office (Austrian conservative party) to urge the long overdue realization of an important concern – of over 70% percent of Austrians.

Also in Linz, the provincial capital of upper Austria, people are asking when the OEVP finally wants to protect the life and well-being of animals as our fellow beings. Because the OEVP is now since almost 17 years the only Austrian party who does not participate in the realization of raising animal welfare into our constitution, active animal friends wanted to point out that it all depends on the OEVP now.

Activists in the character of the OEVP put activists in the character of the animals in chains and symbolically oppressed them. With banners and signs they additionally clarified the concern that is not only important to over 60 animal welfare organisations but also ¾ of the Austrians – a very clear majority.

( sign says: "OEVP stands for animal cruelty.")

To sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/558/939/213/austria-animal-welfare-into-the-constitution/ or: www.tierschutz-in-die-verfassung.at

History: In 2004 the OEVP too agreed in the nem con parliamentary decision to do so. Before this they disregarded the Austrian wide petition for animal welfare into the constitution which 146.000 people had signed. Since then they are using excuse after excuse. Every other party is waiting to realize the decision.

Mercifulness, compassion and moral are the catchphrases of our society and appearantly the unique qualities of mankind – for all those people who haven’t deleted those words from their conscience.
Easter is the current occasion for compassion with all beings, but sadly the original meaning of the birth of compassion and love for all our fellow beings, humans and other animals, is being alienated more and more.
The animal rights actions during easter in Austria also considered the religious aspect of animal welfare.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Mat. 25, 40)

Instead of love there are coloured eggs and the easter roast. They don’t speak our languages, so some take advantage of it, but some dare to speak for them.

On 30^th of March animal rights activists demonstrated very graphically how livestock bear their cross to the slaughterhouse and are killed there for our greed. Meat consumption, especially the current extent of it in the civilized part of the world, is nowadays nothing more than greed and old habbits.

Once mankind needed meat to survive in cold winters when we lived in caves – or in the religious view:  when the earth was flooded, except for the animals on Noah’s Ark.
We have evolved in many ways since then, but obviously many did not ethically.

“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.’” (Gen. 1, 29)

On Easter Sunday 3 activists informed mass visitors in front of a catholic church about the cruel life conditions for laying hens in Austria.
We enjoy the colourful eggs and the easter egg hunt but the life of the hens who produced them for us is ignored. Barn eggs are seen as alternative to cage eggs in Austria. Battery cages are forbidden in Austria, which of course is a big improvement. Sadly there are still so called widened cages (which are slightly bigger) for less hens than in battery cages and there are still barn hens. Living in a barn sounds like a nice life, but in one barn in Austria farmers are allowed to keep 6000 hens. This causes not only too little space in most cases but also injuries and sickness because of the poor hygiene. Only few farmers can afford to keep their hens in low numbers and outside. If there was such a high consumption of eggs the whole year as there is during easter, there would be no such small farms anymore at all.
All farmers get their new hens from hatcheries where they are bred by machines. When they hatch, they are selected on their first day – males from females. When consumption was far less than today the males were used for meat production. The laying breed males don’t produce a lot meat, that’s why today there is another breed that produces more meat in less time, which makes the males from the laying breed useless. They are gassed the first day of their lives. The chicks who hatch too late, no matter if male or female, are being shredded with the egg shells.

The number of suffering hens can only be reduced and one day vanquished after a radical reduction or avoidance of eggs and egg products. Especially the products which contain eggs that aren’t classified as free-range usually come from caged hens.

 “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals.” (Ecclesiastes 3, 18-19)

I have just now finished to translate from English to German of "The story of Humphrey the Hereford" by Stephen Marcus Finn.

It's basically about a unique friendship between a Crow and a Calve, both lived on a milkfarm for a long time, ruled by an evil man, called Dev, or uncle Dev.
Caw, the crow was captured by him as a fledgling, had his wings cut and was chained up. Humphrey, the Hereford was born like many other calves on the milkfarm. But the children, who also lived there adopted him and made him their pet, despite of the harsh objections of Dev.
Over the years Caw, Humphrey and the children Nick and Lindi developed a deep friendship. Caw was even able to learn their language and talk to them.

His amazing speech talent enables him to tell the story of Humphrey the Hereford, his life and his fate. Caw is the Einstein of birds, as he calls himself, brilliant, cunning, clever and proud. He tells the story with much humour and has a talent for repeating things often or changing the topic.

It's a very emotional story, both positive and negative. There is a strong message that has to lead to a consequent change of people's lifestyle.

I wish that many children and adults read this book and understand.

After a short break the campaign to finally get animal welfare into the Austrian constitution will continue, starting on 6th March with peaceful confrontation with the only political party, the conservatives (ÖVP), that is still blocking every attempt for animal welfare since now almost 17 years!

After a long waiting time the subcommittee for the legal uplift of animal welfare into the Austrian constitution finally found together. But the conservatives always ignored the appointments of the sessions and were using every opportunity to delay the plans.
But the huge number of demonstrations and protests last spring and summer did show their effects. The conservative politicians, especially Austrians Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelleger, received thousands of protest e-mails against their delay-and-detain politics about animal welfare. Letters and comments about it were published in a variety of newspapers and concerned people even confronted them at open performances so that the responsible politicians had to make a statement trying to justify the delaying.

Still there was no success. We became quiet for a while to recover from the stress of the intense campaign, but again activists are joining together to raise their voice for animals.

We have to reach the goal for animals before the votes September. After the votes the conservatives won’t bother about the pressure from the public anymore.

The campaign officially starts on 6^th March, when activists are going to peacefully confront the conservative party in person at their head office in Vienna.

You can also sign the petition online to support the campaign. Help us achieve this animal welfare reform in Austria!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/558/939/213/austria-animal-welfare-into-the-constitution/

Time is running out! ACT FAST − the deadline is February 28th and we urgently need your signature on two petitions to help Captain Watson and the whales!

The United States government has created a quick and easy way for the people's voice to be heard − and you don't even have to be a US citizen or resident to voice your opinion! Official petitions can be created on White House's website, and once a petition receives 100,000 signatures within 30 days, it elicits an official response from the President. This is urgent! We need the President of the United States to seriously consider the following:

1. Take strong action to stop the Japanese from killing whales in the Southern Ocean Antarctic Whale Sanctuary: http://wh.gov/Vnbu
2. Provide safe haven to Captain Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd: http://wh.gov/VnRf

It only takes two minutes. Please sign these petitions. You can be part of an historic effort to provide safe haven to one of the greatest environmentalists of our era AND enact real change via the United States government to see whaling in the Southern Ocean Antarctic Whale Sanctuary come to an end!

Anyone over age 13 can sign the petitions and you do not have to be a US citizen. However, you must create an account on the White House's website, but only name and email are required fields. Please sign and share today! Time is running out!

The Austrian Poultry Quality Union wants to enforce less space for laying hens, broiler chicken and turkeys under pretense of using antibiotics more efficiently. They call their aim “ poultry health program”  - a very nice synonym of greed for profit.

If they pull through their plan this means a large step back in the Austrian animal welfare after all the accomplishments in the last few years. Fur farms are already banned and so are battery cages for laying hens. Sadly also barn eggs are produced almost equally cruel. Even if these hens are no longer it is still allowed to keep up to 6000 hens in one barn, which is completely overpowering for an animal who can only cope with about 50 individuals in a group. But still the PQU wants to increase the number of hens per square meter.

„Poultry health“  is a very misleading term. The little space and unhygienic conditions of the poultry farms are the reason for the necessity of antibiotics in the first place. If health was their priority, they’d plead for stricter controls in the welfare of the animals.

Healthy animals who aren’t experiencing stress from the horrible keeping conditions all the time require less or no antibiotics.

A complete ban of animal farms isn’t possible at once, but small reforms might also reach the goal. Legally animals are only things, so hopefully the health minister of Austria knows that we therefore politically need morally appropriate decisions.

For all who also want to encourage the health ministry not to approve of the PQU’s request may contact: alois.stoeger@bmg.gv.at

And for firm protests against the request contact the office of the PQU (German QGV): office@qgv.at

 ...but we don't want to say it that directly.

In the kingdom of animal exploitation another shocking scandal strikes. In Europe frozen food that was declared as beef turned out to partly contain horse meat.

Nowadays it sometimes proofs to be difficult or impossible to reveal the origin of some product. The long line of vendors of the meat products makes it hard to find out the origin of the meat, so everybody and every country accuses everybody else of fraud. It’s children’s play.

Consumers too feel betrayed.

When it comes to my country, Austria, the health minister claims that it’s not possible in Austria for mistakes like this to happen because products are analyzed  a couple of times a year. But similar scandals and serious health risks originated from meat products in the past prove that such things happen in Austria as well. But just like in any other civilized country the Austrian government and ministries are protecting the meat industry.

Consumers are lied to everywhere most of the time.

It often might say on the wrapping that certain foods are produced locally. But as for Austria considering the large number of meat products it simply is impossible and unrealistic that all the meat comes from only one country, from the animal to the wrapped Schnitzel in the supermarket. Like the spokesperson of the health ministry stated in an interview, people have to use their common sense. Also the cheap price often reveals that there can’t be much quality or animal welfare involved. But for consumers it is impossible to figure out the true origin of meat in a store.

The spokesperson was asked if this means that the consumers are constantly betrayed, but could only answer that she does not want to say it that directly.

Using common sense, everybody will know what she means. But these lies are legally covered. Only the very end of the products creation of value has to be proclaimed on the products wrapping. So sometimes it’s possible that only the wrapping is produced locally.

Betrayal and fraud is becoming normality and the human being is an egoist. Because of the fanatical meat consumption scandals are a sure thing to happen, this fact has proven several times. Sadly many humans are completely inconsiderate and ignorant of the fact and the real scandal that behind these products were animals, traded as food for the greedy, and behind the trading are humans who are starving in food export countries.

2013 Linz (Austria) is celebrating Vegan Valentines day for the first time. Animal friends will join together in the inner city with suited music, costumes, face paint, lots of creativity and love and of course with vegan cookies and valentine cards for passers by.

The three main topics will be diet, fur in the 21^st century and the catching of song birds in Upper Austria.

Not only will this peaceful demonstration consider animal rights but also inform the public about the human rights perspective of a vegan lifestyle. Food for all the billions of livestock cannot be raised locally, although already 3/4 % of all the crops growing in Austria are destined to be fed to farm animals who end up on peoples plates and most of their body as slaughterhouse waste. But ¾ of the agriculture in Austria isn’t enough to feed all the animals people like to eat. Food has to be imported from regions of cleared rainforests that had to make space to huge monocultures – killing thousands of rainforest residents and destroying the ecosystem. The rest of the livestock’s food is being exported from hunger regions where humans live close to growing plants and crops but never see any of it, because the exports are benefited by corrupt governments, crapping on basic human rights for profits, as usual.

Most people don’t consider that the worlds livestock has to feed on something. Sadly it often happens to be the food of the poor, so the livestock of the rich can be exploited. This isn’t what a moral society should be based on.

Activists will speak out for basic human rights on Valentines day and explain the connection of meat consumption and famine to the people who might not have considered this perspective before.

Fur fashion is a topic with views that changed a lot most of the time over several decades. First the clothing of the mighty and rich, then introduced to the people until the facts about the animal suffering behind it were revealed resulting in aggressive conflicts, then frowned upon in most of the human society, but then soon forgotten. Sadly fur fashion has a comeback which can be observed in Austria very well. Fur trimmings on jackets and hoods are a very common sight in the streets.
Many people still are aware of the suffering but simply can’t distinguish between real fur and faux – often they grab a real fur jacket in a store accidentally and are shocked to find out later.

We will gather on Feb 14^th to inform the public about how fur is sneaking back in secretly and inconspicuous, and to teach how to distinguish products of suffering from synthetically made fur.

The catching song birds with small traps that often snap their wings and legs is only allowed and even under the Unesco culture heritage in Upper Austria. This practice is only lived by mostly old men who want to defend their right to catch helpless birds and force them to a song bird exhibition to win silly medals for the most beautiful bird. The so called “nature lovers” exploit beings for childish entertainment. Birds are often harmed and have to be killed. After about 2 months the bird catchers have to free the song birds again, but often these conditions aren’t kept. Also they are allowed to keep one of them as a decoy bird to lure other birds.
This cruelty in the mountains and pine forests of Upper Austria happens in the name of culture and tradition and therefore is accepted of the conservative Upper Austrians, as most of the things that are tradition.

To ban song bird catching from the list of national culture heritage and to begin the modern age, there will be a petition to encourage empathically developed traditions instead of putting helpless animals in stress and pain.

The petition will be online on care2 very soon too.

2013 Linz (Austria) is celebrating Vegan Valentines day for the first time. Animal friends will join together in the inner city with suited music, costumes, face paint, lots of creativity and love and of course with vegan cookies and valentine cards for passers by.

The three main topics will be diet, fur in the 21^st century and the catching of song birds in Upper Austria.

Not only will this peaceful demonstration consider animal rights but also inform the public about the human rights perspective of a vegan lifestyle. Food for all the billions of livestock cannot be raised locally, although already 3/4 % of all the crops growing in Austria are destined to be fed to farm animals who end up on peoples plates and most of their body as slaughterhouse waste. But ¾ of the agriculture in Austria isn’t enough to feed all the animals people like to eat. Food has to be imported from regions of cleared rainforests that had to make space to huge monocultures – killing thousands of rainforest residents and destroying the ecosystem. The rest of the livestock’s food is being exported from hunger regions where humans live close to growing plants and crops but never see any of it, because the exports are benefited by corrupt governments, crapping on basic human rights for profits, as usual.

Most people don’t consider that the worlds livestock has to feed on something. Sadly it often happens to be the food of the poor, so the livestock of the rich can be exploited. This isn’t what a moral society should be based on.

Activists will speak out for basic human rights on Valentines day and explain the connection of meat consumption and famine to the people who might not have considered this perspective before.

Fur fashion is a topic with views that changed a lot most of the time over several decades. First the clothing of the mighty and rich, then introduced to the people until the facts about the animal suffering behind it were revealed resulting in aggressive conflicts, then frowned upon in most of the human society, but then soon forgotten. Sadly fur fashion has a comeback which can be observed in Austria very well. Fur trimmings on jackets and hoods are a very common sight in the streets.
Many people still are aware of the suffering but simply can’t distinguish between real fur and faux – often they grab a real fur jacket in a store accidentally and are shocked to find out later.

We will gather on Feb 14^th to inform the public about how fur is sneaking back in secretly and inconspicuous, and to teach how to distinguish products of suffering from synthetically made fur.

The catching song birds with small traps that often snap their wings and legs is only allowed and even under the Unesco culture heritage in Upper Austria. This practice is only lived by mostly old men who want to defend their right to catch helpless birds and force them to a song bird exhibition to win silly medals for the most beautiful bird. The so called “nature lovers” exploit beings for childish entertainment. Birds are often harmed and have to be killed. After about 2 months the bird catchers have to free the song birds again, but often these conditions aren’t kept. Also they are allowed to keep one of them as a decoy bird to lure other birds.
This cruelty in the mountains and pine forests of Upper Austria happens in the name of culture and tradition and therefore is accepted of the conservative Upper Austrians, as most of the things that are tradition.

To ban song bird catching from the list of national culture heritage and to begin the modern age, there will be a petition to encourage empathically developed traditions instead of putting helpless animals in stress and pain.

The petition will be online on care2 very soon too.