Outrage as lioness and cubs who were the pride of Longleat are put downleaving staff in tears

• Henry the lion, Louisa the lioness and four cubs were killed last month
• Longleat bosses claimed the lions were becoming violent and dangerous
• Employees wept when they heard what had become of the beloved animals

Six lions at Longleat Safari Park have been put down, triggering outrage among staff who claim there was no obvious reason for the animals to be killed.

An adult male called Henry, a lioness named Louisa and four of her cubs were all put to death last month in an operation supervised by vets.

Bosses at the safari park on the Marquess of Bath’s Wiltshire estate insist the decision was taken because of ‘health risks’ after a population increase led to violent behaviour.

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At play: Lions and cubs, left, from the pride that was culled by vets at Longleat, pictured three weeks

But former workers in the lion reserve have questioned whether the animals should have been destroyed, and revealed that some employees were in tears when they found out what had happened.

The lions are one of the biggest attractions at Longleat, which opened in 1966 as Britain’s first wildlife safari park.

Read on...
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GROTESQUE: Giraffe Killed At Denmark Zoo Because 'Marius' Is Surplus To Requirements

A bid to save a young giraffe from destruction at Copenhagen Zoo has failed, and the giraffe was put down on Sunday morning.

Thousands of people had signed an online petitions appealing for a change of heart over the two-year-old called Marius.

The zoo said it had no choice because of its duty to avoid in-breeding.

Marius was due to be killed by a bolt gun, not a lethal injection, which would contaminate the meat.

The carcass will partly be used for research and partly to feed carnivores at the zoo.

The UK's Yorkshire Wildlife Park - which has a state-of-the-art giraffe house and the capacity for an extra male - was among several zoos which put in a last-ditch offers to take Marius.

It said it was "saddened" by the killing of the animal.

'Good practice'

Stine Jensen, from Denmark's Organisation Against the Suffering of Animals, said the situation "should not have occurred".

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I can't believe it. We offered to save his life. Zoos need to change the way they do business”

Robert KrijuffDirector of Dutch wildlife park

"It just shows that the zoo is in fact not the ethical institution that it wants to portray itself as being, because here you have a waste product - that being Marius.

"Here we have a zoo which thinks that putting this giraffe down instead of thinking of alternatives is the best option," she said.

But Bengt Holst, scientific director at the Danish zoo, defended Marius's destruction, saying that giraffes had to be selected to ensure the best genes were passed down to ensure the animal's long-term survival.

He told the BBC it was a responsible practice on the part of zoos to manage their animal populations to ensure they remained healthy, with some 20-30 animals put down at Copenhagen Zoo in a typical year.

Read on...

MORE ON THE BADGER CULL

Dear Jonathan, The results are in. 87% of us think that we should work together to stop the government's plan to shoot thousands of badgers next spring. [1] The government is consulting on their plans now until Sept 20th. [2] That means we could have just six weeks to push them to cancel the badger cull plan. When thousands of us signed the 38 Degrees petition against England's forests being sold off, that helped persuade the government to cancel the plans. Now we can do the same to protect badgers with a huge petition against these plans to shoot them. Can you sign the "stop this badger cull" petition now? https://secure..38degrees.org.uk/badgers-petition There's been a big debate among 38 Degrees members about badger culls. Some of us believe killing badgers would be wrong under any circumstances. Some of us believe that if the science really proved that shooting badgers could make a real dent in the cow TB problem, it would be a tragic necessity. [3] But 87% of us agree on this: the government's current plans to shoot England's badgers simply don't stack up. The government's own scientific advisers warn that it won't solve the problem of TB in cattle, and could even make it worse. [4] Please add your name to support a scientific approach to tackling cow TB, and against the government's plan to shoot badgers: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/badgers-petition Cow TB is a terrible problem. It leads to the slaughter of thousands of cows, costs millions of pounds, and places terrible strain on farmers and their families. [5] But the government has scrapped trials of badger vaccines. [6] They fail to compensate farmers for the full impact of the disease. [7] Instead they're proposing to launch a badger-shooting plan their own experts say won't solve the problem. Together, we can persuade the government to invest in a long-term, science-led approach to cow TB. We can stand up for real solutions not unscientific political gestures. And we can make sure that thousands of wild creatures aren't needlessly slaughtered in the process. The government is consulting on the plans right now. If we don't stop them, badger shoots could begin in a matter of months. Can you take 30 seconds now to add your name to the petition? https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/badgers-petition Thanks for getting involved, Marie, Hannah, David, Cian, Johnny, Becky and the 38 Degrees team NOTES: [1] 38 Degrees blog post http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/07/28/badger-vote-results/ [2] DEFRA "key stakeholders" consultation http://www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/07/19/bovine-tb/ [3] 38 Degrees blog post and discussion - http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/07/19/badgers-trial-shoots-to-go-ahead/ and Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/peoplepowerchange [4] Government scientists say that if a cull isn't carried out "in a co-ordinated, sustained and simultaneous manner according to the minimum criteria, then this could result in a smaller benefit or even a detrimental effect." See article - http://www.meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/12950/Ministers_to_back_badger_cull.html and notes from DEFRA meeting April 4th 2011 - http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/documents/bovinetb-scientificexperts-110404.pdf Oxford academic Lord John Krebs led a government inquiry into the link between badgers and cow tuberculosis. He says of the government's plans: "I can't understand how anybody who's looked at the science would say this is a good idea." See more here: http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/07/19/badgers-trial-shoots-to-go-ahead/#update Dr Chris Cheeseman, former head of the Wildlife Disease Unit, says of the government's plan to cull badgers over six-week periods to try to reduce the chances of making the problem worse - "Where they get the six-week period from is a mystery to me - somebody's just picked a figure out of the air." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14204236 Professor John Bourne and six other members of the expert group set up by the government Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB, 1998-2007 wrote in a letter to The Times on 13 July 2011: "Having overseen a decade-long programme of independently-audited and peer-reviewed research on this topic, we caution that such culls may not deliver the anticipated reductions in cattle TB." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/letters/article3091989.ece [5] DEFRA information page on cow TB and its effects on farmers http://www.defra.gov.uk/animal-diseases/a-z/bovine-tb/ [6] Farmers Guardian article "Badger vaccination project scrapped in all but one area" http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/badger-vaccination-project-scrapped-in-all-but-one-area/32742.article [7] Farmers Weekly article "TB compensation falls short of disease cost" http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2010/10/06/123864/TB-compensation-falls-short-of-disease-cost.htm

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JAN EDWARDS: We have a wood

We have been in contact with Jan for ages, and it is with great pleasure that we welcome her aboard, not only as a guest blogger, but as a Co. Durham representative for the CFZ. With Davy Curtis already at the helm in the county, the two of them will make a dream team par excellence....

What would you do if you were suddenly responsible for a few acres of woodland? A week ago we didn’t have a wood. Today we have just over three and a half acres of prime mixed woodland, barely half a mile from home. I never would have dreamed that it was possible... but Farplace Animal Rescue now own a wood.

Currently, there is a tree preservation order on it (but we don’t want to damage the trees anyway) and the most we would ever want to build there is a bird-hide. There has recently been some controversy about the place. The previous owner wanted to build a small number of log cabins as holiday homes, without damaging the woodland, other than the felling of a few already dead trees. Locals objected (unfairly, we feel) but as a direct result of him losing planning permission, we were given the chance to buy it.

There are roe deer, badgers, occasional foxes... lots of birds including owls and hawks... woodpeckers... lizards... adders...

It's a wonderland, with hidden surprises such as lords & ladies and a fairy ring of toadstools.

We will be using it as a wildlife rehab and release area, as well as conservation of the wildlife, trees, plants... And I personally will be using it as a chilling out area when life gets tough. The dogs like it too – pictured is Casper, the 2-year-old brain-damaged Rottie, admiring his new playground.

ANOTHER BEAUROCRATIC THREAT TO COMMON SENSE

Hi Jon,

I thought you and the CFZ members would be interested in the following.

http://www.threeowls.co.uk/sosappeal.html


It appears that the local (Rochdale) council (in their total lunacy) are attempting to now classify this bird welfare sanctuary, which has been around for close on 50 years, as a zoo. If the damn fools on Rochdale council get away with this it could possibly have a knock-on effect on other wildlife sanctuaries and organisations such as Beth's rescue centre and even the CFZ itself.

Regards,
Syd Henley

RICHARD FREEMAN WRITES: What is wrong with zoos?

Time for Richard Freeman again. It almost seems silly introducing Richard to you all once again when he makes an appearance as guest blogger several times a week. However, our viewing audience/ readers (whatever you like to call yourselves) is growing so fast that it is certain that some of you missed the last time I introduced him.

The so called 'keepers' at Pretoria Zoo are currently on strike and are a sickening disgrace. No zookeeper worth their salt would allow their charges to suffer over something as paltry as money. Zookeepers have never been well paid, but this is compensated by job satisfaction. The staff at Pretoria Zoo should all be instantly sacked and replaced. Jobs in zoos are like gold dust and there are dozens of qualifed people ready to take up the job at the drop of a hat. If you are in zookeeping for the money, then you are in the wrong job.

I'd like to say that this would never happen in the UK, but I can think of one scabby, poorly run and abysmally staffed excuse for a zoo in the South West of England where I could imagine just the same thing happening.

There are too many zoos run by idiots and staffed by morons. No wonder the anti-zoo lobby is so powerful. It's time to change that.

Take Action! Save the Deer of Cayuga Heights

I have been asked to pass this on by a friend in Puerto Rico. I am making no value judgements.

http://animalrights.change.org/actions/view/shot_for_a_tulip_say_no_to_cayuga_heights_nys_deer-killing_plan

Take Action! Save the Deer of Cayuga Heights

BY STEPHANIE ERNST

PUBLISHED AUGUST 19, 2009 @ 10:19PM PT

Inhumane, unnecessary deer-killing programs [sic] are in place or under consideration all across this country. But there are a couple in particular that I'm going to write about in the coming days, including, in this post, a proposed plan in Cayuga Heights, NY.

In the last couple days, some of you have surely noticed the petition on this site asking you to speak out against a terrible deer-killing plan in the village of Cayuga Heights in Ithaca, NY--and against the silencing of public comment by the village trustees, in the face of public opposition
to the plan. The action summary explains that the reason so many deer are slated to be killed and the survivors traumatized [sic] and controlled is that "these human-habituated animals’ appetite for tulips, heirloom tomatoes, and ornamental shrubbery has, in the minds of the current mayor and trustees, created a situation so dire and unacceptable, that action of the most extreme sort is not only justified, but urgently required":

The first phase of their plan involves capturing 30-60 female deer, surgically sterilizing [sic]them, then puncturing their ears with numbered tags and encumbering their necks with radio collars. These are the "lucky" individuals. The intended fate of every other deer in Cayuga Heights,
including pregnant does and fawns, is to be shot dead at bait sites at undisclosed locations and times. This annually performed massacre will be carried out by out-of-town contractors who earn their living exterminating wildlife. . . .

RICHARD FREEMAN: Mass Dog-Murder in China

The dog is man's best friend. They are the one true, unselfish friend you can have in life. It is even reconded that modern humans would have lost out in competition against the stronger neanderthals if it were not for the domestication of the dog. But humans do not deserve dogs as friends, because we treat our friends very poorly.

After an outbreak of rabies in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, China, the government have instigated a dog cull. This is not a well organised, humane killing of dogs with rabies but an indiscriminate slaughter of all dogs. Death squads are patrolling the streets and brutally beating to death any dogs they find, including peoples' pet dogs!

To date upwards of 35,000 dogs have been murdered by this cowardly and backward atrocity.

To voice your disgust visit here http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=15&ea.campaign.id=3767&msource=DR090601001

The International Fund for Animal Welfare is instigating a rabies vaccination in the area to stop further dog murders. They need our help. To donate to the project visit here:

https://www.ifaw.org/ifaw_united_kingdom/donate_now/china_dog_cull.php#x

TRISTAN SANDERSON-DUCKETT: He's back...

Are you seeing a pattern developing here: long hair; boyish good looks? And we are not just talking about Jon. We have Max; Dave has grown his hair; and now Tristan, who writes: "Hello, I'm a fifteen-year-old animal and rock freak, that loves being outoors, observing nature! I'm home-educated so I have plenty of time to do stuff that most people wouldn't consider 'education,' even though I've learnt far more from being outdoors and thinking for myself (instead of being cooped up in a classroom, being taught instead of learning). I hope one day to be finding new beasties and conserving known ones so I thought it might be a good idea to blog for the CFZ!"

Having recently been away in my dream world - a bird rescue centre - feeding and caring for various forms of avian life, and catching quite a few forms of bird parasite life (all gone now, luckily), I havent been able to blog. I apologise to my regular reader, whoever you are (if I have one) for slacking, but during my time at this bird rescue centre I was not slacking.

How do I know this? Because from 10 pm to about 7.30 am I was out cold like a stone. This is very rare for me as I'm a teenager. We normally have nocturnal habits, creeping around dark, dank places, and waiting to pounce upon and frighten O.A.P s ... that's according to the newspapers anyway!

But despite the change of my normal routine I have to say that I had a great time while I was staying there. I had the privilege of holding a cormarant, learning how to feed a gannet, and getting covered in bird mites. Plus I now have seven pigeons, including two racers and a young wood pigeon. I'm quite grateful for a few more birds as at the moment my barn owl Boedicia is moulting, and therefore I am unable to fly her. Also, shortly before I went away, I spotted an article about a strange, three-toed, cloven-hooved footprint in the local paper, which certainly does intrigue the mind. But more on that next week.

But apart from that all has been very quiet; all I can say is I hope I've spoken too soon....

OLL LEWIS: I Told You I Was ‘Eel’

A few weeks ago the CFZ took delivery of a small shipment of live eels, which would otherwise have ended up on someone’s plate. The eels themselves had apparently been destined for halal supermarkets, despite eels being a non-halal meat (halal food laws forbid the consumption of carnivores and consumers of carrion). As well as saving the lives of these fascinating fish, our main reason for acquiring eels is so that we can observe the fish first hand. Jon and Richard have suggested that sterile eels, that live longer and grow much larger than an eel would normally grow, could be the basis for many lake monster sightings in places like Loch Ness and the Lake District. There is some good supporting evidence for this theory, or certainly that eels in captivity live longer and grow larger than their wild counterparts; Blackpool Tower Aquarium is home to two very large common eels that have lived most of their lives in captivity.

When the eels arrived they were not in the best of condition; all of them had white spot, two of the eels were dead and one had had the end of its tail bitten off quite badly. Jon and I named the remaining 6 eels with names including Eel-ly Jenkins and Ben Eel-ton; the name I gave to the injured eel was Eel-ton John. For the first few days the eels refused to eat any of the tasty morsels I dangled before their mouths and Jon and I started to get worried. Had the stress of their transport left the poor little fellows so perturbed that they had lost all interest in sustenance? Thankfully I had the brainwave of turning all their tank lights off at 6pm so it would be darker in their tanks in the evening when they were fed and this seemed to solve the problem so soon the eels were eating up earthworms with some determination.

Once we had treated the white-spot all was well… until Saturday night, anyway. The other eels had started to gang up on poor Eel-ton John and his manky tail, probably calculating that if they took out the weakest of their number this would mean more food for them. In order to put a stop to intra-specific competition like this, my first course of action was to increase the amount of food and place it in more locations. The eels, however, just ignored the extra worms and continued picking on Eel-ton John, still reasoning ‘Saturday night’s all right (for fighting)’. All the while Eel-ton John was picking up more scratches, getting stressed and his tail had no chance to fully heal. In fact, out of all the eels Eel-ton John was still the only one showing any sign of infection when the white-spot had cleared up in all the others. Jon and I decided that the only sensible course of action was to remove him from the communal eel tank so he could be put into a smaller tank on his own and would have a chance to heel without any more bullying.

While I caught Eel-ton John, cryptozologist Jon scoured the internet and his books for suggestions to aid the eel’s recovery. The eel took a while to catch, but when I finally managed to catch him he looked much worse than he had through the tank's glass. I thought to myself it’ll be a miracle if he’s 'still standing' this time tomorrow. As far as the eel’s treatment, Jon and I eventually settled upon making his water slightly brackish as this should have a detrimental effect on any fungi, but be well within acceptable limits for the eel. We added 3 teaspoons of salt for each gallon of water in his tank and put the salt into a one and a half pint measuring jug and poured half a pint of the mixture into his tank at 12-hour intervals. This seems to be working rather well and after only a day in the slightly salted water he has perked up a lot and is enjoying all the worms he’s being fed. Eel-ton John’s tail looks better already and without the bullying from the others he’ll be less stressed and better able to fight off any infections in the future.

FRISWELL'S FREAKY FEATURES: The electric leash

The other day Alan Friswell, the bloke who made the CFZ Feegee Mermaid and also the guy responsible for some of the most elegantly macabre bloggo postings, wrote me an email.

He had an idea for a new series for the bloggo. Quite simply he has an enormous collection of macabre, fortean, odd and disturbing magazine and newspaper articles, and he proposed to post them up on the bloggo.

Alan Writes: "Yes! Welcome to Friswell's Freaky Features, an ongoing spot on the CFZ blog page where you will encounter the fun, the freaky, the frightening and on occasion, the downright horrifying. Many of these items are from almost forgotten archives and no doubt should, in many cases, have stayed forgotten. But no chance of that on this site! So be prepared to be amazed by the bizarre manifestations of nature, the abberations of the natural world and the complete (on occasion) mind-bending insanity of collective humanity. Read on...."

What a smashing idea, we thought, and so with a burst of alliteration that will - I hope - make Dr Shuker proud of me, here we go....

The headline of this article from August 1960 is surely sickening enough but it's only when you read the text that you can more fully appreciate the horrifying mentality of the charming individuals who invented this 'device'. I can only say that these bastards probably missed their true vocation by being born too late, because had they been around a few years earler, they would most likely have gone down a storm in Auschwitz or Dachau....

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not sure that I agree. I was, after all, woken up at six this morning by an earnest young border collie rooting through the waste bin in our bedroom, and deciding to growl noisily at something insubstantial outside the window - probably a rook. I think electronic leashes sound a jolly good training option....

JERRY THE JACKDAW IS RELEASED

IF THIS IS TRUE..

If this is true, it is another example of the increasingly mindless beaurocracy of governments, especially in the UK or the US; governments that follow the letter of the law rather than its spirit and as such, take mindless, idiotic and often cruel decisions.

If this is not true, it is equally as interesting, because it is indicative of the increasing loss of faith in organised governments across the western world.

'An orphaned deer in Ohio was rescued by a compassionate woman about three weeks ago, who took it to her home in Kentucky. The fawn was crying continuously, so the woman started to bottle-feed it. The local community decided to find a permanent home for the fawn and started e-mailing friends to find a suitable permanent home for it. Finally a rescue and rehabilitation farm for wild animals in Kentucky was identified and the fawn was sent to the farm.

This was where this charming story turned into an example of "no good deed goes unpunished." The woman who rescued the deer was informed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife that the faun had to be returned to the wild (presumably so that it could die a natural death by starvation).

After the division of Wildlife was not able to intimidate the woman into doing this, they then started threatening her with 60 days jail time and a fine unless the fawn was handed over to them so that they can euthanize it and do post-mortem tests for diseases on it. They contend that she has broken the law by

(1) removing the fawn from it's natural habitat instead of leaving nature to run its course and
(2) transporting the deer over state borders.

I ask members to please petition the Ohio State governor to stop this persecution of a good samaritan, and to rather use it's financial resources to test the baby deer while it is alive, and should it come back disease free, to release it either to the farm where it is currently happy, or release it, after it has been weaned, into a sanctuary.Your support is needed urgently!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-Bambi-now

CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

It was Alan Friswell who told us about the Center for Biological Diversity (pedants please note: the organisation is based in the US so I use their spelling of Center/Centre, not ours, before someone starts accusing me of double standards), and he sent me a copy of their latest newsletter. I was very impressed and said so; so I checked out their website, which reads:

'At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.'

Well, how the hell can you argue with that? I can't. Starting with the current issue we shall be linking to their newsletters each time one appears. The articles on monk seals and wolverines are particularly well worth checking out

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/publications/earthonline/endangered-earth-online-no465.html

JAN EDWARDS: What's this baby?

These are all pictures of the same bird. It’s a fledgling, as you can see from the beak. It’s kind-of-brown. I know what it is, but do you?

Jan Edwards,
Head of Animal Care
Farplace Animal Rescue
- the no-kill animal sanctuary
Farplace, Sidehead, Westgate, County Durham, DL13 1LE
www.farplace.org.uk

THE RIDDLE OF THE LAKE GUINAS TILAPIA

This is one of the most obscure - and rarest - fish in the world. It is found only in two small lakes in Namibia, and no-one knows exactly how they got there because there are are no other bodies of water for miles.

But arrive they did, and the little fish have adapted well to the rigours of the harsh desert environment.

However, changing environmental conditions and farming practises mean that both lakes are now rapidly losing water, with dire implications for the tilapia which are now considered to be `critically endangered`. These are from a captive colony at Farnham Birdworld in Surrey...

REPORT: Stranded dolphins in Australia

JAN EDWARDS REVEALS ALL

I am really enjoying these animal rescue conundrums (I am sure that the plural should actually be conundra, but I am afraid that to use this word would make me seem even more pretentious than I already am) from Jan Edwards, and am going to have to put my thinking cap on to think of a snappy title for them.

However, last week Jan asked us what THIS was. Today she writes:

The answer to last week’s puzzle – it’s a house sparrow fledgling. Now doing exceptionally well, feeding great and trying to fly.

Jan Edwards, Head of Animal Care
Farplace Animal Rescue - the no-kill animal sanctuary
Farplace, Sidehead, Westgate, County Durham, DL13 1LE
www.farplace.org.uk

JAN EDWARDS: Another conundrum

I an really enjoying these animal rescue conundrums from Jan Edwards, and am going to have to put my thinking cap on to think of a snappy title for them. In the meantime here is the latest one. Jan Writes:

"This baby bird came in this evening having been found in the loft of a lady with bird-phobia. It is a fledgling, and is not very well, having been without food since this morning, handled by the man-of-the-house, and rattled about in a big box for a hour while they brought it to me.
It is mostly brown with a white wing bar. It is very small. Does anyone know what it is?"

BETH IN THE NEWS