'World Animal Day' - Facing the Animal within

Is is "world animal day" today. One day to "To celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom". The WAD is out there visualising what 'animals' means, namely dogs. In Sydney it is spelled out as: "...dogs, cats, ferrets, birds and mice" which are to be brought by pet owners to be given a blessing. Animals requiring their own habitat seem to be excluded. Only 'pets', degenerated lineages, richly bestowed with resources are to be 'blessed'.
The rest, not at our command, are pushed off the degraded planet. Mostly robbed of a habitat and resources, 'wild'-life is being made extinct by our actions on this planet.

Tolerated 'wild-life' in captivity, generating revenues, is frequently violated by young human beings. In the latest case, a seven-year-old boy illegally entered a N.T. zoo, " bludgeoned some of the animals to death with stones and hurled others over the two fences surrounding the crocodile enclosure...A turtle, four Western blue-tongued lizards, two bearded dragons, two thorny devil lizards and the zoo's 20-year-old goanna were among those killed....The fact a seven-year-old can wreak so much havoc in such a short time, it's unbelievable," said the zoo director. They are looking at suing the parents.

Going wild in the wild
Many formally protected native animals get violated in their remaining fragmented habitat. Just some of the recent hate crimes:

The Koala

• A group of young humans at a park in Kallangur:"It had a crushed skull, a punctured left eye, big trauma to the left side of its body, it had a broken right arm and when I asked the vet is this consistent with clubbing or bashing or whatever they said, yes," Brisbane, 0808
• Koala bashed to death, mutilated (leg removed), Clear Mountain property, south-east Queensland.0808
• An adult firing a slingshot at a protected Koala, Adelaide, 0908
• A 19-year-old rammed his ute into a tree at the Barmah State Park, north-east of Echuca, trying to dislodge a koala from a branch.Victoria 0908

Kangaroos

• "Five western grey kangaroos have been found shot and dumped at a rubbish tip in Adelaide's south."near a National Park, Adelaide, 1008
• A youth using a young kangaroo as a punching bag, knocking it unconscious, Western Australia, 0908

Birds

• Cruelty against seabirds, pelicans are being deliberately snared with nylon fishing line and hooks.: "Local children who have been throwing rocks and trying to actually catch the pelicans with hooks."These birds have a lot of hooks in them, but one of the things that have really stuck out are the number of injuries to their pouch and head from ... local children we understand, from people around the area" Eurobodalla, 0808 It is not just an unintentional 'accident' of 'recreational' fishing.
• "We've had a number of bird poisonings and possum poisonings and that horrific case where a crow had its wing sawn off at the shoulder and was left to hop around a shopping centre in Sinnamon Park - I mean you just have to wonder what's going through the minds of these people" SE Queensland 08

These are just a few examples of hate crimes committed by individuals/ groups against iconic and 'protected' creatures of Australia. There is also the systemic culling, shooting, sterilising, poisoning (baiting) etc of wild-life as a form of 'management'. It is a mystery why Australians seem to have so much hate for their iconic native animals and pamper foreign animals. But often, they too get sadistically abused, dogs get burnt, horses raced to death.
Cruelty against pets is also right up. "Animal cruelty by children is correlated with exposure to domestic violence". Working on the mental health of young human beings prevents not only cruelty against pets and Australian animals, but also is a good strategy to prevent violence between human beings.

Still, the ever expanding sprawl of industrialised human society is pushing the animal kingdom off the planet. Animals that are commercialisable or are obedient to our whimsical wills may stay for a while longer. The next round is for humankind’s relationship with the animal within themselves and others.

Images:
1. Bruegel d. Ä., Jan: Paradise 1620, via Zeno
2. Haeckel, Ernst: Plate 79: Lacertilia. Lizards via Zeno
3. Blake, William,1819, Tate Gallery,via Zeno

Links:
World Conservation Union
The Encyclopedia of Life
The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi

Updates:
- Almost one in four mammals are at risk of disappearing forever, according to the latest comprehensive assessment. IUCN 061008
- "Australia a key culprit. One in five Australian mammal species is in danger of dying out, the highest proportion of any developed country, the global survey of more than 44,000 animal and plant species found." SMH 061008

- "We've seen over 30 extinctions in Queensland since records were kept, we've got 151 endangered plants, 51 endangered animals, we've got 220 endangered regional ecosystems, so Queensland has really got to get going to stop a tidal wave of extinctions.They'll go extinct on massive scales, many times above the natural level of extinction...The current rates of extinction that are caused by people are 20 or more times the natural rate of extinction." abc 071008
- Dolphins are being lured with fish, then attacked by local youths in Whyalla in South Australia. The dolphins were tame because of human feeding. Youths dropped rocks on the marine mammals. abc 151008
- A killed platypus, an endangered lungfish and other fish were found dead in an illegal net...along Obi Obi Creek near Kenilworth. Maroochidore.The EPA is calling on the public for help. abc 171008

- "Sickening" attacks on endangered birds on South Australia's west coast:
"Two white-bellied sea eagles and a juvenile coastal raptor have been found with bullet wounds near Searcy Bay, Ceduna and Port Fowler in the past three weeks. In the case of the white-bellied sea eagle, we know that there are only about 50 breeding pairs left in South Australia so they're a very endangered species " abc 171008
- An 80 years old, blind flamingo in a zoo has been bashed by a 17 yo ,18 yo and 19 yo persons in the middle of the day. The animal is in a critical condition. Adelaide. Do we need to cage animals to protect them from human beings ? abc 301008 >The flamingo has survived, but is so traumatised that all food is refused. The Adelaide Zoo is considering higher fences to protect the animals from violent human beings. abc 021108

The Black Swan Culling Fabel

90 Black swans (Cygnus atratus) are to be shot on the edge of a protected wetland. Caught out in the middle of their breeding season, they are starving as the lakes have dried up. On the edge of their international protected refuge humans engage in “overstocking, over-grazing (and) the growth of rabbit populations, “. Forced to leave their 'dead wetland' these birds moved in on" some non-native greens. As some of ”the swans had trespassed onto a farmer's land adjacent to the Ramsar-listed wetland” they were declared a “pest” by authorities and permits were issued to shoot the protected Australian waterfowl.

East Gippsland in Victoria, Australia is where the forces of drought, severe floods and fires have for a long time stemmed the tide of irrigated dryland 'agriculture'. The “vulnerability” of human habitation, 'land management as usual ',mining and aqua-factories are on the cards. 'Pastoralists' and graziers seem to display a natural allergy against the conservation of public wetlands as a threat to their rights/territory.

The indigenous mythologies link black swans with their territory, the wetland, human practices and sustainable land-use strategies. Progressive encroachment on Aboriginal land and habitats of native wildlife followed. Accounts of 'vandalising the swans in the 'swamps', stealing eggs during their non-flying moulting season exist from 1882. Gould reported of whaling ships filled with black swans. Settlers and swans appeared already then as incompatible.

A culture of culling entrenched itself on the southern continent. Native fauna was extracted from the land and water to divert these resources to introduced and often costly run-away fauna. Struggling to extract a European-like life-style out of the driest continent on Earth, which by then was undermined by their feral hopping rabbits, land erosion and sandstorms. A scapegoat had to be sacrificed in 1932 when farmers called in the army against starving emus in WA. 20,000 emus were gunned down by machine guns. Dingoes and kangaroos are being 'culled' today not to restore a non-existing agricultural paradigm, but to conquer habitat for human beings (and their dogs) exclusively.

Today the culling go-ahead is issued to get Dingoes out of national parks and kangaroos out of the edge of towns. All space and resources have to become usable only by humans and their best friends. The flags and heraldry appear like mockery, boasting with unique Australian animals, such as the black swans, emus and kangaroos. The birds in the backyard are long gone, the backyard too.

Should there be any survivors, the shooting of waterfowl (and other creatures) is a popular 'sport', this time by civilians. The severe drought, caused by self-inflicted climate change does at the moment not permit any massacres of birds. But the freedom of exemption is liberally taken in 'nature'. Both forms of 'recreational' killing of waterfowl and fish socialise large amounts of toxic lead into the water bodies and ecosystems. Waterbirds, if not mutilated or shot, suffer from the toxic lead run-off. The human community receives their dose later as it is dependent on the health of well managed wetlands. Some Victorian lakes receive up to 138 kg of lead p.a., a shooting range in the US gets contaminated with more” than 80,000 tons of lead shot and bullets each year.”

Australian protected wetlands are too often utilised for purposes other than conservation of a biome. Dogs are allowed to roam and stress the waterfowl. Vehicles, boats and aircraft leave their pollution. (pdf) Energy intensive vehicles share the habitat of waterbirds generously, whether their owners are willing to share water or any other resource with 'wildlife' is another. Habitat destruction, “environmental mismanagement” and climate-induced drought is a challenge for Australian wetlands and their flora and fauna. "This is the beginning of the end for the lakes, but going out and slaughtering the wildlife is not the solution."

Images:
1. "Mulgo" (Black swan) by Port Jackson Painter, uploaded via Wikipedia
2. Image from Brockhaus' Kleines Konversations-Lexikon, via Zeno
3. Image from Brehm's Life of Animals. via Zeno

Rich Media:
Videos of Black Swans on IBC
Videos & info, Victoria - the place to be
Audio of Black swans, Birdguides

Links:
- Johne's disease,(Mycobacterium paratuberculosis) a serious wasting disease of introduced animals.
- Habitat Network East Gippsland
- 30 protected black swans (image!) and 35,000 ducks were shot as part of 'recreation' in Tasmania in 2006 abc.net, 30.11.07

Update 280708:
- United Nations University (2008, July 27). Rising Energy, Food Prices Major Threats To Wetlands As Farmers Eye New Areas For Crops. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 28, 2008
- Ingestion of Spent Lead Ammunition:Implications for Wildlife and Humans, 2008 ( of blinded eagles from lead, starving)