Douglas Chadwick: The Wolverine Way

The Wolverine Way reveals the fascinating natural history of the wolverine, and the habitat threats that face them, engagingly told by Douglas Chadwick, volunteer with the Glacier Wolverine Project.
Glutton, demon of destruction, symbol of slaughter, mightiest of wilderness villains… The wolverine comes marked with a reputation based on myth and fancy. Yet this enigmatic animal is more complex than the legends that surround it. With a shrinking wilderness and global warming, the future of the wolverine is uncertain. The Wolverine Way reveals the natural history of this species and the forces that threaten its future, engagingly told by Douglas Chadwick, who volunteered with the Glacier Wolverine Project. This five-year study in Glacier National Park – which involved dealing with blizzards, grizzlies, sheer mountain walls, and other daily challenges to survival – uncovered key missing information about the wolverine’s habitat, social structure and reproduction habits. Wolverines, according to Chadwick, are the land equivalent of polar bears in regard to the impacts of global warming. The plight of wolverines adds to the call for wildlife corridors that connect existing habitat that is proposed by the Freedom to Roam coalition.

The Wolverine Way- by Douglas Chadwick

Called "skunk bear" by the Blackfeet Indians, the wolverine is the largest terrestrial member of the weasel family. It has a broad head, small eyes and short rounded ears. The wolverines have glossy dark brown fur, a light face mask and a stripe running down both sides of its body. It is powerfully built and has short legs with wide feet for traveling across the snow.
Fast Facts

Male wolverines are typically 30-40% larger than females.
Height: 16 inches (.41m) (males); 14 inches (.36m) at shoulders (females)
Length: 31-44 inches (.8 - 1.1m) (including its bushy tail)
Weight: 25-55 lbs (11-18 kg) (males), 15-30 lbs (7-14 kg) (females). Exceptionally large males can weigh over 70 lbs (31 kg)
Lifespan: 10-12 years.
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Diet
Reproduction
Mating Season May through August
Gestation Egg implantation is delayed, following which is a 30-40-day gestation period
Litter Size 2-3 kits
The females dig dens eight feet or deeper into the snow in the middle of winter, often in remote alpine cirques at or above treeline.
Global Warming and Other Threats

Wolverine habitat is being threatened by global warming. As climate change causes rising temperatures, more of the wolverine’s mountain top habitat is being lost, forcing them to higher elevations. This will shrink their ranges to only the highest mountaintops. The impacts of global warming are also seen in the female wolverine’s denning. Wolverines need areas that maintain deep snow from February to early May for their dens so they can provide insulation for their kits. With less snow and smaller habitat, food and denning areas are becoming scare.
Wolverines still survive in the western U.S. but are at risk due to low breeding numbers. They face threats from habitat loss and habitat fragmentation and more and more areas of wolverine denning habitat are disturbed by snowmobiles and helicopter skiing. Currently Montana and Alaska still allow wolverines to be trapped.
Reasons For Hope

Because wolverines are solitary creatures and require such large tracts of land to live, very little is know about them and what they need to survive. With more research, we can better understand them, their needs, and how better to protect them.

In June of 2009 remote cameras photographed a wolverine on the slopes of Mount Adams in Washington State and another was seen in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain National Park.

In August of 2009 a wolverine was spotted on the slopes of the Pioneer Mountains in Idaho.


Wolverines are known for scavenging dead animals like caribou or moose but are also very capable of killing their own meal, including ground squirrels and snowshoe hares.
Population

Fewer than 500 wolverines remain in the lower 48 states, according to the latest estimate by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Range

Wolverines prefer scattered trees at high elevations. Historically they occurred from Maine to Washington down to the Rocky Mountains and Sierra/Cascades. In the lower 48 states, wolverines now occur only in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Washington and may still occur in the Great Lakes region. Wolverines were believed to be extirpated from California, but a remote camera caught one on film in February 2008!
Behavior

Wolverines have been documented traveling great distances, often going right over mountains instead of taking the easy way around. One male wolverine near Yellowstone traveled more than 500 miles in 42 days.
Reproduction
Mating Season May through August
Gestation Egg implantation is delayed, following which is a 30-40-day gestation period
Litter Size 2-3 kits
The females dig dens eight feet or deeper into the snow in the middle of winter, often in remote alpine cirques at or above treeline.

Did You Know?

Wolverine fur is thick, oily, and hydrophobic, which means it's resistant to frost.

To blend in with their snowy environment, wolverine kits are white when they are born.

Global Warming and Other Threats

Wolverine habitat is being threatened by global warming. As climate change causes rising temperatures, more of the wolverine’s mountain top habitat is being lost, forcing them to higher elevations. This will shrink their ranges to only the highest mountaintops. The impacts of global warming are also seen in the female wolverine’s denning. Wolverines need areas that maintain deep snow from February to early May for their dens so they can provide insulation for their kits. With less snow and smaller habitat, food and denning areas are becoming scare.
Wolverines still survive in the western U.S. but are at risk due to low breeding numbers.
They face threats from habitat loss and habitat fragmentation and more and more areas of wolverine denning habitat are disturbed by snowmobiles and helicopter skiing. Currently Montana and Alaska still allow wolverines to be trapped.
Because wolverines are solitary creatures and require such large tracts of land to live, very little is know about them and what they need to survive. With more research, we can better understand them, their needs, and how better to protect them.

In June of 2009 remote cameras photographed a wolverine on the slopes of Mount Adams in Washington State and another was seen in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain National Park.

In August of 2009 a wolverine was spotted on the slopes of the Pioneer Mountains in Idaho.
Legal Status/Protection
# On the IUCN Red List, the wolverine is currently listed as near threatened.
# In March 2008, the Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to protect wolverines under the Endangered Species Act. FWS said that the United States does not need to protect wolverines in the lower-48 states, because wolverines are not endangered in Canada. Defenders of Wildlife is now challenging this decision, because we believe that America should protect its own wildlife, not rely on other countries to save them. We are optimistic that we will succeed, and soon gain wolverines the protections they need and deserve.
# The wolverine is legally trapped in Montana and Alaska.

Defenders Magazine Spring 2010 Wolverines in a Warming World

These tough predators will battle grizzlies, but they're no match for climate change

by Douglas H. Chadwick
The mid-January snowstorm cleared off overnight. By morning, the temperature had plunged to minus 25 F, and the mountain valley around me was muttering about the cold. Sap deep inside the pine and fir trees had started to freeze hard, making the woodlands creak and pop. The lakes banged and whoomped as their ice cover expanded. Even the air felt brittle, scraping the inside of my throat as I skied hard toward the valley's upper end.
I was tracking the male wolverine we called M1. His big paw prints were fresh. He must have come through at dawn. But where was he bound? There was nothing before him but a sheer headwall whose rim marked the Continental Divide, where the snows were far deeper and the temperatures lower yet.

I stopped skiing after a while. My goal hadn't been to catch up; I'd simply wanted to reach a point high enough to let me monitor M1's radio signal a while longer. He was one of a number of wolverines carrying transmitters as part of a six-year-long study in Glacier National Park, Montana, directed by Jeff Copeland and Rick Yates of the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. I was part of a band of volunteers who helped capture and follow the animals, learning the hard way that no carnivore in North America keeps on the move as constantly as a wolverine does. Or as fearlessly.
When the male reached the headwall, he started up its towering stone face via a cleft known as Iceberg Notch. It would have taken me half a day to reach the top of the nearly vertical, 1,500-foot chute using climbing rope and pitons. But M1 didn't pause. With his two-inch long claws digging into the wind-packed snow like crampons, he scaled the wall in about 20 minutes. Then he crossed through the notch in a plume of gust-driven flakes and dropped onto the Pacific side of North America. The ridgeline blocked his radio signal. And just like that, the wild mountaineer was gone, off to patrol the rest of a territory that encompassed almost 200 square miles along the continent's crown.

The wolverine, Gulo gulo, arose during the latter part of the Pleistocene epoch, when glaciers still claimed much of the Northern Hemisphere. Though this hunter-scavenger ranks as the biggest terrestrial member of the mustelid, or weasel, family, it is only about three feet long (four counting its bushy tail) and weighs just 25 to 40 pounds on average. But what the gulo lacks in stature, it makes up for in strength and intensity. In addition to taking down prey as large as adult caribou, solitary wolverines have been seen driving grizzly bears from food. That's world-class attitude.
Stay Informed

Watch Jeff Corwin's "Feeling the Heat" video about wolverines
Given the wolverine's Ice Age origins, it's not too surprising that it can survive some of the most extreme conditions in modern-day winters. But what this elusive and little-studied carnivore may not be able to take is more heat. Wolverines depend on cool year-round temperatures and deep, persistent snows. As habitats with those qualities shrink in an era of rapid global warming, so do this species' chances of survival, making it something like a land-based counterpart of the better-known polar bear.

Perhaps the most critical period for wolverines begins in February, when pregnant females go into dens dug from the snowpack. They give birth at the end of that month or the start of March. Wolverines don't hibernate. Nor does a mother keep to the den while living off energy reserves. She regularly heads out hunting, often covering dozens of miles. At some point, she may move the young, called kits, from the birth den to a second den and sometimes a third—particularly if there has been a disturbance in the area. The nursing young will remain hidden away for a full 10 weeks, well into May.

Fewer than two dozen wolverine dens have ever been located in the Lower 48. About half of those were discovered during the Glacier Wolverine Project, which Defenders of Wildlife helped fund. Many of the rest were found during an earlier study by Copeland in Idaho and another long-running study, headed by Bob Inman, in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Nearly all the dens were located at high altitudes and eight to 10 feet down in the snowpack. Baby wolverines, which weigh only a few ounces at birth, need every foot of snow overhead for insulation—and for protection against passing predators.
Defenders at Work

See how Defenders is helping to save wolverines.

Deep snow and prolonged winter conditions benefit wolverines in other ways, too. These animals' feet are enormous relative to their body size. Like bears—and humans—gulos land on their heels as well as the front part of their feet when walking or running. This full-sole contact spreads the wolverines' weight like snowshoes, giving the animals a major advantage in mobility over competitors and prey.

A long, harsh winter drains the energy reserves of hoofed animals, leaving some dead, available for scavenging, and others weaker, more easily brought down for dinner. In mountain terrain like Glacier, heavy snowfalls also mean more avalanches. These claim their own share of the grazing herds. "Wolverines also cache a lot of food in snowbanks and in boulderfields that often have snowmelt running underneath," Inman says. "I think some of these supplies not only keep for months but might even stay available from year to year."

Wolverines have a somewhat higher basal metabolic rate than other animals their size, which means their internal fire burns a little hotter. To help hold in heat, they wear a long, luxuriously thick coat. Trappers prize this fur because the texture of wolverine hair also keeps it from absorbing moisture. Used for the trim on parka hoods, it readily sheds frost that would otherwise build up from steaming breath.
How You Can Help

Help save wolverines at our Wildlife Adoption Center.
Take action for wildlife at our Wildlife Action Center.

The list of adaptations helping wolverines contend with winter is impressive. But until scientists started to focus on climate change, no one gave much thought to how animals with a warm fur coat, a stoked-up metabolism and food cached in nature's refrigerators handle bathing-suit weather. The answer is: by avoiding it.

Jeff Copeland and other wolverine scientists used satellite imagery to create a map showing where snow lasts through the first half of May in the Northern Hemisphere. Then they mapped out the general distribution of Gulo gulo. Predictably, the two patterns were nearly identical. Next, Copeland and his colleagues took a closer look at the species' exact whereabouts in western North America. "When we charted temperatures in the southern portion of wolverine range, we discovered that the animals rarely occurred in places where the average maximum daily temperature in August exceeds 70 degrees F," he says. "In other words, hot weather may have as much to say about where wolverines live as winter snow does."

Gulo gulo is fairly widespread in the Arctic, the subarctic taiga and the boreal forest, Copeland explains. Farther south, the animals have to go up in elevation to find the accumulations of snow they require for denning, just as they must to reach more tolerable summer temperatures. This is why they are restricted mainly to western mountain regions in the lower 48 states.

During frontier times, wolverines were at home in the snowcapped ranges of the Pacific states all the way to the Sierras of southern California and down the Rockies into northern New Mexico. But unchecked trapping and poisoning wiped out the species south of Canada early in the 20th century. With stricter limits on the use of poisons, wolverines eventually returned along the Canadian Rockies to the Glacier Park area and began recolonizing neighboring mountainscapes. Today, they are found mainly in remote uplands of Montana, Idaho and northern Wyoming, plus there is a small resident population in Washington's North Cascades.

Altogether, the wolverine enclaves in the contiguous states may hold 450 animals, but more likely 250 to 300. Either way, the total is much smaller than it was for grizzlies, wolves or bald eagles when those species were declared threatened or endangered. Defenders and others have submitted petitions to add wolverines to the federal list over the years, but between bureaucratic inertia, political interference, scarce data and lack of popular support, Gulo gulo still has no official protection. In fact, the animal is currently being legally trapped in Montana, which likely holds 100 to 150 at most.

Wolverines naturally exist at extremely low densities. For example, 1,500-square-mile Glacier Park supports the largest, densest group south of Canada, yet it amounts to no more than 40 to 50 animals. Why? Because their territories are so immense. In addition to the fact that wolverines will always be very thinly spread even in the best of homelands, conservationists trying to secure the species' future have to take into account its low rate of reproduction. Gulos live 10 to 12 years in the wild, but females may not produce young until age three or four—and thereafter have an average of only two kits every other year.

Now add the growing challenge of climate change, which appears to be especially acute in polar and mountainous regions. According to mountain ecologist Dan Fagre of the U.S Geological Survey, the average temperature in rugged northwest Montana has risen 3 degrees F in just the past few decades. This is two to three times the rate recorded in other parts of the globe. Fagre finds the snowpack in Glacier melting off sooner, soils on the slopes heating up earlier and forests marching up into the alpine tundra zone. Boasting 150 glaciers when set aside in 1910, this park is on track to lose its last one by the year 2020, he points out. The implications for wolverines are anything but promising.

Researchers are now looking into the effects of increasing levels of disturbance in wolverine denning habitat, from motorized activities such as snowmobiling and heli-skiing to ski touring. Copeland is helping conduct a study in Idaho's national forests to see how wolverines in areas with heavy winter recreational use are faring compared to wolverines that rarely encounter people.

"It would be a mistake to view the wolverines holding on in the contiguous states as a single population," he says. "What's left is a metapopulation of widely scattered groups. Many are quite small and inhabit isolated mountain ranges, making the animals exceptionally vulnerable."

To endure, each of these surviving enclaves needs to be more carefully safeguarded. Most of all, each needs to be connected to others, for none is large enough to stay viable over time by itself. With that in mind, researchers are mapping out landscape corridors that would give gulos the best chance to keep in contact with one another throughout the mountain West. That the experts' models extend to Colorado, Utah and California is promising, especially since, within the past two years, one wolverine showed up in California and another in Colorado after an absence of nearly a century. Both were young males dispersing from points far to the north. Let's hope the next young explorer to arrive brings a date.

"Originally," Inman says, "we set aside national parks thinking those areas would safeguard nature by themselves. Then the challenge of conserving big, mobile species—especially carnivores like bears and wolves—forced managers to consider lands around the parks such as national forests as part of the same ecosystem. Wolverines make it clear that if we want to keep wildlife metapopulations going over time, we need to be working on a still larger scale."

A petition by Defenders and other conservation groups to list wolverines as endangered was recently accepted for consideration by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The agency has acknowledged that the wolverine faces possible extinction simply due to the extremely low number of breeding adults," notes David Gaillard, Defenders' representative for the northern Rockies region. "When you add climate change, plus ongoing development and disturbance in the high country, this animal needs protection—now." As the magazine went to press, a decision on the listing petition was still pending.

Far roaming, incredibly hardy and indomitably wild, the wolverine embodies a will to live as bright and fierce as any force on the planet. The least we could do is grant this creature the freedom to keep traveling the high country on those big snowshoe paws, safe and undisturbed, while we search for ways to turn down the global thermostat for all our sakes.

Montana-based wildlife biologist Douglas H. Chadwick is a longtime Defenders contributor.
This article is adapted from his book, The Wolverine Way, to be published this spring by Patagonia books.

Walrus
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Judd, Corwin testify before Congress on global warming (4/23/2009)

Politics overrules biologists' views in wolverine decision (9/30/2008)

Report Shows Global Warming Could Be Final Straw for Wolverines (3/12/2007)
WILDLIFEeNEWS

( Defenders of Wils Life )

http://www.protection-des-animaux.org/actualites/archives2.php?id_news=1677

http://www.protection-des-animaux.org/actualites/archives2.php?id_news=1677

Le Laos joue un rôle croissant dans le trafic de macaques pour l’expérimentation

Une enquête montre qu’au Laos, la capture et le commerce de singes pour l’expérimentation sont en pleine expansion. Des milliers d’entre eux sont exportés chaque année pour approvisionner l’industrie internationale de la recherche. One Voice demande que cesse ce trafic et que le statut des espèces menacées soit respecté.

La BUAV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) demande aux responsables de la CITES (Convention sur le commerce international des espèces menacées) de réagir après les révélations de son enquête, qui montre le trafic croissant de primates du Laos vers la Chine et le Vietnam pour l’industrie de la recherche, qui les utilise pour des expériences. Ses enquêteurs ont filmé en caméra cachée dans les locaux de la plus grande ferme d’élevage de primates du Laos, la Vannaseng Trading Company. Ils ont aussi découvert une nouvelle ferme en construction, qui devait ouvrir en mars 2010.

Cette enquête révèle à la fois des maltraitances sur des animaux et le non respect du statut d’espèce protégée du macaque à longue queue (Macaca fascicularis) en Asie du Sud-Est. Elle met en évidence le rôle des fermes de primates en Chine, qui réexportent les singes du Laos vers des laboratoires de recherche aux Etats-Unis et en Europe.

Le Laos a adhéré à la CITES en 2004. Pourtant, entre 2004 et 2008 - selon les données de la CITES - plus de 20 000 macaques à longue queue ont été exportés du Laos vers la Chine et le Vietnam. De 2003 à 2006, la Chine a importé du Vietnam des milliers de macaques originaires du Laos.

La Vannaseng Trading Company héberge plus de 10 000 singes, des macaques rhésus et des macaques à longue queue. Chaque année, des milliers d’entre eux sont vendus - 600 dollars chacun - au Vietnam et en Chine. Les singes sont transportés par lots de 1 000 ou davantage par avion ou en camion.

Les conditions d’hébergement des singes chez Vannaseng ne respectent pas les recommandations de la Société international de primatologie. Ils sont enfermés dans de petites cages, dans un environnement non enrichi. Les singes sont si stressés qu’ils se battent entre eux. Les responsables de la ferme ont dit aux enquêteurs de la BUAV que les blessures dues à ces combats étaient l’une des principales causes motivant des soins. Les diarrhées sont également fréquentes, liées au stress des conditions de vie des singes.

Un représentant du département des forêts du Laos a déclaré, lors d’une rencontre avec les enquêteurs de la BUAV, qu’aucun recensement de la population de macaques n’avait été effectué dans le pays. Depuis au moins 2003, plusieurs milliers d’entre eux ont été capturés dans leur milieu naturel au Laos puis envoyés à l’étranger ou enfermés dans des fermes d’élevage. Selon les données de la CITES, 8 000 macaques à longue queue ont ainsi été exportés du Laos au Vietnam de 2004 à 2005.
Cette enquête montre que le Laos ne respecte pas les obligations liées à la CITES. En outre, le Laos n’a remis aucun rapport annuel depuis 2004, ce qui est pourtant demandé par la CITES.

Les primates de la ferme Vannaseng ne sont pas identifiés individuellement par tatouage ou puce électronique, à la demande de la Chine et du Vietnam selon les responsables de la ferme. L’absence de méthode d’identification fiable des singes remet en question la crédibilité de toutes les données biologiques les concernant. Vannaseng a expliqué aux enquêteurs que les singes étaient vendus à des fermes d’élevage en Chine ou exportés de la Chine vers l’Europe et les Etats-Unis.

One Voice soutient la BUAV, qui demande que soit mis un terme à ce commerce cruel et qu’une enquête officielle soit menée. La CITES et les gouvernements des pays concernés par ce trafic en pleine expansion doivent réagir : les forêts d’Asie du Sud-Est se vident de leurs macaques, capturés et vendus à l’industrie internationale de la recherche.

One Voice et la BUAV ont déjà mené des enquêtes en Asie du Sud-Est. A chaque fois les associations ont découvert une exploitation croissante des populations locales de macaques à longue queue. Les singes sauvages sont capturés dans la nature pour approvisionner les nombreuses fermes d’élevage de la région pendant que la CITES ne fait pas appliquer ses propres règlements et que les gouvernements n’agissent pas pour protéger leurs populations de primates.
(http://www.protection-des-animaux.org/actualites/archives2.php?id_news=1677)

Tuer un loup est inutile, désastreux et dangereux

Encore une autorisation de destruction de loup accordée par les pouvoirs publics ! Combien de temps encore l’État se servira du loup comme bouc émissaire de la crise de la filière ovine ? Combien de temps pour qu’enfin les affirmations et propositions des spécialistes du loup soient reconnues et mises en place par les services de l’État ? L’Association pour La Protection des Animaux Sauvages condamne fermement la politique anti-loup relayée par le gouvernement.

Le préfet des Hautes-Alpes vient d’autoriser des « tirs de défense » à l’encontre des loups sur la commune d’Esparron. Ce qui constitue une très grave erreur. À l’encontre des loups, bien sûr, mais également à l’encontre des éleveurs et de leurs troupeaux !
Il est bien connu, et reconnu par tous les spécialistes de cette espèce, que de tuer un ou des loups d’une meute ne peut que conduire à la désorganisation de cette dernière. Cela a été vérifié de maintes fois !

Sur cette même commune, en décembre dernier, un chasseur a cru bon de rajouter cette espèce protégée à son tableau de chasse. Grand mal lui en a pris. Il a été condamné par la justice. Les attaques récentes sur les troupeaux de moutons ne sont que le résultat de l’éclatement de la meute, imputable à ce braconnage. La destruction d’un nouveau loup de cette meute ne pourra qu’augmenter la prédation sur les troupeaux.

Si cette nouvelle autorisation de destruction d’un loup est un grave déni de la réalité biologique [grotesque en cette « année de la biodiversité » chère à notre ministère de l’Écologie] il constitue une très grave « erreur » vis-à-vis des éleveurs locaux. Ces derniers sont instrumentalisés par les pouvoirs publics qui agitent régulièrement le chiffon rouge du retour du loup, mais restent sans réponse face au désarroi du monde agricole en général. À celui de la filière ovine en particulier.

Le loup ne saurait cacher l’inaction des pouvoirs publics face à la crise agricole. La destruction d’un loup, censée calmer pour quelque temps des éleveurs excédés par la crise, aura des effets contraires.

L’ASPAS rappelle, s’il en est encore besoin, qu’il existe des mesures de protection de troupeaux, et qu’elles se montrent efficaces dans les autres pays.

Combien de loups devront payer encore ce jeu de dupes ? Combien de temps les responsables de la filière ovine feront-ils semblant d’être dupes ?

Source : ASPAS

Chevaux : voyage au bout de l’enfer au brésil et au mexique

3 Quelle existence pour les chevaux en fin de vie dans les vastes espaces du Mexique et du Brésil ? La faim, les blessures, la maltraitance et, au bout, la mort indigne. C’est ce que révèle l’enquête réalisée par One Voice, Gaia et Wakker Dier, avec les images rapportées de ces pays, premiers fournisseurs de viande chevaline de l’Europe.

Aujourd’hui encore, le cheval est symbole de liberté. Sa noblesse, son indépendance, son courage sont admirés. De compagnon de l’homme de labeur et de labours, il est devenu au fil du temps un compagnon de vie pour nombre d’humains. Pourtant, en France, on continue à le manger. L’Hexagone est en effet le 2ème importateur de viande de cheval au monde, après la Belgique. Le Brésil et le Mexique étant leurs principaux fournisseurs.

Mais que sait-on du sort de ces animaux qui finissent dans les assiettes des Européens ? Il y a quelques temps, One Voice avait déjà révélé l’enfer des marchés de chevaux en France. Et avec les images des conditions de transport dans les pays de l’Est, nous pensions avoir vu le pire. Mais nos images tournées au Brésil et au Mexique, entre novembre 2009 et janvier 2010, montrent à quel point en matière de brutalité et de cruauté on est bien loin d’avoir tout vu.

Dans ces pays, les chevaux dits « inutiles », blessés ou trop vieux pour servir, sont traités sans le moindre égard, comme une vulgaire masse de viande dénuée de sensibilité et d’intelligence. Au Brésil, dans des enclos au sol de poussière, les chevaux n’ont que quelques touffes d’herbes desséchées à manger. Leur décharnement, les os saillants sous leur robe marquée des stigmates de leurs blessures, anciennes ou plus récentes, traduisent le manque de nourriture et de soins.

Ces animaux destinés à l’abattoir ne connaissent aucun répit dans la souffrance. Lorsque le jour arrive de quitter l’enclos, ils sont entassés à coup d’électrodes dans des camions dépourvus du strict minimum pour assurer un chargement et un transport décents. En surnombre, les chevaux les plus faibles finissent blessés sous les pattes de ceux qui ont encore un peu d’énergie pour rester debout. Au Mexique, antichambre de la tuerie des chevaux américains -l’abattage étant interdit aux Etats-Unis depuis 2007- les animaux, souvent des Mustang, parcourent des kilomètres, pendant des heures, sans eau ni nourriture, dans des camions à double étage. Ce qui est illégal.

Au bout du voyage, la mort sera loin d’être la délivrance que ces animaux seraient en droit d’attendre. Aucune règle n’est respectée pour donner la mort avec un tant soit peu de respect. Les abattoirs sont des lieux rudimentaires où les animaux attendent parfois pendant des heures dans des enclos nus, ouverts aux quatre vents. Au Brésil, le choc électrique entre les deux yeux entraîne rarement la mort. Les animaux agonisent pendant de longs moments avant qu’un boucher ne finisse le travail. Archaïsme aussi au Mexique où le cheval est saigné d’un coup de couteau derrière la tête, dans la colonne vertébrale, pour le paralyser. Il se vide de son sang alors qu’il est encore vivant. Et, toujours en vie, ses pattes sont sciées… Une mort cruelle et indigne.

Avec ces images, parfois révoltantes et toujours intolérables, One Voice entend alerter l’opinion publique sur le sort réservé aux chevaux que beaucoup considèrent aujourd’hui comme des animaux de compagnie. L’association se bat pour que l’hippophagie soit enfin abolie en France. Aussi, elle milite pour que le cheval obtienne le statut « d’animal de compagnie » tout comme le chien ou le chat. Elle invite chacun à soutenir la proposition de loi du député Lionnel Luca, déposée à l’Assemblée nationale le 24 janvier dernier, qui demande le changement de classification des équidés « d’animal de rente » en « animal de vie ».

Source : OneVoice
2010-04-13 19:56:00"