Denmark halts mass killing of 17 million mink

Denmark drops plans for mass mink cull after Covid mutation fears | The Guardian - Sophie Kevany & Tom Carstensen:

November 9, 2020 - "Last Wednesday the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said all the country’s mink would be culled due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines. 

"But opposition to the move swiftly emerged. 'Massive doubts over whether this cull is properly scientifically based [have] come to light now,' said Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the leader of Denmark’s largest opposition party, Venstre. 'At the same time the government is taking away the livelihood of a large number of people without actually having the legal rights to do so.' Frederik Waage, law professor at the University of Southern Denmark, told Danish national paper Berlingske the cull order was 'illegal'.

"Opposition to the cull focuses on the fact that Denmark’s’ public health agency, the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), had not found evidence of the mutated strain for more than a month, while a number of Danish and international experts questioned whether the mutation was dangerous.

"In neighbouring Sweden, 10 mink farms have been identified as having Covid-19 outbreaks. .. but Benny Andersson, CEO of Swedish animal rights organisation, Djurens Rätt,... is not expecting any cull in Sweden. 'That’s mainly because the ongoing pelting season means most animals, other than breeding stock, are already being killed,' he said.... Poland and Finland are reported to be free of Covid-19 on mink farms, while in the Netherlands fur farming will effectively end this year. In Ireland, a tiny player in the mink sector, testing at the country’s three farms is reported to have begun....

"In the US, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presentation last week said 11 mink farms had Covid-19 outbreaks.... US veterinary NGO the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association said the apparent rapid mutation of the virus in mink, and the lack of a cull, was both a public health and a welfare risk.... Joanna Swabe, a policy adviser for Humane Society International, agreed.... Swabe said that not carrying out culls on farms where Covid-19 has been detected in the mink meant the continued existence of 'a pool of non-essential animals that ​could pose a risk to public health'."

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/09/denmark-drops-plans-for-mass-mink-cull-after-covid-mutation-fears 

Spain's parliament extends rights to great apes

Spanish parliament approves 'human rights' for apes | Law | The Guardian - Lee Glendinning:

June 26, 2019 - "Great apes should have the right to life and freedom, according to a resolution passed in the Spanish parliament, in what could become landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos.

"The environmental committee in the Spanish parliament has approved resolutions urging the country to comply with the Great Apes Project, founded in 1993, which argues that 'non-human hominids' should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured.

"The project was started by the philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri, who argued that the ape is the closest genetic relative to humans – that it displays emotions such as love, fear, anxiety and jealousy – and should be protected by similar laws.

"The resolutions have cross-party support and it is thought they will become law, meaning that potential experiments on apes in Spain will be banned within a year, according to a Reuters report....

"Using apes in circuses, television commercials or filming will also be banned and while housing apes in Spanish zoos, of which there are currently 315, will remain legal, supporters of the bill have said the conditions in which most of them live will need to improve substantially.

"In 1999, scientists and lawyers petitioned New Zealand's parliament to pass a bill conferring 'rights' on chimpanzees and other primates. The government gave the great apes something less than human rights, but ... legal protection from animal experimentation. The first country to take such a decision was Britain: Home Office guidelines now forbid experiments on chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas."

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/26/humanrights.animalwelfare
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Do chimpanzees have habeas corpus rights?

Chimpanzee Rights Get a Day in Court | WIRED - Brandon Keim:

May 27, 2015 - "More than a year after the starting fight for legal personhood for the research chimpanzees Hercules and Leo, the apes and their lawyers got their day in court. At a hearing in Manhattan on Wednesday, a judge heard arguments in the landmark lawsuit against Stony Brook University, with a decision expected later this summer. At stake: the question of whether only human beings deserve ... rights.

"A decision could set a precedent for challenging, under human law, the captivity of other chimpanzees — and perhaps other species. It’s a radical notion, and many legal experts doubted whether the lawsuit, one of several filed late in 2013 by the Nonhuman Rights Project, would ever reach court.

"But Justice Barbara Jaffe decided to consider the arguments. 'The law evolves according to new discoveries and social mores,' she said while presiding over the hearing. 'Isn’t it incumbent on judiciaries to at least consider whether a class of beings may be granted a right?'

"Jaffe posed that question to New York assistant attorney general Christopher Coulston, who represented the university, where the two chimps are housed. Coulston had argued that Jaffe was bound by the previous decisions of two appellate courts, which had ruled that other Nonhuman Rights Project chimps didn’t qualify for habeas corpus, the legal principle that protects people from illegal imprisonment.

"Both those decisions are controversial. In one, judges decided that habeas corpus didn’t apply because the chimp would be transferred from one form of captivity to another — in this case, a sanctuary. But illegally-held human prisoners have been released to mental hospitals, and juveniles into the care of guardians.

"In the other appeals court decision, judges declared that chimps are not legal persons because they can’t fulfill duties to human society. But that rationale arguably denies personhood to young children and mentally incapacitated individuals, as several high-profile legal scholars, including Constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe, pointed out. He filed a brief on behalf of the Nonhuman Rights Project, saying the court 'reached its conclusion on the basis of a fundamentally flawed definition of legal personhood.'"

Read more: http://www.wired.com/2015/05/chimpanzee-rights-get-day-court/
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