These are the top 5 animal related stories of the past year. There are many, many more that deserve attention and should be noted. Activists the world over have done an amazing job to show the horrors of the factory farm industry, fought against mass slaughter in Canada and Australia and Antarctica and elsewhere. It was an up and down year. Hopefully, for those working hard to help the voiceless, 2011 will be more positive. To the top five stories of 2010: 1. Wildlife suffer after oil spill in Gulf of Mexico While the news focus kept shifting during this year's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico from fishermen and their livelihood being damage to the wildlife seen drenched in oil, the area continues to show evidence of devastation and according to experts will not fully recover for decades. One report pointed the finger at a joint effort from BP and the US Coast Guard “to forbid low flying planes and helicopters from capturing the spill's magnitude from the air and from counting and photographing the numbers of dead and dying wildlife – opportunities lost and buried with the truth.” The truth and the real cost of the disaster however, is yet to be fully discerned and our planet will certainly be at a greater loss because of the oil spill and the loss of important biodiversity in the Gulf of Mexico. Even as we turn the page on 2010, BP has shown no real efforts of partaking in restoring the wilderness of the gulf and PETA's (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) call to prosecute BP for animal cruelty has not been taken seriously by officials. 2. Activists free mink from fur farms Activists raided a number factory farms in Greece and Ireland this past year and freed nearly 100,000 mink. The same strategy was employed elsewhere in Europe to free mink from fur farms. In Greece, the fur farm reported damages of almost one million Euros and eyewitnesses reported seeing the fur factory workers chasing after the recently liberated minks with nets. 2,000 other minks were freed on the following night in the same town where the activists had broke in and freed the animals. It was a year of action for anti-fur activists, who took it upon themselves to highlight and show the horrors of fur farming. According to a number of reports, 100,000 mink would have been killed to make approximately 2,500 fur coats. 3. Undercover investigation shocks Israeli consumers Hidden cameras inside Israel's factory farm industry have left owners shocked at the revealing content. Animal rights activists in Israel used hidden cameras to take graphic footage of atrocities inside the Jewish state's factory farm industry. The footage was released this year, much to the frustration of the farm owners. The released video shows three chickens locked in cages no larger than 40 cm long by 33 cm wide. It gives them little room to maneuver. That is less than the size of an A4 piece of paper and smaller than even their own body size. It is a shocking example of the horrors of factory farming, said Israeli animal rights activists Levi David. He told Bikya Masr that the videos “are proof that even in other locations outside the United States and Europe, factory farming has a horrifying toll on the animals and the people who take care of them.” 4. Lady throws cat in dumpster faces cruelty charges in Britain Caught on camera, the 45-year-old bank worker stopped on the side of the road during broad daylight, opened the trash can and threw a small cat inside and then closed the trash bin and left. The video went viral online, making the woman the target of animal lovers globally, even earning her a number of death threats. Some Facebook groups attacked her mercilessly, asking for the woman to receive a harsh sentence, while other animal rights activists asked whether it would be the same case had it was a pig or a chicken thrown in the can. The woman was fined £250 by a local court for animal cruelty and she was barred from owning an animal for five years, a sentence that many found too lenient. The cat is well and fine. It was an important case for animal cruelty, despite its weak sentence, because it captured the globe's attention en masse and created a sense that animal rights were beginning to take form in the hearts of average citizens. 5. Shark finning banned off US shores It hadn't been a very good year for sharks until mid-December when the United States Congress passed a ban on shark finning off American shores. Shark fin soup is behind the killing of million of sharks every year as fins are cut off and the sharks are thrown back into the sea to suffer a slow death that often consists of bleeding to death, drowning or being eaten alive by other fish. The Shark Conservation Act was met by some Republican resistance but the new ban amends a 2000 law that had allowed shark finning to proceed. After a year where sharks from Egypt to California faced attack, the anti-finning bill could make the new year a little safer for the sharks of the world. ** Compiled by Manar Ammar and Joseph Mayton BM
