Worldlog Week 48 - 2011 - Hoofdinhoud

There’s a lot of commotion at the moment in the Netherlands regarding the numbers of geese in the vicinity of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Bird collisions are a hazard to aircraft taking off and landing. The plan of Secretary of State for the Environment Atsma is to simply gas the birds or have them shot en mass, which is already happening. But we have a much better idea: convert the grass and agricultural fields surrounding the airport into solar panel arrays!

This would deter geese from using the area surrounding the airport to breed and forage. Another solution is to end the hunting foxes, the natural predator of geese. A policy that allows the large-scale shooting or gassing of geese is not only extremely animal unfriendly, it is not even effective. Such a policy will not help reduce hazardous situations at the airport but will in many cases actually increase them. Hunting for example will cause the geese to exhibit unpredictable escape behaviour. Furthermore, shooting or gassing geese will not reduce their numbers.

The United States already bans agricultural activities within a 3-km radius of airports. As the Netherlands lacks this type of regulation, birds flock to the vicinity of the airport, which creates an unnecessary risk for travellers. Fields of solar panels represent a solution that is interesting from an economic standpoint and which respects the environment. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol could become the world’s largest solar power plant without a single shot being fired! This is surely the best possible solution.

Tuesday 29 November was a sad day for orca Morgan. On that day, the killer whale was moved to Loro Parque in Tenerife. Morgan has been denied a life of freedom and condemned to lifelong incarceration in an amusement park. It is unbelievable that the state secretary has determined such a fate for this beautiful wild animal. Read more about this story in my Worldlog of last week.

Our party held its party congress on Sunday 27 November. The event proved to be inspiring. Among the decisions made was to make the congresses public effective the end of 2012 when the party holds its 10th congress. A excellent decision!

In submitting the memorandum of reply to the Upper House last week, we are now further along the road of getting the law banning the ritual slaughter of animals without prior stunning passed. The senators had many constructive questions on the freedom of religion and the extent to which animal welfare is compromised in slaughter without stunning. I was pleased about that as it gave me an opportunity to once again to explain the justification of ending this exemption that applies to slaughterhouses with a religious affiliation. The debate will be held on 13 December with the actual vote a week later.

Animal broadcaster PiepVandaag has started a petition to convince the members of the Netherlands Upper House to vote for the bill banning slaughter without stunning. The petition can be signed at http://www.piepvandaag.nl/petitie-laat-verbod-onverdoofd-slachten-niet-sneuvelen-in-eerste-kamer/.

This week we opened registration desk for the falsehoods spoken by state secretary Bleker with regard to his agriculture and nature policy. This ‘Bleker’s lie detector’ will form the basis of a black book on the state secretary’s policy. He says, for example, that large-scale sheds benefit animal welfare and other such lies. We call on everyone to report whenever they catch Bleker romanticizing reality.

State secretary Bleker with the lie detector