Environment update

RSPCA International has been working on various projects within the environment sector. Many environment programmes are long-term and ongoing as our work with Polish bears and Indonesian parrot populations shows. Most recently, we delivered training on pet shop inspection in Taiwan which focused on the welfare of exotics.

Exotics care in Taiwan's pet shops

RSPCA International recently teamed up with Rob Quest of the City of London local authority to deliver a workshop to Taiwanese animal
protection inspectors.

The training focused on pet shop licensing and inspection of commercial dog breeders. Based at Heathrow's Animal Reception Centre, Rob has more than twenty years' experience dealing with a huge range of domestic and wild animals.
 

Breakthrough for Polish bears

At the end of June 2011, Leszno zoo in Poland, finally transferred all its bears to the Vier Pfoten bear sanctuary in Germany after nearly a year of negotiations, and has agreed not to keep any bears in future. This was the result of a report on conditions for bears in Polish zoos, researched and published by Polish organisation, OTOZ, and funded by RSPCA International. The environment at Leszno zoo had been identified as particularly inadequate, contravening the Zoo Directive. 
 

For some of the bears it was their first experience of a surface other than concrete. It is also possibly the first time that a zoo in Poland has agreed to the removal of an animal on the grounds that it is unable to provide appropriate conditions under the Polish law that implements the zoo Directive. 
   In January 2011, the director of WrocBaw zoo was found guilty of animal abuse following a six-year legal battle by Viva! Foundation. Mago, a European brown bear, had been kept in a six metre square concrete cage with no outdoor access for ten years. The case of Mago was a great breakthrough in animal welfare decision-making, highlighting that zoos have the same responsibility to meet an animal’s welfare needs as anyone else. 
 

Flying without wings

Protecting Indonesian parrot populations

The Sultan of Ternate Palace, North Maluku recently issued an order banning the export of North Moluccan parrots from the island and urged locals and regional government to protect the birds, nearly ten years after RSPCA International first became involved in the issue.
 On average within the parrot trade, as many as 40 per cent of smuggled birds die by the time they reach their sales points which means 400 birds for every 1,000 caught, due to poor transport conditions and poor handling.
 In 2010 Indonesian NGO, ProFauna, launched a short parrot conservation film, Voices of North Moluccan People, supported by RSPCA International. Indonesian rock band SLANK attended the launch and took the conservation message into schools raising local awareness of illegal parrot poaching.
 At the launch, both ProFauna and RSPCA International presented awards to the Sultan of Ternate Palace, North Maluku and the Governor of North Maluku for their parrot protection efforts. In 2003, the Governor of North Maluku had issued a Governor’s Instruction prohibiting parrot poaching from the wild.
  Since the start of the campaign, the parrot trade in Ternate, North Maluku has dropped by 95 per cent. ProFauna staff have also successfully raided bird markets in Surabaya and Jarkarta, confiscating birds and prosecuting illegal traders.
 Support our work. Donate to RSPCA International.