To raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe. Building the celebration of World Animal Day unites the animal welfare movement, mobilising it into a global force to make the world a better place for all animals. It’s celebrated in different ways in every country, irrespective of nationality, religion, faith or political ideology. Through increased awareness and education we can create a world where animals are always recognised as sentient beings and full regard is always paid to their welfare.
World Animal Day has been celebrated for over 90 years. It encourages animal welfare organisations, community groups, youth and children’s clubs, businesses and individuals to organise events in celebration of World Animal Day around the globe. Involvement is growing at an astonishing rate, with today, 4 October, being widely celebrated in a variety of different ways in many countries, with no regard to nationality, religion, faith or political ideology.
Events are organised under the World Animal Day Umbrella and are publicised on their website, advertised using the World Animal Day brand and logo. This global branding effectively ties all events together and, over the years they have found this approach to be particularly helpful to grassroots groups who struggle to attract media attention in order to raise awareness of their work and fundraise. Their brand logo is widely recognised, uniting the animal welfare movement which has established itself as a platform for raising the status of animals.
Although there are no events hosted in Zambia this year, participation in World Animal Day continues to grow across the African continent. It is something that everyone can join in with, whether you are part of an organisation, group, or an individual.
Why celebrate World Animal Day?
Building the celebration of World Animal Day mobilises people for action now for a better future for animals
Throughout history, social movements like World Animal Day, have always been a major vehicle for ordinary people’s participation in reform. The lives of animals are profoundly affected by the actions of humans and businesses. It is therefore essential that, as sentient beings, their rightful status as recipients is established and translated into effective animal protection.
World Animal Day embraces all animals and the unique concerns of each, in every country. Through increased awareness and education, we can all help develop a compassionate culture to make our world a fairer place for all living creatures. They have already brought about a significant and lasting contribution towards advancing animal welfare standards and their influence will only continue to grow.
Types of events held
Increased awareness, combined with better education for both adults and children, is slowly swaying the attitudes of people towards treating animals in a humane and compassionate way
awareness & educational events
shelter open days & pet adoption events
conferences & workshops
animal blessing services
fundraising events such as concerts and sponsored walks
school events to educate the younger generation such as animal-related competitions, concerts & film shows
workshops to educate the owners of working animals
spay & neuter marathons and veterinary treatment camps
rabies prevention awareness and vaccination
radio & TV interviews to raise awareness of animal issues & World Animal Day and its mission
Find out more
Check out www.worldanimalday.org to find out about the events taking place across the globe, their latest news and how you can get involved. Why not start thinking about how you can celebrate next year, then register your event and join in the celebration of our animals.
Despite schools closing in late June due to the pandemic, the Chipembele team have been busy with activities that include radio shows, rescuing a baby baboon and baby elephant, community game drives, the Mentors At Chipembele (MAC) program and professional training courses to mention just a few! With the schools now reopening their team is keen to get back into the full swing again.
New Chief Executive Officer
After 23 years at the helm, Anna is stepping back as Executive Director. She is not stepping down, and will still be busy managing some of Chipembele’s projects, such as the student sponsorship scheme, animal rehabilitation programme and the Chipembele Conservation Centre.
To take on the day to day running of Chipembele’s main conservation and community education projects and programmes, fundraising, financial and team management a new position of Chief Executive Office (CEO) was created last year. This varied CEO job has been taken up by Olivia Petre who has now joined the team from the UK.
Olivia has extensive experience managing conservation NGOs and working in remote, rural environments in both Africa and Asia. Her background in project management has always been coupled with a passion for conservation. After working on a marine project in Borneo, her passion has been reinforced by managing community-led forest-based conservation projects in Cameroon, Madagascar, DRC and Lao PDR.
She brings a wide range of skills, qualifications and personal attributes that are perfectly suited to the new CEO position and to the leadership of the organisation, deeply believing in the importance of education to make effective long-term changes. Olivia will be based at the Chipembele Office in the grounds of the Mfuwe Day Secondary School.
Saving Birds
The Mentors at Chipembele (MAC) team observed that birds were being caught in snares made from mosquito nets. As young conservationists who are passionate about wildlife, they decided to take action.
They made two trips to the Lupande River, which is one of the tributaries of Luangwa, and removed these illegal snares in August. During just two days work they rescued 17 birds and removed over 100 snares, which they later burnt.
Sad loss of a star
Chipembele sadly reported the loss of Vale Benson Beza.
“The entire Chipembele Team was deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of Benson Beza who passed away on July 16 at the age of 21 at Chipata General Hospital after a short illness.“
Benson had been sponsored through Chipembele since he was in Grade 8, quickly becoming a core member of the Chipembele Conservation Programme. Whatever activities, events and programmes were happening, he would fully get involved. In 2019 he was selected on merit as one of 14 students for the conservation education student exchange programme, ‘Tisamale,’ traveling to Adelaide (Australia) for 3 weeks. Later in 2019 he was sponsored by Schul Projekte Sambia (Switzerland) through Chipembele to attend Mulungushi University for a degree in Environmental Studies. This year, together with his best friends Jacob Mphasi and Meya Sakala (also sponsored through Chipembele and studying the same degree), he founded the first ever Environmental Club at their University.
“His legacy of a young rural Zambian succeeding through determination and passion, despite such a humble and difficult background, will live on through the Benson Beza Conservation Award program, a new initiative that we are launching which aims to identify and support future conservations sharing the key attributes that Benson had.”
In his honour, Chipembele have decided to launch a very special fundraising campaign via GlobalGiving (GG). This will finance the Benson Beza Memorial Conservation Awards and Leadership Development Programme. The initial fundraiser runs from 13-30 September 2021 with the challenge to raise at least $5,000 from at least 40 donors. This then allows Chipembele (and Benson’s Memorial Fund and projects) from being an ongoing part of the Global Giving community. Visit www.globalgiving.org to learn more about how you can help.
Chipembele is also developing a conservation awards programme to recognise and help students like Benson, to overcome barriers and to become our new conservation leaders.
Today, Wednesday 22 September, is World Rhino Day. A day of awareness for all the five rhino species that live in Africa and Asia and the hard work that is being done by conservationists to save them. Since 2011, World Rhino Day has been celebrated internationally by the International Rhino Foundation, every year on 22nd September – this is their 10th anniversary!
This year they will be hosting special rhino events including their annual State of the Rhino address. They also have limited edition World Rhino Day t-shirts available through September, and have even created shareables to help you also spread awareness about rhinos.
World Rhino Day Online Schedule – celebrating rhinos with the International Rhino Foundation
9:00 am EST – Nina Fascione (IRF Executive Director) will provide her annual State of the Rhino address. Her address will include detailing population trends and other topics in rhino conservation. The video will be streamed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their LinkedIn and Youtube channel.
11:00 am EST – CeCe Sieffert (IRF Chief Conservation Director) joins Exploring By The Seat of Your Pants to talk Javan and Sumatran rhinos with students. A special guest, Sectionov (IRF Indonesia Program Manager), will join them online from Indonesia. Tune in live on YouTube
13:30 EST – Dr. Rhino will be live from Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, talking rhinos with the zoo team on Twitch at Twitch.tv/drrhino_
14:30 EST Chris Whitlatch (IRF Communications Director) will bring you up close and personal with the white rhinos at the Nashville Zoo live on Facebook
Don’t forget that Zambia is 6 hours ahead of EST and all the links are on their website!
Join Team Rhino!
Rhinos once roamed across most of Sub-Saharan Africa and ranged from India, throughout Southeast Asia, across the Indonesia archipelago. Every year, more and more rhinos are killed for their distinctive horns. It is thought that rhino populations have decreased by up to 96% over the last 100 years. All five species, including our White, or Square-lipped, Rhino (Ceratotherium simum) and our larger Black, or Hook-lipped, cousin (Diceros bicornis) now face extinction from poaching and habitat loss.
Scouts and rangers are the front line of defence. They live in the bush and forests for weeks on end, guarding rhinos, tracking down and arresting poachers, removing snares and, in some countries, even transport rhino orphans and adults after poaching attacks. Efforts are underway to stop consumer demand for rhino horns and to encourage countries to enforce their own laws prohibiting the international trade in horn.
Why not join Team Rhino and sign their pledge to help protect these vulnerable and endangered species?
Local Appeal for our Livingstone Rhinos
At this time of year as we head into the hot, dry season, there is little grass for the Livingstone rhinos to feed on. Being picky eaters, white rhinos cannot feed on leaves or twigs like their larger hooked lipped cousins. So, every dry season supplementary feed is bought in to ensure their survival. Their favourite grass is lucerne which has to be transported from over 200kms away to their home in Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park. This food supplement is particularly needed for Jack, the 2 year old rhino toddler who needs sufficient nutrients in the grass for his growth and to keep him healthy. Lucerne is also needed for all the adult rhinos, especially the females to keep their fertility levels high.
One sustainable solution is to encourage local small scale farmers to grow this nutritious grass on an annual basis to feed the rhinos. This would cut travel time and costs, as well as benefiting local farmers as it would give them an extra income.
Destination Livingstone are trying to raise $10,000 so that the last remaining 8 white rhinos can be fed throughout our dry season. Normally income from tourists would help provide the money to buy lucernce, but with few visitors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, income for the park has drastically reduced.
You can watch their video and read more about our Livingstone rhinos at the GlobalGiving Fundraising campaign which runs until the end of September.
Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ) is one of the Zambian NGOs who will be joining more than 150 Ranger teams across Africa in the Tusk 2021 Wildlife Ranger Challenge – the fundraising initiative supporting thousands of the men and women on the frontline of Africa’s protected areas.
Africa’s rangers and wildlife police officers are stretched to capacity as they continue to see drastic cuts in resources and an increase in poaching due to the devastating economic impact of Covid-19. This 21 km race, run across rough terrain whilst carrying a 22kg backpack, will support scouts and rangers so that they can continue to safeguard the continent’s iconic wildlife. Click here to find out more about CLZ’s team, how to donate and to sign up to run in solidarity with the scouts and rangers this saturday – 18 September 2021. You can also find more information on the challenge and on all the Ranger Teams at www.trust.org
Jeki Infrastructure
Through priorities highlighted by DNPW, it was recognised that a number of outposts and entry points across the Lower Zambezi were in dire need of attention.
Thanks to funding from the Beit Trust, CLZ has built a secure space for the wildlife police officers based at the Jeki Airstrip. This facility also provides water, a small solar system and communications equipment.
In addition, a guest area has been built for tourists arriving and departing at the Jeki Airstrip.
Anti-Snare and Living with Elephants Workshop
CLZ has begun to again implement community workshops. In August they went into the Rufunsa GMA to provide the community with tools and information on how to live harmoniously with the wildlife in their area. The workshop was attended by 141 people from the Rufunsa communities – 65 of which were women.
CLZ thanked the Tusk Trust for funding this workshop.
Read More
To read about these and more news from CLZ during July and August, then you can find their latest newsletter here. You can also keep up to date with all their activities on their Facebook Page.
The Ig Nobel Prizes honour the achievements that make people laugh…. then think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual and imaginative, to encourage people’s interest in science, medicine and technology. This year the prizes were handed out in an online ceremony on 9th September at Harvard University.
2021 Winners – Transportation Prize
This year the Transportation prize went to a Namibian rhino study by Robin Radcliffe and colleagues, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside down. The team wanted to discover if the health of rhinos would be compromised when hung upside down beneath a helicopter.
It is actually better for rhinos to be held by their ankles than on their side – Namibian Ministry of Environment
In collaboration with the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, the team suspended 12 tranquillised black rhinoceroses by their feet from a crane. They measured the animal’s heart and lung functions to see how they cope with upside down flying.
They found that the rhinos coped very well! Evidence showed that the rhinos did better in this unusual position than when simply lying chest down or on their side.
“I think the reason for that is, when a rhino is on its side, you have positional effects of blood flow. So in other words, the lower parts of the lung are getting lots of blood flow for gas exchange, but the upper part of the lung, just because of gravity, is not getting perfused well, so when a rhino is hanging upside down, it’s basically like it’s standing upside up; the lung is equally perfused.
“We’ve also seen that rhinos that are on their side too long, or on their sternum, especially – they get muscle damage, they get myopathy, because they’re so heavy. And there’s no pressure on their legs, other than the sense of the strap around their ankle,” Robin explained.
This experiment has not only changed rhino location techniques, but has also shown it can be used on other wildlife, although more experiments are needed to see how it effects species such as elephants, buffalo, hippo and even giraffe.
You can read their research paper – The Pulmonary and Metabolic Effects of Suspension by the Feet Compared with Lateral Recumbency in Immobilized Black Rhinoceroses (Diceros bicornis) Captured by Aerial Darting – at Science Daily
Other 2021 Winners
Biology Prize: Susanne Schötz – analysing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat-human communication.
Ecology Prize: Leila Satari and colleagues – using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements.
Chemistry Prize: Jörg Wicker and colleagues – chemically analysing the air inside movie theatres, to test whether the odours produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behaviour, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience is watching.
Economics Prize: Pavlo Blavatskyy – discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.
Medicine Prize: Olcay Cem Bulut and colleagues – demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.
Peace Prize: Ethan Beseris and colleagues – testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.
Physics Prize: Alessandro Corbetta and colleagues – conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.
Kinetics Prize: Hisashi Murakami and colleagues – conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians.
Entomology Prize: John Mulrennan Jr and colleagues – for their research study “A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines”.
They will also be explaining the winner’s experiments and research in informal lectures which you can watch over the coming weeks on their YouTube channel. The Transportation Prize lecture will take place on 30th September.
Main picture – Endangered black rhinos are moved to ensure genetic diversity in breeding – Namibian Ministry of Environment
