Good to see you too Banjo.

Gawd I am dumb, wild as in feral. I was thinking those brown spotted little things on the plains of Africa.

Dams have eel ladders for eels to climb... but I googled it and they swim around the Warragamba one because it has some streams around it. They can travel across land too. But nah I don’t have my eels, one died and the other one disappeared, or went off to sulk about it.

I have a large ever changing menagerie these days due to helping out with a wildlife rescue org. I had a baby emu for a week, I would have loved to have kept it. I’ve babysat all kinds of native birds and even a baby bat, possums, snakes and reptiles the last few months as well as the small human things.

I’m all good Belly, I can imagine animal rights peeps being pretty passionate about things now I’ve met a few more. I’m definitely guilty of getting a little unbalanced on certain issues.

*If live trade was made illegal what would happen here?*

Exactly what happened last time, when we had millions of sheep
with no home to go to. Pitts were dug, sheep were shot, market
values crashed, farmers went broke and those farmers remaining had no
money to look after those sheep remaining. Farmers with no money,
can't feed and take care of their animals, so the result is lots
of suffering.

* Are your thoughts along the lines of – someone is doing it and making
money, might as well be us - ?*

Nope, my thoughts were that we used to supply that market, when we were
exporting 6 million a year live. Now its 2 million and they
simply buy those animals elsewhere.

*I’ve seen it all over the place on facebook.*

Well that is the problem. Urban housewives, without the foggiest
clue about the industry, trying to decide agricultural policy.
AA are vegans who want us to stop eating meat altogether.They
think that we should not rip rabbit warrens, as it might hurt the
rabbits.

TPP,
Thanks for the info about the eels. I knew they could travel across land and do so when raining or wet with dew, but the Warragamba dam is located in rugged terrain. It is a big dam and the hills are very steep and rough. I thought it too big an obstacle for eels. sorry to hear about your pets. Looks like you still make life interesting for all at your place.

You said to Yabby "You are correct, if we don’t know something is happening it’s difficult to care about".

Sometimes even when people are aware of bad things they still do not care. Take FGM, for example, it horrorfies me to think what the girls go through Yet we do not insist the laws be enforced. Bad treatment of animals and everyone is jumping up and down, demanding trade be stopped.

Do the Japanese have an ABC/Greens media out let?
Does it show film of Whales dieing and the blood?
Does anyone care about the things that should not have taken place here? that bought about the killings?
And are we all aware the exporters bought this film to our attention? maybe in an effort to get that PRIMITIVE country to pay for its slaughter.
Are we forever going to be haunted by the extremes of Live Meat exports but lie to our selfs that we can just switch to meat .
And does it matter if not our animals it will be another country,s.
Yabby as offened as some will be, is not being offensive, he is telling it like it is.
A few thousand house wives who have no idea of country Australia, can turn a profitable business and destroy generations of farmers.
Tell me my references to the horrible life and deaths of women in this country are crude, but in doing so, YOU MARGINALIZE those victims to less than sheep.

Yabby,

"Nope, my thoughts are that we used to supply the market,when we were exporting 6 million a year live, Now its two million and they simply buy those animals elsewhere."

So you are saying "....[it] might as well be us."

Why do we breed so many sheep to treat them in such a way?

I mean humans are basically bastards when it comes to their arrogant control over other species. Just because we husband the existence of these animals doesn't give us the right to shut our eyes to the stresses we deliberately subject them to.

Where I live, back in the seventies and early eighties, there was a healthy industry in Halal slaughtered meat to the middle-east - why can't we go back to that?

“…Farmers with no money, can't feed and take care of their animals,
so the result is lots of suffering.”

It might come, this stop to live exports. Do the live export farmers
have a better backup plan at all in case this happens? They going to
make fish food?

“Well that is the problem. Urban housewives, without the foggiest
clue about the industry, trying to decide agricultural policy.”

Ouch. I’m glad you’re around Yabby, at least I get some understanding
from the other side

Banjo I’m thinking that cause you are male that Yabby would agree you can’t talk about FGM because you don’t have the FG’s. Lots of bad things happen, I used to get really angry that people were out saving animals and trees without first saving people. Might just start a Save Everything Club and go design my own ribbon