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donderdag 22 oktober 2026
Our weekly update Safe Haven for Donkeys: encouraging news from Egypt where a young foal is healing from a serious accident ( 5 photos )
dinsdag 20 oktober 2026
Bullfighting 'not with my money' An estimated 200 million euro is spent annually on the breeding of bulls for bullfighting and cruel bull festivals.
Organisations call on European Parliament to end EU subsidies for bullfighting
Bulls of fire is an extremely cruel Spanis
h bloodsport. In it, torches are tied to bulls’ horns and then set on fire, all for the entertainment of the crowd. This atrocious physical and mental torture, considered a tradition, takes the name of ‘Toro Jubilo’ or ‘Bou Embolat’ and is still practiced in two Spanish regions, namely Catalonia and Valencia.
Organisations from Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands called on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Wednesday, 17 October, at the European Parliament in Brussels to end EU agricultural subsidies for breeding bulls for bullfights and cruel bull festivals.
Organisations call on European Parliament to end EU subsidies for bullfighting | Picture: CAS International
Meeting at European Parliament
During a meeting with MEPs, representatives of the organisations discussed why EU agricultural subsidies for the bullfighting sector must end and explored ways to exclude this funding from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2028–2034.
The meeting was organised by MEP Niels Fuglsang and the Dutch organisation CAS International.
A new CAP after 2027
The meeting took place as the European Commission, EU Member States and the European Parliament work on the new Common Agricultural Policy for the period after 2027. CAS International called for a clear commitment to be included in the new agricultural policy: no EU subsidies should be used to breed bulls for bullfights or cruel bull festivals.
Maite van Gerwen, Director of CAS International, said:
“By providing agricultural subsidies to breeders of these bulls, taxpayers’ money from people across the EU is being used to facilitate and perpetuate severe animal suffering. We consider this unjustifiable, and it must stop.”
Maite van Gerwen, director of CAS International | Picture: CAS International
An estimated €200 million in public funds is spent annually on breeding bulls used for these purposes. The exact amount cannot be established due to a lack of transparency regarding how EU agricultural subsidies are allocated.
Marta Esteban Miñano, President of the Spanish organisation Fundación Animal Guardians, said:
“The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was created to provide quality food for Europeans. However, millions of euros a year from the CAP (around 200 million according to the bullfighting industry) end up on fighting bull farms, whose main purpose is bullfighting events.”
Marta Esteban Miñano, president of Fundación Animal Guardians | Jannet, Vice-President of the French organisation CRAC Europe, added:
“According to the Occitanie Regional Chamber of Accounts, bullfighting is structurally unprofitable and survives only because of public subsidies. CAP payments to breeders whose bulls are destined for the arena should be abolished, as they constitute indirect public support for this activity”
Didier Bonnet and Carolina Andrade, CRAC Europe |opposes bullfighting
The widespread support for ending these subsidies is reflected in a public opinion survey commissioned by CAS International in 2024 and conducted by Ipsos I&O Publiek on attitudes towards bullfighting in Spain, France and Portugal.
A majority of the population in all three countries opposes bullfighting and believes that public money should not be spent on facilitating it. The notion that bullfighting is inseparable from the culture of these countries is therefore misleading: a majority of their citizens want it to end.
Cristina Ibáñez, Head of Political Affairs at AnimaNaturalis Spain, said:
“For years, European citizens have made it increasingly clear that they do not want their money to be used to subsidise bullfighting and the suffering it entails. Yet political institutions continue to lag behind this social demand. We are tired of seeing public funds used to sustain an industry that is increasingly rejected by society. It is time for the EU to listen to its citizens, stop financing bullfighting and take a clear step towards its abolition.”
Cristina Ibáñez, AnimaNaturalis Spain | Picture: CAS International
Rita Silva, President of the Portuguese organisation ANIMAL, said:
“It is absolutely unacceptable that European taxpayers’ money continues to fund an activity rooted in violence and animal suffering. The European Union cannot claim to uphold animal welfare while allowing public funds to support the very opposite. The next Common Agricultural Policy must put an end to this contradiction.”
Rita Silva, president of ANIMAL | Picture: CAS International
MEPs acknowledged the need to address EU subsidies going to breeders of fighting bulls.
Among those present at the meeting were MEPs Niels Fuglsang and Anja Hazekamp | Picture: CAS International
The European Parliament has also previously voted against these subsidies. Marta Esteban Miñano of Fundación Animal Guardians said:
“The European Parliament has already voted twice against subsidies for bullfighting, and we demand that the new CAP include the necessary conditionalities so that not a single euro from European citizens goes towards maintaining this cruel activity.”
51,771 signatures
The event follows the presentation of an international petition calling for an end to these subsidies.
On 29 September, CAS International and World Animal Protection Denmark presented 51,771 signatures to MEP Niels Fuglsang at the European Parliament. The petition was supported by more than 50 other animal welfare organisations. The signatures came from 93 countries, including all 27 EU Member States.
During the meeting on 14 October, organisations from Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands shared their perspectives and discussed with MEPs how the new CAP could prevent EU taxpayers’ money from contributing to the breeding of bulls for bullfighting and cruel bull festivals.
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zondag 18 oktober 2026
Free the Bears operates the largest moon and sun bear sanctuary network in Southeast Asia and has supported the rescue of more than 1,000 bears from bile farms, illegal wildlife trade and other forms of exploitation
Free the Bears is a leader in the rescue and rehabilitation of orphaned bear cubs.
Some cubs arrive at our sanctuaries just weeks old, requiring around-the-clock support from dedicated bear carers. The youngest cubs need bottle feeding throughout the day and night, careful monitoring and specialist veterinary support to give them the best possible chance of survival during their most vulnerable days.
As cubs grow, our focus shifts to helping them develop the skills and behaviours they need to live as bears. Through carefully managed social groups, enrichment and access to natural environments, cubs learn to climb, forage, explore, swim and play with other bears.
Wherever possible, we also assess whether rescued cubs may one day be suitable for a return to the wild. This requires careful behavioural monitoring, minimal human contact, protected forest habitat and long-term research. Sadly most bears will need sanctuary care for life, due to the trauma they experienced. But whether a cub can return to the wild or needs sanctuary care for life, every one of them deserves safety.
How it all began:
In 1993, Perth grandmother Mary Hutton saw a television report that changed the course of her life. The footage showed the horrifying extraction of bile from traumatised moon bears held in coffin-sized cages, a cruel practice used in traditional medicine across parts of Asia.
With no previous background in wildlife conservation, Mary began collecting signatures for a petition at her local shopping centre in Perth, Australia. What started as a small community effort quickly grew into a movement.
By 1995, Mary had founded Free the Bears.
Over the next three decades, her determination, and the support of thousands of people around the world, helped transform that grassroots effort into a leading conservation organisation protecting bears across Asia.
Today, Free the Bears operates the largest moon and sun bear sanctuary network in Southeast Asia and has supported the rescue of more than 1,000 bears from bile farms, illegal wildlife trade and other forms of exploitation.
10 ACROSS ASIA
donderdag 15 oktober 2026
The Sadistic mastermind of global monkey torture network in London jailed after ‘zoo sadists’ paid for animals to be abused & put in food blenders
Warning: This information can be emotional en deeply disturbing
THE SADISTIC mastermind of a global monkey torture network today got his just desserts – and was put behind bars himself for more than three years.
Jobless Bartosz Poklek, 30, orchestrated the slaughter of the animals through encrypted online groups from his room in a South London HMO.
Twisted members of his forums paid for harrowing acts of violence to be inflicted on macaque monkeys and livestreamed from Indonesia.
Among Poklek’s “zoo sadists” were four British women with a savage lust for torturing primates.
One of them claimed to be transferring a hatred of pregnant women and children onto monkeys, said police.
Some female monkey torture facilitators also spoke of suffering from ‘Happy Valley’ syndrome, in which they feel deep revulsion for human-like entities.
Polish national Poklek was treated as a god-like figure among the community of monkey haters and known as ‘The General,’ ‘The Boss,’ and the ‘Big Man.’
However, the “mythical persona” at the centre of the web of hate was discovered to be an unemployed “low life” with a “fetish for sadism and child pornography.”
Poklek was arrested at 3am on 16 September last year during a raid by UK and US law officials on his room at the HMO in Lewisham.
When cops burst in, they found him viewing monkeys being tortured on “James Bondesque” computers, protected with state-of-the-art security systems.
Poklek was today jailed at London’s Woolwich Crown Court for three years and three months after pleading guilty in July to encouraging crime under Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007.
The monkey monster also admitted possessing indecent images of children and obscene publication offences.
He would have faced the maximum sentence of five years but his tariff was reduced for his guilty pleas.
The court heard Poklek played a leading role in the “monkey hate” online community, running chat groups and distributing thousands of “abuse on demand” videos and images.
Judge Christopher Grout laid out details of the “despicable” online community, telling the court: “It is no exaggeration to say that as a lawyer or as a judge I have never encountered such a horrific case of animal abuse in my life.
“The facts of the offending are truly appalling, likely to cause distress to anyone listening to or reading about them.
“There is a vile underground community who have a hatred of monkeys, particularly baby monkeys, and take pleasure in seeing such monkeys being tortured and killed.”
Chief Inspector Kevin Lacks-Kelly, head of the UK National Wildlife Crime Unit, described Poklek as “the central figure” behind closed online groups of monkey haters.
He said members “shared a common and depraved fascination with inflicting prolonged, escalating torture on monkeys.”
The chief inspector added: “Those inflicting the torture deliberately kept the animals alive for as long as possible to extend their suffering and recorded the acts for their own perverse gain.”
He said Poklek and his acolytes paid for monkeys to be dismembered while alive and their body parts fed into a blender.
Primates were filmed being boiled alive, having their genitals and fingers cut off, being skewered with a kebab rod from top to tail and sexually abused.
Mother monkeys and their babies were slaughtered in front of each other by locals and one man was filmed cutting open the top of a skull and eating the animal’s brain.
Poklek was known as BP to his venomous followers, many of whom lived ordinary lives on the surface.
Chief Inspector Lacks-Kelly said: “He was a mythical persona figure who we only ever knew as BP.
“We never suspected he was resident in the UK. We thought he was in wider Europe or potentially the States.
“He was controlling almost all of these closed Telegram groups.
“He was referred to as ‘The General’, ‘The Boss,’ the ‘Big Man.’
“Everybody idolised him. He was like a deity figure… he was empowered to the point he had a God-like persona within his group.
“In reality he was just a low life living in a HMO in Lewisham with a fetish for sadism and child pornography.”
Poklek operated the UK arm of the monkey torture ring while American Mike ‘The Torture King’ McCartney, 51, ran the US wing from his Virginia home.
McCartney was exposed in a June 2023 BBC documentary named ‘The Monkey Haters.
He was jailed in November the following year for three years and four months, leaving Poklek in sole charge.
Chief Inspector Lacks-Kelly said intelligence about monkey torture networks was first received from the UK’s National Crime Agency Asia desk in June 2022.
He said: “There was intelligence that some may potentially be operating in the UK and there were user names.
“We took this on as a development project and within three months we had identified five individuals in the United Kingdom.”
The chief inspector likened the monkey torture film to “snuff movies” showing humans being killed.
Local monkey torturers in Indonesia were paid between $200(£151) to for livestreaming the slaughter, several months’ wages for some of them.
Four of the five suspects initially identified in the UK were women.
Scottish mum-of-two Natalie Herron, 39, of Airdrie, in Lanarkshire, was a senior group member who was jailed for two years and three months in June last year.
Using the handle name ‘The Immolator,’ she sent 4,000 messages on an encrypted app, including: “Oh my God the little b*d is making my ears bleed.”
Another read: “I am shocked how easily the drill went through the skull, it was like butter”.
And she wrote: “Trying to find a video where they will kill the mum and the babies watch.”
In November 2024, Holly LeGresley, 37, of Kidderminster, was sentenced to two years and Adriana Orme, 55, of Upton-upon Severn, jailed for one year and three months at Worcester crown court after admitting paying for moneys to e trortured..
Chief Inspector Lacks-Kelly said: “They were polar opposites. Legresley was vulnerable and Orme was a grandmother who lived in a million-pound large house.
“She(Orme) had chatted online about monkey torture and within the chat she said ‘I’ve got to go, I’ve got to pick the grandkids up.’”
Another woman in South Wales was deemed too ill by the CPS to be prosecuted.
Family man Paul Stanley, 42, of Knotty Ash, Liverpool, was jailed for 20 months in November 2924 after admitting uploading the torture and killing of long-tailed macaque monkeys.
Meanwhile, in the US one leading group member was discovered to be former US attorney prosecutor Colt Moss, who later killed himself, and another was in the air force.
Poklek was finally unmasked following a joint investigation by the UK’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, police forces and US’ Homeland Security Investigations and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
But his computers and phones were programmed to wipe everything if any third party had tried to take them over.
Digital forensic specialists were called in and seized two terabytes of material on four hard drives and several mobile phones.
Analysis revealed the leading role in the groups which Poklek had played and the twisted monkey torture methods.
Specially-selected investigators were given support and counselling after having to sift through the harrowing evidence.
After the case, Sarah Kite, co-founder and spokesperson for Action for Primates, said: : “Bartosz Poklek belongs behind bars, and we welcome the prison sentence that has been handed down to him today.
“Vulnerable and helpless baby monkeys were subjected to the most unimaginable pain, suffering and distress because of him and the monkey torture networks he ran.
“I am extremely grateful to the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), UK Police forces and US law enforcement agencies for taking action against Bartosz Poklek, and for their continuing pursuit of those people involved in these vile and sadistic groups.