Every year October 4 is marked as the World Animal Welfare Day. This year as well, people around the world will be celebrating the day which reinforces celebrating nature and its millions of creatures.The World Animal Welfare Day significance is appreciating co-existence of humans as well as animals on one home that is planet Earth. This day is celebrated to raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe.
Building the celebration of World Animal Welfare Day unites the animal welfare movement, mobilizing 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 recognized as sentient beings and full regard is always paid to their welfare.
The main aim of the day is to understand the importance of co-existing with animals of all kinds. The day reinforces improving standards of animal welfare. Be it treatment of animals or understanding the mere existence of types. Other significances of the day include creating awareness and raising concerns around the importance or endangered species. The day was first coined in the year 1931. A convention of ecologists in Florence, Italy felt the need to make people understand animals and their lives.
World Animal Welfare Day has already brought about a significant and lasting contribution towards advancing animal welfare standards, and its influence will only continue to grow. We regularly receive heart-warming messages from people keen to tell us about what being involved with World Animal Welfare Day has helped them achieve and we’d like to share a few of these phenomenal victories with you now.
The first World Animal Welfare Day took place on March 24, 1925, in the Sport Palace in Berlin, Germany. More than 5,000 people attended the first event. It was founded by writer and animal activist Heinrich Zimmermann, in 1929. World Animal Welfare Day was celebrated for the first time on October 4, the day it was originally intended to be.
Initially, the day was celebrated by people in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia, but in May 1931, at a meeting of the International Animal Protection Congress in Florence, Italy, Zimmerman’s proposal to make October 4th World Animal Welfare Day a universal celebration was unanimously accepted and adopted as a resolution.
October 4th is the Feast Day of Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology and animals. The feast day is the customary day for Catholic and Anglican churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals. Francis of Assisi believed that nature was the “mirror of God.” He called all creatures his “brothers” and sisters,” and even preached to the birds. He also believed that human beings have a duty to protect nature as the stewards of God’s creation. According to the website of World Animal Welfare Day, the annual celebration hopes to improve the welfare of animals around the globe. The goal: “Involvement is growing at an astonishing rate and it’s now widely accepted and celebrated in a variety of different ways in many countries, with no regard to nationality, religion, faith or political ideology.” Legend has it that Saint Francis was able to talk to animals, which is why he is depicted in numerous works of art surrounded by animals. St. Francis was born in 1181 or 1182 and died on the night of October 3, 1226.
Throughout history, social movementslike World Animal Welfare Day, have always been a major vehicle for ordinary people’s participation in politics, and key in fighting for social justice and reform. The lives of animals are profoundly affected by the actions of individuals, businesses, and nations. It’s therefore essential that, as sentient beings, their rightful status as recipients of social justice is established and translated into effective animal protection.
World Animal Welfare Day embraces all animals and the unique concerns of each, in every country, and makes animals front-page news. Through increased awareness and education, we can help develop a compassionate culture which feeds into legal reform and social progress to make this world a fairer place for all living creatures. A world where animals are recognized as sentient beings and full regard is always paid to their welfare.
In the year 2003, the Naturewatch Foundation was responsible for organizing the charity website under the name World Animal Welfare Day website. The website powers small but effective ways of raising awareness, general knowledge of does and don’ts against nature. This year as well, the website suggests that there are events and conferences on the importance of the day.
However, World Animal Welfare Day 2020 is going to be a virtual affair. There are many donations and ongoing campaigns that people can participate in. For example, “Providing support to animal welfare organizations and create an album and documentary films and An Online March for Animal Rights” and so on.
