There exists a band of trailblazers that wish to transform Pakistan’s dairy industry into a multi-billion dollar enterprise by introducing modern techniques to farming. – Photos by Reuters

Six-legged calf “Lilli” stands on the pasture of its owner Andreas Knutti, in Weissenburg, Switzerland, Thursday, March 29, 2012. The calf was born seven weeks ago with two additional legs on its back. – AP

GENEVA: A six-legged calf has defied the odds by thriving despite a vet’s prediction at birth that it wouldn’t survive.

Seven-week-old Lilli is now a minor celebrity in her native Switzerland after local media were splashed with images of the calf frolicking across a sunny field.

Farmer Andreas Knutti from Weissenburg, which is 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of the capital Bern, says he couldn’t bring himself to euthanize the animal because she was “so full of life.”

He told Swiss daily Blick Thursday that a curve in her spine means Lilli may never become a normal milk cow.

But Knutti says if the calf stays healthy she’ll still be allowed to join the others when they head for their Alpine pastures this summer.

Around the world, seals, otters and other species are increasingly infected by parasites and other diseases long common in goats, cows, cats and dogs, marine mammal experts told a major science conference. – AP Photo

VANCOUVER: When dead sea mammals started washing ashore on Canada’s west coast in greater numbers, marine biologist Andrew Trites was distressed to find that domestic animal diseases were killing them.

Around the world, seals, otters and other species are increasingly infected by parasites and other diseases long common in goats, cows, cats and dogs, marine mammal experts told a major science conference.

The diseases also increasingly threaten people who use the oceans for recreation, work or a source of seafood, scientists told reporters at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held this year in this western Canadian city.

The symposium “Swimming in Sick Seas” was one of many sessions at the meeting that drew a bleak picture of the state of the world’s oceans, which are increasingly acidic, warming in some areas and being inundated with melting ice or other climate change effects.

“There are dramatic shifts in the ocean ecosystem,” said Jason Hall-Spencer of Britain’s University of Plymouth, citing his research in Italy, Baha California and Papua New Guinea that is “all showing the same thing” — with an increase in carbon dioxide, “you get a 30 per cent drop in microbes, plants and animals” in the oceans.

Gretchen Hofmann of the University of California at Santa Barbara said increasing ocean acidity, caused by CO2 from fossil-fuel burning, is killing shellfish young — called spat — worldwide.

In the Pacific Northwest of Canada and the United States, the failure of spat hatcheries threaten a commercial industry worth more than $200 million, said Hofmann.

Lisa Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, said warming of the water reduces how much oxygen it can hold, newly threatening deep-sea creatures that have survived for millennium under stable conditions.

“We’ve seen less than five per cent of (animals) on the deep sea floor, and if we’re wiping them out we’ll never see them,” Levin told the conference.

“There are undoubtedly organisms down there that can be very beneficial to us, that we have yet to find.”According to Trite, director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the Fisheries Centre at University of British Columbia, the bodies washing ashore are a grim signal.

“I see the dead mammals coming ashore as canaries in a coal mine,” said Trite.”

Parasites, funguses, viruses and bacteria are increasingly passed from land to sea animals because human settlements on coastlines changes water patterns through paving, filling of wetlands that are natural filters, and intensive agriculture run-off, said scientists.

Toxoplasma gondii (sometimes called kitty litter disease), round-worm, single-celled parasites that cause brain swelling and disease that cause cows to abort their fetuses add to the challenges marine animals face from human pollution, Trite said.

Diseases from large agriculture operations “can cause abortion storms” in sea animals, said Michael Grigg, a US expert in parasites with the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Grigg said a virulent new Type X strain in California “is now spreading across the US” and samples have found it in South America and Asia. Grigg noted common strains of Toxoplasma gondii are already common in people, infecting as many as 25 per cent ofNorth Americans and 50 to 70 per cent of adult Europeans.

Changes in disease and frequency in sea animals “could have unrecognized impacts on humans as well,” said Melissa Miller, a veterinarian in California.

“We live in the same areas, and harvest and eat many of the same foods.” The panel said increased surveillance was required to monitor the health implications for humans of parasites and pathogens spreading from land to the marine mammals.

In another corner stands Mustafa Qureshi, 30 maunds and standing tall, no fear in his eyes – yet.

As Eidul Azha closes in, cows, bulls and goats will start selling and the bigger they are the quicker they will go.

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Piligrims stand in line to enter at the Bhaktivedanta Manor Krishna Temple, in Watford, north of London, on August 21, 2011, during an open day for pilgrims to celebrate 'Janmashtami' - the birth of Lord Krishna. Over 65,000 pilgrims and guests are expected to visit Bhaktivedanta Manor Krishna Temple to celebrate Janmashtami. - AFP Photo

LETCHMORE HEATH: In a typically English setting, the grounds of a mock-Tudor country mansion, thousands of pilgrims are celebrating what organisers claim is the biggest Hindu festival outside India.

More than 60,000 people were expected to attend the two-day Janmashtami festival on Sunday and Monday at the Bhaktivedanta Manor temple outside suburban Watford, northwest of London.

The rolling fields backdrop of Letchmore Heath suggests an English country fete, as does the bunting and muddy grass, but the flavour is unmistakably Indian.

Dancing, dramas, devotional songs and inspirational talks from swami teachers filled the tents as outside, mothers in bright saris sipped coconut juice and children had their faces painted blue like Lord Krishna.

The smell of cattle and spicy food filled the air as thousands soaked up the party mood.

“Janmashtami is a coming together of a great big family,” said former temple president Gauri Das. “People wouldn’t miss this for anything. There’s just such a spirit that captures everybody,” the 49-year-old temple senior told AFP.

“There’s a tremendous atmosphere of devotion and goodwill. It’s a cultural extravaganza… The magic of this place is that it’s the Hertfordshire countryside,” he added. “You couldn’t turn it into an architectural piece of India. But at the heart of it are the ethics, ideals and devotion of Hindu culture. It’s become an iconic symbol of the British Hindu identity.”

The 1880s manor was bought for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in 1973 by Beatles guitarist George Harrison, a devotee.

As ducks waddled from the ornamental lake, pilgrims queued on the clipped lawns beneath the oak and willow trees, bearing flowers and fruit to decorate the shrine of Krishna.

Inside, devotees enjoyed their fleeting moment passing the shrine as chanting and drumming echoes around the room.

The manor is also a dairy farm and pilgrims could feed the 46 cows, which are fond of carrots and jaggery sweets.

The temple is behind the production of “Ahimsa” (non-violent) milk, from cattle that are not slaughtered when their milking years are over.

Indian, London and regional English accents can be heard wandering between the bookstalls and children’s play areas.

Avi Singh, 26, a warehouse operative from Lucknow in northern India, who moved to England six months ago, was impressed by the free festival.

“It’s nice, everything is gorgeous. It’s like we are in India, apart from the weather!” he told AFP. Non-Hindus were also among the thousands wandering between the food stalls, exhibitions and entertainment.

“We were intrigued and wanted to experience something different,” said Hayley Crompton, 26, a costume maker from Nottinghamshire in central England. “It’s a really beautiful atmosphere, really happy. It’s like an English summer party – only with much better food,” she said, after finishing off some potato curry.

According to the last published census in 2001, there were 558,000 Hindus in Britain, one per cent of the population. Therefore, roughly a tenth were expected to visit the festival.

One play, India Joe and the Temple of Krishna, told the story of a London-accented Hindu youth, telling his Indian-accented father of how the savings of his generation had been blown away in the recession and how he was determined to make the best of his life by facing it fully armed with his faith.

“These are contemporary British Hindu kids who are reinterpreting their ancient traditions into the most modern setting,” Das said.

Fourteen years later, that same picture I drew when I was five came to life this June when visiting Fairy Meadows. The image was accompanied by the smell of heather, pine cones and fresh manure, along with the light headed feeling and sausage fingers that come with altitude sickness. Accompanied now with the ability to prance around the cows, to trek through the forest, and to watch falling stars under the night sky which bathed the Naked Mountain with star light.

The surreal feeling that Nanga Parbat was right in front of me, the snout like shape the rocks and snow made on its surface, looking down at me as if challenging me to climb it. I can’t help but snigger at the thought. As if! – Text and photos by  Kulsum Ebrahim.

Despite occasional massages, careful milking twice a day, and the spacious living quarters – the community has recently installed new cowsheds in French oak – the farm is not the bovine equivalent of a five-star hotel. – Photo by Wolvenraider/Wikimedia Commons

ALDENHAM: Milked by hand, allowed to breed naturally and free from the threat of slaughter, the cows at Gokul farm near London could be possibly the happiest in Britain.

The 44 animals are owned by a community of Hare Krishnas, who live on the site at Aldenham bequeathed by Beatles guitarist George Harrison.

As believers of a branch of Hinduism, the Hare Krishnas view cows as sacred and treat them with respect, milking them by hand for the animals’ comfort and allowing them to calve less intensively than in industrial farms.

Crucially, the community members are also vegetarian, guaranteeing that the cows are at no risk of slaughter.

“They are very sensitive animals. It’s like if you have a dog – how you feel, the dog senses that,” said Shyamasundara Das, the head of the farm at Aldenham.

“Here, because we have an atmosphere of cow care, the animals themselves are a lot more peaceful and tranquil, and maybe it’s also because there is no sense that they are going to be killed by us.”

Despite occasional massages, careful milking twice a day, and the spacious living quarters – the community has recently installed new cowsheds in French oak – the farm is not the bovine equivalent of a five-star hotel.

The cattle pay their way by pulling carts to take groups of school children or young families around the farm, as well as powering a traditional mill to grind the cereal that feeds the cows.

The farm is built next to the Bhaktivedanta Manor, which Harrison donated to the Hare Krishna movement in the early 1970s and is now their British base.

The presence of the sacred cows adds a spiritual element and brings the community closer to the Hindu ideal of a simple life in harmony with nature.

“Krishna is always seen surrounded by cows. He was a cow herd boy 5,000 years ago in India,” said Kripamoya Das, a Hare Krishna priest.

There is also a more practical link between the believers and the cows.

The flowers used to decorate statues in the temple next to the manor, where barefoot believers pray morning, noon and night, are fed to the cows once they begin to droop, as a thank you for all their hard work.

Although their humane approach means that calves are allowed to continue suckling their mothers’ milk for far longer than in industrial farms, the cows at Gokul still produce a large amount of milk.

At the moment this is drunk only by the community at Aldenham, but Shyamasundara Das is keen to begin selling it the world outside.

However, the cost of such a feel-good product is a barrier. The milk currently costs about three pounds (3.5 euros, 4.7 dollars) a litre and, pending the approval of regulators, would be sold at a hefty 3.5 pounds a litre, making it perhaps the most expensive cow’s milk in Europe.

And is it any better than normal milk?

Mark Gardener, a vet who regularly visits Gokul farm, won’t say either way — although he is confident that the cows here are likely to be happier.

“Normally in a dairy farm each cow has to justify his position” by having calves every few months or producing sufficient milk, and if they don’t they will be sent to slaughter,” he said. “Whereas here, the cows aren’t under that pressure.” – AFP Photo