Flamingos are kept in a glasshouse to reduce the risk of bird flu contamination at the Daehlhoelzli zoo in Bern on November 17. The government has increased protective measures against bird flu. Poultry as other domestic birds should not come into contact with wild birds or their excrement. (KEYSTONE/Anthony Anex)
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Farmers demonstrate in front of parliament as politicians debate milk prices in 2009.
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Young Socialists campaign at the World Economic Forum in Davos in favour of an initiative to cap executive pay at no more than 12 times the lowest salary workers in a firm.
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Union workers use red umbrellas to protest in Zurich.
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A WWF campaign in Basel to return salmon to the Rhine, cleaning up the river between Basel and Bingen, Germany. In recent years salmon have made a comeback.
Photopress/WWF/Thomi Studhalter
Delivering signatures for an initiative for health insurance reform in Bern in 2012. The initiative was rejected.
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Gathering signatures for an initative on the postal service in 2002. It was narrowly rejected.
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A Greenpeace activist demonstrates in Zurich in 2013 to protect the Arctic from oil firms.
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Rally for a cantonal initiative for fair taxes in April 2015. The slogan was "We've been plucked enough!"
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The Swiss animal protection organisation "cage free country" protests in front of parliament in 2005 for better animal protection laws.
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1,600 panda bears - as many are now living in the wild - in Geneva for the WWF Panda Quest iphone game in 2011. (Photopress/WWF/Mamco)
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An elephant in 2004 at Zurich as part of a WWF exhibit on the killing of the animal.
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Members of the pacifist Switzerland Without an Army group draw attention to army spending with a piggy bank in 2013 at Bern.
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Ueli Maurer, then president of the Swiss People's Party, presents the new campaign mascot, Zottel, at canton Zurich in 2007.
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Police carry a Greenpeace activist dressed as an orangutan, protesting damage to rainforests from production of palm oil, outside a Nestlé general meeting at Lausanne in 2010.
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Animals are almost always popping up in politics. This is because politics is almost always a question of grabbing people’s attention – in other words, advertising.
In front of the Palais de Beaulieu in Lausanne two police carry an organutan away. The demonstrators said food giant Nestlé was contributing to deforestation in the Indonesian rain forest by using palm oil in its products. Would anyone have noticed it was a normal protestor being escorted from the scene?
Animal images can be obvious in political campaigns, like pandas when you’re talking about, well, pandas, elephants to highlight the plight of elephants, or a very big salmon when it comes to reintroducing the fish to the Rhine.
Some creatures are also obvious symbols: A polar bear when you’re talking about the Arctic; a piggy bank when it comes to savings.
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