Not ostriches with heads in the sand

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

PYONGYANG, N. Korea– – Get-rich-quick speculation on ostriches isn’t done yet, the North Korean news agency KCNA disclosed on March 27.

“In recent years the state has taken a series of measures to breed ostriches on a large scale,” KCNA said, touting ostrich-farming in terms now familiar to bankrupted participants in the boom-and-bust industry worldwide.

North Korea, one of the most insular and repressive nations in the world, is desperate to find a quick, easy way to recover from chronic food scarcity and a collapsed economy.

“Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have died of hunger since the mid-1990s,” said the South African Press Association. “North Korea is now relying on outside aid to stave off further starvation among its 22 million people.”

Seeking the quick fix––cheap

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Honolulu––Proponents of a Hawaii Department of Health Vector Control Division plan to ban feeding feral cats claimed at January public hearings that neuter/return practitioners who rely on feeding to lure cats into cage traps couldn’t possibly raise funds enough to fix all the half million cats whom state wildlife biologist Fern Duvall estimates are at large on Maui alone.

Veterinarian Sabina M. Wenner, founder and president of the Animal CARE Foundation (Hawaii), fixed that objection on February 23. Calling a press conference at Kakaako Beach State Park, where the ongoing dispute between kill-the-cats and fix-thecats factions has been most intense, Wenner announced receipt of a $10 million grant from an anonymous out-of-state donor.

“Wenner said it has not yet been decided how much money will be allocated to other Animal CARE Foundation (Hawaii) programs,” reported Pat Gee of the Honolulu S t a r – B u l l e t i n, “but said the focus will be to prevent cat deaths, by trapping them, neutering them, and returning them to an appropriate environment. Some of the funds would be used to set up facilities” to do neutering, and to provide care for cats who cannot be returned to the sites where they were caught.

The rite stuff

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

VATICAN CITY, PRETORIA, BANGALORE, PARIS, SINGAPORE, ISTANBUL––Pope John Paul II on March 12 asked forgiveness from God for the sins of Roman Catholics through the ages, mentioning offenses against Jews, ethnic minorities, women, and children.

The Roman Catholic Church has persecuted animals too, in all the same ways, and in many of the same places and times. But the closest the Pope came to mentioning animals in his prayer was a brief allusion to “those who abuse the promise of biotechnology.”

The Pope did not say whether this included the researchers of Cattletech Ltd., a British firm which has injected hormones from the urine of menopausal Italian nuns into milk cows in order to increase the frequency with which they produce multiple transplantable embryos. The idea is to produce more super-producing cows, faster, to replace the four million cattle Britain has killed in the national effort to stop the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease).

BOOKS: Nature Watch

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Nature Watch: Essays from Japan by W. Puck Brecher

Presented in both English and parallel Japanese translation, Nature Watch collects 21 columns originally published by the internet magazine Nagano Journal, concluding with a survey of Japanese attitudes toward nature and environmental policy, compared and contrasted with a survey of Americans.

Author/researcher Puck Brecher is a university professor long stationed in Japan. Distance from the mainstream of the U.S. environmental movement may help him develop a perspective on ecology which recognizes that upholding humane values must be part of any effective nature-saving. “

Asia
Reviews

JAPAN, KOREA, AND DOG/CAT-EATING

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

OKINAWA; SEOUL––Joining Korean activists in seeking global support for a campaign against dog-and-cat-eating, Okinawan animal rescuer Risa Nakamura in February 2000 asked leaders who are scheduled to attend the G-8 summit in Okinawa this summer to speak out in particular against the alleged Okinawan practice of drowning stolen cats and then boiling them into stew.

None of the world leaders responded on the record, but Sadayuki Hayaski, Japanese ambassador to Britain, denied Nakamura’s allegations in a February 25 letter to the London Times which appeared to have been modeled after a letter apparently originally authored by former South Korean ambassador to New Zealand Philip Choi in 1988, and used ever since as a stock response to complaints about dog-eating.

Indonesian fires again threaten orangutans

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

JAKARTA––Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid pledged on March 8 that he would try to control as many as 500 fires set in Sumatra to clear forests for logging and planting. The fires became a public issue when smoke briefly engulfed Sumatra, as occurred for months in mid- 1997, when Borneo was covered as well.

Farmers and loggers raze the forest understory each spring and summer partly to save labor and make charcoal; partly to avoid meeting deadly snakes. Animals escaping the flames are often trapped or shot. Wild pigs and deer are hunted for meat; orangutans may be illegally captured for sale.

Ashta Nita Bustani, head of the Semboja Wanariset Orangutan Rehabilitation Project, told the Indonesian state news agency Antara in February that the 1997 fires cut the orangutan population of Borneo by about 30%. Bustani said that some orangutan refugees from the 1997 fires were still wandering outside Kutai National Park, seeking new habitat. His organization had reportedly relocated seven orangutans in the preceding week.

Kenya, India fight to save elephants

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

NAIROBI––The U.S. and Britain in mid-March remained noncommittal as to whether they would support motions to restore the full global ban on ivory sales at the 11th triennial meeting of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The motions are to be introduced by Kenya, hosting the April 10-20 meeting, and India.

Lobbying for the restored ban in Washington D.C. and London in early March, Kenya Wildlife Service director Nehemiah Rotich pointed toward an explosive worldwide rise in elephant poaching since 1997, when CITES allowed Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to sell ivory seized from poachers and/or taken from elephants culled as “surplus” or for alleged crop-raiding.

Rotich and former KWS chief Richard Leakey, now heading the entire Kenya civil servie, believe the U.S. and Britain may favor applications by Tanzania and South Africa to join Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia in further ivory sales. Japan is the major buyer.

Brainwashing Taiwan: BIG-GROUP OUTREACH CAN BE MISGUIDED

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

I read with a mix of hope and intense disgust the January/February 2000 ANIMAL PEOPLE feature about overseas animal shelters trying to avoid repeating U.S. and European mistakes.

Especially interesting to me were the remarks of Wu Hung, founder of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan. Until recently Wu Hung chaired the Life Conservationist Association of Taiwan, a group which in name was active, but by way of activity did little more than publish pamphlets. I have talked with Wu Hung on occasion during my six years in Taiwan, and your article brought home to me the true evil that many of the large, rich organizations of conventional outlook are wreaking on animal rescue overseas.

BOOKS: The Rainbow & Other Stories

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

The Rainbow & Other Stories by Maneka Gandhi Puffin Books (India ), 1999.

Distributed in the U.S. by the Jiv Daya Committee (1718 E. Jeter Road, Bartonville, TX 76226.)

68 pages, hardcover. Illustrated.

Offered as premium for $30 donation to help the People for Animals street dog project in Bombay; the Jiv Daya Dharma Donkey Sanctuary and Education Center, also in India; and spay/neuter projects by Ahimsa of Texas

As federal minister for social justice and empowerment in India since August 1998, a portfolio which includes oversight of animal welfare, Maneka Gandhi holds the most influential public office attained by any outspoken animal rights advocate.

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