Category: Editorials

Editorial: Pet overpopulation: it’s win or lose now

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The latest shelter statistics, presented on page twelve of this issue, suggest that at
present about four million cats per year are euthanized for population control––about two-
thirds of the total number of animals euthanized because they have no homes.
The significance of this number is not only that it is low indeed compared to the
best estimates of feline euthanasia published only a couple of years ago, and almost unbe-
lievably low compared to the estimates of 15 years ago. Records of kitten survival in both
private homes and feral colonies indicate that only about half of the kittens who are born
live long enough to be weaned. Only about half of the kittens who survive that long reach
sexual maturity, so that no more than 25% of all the cats born eventually join the breeding
population, even without neutering. Further, according to data ANIMAL PEOPLE col-
lected and published in 1992, while conducting the cat rescue project described in our lead
feature for this month, only about half of all feral mothers live long enough to bear more
than one litter, and only half of those live long enough to bear more than three litters. Our
cat rescue records indicate that only one feral mother in a hundred lives longer than three
years, so four to five litters appears to be the normal outside limit to feral reproduction.

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Editorial: Where there’s a will, there’s a way

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1993:

Quite a number of items in this issue have to do with provisions for life after one’s
own death, and not in the spiritual sense. Though we die, our animal companions and
organizations may live on, not necessarily as we’d have chosen. One of our major investiga-
tions this month involved conflicting interpretations of an ambiguous will that eventually
resulted in a protracted legal battle, during which the lawyers for the opposing sides may
have gotten more of the bequest than the cause it was intended to aid. A page of features
describes contrasting arrangements the North Shore Animal League and Texas A&M
University offer for the orphaned cats and dogs of deceased humans––alternatives costing
nothing but perhaps a small donation on the one hand, and $25,000 on the other. An obitu-
ary notes the death of a lady who left a fortune to her local humane society. If space
allowed, a longer item could further describe the two-month search for her will. But for
luck, her intended bequest might never have been delivered.

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Editorial: Welcome, brother or sister. Come on in.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1993:

A recent study by Western Carolina University psychology professor Harold A.
Herzog Jr., published in the Journal of Social Issues volume 49, #1, concluded after inter-
viewing 23 grassroots animal rights activists that there are “several parallels between an
involvement with the animal rights movement and religious conversion.” In particular,
Herzog discovered that “animal rights activism,” for his study subjects, “usually entailed
major changes in lifestyle,” including both subtractive changes such as giving up eating
meat, hunting and fishing, and wearing fur, and additive changes such as becoming politi-
cally active: writing letters, carrying petitions, giving speeches, picketing, prosletyzing.
Herzog’s findings probably surprise neither committed activists nor critics of the animal
rights movement, many of whom frequently disparage the overt missionary zeal of some
activists (especially new converts). A few opponents of animal rights have even called the
cause a new religion. At least one member of the fur trade press has warned that animal
rights threatens the fundamental premises of Judaism, while several prominent anti-animal
rights authors have claimed the idea challenges Christianity.

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Editorial: Listen, talk, dicker

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:

Members of the ardently pro-vivisection Foundation for Biomedical Research got
quite a shock with their January/February 1993 newsletter. On pages four through six, the
editors extensively, respectfully, and congenially interviewed Henry Spira, the most effec-
tive antivivisection activist of our time and perhaps of any time. He’s not a household word,
because he doesn’t do big direct mailings touting his accomplishments, nor does he head a
multimillion dollar organization, or go on television regularly to shout about victories he
barely acknowledges, because he believes gloating is counterproductive. Still, working
virtually alone, with a miniscule budget, Spira has accomplished more over the past 17
years toward getting animals out of laboratories than any of the national animal rights
groups and antivivisection societies; perhaps more than all of them put together. The bio-
medical research establishment certainly knows his name, and significantly, some of the
most influential people in that establishment thought it was high time to open public,
friendly dialog––even if they got bashed for it by colleagues conditioned to view animal
use/protection as a war zone, a Manichean struggle between good and evil in which one
side or the other must ultimately be annihilated.

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Editorial: How do you tell Brooklyn from the Balkans––or the Berkshires?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

The editor, the publisher, and the animal control officer were perplexed. Sipping
mugs of coffee on a recent frozen afternoon, they compared notes.
“Jogging up the road here a few minutes ago,” the editor said, “I ran into a young
guy in camoflauge, carrying a gun. It’s not hunting season. There’s nothing he could legal-
ly shoot that would be out at this time of day. Then I saw three kids coming the other direc-
tion, and every one of them had a BB gun. The only animals they could be shooting at are
animals they’re killing just because they’re alive.”
“I moved my family up here from Brooklyn,” said the animal control officer, “to
get away from an environment of poverty and stress and kids with guns. But now that I’m
here, it looks just like the Balkans.”

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Editorial: Surviving the long, cold winter

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:

We knew this would be a long, cold, difficult winter. Here at the confluence of
the Berkshires, the Adirondacks, and the Green Mountains, winters are always long and
always cold. Bears stay in their dens. Deer and rabbits nibble bark. Coyotes prowl farther,
venturing into daylight to drag away half-frozen roadkills. Even the crows look lean,
reserving their caws for real occasions. Though free to come and go through a special kitty
door, the feral cats we’ve rescued huddle close to the basement heater. Several have even
moved into the house, sleeping with humans for apparently the first time.
Despite the length of the winter here, in the shadows of tall mountains that make
days short even in midsummer, despite the bitter Arctic blasts that turn our little hollow
into a wind tunnel, snapping off trees and driving our dogs inside within minutes no matter
how much they crave exercise, we felt six weeks ago as if spring was just around the cor-
ner. ANIMAL PEOPLE, we thought, was in great shape for such a young and risky ven-
ture. As indeed it is. Starting with only our own good names as collateral, we’ve built up a
respectable international circulation; distinguished ourselves for prompt, thorough, broad-
ranging coverage; become the periodical of record in the animal protection field.

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Editorial: Veterinarians are animal people too

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:

Veterinarians, as a profession, have a morale problem. It’s not that they don’t love
their work; most do. Dropouts from veterinary work are few, while competition to get into
veterinary schools is intense as ever. The morale problem comes, rather, from feeling
unappreciated. And it isn’t just a matter of not getting enough pats and tail-wags from happy
patients. Increasing numbers of veterinarians are having trouble meeting the sometimes con-
flicting demands of maintaining ethical standards and making a living.
Today’s veterinarians are acutely conscious of ethical issues involving animals.
Witness the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons’ recent stand against docking dogs’ tails
(see page 14); the 1991 survey of University of Missouri veterinary graduates that found
nearly half believe animals have rights and four-fifths believe leghold traps are cruel; the
widespread participation of veterinarians in the Friends of Animals and Spay U.S.A. dis-
count spay/neuter programs; and the emergence of two vet-based animal protection soci-
eties, the American Association of Veterinarians for Animal Welfare and the Association of
Veterinarians for Animal Rights. Volunteers from both were among the first rescuers on the
scene in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.

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Editorials: Thanksgiving with ANIMAL PEOPLE

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:
The process of writing this editorial was interrupted when a gunshot cracked
through our woods at dusk. Rushing out to intercept a suspected poacher, I met Buddy, the
“pit bull terrier” who lives up the hill, limping up the road at great speed from the direction
the shot came. Actually an apparent Rottweiler/terrier cross, Buddy is about the color of a
deer, and it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. But whoever fired the shot got away.
Sidling past me, uninterested in any more encounters with anyone but his family, Buddy
trotted on home. I watched him go, hoping the limp was from stumbling over something in
his haste to escape, rather than from a bullet.
As I checked the mailbox on my way back inside, five minutes later, our neighbor
came running down the hill, shouting for help. Expecting to hear of a wounded dog, I
heard instead of a mauled baby. Buddy apparently ran into the house and curled up with
something to chew, by way of settling his nerves. The five-month-old baby reached for it.
Buddy bit, just once, but hard.

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Editorial: Helping a few good men and women find a better way

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:

I find no subject more difficult to write about than child abuse, because none other
provokes such conflicting emotions. I don’t claim to have been an abused child; indeed in
some ways I had unique advantages. Both my parents were schoolteachers, well aware of
the faults of formal education and quite adept at providing educational opportunities outside
of the classroom, as well as quite willing to help me dodge classroom attendence to do any-
thing and everything else useful and constructive––attending courtroom proceedings, ram-
bling around Europe, and working parttime for newspapers, among other alternative
“lessons” that were never graded. At the same time, our family was not immune to the
times and the stresses that afflict all of us. We went through part of a winter without gas and
electricity during a period of prolonged parental unemployment; there were several years in
my early teens when because my father was working the equivalent of two fulltime jobs, I’d
rarely have seen him if I hadn’t been working for him almost every day away from school; I
was beaten and starved for disciplinary reasons in a manner unfortunately not uncommon ;
and we all had to cope with several terrifying explosions of a long-smoldering mental illness

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