“Be kind to your webfooted friends,” and other true stories about children helping animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

“Adrian Crawford, 14, and Adam Lankford, 13,” of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “were walking home in the rain after buying
Crawford’s mom last-minute flowers on Mother’s Day,” Associated
Press reported, “when they saw an agitated duck and heard chirping.
They realized her babies were trapped in a storm sewer and tried to
lift the manhole cover. It was too heavy, so they flagged down
police officer Gregg Fritz to help. The three pried off the lid,
and then the boys took turns lying on the ground, reaching down into
the sewer to scoop up the ducklings while the other boy held his
ankles.” Said Fritz, “It’s raining. They’re shivering. But they
saved those ducks. They made a decision to make a difference, and
they stayed there.” Added Crawford’s mother, Kathy Bergant, “He
gave me the best Mother’s Day present ever when he saved those
ducks,” who were later released at a public park by Officer Fritz
and the Milwaukee County Humane Society.

AFA-Bulgaria in April honored dog care volunteer Alexandra
Svetoslavova Mitseva, 8, of Sofia, as “Best Little Friend of the
Animals” for 2001. She received a horse sculpture created and
donated by Velemir Velev. Honored with her were fellow young
volunteers Kristian Anguelov and Svetoslava Filipova Cholakova. All
three children received gifts from Dogs Home Battersea, with messages
of appreciation from the Royal SPCA and ANIMAL PEOPLE.

The third grade students of Katy Des Chenes at the CDS School
in Escazu, Costa Rica, in May raised $200 to help the McKee Project
sterilize street dogs and feral cats. “I came home depressed,”
wrote McKee Project founder Christine Crawford, “as we had
absolutely no money to continue. What a wonderful surprise your gift
was! This donation will ensure that three more veterinarians are
trained to do sterilization surgery, and will sterilize 17-20
animals at the same time.”

Language arts and technology teacher Bev Defnall, of Martin
Luther King Jr. Middle School in Denver, recently helped her sixth
grade students to raise $2,600 for the Creative Acres sanctuary in
nearby Brighton. A planned field trip to the sanctuary was cancelled
when buses could not be arranged, but on May 20 Creative Acres
founder Maxine Mager alleviated the students’ disappointment by
bringing to the school a selection of Creative Acres’ most pettable
kittens, ferrets, dogs, rabbits, and hens. Creative Acres also
takes in horses, goats, sheep, pigs, goats, and emus, but
taking them to the school proved as impossible to accomplish as
finding buses on short notice for the 100 children.

The Coalition of Louisiana Animal Advocates and Humane Heart
on May 20 presented a prize of $100 to Lindsey Stein, a student at
Cabrini High School in New Orleans, as winner of their “Year of the
Humane Child” essay contest.

Fifth grader Nicole Halpin, 10, of Jackson, Wyoming,
daughter of Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation board member Mike
Halpin, found a dead trumpeter swan near a power line corridor
parallel to Wyoming route 89/191 when she was 8, and raised $12,000
during the next two years toward having the lines buried. The
Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation raised another $148,000, the
National Fish & Wildlife Foundation donated $60,000, Lower Valley
Energy contributed $40,000 worth of labor, the National Elk Refuge
gave $10,000, and beginning in November 2001, the job was
accomplished.

Kristine Thompson of Oklahoma and Anthony Trovato of
Pennsylvania were recently named winners of a nationwide student art
and essay contest held by United Animal Nations in honor of 21 former
Air Force research chimpanzees who were retired in 2001 to the Center
for Captive Chimp-anzee Care sanctuary in Florida.

Next of Kin

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

Next of Kin: A Compassionate, Interdisciplinary Science Curriculum
(Phase 1- Grades 6-9)
by Rachel Fouts-Carrico,
co-produced by the New England Anti-Vivisection Society
and Friends of Washoe
(order from NEAVS, 333 Washington St., Suite 850, Boston, MA
02108), 2002. $75 plus $8.00 for shipping and handling.

The Next of Kin curriculum introduces many concepts from the
1997 book Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me about Who We
Are, by Roger Fouts and Stephen Tukel Mills, republished in 1998
with the more successful alternate subtitle Conversations with
Chimpanzees.

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Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

Seattle Slew, 28, who won the horseracing Triple Crown in
1977 and was the last living horse to have won all three events,
died on May 7 at the Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm near Lexington, Kentucky,
25 years to the day after he won the Kentucky Derby in the first leg
of his rush to fame. “We have a black Labrador, eight months old,
named Chet, after my father,” owner Mickey Taylor told The New York
Times. “Chet went into his stall, and Slew licked Chet’s face, and
Chet licked Slew’s face. Then Slew looked up at me and said, ‘Get
on with your life. I have to go.'”

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BOOKS: Best Friends For Life

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Best Friends for Life: Humane housing for animals and people
Doris Day Animal League (227 Mass. Ave. NE, Suite 100, Washington,
DC 20002), 2002. 40 pages, paperback. $2.95.

The price of Best Friends for Life is certainly right:
individual copies are free. Ordering is quick and easy: call
202-546-1761, or send an e-mail to <info@ddal.org>.
Jointly published by the Doris Day Animal League and the
Massachusetts SPCA, Best Friends for Life updates and greatly
expands a manual originally issued in 1996. The first edition
covered only the right of disabled people to keep pets in federally
assisted housing. The first half of this edition revisits that
subject, adding discussion of recent relevant court cases. The
second half presents information useful to any tenant, any landlord,
and any organization which deals with the problems associated with
keeping pets in rental housing.

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Fewer fighters, more dogs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

PUEBLO, Colorado–Issuing one of the stiffest sentences yet
given to a convicted dogfighter, District Judge Scott Epstein of
Pueblo, Colorado, on April 15, 2002 sent Brian Keith Speer to
state prison for six years.
Speer, 32, of Colorado Springs, is to serve 18 concurrent
three-year sentences for 18 felony counts of animal fighting, plus
three more years for his felonious mistreatment of one especially
badly injured pit bull terrier found in his possession during a June
2000 raid on his trailer home near Boone.

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Editorial: “Rescue” should not perpetuate the problem

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Nine years ago, in April 1993, ANIMAL PEOPLE first brought
the plight of the Premarin mares and their foals to the attention of
the humane community.
Citing a previously unpublicized investigation by Tom Hughes
of the Canadian Farm Animal Care Trust, we pointed out that the
farms that gather the pregnant mares’ urine from which the estrogen
supplement Premarin is made typically keep the mares stabled and
connected to collection tubes from September to April each year.
Rarely were the PMU mares released for outdoor exercise then, and
their holding conditions now seem little different.

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Dalai Lama hits sport hunting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

DHARAMSALA, India–Making perhaps his strongest statement
yet on behalf of animals, the Dalai Lama on March 29 reminded
Buddhists that sport hunting is contrary to the teachings of the
Buddhist religion.
The Dalai Lama had been asked to address the growth of trophy
hunting in Mongolia by Fund for Animals spiritual outreach director
Norm Phelps, who practices Tibetan Buddhism. Phelps outlined the
recent heavy investment of trophy hunting outfitters in promoting
safaris to kill argali sheep, snow leopards, Bactrian camels and
other species, many of which may not be legally hunted anywhere else.

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LETTERS [May 2002]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Meat
After more than a quarter of a century as a vegetarian,
then vegan, I feel a need to expand that commitment, because my
sorrow and horror about the abusive treatment, genetic altering,
and cruel confinement, transport and slaughter of farmed animals has
only intensified over the years. When meat is served in my presence,
I now feel the need to somehow symbolically honor and acknowledge the
immense suffering that animal endured.
“Where there’s meat, I don’t eat,” came to me suddenly. I
will never again eat in a room in which meat is being served.
Know-ing this has brought me some measure of inner peace. I’m not
sure it is a politically sound decision, for it is surely wise to
encourage the offering of vegetarian/vegan alternatives. Yet to eat
contentedly in the presence of meat now feels to me like a betrayal
of the animal sacrificed.
“Where there’s meat, I don’t eat” is a one-person protest,
on behalf of those whose cries of protest were never heard, never
heeded. Even more so, this is something I am doing for myself.
When meat is present, I will still sit at the table and enjoy
myself and my friends, but I can only do so knowing that by not
eating, I am symbolically and publicly acknowledging the pain I
feel on behalf of those who suffered unspeakable and enduring horrors
to become the feast.
–Patty Finch
Phoenix, Arizona
<pfinch@Vview.org>
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Wildlife/human conflict–U.S., Canada, France, Australia, Uganda

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

Where did all the coyotes go?

A complaint to the Better Busi-ness Bureau filed in March
2002 by Laura Nirenberg, executive director of the Wildlife
Orphanage rehabilitation center in LaPorte, Indiana, alleges that
Guardian Pest Control, with offices in two Indiana cities plus
Illinois, defrauds customers by promising to relocate nuisance
animals and then kills them instead. According to the report forms
which all nuisance wildlife trappers are required to file with the
Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Guardian Pest Control in
2001 released 124 squirrels and 10 bats, but killed 80 chipmunks,
49 feral cats, 40 groundhogs, 126 moles, 10 muskrats, 43
opossums, 363 raccoons, and six skunks.

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