Abroad

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

A long dispute over custody of the
Nilgiris Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in the
Nilgiri Hills region of southern India has reportedly
been settled out of court. Local trustees kept control
of the 52-acre NAWS property, three bulls, three
ponies, and a cow, Deanna Krantz of the New Yorkbased
umbrella organization Global Communications
for Conservation told friends. Krantz, who
tried to assume management of NAWS in 1996-1997,
said she had taken a number of dogs and donkeys to a
new sanctuary in the same area, set up on a farm
owned by her project manager. Krantz returned to
the U.S. in March, but said she would go back to
India “soon.” Refusing to answer direct questions

from ANIMAL PEOPLE, Krantz blamed ANIMAL
PEOPLE inquiries for what she seemed to consider a
negative outcome. ANIMAL PEOPLE began asking
questions, about a year after the case started, upon
learning from informed persons in India of alleged
discrepancies between Indian accounts and reports of
Krantz’ work in other U.S. media. NAWS was begun
in 1954 by Dorothy Dean, of England, who lived
there until she died in 1976. Krantz’ involvement was
subsidized by Humane Society International, an
affiliate of the Humane Society of the U.S.
The Provisional Urban Council of Hong
K o n g, overseeing the transition of the city from
British to Chinese rule, on May 12 voted 28-0 to fund
a study into the feasibility of washing dog urine off
the streets, and/or punishing dog owners who allow
their animals to urinate in public. Beijing governments
have been notoriously intolerant of dogs since
the Communist Party took power in 1949, often
promoting dog massacres, but many Hong Kong residents,
after the English model, are fond of dogs.
At least a decade of trying to cut the
deposition of dog poop on Paris sidewalks by fining
the owners up to $490 per pile hasn’t succeeded––but
it has generated perhaps the most thorough statistics
available anywhere on the extent of the problem.
Parisian officials peg the current volume at 10 tons a
day, costing $16 million a year to remove.