LETTERS [July/Aug 1998]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Whaling
I read with interest your June
edition report on the recent International
Whaling Commission meeting in Oman,
and whilst it was mostly accurate with
regard to the Brydes whale resolution
etc., the IWC did not take up the Makah
whaling issue this year. This is because
most IWC delegations do not believe they
have endorsed the Makah application, as
the U.S. and the Makah Tribal Council
contends they did in 1997, and therefore,
as the U.S. has not yet taken any whales,
there is no infraction to debate.
It was interesting this year that
the countries opposing action against the
Japanese proposal to kill Bryde’s whales
for supposed research purposes were also
the ones supporting the Irish Compromise.
Why were they willing to defend
pelagic and scientific whaling, when the
Irish Proposal is supposed to exclude
these elements?
––Chris Stroud
Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society
Bath, United Kingdom

Vegetarians
In 1985 a movement was started
in the U.S.A. to observe March 20 as
Meat-Out Day. It became a worldwide
event, and Animal Rights International
of Delhi began having four elephants go
around the city. Elephants were chosen
because they are vegetarians, yet are the
mightiest of creatures.
This year the elephants gathered
at Rajghat. Among the participants
were former minister for animal husbandry
and food Dr. Raghuvansh Prasad
Singh; Ahimsa International secretary
general Shri Satish Kumar Jain; and Shri
Sugal Chand Jain, vice chair of the
Ahimsa Research Foundation, who came
from Chennai.
We hope that on March 20,
1999, all ANIMAL PEOPLE r e a d e r s
will also organize some program.
––Laxmi Narain Modi
Executive Director
Animal Rights International
New Delhi, India

Eastern Europe
I have just returned from the
Bratislavia conference on animal population
control, cosponsored by the North
Shore Animal League, Pet Savers
Foundation, and National Canine
Defense League. This was the first time I
had attended an animal welfare conference
outside India, and I feel that my
attending was worthwhile, not only for
the wonderful people I met, but also
because it was most informative.
We in India are probably streets
ahead in so many ways. Most nations of
Eastern Europe seem to have no animal
protection laws. Yet I am amazed at the
enthusiasm of many of the attendees,
especially those from Slovakia, Hungary,
and parts of the former Soviet Union.
Roger Weeks, such a warm
person, organized the conference
extremely well and, more important,
conducted it with a great deal of patience.
––S. Chinny Krishna
Blue Cross of India
Chennai, India

Russia
Thank you very much for your
newspaper. It is very helpful to us! Our
organization is very small. We have two
shelters for dogs and one for cats. Our
mobile veterinary clinic has neutered
8,500 dogs and cats. The German organization
Pro Animale assists us. Despite
our efforts, the plight of stray animals in
Russia and Moscow is still really terrible.
The government spends a lot of money to
kill animals, but none to save lives and
prevent suffering. We apologize to the
hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats
whose suffering we have not yet stopped,
and promise to continue to make every
effort on their behalf.
––Tatiana Chuchina
Zooaschita
66 Leningradsky Prospekt
Moscow 125315 Russia

Brazil
One of our desperate and immediate
wories is the new Brazilian law on
environmental crime, which lessened the
punishment for poaching from a fine and
two to five years in jail to no fine and six
months to a year in jail.
Hunting is still prohibited,
except for subsistance to feed oneself or
one’s family in a condition of proved
deprivation, but the new law also allows
hunting by “authorization of higher
authority.” Such authorization cannot be
granted in Sao Paula and Mato Grosso,
according to their state constitutions, but
hunters are now trying to change this.
Brazil has the most exhuberant
fauna on this planet, and was formerly
much admired for our strong anti-hunting
law. Our fauna now are threatened by the
dissemination of an armament culture,
responsible for numerous crimes as in the
U.S.A., as exemplified by the boys from
Arkansas and Oregon who were taught to
hunt or had some kind of abuse among
their families or friends.
To your explanations of the
association between hunting and violence
against humans, you should add how
such so-called culture-based sports as
hunting, rodeo, and bullfighting also
perpetuate serious sexual and psychological
problems.
––Ila Franco
Arca Brasil
c/o 25235 La Serena
Escondido, CA 92025

Italy
I am a German veterinarian
working for over 15 years in southern
Italy on a neuter/release program for stray
dogs and cats. When I came here, I
found the same situation as is described in
the American Humane Association video
S a t o s, which I recently saw during the
annual meeting of the Dog Warden
Association in Great Britain. Skinny sick
dogs all over and dead dogs along the
roadsides were normal. Thousands of
people passed injured dogs on the street
without helping. Both neutering and
euthanasia, even of very sick dogs and
cats, were unknown. Overcrowded and
filthy kennels run by animal protection
organizations were also normal.
We still have problems, but the
situation is getting better.
For further information on our
projects, please contact me.
––Dorothea Friz
Lega Pro Animale
Via Mario Tommaso
81030 Castelvolturno (CE), Italy

Kosher slaughter
In Israel there are no legal standards
dealing with the transport and raising
of farm animals, nor concerning stunning
before slaughter. The problem is
that Orthodox Jews believe that an animal
must be fully conscious at slaughter, and
that all the blood must come out of the
animal after cutting the jugular vein.
Thus stunning before slaughter is not
practiced in Israel. There is little we can
change at the moment, as religious influence
over the government is too strong.
––Lize Schick
Founder and chair
The Association for Abandoned Animals
in Israel
POB 3620
Tel Aviv 63903 Israel

The message that will save the
most animal suffering is simply “Don’t
eat meat.” Let the meat industry push
slaughter reform as it tries to save itself.

Vadodara
Greetings from the Vadodara Centre for
Animal Rescue & Emergency. We are a registered
animal welfare trust in Vadodara, Gujarat, India.
In a span of a few months we have been able to
establish an animal therapy program for children
with special needs at the Arpan diagnostic development
center, set up a counseling center for pet
owners, present education and awareness programs
at school fairs, rehome stray animals through a
weekly newspaper column, and form an adoption
program for retired police horses.
We look forward to your support in helping
us obtain educational materials.
––Dr. Annapoorna, administrator
Ujjwal Banga, humane education officer
Vadadara Centre for Animal Rescue & Emergency
8 Landmark Business Centre
3rd floor, Race Course Circle
Vadodara 390 007 India

 

Counseling
I would certainly hope that “seek counsel”
orders would not replace jail time for animal
abusers. Counseling becomes such an easy way out
for judges who know that prisons are overcrowded.
I saw it happen with drunk drivers when [as a
lawyer] I was in the criminal court here in
Vermont. Finally, the drunks killed enough people
so that the legislature passed tougher laws. But animals
don’t vote and they will always share the bottom
of the legal system with children.
––Peggy Larson, DVM
National Spay/Neuter Coalition
Williston, Vermont

Archives
You continue to produce the best publication
“For People Who Care About Animals.”
I have a ragged copy of your June 1993
issue that I occasionally loan to people whom I trust
to bring it back. Have you ever reprinted “What
We’ve Learned From Feral Cats” ?
Just spent some time looking at your web
site. May I have your permission to scan and print
a few copies of the feral cat articles?
––Todd Stoehr
Lake Superior Humane Society
Knife River, Minnesota

Scan and print––that’s why the info is
there. Just credit the source.

HUNTER ASKS IF WE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS

Are really trying to place the blame on
hunters for child sex offender, rapes and the
school attacks from kids with guns. A good point
about the OK killing is that the kids stole a van &
guns from grandpa. If you want to outlaw guns,
then you must outlaw van too! Mandate trigger
locks. I enjoyed your article because you have the
right to, just like I have the right to bear arms.
You play games with the numbers and I could also
make numbers work for my side.
You want a example of not enough hunting.
Look at the Snow Geese and watch them die
for over population.
The hunting industry generated over 4.2
billion in sales. A lot of companies with worker
and a lot of tax dollars. Hunting to me is family
and friendship and enjoying the outdoors and
watching & training my dog. Hence, because I
hunt I am most likely a person that has sex with
my dog for a control issue and abuse.
One last question, Do you follow this
attitude throughout out your everyday life and do
you eat meat? Please feel free to contact me if you
have any question. Thanks,

––Tim Furness
>>timf@fftron.com<<

This example of hunter mentality is pub –
lished exactly as received, including the confusion
of Oklahoma with Oregon.
We do not eat meat.
The alleged snow goose problem is not
that any are dying “for overpopulation,“ but
rather that risng numbers of snow geese may dis –
place other species from their summer habitat on
the tundra. Allowing the heavily trapped arctic fox
and aggressively hunted arctic wolf to recover to
their historic abundance might solve the prob –
lem––but human hunters object, as they also want
to keep on trapping foxes and killing wolves, who
compete with them for caribou and moose.