ANIMAL WELFARE ABROAD

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

An attempt to vasectomize urban
baboons and vervets in the Diani beach district
along the south coast of Kenya started
slowly in January, as after fixing and releasing
just one vervet, the team was unable to catch
any more monkeys of either species,
Columbus Trust official Clement Kiragu told
The Nation, of Nairobi.
Britain will within a year introduce
“pet passports” in lieu of the six month
quarantine of all imported dogs and cats
which has been in effect since 1900, agriculture
minister Nick Brown announced on March
26. The “pet passports” will certify that the
bearer animals have been vaccinated against
rabies, have microchip ID, have had a blood
test, have no exotic infections, and come from
a nation with no endemic rabies. While pets
who have come from most European Union
nations and Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
Taiwan, and Singapore will qualify, pets from
the U.S. and Canada would not, under the
rules as Brown explained them ––but, Brown
added, “We are looking again at the position
for the U.S. and Canada.”

A 13-month panic over more than
40 alleged sadistic cat mutilations in London
ended in March after forensic study of the
remains by the Royal SPCA and S c o t l a n d
Y a r d found that all but two cats were roadkills,
later dismembered by scavenging crows,
dogs, and foxes. Signs of scavenging and predation
are often misread as sadism in the U.S.,
too; see “Witch hunts and wildlife,” A N IMAL
PEOPLE, November 1998, page 17.
Actual sadism takes quite different patterns.
The Commission for the Protection
and Defense of Animals in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, in early March asked the city to sterilize
all male pit bull terriers and to seize and
kill all female pit bulls, after a series of attacks
including the near-fatal mauling of a six-yearold.
The stated goal is to eliminate pit bulls
within 10 years. Similar legislation adopted 15
years ago virtually halted life-threatening dog
attacks in The Netherlands, but has proved difficult
to enforce elsewhere because of the difficulty
of establishing in court that a particular
dog is a pit bull, wolf hybrid, or other nonpedigreed
high risk breed.
“An attempt to introduce a modern,
comprehensive animal protection law
in Russia is in jeopardy,” writes World
Animal Net cofounder Janice Cox. “If this
chance is lost, it may set back the effort for
some years. Please help our Russian colleagues
by faxing letters of support to Tamara
Zlotnikova, President of the Ecological
Committee, at 011-7-095-292-6023.”
The Japanese animal protection
law, last updated in 1973, is to be reviewed
by the the Japanese Diet (Parliament) in
April/May, Cox reports. For details of the
draft update, with e-mail addresses for letters
in support of favorable amendments, contact
Cox c/o >>worldanimalnet@yahoo.com<<.
Jill Robinson, former China
Director for the International Fund for
Animal Welfare, has formed the A n i m a l s
Asia Foundation to promote animal welfare
legislation in China, Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Laos, and to manage a sanctuary at Pan
Yu, China, which she set up to look after
eight bears she rescued in 1995 from a bile
farm, after two years of effort. The Animals
Asia Foundation may be contacted c/o Lyn
White at 1 John Street, Woodside 5244, South
Australia.
The Hong Kong SPCA, police,
and Agriculture and Fisheries Department,
in their biggest-yet joint operation, on March
18 and 19 rescued more than 1,000 starving
animals in raids on four illegal pet shops.
Most were smuggled hamsters and guinea pigs.
Massey University biologist David
P e n n y and 37 colleagues in mid-February
announced that the New Zealand p a r l i a m e ntary
select committee on animal welfare legislation
had agreed to consider amendments to a
pending Animal Welfare Bill which would
extend to non-human great apes the rights not
to be deprived of life, not to be subjected to
cruel or degrading treatment; and not to be
subjected to medical and scientific experiments.
As of late March, the committee had
not acted on the proposed amendments, which
are based on a proposed “United Nations
Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes”
sought by the Great Ape Project, founded by
Animal Liberation author Peter Singer.
Eight local councils serving suburbs
of Sydney, Australia, have released
more than 40,000 dung beetles in public
parks since December 1998 to consume dog
poop, and six more councils reportedly plan to
do so. Accumulated dog poop is believed to be
responsible for about half of the fecal coliform
bacteria load in the Sydney storm sewers