A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
After three years of nonstop effort, the Visakha SPCA has
sterilized about 80% of the street dogs in Visakhapatnam, we
believe. We are now making special efforts to catch the remaining
20%, who inhabit the beaches and other open areas where they can
quickly run away from the dogcatchers. Our Animal Birth Control
program has now extended our services to adjacent communities and
nearby rural areas.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
ASHEBORO, N.C.–Few people ever decline easy money, but
North Carolina Zoo director Davy Jones did.
It was a matter of honoring the trust and faith of donors,
Jones told ANIMAL PEOPLE, and of recognizing that funds raised when
they are not needed may be funds taken away from other worthy
projects–especially if the fundraising effort immediately benefits
mainly the fundraising company.
This is why Jones is extremely annoyed with a consortium of
six small nonprofit organizations calling themselves Great Cats in
Crisis, in whose name at least two hyperbolic appeals have recently
been mailed on nominal behalf of the animals at the Kabul Zoo. The
appeals are grossly misleading, Jones told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Helping the animals of the Kabul Zoo has been among Jones’
enduring interests since he visited the zoo himself about 10 years
ago, as then-director of the London Zoo in England. The Taliban
takeover of Afghanistan in 1996 cut off opportunities to assist, but
Jones did not forget.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
Thirty-eight of the 49 Washington state senators voted on
February 19 to repeal the Washington anti-trapping initiative–passed
in November 2000 by 34 of the 49 Washington counties, and approved
by 55% of a record voter turnout.
If the Washington house of representatives agrees, which it
may not, the anti-trapping initiative would become the first
initiative in state history to be repealed by the
legislature–although the lawmakers weakened a 1996 initiative ban on
hunting pumas with dogs.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
WASHINGTON, D.C.–All rats, mice, and birds bred for
laboratory use would be permanently excluded from federal Animal
Welfare Act protection under a last-minute amendment to the 2002 Farm
Bill, approved by the U.S. Senate by voice vote late on February 12
and sent to a joint Senate/House conference committee for final
reconciliation on February 13.
The amendment would affect more than 95% of all warm-blooded
animals used in U.S. laboratories.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
Shooting animals in the rural South: animal abuse or cultural norm?
by Sue-Ellen Brown, Psy.D.
“Who shot the dog?” I asked.
“I killed him! I shot him right in the face!” the
13-year-old boy boasted, sitting on his 4-wheeler.
“That was cruel!” his 8-year-old female cousin from the
suburbs objected.
“Well, he ate my cat!” exclaimed the 13-year-old.
For a moment I thought that could be a legitimate
explanation. I felt relieved that the next serial killer was not
living next door. But then, he continued, “Well the cat was dead.
The dog dug him up and ate him.”
I asked what happened to the cat.
“My dad shot him.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
EDINBURGH, Scotland–After six-and-a-half hours of debate,
including votes on 107 proposed amendments, the Scottish Parliament
on February 13 gave final approval to the Protection of Wild Mammals
Act, which seeks to ban hunting with dogs, 83-36 with five
abstentions.
“There will not be another [pack] hunting season in
Scotland,” exulted Tricia Marwick, a co-sponsor of the Act. “This
is a momentous day for the Parliament.”
Agreed Les Ward, chair of the Scottish Campaign Against
Hunting With Dogs, “It is a historic day. Scotland has led the way.
It will send a signal to the world that Scotland is a civilised and
modern country.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
SAN DIEGO–More than 450 animal shelters in four nations
combined efforts to send more than 76,000 dogs and cats “Home 4 the
Holidays,” Hala Ali Aryan of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on
January 20. The seven-week joint promotion ran from November 13,
2001, to January 6, 2002.
Founded in 1999 by Mike Arms of the Helen Woodward Animal
Center in Rancho Santa Fe, California, “Home 4 the Holidays”
debuted as a 14-shelter local program. It went global in 2001 with
the help of advertising in ANIMAL PEOPLE. In 30 years of adoption
promotion and counseling, at the American SPCA and North Shore
Animal League America before becoming executive director of the Helen
Woodward Center, Arms has supervised more than half a million
adoptions, and collaborative events he helped to initiate,
including the spring “Pet Adoptathon” coordinated by North Shore,
have placed several hundred thousand more animals.
The Woodward Center broke its own record for adoptions in a
month by placing 145 pets in December 2001.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
DAEGU, South Korea–“Please ask our President to make a
strong law banning dog and cat meat,” Korea Animal Protection
Society founder Sunnan Kum begged U.S. President George W. Bush in an
open letter on the eve of his February 20-21 visit to South Korea.
Sunnan Kum knew there was little chance that her letter would
reach Bush–but she has learned to try to leave no Bush unshaken in
her lifelong struggle against the customs of torturing dogs to death
to get adrenalin-soaked meat with reputed aphrodisiacal qualities for
men, and boiling cats alive to make a tonic for aging women.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:
OLYMPIA, Washington–A two-month national furor about
alleged falsification of evidence by seven field biologists studying
lynx range apparently started because several of the biologists did
not believe a feral domestic cat could survive in the Gifford Pinchot
and Wenatchie National Forests.
Almost any experienced feral cat rescuer could have told them
that feral domestic cats thrive wherever they find small mammals or
birds to hunt and adequate cover, from the equator to inside the
Arctic and Antarctic Circles.