Month: October 2002

Korean animal advocacy after the soccer World Cup–and looking toward China

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

SEOUL–What came out of four years of
escalating protest against South Korean
torture-killing of dogs and cats for human
consumption, focused on the 2002 World Cup
soccer tournament?
Exactly as predicted by International Aid
for Korean Animals founder Kyenan Kum and her
sister Sunnan Kum, founder of the Korean Animal
Protection Society, pro-dog meat legislators
waited until after the World Cup was over and
most western visitors and news media left Korea.
Then the legislators dusted off and again began
touting a bill promoted several times previously,
which seeks to repeal the weak 1991 South Korean
ban on the sale of dog meat and cat meat. The
bill would authorize the establishment of
commercial dog-slaughtering plants, on the
pretext that such facilities could be inspected
by the agriculture ministry, and would therefore
be “humane.”

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LETTERS [October 2002]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

 

Australian “aliens” in their native land

Thank you for speaking out against the illogical mass killing
of both introduced and native animals in Australia. It will be
beneficial for people with no understanding of the fact that animals,
feral or not, are each and every one the experiencing subject of a
life, to learn that Australia is being criticised overseas for its
callous attitudes.
An item last night on our national ABC Seven Thirty Report
absolutely bore out everything in the September 2002 ANIMAL PEOPLE
cover feature, “Aliens in their native land.” There was a big story
about the “plague” of kangaroos, said to be in “pest proportions,”
eating all the grass that should be left for the starved cattle
during the drought. Many farmers were interviewed, all saying we
need a vast slaughter of kangaroos, and that kangaroos are the most
prolific breeder, and that we should be farming kangaroos, not
sheep, without a single animal rights person included to even
comment that the kangaroos were here first and we took their land,
and they have come in to eat in the paddocks because all their
rangelands have been destroyed by sheep and cattle grazing.
This year the legal kangaroo kill has already been increased
25% from last year. The topsoil that belonged to the forests and the
aborigines and the kangaroos is blowing away. If the earth was left
unploughed and ungrazed, there would be enough dry grass and scrub
to hold the soil until the drought passes. It has been known for 100
years that the Australia inland has erratic rainfall which cannot be
depended upon, yet in times of plenty the paddocks are still
overstocked, so that in the bad seasons the earth is degraded,
cracked and eroded.
–Christine Townend
Leura, NSW
Australia
<CJTownend@bigpond.com>

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Editorial: 10 years and still flying for the animals!

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Ten years ago this month, they said
ANIMAL PEOPLE would never take off. The runway
was too short, too shaky, we were hauling too
much weight, and we would be flying blind,
dodging flak all the way.
No one had ever before done what we set
out to do–to independently report about animal
protection, for a global audience, with a
proactive and self-starting approach to getting
things done.
We started out flat broke, hopeful, yet
lacking even a tangible promise that help would
come from anyone.

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Pakistan conference

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

“A great peaceful gathering was organized in Multan,
Pakistan, on 19th July, 2002, under the leadership of Khalid
Mahmood Qureshi, chief editor of The Tension weekly newspaper,”
reported Shahzad Ahmed Khan in an e-mail to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Topics of concern, according to Khan, included “the safety
and survival of rare animals and birds which are on the verge of
extinction”; the weakness and nonenforcement of Pakistan’s 1890
animal protection act; and animal fighting for entertainment,
involving cocks, quail, pheasants, bulls, camels, dogs, and
dogs set against tethered bears.
Participants in the gathering including Supreme Court
advocate Nafees Ansari and Arif Mahmood Qureshi, managing trustee of
Animal Rights International/Pakistan, raised banners bearing slogans
such as “Animals are the beauty of our earth,” and “Love the
animals–don’t tease or torture them,” Khan said.
“Banners also protested,” Khan wrote, “that the District
Court Bar of Multan and the Municipal Corporation of Multan recently
poisoned street dogs and feral cats.”

Dickson out at WSPA

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

LONDON–Andrew Dickson, chief executive of the World Society
for the Protection of Animals since 1992, either resigned or was
dismissed in early September 2002, informed sources told ANIMAL
PEOPLE at deadline.
Further details were unavailable.
Dickson had survived many public controversies, including a
1995 rift with primatologist Jane Goodall, several splits with Latin
American donors and affiliates, and allegations of extensive
mismanagement of the WSPA bear sanctuary program raised from several
different directions in 2001.

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Recovery from misuse of funds takes years

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.; SEVIERVILLE, Tenn.–Catching alleged
misuse of funds by trusted executives can be difficult. Recovering
from the damage may be harder still, the recent experiences of tbe
Santa Cruz SPCA and Sevier County Humane Society seem to
illustrate–while some of the people involved with each organization
maintain that their major problem all along has just been unfriendly
news coverage.
Serving an affluent and picturesque California coastal
community, the Santa Cruz SPCA is just a long but pleasant commute
from either the Silicon Valley–the Santa Clara Valley on maps –or
San Francisco.

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Is Osama stealing milk from elephant babies?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

NAIROBI, Kenya–Checks sent directly to the David Sheldrick
Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park, Kenya,
have recently been diverted, prompting founder Daphne Sheldrick to
remind donors to route their support via the trust office at 158
Newbattle Abbey Crescent, Eskbank, Midlothian EH22 3LR, Scotland,
U.K.
“On July 8 of this year,” one donor told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “I
wrote a check for $50 to the Sheldrick Trust, which I proceeded to
send to the Nairobi address. My bank returned the check to me
altered to list the amount as $4,000, credited to the Arab Bank in
Deira, Dubai. Unfortunately I had enough in my checking account to
honor the amount, but the bank is repairing the damage and I won’t
be charged for it.”

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Hard times close two more shelters

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

 

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.; ARLING-TON, Wa.–Critter Crater, of
Flagstaff, Arizona, and Sheltering Arms, of Arlington,
Washington, closed on August 10 and August 18, respectively. Both
evolved out of the failures of previous shelters, and both made
promising starts but were casualties of the ongoing economic shakeout
that began with the late 2000 collapse of high tech stocks.
Critter Crater emerged from the dissolution of the
long-struggling Valley Dale Animal Haven in Sedona. Hired from
upstate New York in 1993 to try to save Valley Dale, former
executive director Christine French and shelter manager Bill DeRitter
at last gave up in 1997 and joined several volunteers and donors in
starting over at a new site. But the group soon split. French and
DeRitter returned to upstate New York, to manage the Ulster County
SPCA. Critter Crater meanwhile had at least two other management
teams during the next four years.
Sheltering Arms lasted just two years in a city-owned
facility made available after the North Snohomish County Animal
Shelter closed in 2000. Much praised by local activists and news
media, Sheltering Arms lacked the budget to hire staff and
ultimately could not find enough volunteers to stay open. The Humane
Society at Happypaw Farms, also of Arlington, is reportedly
interested in taking over the building.

Legislative Calendar

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

U.S. President George W. Bush on August 12 vetoed a $17.9
million Congressional appropriation of emergency funding to combat
Chronic Wasting Disease. Similar to “mad cow disease,” CWD attacks
deer and elk. Identified among captive deer and elk herds in
Colorado as far back as 1966, it was long regarded as an isolated
curiosity –but within the past year it has been detected as far east
as Wisconsin, as far north as Alberta and Manitoba, and as far
south as the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Suspicions are
growing, meanwhile, that like “mad cow disease,” it has begun
attacking and killing humans who eat the diseased portions of
infected animals. Part of a $5.1 billion anti-terrorism package,
the appropriation would have allocated $14.9 million to the USDA
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, $2 million to the
Agricultural Research Service, and $1 million to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. The federal agencies were in turn to
grant the money to their state counterpart agencies. Bush said he
vetoed the appropriation because the $5.1 billion bill included too
many other unrelated riders, such as funding for AIDS prevention and
aid to Israel and Palestine.

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