Lab animal care & use updates

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Northwestern University, of Chicago, in December 2003
agreed to pay $9,400 to the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection
Service in settlement of charges that it violated the federal Animal
Welfare Act from September 1998 to February 2003. Northwestern
allegedly “failed to establish and maintain programs of adequate
veterinary care” for laboratory animals, including keeping “complete
medical records.”
The USDA is reportedly still reviewing the results of an
August 2003 inspection of the Northwestern labs to see if the
deficiencies have been remedied.
The National Institutes of Health’s Office of Laboratory
Animal Welfare is separately probing animal care at Northwestern,
wrote Chicago Tribune higher education reporter Robert Becker.
Northwestern “received $325 million in sponsored research
funds last year,” Becker said.
Earlier in December, Staci Hupp of the Des Moines Register
disclosed that the Iowa State University veterinary school admitted
that it had filed insufficiently detailed animal use reports with the
USDA, but would not be penalized. The Association of Veterinarians
for Animal Rights recently complained to the USDA that Iowa State and
25 other vet schools had filed incomplete data.

Tufts veterinary school breaks dogs’ bones, kills the dogs, injures humane reputation

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

GRAFTON, Mass.– Philip C. Kosch, DVM,
dean of the Tufts University School of Veterinary
Medicine, announced by e-mail on January 2 that
researchers had killed the last five of six dogs
whose legs were deliberately broken as part of a
bone-healing study.
One dog had already been euthanized due to a post-surgical infection.
The killings were authorized by the Tufts
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
despite pleas for the dogs’ lives from the New
England Anti-Vivisection Society and
Massachusetts SPCA.
NEAVS and the MSPA learned of the
bone-breaking study only days earlier, after
Center for Animals & Public Policy masters’
degree candidates Tara Turner, Donna Zenko,
Diana Goodrich, and Michelle Johnson finally
realized after months of effort, supported by
more than two dozen classmates, that they would
not be able to save the dogs through internal
channels.

BOOKS: Conversations With An Eagle & Raven’s End

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Conversations
With An Eagle
by Brenda Cox
Greystone Books
(c/o Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.,
2323 Quebec St., Suite 201, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V5T 4S7), 2003.
288 pages, hardcover. $22.95.

Brenda Cox begins her memoir with her school days, when she
felt more comfortable in her own company and with the animals she
encountered on long walks in the countryside than with classmates.
She recalls visiting a lake with a new girlfriend from school.
They met some boys who took them out in a boat. The driver
headed recklessly straight toward a family of ducks. Cox screamed at
him and leaped from the boat to save the ducks.
She volunteered at O.W.L, a rehabilitation center catering
to birds of prey. Excelling at her work, she rose quickly to the
position of supervisor. At the rehab center she developed a close
relationship with Ichabod, a female bald eagle. So imprinted upon
her did Ichabod become that eventually he would not allow anyone else
into her cage. Cox became the only volunteer able to feed her and
clean her enclosure.
As years passed, pressure mounted at the center for Ichabod
to be removed. The center needed her cage for rehabilitation work,
and unless Ichabod could serve some useful purpose, she would have
to find a new home or be killed.
To try to save Ichabod, Cox talked the center directors into
allowing her to train the eagle. Cox undertook the extraordinarily
difficult task of using falconry techniques to make Ichabod
manageable, and thereby suitable for use in education and promotion.
Eventually, after many dangerous incidents, Cox trained
Ichabod to fly to her arm. Her strenuous efforts to save the bird’s
life are related in terms that reveal her great love and respect for
Ichabod, who gave Cox’s life meaning in their years together.
There was a constant power struggle between Ichabod and Cox,
continuing until the death of the bird. Ichabod exhibited a
startling range of moods and emotions, possibly accentuated by
captivity, to the extent that each time Cox visited her, she did not
know what to expect. Never did Ichabod lose her predatory instincts,
nor her urge to dominate.
Most conservationists would dismiss keeping an unreleasable
bird alive in captivity as pointless and therefore a worthless
exercise. Cox, however, believed Ichabod should be judged not for
her value to humans, but rather for her own sake.
Managing a wildlife rehab center and sanctuary for birds of
prey, with experience in handling and releasing large eagles, I
found Cox’s experiences were similar to my own. Like Cox, I believe
that all sentient creatures have a right to live, regardless of what
value conservationists may place upon them.
–Beverley Pervan

Raven’s End
by Ben Gadd
Sierra Club Books
(85 2nd St., San Francisco CA 94105), 2003. 360 pages, hardcover. $ 24.95.

Ben Gadd is a naturalist and guide whose descriptions of the
natural history and mountain scenery of the Canadian Rockies around
his home near Banff National Park are breathtakingly vivid. His
delightful book is written on two levels.
At one level it is a children’s fairy tale about the
adventures of Colin CC, a raven suffering from amnesia. Accepted
into the Raven’s End flock by the variety of characters who comprise
it, Colin CC finds himself compelled to embark upon a voyage of
self-discovery. His antagonist is the cunning, cannibalistic
Zygadena, the epitome of evil, who lives nearby and preys upon
members of the Raven’s End flock.
At a different level Raven’s End is a philosophical look at
the meaning of life and the purpose of existence, offering a bird’s
eye view of the human race.
These two levels come together unexpectedly in a clever twist
toward the tail of the story.
The adventures of the Raven’s End flock include coping with
most of the hardships faced by animals in the wild. Wolf kills keep
the flock alive in winter, a reminder of the interdependence of
species.
A book like this stimulates the reader’s compassion for wild
creatures and broadens understanding of the fragility of their lives.
–Chris Mercer & Bev Pervan

BOOKS: The Story of the African Dog

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

The Story of the African Dog
by Johan Gallant
University of Natal Press (Private Bag X01, Scottsville 3209, South
Africa), 2002. 124 pages, paperback. $29.50

“The African dog, or Africanis,” declares the back cover of
The Story of the African Dog, “is the original domestic dog of
southern Africa, whose ancient origins can be traced back to the
prehistoric wolf packs of Arabia and India. This unique and
fascinating study recreates for us the journey of the dog’s primitive
canine ancestors.”
Author Johan Gallant seems to accept the prevailing dogma
that dogs evolved and were first domesticated in Asia. ANIMAL PEOPLE
believes that dogs actually domesticated humans, as much as humans
domesticated dogs, and that this actually occurred many times in
different places over thousands of years, as early humans and dogs
traveled and foraged together much as baboons and jackals still do
today.
Either way, the bond between dogs and humans gained
particular strength in Africa. The anti-dog prejudices of the
Central Asian “rabies belt” prevail today in northern Africa, but in
much of sub-equatorial Africa even the poorest people tend to accord
to dogs a status above other animals, and the family dog is often a
source of pride.

BOOKS: The Pig Who Sang To The Moon

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

The Pig Who Sang To The Moon
by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Ballantine Books (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2003. 304
pages, hardcover. $25.95.

A former psychoanalyst best known for investigative work on
the history of psychiatry, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson has written
chiefly about the psychology of animals and human/animal interactions
in recent years. In The Pig Who Sang To The Moon Masson explores the
emotional world of farm animals.
Each chapter relates the habits and sentient behavior of a
different species, and compares the corrupted activity of pigs,
chickens, sheep, goats, cows, ducks, and geese on modern farms
to the habits of their wild ancestors.
Masson argues that the difference between the behavior of
such animals outside of domestication and their radically altered and
shortened lives in capitivity is so great that we can infer from this
alone that they must be unhappy, even if they are not subjected to
specific abuse or maltreatment.

Obituaries

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Arif Mahmood Qureshi, 59, died on November 21, 2003 in
Multan, Pakistan. An attorney who defended democracy against a
succession of dictatorial governments, Qureshi published the human
rights newspaper The Lord. He was imprisoned in 1970, 1973 -1977,
1979, 1981, 1983, 1986, and 1988. Despite spending much of the
prime of his life in prison, forbidden family visits, for
protesting against the 1971-1977 regime of Z.A. Bhutto, Qureshi as a
matter of principle led demonstations against Bhutto’s hanging after
General Zia ul-Haq deposed Bhutto in a coup-d’etat. “In 1981,”
recalled Qureshi’s younger brother Khalid Mahmood, who publishes
the newspaper The Tension to promote both human rights and animal
rights, “Arif was sent to Lahore Fort, the ugly torture cell of
Pakistan. He was kept in cells where daylight and fresh air cannot
peep through. This and untold body tortures resulted in complete
deterioration of his health.” Wrongly accused of involvement in a
failed coup attempt, Qureshi survived a crude attempt at execution
by lethal injection of an unknown toxin or pathogen, but developed a
skin disease so severe that he was sent home to die. “The history of
Arif’s achievements and struggle will not be complete without
mentioning his true love and concern for the welfare of animals and
birds,” Mahmood continued. Hearing of Animal Rights International,
founded in 1976 by longtime U.S. human rights and animal rights
crusader Henry Spira, Qureshi started a Pakistani group of the same
name, parallel to an Indian Animal Rights International founded by
Laxmi Modi. “After forming ARI, Arif gave up eating the meat of
animals and birds,” despite the advice of his physicians, Mahmood
told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “He wrote many articles about the welfare of
animals and birds. He also arranged many meetings to promote
awareness of animal protection. He was found fighting for the rights
of the suppressed citizens not only in Pakistan or belonging to some
specific class, sect, race or tribe but of the world at large,”
Mahmood concluded. “He left a son, Babar Soekarno, and a daughter,
Pakiza Arif,” both of whom also practice law.

Obituaries

Animal Obituaries

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Echo, 32, who survived a 1982 Irish
Republican Army bombing that killed seven horses
and four members of the British Royal guard,
died on December 18, 2003 at the Home of Rest
for Horses near Speen, Buckshire, U.K. Two
other horses survived the blast: Sefton, who
died in 1993, and Yetti, 34, who was Echo’s
stablemate.

Pharos, a corgi belonging to Queen
Elizabeth II, was euthanized on Dccember 23,
2003 due to injuries inflicted by Dotty, a bull
terrier belonging to Princess Anne. Dotty
previously attacked two children in Windsor in
April 2002. Princess Anne was fined £500 in for
the attack in November 2003.

Obituaries

BOOKS: From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse:
Alternative Methods for a Progressive, Humane Education (2nd edition)
by Nick Jukes and Mihnea Chiuia
InterNICHE (19 Brookhouse Ave. , Leicester LE2 0JE, U.K.), 2003.
520 pages, paperback. (Pricing: contact <coordinator@interniche.org>.

From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse addresses teachers whose
disciplines traditionally involve animal experiments. The book will
also help students who do not wish to take part in animal
experiments, and animal advocates who are campaigning against animal
experimentation in education.
The authors investigate aspects of the “3R” concept. The
original “3R” curriculum, emphasized in basic education, was
“Reading, Writing, Arithmetic.” In 1959 British authors William
Russell and Rex Burch proposed that in science the “3R” concept
should be “Refine, Reduce, Replace,” meaning that the numbers of
animal experiments done should be drastically reduced, and that
painful and invasive experiments should be replaced or refined to use
fewer animals.
Much of From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse catalogs
alternatives to animal tests in education. More than 500
alternatives suitable for teaching anatomy, physiology, surgery,
and other disciplines are briefly reviewed. Ten chapters describe
products specific to common curriculums.

Letters [Jan/Feb 2004]

January 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Appeals

Thank you for once again publishing “Who gets the money?” and
the ANIMAL PEOPLE Standards for Ethical Charities and Fundraisers.
I have survived involvement in animal advocacy as an
employee, volunteer, and donor for four decades. As a donor, I
would like to share a few preliminary screening points. Perhaps
other ANIMAL PEOPLE readers have additional comments. If the
following aggravations are evident, I don’t have to look up features
like administration/program ratios, because the appeal for
membership or a donation is already in the waste basket.
1) Salaries. The first thing I do when I get an appeal is
look up the organziation’s IRS Form 990 at <www.guidestar.org>. An
organization that can afford to pay an employee or board member
$100,000 per year does not need my money. The potential donor must
look closely because the section of the Form 990 that reports board
members’ salaries is usually somewhat removed from the section that
reports salaries of employees who make more than $50,000 a year.
Also, occasionally the chief executive has a moderate salary while a
subordinate is cleaning up.

Letters

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