The importance of enabling caring people to help

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Who gets the money you give to help animals?
As important, who doesn’t, who may be doing far more per
dollar received, under much more difficult conditions?
For fifteen years we have compiled our annual “Who gets the
money?” tables (starting on page 11 this year) to help animal
charity donors more effectively direct contributions.
Rich organizations have mostly become richer during this
time, whether or not their program service warrants great donor
enthusiasm. Poor but effective organizations are both much more
numerous and mostly still struggling.
Our perception of the basic problems in pro-animal
fundraising has evolved to include recognition that while some rich
groups and hired-gun fundraisers are inordinately greedy, many good
but poor groups do not get the support they need simply because they
do not ask enough people for help, or ask often enough–or they look
to the rich groups for crumbs, instead of developing their own donor
base.
It is dismayingly evident that many of the hardest-working,
most honest, and most devotedly compassionate people who are doing
humane work are inhibited about making their needs known–especially
locally, where others are most able to help, as volunteers and as
donors of goods and services, even if they have no money to give.

Tactics

New treatment saves rabies victim

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

MILWAUKEE–Jeanna Giese, 15, of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin,
is the sixth person on medical record to survive rabies. After
extensive rehabilitative therapy she may become the first to resume a
normal life.
Bitten by a bat she was trying to take outside on September
12, 2004, Giese did not seek medical care. She began exhibiting
rabies symptoms on October 13, and was admitted to the Children’s
Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa on October 18.
Pediatric infectious disease specialist Rodney Willoughby,
M.D., on October 19 asked her parents, John and Ann Giese, for
permission to put her into an induced coma, which might protect her
against brain damage while he attempted treatment with an
experimental four-drug combination.
“No one had really done this before, even in animals,”
Willoughby told Juliet Williams of Associated Press. “None of the
drugs are fancy. If this works, it can be done in a lot of
countries.” Willoughby did not disclose the names of the drugs,
pending publication of the data in a peer-reviewed journal.
Kept comatose for a week, Giese became the first rabies
patient ever to survive despite having never been vaccinated, either
before or after she was bitten by a rabid animal, Centers for
Disease Control & Prevent-ion rabies expert Dr. Charles Rupprecht
told Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times. Her exposure was
detected much too late for the five-dose, month-long post-exposure
vaccination sequence to have been effective.

Letters [Dec 2004]

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Mulesing

Re “PETA tells Aussies to back away from
sheep’s behinds,” from your November 2004
edition, Animal Liberation has campaigned to ban
mulesing since 1975.
When I went to the U.K. in l986 and asked
Members of Parliament to boycott Australian wool,
I was damned as “un-Australian,” and nothing
changed. Without PETA’s intervention, perhaps
mulesing would have continued without even debate.
If mulesing is banned, there will have
to be greatly improved animal welfare policing,
as graziers will leave sheep to die of
fly-strike, since it is quicker, easier and
cheaper to mules once, rather than to bring in
the sheep for insecticide application and to
shear the wool in fly-prone areas of the sheep,
mainly the under the tail but also sometimes
around the face.
It is not uncommon for one person to be in charge
of 10,000 sheep or more, hence it is impossible
for one person to properly care for all the
animals.

Letters

Rodeo commissioner quits under fire

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

LAS VEGAS–Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
commissioner Steven Hatchell resigned on December 10 during the 2004
National Rodeo Finals to become head of the National Football
Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
Hatchell was credited with expanding national TV coverage of
PRCA events from 48 hours in 1998 to 300 hours in 2004, boosting
live attendance to 24 million. That made rodeo the seventh leading
spectator activity in the U.S.–but Hatchell was seen by some PRCA
members as a threat to participant control of rodeo. Hatchell had
reportedly recently formed a separate investor group to promote rodeo
events.
With rising visibility came rising controversy, amplified at
the National Rodeo Finals by Steve Hindi of SHARK, whose TV truck
prowled Las Vegas airing undercover video of other recent PRCA
rodeos, challenging Hatchell to a public debate.
“Much of the footage shows violations of the PRCA guidelines
on animal welfare,” reported Ian Mylcreest of the Las Vegas Business
Press. “Horses were repeatedly teased and goaded. One horse had his
head repeatedly slammed against a gate. Others had their tails and
ears twisted. Handlers routinely shocked animals with a 5,000-volt
prod, including applying it to their faces.”

E.U. fails to cut livestock hauling time

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

BRUSSELS–British animal health and welfare minister Ben
Bradshaw called new European Union regulations on livestock transport
adopted on November 22 “an important step in improving the welfare of
animals in transit,” and proclaimed his government “particularly
pleased that [new rules] meet the strong concerns in the U.K. about
the live transport of horses.”
Slamming Bradshaw and the other members of the EU Council of
Agriculture Ministers for “cowardice,” Compassion In World Farming
responded that the new rules do no such thing.
Summarized Geoff Meade of The Scotsman, “Animal welfare
improvements include limited travel for ‘unbroken’ horses and a new
requirement that horses on long journeys must be carried in
individual stalls. A range of other measures, for all animals,
include improved training and certification of transporters, tighter
rules on the fitness of animals to travel, a review next year of
current rules on transporter temperature and ventilation, and
increased cooperation between EU governments to enforce the rules.”
However, Meade noted, “The permitted traveling hours remain
unchanged. Pigs can be transported for 24 hours without a break,
with access to water; horses can travel up to 24 hours if watered
every eight hours; and cattle, sheep, and goats can be in transit
for 29 hours with just a one-hour break.”

Fishing causes global crash of wild predators

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

NEW ORLEANS–Responding to findings that the global
population of “apex predator” fish has fallen 90% since 1950, the
63-nation International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic
Tunas on November 21 agreed to ban killing sharks for their fins in
the Atlantic ocean.
The U.S. banned shark finning in Atlantic territorial waters
in 1993, and in Pacific territorial waters in 2002.
Eighteen days after ratifying the ICCAT agreement, the U.S.
State Department and U.S. Customs moved to strengthen regulations
meant to exclude from the U.S. shrimp and shrimp products caught by
means that kill sea turtles. Six of the seven sea turtle species are
now considered critically endangered. Leatherbacks have declined 95%
since 1980.
The recent regulatory actions were just a start, however,
to the drastic measures that scientists are increasingly often
recommending to save pelagic ecosystems.
“More than 600 scientists from 54 countries have signed a
petition urging the United Natons to impose a moratorium on longline
fishing in the Pacific,” noted Sunday Telegraph environment
correspondent David Harrison, as ICCAT met. “Longline fishing was
expected to reduce unnecessary catches [of non-target species] produced by dragging large nets,” Harrison recalled.

Who Gets The Money? — 15th annual edition

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Starting on page 15 is our 15th annual report on the budgets,
assets, and salaries paid by the major U.S. animal-related
charities, plus miscellaneous local activist groups, humane
societies, and some prominent organizations abroad. We offer their
data for comparative purposes. Foreign data is stated in U.S.
dollars at average 2003 exchange rates.
Most charities are identified in the second column by what
they do and stand for: A for advocacy, C for conservation of
habitat via acquisition, E for education, H for support of hunting,
I for supporting the eradication of “invasive” feral or non-native
species, L for litigation, P for publication, S for
shelter/sanctuary maintenance or sterilization project, U for
favoring either “sustainable” or aboriginal lethal use of wildlife,
and V for focus on vivisection.
As most listed charities do some advocacy and education, the
A and E designations are used with others only if advocacy and
education use more of the charities’ time and budget than other roles
for which they may be better known. Charities of obvious purpose may
not have a letter. While many charities pursue multiple activities,
space limits us to offering no mre than three identifying letters.

Uncategorized

PETA slaughterhouse video stirs dispute over kosher standards

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

POSTVILLE, Iowa–AgriProcessors Inc., the only U.S.
slaughterhouse authorized to export meat to Israel, agreed on
December 7, 2004 to cease ripping the trachea and esophagus out of
cattle immediately after their throats are cut, and to use a captive
bolt gun to dispatch cattle who try to regain their footing after the
throat-cutting. Meat from those cattle will no longer be sold as
kosher.
AgriProcessors, marketing under the name “Aaron’s Best,”
denied that pulling the windpipes out of living cattle was part of
their killing routine, but workers were shown doing it in a
30-minute undercover video released by PETA on November 30. A PETA
staff member worked at AgriProcessors for seven weeks during the
summer of 2004.
Kosher experts disagreed as to whether the throat-tearing met
kosher requirements. Orthodox Union chief rabbis Menachem Genack and
Yisroel Blsky said it was “gruesome” but kosher; Orthodox Union
executive vice president Tzvi Hersh Weinreb called it “especially
inhumane” and “generally unacceptable”; Shiumon Cohen of the British
organization Shchita U.K. said it was not kosher; and Ezra Raful,
chief of international slaughter supevision for the chief rabbinate
of Israel, told the Jerusalem Post that technically the slaughter
was kosher, but definitely did not follow recommended practice.

Budgets, Programs, Overhead & Assets – 160 animal protection charities (Part 2)

December 1, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Budgets, Programs, Overhead & Assets – 160 animal protection charities

Linis Gobyerno (Philippines)
TYPE: S
GIVEN/EARNED: $ 4,464
BUDGET: $ 4,050
PROGRAMS: $ 3,900
OVERHEAD: $ 150
DECLARED OVERHEAD: 4%
ADJUSTED OVERHEAD: 4%
NET ASSETS: $ 17,857
TANGIBLE ASSETS: $ 17,443
FUNDS/INVESTMENTS: $ 414

NOTE: “Our tangible assets consist of a piece of real estate donated
by a member for the purpose of constructing a dog/cat halfway house,”
Linis Gobyerno founder Freddie Farres told ANIMAL PEOPLE. The
facility would shelter animals temporarily after seizures from
illegal butchers.

Uncategorized

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