Month: October 2005

Editorial: Fighting sinking feelings of failure in an inundated city

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

Of the many stresses that Hurricane Katrina and Rita rescuers
had to deal with, perhaps the most ubiquitous was the feeling among
exhausted volunteers that no matter what they did, they had not done
enough.
“I have personally pulled hundreds of animals from roof tops,
attics, and houses,” HSUS food and water team leader Jane Garrison
e-mailed to Karen Dawn of DawnWatch on September 19. “It is amazing
to me that these animals are still alive. I got a dog off a roof who
should have weighed 90 pounds, but was down to 40 pounds from being
stuck with no food and water. These animals want to live and are
showing us this every day.”
But Garrison hardly felt uplifted.

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Editorial: Donations & disaster

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

Disasters requiring monumental animal relief efforts are
likely to happen increasingly often in coming years, as climatic
instability increases due to global warming. Thus the lessons
learned from the response to the evacuation of New Orleans, many of
them still just beginning to be absorbed, may appear to be as
important 13 years from now as the lessons from Hurricane Andrew in
1992 were to enabling the humane community to respond to Katrina and
Rita with markedly more efficacy than the governmental and nonprofit
human services sectors.
The animals’ need has been great after the devastating storm,
and there is rebuilding to follow in Louisiana and Mississippi. On
the positive side, there is now the possibility of improving
conditions for animals in the Deep South in many ways, through the
infusion of new interest, new energy, and new capital. Many of the
disaster relief workers who ventured south to help had never seen the
“Third World of the U.S.” before. Many vowed to return, to help
follow through with the rebuilding, and all who served or donated
are likely to have an enduring intensified interest in animal welfare
in parts of rural Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that only six
weeks ago were seldom noticed.

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Letters [Oct 2003]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

Dave Garcia

I just read your tribute to the work done by Dave Garcia and
cried (again) at the possible loss of this man who was an inspiration
in his dedication to stopping animal suffering. He was an
outstanding teacher, with years of experience in
humane investigation, that must not be lost.
There is not one of us who has not made errors in youth that
we wish we could correct. Dave Garcia chose to make his reparation
to society through the thousands of helpless, voiceless victims he
saved and the prosecutions he won for them.
I have implored Dave to continue to be available to share
his lifetime of knowledge with those who must carry on this effort,
especially against illegal animal fighting, through allowing me to
make an instructional film to preserve his knowledge and experience
so that it will never be lost.
I hope he will read what you wrote and realize that he is
still an important friend and ally to many of us-both two and
four-legged.

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Horse slaughter ban clears U.S. Senate & House

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Senate on September 20, 2005 voted
68-29 to ban horse slaughter for human consumption for one year, as
an amendment to a USDA budget bill.
Introduced by Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), the bill would
prevent the USDA from paying the wages and expenses of horse
slaughter and horse meat inspection staff.
An identically worded amendment jointly introduced by four
U.S. Representatives cleared the House 269-158 in June 2005.
“The House and Senate bills which contain the horse slaughter
amendments now go to conference committee to create a final law,”
explained Chris Heyde of the Society for Animal Protective
Legislation, the legislative arm of the Animal Protection Institute.
“As a result of the strong support for both the House and Senate
versions of this amendment, it is unlikely that the conference
committee will decide to omit the horse slaughter language from the
final budget. However,” Heyde cautioned, “because this is a budget
bill, after passage into law, it will be in effect for [only] one
fiscal year, beginning November 1.

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Acker cleared

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

MONROE, Ct.–Animal Adoption Network founder Fred Acker, of
Monroe, Connecticut, was on September 4, 2005 cleared by the
Bridgeport Superior Court of all charges brought against him by the
Town of Monroe in December 2004, including 84 counts of neglect and
running an unlicensed pet shop.
Acker contends that the charges were filed as result of a
zoning dispute. Acker bought a former boarding kennel in 1999 and
converted it into the Animal Adoption Network shelter over opposition
from influential neighbors.
ANIMAL PEOPLE summarized the case in an April 2005 cover
feature entitled “Demolition, eviction, & good deeds that save
animal shelters.”

BUCHAREST ANIMAL SHELTERS FLOODED

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

BUCHAREST–Four times the average rainfall for the entire
month of September hit Bucharest, Romania, in only 72 hours on
September 20-22, flooding animal shelters including the Asociatia
Natura and Fundatia Daisy Hope, featured in the June 2004 edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Also flooded was the Fundatia Speranta, one of only four
shelters, three of them in Romania, that ever received a zero on
the 100-point ANIMAL PEOPLE scoring scale [“How ANIMAL PEOPLE
evaluates shelters,” June 2004.] “I have four areas under a half meter of water,” Daisy Hope founder
Aura Maratas e-mailed on September 20. “I lifted the cages up on
pallets. I have no place to move them, and have nowhere to drain
the water. We could not find a pump. They are all gone from the
shops, and everyone needs a pump.”
Daisy Hope did not lose any dogs to high water during the
three-day ordeal, but a worker quit after suffering a severe bite
from a frightened dog.

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Feral exterminations

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

Scottish Natural Heritage, trying to extirpate feral
hedgehogs from the Uist Islands off the west coast of Scotland since
2003, announced in March 2005 that it would augment trapping and
killing them by lethal injection and gas with training dogs to flush
them out to be shotgunned. Scottish Natural Heritage had killed
about 500 hedgehogs, going into the fall 2005 campaign, while Uist
Hedgehog Rescue has live-captured and relocated to the mainland circa
600. Scottish Nature Heritage withdrew the dogs-and-shotguns scheme
on September 20. “These healthy animals simply do not need to be
killed,” responded Uist Hedgehog Rescue. “Hedgehogs on the mainland
are actually in decline.”

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Carriage horse rescues in the old city

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

A week after the New Orleans levies broke, the Lamar-Dixon
Expo Center and 4-H Center in Gonzales, 45 miles north, held more
then 220 horses and mules, many of them evacuated from carriage
stables.
Equine and Bovine Magazine managing editor Rebecca Gimenez
reported rescuing 63 horses from three feet of water that filled two
barns in Kenner, near the New Orleans airport, but the most
dramatic equine rescue was of 22 horses and mules kept by Mid-City
Carriages. Stranded for a week after the city flooded, the animals
were attended by stable hands Darnell Stewart, Fabien Redmund, and
Lucien Mitchell Jr., who volunteered to stay with them. The three
men led the horses and mules to high ground at Leimann Park, slept
in shifts to fend off would-be horse thieves, and at last assisted
in evacuating them all on September 7.
One horse died earlier at the Mid-City Carriages stable, and
two others died later while receiving emergency care at Louisiana
State University.

South China kills dogs to send a message

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

GUANGZHOU–The Guangdong provincial government seized the
2005 National Day weekend, the first in October, to send messages
to both pet keepers and Beijing.
The message for pet keepers was that the rising popularity of
pet dogs will not be allowed to jeopardize the dog meat industry,
either by spreading rabies, the pretext used for killing pet dogs in
the streets, or by building a human constituency for treating dogs
kindly.
“The Guangzhou campaign follows similar crackdowns in
Shanghai and other cities across the mainland, as dog attacks and
rabies cases increase and more urban dwellers keep pets,” noted
Simon Parry of the South China Morning Post. But Parry failed to
note that the dogs most at risk from rabies are so-called “meat
dogs,” raised in close confinement and not required to be vaccinated.
The Guangdong message for Beijing was that even as the
central government strives to build a more animal-friendly image in
advance of the 2008 Olympic Games, in the part of China where dogs,
cats, and wildlife are relatively rarely eaten, the Cantonese
southern and coastal regions are quite capable of spoiling the effort.

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