Animal welfare on the Dalmatian coast

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

DUBROVNIK–The Austrian-based Vier Pfoten mobile veterinary
teams often seemingly drive back into time in formerly Communist
central Europe, but usually just decades, not centuries.
In Dubrovnik to sterilize dogs and cats for two weeks
overlapping the October 2005 International Companion Animal Welfare
Conference, Vier Pfoten international project manager Amir Khalil,
DVM, and surgical team headed by Katica Kovacev, DVM set up outside
the building that was the city quarantine station during the Black
Death in the 14th century.
The marble walled central city just beyond, little changed
since the 13th century, reputedly inspired the Minas Tirith “white
city” scenes in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Among the oldest
ports on the Dalmatian coast, Dubrovnik has had a breakwater since
pre-Roman times.

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Africans defending national wildlife parks turn from guns to courts

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

NAIROBI, HARARE, GABORONE, JOHANNESBURG–Amboseli,
Kalahari, Hwange, Kruger: the names alone evoke images of
wide-open wild places on a sparsely inhabited continent–at least to
non-Africans. But to many Africans whose tribal lands they
historically were, these and other globally renowned wildlife parks
are symbols of conquest, occupation, and deprivation.
To those who till land or keep livestock, the parks are the
source of marauding wildlife, and appear to hoard disproportionate
shares of the green grass and water.
To those who have nothing, the parks symbolize inaccessible
opportunity.
To politicians, the great African wildlife parks often
represent potential largess, expendible to build a power base.
Preserving the parks as unpeopled as European and American
ecotourists and wildlife conservation donors imagine the “real”
Africa to be is a multi-million-dollar industry, but there is also
big money in opening them to more hunting and other commercial
exploitation, while returning the parks to tribal control is an
oft-expressed rhetorical ideal often most strongly favored by whoever
anticipates gaining easy access to resources in exchange for giving
tribal partners a few more dusty acres in which to graze goats.

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Editorial: ANIMAL PEOPLE & the role of humane reporting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

“We still haven’t found an executive director. Guess no one
wants to come down to the sunny south and dodge all the hurricanes,”
Suncoast Humane Society interim director Warren Cox wrote on
Halloween from Englewood, Florida.
Sending Cox to Florida was clearly easier than ushering him
into retirement. Now in his 53rd year of humane work, Cox reduced
his possessions before taking his 22nd leadership position by
donating to ANIMAL PEOPLE a complete set of the National Humane
Review, from the years 1933 through 1976.
Published by the American Humane Association, the National
Humane Review for much of that time was a mainstream slick magazine,
sold on train station newsstands, with separate regional editions
serving all parts of the U.S. Even without carrying paid
advertising, and without soliciting donations with particular vigor,
the National Humane Review generated enough revenue at peak, through
sales and subscriptions, to subsidize the AHA itself. At the height
of her popularity, in June 1935 and January 1936, actress Shirley
Temple was twice the cover girl.

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Editorial: Mainstream no longer accepts meat at humane events

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

“With friends like theseŠ” was the first
thing that came to mind after reading the Carbon
County Friends of Animals raffle ticket I’d just
bought,” wrote Michael J. Frendak of Lansford,
Pennsylvania, in the August 2005 edition of
Reader’s Digest.
“I could win one of the following, it
said: a 10-pound box of chicken legs, one
smoked ham, four T-bone steaks, five pounds of
fresh sausage or hot dogs, or a box of pork
chops.”

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How Irish dog racers muzzle humane critics

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

SALLINS, County Kildare–Greyhound
racing issues in Ireland converge on the People’s
Animal Welfare Society, halfway between Dublin
and the Newbridge Greyhound Racing Track, just a
few miles beyond at Naas. Greyhound breeding,
training, and boarding are big business right in
the neighborhood.
PAWS founder Deirdre Hetherington, 73, is among
the most prominent critics of the Irish greyhound
industry.
Yet PAWS is also increasingly reliant on
funding from both the Irish government and the
Irish Greyhound Board, reputedly made available
as part of a co-optive strategy to distract
opposition by rehoming a relative handful of the
greyhounds who are bred to race.
Many of the PAWS dogs are boarded with a
prominent local greyhound racer.
Hetherington operates PAWS from her home,
Sallins Castle, built to withstand armed foes.

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Remoteness of deadly Pakistan earthquake thwarts aid

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

KARACHI–An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale
killed more than 30,000 people and countless animals on October 5,
2005 in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
The remoteness of the region, lack of established animal
welfare infrastructure anywhere in Pakistan, and lack of official
interest in helping animals thwarted prompt response by international
organizations.
“I just got back to Karachi after spending two weeks filming
in Balakot.” e-mailed Pakistan Animal Welfare Society representative
and Geo TV assistant producer Mahera Omar on November 11.
Omar, more than a month after the earthquake, was nonetheless among
the first pro-animal representatives to bring back first-hand
testimony about what is needed.
“Balakot is a small town in the North West Frontier Province,
about 60 miles north of Islamabad,” Omar explained. “Located near
the quake’s epicenter, it is said to be among the worst devastated.
“We visited a few small villages up in the mountains around
Balakot,” Omar recounted. “The people in these areas depend on
subsistence farming and their livestock. Many of the livestock have
been killed. The rest are without any sort of shelter. Many people
are still without tents. Some have provided makeshift shelters for
their animals, using cloth or plastic sheets. Without shelter,
their livestock will not survive the harsh winter. The animals also
require veterinary care.

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New Orleans rescue ends with a storm

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

NEW ORLEANS–The biggest animal rescue
effort in U.S. history officially ended on
October 25, 2005.
On advice of assistant state veterinarian
Martha Littlefield, Louisiana Governor Kathleen
Blanco allowed the temporary permits issued to
out-of-state veterinarians assisting animal
relief efforts in New Orleans to expire.
Out-of-state rescuers still operating
temporary shelters and feeding programs were
thanked and asked to return home, to leave the
remaining work to local agencies.
“We are literally seeing animals on the
streets starving to death,” objected
AnimalRescueNewOrleans founder Jane Garrison, of
Charleston, South Carolina. “We need more
volunteers to feed and water the thousands of
traumatized animals still on the streets, we
need to keep trapping animals so we can reunite
them with their guardians, and we need a massive
spay/neuter program.”

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