Letters [Sep 2006]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Taiwan law

Even for the most serious cruelty, an animal abuser in
Taiwan can only be fined up to about $1,500 U.S. maximum.
We are asking for cruelty toward animals to be considered a
criminal offense, punishable by up to one year in prison, and a
fine up to $9,000 U.S.; for animal protection inspectors to have the
right to rescue animals from property where they are neglected or
abused; for more effective regulation of pet breeders and shops;
and for farm animal transporters and slaughterers to be licensed.
We hope that draft legislation will be published in October
and passed in early 2007.
Perhaps statements of support from other pro-animal
organizations would be helpful.

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Jackson County stops selling pound animals to labs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

JACKSON, Michigan–Two less Michigan county animal shelters
are selling animals to laboratory suppliers, as result of mid-August
2006 policy change.
Gladwin County became involved in the practice only three
weeks before the Jackson County commissioners voted 10-1 on June 18
to stop selling animals to longtime purchaser Fred Hodgins of Hodgins
Kennels in Howell. Anticipating the Jackson vote, Hodgins
approached Gladwin County Animal Shelter director Ron Taylor. Taylor
reportedly favored selling dogs to Hodgins if they would otherwise be
killed at the shelter.
On June 27 the Gladwin County commissioners voted 6-1 to
authorize Taylor to sell dogs to Hodgins. Hodgins bought two dogs on
August 1, just as local activist Cindy Krycian and Humane Education
And Legislation PAC founder Eileen Liska disclosed the arrangement to
the public through telephone calls and e-mails. Their efforts were
amplified internationally by Marietta Nealey Sprott of Heart of
Michigan Rescue.

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Editorial: Culture, coonhunting, & child hunters

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Americans who express broad disgust toward Asian cultures
over the many cruelties of dog-eating and cat-eating might usefully
compare the persistence of those behaviors in South Korea and China
to the persistence of American participation in sport hunting.
About three million (6%) of the 50 million South Koreans eat
dogs, consuming about 2.6 million dogs per year at present. If the
same ratio of consumption applies to the estimated annual production
of about 10 million dogs for slaughter in China, about 11.4 million
Chinese eat dogs–or less than 1% of the human population of 1.4
billion. Cat-eating in both China and South Korea continues at a
much lower level.
Among about 300 million Americans, the U.S. now has slightly more
than 13 million active hunters: 4.3%. Another five million people
identify themselves as hunters but no longer hunt, chiefly due to
advancing age.
A traditional if often elusive goal of deer hunting is to effect a
quick kill, but causing prolonged animal suffering is built into the
method of many other forms of hunting.

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Editorial: Crabs are animals too

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

The poster for an August 27, 2006 crab feast planned by the
Prince Rupert SPCA looked like a bizarre parody. A grinning cartoon
crab, pink as if already burned, sprawled beneath a beach umbrella.
“Live crab, cooked to eat at the park or cooked to take home,” the
poster advertised. A photo of a real crab affirmed that real animals
were really to be boiled–until on August 17 the parent British
Columbia SPCA cancelled the event under pressure personally directed
by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson. Watson
then pledged to personally make a donation and urged others to donate
to the BC/SPCA.
Though the crab feast was averted, the episode raised issues
of posture and strategy which should be of pre-eminent concern to
every humane organization.
“Our mission,” the Prince Rupert SPCA web site predictably
proclaims, is “the prevention of cruelty to animals, and promotion
of animal welfare.”

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Saving animals through 40 days & nights of war in Lebanon & Israel

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

BEIRUT, HAIFA–Forty days of Israeli bombing in response to
Hezbollah militia rocket attacks from southern Lebanon devastated the
fragile Lebanese animal aid infrastructure along with everything else
caught in the crossfire.
“Noah’s Ark is needed for the animals of Lebanon,”
proclaimed Best Friends Animal Society cofounder Michael Mountain on
August 15, 2006, announcing a mass evacuation of shell-shocked dogs
rescued by Beruit for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
“The howls of the 133 canine refugees echoed through the
pine-and-oak-covered hills above the Lebanese capital, crowded into
cages but safely away from airstrikes,” reported Associated Press
writer Donna Abu-Nasr 30 days earlier. “The dogs were moved by
volunteers from a shelter in Beirut’s southern suburbs to an
abandoned pig farm 10 miles east of the capital,” near Monteverde,
“and might be considered lucky compared to pets left to fend for
themselves by foreign and Lebanese owners fleeing the Israeli
bombardment,” Abu-Nasr added.

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“Working with BETA, we’ve looked into lots of options for
these dogs,” said Best Friends president Michael Mountain. “But
there is so much damage to the country that taking care of them
there, finding them new homes in the region, or moving them one at
a time to new situations is pretty much impossible. So we have
agreed to be the staging area for adoptions in the U.S.
“The plan is to fly all 150 dogs to the United States as soon
as possible,” Mountain said. “Most likely we’ll need to drive them
from Lebanon to Jordan and fly them from there. Yes, cat lovers,
there are cats, too,” Mountain added. “But they don’t yet have
health certificates, and there are some other issues to be sorted
out before we can start working on that.”
BETA had 113 dogs and 100 cats at small shelters in Beirut near
Hezbollah strongholds when the fighting erupted on July 12. During
the next month BETA took in 25 more dogs plus another 34 cats.
“Two of the dogs, named Thelma and Louise, were found
trapped in an apartment one week after their people were killed,”
summarized Mountain, from BETA updates. “One dog belonged to a
Saudi family who were in Beirut on vacation when the war broke out.
They left, gave the dog to the doorman of the building where they
were staying, and the doorman put the dog out on the street.”
“They’re innocent. They don’t know what’s happening to them.
They can’t run away from the bombs,” BETA cofounder Helena Hesayne
told ABC News.
More than a million people reportedly fled the rocket attacks
in northern Israel and the bombing in southern Lebanon. While many
left pets behind, BETA evacuated the dogs and cats in their care in
repeated convoys of three cars and a mini-van.
“Thank God we rescued these dogs from South Beirut before
they leveled the place,” said shelter volunteer Mona Khoury.
“A missile fell one night 400 meters from the shelter. We
found shrapnel inside the cages,” added fellow volunteer Joelle El
Massirh.
“We kept saying, ‘Please don’t bomb us,'” volunteer
Marguerite Sharawi said.
“The new dog shelter is at a pig farm, which was donated by
a kind man. Needless to say, this space is in dire need of
construction works. The place is therefore both a dog shelter and a
construction site,” explained BETA cofounder Joelle Kanaan. “For
every incoming dog, a new cage must be built, and this requires a
lot of construction material, in other words a lot of money.
“The animals in Lebanon need a lot of help,” Kanaan
continued, “but the only thing that can reach us for the moment is
money. The country has been isolated from the rest of the world,
and not in any possible way can goods or products reach us, although
we need a lot. The supplies available in Lebanon are becoming
scarce, and we’re trying–as much as our finances permit–to
stockpile food for cats and dogs, and medicines, for a long period.”
“BETA is in the process of finding a new space to put the
cats,” Kanaan added. “We were always against overcrowding, and we
still are.”
To avoid overcrowding, veterinarian and BETA president Ali
Hamadeh advised people who called in search of a place to leave their
animals to call boarding kennels.
“Some owners asked me to meet them as they headed to their
ships,” boarding kennel operator Hani Rayess told Abu-Nasr of
Associated Press. “A couple of Westerners told me they would not
leave Lebanon because they had nowhere to place their pets.”
Hani Rayess said he took in about 45 dogs, charging their
owners $100 a month.
The Humane Society of the U.S., World Society for the
Protection of Animals, Kinship Circle, and South African National
SPCA, among others, pleaded with governments who were evacuating
their citizens from Lebanon to allow refugees to take their pets with
them–to no avail.
“In south Lebanon, war is taking a toll on animals who did
not escape with their masters. The carcasses of cats, dogs, goats,
and sheep litter the roads, mowed down by fleeing villagers
careening out of the hills in packed automobiles,” Agence France
Presse correspondent Jailan Zayan observed on August 8.
“In the village of Srifa, a Hezbollah stronghold that
endured Israeli bombardment, a donkey with his front leg snared in a
tangle of toppled fencing brayed desperately. Horses ambled down the
main street. A stray cow foraged in the kitchen of an abandoned
home.”
Hezbollah fighters’ attitudes toward the animals varied, Zayan reported.
“Americans care more about their animals than they do
humans,” a 40-year-old field commander named Haj Rabia Abou Hussein
said derisively.
But a Hezbollah soldier who identified himself only as Hussein said,
“”I saw a dog. His tongue was hanging from hunger and thirst. I
gave him my last can of tuna. If I showed mercy on the dog, maybe
God will show mercy on me.”
A mirroring crisis developed in northern Israel.
“More than 8,000 dogs and cats have been abandoned in the
north by owners who fled south,” said Eli Ashkenazi of Haaretz.
“Numerous dogs are roaming the streets in the Galilee, and
many cats have been left with no food or water,” Yesod Hama’ala
veterinarian Gil Shavit told Ashkenazi.
“Thousands of dogs have been abandoned. The cats have lost
their food supply and simply die,” rescuer Gaya Goldberg said. “The
dogs are helpless. They can’t even jump onto the garbage containers.
We try to collect them and bring them to pounds, but the pounds are
full.”
The rescue organization Ahava took in 200 additional dogs and
cats during the first two weeks of the fighting, Ahava general
manager Tamara More told Abu-Nasr of Associated Press.
More tried to reach across the border to help, to no avail.
“A non-profit group comprised of some 50 volunteers, Jews
and Arabs alike, Ahava secured a ship in the hope of sailing Lebanese
strays to safety,” wrote Toronto Star Jerusalem correspondent Mitch
Potter.
“We have the boat, we have permission from the Israeli navy,
we have the contacts with animal lovers in Lebanon,” More said.
“What we don’t have yet is co-operation from foreign embassies and
aid groups to let people know we are ready to help.”
“Ahava volunteers were in contact with their Lebanese
counterparts about the latter-day Noah’s Ark mission,” Potter wrote,
“until all direct phone links between Israel and Lebanon ceased.”
“Every day we dispatch a rescue team to the north to gather
up abandoned dogs, cats and other animals that have been abandoned
and bring them back to the safety in the center of the country,” Let
the Animals Live founder Eli Altman e-mailed.
“Let the Animals Live is also taking animals from the
shelters of the northern animal organizations and municipal dog
pounds,” Altman said. “The animals are brought to private boarding
facilities where Let the Animals Live is funding their accommodation
and veterinary evaluation and care.
“In addition,” Altman said, “we are sending teams to
distribute food and water for feral cats and other animals in the now
almost empty settlements throughout the north. We have teams working
to locate the families of the abandoned animals and make arrangements
for reunions, as well as finding new homes for the rest.”
Delphine Matthieussent of Associated Press described “Julia
Meiler, a volunteer with Hakol Chai, putting a water container on a
street corner in the northern Israeli town of Maalot while the sound
of explosions in nearby Lebanon rang out. As Meiler stepped back, a
few cats cautiously approached the water. Within minutes the street
corner turned into a mewing gathering of a dozen cats. Many animals
let Meiler pet them, a sign they were not strays but had been
abandoned or fled their homes following a rocket attack, she said.
“A few blocks away,” Matthieussent continued, “a small dog
with long gray hair hid behind a bench. Hakol Chai volunteers
eventually coaxed him out of his retreat, and he was soon eating the
pet food they brought.
“When they find themselves near rocket hits, dogs can get
hysterical and run aimlessly for miles,” Nahairiva veterinarian
Zafrir Volansky told Matthieussent. “Cats tend to find a shelter in
a dark and closed place and stay there, sometimes for days.”
“Stray animals depend on food found in trash containers and
water dripping from air conditioning,” said Hakol Chai volunteer Noam
Vardi. “When more than half of the residents are gone, strays
slowly die.”
“We have been asked to evacuate horses and sheep, provide
food for municipal pounds, food for sheep, and more,” said Concern
for Helping Animals in Israel founder Nina Natelson. “We’ve also
been asked to set up a temporary shelter for lots of puppies, and
will likely do that. Our phones are absolutely flooded with calls
from people asking us to rescue their animals, and from volunteers
wanting to help. “
CHAI, based in Washington D.C., partners with Hakol Chai.
Their joint relief effort began on July 27, when Hakol Chai
volunteers “rushed 4 tons of food and hundreds of plastic water
containers to the northern Israeli settlement of Nes Amim, near
Nahariya, where volunteers immediately began the process of
distributing it to animals in need,” Natelson e-mailed.
“At midnight, the delivery van was met by the coordinator
for volunteers in the north. While rockets exploded in the
background, local Dutch and German residents helped unload bag after
bag of food and begin distribution. Afterward, Hakol Chai’s rescue
team quickly moved on to Akko, responding to a report of animals
abandoned in cages behind a house. As they went, they saw dogs and
cats desperate for food and water everywhere.
“Entering the yard in search of the animals,” Natelson
continued, “the team was soon joined by police, alerted by
neighbors alarmed by the sounds in the night. As soon as the police
took stock of the situation, they joined Hakol Chai’s efforts.
Three dogs, eight puppies, pigeons and rabbits in small cages, 20
chickens, parrots, and many cats were abandoned. All were fed,
watered, and transported to foster homes. The team worked until 3
a.m. Then the noise of the explosions grew louder, and they were
forced to head south.”
The Hakol Chai team observed animal casualties. “Three dogs
were killed when a bomb hit a house in Kiryat Shmona,” where they
were left tied by evacuees,” Natelson said.
The team also saw two dogs who were killed in the streets,
and rescued a dog who was wounded by shrapnel from a rocket that flew
into the doghouse where he was chained.

Animal control changing in China

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

 

JINING, NANJING–Chinese animal control edged closer to
western methods in midsummer 2006, amid unprecedented but officially
encouraged public debate over dog purges conducted in response to
rabies outbreaks in Mouding County of Yunnan province, the Jinshan
district of Shanghai, and in 14 villages among nine counties in the
Jining suburbs.
“I could not believe my ears when I heard that 50,000 dogs
were killed, many beaten to death,” wrote Shanghai Daily columnist
Wong Yong. “Even if rabies was so rampant that vaccination was
insufficient, and the dogs had to be exterminated, the authorities
could have been more humane and used lethal injection.”
Mouding County officials reported killing 54,429 dogs, among
a human population of 200,000, after 357 people were bitten during
June and July, including three who died of rabies.

The death of a four-year-old child ignited local anger.
“Reports in the Chinese news media say that some people out walking
their dogs had the animals seized by gangs of vigilantes, who
clubbed the dogs to death on the spot,” wrote New York Times
Shanghai correspondent Howard French.
Mouding County decision makers apparently seized upon the
dog pogrom as a way to avoid being blamed themselves for lack of
vaccination and inefficient response to dog bites, but the effort
backfired. Photos of the killing hit the Internet almost immediately.
“Rabies scares in other parts of China quickly followed,”
French said. “Chinese news media reported the killings of 280 dogs
in Wuxi, near Shanghai, and 13 in Fuzhou, in southern Fujian
Province.”
The Jinshan and Jining purge tolls were not announced. The
New China News Agency reported that the pet dog population of the
afflicted villages near Jining was 500,000, among a human population
of eight million.
Changes in Chinese domestic policy are rarely announced with
fanfare, and the midsummer transition in animal control philosophy
was no exception, introduced so subtly that some western news media
and animal advocacy groups responded to mid-August publicity about
rabies control in Nanjing as if what was happening was more of the
same.
But it was very different, as spelled out by Wu Jiao of the
state-run China Daily.
“According to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau, which
launched the campaign on August 15, ” after 11,000 residents sought
treatment for dog bites in the preceding six months, “special police
officers will be found in public gardens, squares, and major
streets to capture and kill wandering dogs who are not with owners,”
Wu Jiao wrote.
“City regulations that all dogs who enter public areas
without a proper reason, such as obtaining medical treatment or
participating in a public performance, can be killed by public
security bureaus,” Wu Jiao continued. “However, officials from the
police bureau said the campaign will not kill domestic dogs roaming
public places. Instead, owners will receive warnings and fines
between $37.50 and $125,” exactly as would be done for allowing a
dog to be off leash in a public place in most major U.S. cities.
“Already there is concern from animal protectionists,” Wu
Jiao’s second sentence acknowledged, in rare recognition of public
dissent.
“Homeless dogs who roam the streets have often already been
abused by irresponsible former owners. What we should do is to save
them from hunger and provide them with a safe home,” Nanjing
University student and animal rescuer Yang Xi told Wu Jiao.
The Legal Daily, published by the Politics & Law Committee
of the Chinese central government, “blasted the killings as an
‘extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government
to deal with epidemic disease,” reported Guardian Beijing
correspondent Jonathan Watts.
“Wiping out the dogs shows that the government officials
didn’t do their jobs right in protecting people from rabies in the
first place,” the Legal Daily editorialized.
“This is a classic case of lazy government,” agreed Lin
Weiping of the Beijing Youth Daily. “When local authorities set such
an example of barbarity and govern so lazily, what happiness will
the common people have to speak of?”
“I think this is completely insane,” agreed Beijing Human
and Animal Environ-mental Education Center founder Zhang Luping, to
Christopher Bodeen of Associated Press. “What’s more, this really
damages our national image, and sets a bad example to show how lazy
and inconsiderate those local government officials are. “I think
this brutal and cold-blooded campaign should stop as soon as
possible.”
Observed Financial Times Beijing correspondent Mure Dickie,
“The government-ordered slaughter spotlighted the changing feelings
of ordinary Chinese towards their canine companions, and has exposed
the officials behind the killings to unusual criticism. Internet
discussion boards have hummed with outrage, and protest has even
spilled into state newspapers usually reluctant to criticise
government actions directly. The scale of the debate reflects
unusual tolerance by government censors, usually quick to shut down
media criticism of authorities.”
Added French of the New York Times, “Discussion of the issue
has surpassed the bounds of a simple conversation about pets’ rights,
with many commentators sharply questioning a system that could order
the mass extermination of dogs, whether or not they are licensed and
vaccinated. The reaction of groups and individuals, often through
the Internet, also provides a striking illustration of the emergence
of true public opinion in China, unmediated by the official press or
censors.
“Some drew comparisons with China’s human rights situation,”
French noted. “‘We don’t have human rights, let alone dog rights,’
wrote a commentator going by the name of Kui Kui Xiang Ri, on the
Tianya forum. ‘It’s the local emperors who have their say, and we
ordinary folks are not much different from dogs in their eyes.'”
Otfficial coverage of the dog purges took especially rare
positive note of organized non-governmental opposition to the status
quo–and seized the chance to educate about what should be done
instead.
“Fourteen animal protection associations from all over the
country wrote letters to protest the Mouding and Jining governments’
mass slaughter policy,” said the Xinhua News Service. “Dr. Ding
Zhengrong, a local epidemic prevention official in Yunnan Province,
said if advance measures could be taken to prevent an outbreak of
rabies, there would be no mass killing of dogs. ”
About 70% of rural Chinese households keep dogs, according
to government statistics, but only 3% are vaccinated. “Compulsory
vaccination of all dogs is a solution,” Ding Zhengrong told Xinhua
News.
“He added that some urban families failed to register and
vaccinate their dogs because of the expense,” Xinhua News continued,
noting that the annual licensing and registration cost in Jining is
$565.
“Many farmers are reluctant to get shots for their dogs,
because it’s not always free. The veterinary system at the township
level has become inadequate,” agreed Guangxi University rabies expert
Luo Tingrong. “There isn’t much investment in the system.”
“If dogs are not vaccinated, that’s people’s fault, and
dogs should not be made to pay for human negligence,” tourism
official Tang Bing told the Xinhua News Service.
Added journalist Stone Chen, “The mass slaughter of dogs is
cold-blooded. Governments should detect dogs with rabies and put them
down in a humane manner.”
Said China Daily, “A controversial mass slaughter of dogs
may not be necessary.”
“Rabies is not on the rise overall,” pronounced vice health
minister Jiang Zuojun, who also “recommended vaccinating dogs rather
than mass killings.”
As if on cue the Beijing Morning Post announced that Qingdao,
a Shandong province seaport, would vaccinate 40,000 dogs during the
next 60 days.
China reported 2,651 human rabies deaths in 2004, 2,375 in
2005, and 961 in the first half of 2006–but 623 of the 2006 deaths
came in June.
Rabies outbreaks in 2006 and in other recent years have
occurred almost entirely in the southern and coastal regions where
dogs are bred on large farms for meat and fur –and pets, more and
more, as pet acquisition has far eclipsed increases in consumptive
use. There are now about 300 million pet dogs in 150 million
Chinese homes, according to official estimates, making the pet dog
industry more than 30 times larger than dog slaughter.
At least one of the several collective farms that acquired
St. Bernards to breed for meat production about eight years ago
apparently never actually sold dogs for meat. Greater profits, the
managers learned, could be had from western-style “puppy-milling”
for the fast-growing Chinese pet trade. Instead of hybridizing the
St. Bernards with traditional “meat dogs,” the farm diversified into
producing other popular purebreds.
“Beijing is cleaning up its dog breeding farms in the wake of
several rabies outbreaks in other parts of the country,” the Xinhua
News Service reported on August 12. “The Beijing Municipal
Agriculture Bureau will inspect breeders and check the registration
of pet dogs. The public security department will adopt homeless
animals,” the article said, but added that a spokesperson did not
say what would be done with dogs who are not adopted.
The Beijing Public Security Bureau opened the city animal
control shelter to the public for reclaim of lost dogs, introduced
an adoption program, and began accepting volunteer help in October
2003, after moving to attractive new premises, Association for Small
Animal Protection founder Betty Zhao e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Beijing had 60,000 reported dog bite cases in the first half
of 2006, but human rabies deaths in recent years have all been among
recent arrivals from the rabies-endemic regions. Beijing officials
often purged dogs from 1949 to March 2001, when 1,600 unlicensed
dogs were reportedly taken from their keepers and killed, after a
series of vigilante poisonings. Vigilantes killed dogs in Beijing
during the 2003 Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome panic, but the
official response was merely to pick up strays. And abandonees.
Beijing is among the relatively few Chinese cities with a
western-style animal control agency. Keeping pet dogs was officially
discouraged for most of 50 years, strays were often killed on sight
by police, and enforcing registration and vaccination requirements–
where any existed–was left to local ad hoc committees. Instead of
having a standing animal control department that collects strays all
year, killing dogs largely beyond public notice, Chinese cities
have sporadically drafted untrained and ill-equipped public employees
and volunteers to kill dogs.
“In Dongling, on the outskirts of Jingling in Shandong
province, teams of men beat dogs to death with wooden poles and
pitchforks, then trucked away their bodies,” villagers told
Associated Press.
In Mouding County the dog-killers arrived in darkness,
banged pans and set off fireworks, then beat to death with mop
handles the dogs whose barking revealed their presence, said Los
Angeles Times staff writer Ching-Ching Ni.
“The only dogs spared were military and police canines,” Ni
wrote. “For each dead animal, owners were compensated 60 cents.
“Before the massacre began, authorities gave dog owners a
chance to do the dirty work themselves,” Ni continued. “Xu Jiajin,
a 70-year-old farmer, said his village had about 90 families and
more than 100 dogs. The villagers were told the dogs had to be
killed by July 27.” Under duress, Xu’s family hanged their dog.
“To prevent any dogs from leaving town, authorities set up
checkpoints on all major roads. Any dogs found in vehicles were
subject to immediate execution,” Ni added.
“County residents interviewed by phone said the killing
appeared indiscriminate. They said about 4,000 dogs already
vaccinated against rabies were among those slaughtered, because of
the slight chance they could spread the disease.”
China leads the world in agricultural vaccine use, but
vaccine quality control has been problematic, as production has
expanded much faster than official monitoring capacity. Purported
anti-H5N1 vaccines produced by substandard labs have in some cases
been suspected of actually spreading the disease, or causing
mutations that make it more virulent.
Outright fraud is also frequent.
“Last year, two boys in Guangdong died of rabies, against
which their parents thought they had been inoculated,” recalled
Watts of the Guardian. “Police then found 40,000 boxes of fake
vaccine.”
However, Chinese confidence in vaccination has rapidly risen
as result of the largely successful efforts in recent years to
contain SARS and the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Both diseases are
more broadly distributed in China than anywhere else, and both
crossed into humans in the Guangdong region of southern China, long
notorious for unsanitary and inhumane “wet markets” where both wild
and domestic live animals are sold.
However, prompt response to H5N1 outbreaks with “ring
vaccination” had through August 20, 2006 held the number of mainland
Chinese human cases down to just 21, with 14 deaths. Both Vietnam
and Indonesia have had more than four times as many human deaths.
“Ring vaccination” consists of intensively vaccinating the
potential hosts of a disease in the territory surrounding an
outbreak. Potentially exposed host animals within the ring are
usually killed, in agricultural applications, since blood tests
usually cannot distinguish vaccinated animals from those carrying
latent infections, but the killing is minimized by preventing
further disease transmission.
The Chinese vaccine industry is believed to be capable of
accelerating rabies vaccine production to serve the entire dog
population within the next few years.

Livestock disasters show limits of humane response

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:
ADDIS ABABA, FRESNO, SURAT, VISAKHAPATNAM–Summer 2006
disasters on three continents demonstrated both the vulnerability of
livestock to fast-changing global weather patterns and the limited
capacity of the humane community to help animals in agricultural
numbers.
Dairy cattle were most visibly hurt.
In Ethiopia the crisis involved drought-weakened desert
cattle suddenly having to cope with fast-rushing high water.
Along both the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea coasts of India,
cattle well-adapted to the drought-and-monsoon cycle were imperiled
in part because they are now kept in unnaturally dense numbers in
floodplains surrounding fast-growing cities.

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