Battery cage opponents emboldened by success

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
WASHINGTON D.C., LONDON–Years used to
pass between Humane Society of the U.S.
announcements of progress on behalf of
battery-caged egg-laying hens. In mid-October
2006 two such announcements came just 24 hours
apart.
Nineteen years after HSUS upset consumers
and donors with a short-lived “breakfast of
cruelty” campaign against bacon and eggs, a
younger generation of consumers and donors is
responding enthusiastically to a similar message.
About 95% of total U.S. egg production
comes from battery caged hens, but that could
change fast.
Under comparable campaign pressure,
British caged egg producers have already lost 40%
of the market, the research firm Mintel reported
in August 2006 to the Department of the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Demand for
cage-free eggs has increased 31% since 2002,
Mintel found.

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Seeking to save “surplus” elephants

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:

As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, Animal Rights Africa was
attempting to translocate 12 “problem” elephants from the vicinity of
Weenan, in Kwa-Zulu Natal, to the SanWild Wildlife Trust sanctuary
in Limpopo province.
Orphaned by culling in Kruger National Park, the elder
elephants in the herd were previously translocated in 1993 to the
former Thukela Biosphere Reserve. Created toward the end of the
apartheid regime in South Africa, the Thukela reserve was recently
dissolved and turned over to the Lindauk-huhle Trust, in settlement
of a land claim by the tribal people who were evicted from their
homes when the reserve was declared.

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Seeking to end sacrifice

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
KOLKATA, CAPE TOWN, LOS ANGELES–Challenging public animal
sacrifice at the Kailghat Temple in Kolkata since 2000,
Compassionate Crusaders Trust founder Debasis Chakrabarti won a
September 15, 2006 verdict from the Calcutta High Court that the
ritual killings may no longer be conducted in open public view.
The 200-year-old Kalighat temple, beside the Hoogly River,
is among the most visited sites of sacrifice to the blood goddess
Kali. Chakrabarti previously tried to persuade devotees that
donating blood to hospital blood drives would be as acceptable to the
goddess.
Anti-sacrifice demonstrations and the blood drives helped to
reduce the numbers of sacrifices, Chakrabarti told news media.
Moving sacrifice inside the temple walls, Chakrabarti hopes, will
reinforce the message that it is not acceptable in modern India.
But the message and reality are somewhat at odds. Karnataka,
Gujarat, Orissa, Himachal, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh states
prohibit animal sacrifice. Yet sacrifice is exempted from coverage
by the federal Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, in effect since
1960, and the Indian constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
The traditionally lesser educated castes who eat meat and
practice animal sacrifice have had a much higher birth rate in recent
decades than the traditionally better educated vegetarian castes.
Seventy years after the caste system was officially abolished, caste
lines have blurred to the point that lower caste origins are no
longer an obstacle to winning economic and political success, and in
some districts are even an advantage. Vegetarianism is still widely
professed, but the population balance in India has shifted in the
space of a generation from approximately half to less than a third
actually not eating meat.

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A field day over elephant polo

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
JAIPUR–Elephant polo, by most witness accounts, would seem
to be among the most unlikely of sports to generate controversy. It
is slow-moving, and not televised in bar rooms. Few people watch in
person. Fewer still participate, or could afford to, at a World
Elephant Polo Association-advertised price of $6,000 per team
tournament entry, covering elephant rental, equipment use,
officiating, and insurance.
Only the participants are likely to bet on the games.
An October 2005 “international” match in Jaipur, India,
between teams of three men from the Lahore Polo Club of Pakistan and
three women from the Amby Valley of Germany, ended abruptly when an
elephant stepped on the ball. None of the “world class” players had
ever before ridden elephants.

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