Livestock gift charities do not help poor nations, say global critics

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
LONDON–Sixty years after Heifer
International founder Dan West pioneered the idea
of soliciting donations to give livestock to poor
families in disadvantaged parts of the world,
criticism of the practice at last cracked major
mainstream news media during the pre-Christmas
2006 peak giving season.
At least three major British newspapers
and news syndicates amplified critiques of
livestock donation programs, quoting most
extensively from a prepared statement
distribu-ted by Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler.
“This year about a dozen agencies are
using your money to punt goats, chickens,
sheep, camels, donkeys, pigs and cows to the
world’s starving,” Tyler warned donors. “Prices
vary: £70 will get you a cow from Help The Aged.
Send A Cow demands £750 per animal. Farm Friends
wants £30 for a goat, whereas World Vision will
settle for £91 for a whole herd.

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Landmark verdict in Jaipur elephant case

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:
JAIPUR–Eighteen years after a jeep killed an elephant used
to give tourists rides up the narrow, winding road to the Amer
Palace overlooking Jaipur, the Rajasthan High Court on December 20,
2006 upheld a 1993 ruling by the Motor Accident Tribunal of Jaipur
that elephant owner Saddique Khan should be compensated the same
amount as if the elephant had been a human being.
The sum, about $12,500 U.S. plus interest, is to be paid by
the New India Insurance Company. The company contended that it
should only pay the standard rate for livestock of equivalent size,
about $41.50 as of 1988, when the accident happened.

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Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:
Carol Chapman, 66, was killed along with 12 cats and her
smallest dog, Zoey, on December 18, 2006 after falling and
breaking her nose and neck while fighting a pre-dawn housefire at her
home in San Jose, California. “Chapman loved cats,” recalled Scott
Herhold of the Mercury News. “She sometimes had as many as 30 or 40
of them, not to mention Buddy, her German shepherd mix, or her two
other beloved mutts, Lacy and Zoey. Before she became sick with
cervical cancer, she rescued hundreds of cats,” placing them in
adoptive homes. A retired Santa Clara social worker, Chapman
reputedly screened adopters more thoroughly than the county screened
foster parents. She “worked with a clutch of animal rescue groups,
most recently with Furry Friends Rescue,” Herhold recalled, “often
stood outside a local Petco to interest people in taking on an
unloved animal,” and “Every other week on the Greg Kihn show on KFOX
radio, gave a short blurb offering a cat or dog to a good home.”

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Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:
Roadie, 14, a double-amputee Walker coonhound recalled by
Greg Kocher of the Lexington Herald-Leader as “a symbol of
perseverance to people with disabilities,” was euthanized on
November 30, 2006 due to incurable painful conditions of age. “In
1992,” Kocher wrote, “at only nine months old, he spent spent two or
three days and nights lying between the rails of railroad track,”
near Nicholsville, Kentucky, “after a freight train mangled his
right rear leg and left front leg. A railroad employee stopped to
put him out of his misery. The gun jammed. So he went to a nearby
farmhouse and asked if the dog belonged to anyone there. He didn’t,
but the woman who lived there began making calls, including one to
the Nicholasville Police. The police called Mike Griffitt, DVM.
Griffitt checked the dog’s tags and contacted the owner. After he
realized Roadie would never hunt again, the owner said he would take
the dog home and dispose of him. When the pup was gingerly loaded
into the truck, he wagged his tail. Griffitt asked whether he could
have him.” Roadie’s rescue and recovery was subsequently featured
by radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, CNN television, Reader’s Digest,
and Dog World. He spent the rest of his life at Griffitt’s Bluegrass
Veterinary Clinic.

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BOOKS: We Thank You, God, For These: Blessings & Prayers for Family Pets

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:

We Thank You, God, For These:
Blessings & Prayers for Family Pets
by Anthony F. Chiffolo & Rayner W. Hesse, Jr.
Paulist Press (997 Macarthur Blvd., Mahwah, NJ 07430), 2006.
$16.95, paperback. 204 pages.

When Anthony Chiffolo and Rayner Hesse first tried to market
their idea of producing a book of prayers, stories, poems, and
quotes about deceased pets, rejection was disheartening. One
response began “Once we stopped laughing, we were able to send you
this letter.”
Yet the book is is a gold mine of useful material, including
scriptural references and even a complete memorial service for a
loved animal. Not overly maudlin and sentimental, it is
uplifting in providing solace for humans who grieve for their animal
companions. The number and variety of relevant quotations included
reveals how normal it is to grieve for a favorite animal.

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BOOKS: Please Don’t Eat The Animals: All the Reasons You Need to Be a Vegetarian

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:

Please Don’t Eat The Animals:
All the Reasons You Need to Be a Vegetarian
by Jennifer Horsman & Jaimie Flowers
Quill Driver Books (1254 Commerce Way, Sanger, CA 93657), 2006.
128 pages, paperback. $12.95.

Jennifer Horsman and Jaimie Flowers have combined to produce
an excellent summary of the arguments in favour of vegetarianism.
With well-researched statistics and up-to-date scientific
information, Horsman and Flowers deal concisely with the four pillars
of vegetarianism, namely health, environment, animal welfare and
philosophy/religion. This would be the perfect booklet to hand to
the ubiquitous sceptic who asks “Why are you a vegetarian?” No
reasonable, open-minded reader could fail to discover hundreds of
good reasons why he/she should become vegetarian. It is a pocket
battleship of debating material to throw at those who assert than
eating meat is an inalienable right.

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BOOKS: Firehorse

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:

Firehorse by Diane Lee Wilson
Margaret K. McElderry Books (c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Ave. of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2006. 325 pages, paperback.
$16.95.

Researching the Great Boston Fire of 1872, Firehorse author
Diane Lee Wilson discovered the diary of a 14-year-old girl who had
lived in Boston at the time. The book is woven around that girl’s
hopes and dreams.
The Great Fire broke out after a horse flu epidemic that
spread across North America had immobilized Boston’s fire horses.
Firefighting equipment had to be pulled by volunteers on foot. This
is often cited as the leading reason why the fire got out of control,
but the city commission which later investigated the fire found that
fire crews’ response times were delayed by only minutes.

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Justice for Animals ires South African National SPCA over Zulu bullfight

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
KLOOF, KwaZulu-Natal–Justice for Animals founder Steve
Smiths sought to support the National SPCA of South Africa in a
December 4, 2006 e-mail to news media, protesting against the
annual mob killing of a bull at the First Fruits Festival, a
traditional Zulu celebration.
National SPCA executive director Marcelle Meredith’s December
5 response took Smits and much of his lengthy cc. list much by
surprise.

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BOOKS: The Case Against Bullfighting

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

The Case Against Bullfighting
by Michael A. Ogorzaly
Author House (1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403), 2006
248 pages, paperback. $14.95.

Michael Ogorzaly, who died at age 58 on
October 14, 2006, suffered a broken neck as a
college student, when a car in which he was a
passenger was involved in an accident. Confined
to a wheelchair thereafter, Ogorzaly completed
his education and went on to teach Spanish and
Latin American history at Chicago State
University. When Bulls Cry was his second book,
addressing a topic which had become one of his
focal concerns.

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