Saving one small dog informs the world

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia– Resembling a
skull buried up to the hollow eye sockets, the
70-year-old Italian fortification called Gido
Washa stood for death from the day it was built.
Long after the last Italian troops left
Ethiopia, after the last wood and metal parts of
Gido Washa were blasted or burned, and only the
concrete shell remained, it became deadlier than
ever.
“For the last 20 or so years local people
threw unwanted dogs into the pits, where they
died of starvation,” Ethiopian/American
physician Anteneh Roba e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE
on June 25, 2007. As founder of the Amsale
Gessesse Memorial Foundation, begun to honor his
deceased mother, Roba was in Ethiopia to help
the Homeless Animal Protection Society to expand
their street dog sterilization and vaccination
project.

U.S. shelter killing toll drops to 3.7 million dogs & cats

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

U.S. animal shelters as of mid-2007 are killing fewer dogs
and cats than at any time in at least the past 37 years, according
to the 15th annual ANIMAL PEOPLE evaluation of the most recent
available shelter data.
The rate of shelter killing per 1,000 Americans, now at
12.5, is the lowest since data collected by John Marbanks in
1947-1950 suggested a rate of about 13.5–at a time when animal
control in much of the U.S. was still handled by private contractors,
who often simply killed strays or sold them to laboratories instead
of taking them to shelters, and unwanted puppies and kittens were
frequently drowned.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE projection each year is based on
compilations of the tolls from every open admission shelter handling
significant numbers of animals in specific cities, counties, or
states. The sample base each year is proportionately weighted to
ensure regional balance. Only data from the preceding three fiscal
years is included.

ABC & clandestine captures drive Bangalore street dog population down by half since mid-2006

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

BANGALORE–A door-to-door canvas of 3.2 million Bangalore
households in mid-June 2007 found just 49,283 dogs– including 17,480
pet dogs, and only 24,491 street dogs, fewer than half the 56,500
estimated to be at large a year earlier.
The plummeting street dog population attested to both the
efficacy of the much-maligned Animal Birth Control programs in
Bangalore, and the undiscriminating tactics of dogcatchers who were
deployed repeatedly in the first half of 2007 to purge dogs.
ANIMAL PEOPLE surveys of dogs in representative Bangalore
neighborhoods found in January 2007 that the ABC programs managed by
Compassion Unlimited Plus Action, Karuna, and the Animal Rights
Fund appeared to have sterilized between 70% and 90% of the
free-roaming dog population. But dog pogroms following fatal dog
attacks in January and March 2007 jeopardized the programs’ success
by killing dogs who had already been sterilized.

Feral pigs become scapegoats–in the U.S. & around the world

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
SANTA BARBARA, California– Pigs were blamed for people
killing turkeys in the name of defending foxes against eagles.
The Nature Conservancy ended 2006 by hiring professional
hunters to kill about 250 of the estimated 300 wild turkeys on Santa
Cruz Island, within Channel Islands National Park. Nature
Conservancy spokes-person Julie Benson told Associated Press that the
killing was needed to protect endangered Channel Islands foxes,
after an 18-month, $5 million pig purge, also touted as essential
to protect the foxes, ended earlier in the year.
“Scientists said the kills are necessary because turkeys and
pigs provide prey for golden eagles,” summarized Associated Press.
“The eagles are attracted to the island, where they also kill the
endangered foxes. The island pigs kept the turkeys in check by
eating their eggs and competing with them for food. With nearly all
of the pigs gone, the turkey population boomed.”
The problem actually started, retired Channel Islands
National Park superintendent Tim J. Setnicka admitted in a March 2005
denunciation of “systematic biologic genocide” published by the Santa
Barbara News Press, when The Nature Conservancy and National Park
Service decided in 1972 to try to exterminate all non-native species
who inhabited the islands. The turkeys had just been introduced that
year.

Thailand re-examines tiger sale

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

BANGKOK–The Thai National Counter Corruption Commission is
reportedly re-investigating the long controversial export in 2002 of
100 tigers from the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo in Chon Buri to a privately
owned zoo or tiger farm, depending on definitions, in Hainan,
China.
“Ex-forest department chief Plodprasop Suraswadi allegedly
delivered those tigers to China without approval from the National
Wildlife Protection Committee,” wrote Apinya Wipatayotin of the
Bangkok Post. “The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
once set up a probe panel to look into the case. The committee later
concluded Plodprasop did not commit any offence,” but observers were
less convinced.

BOOKS: Just A Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty & Ourselves

January 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January-February 2007:

Just A Dog: Understanding Animal
Cruelty & Ourselves by Arnold Arluke
Temple University Press (1601 N. Broad St., Philadelphia,
PA 19122), 2006. 221 pages, paperback. $22.95.

Arnold Arluke in Brute Force: Policing Animal Cruelty (2004)
studied the sociology of humane investigators. Just A Dog summarizes
that work, then comparably examines the sociology of juveniles who
commit cruelty, animal hoarders, shelter workers, and the
marketers who use cruelty cases to raise funds and reinforce the
stature of humane societies. Veterans of humane work will find few
if any surprises in Arluke’s often plodding analysis, but the less
experienced may find the 35 pages about marketing and fundraising an
invaluable introduction to the art of balancing public
expectations–and especially donor expectations–with reality.

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