Letters [Sept 2010]
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
Saving African habitat
In September 2005 the Kenyan minister for tourism and
wildlife declared that Amboseli National Park would become a National
Reserve. Management of the park would be removed from the Kenya
Wildlife Service and placed with the Olkejiado County Council. The
new Kenyan constitution effectively keeps Amboseli under the national
government. The High Court accepted our submission and will issue a
court order quashing the notice that purported to change Amboseli
National Park to Amboseli National Reserve.
Fighting the case cost us $13,350. We have paid $6,650,
leaving a balance to be paid of $6,700.
–Steve Itela, President
Youth for Conservation
P.O. Box 27689, Nyayo Stadium
Nairobi 00506, Kenya
Phone: 254-733-617286
<itela@youthforconservation.org>
<www.youthforconservation.org>
Editor’s note:
Youth for Conservation and the Africa Network for Animal
Welfare are now leading opposition to a Tanzanian plan to build a
road across Serengeti National Park, just south of the Kenya border.
The Kenyan portion of the Serengeti ecosystem lies within Masai Mara
National Park. Twenty-seven leading scientists warned in the
September 2010 edition of Nature that the road, meant to expedite
mineral exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, could
cut the Serengheti wildlife population by up to 90%. The road also
would appear to serve a region in which government-issued hunting
leases expired in December 2009, and may be more lucrative with
improved access. Unfortunately, while YfC has been depleted by the
five-year struggle to save Amboseli National Park from risk of
encroachment and development, ANAW incurred a deficit of $20,426
from hosting the recent African Animal Welfare Action conference in
Nairobi. Both YfC and ANAW are seeking grant funding to help them
get into position to fight the Tanzanian road proposal.
Ban Compound 1080
U.S. Representatives Peter DeFazio of Oregon and John
Campbell of California recently introduced H.R. 5643, the Com-pound
1080 & Sodium Cyanide Elimination Act. This federal bill would ban
two of the most deadly poisons used to kill coyotes and other
wildlife on America’s ranch lands.
Sodium fluoroacetate, also known as Compound 1080, is used
in livestock collars, placed around the necks of sheep and goats to
kill predators. Sodium cyanide M-44 “coyote getters” are
ground-based poison ejector devices used primarily by USDA Wildlife
Services that are baited to attract and kill predators such as
coyotes. However, they are non-selective. They kill non-target
wild animals and family pets, and have seriously injured people.
The FBI has listed Compound 1080 as a “highly toxic pesticide judged
most likely to be used by terrorists or for malicious intent.”
Because of the animal cruelty and environmental danger
associated with these poisons both were banned by ballot initiatives
in California and Washington. Let’s carry this momentum forward and
ban these deadly poisons nationwide. Please urge your Congressional
representatives to co-sponsor and support H.R. 5643.
–Camilla Fox
Project Coyote & Animal Welfare Institute
P.O. Box 5007
Larkspur, CA 94977
415-945-3232
<cfox@projectcoyote.org>
<www.ProjectCoyote.org>
<www.awionline.org>
Rabies in Bali
Today, September 21, 2010, the Governor of Bali and all
regional directors signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bali
Animal Welfare Association, including an agreement to stop culling
dogs, and BAWA signed a separate agreement with the World Society
for the Protection of Animals. This is the first step in eradicating
rabies from Bali. The Governor made a nice speech, thanking both
BAWA and WSPA for their help since the rabies outbreak started in
mid-2008. He encouraged local Balinese officials to support us and
work together with us.
Of course now we have a lot of hard work in front of us.
With vaccines funded by WSPA we need to vaccinate 350,000 dogs
against rabies, approximately 75% of all the dogs in Bali, within
the next six months.
Thank you for your support. We could never have made it this
far without you.
–Janice Girardi, founder
Bali Animal Welfare Association
Jalan Monkey Forest 100X
Ubud, Bali
Phone: +62 (0) 361 977217
< info@bawabali.com>
<www.bawabali.com>
Editor’s note:
Bali, an island, became afflicted with canine rabies in
mid-2008, when a rabid dog arrived from Flores, a distant island
with a history of dog-eating and resistance to vaccination. Rabies
reached Flores in 1997 and became endemic despite intensive culling.
Starting on the Ungasan peninsula, the Bali outbreak could easily
have been isolated and eradicated. However, five months elapsed
before the outbreak was recognized. Bali officials then killed dogs
as their primary control strategy; did not vaccinate enough dogs on
the neck of the peninsula to keep the outbreak confined; kept BAWA
and private citizens from vaccinating dogs until a year after the
outbreak started; used unreliable indigenous vaccines of only
short-term potency; killed vaccinated dogs; and disregarded the
advice of international experts who visited at their own expense,
including Henry Wilde, editor of the journal Asian Biomedicine. By
mid-2010, 44,000 people had received post-exposure vaccination after
suffering bites from suspected rabid dogs. The number of human
rabies deaths had doubled each six months since the first death
occurred, and was approaching 100. Bali officials at last became
amenable to signing the memorandums of understanding with BAWA and
WSPA after Wilde published in Asian Biomedicine “How not to fight a
rabies epidemic: a history in Bali,” by ANIMAL PEOPLE editor
Merritt Clifton, summarizing ANIMAL PEOPLE coverage, plus updates,
and adding an annotated list of human deaths.
