Mobilizing to help squirrels & sea turtles in the wake of Hurricane Irene

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:

Hurricane-downgraded-to-tropical storm Irene swept from the
Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico past southern Florida, blew out to
sea, then roared back inland and gusted almost straight north into
Quebec. Torrential rains inundated roads and other infrastructure,
especially in upstate New York and Vermont.
Then, after raining cats and dogs, Irene for three days
rained baby squirrels on wildlife rescuers from North Carolina to New
England. “There’s been a flood of calls about squirrels dropping out
of trees everywhere,” Humane Society of the U.S. urban wildlife
program field director Laura Simon told Pamela McLoughlin of the New
Haven Register. “It’s baby season,” Simon explained. Squirrel
nests were among the first casualties of the winds and downpour.
“We had well over 250 baby squirrels admitted,” Outer Banks
Wildlife Shelter nursery supervisor Herda Henderson told Aniesa
Holmes of the Jacksonville Daily News.

Read more

Chinese intro to rodeo postponed

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:

BEIJING–“Rodeo China, the first United States ‘Wild West’
event in China, has been postponed until next year,” Wang Ru of
China Daily reported on August 31, 2011, crediting a four-month
campaign by “a coalition of 71 animal welfare organizations,
including six international non-governmental organizations.”
The Rodeo China organizers made no announcement, but
publication of the report by the Chinese national government
newspaper appeared to signify a change of perspective among top
officials.

Read more

To feed or not to feed at the Giza pyramids– that is the question before animal charities

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:
CAIRO–Is feeding the horses and camels at the Giza pyramids
a mission of mercy, or merely subsidizing riding stables with a long
history of atrocious animal care?
The Egyptian Society of Animal Friends and the London-based
Brooke Hospital for Animals have come down on opposite sides of the
ethically vexing question.
ESAF, which raised $66,500 in 2010, expects to continue
feeding horses and camels at the pyramids until start of the December
tourist season, president Ahmed al Sherbiny told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The Brooke, founded in 1934 to help Egyptian working equines,
raised $21.7 million in 2010, but has not helped to feed the Giza
pyramids horses since April 2011, believing this to be a
self-defeating practice. Feeding camels, the Brooke told ANIMAL
PEOPLE earlier, is outside the scope of the Brooke mission.
The feeding issue ignited after disruption of tourism by
the protests that deposed former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on
February 11, 2011 left the Giza pyramids riding stables and others
in Egypt without feed or funds.
Already holding weekly clinics for working equines near the
Giza pyramids, ESAF and the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals
expanded into feeding both equines and camels.
“ESAF has continued to hold thrice weekly horse feedings and
clinics, and has added stable visits for the needier horses,” al
Sherbiny told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “The numbers attending our clinics,”
a total of more than 50 camels and about 750 horses through August
2011, “have risen slightly,” al Sherbiny said. “We are very
concerned that tourism will not return to normal until the political
situation in Egypt is resolved, we hope by the October parliamentary
elections. Even if things go smoothly,” al Sherbiny added, “there
are concerns that many of the horses will not be fit to resume work.
Because of these concerns,” al Sherbiny said, “ESAF will continue
feed distribution and medical clinics until December, if funding
allows.”
Both the Brooke and the Donkey Sanctuary initially disputed
the need to feed the Giza pyramids working animals at al. Resuming
mobile clinics in Giza on February 10, after a suspension during
the worst of the Egyptian unrest, both the Brooke and the Donkey
Sanctuary initially said they found no starving horses or donkeys.
Emergency feeding funded by the Brooke, the Donkey
Sanctuary, ANIMAL PEOPLE, ESAF, and other local charities began on
February 13, five days after the London Daily Mail published photos
purporting to show horses who starved to death within sight of the
pyramids. The photos actually showed a longtime
government-designated carcass dump near the pyramids, including the
remains of horses who died from disease even before the anti-Mubarak
protests began, Cairo activist Dina Zulfikar told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
But ESMA cofounders Mona Khalil and Susie Nassar meanwhile sent out
photos showing emaciated horses in the pyramids area.

Brits quit feeding

The Brooke and the Donkey Sanctu-ary quit the feeding
operation on April 21. ESAF and ESMA disagreed with their decision
at the time, and have become more outspoken about their disagreement
since then. There is also friction between the Egyptian animal
charities and the Brooke because the Brooke does not respond to
after-hours emergency calls, and over a 20-year-old Brooke policy of
not performing surgeries on horses that are expected to take longer
than 20 minutes. The latter policy is consistent with a belief
widespread among equine veterinarians that horses requiring longer
surgeries tend to have a poor prognosis for recovery.
“The number of animals in need is extensive, and all animal
welfare societies in Egypt are wondering ‘Where is Brooke Hospital?'”
e-mailed al Sherbiny to Brooke chief executive Petra Ingram on August
11.
Responded Ingram, “The Brooke has been providing mobile
veterinary treatments to the working equine animals in the Pyramids
area for some time and continues to do so. Sadly some animals at the
Pyramids were in a poor condition before the crisis. That is why we
were already working in the area. We did provide free food for almost
three months. Unfortunately,” Ingram said, “simply providing these
animal with free food will not solve the problem. To go on providing
a feeding is unsustainable in the long-term, creating a dependency
culture, distorting local fodder prices, and adversely affecting
the ability of local farmers to sell their produce.
“The Brooke has worked to build a sustainable program in
Cairo and across Egypt over the last few years,” Ingram contended.
“We are working with the animal owners to change attitudes and
behavior. We will continue to provide weekly mobile treatments and
run education workshops,” Ingram finished.
The poor condition of many of the working horses in the Giza
pyramids area was already notorious when Brooke Hospital founder
Dorothy Brooke arrived in Egypt in 1930. Her letter to the London
Morning Post exposing the bad horse care she witnessed raised the
funds to start the Brooke.
Nearly 80 years of clinics and education begun by Dorothy
Brooke have unfortunately not raised the Giza standards. This is at
least partly because politically influential stable owners–some of
whom led a horse-and-camel charge against anti-Mubarak
demonstrators–have never been prosecuted for neglect.
“At the beginning of August,” al Sherbiny told ANIMAL
PEOPLE, “we invited the new Government Veterinary Services chair to
see our shelter and the condition of the rescued horses we are
treating. We hope he will enforce the existing legislation. We plan
to move our clinic to a very prominent position used also by the
veterinary department. We are hoping this move will force the
government to become more involved and will create more public
awareness.
“We are in a very difficult situation,” al Sherbiny
acknowledged. “We cannot stand by and watch the animals starve,
even though we realize that feeding them could be perpetuating the
problem. ESAF is committed to try to change it, but we cannot do it
alone.”

Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:

“I come to bury Caesar,  not to praise him.  The evil that men do lives after them.  The good is oft interred with their bones.” –William Shakespeare

 

Darla Napora,  32,  was fatally mauled in her home in Pacifica,  California on August 11,  2011 by her two-year-old non-neutered pit bull terrier Gunner.  Police shot Gunner at the scene.  Autopsy and necropsy results showed that a spayed six-year-old female pit bull named Tazi,  also present,  was not involved.  Napora’s husband, Greg Napora,  30,  buried Gunner’s remains with her.  Napora,  who was pregnant,  was reportedly an active member of Bay Area Dog Lovers Responsible About Pit Bulls . The BADRAP web site lists neutering pit bulls second on a list of rules for keeping them safely.

 

Shahla Masood,  35, of Bhopal,  India,   was fatally shot in her car outside her home by an unknown assailant at about 11 a.m. on August 16,  2011.  Using the Right To Information act,  Masood had recently “raised questions regarding several tiger deaths across Madhya Pradesh,”  associate Ajay Dubey told media,  suggesting that “People involved in the [tiger poaching] racket may be responsible.” Masood in August 2010 organized an exhibition of photos of tigers in Bhopal to draw attention to the failure of wildlife officials to arrest the alleged killers of a tigress named Jhurjhura. Read more

What is delaying the promised release of 72 dolphins illegally captured in Indonesia?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:


JAKARTA
–Jakarta Animal Aid Network attorney Romy Daniel Tobing advised media on September 7,  2011 that JAAN is ready to pursue “the necessary legal enforcement measures” to ensure that the Indonesian forest ministry honors a memorandum of understanding to return 72 illegally captured dolphins of the wild.

“The commitment, which was signed in October 2010,  was to involve a joint effort by JAAN,  the forest ministry,  and Earth Island Institute to implement a five-year plan for dolphin protection,  rehabilitation and release,”  summarized Ismira Lutfia of the Jakarta Globe.

This largest-ever planned release of captive dolphins remains “caught in a net of delays,”  as Jakarta Post Central Java correspondent Maria Kegel put it three months ago.  That was already three months after Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry,  representing Earth Island Institute,  announced that the confiscation and release of the dolphins was imminent. Read more

Badger cull to begin in 2012

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:

LONDON--British environment secretary Caroline Spelman is expected to finalize plans before the close of 2011 to license dairy farmers to shoot badgers to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis.

According to a draft strategy released to media in July 2011, the cull would begin in 2012 in two trial areas,  believed to be in Devon and Gloucestershire,  though Spel-man told media that she was undecided about where the sites would be.  After the initial trial, culling would proceed more aggressively for at least four years beginning in 2013. Read more

Wildlife charities booted from CITES ivory talks

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:

 

GENEVA--Wildlife charities including the Born Free Foundation,  Elephant Family,  the Environmental Investigation Agency,  Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare,  Species Survival Network,  and World Wildlife Fund were on August 17,  2011 excluded from attending “deliberations concerning elephant conservation,  the ivory trade,  and China’s increasing involvement in illegal ivory trade” at the 61st Standing Committee meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species,  e-mailed Rudy Rosensweig of Born Free USA to global media. Read more

Bangladesh capital city stops dog culls

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:


DHAKA,  Bangladesh
— “We have stopped culling except for some emergency cases,  such as when rabid dogs attack schoolchildren,” Dhaka health services chief Brigadier General Nasiruddin Ahmed told Agence France-Press on August 25,  2011.

Instead,  the Bangadesh Health Department and the animal advocacy group Obhoyaronnyo have sent six veterinarians to Help In Suffering in Jaipur,  India,  to learn how to manage an Animal Birth Control program. Read more

The 30-day Vegan Challenge

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2011:

The 30-day Vegan Challenge
by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
Random House (1745 Broadway,
New York,  NY 10019),  2011.
336 pages,  paperback.  $22.00.

The title of this new book,  The 30-day Vegan Challenge, could be the name of a grueling road race for non-flesh eaters. Instead it’s a practical guide for vegans or vegan wannabes.  I did my review on a full stomach because the recipe for a chickpea burger tempted me to chomp down rather than read.  The book starts out defining “vegan,”  a word coined in 1944 by British animal activist Donald Watson (1910-2005).  Watson,  who founded the Vegan Society, defined veganism as a conscious decision to avoid expoliting animals for food,  clothing,  or any other purpose. Read more

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