Month: October 2011

Obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 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


Jagjit Singh, 70,  died of a brain hemorrhage in Mumbai on October 10,  2011.   “Widely credited for reviving the popularity of classical Hindustani love songs in Urdu, known as ghazals,”  recalled New York Times correspondent Neha Thirani,  Singh was also remembered “for using his voice to speak up for elephants needlessly being killed by speeding trains on railway tracks,”  said PETA/India manager of media and celebrity projects Sachin S. Bangera.  Singh wrote to former Indian railways minister Mamata Banerjee in September 2010,   after a train moving at 70 miles per hour killed seven elephants in the Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal,  asking her to “limit the speed of trains running through elephant corridors and to use speed-detection guns to monitor train speeds.”  The use of speed guns to clock train speeds was introduced in October 2010 by Azam Siddiqui,  a TV news camera man who first wrote to ANIMAL PEOPLE about road and railway threats to elephants in 2004.  ANIMAL PEOPLE helped Siddiqui to collect the information he needed to apply for the PETA/India grant that funded the acquisition of a speed gun used to demonstrate the efficacy of the technique–but while the speed gun easily passed all tests,  train speeds are still not routinely monitored.  Three elephants were injured in  July 2011 near the site of the collison that killed the seven,  and another was killed in October 2011.  More than 150 elephants have been killed by trains in India since 1987. Read more

Opposition to dog meat traffic rises in China, Thailand, and Vietnam

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:


BEIJING,  BANKOK,  HANOI-– Public outrage on September 21, 2011 brought the abrupt cancellation of the eighth annual dog meat festival in Zhejiang,  China,  which had been scheduled for October 18.

From five to ten thousand dogs were to have been caged in the streets of Jinhua City,  Zhejiang province,  to be killed and butchered to visitors’ order.  “Dogs’ yelping fills the air throughout the the festival,”  reported The Shanghaiist. Read more

Failing Zimbabwe farmers poison elephants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:


HARARE, Zimbabwe–Driven by drought and inability to farm on property seized a decade ago,  desperate Zimbabweans have begun a second round of land invasions.

Land invasions during the first years of the 21st century left the Zimbabwean trophy hunting industry largely intact,  but destroyed nonlethal wildlife watching and turned Zimbabwe from being one of Africa’s major food exporting nations into requiring international food aid.  Encouraging the land invasions kept the ZANU-PF party in power,  extending the tenure of President Robert Mugabe to 31 years.  But Mugabe,  87,  is suffering from advanced prostate cancer,  according to leaked diplomatic papers. Read more

European Parliament adopts dog protocol, but backs away from farm animal welfare

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:

BRUSSELS–The European Parlia-ment on October 13,  2011 ratified a Written Declaration on Dog Population Management in the European Union which “calls on Member States to adopt comprehensive dog population management strategies,”  to “include measures such as dog control and anti-cruelty laws,  support for veterinary procedures including rabies vaccination and sterilization as necessary to control the number of unwanted dogs,  and the promotion of responsible pet ownership.” Read more

Why shipping live pigs to Hawaii did not end with the ancient Polynesians & Captain Cook

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:


HONOLULU–Five years of advocacy appears to have ended most of the retail end of the live pig trade to Hawaii.
Now comes the hard part:  ending the wholesale trade to hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists who visit Hawaii from all over the world,  but are usually there for just a few days out of a lifetime.  Hotel and restaurant demand accounted for more than 80% of live pig imports at the peak of the trade,  and with the retail trade shrinking,  may account for almost all of it now. Read more

Editorial: The shelter killing of pit bulls

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Editorial feature—

More adoptions will not end shelter killing of pit bulls


Tangible progress on behalf of animals is often hard to recognize, amid paradoxes such as polling data showing that more people think about farm animal welfare even as world meat consumption is at an all-time high and rising.

Just about everyone agrees,  though,  that the past 25 years have produced unprecedented improvement in the human relationship with dogs,  especially here in the United States.  Americans keep half again more pet dogs than in 1986.  Average spending per dog per year for food,  toys,  and accessories has increased from $58 in 1986–with purchasing power worth $114 today–to $347.   Yet sales of doghouses,  once the most costly common dog accessory,  have crashed, because most dogs today live indoors with their people. Read more

Letters

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:

 

Letters

Hope the bear cub
I have never seen anything in Animal People about the North American Bear Center,  in Ely,  Minnesota.  They are a group of scientists and researchers who study bears without sedating them by following them in the woods.

In January 2010 they put a camera into the den of a bear named Lily who gave birth to her first cub online.  This was followed by people throughout the world.  The cub was named Hope.  Hundreds of teachers used the children’s interest in Lily and Hope in their classrooms.

On September 16,  2011 a hunter shot and killed Hope.  Her many fans have been devastated by her death. I can’t imagine how the teachers are handling this.  This is also a huge loss to the research project,  as Hope was part of a rare mixed-age litter.  Mixed-age litters had never been studied before.

Although Hope was almost 20 months old,  she and her eight-month-old sibling were both still nursing.

Updates,  and more information about the North American Bear Center,  can be found at <www.Bear.org>.

–Judy Meincke
Nellysford,  Virginia Read more

Live market victory

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:

RICHMOND, Calif.–The Richmond,  California city council on September 27, 2011,  voted to end live bird sales at the city farmers’ market,  effective November 1.     “Two years ago,  live birds were sold at four Bay Area farmers’ markets.  Now, they are sold at none,”  exulted Lesbian,  Gay,  Bisexual,  & Transsexual Compassion founder Andrew Zollman.  “Further,”  Zollman said, “the Richmond city attorney confirmed our position that a new state law taking effect on January 1,  2012 will ban live poultry sales at farmers’ markets operating on any street,  highway,  public right-of-way,  or parking lot.  We hope to use this to end live poultry sales at all other California farmers’ markets.”

Wins for apes

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2011:

CAIRO,  DUBLIN— Egyptian animal advocate Dina Zulfikar and John Carmody,  founder of the Animal Rights Action Network in Limerick, Ireland,  agree that their longterm goal is not bigger cages but no cages.  Yet both were ecstatic in September 2011 over winning larger cages for several chimpanzees and gorillas for whom there is little hope of life outside of zoos. Read more

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