BOOKS: Meat Market: Animals, Ethics & Money

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Meat Market: Animals, Ethics & Money
by Erik Marcus
Brio Press (244 Blakeslee, Hill Road, Suite 5, Newfield, NY 14867), 2005.
273 pages, hardcover. $21.95.

Erik Marcus writes crisply in this book about the evils of
factory farming. He disposes of common misconceptions and
exaggerated arguments, frequently employed both by industry
apologists and Animal Rights activists. His logic is clearly
expressed and his prose flows tightly. In fact the book is so easy
to read that it would make an excellent text book for humane
education and animal law courses.
Marcus examines the transformation of animal agriculture
since 1950 and analyses the growth of factory farming at the expense
of small family-owned farms.
Aiming squarely at urban activists who have no clear
understanding of farming methods, he introduces us to the life of a
layer hen, describing in harrowing detail her tortured life. Then
he does the same for broiler chickens, pigs, dairy cows, and beef
cattle.

BOOKS: Animals: Why They Must Not Be Brutalized

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Animals: Why They Must Not Be Brutalized
by J.B. Suconik
Nuark Publishing (30 Amberwood Parkway, Ashland, OH 44805),
2002. 160 pages, hard cover. $28.00

Suconik’s book is basically a moral treatise against the
arguments commonly used to support vivisection. Give us the whole
balance sheet, he implores vivisection apologists, not just an item
from the profit and loss account. Then we can accurately determine
the legitimacy of the whole enterprise.
Don’t just argue, for example, that without biomedical
research on animals we can forget about a cure for AIDS. Tell us how
much it will cost, how many animals will be used, how cruel are the
procedures and what are the alternatives.
Sure, if you spend millions tormenting animals for years you
are bound to learn something, sooner or later. But if better ways
exist, then the millions spent on vivisection will have been
wastefully employed.

BOOKS: Clara’s Grand Tour & General Howe’s Dog

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Clara’s Grand Tour
by Glynis Ridley
Atlantic Monthly Press (841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003), 2004.
222 pages, hardcover. $22.00.

General Howe’s Dog
by Caroline Tiger
Penguin Group (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 2005.
192 pages, hardcover. $18.95.

Historical scholars Glynis Ridley and Caroline Tiger each
happened across an intriguing mention of an animal while
investigating other events of the mid-18th century. Each
reconstructed the story of the animal, as best she could from
surviving documentation. Each produced a book about her findings,
with remarkably different results.
Ridley produced an award-winning account of the travels and
influence of a young female Indian rhinoceros, Clara, whose mother
was killed by hunters in Assam, India, circa 1738-1739. Hauled
overland to Calcutta, Clara was raised to adulthood in the home of
Dutch East India Company director J.A. Sichterman, initially as a
household pet. Outgrowing her quarters, Clara was sold in early
1741 to Dutch sea captain Douwemont Van der Meer. Van der Meer
sailed to Leiden with her.

Reviews

Feral cats & Singapore animal advocacy

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

SINGAPORE–The first feral cat in Singapore may have been the
animal for whom the island city-state is named.
He was reputedly a big one, with a red body and black mane.
When he lived and who saw him is mysterious.
Singapore in the fifth century A.D. was known to Chinese sea
farers as “Pu-luo-chung,” meaning “little town at the end of a
peninsula.” From the seventh century to the 10th century the little
town was Temasek, a Buddhist city-state.
After several centuries of obscurity, Temasek rose as a
regional power in the 14th century, passing from Buddhist to Islamic
rule, but was eventually destroyed by warfare. The ruins were
sparsely inhabited until 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles rebuilt the
ancient palace grounds as the seat of British government in Southeast
Asia.
By then, the former Temasek was already Singa-pura, meaning
in Malay and Sanskrit “The lion city.”
Singapore mythology holds that the name Singa-pura was
conferred in the early14th century by the Sri Vijayan prince Sang
Nila Utama, who had sailed from Sumatra seeking a place to build an
empire.

Asia

Axed SNAP founder Sean Hawkins starts over

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

HOUSTON–Either Spay/Neuter Assistance Program founder Sean
Hawkins was fired on May 26, 2005, as the June edition of ANIMAL
PEOPLE reported, or Hawkins was still CEO, as the SNAP board
claimed in a June 6 statement.
Whichever it was, Hawkins on June 20 submitted his formal
resignation, and on July 5 announced the formation of a new charity,
Saving Animals Across Borders, to carry out a mission similar to
that of SNAP but with a stronger international emphasis.
“Based in Houston, Saving Animals will promote the adoption
of healthy dogs and cats,” Hawkins said on July 5, “and will
increase the availability of animal sterilization services, to
ultimately wipe out animal homelessness in communities where these
programs and services are not available.
“Saving Animals’ efforts in Houston will focus on building a
state-of-the-art animal sterilization, wellness, and adoption
center for animals in economically challenged families,” Hawkins
declared. “The facility will be a worldwide training center for
veterinarians and animal protection organizations, to showcase and
teach best practices and latest techniques in animal health care and
sterilization.

Indo-Canadian low-cost vets accuse British Columbia Vet Med Association of discrimination

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

VANCOUVER–Alleging that they have been targeted for doing
low-cost dog and cat sterilizations, 18 Indo-Canadian veterinarians,
16 of them members of the British Columbia Veterinary Medical
Association, are pursuing discrimination claims against BCVMA
registrar Valerie Osborne.
Led by Atlas Animal Hospital owner Hakam Bhullar, the vets
have registered a lawsuit with the British Columbia Supreme Court,
seeking to remove Osborne from office, and have petitioned the
British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal requesting that an unusually
strict language proficiency test required by the BCVMA be repealed.
Osborne and other BCVMA representatives have said little on
the record about the Indo-Canadian veterinarians’ complaints, except
to deny that the intent of the language proficiency test is
discriminatory.
Under Osborne, Bhullar told Richard Chu of the Vancouver
Sun, the BCVMA requires vets to score 92% on a standard test of
spoken English. Lawyers, medical doctors, dentists, nurses, and
firefighters are required to score only 83%, Bhullar said.

Dog round-up & shark fin controversies bite Hong Kong Disneyland

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

HONG KONG–Hong Kong Disneyland had barely found a
face-saving way to retreat from serving sharks’ fins at weddings when
Hong Kong Dog Rescue founder Sally Anderson complained to South China
Morning Post reporter Simon Perry that Disney management had lethally
purged several dozen dogs she was trying to capture at the theme park
and offer for adoption.
“Dozens of stray dogs adopted by construction workers on the
Disney site have been rounded up and killed in the run-up to the
park’s opening in September,” Parry wrote on July 25, 2005.
“Forty-five dogs, some believed to have been used as unofficial guard
dogs on the site during construction, have been caught by government
dog catchers at Disney’s request.
“Disney last night denied the strays had ever been officially
used as guard dogs and said it had called in dog catchers because the
animals were roaming in packs and posing a threat to staff.”
Reuters sent the story worldwide.

Japan still killing whales, but moratorium holds

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

SEOUL–Japan is still killing minke, sei, Bryde’s and sperm
whales in the name of research, and will kill humpbacks this year
as well, with a total self-set “scientific” quota for the year of
935.
Norway continues killing minke whales in coastal waters, and
Iceland has resumed whaling, but all still without world approval,
as the 57th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission
ended in Ulsan, South Korea on June 24 with no major successes for
the pro-whaling faction.
“We entered the week with a strong fear that the balance of
power within the IWC would shift to a pro-whaling majority,”
summarized Whalewatch Coalition leader Philip Lymbery. His
delegation represented the Royal SPCA, Earth Island Institute,
Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society, Whale Watch, and Humane
Society International.

PETA survives IRS audit

July 2, 2005 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

NORFOLK–The Internal Revenue Service announced on May 16
that a 20-month audit of PETA and the subsidiary Foundation to
Support Animal Protection found no reason to revoke their tax-exempt
status.
FSAP holds two-thirds of the assets under PETA control
according to IRS Form 990, including 75% of the cash and securities.
FSAP in recent years has paid the mortgage on the PETA
headquarters, has leased the site to PETA, and has done direct mail
fundraising on behalf of PETA. This has enabled PETA to avoid
declaring the full extent and nature of PETA assets and spending on
IRS Form 990.
PETA claimed in fiscal 2003, for example, that only 14% of
its expenditures were for fundraising and administration, but if
FSAP and PETA were seen as a single fundraising unit, counting the
cost of all mailings with fundraising appeals as fundraising expense,
following the Wise Giving Alliance accounting standard, actual
fundraising and administrative expense came to 50% of budget.

North America

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