Author: Archivist

Bush policy & bushmeat

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

WASHINGTON D.C., NAIROBI– Wildlife
policy changes proposed in both the U.S. and
Kenya–and backed by much of the same
money–threaten to replace the principle of
protecting rare species with the notion that even
endangered wildlife should “pay for itself” by
being hunted or captured alive for sale.
The proposed amendments represent such an
extreme interpretation of the “sustainable use”
philosophy advanced since 1936 by the National
Wildlife Federation and since 1961 by the World
Wildlife Fund that even WWF endangered species
program director Susan Lieberman was quick to
denounced the U.S. versions.
“Money doesn’t always mean conservation,”
Lieberman told Washington Post staff writer
Shankar Vedantam. “To me, the theme is allowing
industry to write the rules.”

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Four shelters serve Beijing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BEIJING–What Beijing dog and cat rescuers need most may be
PETsMART and a coordinated master plan like those required of U.S.
humane coalitions before they can apply for a Maddie’s Fund grant.
The U.S.-based PETsMART animal supply store chain does not
yet do business in China, despite persistent rumors that executives
are looking in that direction, and Maddie’s Fund does not fund
projects outside the U.S.
Just a few well-located adoption centers like the PETsMART
Luv-A-Pet adoption boutiques, however, could rehome almost every
animal now entering the four major Beijing shelters. Even if each
adoption center placed dogs and cats at just a fraction of the
typical U.S. volume, the cumulative effect would be to undercut the
pet breeding industry before it becomes big enough to produce a
greater surplus.
A Maddie’s Fund-like incentive, meanwhile, might encourage
the Beijing shelters to cooperate to maximize their strengths and
opportunities.

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Wild lions hunted to the verge of extinction

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

LONDON–Wild African lions have been hunted to the brink of
extinction, warn researchers Laurence Frank of the University of
California and David Macdonald of the Oxford University Wildlife
Conserv-ation Research Unit.
Frank, writing in the September 18 edition of New Scientist,
has investigated African lions, hyenas, and other large predators in
Kenya for more than 20 years. Macdonald, editor of the Encyclopedia
of Mammals, directed a recent five-year study of lion conservation
in Zimbabwe and Botswana.
The wild African lion population has fallen from 230,000 to
23,000 in under 20 years, said Frank. Cheetahs have fallen to
15,000 and wild dogs to 5,500 over the same time, but were far fewer
to begin with.
All are in trouble, Frank explained, but lions are declining
the most rapidly, as the most dangerous of the large African
predators and the species most coveted for a trophy.

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Mute swan defenders make their voices heard in court

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on
September 17, 2003 agreed to withdraw all permits allowing state and
federal agencies to kill mute swans, settling a lawsuit brought by
the Fund for Animals.
The settlement agreement also requires the Fish & Wildlife
Service to withdraw the Environmental Assessment and Finding of No
Significant Impact that endorsed killing mute swans in 17 states.
“It began with an ill-conceived permit to kill mute swans in
Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, but now the outcome has national
implications for tens of thousands of these graceful and majestic
birds,” Fund for Animals president Michael Markarian said. “The
federal government has pulled the plug on Governor Robert Ehrlich’s
attempt to bow down to Maryland’s corporate polluters and the massive
factory farms–the real causes of damage to Chesapeake Bay–and to
turn defenseless swans into corporate patsies.”
The Ehrlich administration in July 2003 proposed opening a
hunting season on mute swans, which would require U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service approval. Meanwhile, characterizing the allegedly
non-native mute swans as a threat to the ecological integrity of
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland obtained U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
permission to kill up to 3,000 mute swans during the next 10 years.
That authorization is now revoked.

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Dog butcher jailed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BAGUIO CITY, The Philippines– Municipal trial court judge
Tomas Tolete on October 6 sentenced convicted dog butcher Enrique
Palaque, 51, of San Pedro, to serve six months in prison.
Reported Agence France-Press, “Palaque was arrested while en
route to another court hearing, where he is a defendant in a similar
case. A lower court in Manila earlier fined Palaque $54 for a
similar offense,” according to regional police superintendent Marvin
Bolabola.
The Philippines banned dog slaughter in 1996, but the law
was rarely enforced before late 2002, after Baguio City journalist
Freddie Farres and the anti-corruption group Linis Gobyerno made the
non-enforcement a public issue.

Letters [Oct 2003]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Chimp rescue

Thank you for “Chimp sanctuaries save
evidence of human origin,” in your July/August
edition.
The last sentence, explaining that Bala
Amarasekaran and the Tacugama Chimp Sanctuary
survived in Liberia because the sanctuary was
“viewed as an authentically valuable community
institution,” is the crunch: without local
backing, we are wasting our time.
With this in mind we in Gambia are
becoming more and more involved in peripheral
work which might seem to have no bearing on the
chimp project. For example, we now operate a
small medical clinic. We provide assistance with
schooling, including financial aid for the
students and for maintaining the school building
with volunteer staff. Currently there are only
two teachers for 300+ kids. We also help to look
after draft animals (for which purpose the
Gambian Horse & Donkey Trust is now up and
running). We are emphasizing the entrepreneurial
opportunities arising from a visitor camp,
including for suppliers of fresh food from local
sources.

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Dog and cat eaters hide behind foreign media gullibility

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Dog and cat eaters hide behind foreign media gullibility
by Sunnan Kum

I recently received some photographs of dogs at a Korean
market, courageously taken by Mark Lloyd of the London Daily Mail.
I have seen so many photographs of abused animals before
these that I already felt wearied, and thought I had virtually no
more capacity for sadness.
Once again I saw the eyes of the caged dogs, their faces
full of sadness, fear and loneliness. Yet I also saw hope from the
same eyes: hope that someone may one day bring them home and love
them.
I told myself that these dogs were by now already at peace
and had finally found the release they so deserved. I tried to
console myself with this belief, but whenever I thought of their
loving, trusting eyes, I dissolved into tears. I felt that their
images were somehow urging me to do more for other animals still
living.

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The apartheid legacy in wildlife conservation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

The apartheid legacy in wildlife conservation
by Chris Mercer, co-director, Kalahari Raptor Centre

Twelve years after Nelson Mandela walked to freedom, South
Africa is still struggling to overcome the crippling legacy of
apartheid in environmental affairs.
Affirmative action appointments are intended to transform and
democratize nature conservation, but the awaited transformation is
slow in coming–and one of the most unfortunate aspects of the delay
is that some of our most ruthless people are meanwhile exporting the
canned hunting industry, which is a legacy of apartheid, throughout
Africa.
Desperately poor nations are too often seduced by the promise
of the money to be made from hunting, demonstrated by some of the
same South African entrepreneurs whose involvement in gun-running and
ivory and rhino horn poaching helped to uphold the apartheid regime
by destabilizing much of the black-ruled portion of the continent.
The apartheid regime instituted three goals for wildlife
management, each directly contributing to the growth and
profitability of the hunting industry, to the detriment of almost
everyone else. These goals were:

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Animals in China: from the “four pests” to two signs of hope

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Animals in China: from the “four pests” to two signs of hope
by Peter Li

In February 2002, a college student in Sichuan province
microwaved a four-week old puppy, reportedly in retaliation against
his wayward girlfriend.
Five zoo bears were at the same time viciously assaulted with
sulfuric acid at a zoo in Beijing. The perpetrator, Liu Haiyang,
was a student at Tsinghua University, whose alumni include President
Hu Jintao, former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, and Chairman of China’s
legislature Wu Bangguo.
The public was outraged in each instance, but found solace
in the belief that these were isolated cases.
The subsequent outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
awakened China to the cruel reality of wildlife exploitation across
the country–and put the acts of deranged individuals into the
uncomfortable context of being not far different from business as
usual at live markets and in the traditional medicine trade.
Wildlife has been used in China for human benefit for more
than two thousand years. Because wildlife use is part of the Chinese
culture, it has been widely viewed as politically untouchable.

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