LETTERS: Stop Smoking Camels

September 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

We are British veterinarians, volunteering for Help in
Suffering in Jaipur, India. We are trying to set up a mobile camel
clinic. Our goals are to place reflectors on camel carts to reduce
night road accidents; worm the camels; give treatment and advice to
camel owners concerning saddlery; and to discourage the traditional
use of burning as a “cure” for various ailments.
A pilot effort has been very successful, attending to more
than 700 camels, and was well received by the camel owners–but we
need funding to continue. We have prepared a detailed proposal and a
detailed budget which we would be happy to send to interested people
and organizations.
–Emma and Richard Morris, DVMs.

Animal obituaries

September 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

Ralf, 17, resident porcupine at the Science North center at
the University of Guelph, Ontario, since 1984, except for a stint
at the 1990 World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan, died on August 6. As
many as three million visitors had petted Ralf, including the Prince
and Princess of Wales in 1991.

Haida, 21, the oldest of the five orcas at Sea World San
Antonio, captured from the wild in 1980, died suddenly of an
unknown cause on August 2.

Obituaries

BOOKS: Blood Relations

September 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:
Blood Relations: Animals, Humans, and Politics by Charlotte Montgomery
Between The Lines (720 Bathurst St., Suite #404, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M58 2R4), 2001. 337 pages, paperback. $26.95.
Charlotte Montgomery admits that Blood Relations is not a
complete portrait of the animal rights movement in Canada.
“What I could do,” she writes, “was offer a representative
sample, a selection of people and issues that would give the gist of
the animal movement. Think of it as somewhere to start. The
activists who once rescued living turkey chicks from a garbage bag
full of dead bodies are not here. Nor is Floyd the lonely monkey,
who doesn’t know humans are trying to help him, nor a special green
parrot, both of whom I met during my research and will remember.
Nor are the people who defend whales or give donkeys and greyhounds a
home–or a lot of issues and people who arguably should be.

An overture comes from Korea

September 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

OAKLAND, Calif.; SEOUL, Korea–The September 11 terrorist
hijackings and mass murders at the World Trade Center and Pentagon
caused International Aid for Korean Animals founder Kyenan Kum to
call off scheduled September protests against dog and cat eating at
South Korean embassies and consulates–but a letter she received a
few days earlier from the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture and
Fisheries gave hope that two years of intense campaigning are making
gains in Seoul.

Editorial: Dealing with denial

July 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:

States of Denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering, by London School of Economics and Political Science sociology professor Stanley Cohen, mentions animals only twice in 344
pages–but one of those mentions points out the most fundamental issue in animal protection: persuadiing people to care, first of all, that suffering occurs, and then convincing them to do something about it.

“Each new moral demand makes coping harder,” Cohen writes on page 289. “Yet another filter or priority must be set up,” because no one person can respond to every atrocity and every suffering being, no matter how altruistic that person tries to be. “I have tested this,” Cohen admits, “by looking at my own reactions to animal rights issues. I know that the treatment of animals in cruel experiments and factory farming is difficult to defend. I can even see the case for becoming a vegetarian. But in the end, much like people throwing away Amnesty International leaflets, my filters go into automatic drive: this is not my
responsibility, there are worse problems; there are plenty of other people looking after this. What do you mean, I’m in denial every time I eat a hamburger?”

Turkey invents The Natural Dog Shelter

July 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/august 2001:
ISTANBUL–The Natural Dog Shelter at the sprawling Kemerburgaz Rubbish Dump Project outside Istanbul has location in common with many American shelters, but not much else.

Now just a vast tract of superficially desolate hills, the dump was closed, capped with earth, and vented to prevent build-ups of flammable gas in mid-1999. A closer look at the site shows a thriving suburban wildlife ecology of small burrowing mammals and reptiles, birds, and feral pigs. Near the center stands a fast-growing plantation of evergreen trees. The trees are surrounded by chain link fence.

Gains and casualties in the no-kill revolution

July 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
HARTFORD, Connecticut–The no-kill movement has catch-and-kill on the run, but what happens next? Winning public favor means the 600-plus no-kill advocates expected at the 2001 No Kill Conference in Hartford in mid-August are inheriting the three perennial animal care-and-control problems–and now must provide solutions.

Problem #1 is dog and cat overpopulation. Problem #2 is reforming animal care-and-control institutions that do not want to change. Problem #3 is extending services to regions and neighborhoods where despite the progress made in more affluent places, humane services are still just a rumor.

Street dogs keep the developing world from going to the rats

July 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
MUMBAI, NEW DELHI–“Some bloody idiot,” Indian minister of state for social justice and empowerment Maneka Gandhi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 26, “has come forward to say dogs give leptospirosis to humans. So the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (city of Mumbai, also called Bombay) has gone to court to restart the killing of strays,” halted repeatedly by judicial order in recent years as executive health officer Alka Karande and other local officials have sought pretexts to continue.

Rabies, the previous pretext, killed 35 of the 18 million Mumbai residents in 2000. Leptospirosis, mostly a rat disease, killed 17, is believed to have killed another 19 people in
unconfirmed cases, and killed 19 more during the first half of 2001. “Drains are overflowing, garbage accumulating, and people are defecating in the open–and the city wants to find someone to blame for their inability to keep the city clean,” charged Susi
Wiesinger of Ahimsa/Mumbai.

SHARK

July 1, 2001 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
SHARK

“The income of HSUS is almost 1,000 times that of SHARK, which translates into over a million dollars a week,” SHARK founder Steve Hindi pointed out in the June 2001 SHARK newsletter editorial. “Is there anyone who believes that HSUS is 1,000 times more effective? Even more appalling, HSUS has actually inhibited SHARK’s efforts,” Hindi charged. For example, Hindi mentioned, “Those of you who saw the Hard Copy story on rodeos in 1997 may remember that HSUS claimed it was starting a nationwide anti-rodeo campaign. That claim was false,” since the campaign has not materialized, “and was apparently designed merely to funnel donations to HSUS for work actually done by SHARK,” whose undercover videography Hard Copy featured.

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