Editorial: Henry and the No-Kill Conference

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

The late Henry Spira was invited to attend the recent No-Kill Conference in
Concord, California, but failing health forced him to decline.
Spira died at home in New York as the conference was in progress, having accomplished
more for animals caught up in farming and scientific research than anyone, perhaps,
since Mahavira and the Buddha. No one ever drove more successful bargains to spare animals––by
the million––from misery. Neither has anyone else in the animal protection cause
ever put more effort into teaching others the method Spira developed of systematically bringing
about change through what he called “stepwise incremental action.”
Though devoted to his cats, Spira didn’t work much on companion animal issues.

Maneka claims cabinet post for animals

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

NEW DELHI, India––”You will
be happy to know that I have finally gotten
the animal welfare department, which is the
first of its kind anywhere in the world,”
People For Animals founder Maneka Gandhi
e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on
September 8.
“It is now a part of my ministry,”
Maneka said, as welfare minister for the government
of India, “and I would like to make
it into a full-fledged department.”
A senior independent member of
the Indian parliament, representing her New
Delhi district since 1989, Maneka is among
the power brokers in the coalition government
of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata party. She may actually have more
clout now than she did during two appointments
as environment minister while a member
of the Janata Dal party, from which she
was ousted in 1996 for denouncing alleged
corruption among fellow ministers.

Activists gain standing to sue to enforce Animal Welfare Act

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

WASHINGTON, D.C.––Seven of
the 11 judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit agreed on September 1 that
New York activist Marc Jurnove has standing
to sue the USDA seeking enforcement of the
Animal Welfare Act against the Long Island
Game Farm and Zoological Park.
“This is a landmark decision for anyone
concerned about promoting humane treatment
for animals,” said Animal Legal Defense
Fund staff attorney Valerie Stanley, who had
pursued the standing issue since 1988. “When
federal agencies fail to protect animals, citizens
may now go to court to seek a legal remedy.”

$200 million fund to save dogs and cats

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

CONCORD, Calif.––Richard Avanzino, president
of the San Francisco SPCA since 1976, has 200 million reasons
why no-kill animal control should catch on across the U.S.
They’re the same 200 million reasons why Avanzino
is leaving the SF/SPCA to head the Duffield Family
Foundation, effective January 1, 1999.
“Dave and Cheryl Duffield of the Duffield Family
Foundation have pledged to put in the bank $200 million for a
no-kill nation,” Avanzino told the fourth annual No Kill
Conference on September 11.
The funding is to underwrite a program which
Avanzino is to head, effective January 1, 1999, whose mission,
he continued, “is to revolutionize the status and wellbeing
for companion animals.”

OBITUARIES

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Bill Blogg, 54, died of cancer on September
21 in Tiburon, California. Born in Australia, Blogg
qualified for the 1968 Australian Olympic track and
field team, but instead followed his father into a career
with Gestetner Corporation, a maker of printing equipment.
Transferred to the U.S. in 1974, Blogg married
his wife Tamara in 1979. One day in late 1991, Tamara
told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “while shopping for cat
food, we saw a sign asking us to help feed the cats
under the Golden Gate Bridge. We were both shocked
that cats lived there. We called and were shown eight
colonies totalling about 80 cats. We organized feeders,
trapped, took kittens, and founded the Cat Caring
Connection. We quickly found that it was nearly
impossible to find people willing to bottle-feed kittens
and stay up 24 hours a day for weeks. There were times
we had 40 kittens, all on a different schedule. Besides
me, Bill left our own 36 cats plus over 1,000 cats whom
we fostered and thousands more who were rescued due
to his efforts.” Said San Francisco SPCA president
Richard Avanzino, “I think Bill was a fabulous human
being––he exemplified a spirit which those of us who
love animals cherish. He and Tamara were belittled and
demeaned by some other animal groups who didn’t
believe in what they were doing, but they were willing
to commit everything they had to save lives.”

Obituaries

HELEN JONES, COFOUNDED HSUS AND STARTED ISAR

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Helen Jones, 73, died of carbon monoxide
poisoning during a morning fire on August 14 at her
home in Abington Township, Pennsylvania. Arriving
for work, her hospice care nurse Debbie Moore,
Moore’s husband Raymond, and a police officer they
summoned saw the fire and pulled Jones from her
burning bedroom, but too late to save her.
Cofounding the Humane Society of the U.S.
in 1954, to more vigorously oppose vivisection and
hunting than the existing national animal advocacy
groups, Jones became disenchanted, and left to form
the National Catholic Society for Animal Welfare in
January 1959. On July 10, 1966, Jones led the first
protest for animals at the White House, opposing the
then-pending Laboratory Animal Protection Act––
against the views of all other major animal protection
groups––because she believed it did more to legitimize
vivisection than to save animals. Jones moved
NCSAW from Washington D.C. to New York City in
1974, and retitled it the International Society for
Animal Rights, as the first national advocacy group to
embrace an explicitly “animal rights” philosophy.

Veggie shakes, rattle and roll

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

BERKELEY, California––You’ll find few obviously vegan or
vegetarian items on the lengthy menu at Michael’s American Vegetarian
Diner––and you’ll see an icon of crossed fingers alongside more than 100
items, including six kinds of hot dog, 10 kinds of burger, and dozens of
alleged chicken, beef, turkey, pork and fish items.
Explains the menu cover, “At Michael’s, all of our food is made
from vegetable, grain, dairy or soy products. There is no meat, poultry, or
fish served or used in this diner.”
“We see this as a transitionary place,” says co-proprietor Dan
Sklar (above, left), who came to veganism as part of a spiritual quest.
“Many of the people coming in here aren’t yet familiar with vegan
or vegetarian food. We think if we can give them familiar textures and
tastes, we can help get them hooked on a healthier and more compassionate
way of life.”

HENRY SPIRA, FOUNDER OF THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Henry Spira, 71, died in his sleep
on September 12 from esophageal cancer,
after an uncomplaining three-year battle.
Encouraging Peter Singer to expand a 1973
essay on why animals should enjoy rights into
the book Animal Liberation, while taking a
night course from Singer, Spira virtually created
the animal rights movement by leading
his classmates in converting the ideas they had
discussed into political action.
Along the way, Spira learned that
more than 100 years of antivivisectionism
hadn’t ever stopped a cruel experiment. He
changed that with the 1976-1977 campaign
that persuaded the American Museum of
Natural history to end 18 years of sex experiments
on maimed and disfigured cats.

BOOKS: Puss in Books

October 1, 1998 Archivist Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Puss in Books:
Adventures of the Library Cat
Video by Gary Roma
Iron Frog Productions (9 Townsend Street, Waltham,
MA 02453-6026), 1998.
30 minutes. $24.95 plus $3.00 p&h.

Taking a fluffy look at the lives of several cats
who inhabit or formerly inhabited public libraries, documentarian
Gary Roma raises but pussyfoots around the serious
issue of tolerance of animals in public places.
Indoors or out, wild or domestic, animals are
appreciated by most of library-goers, park-goers, and users
of other public space, but are often banished by the demands
of a vocal minority who claim allergies to cat dander, or terror
of cats, as Roma’s video discusses––or protest against
the presence of other species because they poop, make
noise, or eat gardens.

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