Category: Activists & Organizations

Courage, compassion required of Bengal coast animal rescuers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:

VISAKHAPATNAM, India– Street dogs and staff of the Visakha SPCA remained at risk from mob violence well into January, and the Visakha SPCA Animal Birth Control program remained suspended, after a Christmas Eve invasion of the ABC facilities by goondas who demanded that Visakhapatnam resume electrocuting dogs. A political patronage hiree named Bangaraya was reportedly paid about $1.75 a day to kill street dogs until Visakha SPCA founder Pradeep Kumar Nath won an Andhra Pradesh High Court order stopping the electrocutions in October 1998.

As Nath and Christine Townend of the Jaipur-based animal rescue charity Help In Suffering each documented in photos sent to ANIMAL PEOPLE, Bangaraya and helpers packed dogs brought by the municipal catchers into a steel cage mounted on a trailer. The dogs were left in the tropical sun, without food or water, until the cage was filled. Reaching the cage capacity of about 40 dogs usually took several days. Then Bangaraya hooked the cage to an extension cord, and hosed the dogs down. Dogs who were still not electrocuted after half an hour were dispatched with iron rods. Municipal records indicate that at least 86,400 dogs were electrocuted, speared, or beaten to death by Bangaraya and staff between 1986 and the cessation order.

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Kenya update: anti-poaching gains and a shocking dispute

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:

NAIROBI, Kenya–ANIMAL PEOPLE in January/February 2000 reported from Kenya about snare removal sweeps by Youth For Conservation in the Kenyan National Parks, anti-poaching projects funded by the British charity Care For The Wild, and the elephant-and-rhino orphanage at Nairobi National Park run by Daphne Sheldrick of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. All three are again in the news.

Youth For Conservation may be driving bushmeat poachers out of the parks, as a recent three-week sweep of the Mara Triangle found just 27 snares, far fewer than previous sweeps. YFC has removed 2,354 snares altogether, founder/director Josphat Ngonyo told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

The sweeps will continue, as bushmeat snaring is on the rise elsewhere in Africa, and it may be only the frequent presence of YFC volunteers along National Park perimeters that is suppressing it in Kenya.

Ngonyo, who started YFC as a Sheldrick Trust staffer, now works fulltime for YFC. The International Fund for Animal Welfare underwrote the YFC budget for 2000, but YFC now must become self-sustaining.

While YFC fights meat poaching, done mostly by Kenyans, Care For The Wild has long helped the Kenya Wildlife Service to fight ivory and rhino horn poachers, who are often associated with Somali private militias.

“Care For The Wild has built a new headquarters for KWS at Ithumba in the north of Tsavo East National Park,” CFW operations director Chris Jordan told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “Ithumba is only 250 miles from the Somali border, and the poachers had a free hand during the recent rains and flooding. We built housing for 30 rangers, an armory, a radio room with photovoltaic cells for power, a workshop for vehicle maintenance, and an aircraft hanger. The project is the
largest that we have ever attempted. We built it in just five months, with no outside help.”

Daphne Sheldrick, widow of Tsavo National Park founding warden David Sheldrick, and herself founder of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, meanwhile clashed with longtime supporter William Jordan, DVM, over her occasional use of electric prods to discipline young elephants. Raising orphaned elephants and returning them to the wild for more than 40 years, as the first person to do so successfully, Sheldrick currently has 18 in her care.

Jordan, founder of Care For The Wild, and father of Chris Jordan, has helped Sheldrick with fundraising since the beginnings of both the Sheldrick Trust and CFW. But Jordan is also a director of the Captive Animals Preservation Society, which won a European Union ban on the use of electric prods in zoos, and recently exposed electroshocking at the Blackpool Zoo in England by guest elephant handler Scott Riddle, of Riddle’s Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary in Greenbriar, Arkansas.

Sheldrick in a letter to CAPS described using mild electric shocks to condition baby elephants who “tend to knock people down.” She believes the training reduces the risk that the elephants will be shot for menacing humans after release. Sheldrick said she did not shock angry elephants, which she said would be “a recipe for disaster.” William Jordan remained adamant in opposition to any use of electroshock. Sheldrick Trust spokesperson Diane Westwood said she would urge Sheldrick to stop using it.

Youth For Conservation may be reached c/o P.O. Box 27689, Nairobi, Kenya; phone 254-733-617286 or 254-2-606478; fax 254-2-606479; e-mail <y4c@alphanet.co.ke>.

Care For The Wild operates from 1 Ashfolds, Horsham Rd., Rusper, West Sussex, RH12 4QX, United Kingdom; telephone 44-1293-871-596; 44-1293-871-022.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust may be contacted c/o P.O. Box 15555, Nairobi, Kenya; telephone 254-2-891996; fax
254-2-890053.

Coke quits rodeo; SHARK shows Dodge who builds tough trucks

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:

CHICAGO, LAS VEGAS, COLORADO SPRINGS, DETROIT–Things went better with Coke for Steve Hindi and SHARK. Eleven months after Pepsi Cola withdrew from advertising in bullrings, yielding to an 18-month global boycott, Coca-Cola advised Hindi on November 16, 2000 that “While our products may be available at some arenas where
rodeos may take place, we are no longer a corporate sponsor of rodeos or any affiliated organizations, including the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.”

Explained Hindi, “A Coke representative announced the decision after viewing a documentary by the French public television station ARTE. ARTE field producer Uwe Muller and SHARK worked together in October to obtain video footage of three PRCA stock contractors abusing animals and violating even the PCRA’s loose humane regulations. The ARTE documentary was aired to over 33 million viewers in Europe.

“This is a huge development,” Hindi continued. “Coca-Cola is three times larger as a corporation than Pepsi, and rodeo is vastly more popular in the U.S. than bullfighting, but the Coke executives never needed to face a demonstration to recognize after they saw the video that continued support of rodeo would violate their corporate policy against animal abuse. Coke’s withdrawal poses a major public relations blow and financial blow to the rodeo industry.”

Hindi thanked Trillium Asset Management Corporation senior analyst Simon Billiness for facilitating negotiations with Coca-Cola, thanked Vermont veterinarian and former rodeo performer Peggy Larson for expert advice, and thanked ANIMAL PEOPLE for introductions.

Hit rodeo finals

Then Hindi headed back to the Chicago-area garage where he was finishing the first of an envisioned fleet of Tiger video protest trucks, featuring oversized TV screens on all four sides of the box, with digital signboards to tell viewers what they are seeing. The $150,000 prototype hit the road to the National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas on November 28.

“By driving more hours than was prudent, we made the 1,800 miles in under two days,” Hindi said. “On December 1 the Tiger approached the arena where the rodeo was to be held and lit up the evening with the rotten truth about rodeo. The rodeo stooges were at first shocked, and then started going through the roof, flipping me their I.Q. from all directions. Real people were equally taken, but they suddenly had a whole different impression about the goofs strutting around like John Wayne.”

The Tiger was featured on two TV news stations and in both Las Vegas daily newspapers. “California activist Lucy Shelton had a lot to do with that, exhibiting persistence that went beyond the call” as volunteer publicist, Hindi acknowledged. The Tiger debut tour drove on to El Segundo, California. “Late that afternoon the Tiger screens lit up outside the Mattel buildings, near the Los Angeles International Airport,” Hindi recounted.

“Mattel took offense at inserts of their bullfighting Barbie doll among our bullfighting footage. First they had their security people tail me. Next they called the police, and an officer pulled me over. He said the Mattel people claimed that the truck and I were suspicious, and they feared I was casing the place. I never would have guessed that criminals cased intended targets in big trucks that light up the evening,” Hindi laughed.

“I explained that Mattel knows who I am, what SHARK is, and what the issue is. The officer knew he had been played for a fool. He didn’t like it a bit. He wished me well, and said he would let the other area cops know what was going on.”

Beats ratings fears

An ongoing handicap for the anti-dog-and-cat-eating campaign led by Kyenan Kum of International Aid to Korean Animals has been that mainstream TV in the U.S. and Europe will not show the public how the animals are routinely tortured to death because too many viewers would change the channel.

In mid-December Hindi took Kum into the cab for several evenings of demonstrating how the Tiger can take graphic depictions of abuse directly to the public, bypassing media gatekeepers. They called ANIMAL PEOPLE by cell telephone during a pass by the Los Angeles Korean Consultate, but talking proved impossible because so many pedestrians kept coming up to the open windows of the Tiger to take handouts telling what they could do to pressure the Korean government to halt dog-and-cat-eating.

Hindi then took the Tiger back to Chicago for its 6,500-mile oil change. Along the way he took an impromptu detour to see how it played in Colorado Springs, home of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. “The media jumped at the chance to cover the big truck when it challenged the rodeo animal abusers right where they live,” Hindi said. “And the cowboys? They huddled in their headquarters and hid! Korean government officials did the same thing. “When people see animal abuse, they agree with us that it has to stop. They join us. That’s what this movement needs to succeed.”

By the second week in January the Tiger was on the road again, this time to circle a Daimler-Chrysler auto show in Auburn Hills, Michigan, asking the Dodge truck division to cease spending $6.6 million a year on rodeo advertising. Hindi introduced the Tiger to Detroit media as a “concept vehicle,” and a “revolution in engineering”–which it is, involving applications of TV technology never before attempted.

Hindi and SHARK still have to raise the funds to pay off the prototype, before they build more. But compared to the cost of broadcast time to distribute a much weaker version of the message for just 15 to 30 seconds at a shot, Hindi’s conclusion from the first trials is that the Tiger is a bargain–and it hasn’t even been painted yet. “It’s the most effective tactic I’ve discovered in 11 years of campaigning,” Hindi said, a strong claim from the man who in 1992 stopped pigeon shoots in Illinois after 100 years of failures by others, and has rarely gone for long since without achieving a comparable lasting victory.

Tapping the wells of kindness in China and southern Asia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:

HONG KONG; PAN YU, Guangzhou, China; SEOUL, South Korea; KARACHI, Pakistan–Two burly Asiatic moon bears at a time lick strawberry jam from the hands of Jill Robinson, 42, at the prototype Animals Asia Foundation sanctuary in Pan Yu, China. Four more bright-eyed bears watch, as eager for their treat as any dog, yet with patience too. Another bear, the oldest, is blind. He follows with his nose each handful of jam, each apple, each grape, and each blueberry that Robinson dispenses. Only scars in the bears’ abdomens reveal their past.

Robinson met these bears in 1993 at a so-called “bile farm” behind a decrepit hospital in Hui Zhou, almost immobilized in small cages. There were 13 bears then. Metal shunts resembling those driven into trees to extract maple syrup were implanted in each bear’s belly, to collect bile. The bile, with medicinal qualities akin to corticosteroids, was used to make a variety of traditional drugs.

“It was absolutely devastating, almost unbelievable that sentient creatures were kept in such a way,” Robinson told
Australian reporter Lyn White. “The bears had scars along the length of their bodies from the pressure of the bars on the cages. They had ulcerated paws, ingrown claws, wounds from banging their heads against the bars, and gaping implant sites–inflamed and infected.”

The bears were crazed to the point of being deadly dangerous, and their keeper teated them brutally, to maintain dominance. Robinson became inflamed and infected with determination to get them out of there. But China at the time had 10,000 bears in similar cages with catheters poked into their stomachs, with plans to quadruple production by 2000.

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How to keep mange out of shelters

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:

Accompanying ANIMAL PEOPLE on shelter visits in the Chennai area was Ved Joshi, DVM, from far distant Himachal Pradesh, who rode the train for two days in each direction to discuss opportunities to take an advanced course of study in wildlife medicine in the U.S. this fall. Joshi would then return to India to teach others.

Joshi turned out to be a most valuable escort, because he knew an inexpensive way to keep mange out of animal shelters. “The insecticide Malathion can be safely used for mange control when recommended doses are employed on the animal and premises,” Joshi explained at each stop. “The product we use is Cythion, which contains 50% Malathion as its active component. The recommended dilution ratio for a dog-dipping solution or cleaning cages and floors is one part of Malathion to 1,000 parts of water, i.e., one millilitre of Malathion to each one litre of water. The
dog’s entire body is dipped in the solution until the hair and skin are wet, and the dog’s head is treated by sponging the solution over the head and face. Infections by sarcoptic and psoroptic mange mites will be cured with a single dip. Two or three dips, seven to ten days apart, should be sufficient for treatment of demodectic mange; however, while demodectic mange is not contagious, it is very hard to completely cure, and it can recur later. Collars, leashes, and bedding materials should also be dipped in the solution, to eliminate all possible sources of infection. Each newly arrived dog should be dipped before admission to the kennels to prevent reinfection outside.

“This dip will control other ecto-parasites, such as ticks and lice,” Joshi advises, “and can also be used with cattle,
buffalo, sheep, and goats.” If any animal accidentally ingests enough dip to become ill, a relatively rare occurrence, Joshi recommends administering atropine sulphate at a ratio of from 0.2 to 0.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. “A fourth of the dose should be given intravenously and the rest by the intramuscular route,” Joshi advises.

A shelter in India can be kept mange-free with Malathion dips and cage-and-floor-washing for as little as 50 rupees (under $1.00 U.S.) per week.

Apartheid and three caracal kittens

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

by Chris Mercer & Beverly Pervan

Our Kalahari Raptor Centre is the only registered wildlife rehabilitation centre in the Northern Cape province of South Africa–– almost a third of the country.

On October 14, 2000, we advised the department of Nature Conservation of the Northern Cape Province in Kimberley that:

“Further to our previous application for permits to provide sanctuary to predators, we were called by a farmer who stated that he had captured three young caracals after trap – ping and killing their mother. I drove more than a thousand kilometres round-trip to fetch them. One of the three had a foreleg broken so severely as to require amputation.

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Editorial: Keeping P.T. Barnum at bay

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Starting on page 13 is our 11th annual “Who gets the money?” feature, outlining in
statistical summary form where the lion’s share, the dog’s share, and much of the rest of the
money donated to animal protection goes, how it gets used, and who gets paid what amount
for making the major spending decisions.
The numbers help in comparing charities, but are not the whole story.
Consider a seemingly simple matter: trying to compare the needs of nine of the bestknown
care-for-life sanctuaries in the U.S. by measuring their budgets against the numbers of
animals they keep.
Best Friends has the most animals, at about 1,800, and may have the most dogs and
cats. But Best Friends does adoptions. DELTA Rescue, with about 1,400 animals, almost
certainly has more hard-case dogs and cats in lifetime care.
Both Best Friends and DELTA Rescue also have farm animals, but far fewer than
Farm Sanctuary, which in recent years has usually had about 1,000, divided among facilities
in New York and California.

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BOOKS: Ric O’Barry

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

To Free A Dolphin
2000. 269 pages, hardcover. $23.95.
Behind The Dolphin Smile
1988, 2000. 300 pages, paperback. $15.95.
Both by Ric O’Barry
with Keith Coulbourn
Renaissance Books (5858 Wilshire Blvd.,
Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90036.)

 

As this is written, dolphin freedom advocate Ric
O’Barry is working by telephone and Internet––with no budget
and no media notice––to prevent the start of swim-with-dolphin
programs at Anguilla and Tortolla, in the British Virgin
Islands. O’Barry and the people who tipped him off about the
swim-with programs believe that the dolphins to be used were
previously kept at Diver Land in Margarita, Venezuela, where
a dolphin named Cheryl who was of special importance to
O’Barry died on October 31, 1997.

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WHO GETS THE MONEY? –– ELEVENTH ANNUAL EDITION

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Starting on page 14 is our 11th annual report on the
budgets, assets, and salaries paid by the major U.S. animalrelated
charities and miscellaneous local activist groups,
humane societies, and some prominent organizations abroad.
We offer their data for comparative purposes. Foreign data is
stated in U.S. dollars at average 1999 exchange rates.
Most charities are identified in the second column by
apparent focus: A for advocacy, C for conservation of habitat
via acquisition, E for education, H for support of hunting
(either for “wildlife management” or recreation), L for litigation,
N for neutering, P for publication, R for animal rights,
S for shelter/sanctuary maintenance, V for focus on vivisection,
and W for animal welfare. The R and W designations are
used only if a group makes a point of being one or the other.
Charities of unique purpose may not have a designation letter.

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