Why animal advocates must organize politically now!

September 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

Why animal advocates must organize politically now!
by Julie E. Lewin, President & Lobbyist, Animal Advocacy Connecticut

Political axioms:
* An organized minority can drive public policy, because
every legislator knows that an organized minority can swing elections
in his or her district.
* To achieve in the legislative arena, an issue group must
have either corporate power or an organized grassroots which uses the
power of the vote.
* Grassroots power comes from enduring accountability,
facilitated by at least one full-time lobbyist in the statehouse who
reports back to constituents in each district how their legislators
vote. Many legislators openly champion the causes of animal
exploiters, confident that humane voters in their home district will
never know.

BOOKS: Best Friends

September 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

Best Friends by Samantha Glen
The True Story of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary
Kensington Books (850 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10022), 2001.
284 pages, paperback. $15.00.

Like every successful institution, the Best Friends Animal
Sanctuary has a few critics–but most have never been there. They
just have difficulty believing, based on their own experience, that
any no-kill sanctuary can accomplish what Best Friends does.
Somehow, they insist, there is trickery involved. Best Friends,
in their view, must be some kind of weird desert cult, fooling
everyone and getting away with it because the site is so remote.
If you cannot visit, as thousands actually have, to see for
yourself why Samantha Glen calls Best Friends “the world’s most
beloved animal sanctuary,” her book Best Friends is the next best
thing.

Aid afoot for Jaipur elephants

September 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

JAIPUR–To call the 90-odd tourist elephants of Jaipur
“neglected” presents a paradox. Among the most photographed animals
in India, they attract constant attention as they amble up to 10
times a day through the 18th century Pink City and climb the mountain
to the 16th century Amber Fort of Akbar the Great and his son
Jahangir.
Sacrifices of goats and other animals carried out almost
continuously at the Amber Fort temple to Kali, the blood goddess,
recall the harsher side of Akbar, the conqueror/ prophet who united
much of India by proclaiming religious tolerance and trying to
synthesize Islam and Hinduism.

BOOKS: Blood Relations

September 1, 2001 Dylan Forest 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 Dylan Forest 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.

Turkey invents The Natural Dog Shelter

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest 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 Dylan Forest 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.

SHARK

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest 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.

Race tracks in trouble–horses starve in Pakistan, are butchered in Japan and U.S.

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:

KARACHI–A globally distributed July 2 expose by Associated Press writer Zahid Hussain brought help to about 60 starving racehorses at the closed Karachi Race Club in Pakistan–but about 70 horses had already died by the time Hussain found out about the situation. Another 310 horses were still stabled at the race club, of whom about 100 were reportedly struggling on “starvation diets,” Adam Lusher of the London Telegraph reported on July 15, while the rest were still in relatively good shape.

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