Kerala orders dog purge

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM–Kerala state minister for local
self-government Paloli Mohammed Kutty less than 10 days before the
end of April 2007 “directed the heads of local self-government
institutions to take effective steps to end the stray dog menace
before May,” The Hindu reported on April 22.
The order followed a Kerala High Court ruling that local
governments have the authority to kill dogs to end a perceived threat
to public health and safety, despite the decade-old national policy,
never fully implemented, favoring Animal Birth Control.
Kerala, officially 25% Islam and 19% Christian, also with a
strong Communist party, is among just two states of India where
cattle slaughter is legal, has a large cattle export industry, and
is perhaps the only state where resisting mainstream Hindu cultural
dominance has political currency.
Cattle slaughter and animal sacrifice were already political
flashpoints in Kerala long before the advent of ABC, which soon
became a comparable target.

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Bangalore dog panic spreads to Hyderabad

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
HYDERABAD–The fear and outrage about dog attacks gripping
Bangalore for more than three months spread to Hyderabad in April
2007, two years after the city administration took over the local
Animal Birth Control program and allegedly used the pretext of
capturing dogs for sterilization as cover for killing dogs in high
volume.
Partly because of that history, the Hyderabad dog panic was
relatively muted. And, as many reporters pointed out, there were
plenty of administrative failings to blame for Hyderabad incidents,
beyond just the dog policies.

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“Buddy” photo caption

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:
Buddy, above, “was confiscated from a dogfight raided in
Boso-Boso, Antipolo City, on April 2, 2007, with the help of
volunteers from the Philippine Animal Welfare Society,” wrote PAWS
president Nita Hontiveros Lichauco. “Fourteen suspects were
arrested,” she continued, and “will face charges of violation of
the Animal Welfare Act or illegal gambling.” The Philippines has
been among the frequent destinations of U.S.-bred fighting dogs and
gamecocks, but the traffic will now be illegal. Philippine humane
law was strengthened in early February 2007 when Philippine President
Gloria Arroyo endorsed a new Rabies Act. The act increases the
penalties for selling dog meat, and introduced penalties for
electrocuting dogs as a method of animal control.
(PAWS/Sherwin Castillo)

How Chinese ingredients contaminated U.S. pet foods

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

BEIJING–How and why melamine came to contaminate wheat and corn
gluten and rice protein concentrate manufactured in China is still
unknown.
But, as a maker of wheat gluten, MGP Ingredients vice
president Steve Pickman has voiced an idea.
“It is my understanding, but certainly unheard of in our
experience,” Pickman told media, “that melamine could increase the
measurable nitrogen emitted from gluten, and then be mathematically
converted to protein. The effect could create the appearance or
illusion of raising the gluten’s protein level. Understandably, any
acts or practices such as this are barred in the U.S. How the U.S.
can or cannot monitor and prevent these types of situations from
occurring in other parts of the world,” Pickman concluded, “is the
overriding question.”

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Wildlife SOS “franchises” dancing bear sanctuaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
AGRA–Wildlife SOS, operating three sanctuaries for dancing
bears, has made a speciality of helping Kalandar dancing bear
exhibitors into other occupations, in exchange for their bears and a
pledge to stay out of promoting animal acts.
Frequently the price of a dancing bear is the training and
start-up capital to enable a Kalandar family to start a small
business, a sharp break from a tradition so ancient that many of the
oldest circus families worldwide–such as the Chipperfields,
performing in Britain since 1683–appear to have Kalandar origins.
“We have seen a change in attitude amongst the Kalandar
people themselves,” says Wildlife SOS cofounder Kartick
Satyanarayan. “Bear poachers in Uttar Pradesh state recently tried
to sell a young cub to a Kalandar community, but the villagers
refused to buy the cub because they knew this would be against the
law. I truly feel there is an end in sight,” Satyanarayn
emphasizes, “and one day the streets of India will be free of
captive bears being tortured for entertainment.”

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Visakhapatnam Animal Rescue Center helped to save a troubled zoo

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
VISAKHAPATNAM–Built to a then-state-of-the-art plan in 1972,
the 625-acre Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Vis-akhapatnam is among
the world’s most spacious zoos, and is among the few in India with
authentic conservation breeding credentials.
“Captive breeding for species survival” is the mission touted
on page one of the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park brochures. Captive
breeding successes include the December 2007 births of eight dholes,
Asian cousins of the better known African wild dog.
Yet while captive breeding may have enhanced the prestige of
the Indira Gandhi Zoo among fellow zoo professionals, the mission
that really saved the zoo appears to have been opening one of the
first CZA-accredited Animal Rescue Centres for ex-circus animals, in
February 2001.

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Indian humane societies clash with PETA & government over wildlife rescue role

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
Indian humane societies clash with PETA & government over wildlife rescue role

by Merritt Clifton

BANGALORE–PETA/India, the Karnataka state forestry agency,
and the Central Zoo Authority of India are aligned against all five
of the local humane societies in a turf war over who has the right to
house and treat wildlife.
Summarized The Hindu on February 27, 2007, “In a petition before
the Supreme Court, PETA seeks the closure of all unrecognised zoos
and unauthorized rescue and rehabilitation centers,” allegedly
because “poor infrastructure has led to unnecessary pain and
suffering of animals housed in them.”

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Placing predators in land of 1.1 billion people

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

Indian tigers, lions, and leopards who menace humans or
livestock are killed, as predators are in other nations–but Indian
animal advocates have long sought alternatives.
The tiger conservationist Jim Corbett, born in India of
British parents, first won fame by shooting the tigers he
memorialized in his 1946 memoir The Man-Eaters of Kumaon. Yet far
from boasting of his kills, Corbett pleaded for tiger habitat to be
set aside, within which tigers could be tigers, safe from the
threat of human encroachment.
Though tiger reserves were eventually created, as Corbett
recommended, and one of the largest was named in his honor,
poaching and encroachment have diminished most of them. The Sariska
tiger reserve, formerly among the most accessible to tourists, was
apparently poached completely out of tigers in 2003, as was
officially confirmed in November 2004. Poachers admitted killing 10
of the 20-odd tigers who were believed to have inhabited Sariska.
The rest appeared to have existed only on paper as result of counts
inflated to keep tourists coming.

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Editorial: Media relations & the Bangalore dog crisis

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

 
The Bangalore dog crisis, extensively covered in both this
and the previous edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, has underlying meaning
for almost every reader.
Heavily publicized dog attacks, in Bangalore and elsewhere,
may cause India to rescind or weaken the decade-old policy mandating
civic participation in the national Animal Birth Control program,
and forbidding indiscriminate massacres of street dogs.
This would be a reversal of momentum toward achieving no-kill
animal control of global influence–and would come even though ABC
has cut the street dog population of India by as much as 75% in 10
years, according to the most recent World Health Organization
estimate. Dog attacks are down proportionately, including in
Bangalore, which has 74% fewer dog attacks per 1,000 citizens than
the national average.

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