Category: Asia

BOOKS: The Plight of Pakistani Animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:

The Plight of Pakistani Animals
by Khalid Mahmood Qurashi
President, Animal Save Movement, Pakistan

In Pakistan even human beings are not accorded fundamental
rights. But the condition of animals is worse and miserable.
Both birds and land animals are so frequently hunted as if
they were an enemy army, including by some of the persons and
organizations whose jobs are to protect animals. and their lives.
Members of our wildlife and forestry departments often aid the
hunters, and even participate in the killing.
Bankers, industrialists, and politicians invite their
foreign business partners, including Arabian princes, to come hunt
even our rarest species–and to capture our vanishing wild falcons,
to turn them into hunting weapons. Local leaders and merchants
show their influence by hosting cockfights, bear-baiting, and other
kinds of animal fight.

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Getting the show off the road

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
Dancing bears, monkey acts, and big
cats leaping through hoops of fire are almost
history now in India, where such acts appear to
have started in Vedic times, spreading
throughout the world.
Some dancing bears, monkeys, and circus
lions, tigers, and leopards are still on the
back roads, or are stashed in sheds by
exhibitors who imagine that the Wild Life
Protection Act of 1972 might be repealed or
amended, but for most the show is over.
The Supreme Court of India turned out the
lights on May 1, 2001. Six years later, the
significance of the Supreme Court ruling against
traveling animal shows is just becoming evident,
as the possible foundation of a paradigm shift in
Indian and perhaps global attitudes toward
keeping wildlife in captivity.

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Assam bomb kills birds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
Guwahati, Assam– Harmlessly botched, according to most
reports, a February 4, 2007 bombing attributed to the United
Liberation Front of Assam killed “dozens of egrets, crows, and
other birds” in central Guwahati, e-mailed news videographer Azam
Siddique, who hoped to alert rescuers.
“The bomb was placed in a car near a temple,” Siddique said.
“As the car was left in a no parking zone, it was towed to the
police station and parked below tall trees which are used by birds as
shelter.” Apparently meant to detonate at 3:00 p.m., the bomb
instead exploded at 3:00 a.m.

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Civet traffic falls in China

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

 

Guangzhou–Repeated health inspections of specialty meat
markets across Guangdong province hint that masked palm civets may at
last be getting some respite from Guangdong exotic meat buyers.
In January 2007, the Xinhua News Service reported, 7,000
health inspectors checked for civets at 10,000 restaurants, finding
one live civet and several frozen civet carcasses. A restaurant in
Foshan was fined for buying civets, and 18 restaurants were fined
for unspecified reasons. The contraband was markedly less than was
found in a November 2006 raid on an underground warehouse and nearby
meat shop that found 45 masked palm civets, 98 ferret badgers, and
31 other wild animals who are barred from sale for consumption.

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What will be the future of cow shelters in computer-age India?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
What is to become of Indian cow shelters?
Enduring frequent spasms of reform and reinvention ever since
automobiles began to replace ox carts, cow shelters are among the
most distinctive Indian traditions, and are the oldest form of
organized humane work.
Perhaps more ubiquitous in India than either schools or
firehouses, often endowed with substantial inherited assets, cow
shelters appear certain to survive in some form, but their future
role and relevance is a matter of intensifying debate.
Among the issues are whether cow shelters should be religious
or secular institutions, whether they should be supported by
taxation or strictly by charity and the sale of milk and byproducts,
and whether they should lead cultural reform, becoming actively
involved in politics, as many do, or merely endure as quaint
cultural symbols.

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Editorial feature: Indian diets & the future of animal welfare

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

 

Old news and ancient history have rarely been more relevant
to the future of animal protection than in Chennai, India, in early
January 2007.
Approximately 350 delegates attended the fourth Asia for
Animals conference. Representing more than 20 nations, many
delegates had never before been to India. Yet the journey was a
philosophical pilgrimage, the conference itself a homecoming.
India is where pro-animal religious and philosophical
teachings apparently began, where animal shelters and hospitals were
invented.
India is also the second most populous nation in the world,
with the fastest-expanding economy, greatest rate of growth in
material acquisition, and second-greatest rate of growth in meat
consumption, behind only China.
India and China, having between them more than 40% of the
global human population, are where the future of animal welfare will
be decided.

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Chinese activists rescue more than 400 cats from Tianjin butchers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
TIANJIN, BEIJING– As many as 100 volunteers rallied by the
I Love Cats Home in Tianjin stormed a cat meat market on February
10, 2007 to rescue 444 cats, of whom 415 were taken in by the China
Small Animal Protection Association, of Beijing.
“It was a true battle,” China Small Animal Protection
Association volunteer Dan Zhang told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “The Tianjing
volunteers bravely fought for the lives of the cats with the butchers
and police for more than 10 hours. Some volunteers were injured and
sent to the hospital,” one of whom was still hospitalized two days
later, rescue organization Wang Yue of the I Love Cats Home told Ng
Tze Wei of the South China Morning Post.

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Animal Birth Control is fixing the dogs faster than anti-dog attitudes

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

 

AGRA, AHMEDABAD, BANGALORE, CHENNAI,
DELHI, THIRUVANATHAPURAM, VISAKHAPATNAM–The
Koramangala pound in Bangalore may have been the
quietest location in India having anything to
with street dogs in the aftermath of a January 5,
2007 fatal pack attack on a nine-year-old girl
named Sridevi.
The Coalition for a Dog-Free Bangalore
and similar groups nationwide made Sridevi’s
death focal to ongoing efforts to reverse the
nine-year-old central government commitment to
sterilize street dogs instead of killing them.
(See guest column on page 7.)
In Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala state,
also called Trivandrum, a February 10, 2007
confrontation between dogcatchers capturing dogs
for extermination and proponents of the local
Animal Birth Control program reportedly burst
into violence.

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Rescuing kites & other birds from kite string

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
AHMEDABAD–Power lines over Ahmedabad looked like concertina
wire after a World War I trench charge on January 15, 2007, the day
after Makar Sankranti, the Hindu “Festival of the Sun.”
Wrecked kites fluttered everywhere, trailing deadly loops of
glass-coated nylon twine. More than 100 Animal Help volunteers
answered calls about wounded birds. Twelve ambulance teams stationed
at central points around the sprawling city relayed birds to the
Animal Help Foundation hospital, beside the River Sabarmati.
For 11 months the 28 Animal Help veterinarians did Animal
Birth Control program surgery at an unprecedented pace, sterilizing
more than 45,000 dogs in retrofitted city buses. In early January,
however, the ABC program shut down, to enable Animal Help to
refocus on birds.
Makar Sankranti is celebrated in western India and nearby
parts of Pakistan with kite-flying contests. Tens of thousands of
participants send kites aloft over most major cities. Reputedly more
than a million kites soar over Ahmedabad.

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