China may push vaccination

October 2, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BEIJING–Appalled by the dog-killing they recently witnessed
in eight provinces of southern China, officials of the China Health
Ministry and Agriculture Ministry are recommending that future rabies
control efforts should focus on vaccination, a well-placed source
told ANIMAL PEOPLE on October 10, 2003.
The China Daily on September 3 blamed “the increasing number
of dogs and mismanagement of the canine population, including
insufficient and improprer vaccination against rabies” for the
deaths of 550 people in the first six months of 2003, 90 more than
in the first six months of 2002.
The most rabies deaths occurred in Guangdong: 74 total, 46
of them in the Maoming area. As many as 60,000 dogs were reportedly
killed in a futile effort to contain the outbreak, which closely
followed the SARS panic. At least 12 more Guangdong residents,
including six children, died from rabies in August.

Four shelters serve Beijing

October 2, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BEIJING–What Beijing dog and cat rescuers need most may be
PETsMART and a coordinated master plan like those required of U.S.
humane coalitions before they can apply for a Maddie’s Fund grant.
The U.S.-based PETsMART animal supply store chain does not
yet do business in China, despite persistent rumors that executives
are looking in that direction, and Maddie’s Fund does not fund
projects outside the U.S.
Just a few well-located adoption centers like the PETsMART
Luv-A-Pet adoption boutiques, however, could rehome almost every
animal now entering the four major Beijing shelters. Even if each
adoption center placed dogs and cats at just a fraction of the
typical U.S. volume, the cumulative effect would be to undercut the
pet breeding industry before it becomes big enough to produce a
greater surplus.
A Maddie’s Fund-like incentive, meanwhile, might encourage
the Beijing shelters to cooperate to maximize their strengths and
opportunities.

Asia
Tactics

Dog butcher jailed

October 2, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BAGUIO CITY, The Philippines– Municipal trial court judge
Tomas Tolete on October 6 sentenced convicted dog butcher Enrique
Palaque, 51, of San Pedro, to serve six months in prison.
Reported Agence France-Press, “Palaque was arrested while en
route to another court hearing, where he is a defendant in a similar
case. A lower court in Manila earlier fined Palaque $54 for a
similar offense,” according to regional police superintendent Marvin
Bolabola.
The Philippines banned dog slaughter in 1996, but the law
was rarely enforced before late 2002, after Baguio City journalist
Freddie Farres and the anti-corruption group Linis Gobyerno made the
non-enforcement a public issue.

Asia
Law

Dog and cat eaters hide behind foreign media gullibility

October 2, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Dog and cat eaters hide behind foreign media gullibility
by Sunnan Kum

I recently received some photographs of dogs at a Korean
market, courageously taken by Mark Lloyd of the London Daily Mail.
I have seen so many photographs of abused animals before
these that I already felt wearied, and thought I had virtually no
more capacity for sadness.
Once again I saw the eyes of the caged dogs, their faces
full of sadness, fear and loneliness. Yet I also saw hope from the
same eyes: hope that someone may one day bring them home and love
them.
I told myself that these dogs were by now already at peace
and had finally found the release they so deserved. I tried to
console myself with this belief, but whenever I thought of their
loving, trusting eyes, I dissolved into tears. I felt that their
images were somehow urging me to do more for other animals still
living.

Animals in China: from the “four pests” to two signs of hope

October 2, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

Animals in China: from the “four pests” to two signs of hope
by Peter Li

In February 2002, a college student in Sichuan province
microwaved a four-week old puppy, reportedly in retaliation against
his wayward girlfriend.
Five zoo bears were at the same time viciously assaulted with
sulfuric acid at a zoo in Beijing. The perpetrator, Liu Haiyang,
was a student at Tsinghua University, whose alumni include President
Hu Jintao, former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, and Chairman of China’s
legislature Wu Bangguo.
The public was outraged in each instance, but found solace
in the belief that these were isolated cases.
The subsequent outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
awakened China to the cruel reality of wildlife exploitation across
the country–and put the acts of deranged individuals into the
uncomfortable context of being not far different from business as
usual at live markets and in the traditional medicine trade.
Wildlife has been used in China for human benefit for more
than two thousand years. Because wildlife use is part of the Chinese
culture, it has been widely viewed as politically untouchable.

SARS kills cat program

October 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

SINGAPORE–SARS seems to have killed the Singapore Stray Cat
Rehabilitation Scheme.
Sponsored by the Agrifood & Veterinary Authority, the Stray
Cat Rehabilitation Scheme has sterilized more than 3,000 homeless
cats since 1998, but a four-month review of the project determined
that barely 10,000 of the estimated 70,000 to 80,000 homeless cats in
Singapore have been sterilized, between public and private efforts.
AVA chief Ngiam Tong Tau said on October 8 that “All but one
of the 16 town councils [in Singapore] wanted the scheme stopped,
and the holdout was halfhearted in support,” wrote Sharmilpal Kaur
of the Straits Times.
“The program was reappraised in the wake of fear that cats
might spread SARS,” Kaur continued. “Though tests found no such
link, culling was stepped up because of a push to clean up public
areas.”

SARS spread from live markets, but when?

October 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

BEIJING–Blood tests indicate that about 1% of the children
in 17 provinces of China were exposed to Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome before the outbreaks of 2002-2003 that hit 24 of the 31
provinces.
Evidently passing from animals sold in filthy live markets to
humans working in food preparation, and then spreading from human to
human, SARS eventually killed 916 people in 32 nations, with about
650 of the deaths occurring in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The blood study was conducted by the Beijing Military Zone
Air Force Logistics Sanitation Unit, using samples taken from
healthy children before SARS appeared.
In a parallel study, the Beijing Capitol Pediatrics Research
Institute found that among 77 children hospitalized for various
reasons in 2001, 42% had antibodies to SARS. Among 92 children
hospitalized during the SARS outbreak, 40% had the antibodies–but
none had SARS symptoms.
Both studies indicate that the coronavirus responsible for
SARS was already widely distributed among the human population–at
least among children–well before it turned deadly. The findings may
explain why relatively few children developed the deadly strain of
SARS, but confounds the mystery of how SARS originated, since
children are also less likely than adults to consume wildlife
products.

Bangladesh tiger killers get hard time

October 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

DHAKA, Bangladesh –Five former Dhaka Zoo employees who
allegedly poisoned four Bengal tigers during a 1996 labor dispute
were on September 10, 2003 sentenced to serve 14 years in prison at
hard labor.
The Pakistan Daily Times heralded “The first-ever verdict on
the killing of animals in Bangladesh,” which from 1948 until 1971
was East Pakistan, separated from the rest of Pakistan by India.
Published from the capital of Bangladesh, the Dhaka Daily
Star did not call the case a first, but gave it prominent coverage
on a day when the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001 al
Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. dominated the news.
Metropolitan Sessions Judge Habibur Rahman acquitted nine
co-defendants.
Rahman issued the stiff sentences to the remainder under the
Special Powers Act of 1974, pertaining to crimes allegedly committed
to destabilize the nation.
The tigers were allegedly poisoned between November 9 and 13,
1996, after zoo curator Ashraf Uddin transferred the defendants and
18 other staff members in a crackdown on corruption.
Invoking the Special Powers Act enabled Rahman to impose the
death penalty, but he was lenient, he said, because the “neglect
and indifference” of the prosecution had allowed the case to drag on
for seven years.

Asia
Law

Hindu nationalists hit animal sacrifice

October 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2003:

NEW DELHI–“There is a great need to cleanse Hinduism” of
animal sacrifice, “and the time is now,” editorialized the October
2003 edition of The Organizer, the official publication of the
hardline Hindu nationalist volunteer corps Rashtriya Swayamsewak
Sangh.
The RSS is often described as the ideological arm of the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Organizer strongly praised former actress Jayalitha
Jayaram, now chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, for ordering
police to halt animal sacrifices on August 28. After three men were
arrested the next day for sacrificing goats and hens at Madurai, no
more sacrifices were reported for a week.
Members of the People’s Art & Literary Association and
Revolutionary Students & Youth Front then defied Jayalitha (usually
called by just her first name) by staging sacrifices in Tirunelveli
and Tiruchirapalli. Police detained but did not charge the suspected
leaders.

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