Category: Asia

India loves leopards (with some reservations)

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

MUMBAI–India still has about 6,000 wild leopards,
approximately half of all the leopards of all species left in Asia,
because much of the public is concerned about their survival–and
might even be said to be fond of leopards despite their penchant for
getting into serious trouble.
Since January 1999, when ANIMAL PEOPLE began keeping track,
at least 111 leopards are known to have been poached or otherwise
illegally killed.

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Orangutans in Kalimantan coal smoke & heated dispute

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

DENVER–Underground coal fires beneath Kalimantan province,
Indonesia, could exterminate the island’s orangutans and sun bears,
Indonesian Ministry of Energy coalfield fire project chief Alfred
Whitehouse and East Georgia College professor Glenn Stracher told the
American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference
in Denver on February 15, 2003.
Of the 20,000 remaining wild orangutans, about 15,000 live
in Kalimantan, Wbitehouse and Stracher said. Already imperiled by
habitat loss due to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture,
orangutans have now lost about half of Kutain National Park due to
underground fires and lethal smoke, according to Whitehouse and
Stracher.

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Thai government to buy surplus elephants for forest patrol

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

BANGKOK–Two hundred out-of-work domesticated elephants are
to be purchased by the Thai government and be re-employed patrolling
37 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, natural resources and
environment minister Prabhat Panyachartak announced on February 12.
Prabat Panyachartak expected to obtain cabinet approval for
the purchases as a Valentine for Queen Sirikit, who apparently
suggested using the elephants for patrol work after the national
police reported promising early results in training 50 street dogs
for investigative duties, as King Bhumibol Aduladej recommended in
his November 2002 birthday speech.

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Sweeping pro-animal bill in Turkey

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

ANKARA, Turkey–The Parliamentary Domestic Affairs
Commission on January 15, 2003, adopted a draft national animal
protection bill which would provide prison terms for animal torture,
allowing animals to starve, and bestiality; would prohibit all
forms of animal fighting; would prohibit killing animals by
electrocution, cervical dislocation, drowning, burning, and
boiling; would forbid training animals by methods that cause
avoidable injury or distress; and would prohibit killing animals for
population control unless necessary to halt the spread of an epidemic.
The draft bill would require drivers to make every reasonable
effort to avoid injuring animals on the road, and to take any
animals they hit to a veterinarian and pay for the necessary
treatment.

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Will Sakhon Nakhon province governor Panchai keep promise to ban dog meat?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

BANGKOK–Recently elected Sakhon Nakhon provincial governor
Panchai Borvornratanapran reportedly retreated on July 18 from a
mid-June promise to abolish the sale and slaughter of dogs for meat.
Following a protest rally by about 300 dog meat traders and
butchers from Tha Rae, the impoverished northeastern district where
dogs are most often eaten, provincial spokesperson Raksit Wathayotha
told Agence France-Press that the governor met with representatives
of the dog meat industry and “said he doesn’t want to impose the
opinion of the entire province, which favors ending dog meat
trading, on Tha Rae. He wants them to make their own decision and
will not object if the majority of Tha Rae people still want to
practice dog meat eating and selling.”
Agence France-Presse attributed directly to Governor Panchai
an estimate that 17 dog slaughter houses in Tha Rae kill 300 to 400
dogs per day, selling up to 4,000 kilograms of dog meat per day.
[At 300-400 dogs killed per day, however, the average daily sales
volume would be only half as large.] About 90% of the dog meat was
sent to Bangkok, Governor Panchai reportedly claimed. Some is known
to be exported to China and Vietnam.

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Dogs and gamecocks take their revenge

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

For 40 years dogcatcher Manuel Pascual, 61, of Bulacan city
in Bulacan province, The Philippines, caught stray dogs and
reputedly sometimes stole freeroaming pets, selling them to
restaurants in Malolos, Marilao, Bocaue, and Baliuag, the
Philippine Inquirer reported on February 1, 2003. Eventually,
however, a dog caught Pascual, who died from rabies on January 26.
His was the second turnabout death in the Philippines in just
two weeks. On January 12 gamecock handler Elmer Mariano of Zamboanga
had just strapped spurs to the legs of a cock in preparation for a
fight when the cock wrested one leg free and fatally stabbed him in
the groin.

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Slaughter in the streets

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

MULTAN, Pakistan–“I have been much in vexation since
February 11, 2003,” Animal Save Movement Pakistan founder Khalid
Mahmood Qureshi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on February 16, seemingly
speaking for the world.
Al Qaida terrorist attacks were anticipated, following the
annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca by the Muslim faithful and appeals for
strikes against the U.S. by Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden.
A U.S. military effort to depose Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein was
imminently expected as well.
But the violence vexing Qureshi had already occurred.
“Millions of cows, camels, oxen, sheep, and goats were
slaughtered on the day of Eid Ul Azha, after the day of Haj in
Saudia Arabia,” Qureshi wrote. “It is a religious custom,” in
which male heads of households attempt halal slaughter with often
haphazard and bloody results, “but it is a tyranny and cruelty,”
Qureshi continued. “I see it as a genocide of animals. The Animal
Save Movement of Pakistan not only strongly protests this terrible
and uncivilised operation, but wants to abolish it.

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More talk than tiger-saving in India, with poaching on the rise

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

NEW DELHI–Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his
daughter Chelsea in March 2000 viewed a tiger named Bhambu Ram in
Ranthambore National Park.
This for a time made Bhambu Ram the poster-cat for Indian
tiger conservation–but he is now believed to be a posthumous
poster-cat.
Months after rumors reached mass media that Bhambu Ram had
disappeared, police supposedly seized his pelt in Delhi.
Months after that, Indian minister for the environment and
animals T.R. Baalu in February 2003 proposed a meeting among
government officials and conservation groups to discuss what to do
about escalating tiger poaching.
Tigers, elephants, leopards, and smaller species are all
under increased poaching stress lately. This is partly because India
is among the last nations where significant populations of animals
valued in traditional Asian medicine still can be found. Poaching
persists because of corrupt and inefficient links in wildlife habitat
management and law enforcement, and because the political priorities
of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Dal party do not favor animals.

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China wants Olympic tourists to come for tigers too

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

BEIJING–A camera trap set up by staff of the Hunchan Nature
Reserve in early February captured the first known photo of a wild
Amur tiger in northeastern China.
Members of the nature reserve staff positioned the camera
after hearing from a local farmer that an unknown large predator had
killed a mule that morning. The tiger tripped the electric eye that
operates the camera upon returning to the carcass late at night.
The photo provides “strong evidence that tigers are crossing
from the Russian Far East to repopulate previous tiger strongholds,”
said the Wildlife Conservation Society, whose equipment the Hunchan
team used.
Best known for operating the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium,
Central Park Zoo, and Prospect Park Zoo, all in New York City, the
Wildlife Conservation Society applies the profits to funding
overseas field research.
If Amur tigers are finding suitable habitat in China, with
adequate wild prey and safety from poaching, the species may yet
survive a population crash in Siberia that has cut their numbers from
an estimated 400 in 1997 to just 190 at the end of 2002.

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