A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:
SANTIAGO, BONN–The ivory and whaling industries will go
into the 12th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species on November 3 as
determined as ever to reopen legal global commerce in the body parts
of elephants and whales.
The ivory merchants and whalers are not considered likely to
get what they want.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:
Visitors to Tokyo who expect to see street dogs, ubiquitous
in much of Asia, may be surprised to see only pampered purebreds.
Perhaps because Japan is an island, street dogs have never
been common here– although dogs did once enjoy much greater freedom.
Before World War II, dogs were kept primarily by people affluent
enough to have a house and land. They may have been kept as guard
dogs, but were seldom chained and could roam at will.
Because they were free and were usually greeted by everyone,
they tended to be friendly. Hachiko, for example, an Akita, used
to see his master off at the Shibuya railway station in Tokyo every
morning and go back to the station to greet him on his return in the
evening. One day his master died suddenly, but Hachiko continued to
go to the station every day until he died of old age. The Japanese
were so impressed by his devotion and loyalty that they erected a
statue to him, which still stands outside the Shibuya station.
A dog like Hachiko could not roam in Tokyo today. People
would be frightened of him, and the hokensho would quickly dispatch
him to the gas chamber.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:
WASHINGTON D.C.–The 20th annual observance of World Farm
Animals Day was perhaps most effectively marked by Australian and
Philippine officials who probably never heard of it. The occasion
honors and mourns the 47 billion animals raised and killed for food
each year, 10 billion of them in the U.S.
Meant to be celebrated each year on Mohandas Gandhi’s
birthday, October 2, which this year fell on a Wednesday, World
Farm Animals Day was actually observed on both the preceding and
following weekend, as well as in midweek.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:
BEIJING, KABUL–Two lions and a brown bear, a wolf, and a
fallow deer arrived on October 2 at the Kabul Zoo in Kabul,
Afghanistan, after four days en route from the Beijing Badaling
Safari World in China.
The animals, including the three-year-old lions Zhuang
Zhuang and Canny, were donated by the China Wildlife Conservation
Association in memory of Marjan, the lion half-blinded by a 1993
grenade attack whose endurance through more than 20 years of warfare
made him a national symbol.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:
SEOUL–What came out of four years of
escalating protest against South Korean
torture-killing of dogs and cats for human
consumption, focused on the 2002 World Cup
soccer tournament?
Exactly as predicted by International Aid
for Korean Animals founder Kyenan Kum and her
sister Sunnan Kum, founder of the Korean Animal
Protection Society, pro-dog meat legislators
waited until after the World Cup was over and
most western visitors and news media left Korea.
Then the legislators dusted off and again began
touting a bill promoted several times previously,
which seeks to repeal the weak 1991 South Korean
ban on the sale of dog meat and cat meat. The
bill would authorize the establishment of
commercial dog-slaughtering plants, on the
pretext that such facilities could be inspected
by the agriculture ministry, and would therefore
be “humane.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nevada– The Pet Network of North Lake
Tahoe had a lot to show off on August 25, as host of the 2002
Conference on Homeless Animal Management and Policy shelter tour,
beginning with the two-year-old shelter itself.
The talking points–except for one –were neatly set forth on
fact sheets inside a folder given to each of the 25 CHAMP visitors.
The point omitted, the most remarkable of all, is that
approximately 250 residents of Incline Village and nearby communities
volunteer for the Pet Network, contributing 400 to 600 service hours
per month.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:
LEURA, New South Wales, Australia–Twenty-six years after
convening the first meeting of Animal Liberation Australia, 12 years
after venturing to India, Christine Townend has returned home. She
and her retired lawyer husband Jeremy Townend are back more-or-less
to stay–while making frequent visits to India to supervise their
ongoing humane projects.
Yet Townend admits she often feels like an alien. She senses
a meanness of spirit in Australia now that she did not
previously recognize, in her past
careers as activist, teacher, poet, short story writer, and
investigative author, whose 1985 book Pulling The Wool remains the
classic expose of the Down Under sheep trade.
Then, Townend believed, rough Australian treatment of
animals was mainly from ignorance. Behind the Aussie swagger and
bluster, she believed, were good hearts, who could be brought
around to treating all animals with kindness. She has become less
optimistic.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:
NEW DELHI–“What I expected has finally happened. I have
lost the MInistry today,” People for Animals founder Maneka Gandhi
e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 2, nearly four years after
becoming the first Minister for Animal Welfare in the cabinet of any
nation.
Elected as an independent member of the parliament of India,
Mrs. Gandhi asked Prime Minister A.P. Vajpayee to create the animal
welfare ministry for her in 1998 as the price of her joining the
ruling coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharitya Janata Party.
Vajpayee complied by making animal welfare part of the mandate of the
Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, the portfolio Mrs.
Gandhi held from August 1998 until early 2001.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:
WASHINGTON D.C., BALTIMORE–The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service on July 26, 2002 proposed a permanent rule against the
importation and interstate transport of and species of snakeheads,
also known as “walking catfish.”
A scientific panel on the same day advised Maryland
Department of Natural Resources secretary J. Charles Fox to authorize
exterminating a small local snakehead population immediately, even
at cost of killing their whole habitat.