An overture comes from Korea

September 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

OAKLAND, Calif.; SEOUL, Korea–The September 11 terrorist
hijackings and mass murders at the World Trade Center and Pentagon
caused International Aid for Korean Animals founder Kyenan Kum to
call off scheduled September protests against dog and cat eating at
South Korean embassies and consulates–but a letter she received a
few days earlier from the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture and
Fisheries gave hope that two years of intense campaigning are making
gains in Seoul.

Street dogs keep the developing world from going to the rats

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
MUMBAI, NEW DELHI–“Some bloody idiot,” Indian minister of state for social justice and empowerment Maneka Gandhi e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 26, “has come forward to say dogs give leptospirosis to humans. So the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (city of Mumbai, also called Bombay) has gone to court to restart the killing of strays,” halted repeatedly by judicial order in recent years as executive health officer Alka Karande and other local officials have sought pretexts to continue.

Rabies, the previous pretext, killed 35 of the 18 million Mumbai residents in 2000. Leptospirosis, mostly a rat disease, killed 17, is believed to have killed another 19 people in
unconfirmed cases, and killed 19 more during the first half of 2001. “Drains are overflowing, garbage accumulating, and people are defecating in the open–and the city wants to find someone to blame for their inability to keep the city clean,” charged Susi
Wiesinger of Ahimsa/Mumbai.

Race tracks in trouble–horses starve in Pakistan, are butchered in Japan and U.S.

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:

KARACHI–A globally distributed July 2 expose by Associated Press writer Zahid Hussain brought help to about 60 starving racehorses at the closed Karachi Race Club in Pakistan–but about 70 horses had already died by the time Hussain found out about the situation. Another 310 horses were still stabled at the race club, of whom about 100 were reportedly struggling on “starvation diets,” Adam Lusher of the London Telegraph reported on July 15, while the rest were still in relatively good shape.

An Olympian opportunity for humane work in China

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
BEIJING–A seven-year window of opportunity for humane work in China opened on July 13 when the International Olympic Committee on July 13 awarded the 2008 summer Olympic Games to Beijing. Said Grace Ge Gabriel, China director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, whose office is in Beijing, “We think that having the Olympics in Beijing will be good for animals. It will open China more to new ideas, and will encourage China to be further engaged with the rest of the world, adhering to international standards.”

Added Asian Animal Protection Network founder John Wedderburn, M.D., “Now that the Chinese have the games, they know they will be under scrutiny for the next seven years, and we have a chance to persuade them to introduce reforms.” Based in Hong Kong, Wedderburn travels extensively in mainland China as an on-call medical escort for foreigners who become injured or ill and must be evacuated.

Shark fins

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
WildAid, one of the newest international wildlife protection groups, announced on July 3 that 70% of a sample of shark fins it bought in Bangkok during May 2001 contained mercury, and one fin had 42 times the recommended limit for human consumption. “Sales of shark fin soup in Bangkok’s Chinatown plunged 70%” within the next week, Associated Press reported. Anchalee Kongrut of the Bangkok Post on July 14 said that “Restaurants selling shark fin soup lost up to 40% of their income,” despite Thai government and restaurant industry claims that their own tests of shark fins found no significant mercury content.

WildAid was formed in late 1999 by Suwanna Gauntlet of the San Francisco-based Barbara Delano Foundation, in whose honor the Suwanna Ranch sanctuary operated by the Humane Farming Association is named; Steven Galster of the Global Survival Network; Environmental Investigation Agency cofounder Peter Knights; and Steve Trent, who also in 1999 started the Environmental Justice Foundation. WildAid has offices in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Thailand, Cambodia, and Russia.

Dog-and-cat-eating: the shame of Korea

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

SEOUL, South Korea–The animal faces of dog-and-cat-eating, met at the Moran market just outside the capital city of Seoul, South Korea, are as pained and haunting as any animal defender might imagine.

The silence of the dehydrated and despairing animals is an unexpected part of the shock. Most of the dogs can bark. They just rarely do. Only scattered purebred former pets and a puppy trying to gnaw the dangling end of a nylon cord show hope that anything could be different. Stunned cats exhibit bleeding wounds from apparent hammer blows to the forehead. Roosters thrust their necks between the bars of their overcrowded cages and instead of crowing, gasp for breath.

Editorial: Help Koreans change Korea

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

Help Koreans change Korea (Editorial, ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001)

This June 2001 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE is almost a month late in great part due to complications resulting from our mid-May investigative visit to South Korea, the most notorious of the nations in which dogs and cats are openly sold for human consumption.

ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett, a 30-year veteran of humane work, was physically ill with pneumonia for a week after our visit to the Moran market near Seoul, the largest South Korean live market featuring dogs and cats. She extensively documented the scene with photos, flew home with the film, and collapsed.

ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton meanwhile worked 40 hours straight upon our return to summarize our findings and circulate the summary by e-mail to more than two dozen heads of international animal protection organizations, who were asked for comment and statements of commitment to action that were rarely forthcoming.

Gandhi’s AV legacy

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:
BRIGHTON, U.K.–Anti-vivisectionist C.K. Yoe won a year-long battle on June 8 when the Imperial Cancer Research Fund pulled a TV spot depicting the Indian vegetarian statesman Mohandas Gandhi. The ICRF won an appeal to the Independ-ent TV Commission, as the use of the image was approved by the New Delhi charity Gandhi Smarak Nidhi–but GSN withdrew the okay upon learning that the ICRF funds vivisection, which Gandhi abhored.

Viagra vs. sealing–it might help the sealers, too

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

ST. JOHN’S, New-foundland–Seal pelt prices tripled and a two-week extension of the Atlantic Canada seal hunt, originally to have ended on May 15, encouraged sealers to kill two to three times as many infant harp seals in 2001 as in 2000. Just 91,000 seals were landed in 2000. By early May 2001, the toll stood at 186,000.

But even selling pelts for $40 in Canadian money, up from $13, will not leave sealers with more than a marginal profit. A June 15 report by Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment president Gary Gallon, commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, found that federal and provincial governments have spent $20.5 million [Canadian funds] since 1995 to prop up sealing via 38 different subsidy programs.

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