Fundraising & the Kabul Zoo

April 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

As anticipated, the March 2002 ANIMAL PEOPLE investigative
feature “Plight of Kabul Zoo brings dubious fundraising claims”
brought prompt response from Brian Werner, founder of Tiger Missing
Link and cofounder of Great Cats In Crisis, and Bruce Eberle, the
fundraiser who produced an appeal soliciting funds on behalf of Great
Cats In Crisis, purportedly to aid Marjan, the Kabul Zoo lion who
was already dead two weeks before the appeal reached any of the
ANIMAL PEOPLE readers who brought it to our attention.

The Pope is asked to help save sea turtles

April 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

LOS ANGELES, HONG KONG –The Sea Turtle Conservation Network
of the Californias on March 13, 2002 appealed to Pope John Paul II
to clarify to Roman Catholics that sea turtles are not “fish,” and
should not be poached and eaten at Lent.
Mexican poachers alone kill as many as 5,000 endangered sea
turtles a year during Lent, Wildcoast founder Serge Dedina said at a
Los Angeles press conference, out of an estimated annual toll of
35,000 turtles poached. Seconding Dedina was Homero Aridjis,
founder of the Mexican environmental protection organization Grupo de
100.

Home 4 the Holidays places 76,000+

March 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

SAN DIEGO–More than 450 animal shelters in four nations
combined efforts to send more than 76,000 dogs and cats “Home 4 the
Holidays,” Hala Ali Aryan of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on
January 20. The seven-week joint promotion ran from November 13,
2001, to January 6, 2002.
Founded in 1999 by Mike Arms of the Helen Woodward Animal
Center in Rancho Santa Fe, California, “Home 4 the Holidays”
debuted as a 14-shelter local program. It went global in 2001 with
the help of advertising in ANIMAL PEOPLE. In 30 years of adoption
promotion and counseling, at the American SPCA and North Shore
Animal League America before becoming executive director of the Helen
Woodward Center, Arms has supervised more than half a million
adoptions, and collaborative events he helped to initiate,
including the spring “Pet Adoptathon” coordinated by North Shore,
have placed several hundred thousand more animals.
The Woodward Center broke its own record for adoptions in a
month by placing 145 pets in December 2001.

Korean activists remind that it’s about cats, too

March 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

DAEGU, South Korea–“Please ask our President to make a
strong law banning dog and cat meat,” Korea Animal Protection
Society founder Sunnan Kum begged U.S. President George W. Bush in an
open letter on the eve of his February 20-21 visit to South Korea.
Sunnan Kum knew there was little chance that her letter would
reach Bush–but she has learned to try to leave no Bush unshaken in
her lifelong struggle against the customs of torturing dogs to death
to get adrenalin-soaked meat with reputed aphrodisiacal qualities for
men, and boiling cats alive to make a tonic for aging women.

Animal advocacy meets The War on Terror

March 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

SALT LAKE CITY–Utah County coyotes got a break from
terrorism during the Winter Olympic Games held in and around Salt
Lake City.
“Because of the no-fly restriction in effect withn 45 miles
of the Games from midnight on February 7 through midnight on February
24, USDA Wildlife Services could not conduct aerial coyote control,”
Deseret News staff writer Sharon Hadlock reported.
Those weeks are usually peak coyote-strafing time for
Wildlife Services, as snow makes their tracks visible to helicopter
gunners.

Bulldogging the Olympic Rodeo

January 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:

SALT LAKE CITY–“The Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the
forthcoming Winter Olympic Games was expected to drop the scheduled
February 9-11 Command Performance Rodeo from the Cultural Olympiad
at a January 3 meeting with rodeo foes,” ANIMAL PEOPLE reported in
our December edition, citing coverage from both the Salt Lake
Tribune and the Deseret News, and quoting rodeo protest leader Steve
Hindi, who flew to Salt Lake City in anticipation of the
announcement.

Japanese mobilize to save whales their government wants to kill

January 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:

TOKYO–Thousands of Japanese volunteers worked around the
clock from the morning of January 22 into mid-day on January 24 in a
futile effort to save 14 whales who ran aground near the town of
Ouracho on the southern island of Kyushu. Thirteen whales suffocated
before they could be towed back to sea, but the newspaper Yomiuri
Shumbun reported that one whale survived.
Yomiuri Shumbun identified the victims as Bryde’s whales,
but BBC News reported that they were sperm whales. Either way, they
were among the species that the Japanese “research” whaling fleet
killed during 2001 in the north Pacific.

Kabul Zoo relief; aid for Afghan cats, dogs, equines; bulletins from the front

December 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2001:

KABUL–The American Zoo Association, European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, and World Association of Zoos and Aquaria in late November set out to raise $30,000 in relief aid for the Kabul Zoo. By December 20 they had raised $202,000, and were asking callers to help the Afghan Animal Fund instead, a separate account set up to help Afghan cats, dogs, donkeys, and horses. The Afghan Animal Fund had collected $28,536 through December 17. Both funds are directed by Davy Jones, 57, president of both the North Carolina Zoo and the board of the London-based Brooke Hospital for Animals.

Since October the Brooke has had as many as 300 workers helping the equines of Afghan refugees in and around the camps in Peshawar and Quetta, Pakistan. The Brooke, the only western animal protection charity to maintain a close presence during the Taliban years, rehearsed in July 2001 by rescuing about 60 racehorses who were left to starve at the Karachi Race Club after the track closed temporarily due to a dispute with the Pakistani government over licensing fees. Another 70 horses died before the Brooke learned of their plight. The track reopened on July 31.

The British Royal Air Force is to fly a three-member team to Kabul in January 2002 to spend eight to ten days at the zoo, treating sick and injured animals and developing a plan to put the facilities in order. Included will be former Kabul University dean of science Ehsan Arghandewal, who fled to Germany after the Taliban came to power; former Kabul Zoo head keeper Taufik, now working at the Koln Zoo in Koln, Germany; and wildlife veterinarian John Lewis.

“Renovating the zoo and giving the staff the ability to buy food, equipment, building materials, power, and water can make the Kabul Zoo a key area for recovery of the whole city,” Jones said, emphasizing the role the zoo has in Afghanistan as a national symbol.

Built in 1967 by Kabul University, the 100-acre zoo was then considered the best in Central Asia, with 417 animals and annual attendance of 150,000 by 1972. From 1992 until 1996, however, it was caught in fighting among mujadin and Communists, warring mujadin factions, and mujadin and the Taliban. Many of the animals were eaten by the fighters. Then bandits in 1997 killed longtime keeper Agha Akhbar. The collection was down to about 40 wild animals and 60
animals of domestic species by the time the Taliban surrendered Kabul to the Northern Alliance.

Even before much outside aid arrived, the Kabul Zoo lions, wolves, and bears received a December 10 feast, through the misfortune of two oxen who escaped from an open-air meat market and rampaged through the remnants of the embassy district before a militia member shot them both dead. Afghan law requires one handler per ox, but the owner
reportedly escaped a fine by donating the carcasses to the zoo. The oxen were considered unfit for human consumption because they were not killed by hallal procedure.

Kenya link?
Kenya Wildlife Service chief Nehemiah Rotich, who staunchly opposed radio-collaring rhinos because it enables poachers to find them, was suspended in mid-November by Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi. “There were press reports linking his suspension to differences with prominent personalities with interests in the posh KWS-owned
Rangers Restaurant at the KWS headquarters in Nairobi, which is leased to Garian Investments Ltd. of South Africa,” reported John Mbaria of the East African. Regardless of why Rotich was ousted, four black rhinos were soon afterward poached in Tsavo East National Park, the first rhinos poached in Kenya since 1993. KWS rhino program coordinator Martin Mulama told Christian Science Monitor staff writer Dana Harman that he suspected Somali involvement, possibly stimulated by the need of Al Qaida to build its finances after taking heavy hits during the U.S. war on terrorism. Somali militias with ties to Yemen have reputedly done most of the ivory and rhino horn poaching in Kenya since circa 1970.
Al Qaida cowboy

Australian rodeo rider David Hicks, 26, of the Adelaide suburb of Salisbury, was among the Al Qaida soldiers captured
fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghan-istan, Australian attorney general Daryl Williams disclosed on December 12. Hicks was reportedly taken into custody by Northern Alliance troops several days earlier. Hicks apparently left the Australian rodeo circuit in November 1999 to train for combat in Pakistan with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a guerilla faction seeking to take Kash-mir from India and unite it with Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of the two factions linked by
India to the December 12 attack on the Indian parliament that left nine Indian citizens and all five attackers dead. After fighting against India in Kashmir, Hicks fought with Al Qaida in Kosovo under the name Muhammad Dawood. He reportedly told his father about two weeks after September 11 that he had gone to Afghanistan to help the Taliban defend Kabul.
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan Society for the Protection of Animals president Azar Garayev announced on January 1 that the parliament of the Azerbaijan Republic has agreed to consider ratifying the European Union Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals in 2002, and that the mayor of the capital city of Baku has agreed to work with the Azerbaijan SPA to start an animal shelter. Azerbaijan, a former Soviet state, is located between Iran and Turkey.
Frontier Gandhi

ANIMAL PEOPLE is seeking information about the animal-and-diet-related teachings of the late Pashtun leader Abdul
Ghaffar Khan, 1890-1988, called “the frontier Ghandi” for his dedication to nonviolence and forgiveness. Allied with Mohandas Gandhi, 1930-1947, Ghaffar Khan led the Muslim wing of Gandhi’s Congress Party, seeking a secular subcontinental nation uniting Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. He later sought autonomy for Peshwar.
The “link”

A jury in Santa Ana, California, on December 20 recommended the death penalty for one-armed butcher John Samuel Ghobrial, 31, convicted nine days earlier of raping and killing Juan Delgado, 12, in 1998, in a classic case of violence toward animals preceding violence toward humans. Ghobrial hacked Delgado apart with a meat cleaver and buried the remains in cement. Ghobrial won repeated trial delays after September 11 as defense attorney Denise Gragg contended his ethnicity would preclude a fair trial. Gobrial, a Coptic Christian from Egypt, won religious asylum in 1996 after telling the Immigration and Naturalization Service he lost his arm when a mob pushed him under a train. He turned out to have fled Egypt after he was arrested on suspicion of molesting his seven-year-old cousin and stabbing him with a penknife. Ampu-tation of the arm may have been a penalty under the Islamic fundamentalist penal code of sharia for previous conduct of a similar nature.

WSPA and ending animal circuses in Rio

December 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2001:

RIO DE JANEIRO–“We did it! No more circuses with animals in Rio de Janeiro! Governor Anthony Garotinho signed our bill into law! This is our second victory this year, as we also got rid of the decompression chamber for good in Sao Paulo,” enthused Alianca International do Animal founder Ila Franco in a November 26 e-mail to ANIMAL PEOPLE.

The Sao Paulo decompression chamber was believed to be one of the few still used to kill animals anywhere in the world. Most U.S. shelters quit using decompression between 1976, when the San Francisco SPCA was reputedly first, and 1985, when the Dallas and Houston animal control shelters were reputedly among the last.

Franco had updated ANIMAL PEOPLE from time to time about her pursuit of both campaigns–and also about the work of Alianca in sterilizing 6,000 dogs and cats and filing 36 cruelty cases during 2001. Franco credited many other people and organizations with helping. She thanked World Society for the Protection of Animals veterinarian Lloyd Tait, for example, for helping with sterilizations.

Franco was quite upset with WSPA, however, when she next contacted ANIMAL PEOPLE, on December 18, after seeing the WSPA web site. Said the site, making no mention of Alianca, “The state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil has passed a law banning the use of animals in circuses. The move follows a series of reports and campaigns by WSPA’s Latin American offices.” Elaborated WSPA Brazilian representative Elizabeth MacGregor in an e-mail announcement, “Public support for this bill was partly inspired by a terrible incident in Brazil last year where an improperly caged circus lion killed a child. The parents of that child have appeared at WSPA-sponsored demonstrations in support of the bill.”

Countered Franco, “Support for this bill was immensely inspired by this terrible accident because Alianca kept the facts of the incident vividly in view.” The campaign began “In 1999, when the circus elephant Madu killed her keeper in Caraquatatuba and then ran away to Sao Sebastiano,” Franco remembered. “I was called by a man who took his
son to the show and saw the circus people beating Madu.” Rushing to the scene, Franco spent four days at the circus,
she said, monitoring the treatment of Madu, and learning that the dead trainer had allegedly beaten her on the trunk to make her drink. Franco also watered a thirsty bear, she recalled, “who drank for 20 minutes without stopping.”

Franco “photographed what I had seen, to prove what was going on,” she continued. “Then I rented a big screen, sound system, and microphones, and a few feet away from this circus I showed videos to inform the public about how circus animals are trained.” Franco also formally incorporated Alianca, after years of activity, to bring a court case against the circus, seeking to confiscate the allegedly abused animals. She won the case, and arranged for the animals to be sent to a Rio de Janeiro zoo where she hoped they would receive better care–but the circus left the city
rather than give the animals up.

Franco then arranged to follow the circus and lead a rally against it, but “Three days before the scheduled protest,” she
remembered, “the six-year-old child was killed by a lion in Recife, Pernambuco.” Meeting the father of the child at a TV talk show appearance, Franco invited the family to join the Alianca rally. “I sponsored their air fares out of my pocket, and the father, mother, and baby sister all stayed for three days at my home, where we planned our approach to the state legislature,” Franco told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

For the next two years Alianca volunteer Andrea Lambert lobbied the Rio de Janeiro legislature, while Franco roused public opinion. “I edited videos, made 20,000 pamphlets, made t-shirts, passed out information at a science fair for 60 public schools, and hired a theatrical troupe” to take the message to the poor communities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, Franco recounted. “Meanwhile, we removed seven lions from another circus. As the only place available for them was at the zoo in Sta. Catarina, where I saw that the people would treat them well, but the quarters were unfinished due to lack of funding, I helped to fund proper quarters,” Franco said.

The seven lions became an effective exhibit in the Alianca campaign.Then, Franco recalled, “We found out that the same lion who killed the six-year-old had injured another child three years earlier, and killed two four-year-old girls 12 years before that. Their families were also invited” to join Alianca on TV talk shows. Along the way, Franco said, she was often threatened by circus people, and was once beaten by the wife of a circus owner. Only on the day of the voting on the bill to ban animals from circuses, Franco said, did she introduce the father of the dead six-year-old to MacGregor.

“At not one moment before that,” Franco stated, “did Je’ Miguel [the father] ever hear of or know of WSPA or MacGregor, and neither he nor I had any help from them.” Franco made an issue of the omission of Alianca from the
account because while WSPA is a $9-million-a-year group in the U.S. and a $7-million-a-year group in Britain, Alianca is a hand-to-mouth group in Brazil, with no paid administrative staff. A victory of global note could be a rare chance to attract U.S. and British donors.

[Contact Alianca International Do Animal c/o 2535 La Serena St., Escondido, CA 92025, USA; <WynterWulf@aol.com>.]

Other cases

Earlier in 2001, ANIMAL PEOPLE received similar allegations of discrepancies between WSPA claims and actuality from India, Korea, Pakistan, Romania, and Costa Rica, reported in “Seeking the bear truth about World Society work in India” (April 2001), and “Questions for WSPA and the RSPCA” (June 2001). ANIMAL PEOPLE then received a series of anonymous letters detailing alleged parallel episodes involving WSPA in other nations during the past decade. Many allegations were supported by photographs.

Much of the material could not be published without on-the-record sources, but ANIMAL PEOPLE was able to ask WSPA chief executive Andrew Dickson on October 1 why the WSPA wildlife rehabilitation center in Colombia stands dilapidated and vacant. Built in 1984 with funds from the estate of Marcelle Delpu, it closed in 1998.

Wrote WSPA publicist Jonathan Owen, on October 10, “The buildings are now the property of Colombia. WSPA ownership ceased when the centre was subject of a compulsory purchase order from the authorities due to a major road building scheme. The site is now adajcent to a busy major highway.” The source expressed skepticism. The photos show facilities which–with repair–appear still suitable for use as a rehabilitation center, shelter, or clinic.

“We have also received photographs documenting the condition of the former Clinica Veterinaria Sozed animal shelter and hospital in Rio de Janeiro, another short-lived WSPA venture. Why was this project not sustained?” ANIMAL PEOPLE asked Dickson. Replied Owen, “We are unable to comment as we have no direct involvement in or knowledge of this facility.”

“Let us give you further detail,” said ANIMAL PEOPLE, “and perhaps you can come up with WSPA’s side of the story. According to our source, ‘Dr. Claudie Dunin, a longtime supporter of WSPA, offered to donate nearly $50,000 U.S. to WSPA to buy an office in Sao Paolo. The building was purchased in 1994, and Anna Maria Pineiro, who lived nearby, was made president of WSPA in Brazil. However, within 18 months, Andrew Dickson made a unilateral decision to close the office and sell the property. He irreparably harmed relations with animal protection organizations in Brazil. Mrs. Pinheiro will no longer have anything to do with anyone in animal protection. When Dunin threatened legal action, WSPA gave her back $22,000, with which to buy a shelter and veterinary clinic in Rio Comprido, in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, in which WSPA would have a rent-free office. WSPA never paid a cent toward helping the animals who were
assisted by the shelter. In early 2001 it closed due to lack of funding.'”

Twelve weeks later, WSPA has said nothing further. ANIMAL PEOPLE can say with certainty only that the mere fact the account was leaked to us–true or false– appears indicative of management problems.

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