Editorial: Introducing a different needle

September 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

A gathering of moment to the future of humane activism on behalf of dogs, cats,
and wildlife occurred on stage at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, on July 8,
brought together by Esther Mechler of Spay/USA.
Meeting for the first time––with animal advocates and with each other––were
immunosterilant researchers Richard Fayrer-Hoskins, Ph.D., of the University of Georgia;
Terry Nett, Ph.D., of Colorado State University; and Stephen Boyle, Ph.D., of the VirginiaMaryland
Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.
University of Florida at Gainesville researcher Julie Levy, DVM, founder of
Operation Catnip, made the introductions. Operation Catnip surgically sterilized 1,575 feral
cats in its first year, Levy explained, and then picked up the pace. It is an all-volunteer project,
depending like thousands of others on donated resources. It can do more than most
because Levy herself is a veterinarian. But like everyone else, she must earn a living. There
are limits to the number of cats she can fix, even when others catch the cats, return them to
their habitat after surgery, and monitor their well-being for the rest of their lives.
As a vet, Levy continued, she soon realized surgical sterilzation is an awkward and
expensive stopgap. Surgery works, having hugely reduced unwanted animal births and animal
control killing wherever it has been made affordable. But surgery still takes more veterinary
time, training, and equipment than many places have to offer.

Editorial: No-kills have no cause to smirk

July 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

“Too many animal control departments and humane societies which still hold animal
control contracts have a vested interest in doing what they have always done,” ANIMAL PEOPLE editorialized in May 2000. “Going a different and more successful way would
mean accepting some of the blame for causing barrels to fill, day after day, with furry bodies.
Complain though many animal control and humane society people might about the stress of
killing, they still find killing animals easier than doing what is necessary to stop it.”
But proponents of no-kill sheltering had no cause to smirk. Unfortunately, even as
too many conventional sheltering organizations resist change, too many no-kill advocates conduct
themselves and their own operations as cases of arrested development––and in some
instances deserve arrest on criminal charges for warehousing animals in filthy, noisy, overcrowded
kennels, where they enjoy neither a good life nor any prospect of adoption.
Those people may be a minority of the no-kill community, but they are a conspicuous,
ubiquitous, and problematic minority, collectively constituting the strongest case that
opponents of no-kill sheltering such as PETA and the Humane Society of the U.S. can make.

Editorial: Small primates on a limb

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

“Culture,” says the National Geographic Desk Reference, “provides the identity that links members of one society together and can also divide those members from other cultures.” In other words, culture is the learned behavior that separates the sheep from the goats, and also determines in which order the sheep and goats march. Culture could be defined as a collective term for the variety of social, economic, and political methods that humans use to form and maintain what we would recognize in other species as a dominance hierarchy.

Culturally entrenched cruelties resist abolition because the evolution of culture itself is often driven by the motives underlying the cruelty, so much so that the whole cultural selfidentification of some societies becomes preoccupied with establishing who may abuse whom. The more basic the society, meaning the most absorbed in constant struggle for both personal and collective survival, the more likely it is to be organized around “might makes right,” like a tribe of chimpanzees––and the more likely the culture of the society will consist chiefly of activities meant to remind members of their rank. The hazing practiced by social clubs and athletic teams serves such a purpose, for example, and is seldom far removed from cruelty because it is central to a culture whose whole purpose is defining the dominance of the incrowd or the winners, and excluding others from the exhalted inner circle.

Editorial: Self-defeat in Los Angeles

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

On March 22, 2000, the Los Angeles City Council at urging of the Coalition to End Pet Overpopulation adopted what In Defense of Animals spokesperson Bill Dyer called “the nation’s strongest spay/neuter ordinance.” It boosts the licensing fee for unaltered animals from $30 to $100. Owners of unlicensed, unaltered dogs found at large––if identified––will get two warnings to license over a 60-day span, before being fined up to $500.

Los Angeles Animal Services Department manager Dan Knapp and local activists celebrated victory. They should have mourned a self-inflicted defeat, not least because the new ordinance killed any chance a local coalition might have had at funding a five-year drive toward no-kill animal control with help from the $200 million Maddie’s Fund.

As Maddie’s Fund executive director Richard Avanzino reminded, on the eve of the L.A. vote, “Maddie’s Fund does not pay for government programs, including state and local animal care and control mandates.”

Editorial: Why fur sales soared

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

On page 21 of our March 2000 edition ANIMAL PEOPLE reported that U.S. retail fur sales soared 30% in 1999, according to the Fur Information Council, reaching $1.57 billion––the highest mark, by far, since 1988.

As we pointed out, $1.57 billion in 1999 dollars is still 30% less than $1.85 billion was in 1988 dollars. The fur trade remains well short of recovery––but that made no difference to millions of animals who were bred to be killed on fur farms or were trapped this past winter, as furriers gambled that fur is back, and bid raw pelt prices up to their highest level since an erroneous rumor of a comeback sparked a pelt-buying frenzy in 1994-1995.

Brainwashing Taiwan: BIG-GROUP OUTREACH CAN BE MISGUIDED

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

I read with a mix of hope and intense disgust the January/February 2000 ANIMAL PEOPLE feature about overseas animal shelters trying to avoid repeating U.S. and European mistakes.

Especially interesting to me were the remarks of Wu Hung, founder of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan. Until recently Wu Hung chaired the Life Conservationist Association of Taiwan, a group which in name was active, but by way of activity did little more than publish pamphlets. I have talked with Wu Hung on occasion during my six years in Taiwan, and your article brought home to me the true evil that many of the large, rich organizations of conventional outlook are wreaking on animal rescue overseas.

Guest column: New approach needed in foreign outreach by Pat Kyriacou

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

It has been interesting to watch ANIMAL PEOPLE expand your international focus, analysing what you find, questioning the status quo, speaking out against the animal welfare establishment when necessary.

I too have been observing some of the large animal welfare organisations as they expand their activities abroad. Here in Cyprus, in the southeast Mediterranean, primarily British organisations have become involved. This is probably because Cyprus is a former British colony. Cyprus hosts millions of British tourists, plus thousands of resident British retirees, who often contact large British organisations when they are concerned about animal abuse.

It is interesting to contrast the approaches taken to animal advocacy in developing countries by ANIMAL PEOPLE and some of these large British organisations.

Editorial: Lassitude on attitude

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

Beginning on page one of this edition, ANIMAL PEOPLE compares Chinese attitudes about animals, as recently surveyed by professional pollsters, to the attitudes of Americans, voiced in similar surveys done in the United States.

Readers with our own penchant for tracking statistics may notice that in order to find surveys which asked Americans essentially the same questions, we had to use data gathered on 27 different occasions by 22 different polling agencies––and though some of the questions were asked just a few months ago, others were most recently asked 17 years ago.

There were some questions we could find no match for. Hired by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Animals Asia Foundation, and the Hong Kong SPCA, the Chinese pollsters asked not only about issues and practices indigenous to China, but also about forms of animal use and abuse which might be imported, to see what might take hold if allowed the opportunity. Bullfighting and circuses were of particular interest, because entrepreneurs have already brought both bullfights and western-style circuses to the Chinese mainland. Incredibly, though we combed more than six feet of files documenting U.S. activism over animal use in entertainment, we found no indication that anyone here has ever really tried to find out what Americans think about animal spectacles in any kind of detail. All the existing data allows us to say with certainty is that Americans mostly approve of well-managed zoos and overwhelmingly disapprove of cockfighting. Where Americans stand on bullfighting, circuses, and rodeo––which combines aspects of both––is presently measured only by television ratings and gate receipts.

Editorial: Pepsi Gets the Point

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

The statement Pepsi-Cola gave to Garo Alexanian of the Companion Animal Network in late November 1999 was terse, to the point, and just what Steve Hindi of SHARK had demanded from Pepsi since June 1998:

“Pepsi-Cola Company does not sponsor or support bullfighting, nor do we endorse any kind of animal cruelty. Our Mexico City office has told us that Pepsi advertising is in the process of being removed from arenas in Mexico. And in the next few weeks, we will be sending officials from Pepsi headquarters to verify their progress.”

Hindi and SHARK are already verifying Pepsi progress. They verified first that Pepsi signs were removed from the Puebla bull ring, where Hindi took much of his graphic undercover video footage of bulls being tortured in front of Pepsi logos. Vendors in Pepsi aprons are still prominent, selling drinks of all sorts in Pepsi cups, but the signs––visible in every televised bullfight––have disappeared.

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