From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

Japan beyond Tokyo

Your mention in the July/August 2009 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE
that a man who was arrested in Japan in 2006 for dumping butchered
dogs’ heads was of South Korean descent does not surprise me. Nor am
I surprised that dog-eating persists in Japan. But it is not the
Japanese who eat dog meat; it is Korean residents. The Japanese,
except during World War II when dogs almost became extinct because
they were eaten by the starving population, have never had the
custom of eating dogs.
Kansai (West Japan) and particularly Osaka is home to a large
Korean population, but since most have adopted Japanese names, it is
hard for outsiders to recognize them. They live in Korean areas of
Osaka city, and dog meat is on the menu of restaurants that serve
these communities. Perhaps because there is not enough dog meat to
buy in Korea, most of it is imported from China.
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:
 
Sacrifice in Nepal

The largest open air animal sacrifice in the world will start
on November 24, 2009. Can you picture 7,000 young buffalo being
rounded up and killed by a thousand drunk men carrying large knives?
A festival where 200,000 animals are killed to please a goddess?
This will happen, if nothing is done to prevent it, at the
Gadimai Festival in Bariyarpur, Bara District, Nepal. The festival
is held every five years. The mass sacrifice turns the entire area
into a bloody marsh.
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
 
Financial tables

I recently received the 2009 edition of
the ANIMAL PEOPLE Watchdog Report on Animal
Charities, and wonder if you have a spreadsheet
summarizing the financial data included in the
report. I seem to recall that earlier reports
had tables such as that, and hoped they would be
available for 2009. This would make it much
easier for me to compare the various
organizations.
–Christopher Hersha
Information Technology Manager
SPCA Tampa Bay
9099 130th Ave. N.
Largo, FL 33773
Phone: 727-586-3591, x161
<chersha@spcatampabay.org>
 
Editor’s note:

Those tables appeared in the ANIMAL
PEOPLE newspaper each December for 14 years, but
became redundant when we started publishing the
Watchdog Report in 1999. After rising newsprint
and postal costs obliged us to reduce our page
count and frequency of publication, we dropped
the tables to keep more for news and reader
response.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:

Lucy elephant

Lucy is a female Asian elephant living alone since 2007 at
the Valley Zoo in Edmonton, Alberta. She has lived there for 30
years. Many people feel that Lucy should be moved to a sanctuary
because she is socially isolated, Edmonton is too cold for
elephants, her enclosure is too small, and she has many health
problems that the zoo has been unable to take care of. Two
accredited sanctuaries have offered to take her and pay for her
transportation. We would like Lucy’s story to get more exposure in
hopes of continuing to build public pressure so that the zoo may one
day let her go.
–Bhavithra Aloysious
c/o Zoocheck Canada
788 1/2 O’Connor Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4B 2S6
Phone: 416-285-1744
Fax: 416-285-4670
<bhavithra@zoocheck.com>
< zoocheck.com/action.html>

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:
 
Kangaroo culling

I seek the assistance of ANIMAL PEOPLE readers to provide
international pressure to protect our kangaroos. On May 13, 2009 in
Canberra, our national capitol, Administrative Appeals Tribunal
president Linda Crebbin ruled that the killing of thousands of
kangaroos on Australian Government Defence Department land-the Majura
Training Area, near Canberra-must be suspended immediately pending a
hearing of the full Tribunal on June 2.
Animal Liberation (NSW), through pro-bono lawyer Malcolm
Caulfield , successfully argued that the scheduled cull of 7,000
kangaroos should be stopped, as the kangaroos did not pose an
immediate threat to the ecosystem of the area. This was a tremendous
victory-but temporary, and will be back in court as the June 2009
edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE goes to press.
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:
 
Trust funds

Your April 2009 editorial “Trust funds lost when most needed”
points out some issues vitally important to any non-profit, and for
that matter, for any individual hoping to provide sustenance for a
charity.
–Ruth Gobeille
Executive Director
Animal Rescue League
of Southern Rhode Island
P.O. Box 458
Wakefield, RI 02880
Phone: 401-792-2233
Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
 
Portuguese bullfights

Defensor Moura, the mayor of Viana do
Castelo, Portugal since 1993, decided in
December 2008 to have the city buy the local
bullring and turn it into a science and education
center. He told news media that Viana do Castelo
has no bullfighting tradition and that it is no
longer acceptable to torture animals for fun.
ANIMAL asked people to send messages
congratulating Moura, and asking him to declare
Viana do Castelo to be officially an
anti-bullfighting city–the first in Portugal.
Moura received more than 1,000 e-mails, from all
regions of Portugal and all over the world. He
has now declared Viana do Castelo to be
Portugal’s first anti-bullfighting city.
We next asked Braga mayor Fran-cisco
Mesquita Machado to not authorise a bullfight
that was to have taken place on June 20, 2009
at a local festival. Less than 24 hours after
the beginning of our e-campaign to stop this
bullfight, the communication officer for the
Mayor of Braga responded that, “The President of
the Municipality of Braga, upon becoming aware
of this alleged announcement of the organization
of a bullfight in this city, has instructed the
relevant municipal services to not authorise it.
This means that no bullfight will take place in
Braga.”
We are now trying to stop the
legis-lative bodies of the Azores from legalising
killing bulls and using picadors in bullfighting.
The legislative regional assembly of the Azores
now has the constitutional power to do this, in
an active bullfighting region where this
legislative step has long been sought.
–Miguel Moutinho
Executive Director
ANIMAL
Apartado 2028
8501-902 Portimão
Portugal
Phone: 00-351-282-491-216
<miguel.moutinho@animal.org.pt>
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:
 
Supplements stink
Re “Estrogen supplements double cancer risk,” in the
January/February 2009 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE: estrogen suppements
based on pregnant mares’ urine are not only harmful for women’s
health, but also cause women who take them to have a bad body odor.
They smell like horse urine. You can always tell when a woman is
taking the estrogen supplements because of the bad odor she has. If
you are anywhere within 10 feet of such a woman you can smell it.
If estrogen supplements make a woman stink, can they be any
good for her health? There are natural supplements that are safe and
good for the health. Horse urine is not something that people should
put in their bodies. People are not horses, and horse hormones are
an unnatural, biologically harmful substance for people.
–Elaine Woodriff
Petaluma, CA
<ew0220@sonic.net>
 
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:
 
Use it, not lose it

Regarding the Animal People November/December editorial “How
hard times affect animal rescue,” the recent “Ponzi ” scheme
executed by financier Bernard Madoff was responsible for charities
losing billions of dollars–about 20 times more than the sum of all
money raised for animal welfare and advocacy, according to some
estimates. The question that should be asked of the victims in the
charitable sector is why they kept so much money in the trusts Madoff
managed, when their purpose is to do good works with their money,
not just accumulate more money to sit in their trusts!
How many appeals do we all receive from charities that
already have vast reserves, not disclosed in their appeals?
Charities have no business keeping more money than they need to fund
programs and management costs, and should start new projects that
are in accord with their mission statements if they come by any extra
money. Perhaps charities can now be encouraged not to sit on their
money, or invest it unwisely, but instead use it for its intended
purpose–to do good deeds.
If any charities have run out of projects, let them give the
money they have in their trusts to other charities who can surely use
it.
–Eileen Weintraub
Help Animals India/VSPCA
19215 32nd Avenue N.E.
Seattle, Washington 98155
<www.vspca.org>
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