A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
A year into the global financial meltdown, the humane
community as a whole seems to be holding up relatively well, so
far–but precariously.
Puppy mills, by contrast, are collapsing at an
unprecedented pace. 2008 brought more than twice as many dogs and
cats into animal shelters as result of breeder failures than 2007,
and the 2009 volume from breeder failures is on pace to eclipse the
2008 record.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:
The October 2008 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial, “The humane community can
handle hard times,” focused on the institutional side of coping with
the global economic crisis. How animals themselves are affected also
warrants discussion.
“Foreclosure pets” and “abandoned horses” have been the
topics of at least one major daily newspaper feature apiece per week,
by actual count, since late 2007.
There is not much of a “foreclosure pets” crisis in affluent
suburbs where the few foreclosures tend to be on townhouses in
developments that did not allow pets to begin with. Across town
though, handling animals surrendered by distraught people who have
abruptly become homeless is an increasingly urgent issue. Typically,
a young family of insecure income reached for the house-yard-dog
dream by taking out a sub-prime mortgage. Then someone lost a job,
often just because the economy skidded.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
What if the U.S. humane community had not made the catastrophic mistakes that it did in response to the Great Depression and the recessions that followed each of the major mid-20th century wars?
What if a strong independent voice had helped humane leadership to cope with financial crunches with a combination of practical help and reminders of the importance of remaining focused on mission?
What if humane work had continued to emphasize outreach, advocacy, prosecuting cruelty, and education, at a time when humane education was forthrightly presented as moral education, when state wildlife agencies were not yet dependent upon funding from the sale of hunting licenses, and when Americans consumed less than half as much meat per capita as today?
We cannot know what might have happened, but we can certainly contemplate the possibilities.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
Writing only for SPCA Los Angeles, SPCA/L.A. president Madeline Bernstein might have spoken for the whole humane community worldwide in an early October 2008 appeal expressing deep concern with the state of our economy, food costs, gas prices, Wall Street woes and its negative trickledown effect.
SPCA/L.A. is struggling to feed and tend to the ever-increasing number of homeless animals in our care, Bernstein said, many a direct result of foreclosures and financial hardship. Worse, fewer adoptions are occurring for the same reasons. This puts us in the untenable position of having to bear higher costs while donations, corporate funding and even the bestowal of in-kind gifts is shrinking. Natural disasters and an expensive presidential election have also put a claim on limited resources. The bottom line is that there is less discretionary and disposable income for charities less funds to give and more difficult choices to make.
SPCA/L.A., with an annual budget of $6 million and estimated assets of $16 million, according to IRS Form 990, is among the most affluent 1% of all humane societies.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
While in Indonesia for the August 2008
Asia for Animals conference, the fifth in a
series co-sponsored by ANIMAL PEOPLE since 2001,
ANIMAL PEOPLE president Kim Bartlett joined
several other conference attendees in a visit to
the International Animal Rescue facilities in
West Java, near Bogor, two hours by car south
of Jakarta.
The visit provided an unexpectedly stark
illustration of some of the sharpest edges and
conflicts in the three-cornered relationship
among animal welfare, wildlife species
conservation, and habitat protection.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
MILWAUKEE–Southern Wisconsin ClearChannel radio stations on
August 20, 2008 unleashed 14 hours of “Beaglemania” broadcast from
the Wisconsin Humane Society to help Wisconsin Humane find adopters
for the first 300 of more than 1,100 dogs acquired from the former
Puppy Haven Kennel in Markesan.
Wisconsin Humane bought Puppy Haven from breeder Wallace
Havens in July 2008 for an undisclosed sum that WHS board member Tony
Enea told Jackie Loohavis-Bennett of the Milwaukee Journal was
“pennies on the dollar.”
Selling about 3,000 dogs a year at peak, Puppy Haven owner
Wallace Havens was suspended and fined by the American Kennel Club in
2006 for record keeping and care violations.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
BANGALORE–Unpaid by the city in four months, Krupa Loving
Animals, Karuna, and Compassion Unlimited Plus Action have
suspended doing Animal Birth Control program surgeries for Bangalore
municipality, and the Animal Rights Fund will stop on September 1,
2008, Afshan Yasmeen of The Hindu reported on August 15, 2008.
A fifth animal charity, Ahmedabad-based Animal Help, has
sterilized more than 5,000 dogs recently in outlying parts of
Bangalore, demonstrating the efficacy of same-day release of dogs
after surgery, in lieu of the multi-day holding periods for
post-surgical recovery that are practiced by most ABC programs. The
Animal Help approach, abbreviated as CNVR, requires using
high-speed, small-incision surgery under much more strictly aseptic
conditions than is the ABC norm.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
If for just 15¢ you could ensure that
every donation you make to animal charity goes to
a charity that does what it claims to do, and
does it well, would you spend the 15¢?
The ordering price of the newly published
10th annual edition of the ANIMAL PEOPLE Watchdog
Report on Animal Charities is $25.00–about the
same as the average donation to any type of
charity these days. Divide the Watchdog Report
price by the 165 succinct reviews of prominent
animal charities that it contains, and the
average price per review is 15¢, barely a third
of the cost of mailing a donation.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE Watchdog Report on
Animal Charities helps you to target your
donations and bequests to accomplish more for
animals. The ANIMAL PEOPLE Watchdog Report
gives you an informed independent investigative
perspective on the 117 U.S. animal charities that
you are most likely to hear from by direct mail
or through e-mailings, or hear about in the
news, and on 48 foreign animal charities whose
work is of particular note. People who make large
donations, frequent donations, or are planning
their estates will find the ANIMAL PEOPLE
Watchdog Report especially helpful.
There are free online resources to which
the Watchdog Report may be compared– but only
superficially.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:
VIENNA–Association Against Animal Factories founder Martin
Balluch and 13 other Austrian activists associated with at least
seven organizations–and the Animal Conference 2006 held in
Vienna–were reportedly arrested without charges on May 21, 2008,
in dawn raids on as many as 24 homes and offices. The raids were
noteworthy for the lack of information disclosed by Austrian
authorities about the reasons for them and the findings of the police
investigators.
“Ten people are being held in pre-trial detention, which
could last for months, accused of ‘forming a criminal organization,'”
said the Farm Animal Reform Movement in a supporting statement.
“Seven, including President of the Austrian Association Against
Animal Factories Professor Martin Balluch, are on a hunger strike
and becoming very weak,” FARM added. Balluch, hunger striking
for 20 days as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, was said to have been
hospitalized.