Editorial: Dealing with denial

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:

States of Denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering, by London School of Economics and Political Science sociology professor Stanley Cohen, mentions animals only twice in 344
pages–but one of those mentions points out the most fundamental issue in animal protection: persuadiing people to care, first of all, that suffering occurs, and then convincing them to do something about it.

“Each new moral demand makes coping harder,” Cohen writes on page 289. “Yet another filter or priority must be set up,” because no one person can respond to every atrocity and every suffering being, no matter how altruistic that person tries to be. “I have tested this,” Cohen admits, “by looking at my own reactions to animal rights issues. I know that the treatment of animals in cruel experiments and factory farming is difficult to defend. I can even see the case for becoming a vegetarian. But in the end, much like people throwing away Amnesty International leaflets, my filters go into automatic drive: this is not my
responsibility, there are worse problems; there are plenty of other people looking after this. What do you mean, I’m in denial every time I eat a hamburger?”

Turkey invents The Natural Dog Shelter

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/august 2001:
ISTANBUL–The Natural Dog Shelter at the sprawling Kemerburgaz Rubbish Dump Project outside Istanbul has location in common with many American shelters, but not much else.

Now just a vast tract of superficially desolate hills, the dump was closed, capped with earth, and vented to prevent build-ups of flammable gas in mid-1999. A closer look at the site shows a thriving suburban wildlife ecology of small burrowing mammals and reptiles, birds, and feral pigs. Near the center stands a fast-growing plantation of evergreen trees. The trees are surrounded by chain link fence.

Gains and casualties in the no-kill revolution

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
HARTFORD, Connecticut–The no-kill movement has catch-and-kill on the run, but what happens next? Winning public favor means the 600-plus no-kill advocates expected at the 2001 No Kill Conference in Hartford in mid-August are inheriting the three perennial animal care-and-control problems–and now must provide solutions.

Problem #1 is dog and cat overpopulation. Problem #2 is reforming animal care-and-control institutions that do not want to change. Problem #3 is extending services to regions and neighborhoods where despite the progress made in more affluent places, humane services are still just a rumor.

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.

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.

BOOKS: National Animal Control Training Guide

July 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
National Animal Control Association Training Guide
NACA (P.O. Box 480851, Kansas City, MO 64148), 2001. 370 pages, spiral binding. $50.00.

The most influential book about animal care-and-control ever written, at the practical level, was the 1989 first edition of the National Animal Control Association Training Guide. It brought together for the very first time the corpus of knowledge about animal care-and-control “best practice,” as learned on the job by several dozen of the most respected animal care-and-control personnel in the U.S., and swiftly became “The Book” at public animal shelters not just across the U.S. but around the world.

Since 1989, to go “by The Book” has meant literally going by the NACA recommendations, reinforced at countless seminars using the NACA Training Guide as a text. “The Book” consisted of four main sections, covering animal care-and-control law, animal handling skills, occupational and public safety, and communications, plus a supplemental chapter by the late Leo K. Bustad on “The Significance of the Human/Animal Bond for Animal Control Personnel.”

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.

Excerpts from keynote address

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

Excerpts from keynote address to the Asia for Animals conference,
May 14, 2001, in Manila, the Philippines, by Senator Orlando S. Mercado, Ph.D.
Today is Election Day in the Philippines. We have been through a frenzy of political activity in the past three months, culminating in the casting of ballots by more than 31 million Filipinos. It has not been easy. In politics there are many opportunities to lose faith and be disillusioned. This is why the conventional wisdom in Washington D.C. is, “If you want a friend, get a dog”.

Companion animals and raising animal welfare consciousness in Southeast Asia

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

Companion animals and raising animal welfare consciousness in Southeast Asia
by Sherry Grant, cofounder, Bali Street Dogs Foundation

Westerners are often appalled by the plight of animals in Asia and the other less developed parts of the world. It is unimaginable to most of us, for example, how orangutans, Sumatran bears, tigers, many bird species, sharks, tapirs, and sea turtles have been poached to the verge of extinction for meat and body parts, and the disregard for animal suffering evident in any marketplace is an even more immediate shock. Police and public officials often benefit from the illegal traffic and the cruelty, and are thus less then enthusiastic about enforcing whatever laws exist.

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