South African commission rejects gambling on greyhound racing

September 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:

JOHANNESBURG--A South African government commission appointed in February 2009 to consider introducing gambling on greyhound racing has reportedly concluded that, in the words of commission chair Astrid Ludin, “Given the limited demand and the problems associated with it, we did not think it should be legalized.”

The South African National SPCA noted that a similar commission reached comparable conclusions in the late 1940s, leading to the series of provincial bans on betting on greyhounds which have been in effect ever since. Two previous commissions affirmed the bans.

EDITORIAL: Animal husbandry & the Horn of Africa famine

September 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:

Editorial feature:
Animal husbandry & the Horn of Africa famine

“In central and western Kenya, farmers have had a bumper crop of plump ears of corn and earthy potatoes. Yet in the north, skeletal children wait for food aid amid a growing emergency,” recounted Katharine Houreld of Associated Press on September 1, 2011.

Altogether, Houreld wrote, 3.75 million Kenyans are at risk of starvation. Another eight million people are at risk in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. Read more

Temples covet wild tuskers

September 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2011:

COLOMBO–Sri Lanka has almost half again
more wild elephants than the national Wildlife
Conservation Depart-ment imagined just a few
weeks ago, but this is not good news to elephant
advocates who hope to thwart pressure on the
department to capture elephant calves for temple
use.
The first survey of the Sri Lankan
elephant population since 1993 discovered 7,379
wild elephants in all, 5,879 of them in or near
parks and sanctuaries, with about 1,500
elsewhere. The survey found 1,107 baby
elephants, but only 122 mature adult males with
tusks.

Sketchy Government Accounting Office report tends to favor horse slaughter

July 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2011:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The title of Horse Welfare: Action Needed
to Address Unintended Consequences from Cessation of Domestic
Slaughter hints at the conclusions and recommendations that the
Government Accountability Office report offered to Congress on June
23, 2011.
But the GAO report includes numerous acknowledgements of a
lack of data supporting the conclusions and recommendations. Failing
to discover and use data collected by the humane community about
trends in horse neglect and abandonment, including data collected by
ANIMAL PEOPLE and Pet-Abuse.com which is readily available online,
the GAO authors relied heavily on unsubstantiated anecdotal claims by
sources within the horse and livestock industries, including 17
state veterinarians whose duties are primarily to facilitate horse
and livestock commerce.

BOOKS: Finding Jack

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
Finding Jack by Gareth Crocker
St. Martin’s Press
(c/o MacMillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010), 2001.
289 pages, hardcover. $23.99
Finding Jack, by South African first-time novelist Gareth
Crocker, is at least the fifth book in 10 years to explore the fate
of the approximately 4,000 scout and sentry dogs used by U.S.,
Australian, and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War–a
story seldom told during the first 25 years after the U.S. left
Vietnam in March 1975, after a five-year phased withdrawal of troops.

Brooke, Donkey Sanctuary, ESAF halt feeding working animals near pyramids

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
CAIRO–The Egyptian army on Arpil 11, 2011 forcibly cleared
Tahrir Square in central Cairo of protesters demanding the trial of
former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Two months to the day after
Mubarak left office, turning the government over to army leaders,
thousands of Egyptians joined protests against army rule.
But, anticipating that tourism would rapidly recover over
the Easter weekend, the Brooke Hospital for Animals, the Donkey
Sanctuary, and the Egyptian Society of Animal Friends jointly
announced on April 11 that they would stop feeding working animals in
the vicinity of the Giza Pyramids on April 21, the Thursday
preceding Good Friday.

Camel Rescue Centre in India is world’s first

April 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:

JAIPUR, India–Help In Suffer-ing on March 13, 2011 opened
a new Camel Rescue Centre at Bassi, on the outskirts of Jaipur. The
announcement was of global humane significance because, as best
ANIMAL PEOPLE can determine, the Help In Suffering Camel Rescue
Centre is the first facility built specifically to help camels in
humane movement history, and only the second dedicated camel
hospital in the world.
The first was the Dubai Camel Hospital, opened in 1990 by
Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum to treat the 3,000 racing and
dairy camels “belonging to the Maktoum family and their friends and
relatives,” wrote BBC News science reporter Anna-Marie Lever in
January 2009.

Thoroughly troubled Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation

April 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.–The Thoroughbred
Retirement Foundation “has been so slow or
delinquent in paying for the upkeep of the more
than 1,000 horses under its care that scores have
wound up starved and neglected, some fatally,”
charged New York Times horse racing writer Joe
Drape on March 18 2011.

Camels, horses & change in Egypt

March 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:

CAIRO–The conflict of old and new in Tahrir Square, Cairo,
was perhaps most starkly illustrated by the February 2, 2011 charge
of 18 whip-wielding men on horseback and two on camels against the
tens of thousands of people demanding the resignation of
then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The demonstrators had
occupied the square since January 25.
Mubarak left on February 11, ending a 30-year dictatorial
regime, but on February 2 the outcome of the protests was still in
doubt. “In Dokki, in western Cairo,” reported Al Jazeera,
“thousands of Mubarak supporters gathered in Lebanon Square,
chanting ‘He won’t go,’ in reference to Mubarak, as they watched
camel riders and horse-cart drivers parade in circles.”

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