Street dogs, trains, & Indian elephants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
DELHI–Longtime animal welfare concerns flared into public view
in September 2010 in connection with two symbols of Indian national
pride–Indian Railways and the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Animal advocates worried ever since India agreed to host the
two-week Commonwealth Games in 2006 that the games would be preceded
by an illegal but nonetheless officially encouraged dog massacre, to
rid the streets of perceived “dog menace” before the arrival of
thousands of foreign visitors. Under activist pressure, the city
of Delhi increased the pace of dog sterilizations under the federally
subsidized Animal Birth Control program, but was nonetheless
embarrassed by dogs roaming the athletes’ village at the start of the
games. The animal charity Friendicoes SECA agreed to hold the dogs
in temporary quarters for the duration of the games.

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Looking the wrong way for causes of bushmeat poaching and predator loss

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
NAIROBI–Often exposed involvement of Asian financiers in
rhino horn and elephant ivory poaching fueled a ubiquitous belief
among frustrated animal defenders attending the early September 2010
African Animal Welfare Action conference in Nairobi, Kenya that
Asian workers in Africa are also implicated in out-of-control
bushmeat poaching and catastrophic crashes of predator populations.
African Animal Welfare Action conference attendees
guesstimated that Chinese workers alone were involved in from 20% to
80% of all the bushmeat poaching in Africa.

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Alleged rhino poaching gang served trophy hunters as well as Asian medicinal demand

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

 

JOHANNESBURG–Startling photos of the
September 22, 2010 arraignment of 11 alleged
members of an international rhino poaching
syndicate reached the world despite the
officially unexplained efforts of police to keep
photographers out.
News photographers Werner Beukes of the
South African Press Agency, Herman Verwey of
Beeld, and Lewellyn Carstens of the South
African Broadcasting Corporation were detained
for 45 minutes and one of them was roughed up by
police, according to the South African National
Editors’ Forum. No motive for the police action
was offered.

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American Humane Association approves decompressing chickens

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
DENVER–Former Pew Charitable Trusts
deputy director of philanthropic services Robin
Ganzert took office on August 31, 2010 as new
chief executive officer of the American Humane
Association with a statement distancing the AHA
from “extreme ideas purported by those who argue
thatŠpeople have no right to raise animals for
food.”
Ganzert in her next sentence mentioned
“the inhumane farming practices that contributed
to the massive egg recall” due to salmonella
contamination of eggs produced primarily by farms
owned by Austin “Jack” DeCoster, whose abusive
methods on some of those same farms were exposed
only weeks earlier by the vegan advocacy group
Mercy for Animals.

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Editorial feature: “Zero grazing” vs. the Five Freedoms

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
Few animal advocates doubt these days
that the use and misuse of more than 47 billion
farmed animals worldwide is the most urgent and
critical issue before us. Whether one favors
ushering humanity toward vegetarianism or
veganism, or only more nuanced efforts to reduce
and mitigate animal suffering in husbandry and
slaughter, animal agriculture involves many
times more animals and more misery than all other
human activities combined.
Indeed, from a third to half of all the
birds in the world are factory-farmed chickens.
Farmed mammals far outnumber all companion
animals and probably all wildlife larger than a
dog. Even the highest estimates of the numbers
of animals used in laboratories per year appear
to be lower than the volume of animals
slaughtered for human consumption on most days of
the week.

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Papaya product and calcium chloride emerge as rivals to zinc sterilants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
SAN FRANCISCO, PORTLAND– Contrary to military chow line
rumors circulating for at least seven centuries, saltpeter is just a
meat preservative, with no actual effect in reducing the sex drive
or effecting contraception when troops go on leave. Also contrary to
ancient rumor, troops are not innoculated with saltpeter during
their vaccinations at induction into military service.
Several zinc compounds have contraceptive effects similar to
some of those misattributed to saltpeter if injected into the
testicles of male animals, but often induce painful scrotal
swelling, and have no more effect than saltpeter in reducing
testosterone production.

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Deslorelin takes the lead in quest for non-surgical birth control

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
NAIROBI–Veterinary contraceptive
researcher Henk J. Bertschinger wowed the Africa
Animal Welfare Action conference in Nairobi on
September 8, 2010 with two presentations hinting
that the anti-GnRH agonist approach to animal
birth control may be applicable in cats and dogs.
Bertschinger, of the University of
Pretoria in South Africa, recapped and updated a
2007 paper he and colleagues published in the
journal Wildlife Research, describing “the
treatment and contraception of 23 captive and 40
free-ranging lionesses and four captive tigers in
South Africa,” using a range of different sized
deslorelin implants. Deslorelin is a hormone
analog, modeled on the natural hormone LHRH
(lutenizing-hormone releasing hormone) that turns
reproductive processes on and off in the brains
of both male and female animals.

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BOOKS: Do Fish Feel Pain?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Do Fish Feel Pain?
by Victoria Braithwaite
Oxford University Press (198 Madison Ave.,
New York, NY 10016), 2010.
194 pages, hardcover. $29.95.

Victoria Braithwaite, a professor of fisheries biology at
Pennsylvania State University and a visting professor at the
University of Bergen, Norway, had no idea in 2003 that she was
about to make a discovery that would change her life, the direction
of her field, and the perception that much of humanity has of fish.
Braithwaite certainly did not foresee, as an animal researcher,
that she would open a whole new direction in animal advocacy. Even
three years later, when Braithwaite summarized her work in an op-ed
essay for the Los Angeles Times, she was surprised by the intensity
of the response she drew from readers.

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Avocados & ivory

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
NAIROBI–Inspectors at the Jomo Kenyata Inter-national
Airport in Nairobi thought there was something odd about a two-ton
cargo of “avocados” that were to be flown to Malaysia on August 21,
2010.
Avocados, after all, are among the major exports of Sabah
state, Malaysia.
Opening the boxes, the inspectors found 317 pieces of ivory
and five rhino horns. Two suspects were arrested.

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