A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
A panoramic New York Times photo of a Kabul dogfighting arena
believed to be the largest in Afghan-istan, published on December 8,
2007, showed 367 spectators, 30 dog handlers, and 12 dogs. Kabul
is a city of four million people. If 25% of Kabul dogfighting fans
were present, participation could be estimated as about four people
per 1,000, or 0.4% of the human population.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
PRESCOTT, Arizona–Camilla Fox, the 10-year director of
wildlife programs for the Animal Protection Institute, is now
pursuing a master’s degree at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona
as recipient of the first Christine Stevens Wildlife Award,
presented by the Animal Welfare Institute. AWI founder Stevens
headed the AWI from 1951 until her death in 2002.
The $10,000 award “aims to advance research in the
often-overlooked area of non-lethal wildlife management,” explains
the AWI web site.
Fox at API waged prominent campaigns on behalf of many
species, but coyotes were of special concern to her. Her father
Michael W. Fox is a prominent researcher of canine history, a
longtime syndicated veterinary columnist, and a former vice
president of the Humane Society of the U.S., “who did field
research studying the behavior of wild canids, so I always had them
around me while I was growing up,” Fox recalls.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
The numbers of pit bull terriers and Rottweilers in U.S.
animal shelters may have leveled off since 2004, after a decade of
explosive increase, but are not falling, according to single day
shelter dog inventories collected by ANIMAL PEOPLE during the second
and third weeks of January 2008.
ANIMAL PEOPLE compared the data to single-day dog inventories
collected in June 2004 from 23 U.S. animal control and open admission
shelters, then housing 3,023 dogs.
Of the dogs in 2004, 23% were pit bulls or close mixes of
pit bull; 3% were Rottweilers or their close mixes; and 17% were
other purebreds. Counting pit bulls and Rottweilers but not their
mixes, plus purebreds, about 33% of the shelter dog population
appeared to have been purpose-bred, as opposed to products of
accidental breeding. The pit bull and pit mix percentage had
increased fivefold since ANIMAL PEOPLE did a breed-specific survey of
shelter dogs in 1993.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
ABU SHAWK, Sudan–While most international aid groups
working in North Darfur focus on helping displaced humans, the
Donkey Sanctuary and Society for Protection of Animals Abroad are
saving their asses–a top priority for the 27,000 displaced families
now filling the Abu Shawk refugee camp, if they are ever to return
to their pre-war way of life.
“Donkeys are the most valuable assets for the people in the
region of Darfur,” Donkey Sanctuary representative Mohamed Majzoub
Fidiel told the Middle East Network for Animal Welfare conference in
Cairo in December 2007.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
SACRAMENTO–The city of Sacramento, California, within just
two days in mid-January 2008 lost two of the three national animal
advocacy organizations that have long been based there. Their
offices are still in Sacramento, but now as branches of
organizations based in Washington D.C.
The Animal Protection Institute, founded in 1968 by former
Humane Society of the U.S. California office director Belton Mouras,
merged with Born Free USA, the U.S. arm of the British-based Born
Free Foundation. Mouras later founded United Animal Nations, also
based in Sacramento.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
NEW DELHI, CAIRO–The future of more than 50 million working
donkeys worldwide and millions of horses and bullocks may be affected
by explosive growth in motor vehicle acquisition.
Indian car acquisition, already growing at 20% per year, is
expected to accelerate with the January 2008 introduction of a car
priced at just $2,500, made by Tata Motors Ltd., the leading car
and truck maker in India. Ford just two days earlier announced plans
to invest $875 million in expanding small car production capacity in
India.
Motor vehicle acquisition in China is increasing almost as
fast, and the boom is spilling over to other parts of Asia.
The environmental and socio-economic effects of the spread of
motorized transport have received much attention from governments,
academia, and mass media, but the implications for animal welfare
have been mostly overlooked.
First-time Asian car buyers are believed to be typically city
residents, stepping up from scooters and motorcycles. But the $500
scooters and $1,500 motorcycles that the inexpensive new cars replace
will become half-priced used vehicles, competing for buyers with new
lines of Indian and Chinese-made 110-cc. motorcycles sold for as
little as $450.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
NAIROBI–More than 150 of the estimated 530 mob and 82 police
killings wracking Kenya during the four weeks after the disputed
outcome of the December 27, 2007 national election came in Kibera,
a shantytown just a stray bullet’s distance from the headquarters of
the Kenya Wildlife Service, KWS animal orphanage, Nairobi National
Park, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant and rhino
orphanage, the Kenya SPCA, and the offices of Youth for
Conservation and the African Network for Animal Welfare.
They had all escaped the violence, as of press time for the
January/February 2008 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Wildlife refuges elsewhere in Kenya were also imperiled. “A
few dozen miles from the Masai Mara game reserve in Narok,” reported
Associated Press on January 19, “Masai fighters and men from
President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe battled for hours with machetes,
clubs, swords and bows and arrows. Five people were killed and 25
wounded, police chief Patrick Wambani said. Homes and shops were set
ablaze.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
CAIRO–Touring the Mediterran-ean as a foreign correspondent
in 1867-1868, U.S. author Mark Twain sent home extensive notes about
the animals he met, later included in his book The Innocents Abroad
(1869).
At the Giza pyramids in Egypt, Twain found–to his
surprise–that, “The donkeys were all good, all handsome, all
strong and in good condition, all fast and willing to prove it.
They were the best we had found anywhere…They had all been newly
barbered, and were exceedingly stylish.”
Twain’s only criticism of the Giza donkey care was that,
“The saddles were the high, stuffy, frog-shaped things we had known
in Ephesus and Smyrna.”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
LUXOR–The most ambitious new
expatriate-directed animal welfare project
underway in Egypt appears to be the construction
of a headquarters for Animal Care in Egypt,
incorporated in Britain in September 1999 by
former International Fund for Animal Welfare
representative Julie Wartenburg.
The domed ACE building, behind a high
wall, from outside resembles a mosque.
Wartenburg had already acquired land and had
begun fundraising to build when ACE in April 2007
received a bequest of £80,900.
“The whole project is for the future as
well as now,” Wartenburg told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
“I knew I only had one hit at it, so when
receiving this heaven-sent legacy, I slightly
enlarged on the original size to provide
everything we may need in the future.”