A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
Jackie Ballard, the former Member of Parliament who has
headed the Royal SPCA of Great Britain since 2002, will on October
22, 2007 become chief executive of the Royal National Institute for
the Deaf, RNID announced on July 30, 2007. The RSPCA reportedly
will not begin seeking her successor until after she has left.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
The Whale Rescue Team, founded in 1984 by Peter Wallerstein,
on July 1, 2007 became Marine Animal Rescue, a project of Friends
of Animals. Marine Animal Rescue will continue to rescue and
rehabilitate stranded marine mammals and birds from Marina del Rey,
the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica, and the port of San Pedro.
FoA, based in Darien, Connecticut, acquired the Whale
Rescue Team 11 months after reaching an agreement to take over the
Primarily Primates sanctuary near San Antonio, Texas, but only two
months after taking possession of the sanctuary, which was directed
by a court-appointed receiver from mid-October 2006 through April
2007.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
Donations to U.S. animal welfare charities have cumulatively
increased 28% over the past three years, according to data released
by the Boston direct marketing consulting firm Target Analysis Group.
In the 12 months from April 2006 through March 2007, animal welfare
charities achieved an 8.5% increase in revenue, a 10% increase in
number of donors, and an 8% increase in the number of new donors.
Animal welfare charities were 5.6 times more successful than
environmental charities. Reported by Holly Hall in the July 26,
2007 edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the findings came
from an analysis of 68 million donations made by 38 million
individuals, who cumulatively gave more than $1.7 billion in
2006-2007.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
Because of a drastic increase in U.S. nonprofit postage rates
in May 2007, the cost of mailing our June edition instantly rose
almost $1,000. We will have to dig deeper into general operating
funds to cover the postal rate hike, but have made a decision to try
to reduce costs by scaling back our production schedule to nine
issues of ANIMAL PEOPLE per year instead of ten.
This way we hope to avoid increasing our subscription price,
and to avoid raising our advertising rates substantially.
Subscribers who have paid for ten editions will receive them, but
all new subscriptions and renewals will be for nine editions a year.
At inception, ANIMAL PEOPLE determined that if we were going
to make a real difference in how effectively the humane community
responds to problems, we would have to reach the entire humane
community with every edition-and we knew that the people and
organizations most in need of our information tend to have the least
resources with which to buy a subscription. Many organizations
abroad–especially in the underdeveloped nations of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America–simply could not buy a subscription, no matter
what.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
GAVATU– As of July 24, 2007, Canadian dolphin broker
Christopher Porter was reportedly holding as many as 50 recently
captured dolphins in sea pens at Malaita in the Solomon Islands.
“Ocean Embassy, also known as the Wildlife International
Network, is in the Solomon Islands trying to export the dolphins to
Dubai,” Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Five new dolphin facilities in Dubai want dolphins, whales, polar
bears–every marine mammal they can get. Ocean Embassy is the broker.
“Somehow Ocean Embassy has been able to stay out of the media
regarding Dubai,” O’Barry added. “They brokered the deal but Porter
gets all of the attention. Ocean Embassy represents big money,”
O’Barry continued. “They dwarf Porter’s operation. The parent
corporation began selling securities via a private placement offering
in the United States in late 2003. At present, the parent company is
represented by 195 investors from the United States, Mexico, the
United Kingdom, and France.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
Quaker questions
I don’t think I am alone in wishing that the Christian
churches would join the rest of us in fighting for the animals. Most
churches have strong environmental statements, caring for creation
and so on, but take little action in terms of condemning the cruelty
and misery inflicted on animals by humans.
I am not a Quaker, but I applaud their move to come to grips
with the issues by agreeing to examining the following questions at
the Friends World Council for Consultation Triennial, which will be
held in Dublin in August 2007–
“This Concern has been raised by the Central and Southern Africa
Quakers for discussion at the Dublin Triennial:
Do we recognise the suffering imposed upon billions of
nonhuman animals by human animals in the flesh and milk industry; in
vivisection laboratories; in using them for power and entertainment
and in the taking of their natural habitat? Given that nonhuman
animals are utterly powerless to resist this oppression, how is our
Society called to act?”
May I suggest that “animal people” with church connections
draw the attention of their church to the Quaker example?
–Olga Parkes
New Lambton Heights, Australia
<animals@networksmm.com.au>
Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
HONG KONG–Is a small amount of monkey-eating in southern
China covering for a large amount of monkey trafficking from the wild
to U.S. labs?
Among the reasons for vigilance:
* Monkey-trapping and smuggling appear to be increasing
throughout Southeast Asia, allegedly for Chinese markets. Yet
reports from within China indicate no rise in monkey consumption,
amid increasing efforts to suppress eating contraband wildlife.
* U.S. lab use of nonhuman primates has more than doubled,
from 25,534 in 2002 and 25,834 in 2003, to 54,998 in 2004, and
57,531 in 2005, the latest year for which the USDA Animal & Plant
Inspection Service has complete data.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka–Requi-sitioning
shelter animals for laboratory use, the mostly
banned and discredited practice called “pound
seizure” in the U.S., is now reaching Asian
awareness through the story of Wussie, a gentle
former street dog.
Told first by Sri Lankan newspapers,
Wussie’s story went global via the Hong
Kong-based Asian Animal Protection Network.
Scientific institutions and regulators in New
Delhi, Mexico City, Cambridge, U.K., and
Washington, D.C. were soon investigating their
unwitting involvement.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
HARARE, GUWAHATI, DHAKA– “Climatic
change” does not really describe the impact of
global warming on Zimbabwe, northern and eastern
India, and Bangladesh.
Zimbabwe has always consisted largely of
dry forest and high desert, plagued by frequent
drought. Heavy monsoons have often battered
northern and eastern India. The floods of the
past three summers just accentuated the trend.
Bangadesh, 90% of which lies 10 meters
below sea level, was inundated in 1988 and 1998,
as well as 2007.
The disasters of 2007 afflicting much of
Zimbabe, India, and Bangladesh are the result
not of climatic change but of climatic norms
intensified by global warming to extremes beyond
the capacity of people and animals to adequately
prepare.