BOOKS: From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse:
Alternative Methods for a Progressive, Humane Education (2nd edition)
by Nick Jukes and Mihnea Chiuia
InterNICHE (19 Brookhouse Ave. , Leicester LE2 0JE, U.K.), 2003.
520 pages, paperback. (Pricing: contact <coordinator@interniche.org>.

From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse addresses teachers whose
disciplines traditionally involve animal experiments. The book will
also help students who do not wish to take part in animal
experiments, and animal advocates who are campaigning against animal
experimentation in education.
The authors investigate aspects of the “3R” concept. The
original “3R” curriculum, emphasized in basic education, was
“Reading, Writing, Arithmetic.” In 1959 British authors William
Russell and Rex Burch proposed that in science the “3R” concept
should be “Refine, Reduce, Replace,” meaning that the numbers of
animal experiments done should be drastically reduced, and that
painful and invasive experiments should be replaced or refined to use
fewer animals.
Much of From Guinea Pig to Computer Mouse catalogs
alternatives to animal tests in education. More than 500
alternatives suitable for teaching anatomy, physiology, surgery,
and other disciplines are briefly reviewed. Ten chapters describe
products specific to common curriculums.

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Letters [Jan/Feb 2004]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Appeals

Thank you for once again publishing “Who gets the money?” and
the ANIMAL PEOPLE Standards for Ethical Charities and Fundraisers.
I have survived involvement in animal advocacy as an
employee, volunteer, and donor for four decades. As a donor, I
would like to share a few preliminary screening points. Perhaps
other ANIMAL PEOPLE readers have additional comments. If the
following aggravations are evident, I don’t have to look up features
like administration/program ratios, because the appeal for
membership or a donation is already in the waste basket.
1) Salaries. The first thing I do when I get an appeal is
look up the organziation’s IRS Form 990 at <www.guidestar.org>. An
organization that can afford to pay an employee or board member
$100,000 per year does not need my money. The potential donor must
look closely because the section of the Form 990 that reports board
members’ salaries is usually somewhat removed from the section that
reports salaries of employees who make more than $50,000 a year.
Also, occasionally the chief executive has a moderate salary while a
subordinate is cleaning up.

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New killer diseases: nature strikes back against factory farming

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

GUANGZHOU, Guang-dong province, China–
Representing the unholy marriage of wildlife
consumption with factory farming, an estimated
10,000 masked palm civets, tanukis, (also
called raccoon dogs), and hog badgers were
sacrificed in the first 10 days of January 2004
for the sins of the meat industry.
Mostly cage-reared from wild-caught
ancestors, the civets, tanukis, and hog
badgers were either drowned in disinfectant or
electrocuted, still in their cages, as China
tried to prevent a recurrence of the Sudden Acute
Respiratory Syndrome outbreak that killed 774
people worldwide in 2003, after killing 142
people in 2002. The animals’ remains were burned.
More than three million chickens, ducks,
geese, and quail were killed elsewhere in
Southeast Asia to try to contain outbreaks of
H5N1, an avian flu virus that can spread
directly to humans. The first known
identification of the outbreak came after the
Taiwan Coast Guard intercepted six ducks after
they were thrown from a mainland Chinese fishing
boat into the water off Kinmen island. The crew
may have been disposing of sick ducks who were
taken to sea as food, but rumors have identified
the incident with everything from exotic animal
smuggling to germ warfare.

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Hunting for votes, Bush, Cheney, and Demo rivals Kerry and Clark shoot birds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

WASHINGTON D.C.; DES MOINES, Iowa–Hunting chiefly for
votes, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry shot two cage-reared
pheasants in under five minutes at a Halloween photo-op near Colo,
Iowa.
The bloody ritual paid off on January 19, as Kerry polled
38% at the Iowa caucuses, the first showdown with rivals in quest of
the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina polled 32% support,
according to CNN, with former Vermont Governor Howard Dean third at
18%. Representative Richard Gephardt, fourth with 11%, withdrew
from the race.
Assured of the Republican nomination, both U.S President
George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney prominently shot birds
during December 2004.
Among their prospective Democratic opponents, Kerry has
previously hunted mourning doves. Retired U.S. Army General Wesley
Clark, not entered in the Iowa caucuses, is well-known as a duck
hunter, whose campaign began with support from wealthy Arkansas
hunting companions.

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Aging boomers bring boom in monkey traffic

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2004:

Beijing news media on November 25, 2003
announced the arrest of lab animal dealer Jia
Ruiseng. Called by police the biggest wildlife
trafficker ever caught in China, Ruiseng
allegedly bought 2,130 macaques during the year
from illegal trappers in central Anhui province.
China is building a new primate research
center at Sun Yat Sen University, in the
southern part of the country, but it will start
with only 100-200 macaques, officials said.
Ruiseng served the export trade.
The Royal SPCA in 1995 won a ban on the
import into Britain of wild-caught nonhuman
primates for research use. In August 2003,
however, the Home Office authorized the import
of captive-bred monkeys from the Centre de
Recherches Primatologiques in Mauritius, despite
RSPCA video purporting to show “squalid and
barren cages that appear to fall far short of
International Primatological Society guidelines.”
The Medical Research Council, a British
government agency, is reportedly increasing its
access to monkeys by starting a macaque breeding
center at Porton down in Wiltshire.

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National Legislation — U.S. & world

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2003:

WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. military is exempted from complying
with the Marine Mammal Protection Act under a rider to the 2004
defense construction authorization bill, signed on November 22 by
President George W. Bush. The rider enabled the U.S. Navy to try to
overturn an October 2003 legal settlement in which it agreed to
extensive restrictions on the use of low-frequency sonar, believed
to be lethal to whales.
WASHINGTON D.C.–Associated Press reported on December 8 that
U.S. President Bush is expected to sign the Captive Wildlife Safety
Act, despite the opposition of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
which will be mandated to enforce it. The bill, requiring a federal
permit to sell exotic cats across state borders, cleared Congress on
December 7.

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Letters: Conservation group experts urged dog shooting in Ethiopia

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2003:

Not “euthanasia”

I am a great admirer of Virginia McKenna and Will Travers,
who started the Born Free Foundation. In the early 1960s a screening
of the film Born Free was the first major fundraiser of the Blue
Cross of India, with which I have been associated since its founding.
Over the years I have often been surprised and disappointed
to hear so-called animal advocates use the term “euthanasia” to mean
anything ranging from killing one’s pet to the mass slaughter of
animals, whether in pounds or in the wild. “Euthanasia” means mercy
killing and is only justified when it means putting a suffering being
out of its misery when the being is in severe pain which is likely to
endure.
The slaughter of the dogs at Bale Mountains National Park in
Ethiopia can be called culling or killing or worse, but not
euthanasia. I am surprised at the Born Free Foundation calling it
so.
From a personal viewpoint, reflecting neither the official
position of the Blue Cross of India nor that of the Animal Welfare
Board of India: species have gone extinct since life began. Humans
as thinking and rational beings have a responsibility to avoid
speeding up this process and to help slow it down where possible
without causing collateral damage. We cannot play God by deciding to
slaughter one set of animals in favor of another.
The Born Free Found-ation’s position on these issues should
be made clear when it solicits funds from the public.
–S. Chinny Krishna, Chair
Blue Cross of India
and Vice Chair
Animal Welfare
Board of India
Ministry of
Environment
& Forests
Government of India
1-A Eldams Rd.
Chennai
Tamil Nadu 600018, India
Phone: 91-44-234-1399
Fax 91-44-234-9801
<drkrishna@aspick.com>

Clueless

I am amazed that with homeless dog populations around the
world in virtually every developing country, the “experts” remain so
clueless about their niche and how to “manage” them. Shooting at any
animal will drive the animal further away into more remote areas.
The homeless dogs around Bale Mountains National Park should
have been vaccinated for rabies years ago: they are more of a risk
factor than owned animals.
–Julia N. Allen, PhD., DVM
c/o Emergency Management Veterinary Services
3618 39th Ave West
Seattle, WA
Tel/Fax: 206-281-0988
<DrJNA@att.net>

Chaining

I am alarmed at all that has been going on in Ethiopia with
the dogs and the wolves, including that chaining dogs for life was
recommended by government officials and conservationists as a
solution to the problem.
Vaccination and sterilization are what is needed, not
keeping dogs chained. Domestic dogs need to be part of the family,
their pack, and not be chained out as though they are not living
beings deserving of care and respect.
I urge anyone who recommends chaining to cease, and would be
happy to send educational materials in English or Spanish to Ethiopia
for use in community education.
–Tammy Sneath Grimes, founder
Dogs Deserve Better
P.O. Box 23
Tipton, PA 16684
877-636-1408
<www.dogsdeservebetter.com>

[This letter was also sent to Ethiopian officials and to the
Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Program, which is financially supported
by the Born Free Foundation and World Wildlife Fund.]

Australia pays Eritrea to take sheep–and has a new live transport incident

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2003:

PORTLAND, Australia– The Australian live sheep export trade
had just begun to regroup after the three-month Cormo Express debacle
when economic disaster hit again– induced this time by Animal
Liberation South Australia campaigner Ralph Hahneuser.
The Cormo Express sailed Fremantle with 57,937 sheep on
August 5, bound for Kuwait, where they were to be unloaded and
trucked to Saudi Arabia. Arriving on August 22, the sheep were
refused entry to Kuwait, however, because some had developed scabby
mouth disease en route.
After no other nation would accept the sheep, the Australian
government repurchased the consignment from the Saudi buyer for $4.5
million U.S., halted all further sales of livestock to Saudi Arabia,
and investigated means of slaughtering and disposing of the sheep
short of returning them all to Australia, where the sheep industry
no more wanted them than the Saudis did.

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Thailand hits traffickers in wildlife & dog meat

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2003:

BANGKOK–Thai national police raided two major zoos, seized
33,000 animals from suspected poachers and wildlife traffickers, and
arrested bunchers for Laotian and Vietnamese dog meat vendors as well
during the first six weeks of an unprecedented national crackdown on
illegal animal sales.
Caught in the dragnet were three major exhibition venues:
Safari World Inc., raided on November 22 and found to be missing 14
tigers supposed to be on its inventory; the Si Racha Tiger Farm,
raided on November 27; and the Phuket Fantasea theme park, owned by
Safari World Inc., where the 14 missing tigers were discovered on
December 4.

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