Chronology of humane progress

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Chronology of humane progress
(Part 2 of two parts: Mohandas to Maneka)
by Merritt Clifton

1947 — At request of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharal Nehru wrote
into the constitution of India as Article 51-A[g] that “It shall be
the fundamental duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve
the Natural Environment including forests, lakes, rivers and
wildlife, and to have compassion for all living creatures.” This
was reinforced by the 1960 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

1947 — Defenders of Wildlife formed as an anti-trapping
organization, but was taken over by hunters in 1957 and became a
mainstream hunter/conservationist front.

1948 — Minnesota adopted the first law requiring public
shelters to make dogs and cats available to laboratories for
biomedical research, testing, and teaching. Similar laws were
passed by 1960 in Wisconsin, New York, South Dakota, Oklahoma,
Connect-icut, Ohio, Utah, and Iowa. The New York law was repealed
in 1977. Thirteen states, including Connecticut among nine
contiguous northeastern states, outlawed selling shelter animals for
lab use between 1977 and 1985.

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Big cats caught in a war zone

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD, SAN ANTONIO, ASHEBORO, N.C.–Anxious U.S. Marines
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schwartz during the
nights of April 15 and April 17 unhappily shot three of seven
starving African lions found at the Baghdad Zoo after first one and
then two more broke out of their bomb-damaged enclosures.
On the loose, they could easily have found their way into
densely populated parts of the city.
“We fought our way from Kuwait to Najaf to Kerbala to
Baghdad, but the hardest thing I’ve had to do in Iraq was kill those
lions,” Schwartz told London Sunday Telegraph correspondent Philip
Sherwell.
Wrote Sherwell, “Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 3rd
Infantry Division–the troops who first fought their way into
Baghdad–have been feeding the caged animals with slaughtered donkeys
and bringing them water from an artificial lake,” with the help of
zoo veterinarian Hashim Mohamed Hussein, who was among the few staff
who remained on duty after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Added Sherwell, “The zoo’s birds, fish, and reptiles were
stolen by looters, but they thought better of tackling the lions,
who were donated by Saddam’s son Uday.”

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A video that never mentions Heifer Project International shows why their premise is wrong

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Saving Baby Ubuntu
Video from Compassion In World Farming (South Africa)
c/o Humane Education Trust
P.O. Box 825, Somerset West, 7129, South Africa; <avoice@yebo.co.za>
15 minutes. Free on request; donation recommended.

Saving Baby Ubuntu is the gently narrated story of how
several African animal advocates rescued just one newborn calf from
the traffic in calves between the factory dairy farms of South Africa
and the shantytowns where poor people struggle mostly unsuccessfully
to raise livestock of their own, on inadequate land and improper
diets. Most of the animals die miserably.
Among all the illusions afflicting poor people around the
world, among the most insidious is the notion that anyone can build
wealth by trading upon the fecundity of animals. Surplus dairy
calves, “spent” hens, and other cast-off factory farmed livestock
are indeed dirt-cheap, because to the factory farms these animals
are merely waste products, whose continued life is an
inconvenience–and healthier animals can sometimes be obtained free,
or almost free, from do-gooder organizations like Heifer Project
International.

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BOOKS: Please Help Stop The Illegal Dog Meat Trade In The Philippines

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Please Help Stop The Illegal Dog Meat Trade In The Philippines
by Freddie J. Farres, executive director of Linis Gobyerno, and associates
Linis Gobyerno [Clean Government], P.O. Box
1588, 2600 Baguio City, The Philippines;
<www.linisgobyerno.org>), 2002. 46 pages,
stapled.
No price listed; donation recommended.

Long aware of dog-and-cat-eating in the
Philippines, but unaware of any Philippine group
fighting it with the vigor shown by Korean
anti-dog-and-cat-eating activists in recent
years, we were surprised on Christmas Eve 2002
to learn from an article by Vincent Cabreza of
the Philippine Inquirer that seven people had
been arrested in Baguio City during the previous
weekend for inhumane treatment of more than 120
dogs who either died or were found dead in
transit from local dogcatchers to restaurants.
On April 9, 2003 Mike Guimbatan Jr. of
the Philippine Times reported that 20 dead dogs
were found and 40 live dogs were rescued from
illegal dog meat traders in Baguio City during
the preceding week.

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BOOKS: Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can & Need To Stop It

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can & Need To Stop It
Video from In The Line of Duty (P.O. Box 6798, Brentwood Station,
St. Louis, MO 63144), 2002. 35 minutes. $95.00.

Matthew Kaczorowski, 21, pleaded guilty to mischief on
April 9, 2003 in Toronto. The last of three participants to face
justice for making a purported “art video” of the torture killing of
a cat, Kaczorowski was arrested in Vancouver and flown back to
Toronto for trial approximately one year after Jesse Power, 22, was
sentenced to serve 90 days in jail on weekends followed by 18 months
of house arrest (which he has appealed), and Anthony Wennekers, 25,
was sentenced to the 11 months he spent in jail awaiting trial.
Ironically, the cat-killers’ video may now receive a much
wider audience than they could ever have found for it on their own.
Long clips from it are incorporated into Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can
& Need To Stop It, along with portions of videos taken by many other
convicted cruelty perpetrators.
“Tragically, we felt the only way we could reach veteran cops was to
make the program visually overwhelming,” In The Line of Duty company
president Ron Barber told ANIMAL PEOPLE, adding that In The Line of
Duty “is the world leader in law enforcement video and internet
training,”

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BOOKS: Bird Hand Book

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Bird Hand Book
Photographs by Victor Schrager, text by A.S. Byatt
Graphis (307 5th Ave, 10th floor, New York, NY 100016), 2001.
128 pages, hardcover. $60.00.

Beautifully photographed, as one would expect from from
Victor Schrager, in sepia rather than stark black-and-white or the
often explosive color of the birds depicted, Bird Hand Book at first
glance appears to offer nothing more provocative than just 98 birds
perching on human hands, with a few words beside each bird by
novelist A.S. Byatt or quoted from someone famous.
“The slaughter of birds in the great shooting parties of the
Edwardian upper classes in Britain has been seen as a precursor of
the slaughter of the young men in the First World War,” Byatt erupts
unexpectedly on page 98, then extensively quotes Rachel Carson on
pesticide poisonings of birds.

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BOOKS: Whose Coat?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Whose Coat?
by John Luksetich, illustrated by Patti Kern
Imagine Nation Press (P.O. Box 172, Lakewood, CA 90714;
<www.imagenationpress.com>), 2001. 26 pages, hardcover. $14.95.

Marketing is not Whose Coat? author/publisher John
Luksetich’s forte. First he was unable to find a commercial
publisher for Whose Coat? in 17 years of trying, even though it is
eminently marketable. Then, when he published Whose Coat? himself
in an attractive format that ought to sell, he forgot to put the
price on either the book, the promotional flyers he sent to ANIMAL
PEOPLE, or the first few pages of his web site–and he advertised it
as “animal rights” literature, the kiss of death in pursuing the
library and school markets that account for the two biggest shares of
children’s book sales. To most librarians and school personnel,
“animal rights” signifies “controversy” and “trouble”–and any
mention of ideology in reference to a children’s book usually also
connotes heavyhanded propaganda.

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BOOKS: Into the Woods

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

Into the Woods:
John James Audubon
Lives His Dream
by Robert Burleigh
with paintings by Wendell Minor
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
(c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Ave. of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020), 2003. 34
pages, hardcover. $16.95.

“John James Audubon was a famous early
American woodsman and artist,” explains Robert
Burleigh on the copyright page of Into The Woods.
“Despite his father’s objections, Audubon had to
follow his own special destiny. This story
consists of an imaginary letter in which Audubon
explains to his father why he has chosen the
unique life he leads. Quotations in script,
taken from Audubon’s journals, further emphasize
the profound world view of this remarkable man.”
On the concluding page Burleigh adds that
Audubon “came to America as a young man from
France in 1803. Already a talented artist, he
became fascinated with America’s wilderness and
its wildlife, especially birds. After failing
at several attempts to be a businessman, he
devoted the rest of his life to his artŠAlthough
Audubon hunted and often killed the birds he
drew,” Burleigh admits, “he had a keen
appreciation for wildlife and the environment.

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BOOKS: America’s National Wildlife Refuges

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

America’s National Wildlife Refuges:
a complete guide
by Russell D. Butcher
Roberts Rinehart Publishers in cooperation with Ducks Unlimited
(c/o Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 4501 Forbes Blvd.,
Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706), 2003.
714 pages. $29.95.

Published in honor of the 100th anniversary of the founding
of the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge system, America’s National
Wildlife Refuges: a complete guide exists, like the refuges
themselves, in part because of funding from Ducks Unlimited.
Hunter/conservationists help to finance the acquisition of
wildlife refuges through taxes on hunting and fishing gear, as well
as through grants by organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and The
Nature Conserv-ancy–and view this as entitling them to have extra
say in how the refuges are managed.
Though many of the rest of us view the hunter/conservationist
contribution as at best inadequate reparations for the harm hunters
do to wildlife, public officials largely agree with the
hook-and-bullet set. Thus 311 of the current 540 refuges allow
hunting and 280 allow trapping, contrary to the belief of 78% of
Americans that hunting on national refuges is illegal, according to
a 1999 survey by Decision Research Inc.

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