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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: October 2006
Letters to the Editor
Sanctuarians cross no-man's-land to save asses
I hope that you will let me update your
readers on the work of the British charity Safe Haven for Donkeys in the
Holy Land, dedicated to caring for working and abandoned donkeys in Israel
and the Palestinian Territories. Safe Haven was founded in 2000 by former
British Airways flight attendant and Jerusalem SPCA volunteer Lucy Fensom,
who saw first-hand the cruelty and neglect inflicted on many of the thousands
of donkeys still used as beasts of burden in the region. Today, at the Safe Haven sanctuary near
the Israeli town of Netanya, 100 donkeys live free from pain and overwork,
and have the chance to form herds and roam freely on the 4-acre site. Safe Haven's work does not stop at the
sanctuary gates. Aware that the donkeys living there are just a tiny percentage
of those desperately needing help, Lucy has initiated free veterinary
clinics in the Palestinian Territories. Each week Lucy and her team make
the sometimes risky border crossing with Safe Haven's well-equipped mobile
clinic to visit a different village and provide veterinary care, farriery
and tooth rasping for the animals, and of course advice and support for
the owners. Sometimes more than 100 donkeys, mules and horses are waiting
for the team when they arrive. --Wendy Ahl ReTails Pretty New Store is the very first
animal welfare charity shop in Bangkok. It took about six weeks from deciding
to try a commercial venture to raise funds to the actual opening. After
lots of stops and starts and disappointments, we now have a posh shop
in a smart location near Sukhumvit. Downstairs is designer and smarter
second hand goods, and upstairs is a real bargain loft, which the Thais
seem to love. Our display shelves are old planks from
a demolished Thai house, painted and supported on terracotta and plastic
flower pots. We picked up bricks, stones and rough wood to display jewellery.
Wicker baskets hold most of our displays. The idea is to raise the money that we
need each month to run our spay center, but we have no idea yet whether
this is achievable. We have partnered with Crown Relocations,
an international removal company, to run a consignment service for large
furniture items: 60% retained by the seller, 40% to Soi Dog Rescue, and
Crown will pick up and store the items until sold. We'll put a photo of
the furniture in the shop. We are hoping to fill the niche for expats
who arrive and leave, with nowhere to buy or sell their unwanted large
items. Currently everyone has to resort to ads in supermarkets or club
notice boards. We hope large furniture consignments will provide the bulk
of our income, but Thais frequent the shop, often to buy cheap items to
resell in the markets. Foreign goods seem to be much prized. We will also sell coffee and homemade
cakes donated by volunteers. I'm having sleepless nights, wondering
whether we can pull this off, the problems being a fairly high rent and
only volunteers to run the shop, stock it, and beg for merchandise. On
opening day we took in twice our daily cost of running the spay center;
today less than a third. I suppose these ups and downs will continue. --Sherry Conisbee I have just read your September 2006 review
of The Good Pig by Sy Montgomery. It was an excellent book review and
prompted me to get the book. I, too had a very special farm pig friend
named Big Earl, whom I recently lost. However, the glut of miniature pigs of
all breeds has not abated. My wife and I operated Mini-Pigs, Inc., a 17-acre
pig sanctuary in Virginia, for a dozen years. We have recently merged
our sanctuary with Shepherd's Green Sanctuary in Cookeville, Tennessee.
We are now establishing a 100-acre preserve in Jamestown, Tennessee to
handle the huge numbers of abused, abandoned and neglected miniature pigs
and rescued farm pigs we are inundated with. The Preserve will partner
with Shepherd's Green to provide a natural environment for around 400
healthy and active rescued pigs, while the sanctuary cares for the older,
infirm, or otherwise compromised pigs who would not do well in the preserve
environment. This is an attempt on our part to try
to deal with the huge numbers of pigs needing rescue and lifetime care
in a better, less expensive and less labor intensive manner. You mentioned that the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary
still houses "dozens of aging pigs." In fact, last time I checked
with my friends at Ironwood, they were housing around 400 or more rescued
pigs...most of whom are not aged. The vast majority of pig sanctuaries I
deal with on a daily basis are full or overcrowded and are still turning
away dozens of pigs each month due to a lack of space and/or funds. To add to our difficulties, we are finding
an increased number of rescued farm pigs needing sanctuary space. As the
public becomes more attuned to the plight of the factory farmed pigs,
many more are being rescued by animal rights groups and private citizens.
So now, in addition to rescuing and caring for the thousands of "dumped"
miniature pigs, we are asked to take in a steadily increasing number of
full-sized farm pigs, while our resources, thanks to disasters such as
Hurricane Katrina, are much more severely stretched. --Richard and Laura Hoyle Thanks for an extremely informative September
2006 edition of Animal People, including the thoughtful article on the
exemption in the California Animal Transport Bill, which deliberately
excludes livestock from much-needed protection. As Virginia Handley wisely pointed out,
our current animal cruelty laws allow prosecution of those who leave pets
in hot cars as a felony. This bill reduced the offense to a misdemeanor.
This is shortsighted "feel good" legislation that sadly moved
California backward by ignoring statistics and consequences. Also, thanks for presenting the comments
of Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns regarding mailing baby chicks.
Postal employees estimate that up to 70% of mailed day-old poultry does
not reach the destination alive and/or healthy. One midwestern hatchery
alone boasts on its website that it mails over four milion of these helpless
creatures annually, and the Postal Service allows up to 72 hours without
food and water for delivery. Your article did not mention that the
Humane Society of the U.S. launched a major campaign this year against
this horrific practice. HSUS animal cruelty campaign director Ann Chynoweth
has gained some major media coverage nationwide to enlist public support
to defeat Senate Bill 2395, which would force airlines to carry birds
at temperatures between zero and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Inform-ation
about the campaign is on the HSUS website. --Phyllis M. Daugherty, Director I often wonder why there have been no
amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act in India since
its inception way back in 1960, to find a way of getting some sort of
a pension for retired working animals. I do not think any horse cart puller or
dairy farm owner, or for that matter anyone who has abandoned his working
animal who became unfit for use, has been booked under this act, or is
serving a jail sentence. The recent willingness of the West Bengal
Police department to pursue a pension arrangement for their horses with
the Compassionate Crusaders of Kolkata comes as a great achievement in
the history of animal welfare in India for retired animals. Either we should do away with using animals
for human interests, or we should pay them a pension, as we do for humans
after retirement. --Azam Siddiqui Editor's note: More recently, public pressure has obliged
the U.S. government to fund the retirement of hundreds of chimpanzees
and other nonhuman primates who were formerly used by NASA and projects
of the National Institutes of Health. That animals who have served humans deserve
a decent retirement has also long been expressed in principle by zoos,
the horse and dog racing industries, and military dog units, though reality
remains that most zoo animals remain on exhibit until they die, only the
most successful racing animals are "retired" to breed (and often
eventually are sold to slaughter or sold to laboratories anyway), and
many ex-military dogs are killed on "retirement," nominally
because they might be dangerous, but cost-cutting is clearly also a consideration. The weakness in animal retirement schemes
is that none of them to date are funded by a pay-in system similar to
the human pension plans of most developed nations, in which money is set
aside as earned in dedicated funds. As most developed nations already license
at least some working animals, either governmentally or through private
registries, and as tracking systems already govern the distribution of
zoo animals, there is no inherent logistic obstacle to adding pay-in systems
for animal retirement to the existing procedures--except that animal users
would not like having to pay the small tax on animal services that would
be needed to fund the animals' retirement. ANIMAL, in cooperation with the League
Against Cruel Sports, has launched the first campaign ever in Portugal
to establish Anti-Bullfighting Cities. Spain already has 32 cities which have
declared themselves to be Anti-Bull-fighting Cities. France has at least
one. Portugal does not yet have any. ANIMAL is now targeting 10 cities in the
Algarve region (Portimão, Lagos, Lagoa, Aljezur, Silves, Albufeira,
Loulé, Olhão, Tavira and Faro) and one city near Lisbon
(Sintra) with this campaign. The point of the campaign is to get tourists
who visit the Algarve to write to the presidents of the target municipalities,
urging them to commit to not allowing bullfights and to openly condemning
these cruel spectacles. Tourists are asked to state that they are boycotting
bullfighting cities, and that they would like to visit anti-bullfighting
cities instead. Our effort is coordinatied with the League
Against Cruel Sports´ campaign to teach tourists to use their economic
influence. In Portugal, seeking local bans is much
more realistic than seeking a nationwide ban for now, although the entire
campaign will obviously make it easier for a national ban to eventually
occur. --Miguel Moutinho Since 1992, every year in December, at
the First Fruits Festival near Nongoma in Zululand, Kwazulu-Natal, South
Africa, a large black bull is released into the Royal Kraal of King Goodwill
Zwelithini. Thirty young Zulu warriors kill the bull with their bare hands
in order to "prove their manhood." A running battle takes place. Sand is
repeatedly thrown in the bull's eyes. Eventually he becomes tired and
is pulled to the ground. Sand is stuffed down his throat. His tongue is
pulled out, his eyes are gouged out, his tail is broken, his penis is
tied in a knot, his testicles are ripped off, he is kicked and jumped
upon, and his neck is broken. Killing the bull takes about 45 minutes.
It is a display of extreme cruelty and brutality, and is against the Animal
Protection Act of 1962, which states that it is an offense in South Africa
to treat any animal in a manner which causes unnecessary suffering. Yet in this instance the Animal Protection
Act is powerless, because we have a constitution that protects people's
cultural and traditional rights, even if cruelty to animals is involved. This "cultural" cruelty treats
"manhood" as an act only achieved by committing violence against
animals. It encourages a culture and custom of violence among men. It
is out of place in a nation that is fighting an epidemic of violence in
all forms, e.g. four South African women a day are killed by their lovers.
Kwazulu-Natal has the highest number of murders in South Africa every
year. "Someone who is cruel and violent
to animals will also be so to people," says Professor Sean Kaliski,
head of forensic psychiatry at Valkenberg Hospital in Cape Town. Member of the National Parliament Gareth
Morgan has several times over the past two years attempted to arrange
a meeting between King Goodwill Zelithini and the National Council of
SPCAs, without success. This ritual should be replaced by sports
and games, that do not use animals. Living bulls are torn apart at other public
events, and sometimes on "unofficial" occasions, but the main
event each year is at the First Fruits Festival. --Andries Pretorius Editor's note: Zulu bullfighting and Indian bullfighting,
called Jallikattu, differ mainly in that the Indian bullfights are held
in public places, and all comers may participate. Also, the bulls sometimes
"win," briefly. In January 2006, reported The Hindu, "Two
persons were gored to death and 84 others injured in the Jallikattu organized
in connection with a temple festival at Pallavarayanpatti in Theni district."
In July, The Hindu noted the death of "a mentally unsound man"
who tormented a bull in Bangalore. Animal advocates have been campaigning
to abolish farra do bois, the quite comparable Brazilian form of bullfighting,
for more than a century. In farra do bois, the bulls often have fireworks
tied to their horns. Andean condor-and-bull fights have not
been reported in several years, but on September 6, 2006, the same day
that ANIMAL PEOPLE received Andries Pretorius' letter, the New York Times
published an extensive expose of coleo, the Venzuelan form of bullfighting.
Explained New York Times correspondent Simon Romero, "Four men on
horseback chase a bull within a corridor about the length of a football
field for about five minutes, competing to see who can tip the animal
over the most times by pulling his tail. Of course, after the first fall,
the coleador must get the bull back up and running. That is often accomplished
by twisting his tail. Some exasperated riders bite the tail. On some occasions,
attendants use an electric rod to shock the bull back to his feet. Some
bulls break a leg when they fall. After the coleo, many of the bulls,
bruised and worn out, are hauled to the slaughterhouse." Both farra do bois and coleo evolved out
of similar events held at Spanish village festivals, in which bulls and
bull calves are chased, tortured, and usually killed by mobs --as at a
much-protested festival in Algemesi, Velencia, Spain, on September 25-27,
2006. The annual bull-running event in Pamplona, in which the bulls chase
the humans to the bull ring at which the bulls will be dispatched by professional
toreadors, may have originated as a way for the men of Pamplona to show
themselves to be braver than residents of other cities by giving the bulls
a somewhat better chance to harm their tormentors. As in India, most U.S. states have laws
against such activities. Most states prohibit Spanish-style bullfighting,
in which the bulls are killed in the ring. Some also prohibit or restrict
horse-tripping, a staple of so-called Mexican-style rodeo. However, as
SHARK founder Steve Hindi and colleagues have documented time and again,
the bulls and calves used in U.S.-style rodeo quite commonly suffer tail-twisting,
electroshock, kicking, punching, body-slamming, and jerking down with
ropes, all with virtual impunity. Though most of these offenses are prohibited
not only by law but also by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
rules, the rules are rarely enforced, even when SHARK captures the violations
on videotape. Though the rituals of rodeo and most forms
of bullfighting differ, the major difference to the animal is that instead
of being killed on the spot, brutalized rodeo animals are hauled to slaughter
afterward--as in Portuguese-style "bloodless" bullfighting. In Spain, the nation most widely associated
with bullfighting, "Marketing surveys show the number of Spaniards
who say they have no interest in bullfighting has risen to more than 70%,
from about 40% in 1970," Tom Hundley of the Chicago Tribune recently
reported. "Among young people, the lack of interest is even more
pronounced." Television coverage and attendance are in freefall,
while the average age of Spanish attendees has risen to 40-plus. The U.S. rodeo audience appears to be
similarly collapsing, with declining crowds and television viewer share.
But both bullfighting and rodeo promoters are mounting a vigorous defense
of themselves in the name of preserving national cultures, including in
Japan, where bulls are made to fight each other, rather than fighting
human foes. The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, on September 19, 2006
headlined "Bullfight marks slow return to normalcy for Niigata community"
above an article describing how "Bullfighting returned to a community
in Niigata Prefecture, for the first time since a massive earthquake struck
the area in October 2004." Representatives of nine villages participated
in a bullfighting tournament, before 3,500 spectators, which Yomiuri Shinbun
noted as "about three times more than usual." The Japanese government calls the local
form of bullfighting "an intangible cultural folk asset," apparently
putting it in the same category as whaling and the Taiji dolphin slaughter,
as relics to be preserved regardless of the indifference or even opposition
of most of the public.
Please visit our web site to find out more about Safe Haven. We now have
a U.S. auxiliary, American Friends of Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy
Land.
Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land
The Old Dairy
Springfield Farm
Lewes Road, Scaynes Hill
Haywards Heath,
West Sussex RH17 7NG
United Kingdom
Phone: 011-44-1444 -31177
Fax: 011 44 1444 831172
<wendy@safehaven4donkeys.org>
<www.safehaven4donkeys.org>Humane thrift shop in Thailand
President & cofounder
Soi Dog Rescue Bangkok
2240/3-4 Chankaow Road
Chongnontri, Yannawa
Bangkok, Thailand 10120
Phone: 66-02-336-0849
<sheridan@soidogrescue.org>
<www.soidogrescue.org>Farm pigs add to waiting list of pigs
needing sanctuaries
The Pig Preserve
Jamestown, Tennessee
<rhoyle@TWlakes.net>Live animal transport legislation
Animal Issues Movement
420 N. Bonnie Brae Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Phone: 213/413-6428
Fax: 213/413-SPAY
<ANIMALISSU@aol.com>Thoughts about working animal retirement
107-C, Railway Colony
New Guwahati 781021
Assam, India
Phone: 91-84350-48481
<azamsiddiqui@animail.net>
The idea that dairy cattle, draft animals, and others who serve humans
should enjoy a comfortable retirement was incorporated into Jain, Buddhist,
and Hindu teachings as long as 2,300 years ago. This led to the often
abused custom of temples keeping animals, the practice of animal abandonment
at temples, and the institution of gaushalas and pinjarapoles, originally
to look after retired cattle but often operated by corrupt management
as commercial dairies and sources of leather.
Among the oldest animal care projects of U.S. and European humane societies
has been looking after retired police horses and war horses. Prominent
early representatives of that custom include the Ryers Infirmary for Dumb
Animals (1888) in Pennsylvania and the London-based Brooke Hospital for
Animals (1934), founded by Dorothy Brooke to look after retired cavalry
horses in overseas outposts of the British empire.
Anti-bullfighting cities
Executive Director
ANIMAL
Apartado 2028
8501-902 Portimão
Portugal
Phone: 00-351-282-491-216
<miguel.moutinho@animal.org.pt>First Fruits Festival
c/o Suite 293
Private Bag x1005
Claremont 7735
South Africa
Unfortunately, the Zulu bullfighting practices are not unique. Similar
torture is routinely inflicted on bulls and sometimes other animals around
the world, including India, where more than 90% of the population professes
to share a belief that cattle are sacred, and where bullfighting has been
illegal since 1960. ANIMAL PEOPLE in May 2006 reported on the often frustrated
efforts of the Blue Cross of India and the Visakha SPCA to try to get
local police to enforce the law.